Chapter 2
Alana had forgotten about her eyes. Just a few moments ago John had said something about them, but she wasn’t thinking about that, it was getting closer to sun set and she needed to stay focused on John. But the truth is she did feel slightly different, stronger and more powerful. She could feel John’s power coming from him as well. It is nothing that she has ever felt before. She liked it, she felt like she could face any demon and come out the victor. Her hands reflexively went to touch her eyes and she blushed a little realizing that they could see her eyes even at this distance. “I’m changing with my mate. It started small but I guess my changes are due to John’s because I felt fine until recently.” She finally said.
“Are you going to turn into a wolf to? Should we lock you up in there with him?” Clarisse said.
“I do not believe that I am at risk for changing; but since we have no idea how this works with our kind, let alone a mated pair of our kind, I have already made the appropriate arrangements to have me in a cell similar to John’s cell that we created today. It’s made of pure silver and we shouldn’t be able to break out of it no matter how hard we try.”
“Shouldn’t?” I said shocked. “How are we supposed to know how this is going to affect us? Do you feel any differently, I mean other than your powers expanding? I can feel your power over here. The both of you, it’s like your calling to me. It’s completely weird and so not a good thing if you turn evil. We’ll all die.”
Clarisse looked at me with a knowing look in her eyes and on her face and before I could say anything Clarisse looked back at Alana and said “Monika can create and throw fire. She killed about ten vamps with her fire and saved Sebastian from being vamp food. He’s in critical condition but he’s stable and he wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for her.” She said pointing at me and I started to flush at the praise.
Alana and John’s mouths hung open and took a minute to regain their composure. When they did Alana spoke and said “How can you do that? No one can apart from John and me; at what age did you get adopted? And what city were you born in?”
“I was three and I don’t know what city I was born in I’ve only ever known it here in Southbridge. I grew up a few blocks from here but I don’t know anything else. I’m sorry but why is that important? I mean I can throw fire from my hands and so can you are you trying to say that we are related somehow, because I don’t see the connection.”
Alana shook her head with tears forming in her eyes, I have never seen her cry before and I wondered what she was seeing. As if she could hear my thoughts Alana blurted out a name I thought sounded faintly familiar. “Rebecca” Alana turned towards John and he was staring at me with a new light in his yellow eyes. She said “that’s Rebecca, Samantha and Robert’s daughter. They were the only other ones who held that kind of power besides our parents and they disappeared when Rebecca was three, we all thought they died had a funeral for them and everything. This is such a great and unexpected discovery that I can’t contain my excitement. One of our own has returned to us. Don’t you see what this means? Our power is growing John and now we have Samantha and Roberts’s daughter. They were so powerful, smart and very fast. Samantha and I were very close. She was like my older sister. She had Rebecca and three years later they disappeared. We waited a year and when they didn’t come back and we spent a lot of our resources on finding them, we had a funeral for all three of them.
“We thought that maybe they got caught off guard on their way to the store because they never left the compound with you, you were always left here with me and Clarisse. We loved playing with you. There was this toy it wasn’t much but it was something of mine that you loved to play with. A raggedy doll with red string hair and buttoned eyes and sowed in mouth. You wouldn’t leave it behind so I gave it to you. You took it with you that day would not leave her behind you called her Annie. I was ten and it devastated me when you didn’t come back. I stayed in my room crying the only one that I would talk to is Clarisse. She knew how much I loved you.” She cut off when she saw that I looked shocked, that said that this story was making sense.
I had to force myself to say the words that were stuck in my throat. I felt like I was going to fall apart any second, no one here knew about Annie I never told anyone. I still kept that raggedy Annie doll in my closet in a box to keep it from falling apart. I said the few words that would escape my mouth “I still have her.” I said softly and then ran to my room.
******
I went after Monika leaving Clarisse with John. I shouldn’t have mentioned that to her in front of them, I should have brought it up alone, but I always had this strong feeling of familiarity with Monika and now it made sense. When I got to her room I knocked before opening it. I stood in the door way and watched as Monika was digging through her closet throwing everything out onto the floor in her room. Then she stopped suddenly and pulled out a very old shoe box. It was painted over with black paint and red letters that said Annie across the top of the box. She opened it and I had to catch myself as the familiar doll I loved was lying in the box so neat, it’s like she was lying in a mini bassinet. I started to cry and ran to Monika calling her Rebecca. “Oh Rebecca I’ve missed you so much. You were like my little sister. I was so lost without you for months; and on your birthday every year I would make a cake and sing happy birthday to you. I cannot believe that it’s you. I’ve had this strange feeling when I first saw you, you called to me. It’s so hard to explain.” I was cut off by Monika.
“I felt it too. That is why I came with you when you found me. That and I had this strange feeling that I could do things with my mind. Like I would think about something that I wanted really wanted and I would get it. Like having someone special in my life, like a family or a really good friend. I had friends growing up but none good enough to share the strange things that were happening to my body with. That is until after my best friend Jorge disappeared, but that was before these strange things happened to me. Then you came and you brought me into your family. I can’t believe you knew my parents. How were they? I think I can remember my mother’s face. She had hazel eyes and smooth skin and she always had a smile on her face. I can’t remember my dad and what I can see of my mother isn’t enough to keep me happy.”
