Chapter 12- Palm reader
You ready sweetheart? Seth asked already in wolf from once we were outside of the gates.
I literally got no sleep the night before waiting for this moment. "Beyond ready."
"Take care of my girl until we get back." Edward requested on behalf of wolf Jacob, to Alice and Leah, Jasper was still at the house with her.
"We will Jake." Leah promised releasing Jabril's hand.
Jabril vowed as well. "We will return from hunting as soon as we can. Leah, Alice and Jasper can keep things safe until then."
"We should go so we can hurry back." Esme suggested to Carlisle and Jabril feeling uneasy.
"Let's do this." Emmett boomed into the dim quiet surroundings of dawn.
Normally I would laugh about his over eagerness and make a joke, but I was with him one hundred percent this time. I started running, and Seth was close behind me. We stayed together as a large group until we crossed the Gulf. Jabril, Esme, and Carlisle continued south to hunt. Sami, Rami, Rosalie, and Emmett took the west searching for the oasis. Bella, Edward, Seth and I continued North to Cairo.
We ran in mostly silence and I tried to stay out of everyone's thoughts being too bombarded by my own, but Edward's voice was almost asking for his monologue to become a dialogue.
Want to tone down the mental chatter? I asked not really in a negative way, but Edward tended to forget from time to time that he wasn't the only person that could hear thoughts.
My apologies. He sighed.
It's fine. I can understand the frustration. I empathized.
Do you really think there is something out here?
Like I said, I'm not sure Ed. I just don't want to leave any stone unturned.
There was silence for a while before he interrupted my thoughts again. What are you thinking? I won't know unless you tell me or let me in. He pressed reminding me of my mental shield that mimicked Bella's.
I was thinking that I would have preferred to take this journey alone. That way if it came to nothing I wasn't getting you or anyone else's hopes up.
Were you bothered by my intrusion?
No I completely understand it, I just don't want you and Bella to expect too much.
She is our daughter, we are going to throw ourselves into any lead, no matter how stretched it may be.
And with that I could understand because I would do the same thing if it were Ciyan or Phillip in trouble.
"We're here." Bella announced slowing her run while Seth went off to go change forms. "Asima where is that alley you were talking about?"
"It should be straight through the center of the shopping district. I recognized the fabric shop and the fig cart in her thoughts."
Bella nodded, her deep brown hair blowing in the breeze as we walked. "I know where that is."
The district was a lot more crowded than I would have thought since they were expecting rain within a few hours. Seth's heated hand gripped mine tightly so that we couldn't get separated as we made or way across to another set of shops. "Is that the alley?" Seth asked when we came to a stop in front of the fabric store.
I nodded.
"It seems like there is nothing there." Bella noticed seeing no one entering or leaving.
I noticed the same thing but I shrugged. "We didn't come all this way just to stare at it."
I took the lead letting go of Seth's hand. The smell of the garbage from the other shops filled my nose as we walked causing me to grimace but we all kept through the narrow way single file. "There's another street." I informed once we got to the other side.
These shops were nothing like the ones in the district. Most of them were abandoned and the few that were open still needed repairs. The paints faded and the stones bleached of color. "What would Nessie be doing back here?" Seth wondered as we followed the street.
"I'm not sure Seth." Edward answered looking at the shop that sold illegal ivories, and another that sold weapons next to it.
I groaned, she wouldn't have a need for anything that these alley shops had to offer then one building at the very end of the street caught my eye. It was a tarot shop, "Maybe that one?"
"Why would she want cheesy future predictions?" Edward asked.
Bella agreed too, "Yeah we have Alice at home, and I am sure that she is a lot more accurate than anything that they would be able to cook up."
"Maybe we should go see if Emmett and the others have had any luck." Seth suggested.
I nodded still feeling a gut pull towards that shop. "I'll just be in and out."
I opened the door and looked around the well lit store. It looked more like a book store that happened to do tarot readings. I expected it to be a lot more celestial. The store didn't have any customers in it, but there was a woman putting back books on a shelf. I pulled a picture out of Ness and I from my pocket. It was my favorite one of Phillip, her and I at a park in Hanover. The picture was over a fifteen years old but we still looked the same. "Excuse me, I am looking for a friend, and I was wondering if she has been in here."
