| |
It was a late summer evening, the weather clear and just south of muggy. The cicadas were thrumming in the brush and the birds were coming to roost for the night. Lan was a young man already, tall and reedy, a well muscled young buck. His dark hair hung wild around his face as he crouched in a tree, the blue eyes peering through the leaves incongruous with the copper tone of his skin, with his strong Indian heritage. They watched the slightly younger boy in the distance running cautiously through the darkening forest, looking for any sign of him.
Matthew was all of sixteen, a light skinned, darkly red-haired Irish boy who practically worshiped the ground his adopted brother walked on. The five years between them didn’t matter, neither did the full knowledge that Matthew would likely follow in his father’s footsteps and grow into a powerful garou, one of Gaia’s warriors, and that Lan would not. Lan was not kinfolk, but he was as close to the land, and their connection ran thicker than any accident of blood. They were blood brothers as well as legal ones, and that ran deeper than anything. Matt squinted in the dim light, paused, trying to get his breathing under control, to find any sign of Lan’s passing. The forest litter all looked the same to him. Though there was a broken branch over there.
Matt crept over to it, to check how fresh. With a loud war whoop, Lan leapt out of the tree and tackled him, and the two boys went rolling. They laughed as they wrestled. Lan had to admit the boy was growing stronger. He let Matt pin him. Matt grinned down at him. “Thought ye had me, din’t ye? I’m not so weak now, eh?”
“Yeah, you’re sprouting a few muscles,” he conceded. “But your senses are as dull as an old spoon. If I’d had a knife and a mind I’d have scalped ya!” he cried, flipping the smaller boy off of him. They faced off like two football players on opposite lines of scrimmage. Matt played for the high school as Lan had before him, and Lan knew the boy would be a very imposing opponent by his senior year.
“Hardly fair,” he panted. “It’s getting dark. I kin barely see m’ nose.”
Lan laughed and thumped his nose. “What happened to those garou senses you keep bragging about, eh? Must be all the fire water you keep sneaking out of Pa’s cabinet.”
“Hey!” he cried and tackled. “Well if yer so keen in th’ dark, why don’t ye track me?”
“Be harder to follow a bull elephant,” he taunted as they struggled.
“Prove it!”
Lan tightened his grip, wrapping his legs around Matt’s to pin them, pulled the boy in closer. “Fine,” he said with a wolfish grin. “You’ve got …fifteen seconds…. No, make it thirty,” and he let him go.
It took Matt three of those seconds to grasp the situation before he threw himself off of Lan and bolted through the woods. Lan rolled onto his stomach and laughed. “You’re going the wrong way, white boy!”
He heard the retreating footsteps shift direction and he began to count off the seconds before he got up and began to trot off after him. He loped along at an easy pace for a little while, still able to hear the pounding and sliding of sneakers through the old leaves. “You make a great deal of noise, wolf-boy,” he teased, then smiled as the footsteps got quieter.
“I’m not the one who woke up a sleeping bear last winter,” Matt countered.
Lan turned his head. The forest made the voice echo strangely, hinting at a slightly different direction than the footsteps had indicated, he adjusted his tracking accordingly.
Before long it was full dark and a low hanging fog had rolled in off the creek. Lan grew worried. The thickness of the fog meant they were closer to the water than he had thought. All teaching games aside, it was now too late and dangerous to be horsing around. Father Pafford would have his hide, grown man or not, if anything happened out of carelessness.
“Matt! Game’s over. It’s too dangerous, we’re too close to the creek!”
Matthew’s laughter rang out through the mist, light in spite of the heaviness of the air. “Givin’ up?”
He used his grown-up voice, “Matt, I’m not kidding. We must have gotten turned around ‘cause we shouldn’t be this close to the water.”
A chill ran up the back of his neck. Some inner sense was warning him that something wasn’t right. He stopped and listened. The world was wrapped in a blanket and he could barely see. The moon shown dimly through the canopy and made the fog glow eerily while obscuring all details. He could barely tell one tree from another. Unable to trust his eyes, he listened. Off to his left he heard the brief rattle of a snake’s tail and the scream of a dying rabbit. Up ahead and a little to the right he thought he heard a branch break, leaves rustling. He held his breath. There was no splash, so Matt had not fallen in the creek. Still, it was all he had to go on so he began to quietly walk in that direction, his eyes constantly in motion.
Every few seconds he’d hear the noise again, a foot sliding against the forest floor and then it would stop again, but always in the same place. “Matt?” he called softly.