I looked at her and said “I have pictures. And your parents were both awesome they helped my parents run this covenant. They were the best all four of them working together we were so strong then. So powerful we rarely had a death due to battles. Mostly old age and sicknesses that aren’t healable. I miss them all so much.” I was pulled out of my thoughts from a pain shooting through my abdomen I clutched at my belly and screamed so loud. “I have to get to the basement now!” I said weakly but firmly.
******
I wasted no time in getting Alana down stairs. I ran faster than I thought possible. When I rounded the corner I saw to my horror that John was already transforming. This is why Alana is in pain, she won’t change too. Me thinking that was a mistake because we barely had time to get her into the cell before she started transforming.
It was a horrible but oddly a beautiful sight. I had never seen a werewolf transformation and the first one is always the hardest. Or so I was told. This didn’t look hard at all it looked mesmerizing; the way their bodies were bending and bones breaking to reattach into a more animal form. But something was different with Alana she stood tall on her feet, her body covered in fur and her teeth were big and sharp like a wolves, and her ears were that of a wolves too. It looked almost as if she was halfway through the transition, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t screaming anymore and you couldn’t hear her bones breaking any more she looked like an extremely hairy woman with sharp teeth and pointy ears, and her fur was light brown. What was more alarming was her eyes they were as yellow as any werewolf you could see but they still held that same kindness in them, she looked over at John and spoke to him. I couldn’t hear but John turned to look at Alana too and they stood there quietly talking to each other.
John was a full werewolf. Four legs claws and a nice thick silver gray coat of fur. He looked beautiful as a wolf, and looking at him so calm and content you couldn’t tell that he was once human. He could pass as a wolf except for his size he was huge five feet tall and he was long. I have never seen a wolf that size before except in movies and this was not a movie this was real life. Two of my leaders were definitely werewolves, well one was full wolf the other I had no idea what to call her. She turned her head as Clarisse started talking.
“Oh my god Monika did you see that?” she said it with so much excitement and fear that I didn’t know what to think. “Look at Alana what happened to her? Why is she not a full wolf? We should get the others while they are calm, do you want to come with me or are you going to stay and keep watch?”
“I will stay here and keep watch maybe see if I can sense any evil which I don’t by the way, but I’ll get closer and see what I can pick up off of them. Do you sense any evil radiating off of them?” I asked Clarisse.
“No, but it could be because we are not close enough, but Alana did say that she didn’t feel evil and she was almost turned we will have to keep an eye on them.” She turned and started walking away and yelled over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back.” And she was gone.
I got closer. Close enough to hear them. Yes them I could hear John even though he was a wolf, he could still talk. It was weird, but what was weirder was the fact that my two wonderful leaders of this covenant were definitely not human any more, not that they were very human before. I looked at them and waited for a minute to get my thoughts in order before I asked them questions. I asked them one at a time starting with the most important one.
“How do you guys feel?”
I waited what felt like forever and was about to ask it again when Alana answered me and said “We feel fine, better than fine actually. No I don’t feel evil nor do I think I’m going to turn out evil and neither does John.” She said it so formally like if this is something she had to answer every day. Which it has been a while that she was talking about being evil and not becoming evil. I was relived and glad to hear that, I was so worried and felt a weight being lifted off my shoulders.
“That is so good, I’m glad to hear that. John how does it feel to have four legs?” I said sarcastically. And I heard is muffled “Not bad” through his muzzle.
“Alana, why didn’t you fully turn? Is it because you weren’t the one infected so to speak?”
Alana looked at me with a warm smile but all she said was, “That I am not sure, but I am pretty sure that is the case. Although this feels weird I feel like I should look like my mate but I can’t form my body that way, this should be interesting facing demons and that bastard Raphael. I will make him pay for what he did to us.”
“You think you can face demons? I don’t think that is such a good idea. We should wait a little before you go out in the field. I love you Alana and I don’t want to throw you out there unprepared. By the way are you going to be able to transform any time you want?”
Alana looked at me with those yellow eyes, it sort of frightened me too look into them, but I knew that the person who wore those eyes was not someone that I should be frightened of. All Alana said was “If John is able to I am sure I can too. But we will see, it may take time or I may be able to do it on command.” She was going to say something else but stopped as Clarisse and the others came rushing in.
We both looked up at the crowd as did John. Peter still wore the bloodied clothes from Sebastian and he looked upset, but I wasn’t sure if he was upset about Sebastian or about his leaders. “Alana, John, how are you feeling? Do you feel like yourselves, well as best like yourselves given the circumstances?”
“We feel fine” they said together. “In fact I feel like running and howling up at the moon.” Alana said sarcastically. “How do you suppose we feel while I’m half a monster and my mate is a full one?” She was getting angry probably because she was getting sick of that question. I don’t blame her I would hate to be asked that question over and over again, but everyone needed to know these are our leaders, I thought I should try and calm her down, but then I second guessed that. Who am I to try and calm down someone I only knew for a few months? “But I feel fine thank you all for worrying about us, I know this isn’t an easy sight. After tomorrow I will try and study my DNA and John’s and see what the differences are between us and we both try to control our wolves’ better. I hope you don’t mind having a half witch and half werewolf as you leaders because we are not going anywhere. We were Talking about going to Raphael’s. We’re going to take him down and we want your help in doing it, not that we necessarily need it” She held up her hands and said “my powers are changing as well as I have, back up every one please.”
And before we all had the chance to back up she made a little motion with her hands and BOOM! The door to her cell flew off its hinges and she did the same to John’s cell. They went by us and ran up the stairs in a speed so fast you could barely make them out. Then they all heard a faint whisper saying “We’re going for a run.”