Her jet black hair covered her face, from my view but she tucked it behind her ear as she turned to face me. Her eyes were wide with shock and then narrowed in distaste. "I knew this would happen."
"Knew what would happen?" I asked holding out the picture to her.
She shook her head not needing to look at it. "Your friend is the vampire mix that was in here the other day, no?"
"Ness." I answered giving her a name. "And yes that's her."
This didn't seem to matter much to her. She appeared to be unafraid though her heart was racing. "I didn't know there were so many of your kind out there."
"My kind?"
Her accent was Egyptian, and held a lot of annoyance, "The kind that aren't one or the other, the ones capable of existing in either world. I take it since I'm not dead you're capable of controlling your feeing like she was?"
Was? I didn't like her speaking of Ness in the past tense, like she was, I stopped I couldn't even think it. "There aren't that many, but yes I suppose were alike in many ways."
She folded her arms in front of her. "Well this isn't a vampire shop. I can't just give readings to¾"
"I don't want a reading. I want answers. I want to know what you told my friend, and what you know." I clarified.
She took a deep breath. "It isn't my job to save your kind."
"Not looking for a savior." I stressed again.
She sat down at the large wooden table in the center of the room and I sat across from her after she motioned me to with her hand. "I didn't tell her much. There was no point, there is nothing that can be done for her."
"There is always something that can be done." I growled low and clear.
"His eyes are set, only an army can keep him from what he wants now." She announced, her voice almost apologetic.
"You mean Zach?"
"Zach?" She asked recognizing the name. "No, I really can't help you now."
She started to get up from the table but I extended my hand across touching hers. She froze instantly, her eyes going glassy. In her mind I could see glimpses of my life some times with Ness, some times long before I met her family, and a few more long before that, when I was normal. I pulled my hand away knowing that she was the real deal. "Look. I can save her, I just need a little guidance. She's worth saving, you had to see that or you would have kicked her out immediately."
She was silent or another moment. "Perhaps you're right."
"She's been different, not herself at all. She has moments where she's fine and then moments where she get's so angry and violent."
"It's the beast." She answered simply.
"What beast?" Edward asked from the doorway with Bella and Seth behind him.
She took one look at Bella and Edward and shut down completely. "They aren't like you!"
"Thanks a lot Edward." I mumbled before calming her accelerated heart rate. "This is Bella and Edward, they are Ness's parents. This is my husband Seth, we aren't going to hurt you." She seemed to believe me because she took another few breaths and nodded though she was evidently uncomfortable. "Then who is the beast?"
"This is going against everything pa-pa taught me." She mumbled to herself getting up and going to the back. She came back with three books bounded in leather. "My grandfather lived in a village near Sudan many years ago. He first encountered your 'Zach' then. Though he went by Zachariah then. He entranced a girl in the village back then. Her actions mimicking your friends. It was my grandfather's fiancé at the time. Before they could help her they disappeared on night and she was never seen again."
She opened a book, and began reading. "My grandfather became obsessed with tracking the creature, wanting to find her, to know what became of her. He checked nearby villages, and matched their encounters with similar creatures with his findings. Everything went into these three journals."
"So what is it?" I asked running my mind over legends and not thinking of anything that could match.
She sighed but explained as patiently as possible. "A wolf."
Seth cut in. "No, wolves don't do that. I know wolves. I'm a wolf, and we don't bite through vampire skin."
She stared at him skeptically and extended her hand motioning for him to grab it. He looked to me and I nodded and he complied. She closed her eyes absorbing the flashes. They weren't as strong as mine were but she could see enough.
"You're something, but you are not a wolf. You change as needed, protection in everything you do. Zachariah's type aren't." She explained releasing his hand.
Bella gasped and I turned to look at her. "What is it Bella?" Edward wondered bringing her close to him.
"Werewolves." She stated, her voice broken. "But Edward, I thought you said that they were extinct."