A strangled cry was the only response. He moved faster. If Matt was hurt…
Ahead he caught the glimpse of red light and he began to approach with more caution. The trees thinned a little and the light became two red eyes and Lan stopped. The fog formed an unnatural ring around the owner of the red eyes and the soft glow gave off just enough light to let him see Matthew pinned against the tall, dark body and the long, pale talons pressing against the boy’s soft white throat. The area reeked of loam, moldy soil and old blood.
“Welcome to the party, Lan,” came the gravelly voice. “We’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been waiting a long time.”
Matthew struggled in his grip, but the man lifted him off his feet with one arm as easily as if he were a toddler and the talons tightened on his neck, one piercing the skin. The man sniffed the air at that, lifted the nail and peered at it, then sucked it clean. “Oh how careless of me.”
“Matt, stop,” Lan warned. He did not know what this man was or what he wanted, but he knew that his adopted family had many enemies that were less than natural. It was clear this man, this creature, could snap Matt like a twig if he chose.
“Smart. But I knew that,” the man purred, setting Matt back on his feet. He lowered his face close to Matt’s neck, took a deep, shuddering breath and smiled, revealing a mouth bearing pronounced fangs.
“Vampire,” Lan spat. He watched Matt’s whole body stiffen, his widened eyes betraying both fear and hatred at once.
The vampire chuckled. “Perceptive, too. Already half educated. Self sufficient… just what I’ve been looking for. Waiting for.”
Lan narrowed his eyes. “Waiting for?”
“Oh yes,” he smiled, a mad grin. “A long time. Well, by your standards. By mine it was only a breath really. But long enough to know what I want.”
“And what is that?” he asked warily. Instinct told him to keep him talking. He had to find a way out of this for Matt, and at the moment he couldn’t see one. The Pafford’s had waited a long time for a child of their own, to the point of adopting Lan before they had finally had Matthew. He would not allow anything to happen to the boy now, not if he could do something about it.
“You.” The man said in an exaggerated conversational tone, “You see, I’ve always wanted a boy of my own. A son to take after me and follow in my footsteps and fight the good fight…” his grin was far from friendly. His dark red tongue flicked across Matt’s skin, licking up the blood on his throat. The boy shuddered with revulsion. Lan’s muscles coiled, ready to attack, but the vampire moved even more swiftly, talons once more pressing into Matt’s throat, not yet breaking the skin, but painfully nonetheless. To his credit Matthew did not even cry out.
“Ah,” he warned. “Not so hasty, my boy. You see, you have a decision to make. I can only have one of you. As it stands, one of you gets eternal life and the other a shallow grave. However...,” he looked back down at Matt, the red eyes gazing hungrily at the exposed throat. “I might be convinced…”
Lan waited as long as he could stand it before he asked, “Convinced of what?”
The eyes turned up to him and the look made his skin crawl. “To let one of you live.”
“And what would convince you?”
“Ah, now we bargain. Either you submit to me, agree to become my childe and obey me implicitly until I choose to release you or I will slaughter him right here and now. Then I will embrace you anyway and feed you his oh so sweet young blood for your first meal. Or I could be really evil and make you kill him in your initial blood frenzy. How would that sit on your conscience? He really is quite tasty.”
He forced himself to rein in the rage that threatened to blind him. He knew how much strength it took to hold Matt still and this man, this …thing, did it with such ease that he could fend Lan off without exerting himself so fighting would only get both of them killed. “And if I go with you?” he asked, hating the choice.
“NO!” Matt yelled, was immediately silenced by pressure on his throat.
“Agree and I’ll let the wolf’s brat live.”
His eyes widened. “You know what he is? What he could be?” he choked.
He chuckled. “Oh yes, and you know… thinking about it… he might make a better choice than you, though he’ll need a bit more schooling.” The fangs brushed close to Matt’s neck again. Matt curled his nose at the smell of his breath.
“Wait!” He stopped, blinked innocently at him.
“Yeeees?”
“If I agree you’ll let him go?”
“On the condition he keeps his mouth shut. I know where he lives. If you betray me, go back on your word or displease me in any way, and I’ll return here and slaughter not only the boy, but the parents as well.”
Matt’s struggles were useless. Lan was conflicted. He wanted to save his family, the only family he had ever known. But saving them meant losing them. What he would become was everything they despised, fought against. He could never return home again. But if he didn’t they would all die, and this thing might take Matt instead, and that would be worse. He saw the way father Pafford watched his son, the way friends of the family looked at him and nodded knowingly, as if they expected greatness from him, a change… a change he would be denied if this thing…
“Fine.”