"Werewolves?" I groaned rolling my eyes. With werewolves, wolf shape shifters, leopard shape shifters, vampires, half vampires, not to mention shape shifters and half vampire hybrids the supernatural world was becoming far too crowded.
"I suppose that is what you can call them yes." She nodded accepting the term.
"So you're telling me that this is a werewolf?" Edward repeated not really believing it himself.
The store clerk sighed, " You don't have to believe what I tell you for it to be true. I honestly want no part of this, which is why I told your friend nothing. They're connected now to the point that he could find me if he wanted to. I'd prefer not to give him a reason."
"But what does he want?" Seth asked rubbing Bella on the back trying to provide some type of comfort to the set of statues standing beside me.
"A mate." She answered as if it were obvious. She flipped through the book further. "There is legend that his kind were hunted to bare numbers. If that is true then I would be trying to regain their population.
"I thought they could just bite you." Bella continued.
The black haired women shook her head. "Yes and no. To be bitten would turn you into the creature yes, and you would walk as human for a large part of the month. But you would be human and could be killed just as easily. That's is why it was so easy to kill them. Zachariah was different, him and a few others were born of human mothers. They have healing abilities that tend to only exist in their changed form. They have teeth that can cut the hardest stone. Not to mention strength and speed that are parallel to no human. They have defenses that will enable them to survive."
"The entrancing?" I asked groaning, it all made perfect sense. If I were raising my numbers I would want to give them the best chance possible.
She cut her eyes to me. "From what is written in these, they all can do what Zach does."
"Why her?" Edward asked in a low hiss.
She looked at him in fear but swallowed thickly and continued. "Her rarity. From what I know no human woman survives the birth. She isn't really a human, but she isn't frozen like your kind either."
I didn't want to hear this. "She resists him ." I protested shaking my head. "She wouldn't do that."
"The longer she is under his lure the closer she will become to giving herself to him completely. Your friend seems strong, but it's inevitable I'm sorry." She sighed closing the book. The soft thud echoing in my mind bringing finality in her words.
"How do we stop it from happening?" Bella feebly demanded.
"I'm not an expert. I haven't finished my grandfather's journals, so I can only tell you what I have glimpsed at. From what I have read it can't be stopped." She answered genuinely apologetic.
There was more in her thoughts and Edward and I vocalized them at the same time. "Unless we kill him."
"That's a plan." Seth agreed looking up.
She sighed, "If it were that simple he would have been dead years ago. A dozen hounds couldn't track their scent, strength of a dozen men and only getting strong as the full moon nears, teeth that can tear through anything. And this is only when they walk as man."
"We have our advantages too." I rebutted feeling severely underestimated.
She leaned in looking at Bella and Edward and then locking her eyes on Seth and I. "You can get in my mind, and more it seems, but head tricks won't work. And the moon completes tomorrow. You have no more time, he will lose patience and come for her."
"We have strength and we have numbers too. Give us something to go on?" Seth pleaded, his boyish features nearly impossible to resist.
She sighed slid the three large books over to him. "Take these, and get what you can from them."
"We'll get these back to you." Seth promised putting them into the bag that held his clothes when he was in wolf form. "Thank you so much, she really means a lot to us."
"I can see that." She hesitated again but pressed on with her thought aloud. " I may be wrong, but he won't try to mate with your friend this far past the last quarter. So far he's tended to find his mate within that time, and seduce her within the same frame."
"So you think that its' the only time it can happen?" Bella asked hopefully.
She shrugged her shoulders a fraction as she spoke. "I don't know, there are myths and fact and I have yet to completely separate the two. If that is true, then you will have some time. If it isn't then I am sorry."
I didn't need to count to know that the last quarter was third week of the month. But we wouldn't wait that long to kill him. "We need to get back to the others. It looks like we have a day to prepare. We can get Carlisle on the journals as soon as we get back."
"You don't have a day, you're out of time." She repeated a bit slower looking outside and them back at us.
"But the full moon is tomorrow." Seth argued standing up with me.
She shook her head, "That is a myth. The monsters are capable of changing the day before, the day of, and the day after the full moon."
All of the immoral heads in the room whirled to the window in the door. It was already after dusk. "Go!" Edward ordered whizzing out the door behind Bella, I picked up Seth and sprinted behind them, grabbing the bag with the journals and securing it around my wrist. He could get mad at me later, but the possibility of him phasing in front of people wasn't going to happen and we didn't have time to wait for him to travel to a safe distance on foot.
"We need Jacob, and everyone else." Bella yelled over her shoulder.
"No, Seth can alert Jacob when he phases, we can't waist time." I thought.
Edward agreed. "We have to get back."
After four minutes of running there was only sand. "Ready honey?" I asked before tossing him away from me to the right. He phased in mid air and continued to run the minute his feet hit the ground. I didn't have to tell him to fill in Jake and the other's because he was already on it.
I pulled myself onto his back to cross the Gulf. Jake was already heading this way with the others, not needing our warning. Sami and Rami's skin flashed trouble minutes before we even knew there was trouble. They were ahead of us.
I saw the smoke and fire in Seth's mind before I could see it with my own eyes. "No!" I gasped, pushing myself to go faster on foot. I could smell it as I ran and I used it as fuel to drive me closer. Ciyan, Phillip, Rosabella, our children were in there, not to mention the hundred and fifty other citizens that lived in the town.
I reached the entrance and the smell of blood, smoke, and different burning aromas caused me to drop to my knees. Thunder echoed in my ears, and I cried at what I saw. The front wall facing the city had been destroyed, the gate that sealed it on fire. The first few homes from the entrance were ablaze as well. Other's were wrecked, an obvious fight ripped through.
I couldn't feel the rain, I was barely conscious that I was doing it. But as I wept, the sky did too. Everything that took me over a millennium to find was dismantled and tainted. My home, my one place in the world where I could find peace was breached.
I wasn't sure how long I was on my knees but two sets of soft hands brought me back. "Mommy?" Ciyan called leaning over me.
"Asima?" Rosabella called after her. "What happened here?"
I grabbed them both, locking them in my arms and kissing their heads. "You're safe." My heart stopped when I didn't see Phillip with them. "Where's Phillip?"
"Alice told us all to go to the cave, and hide there. But Phillip left to go get help. I don't know where he is." Rosabella explained with a whimper in her voice.
"We'll find him." I promised wiping away her tears and Ciyan's.
Needing to be strong for both of them I stood up and took their hands walking into the gates. Alice was the first person I saw. I was relieved to see that she wasn't hurt. I let go of Ciyan and Rosabella only long enough to embrace her. "What happened?"
"There were five of them, werewolves Asima, werewolves! Can you believe it?" She had a menacing growl in her throat. "It was just Leah, Jasper and I. It wasn't enough of us to fight and protect everyone here."
"Where's Nessie?" Edward asked getting to the heart of the matter.
"She's gone. Just gone. She went with them, no fight, just walked. I tried to stop her, but I needed to help the injured too." Alice sighed, her tone now apologetic.
"We'll get her back Alice." Emmett swore running back itto the city with Jasper and Rosalie.
"Did you get a trail?" Bella asked hopeful.
Rosalie shook her head, "Nothing Bells."
"Edward and Jasper, look through the books and see what you can make of them." I order gathering focus, Alice, Rose and Bells, and Leah, help Seth, Sami, and Rami with the injured in the hall. Emmett, go find Carlisle, Esme and Jabril and get them back here. I'm going to put these fires out and find my son."
AN: HI GUYS! I hope you liked the Chapter. It is my third one this week. But now you FINALLY get the meaning of the story title. Werewolves. Who would have thought all that old Dracula thrall stuff really came from werewolves. I mean the Cullens don't really add up to the myth do they? Now I have two chapters written and one is from Asima's POV and the other is from Nessie's POV. and I dont know which one I should put up first. They are interchangeable so it doesn't affect the integrity of the story if I post one before the other. So I will leaveitup to you all. This Wed, would you like Nessie's POV or Asima's? Leave it in your comment or put your vote up on my twitter TheeLady_Apathy Whichever gets the most goes up. Until next time, thank you for your support.
DiNishaRob :)