“No,” Matt growled through clenched teeth. He managed to get an arm free, clawed back for the face of the beast.
“You swear on your little brother’s head?” he asked, ignoring the fingers scrabbling for his eyes.
“I do.”
He threw Matt at his feet. “Then make him understand. I assure you, play me false and catching him will be easy. And your mother will not die in her sleep…” he threatened.
Matt landed in a heap and threw himself to his feet again, ready to lunge back at the vampire but Lan caught him, turned him to face him. He shook him to get his attention, to still the rage burning inside him. “Now is not the time, Matt!” he said firmly. “Now is not the time. You heard him. He’ll kill mother too. Father would kill me if anything happened to you.”
“But ye matter too, Lan. Ye can’t just sacrifice yerself…”
“I can and I will, if it means I get to see you grow up and become that which you were meant to be. If I refuse… I can’t even think about the consequences. You have to go home.”
“What will I tell pa when I come home wi’out ye? Clawed up like I am? He’ll come after ye. He’ll be honor bound t’ kill ye too!”
“Then you don’t tell him. Tell him we were attacked and you got away while I fought. Tell them I was kidnapped. Anything but the truth.” He pulled him into a smothering hug, hiding the boy’s sobs of anger and sorrow. “We can’t win this one, Mattie. It’s the only way out. I don’t, we’ll all die. Just know I’ll always be there for you.” He held him just a moment more before pushing him away, “now go home, Matthew. And don’t look back.”
Matthew hesitated a moment, stared back at his brother with tear-stained eyes. Catching sight of the monster again, he ran. Lan listened to the footsteps fading into the fog, but knew they had not gone far. The vampire was just behind him. He could feel the man’s fetid breath on the back of his neck. His muscles tightened as he got control of his fear and temper. “Remember this, vampire. That boy and his family are hostage against your word. Anything happens to them and I will turn on you in a heartbeat,” he promised through gritted teeth.
“Agreed,” he hissed. “Kneel.”
Lan ground his fists, resisted the commanding voice.
“I said kneel! …It is not too late to go after him…”
Though it went against every ounce of will, Lan slowly sank to his knees in the loamy earth. The body behind him was cold, as were the hands that grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked it down over his shoulder. A taloned finger ran lightly along his skin from the base of his ear to the arch of his collarbone, seeking out his pulse. “If you relax, this might even be pleasant for you,” came the low, grating voice.
But Lan did not want this to be pleasant. It wasn’t a pleasant thing. He was a sacrificial lamb on the altar of his family’s safety. He was the stag giving up his life so that others might live. That did not mean he had to make this easy. His arms remained at his sides, hands balled into fists, every muscle rigid as one hand set onto his shoulder, holding him easily in place and the other seized his hair and violently tipped his head.
Pain lanced into the side of his neck like a snake-bite and ten times more acute. Tissues tearing as the curved teeth ripped their way into his artery and began to suck the life out of him. It spread like a fire outward from the wound, set his heart pounding, his blood singing in his ears. Involuntarily he raised a hand to fight back, but the wrist was seized in a crushing grip. The vampire adjusted his hold, jerking Lan’s whole body back against him like a dog worrying over its prey and Lan cried out as the fangs tore at him again. A long deep growl began to emerge from the feeding beast.
He felt his blood begin to drip down his chest as the widened wounds made the blood flow faster than the vampire could drink. His face was hot and wet from tears spilled against his will for the family and happiness he had lost, for the hatred they would now bear for him. For the loss of daylight and the heat of the sun and the sweet taste of a girl’s lips and her body pressed against his, things he would never know again. His feet and hands began to go numb with cold and he felt a strange weight settling upon his body, like a blanket of snow.
He could feel his heart slowing, and his breathing go shallow. His vision began to narrow, not that he could see much in the growing darkness. He felt the teeth he had forgotten were there pull free and the stench of rotting earth and carrion was thrust in his face. He tried to pull away, his head moved only a few inches. His mouth was forced open and something thick and foul and salty was poured in. He could taste dirt, and mold and the thick oily blood slid down his throat. The hands holding him up pulled away and he slumped to the warm earth. His vision began to fade with his heartbeat as the last of his blood trickled from his opened throat onto the forest floor.
“Yes, boy,” he heard through failing senses. He struggled to hang on to life one moment more. He looked up, and what little he could see was suddenly razor clear. Matthew was standing just beyond the trees, watching in horror. Lan reached out his hand to him, to beg him to run even as he begged the Great Spirit to let him just die.
The vampire ignored Lan’s deaththroes, all his focus on the sixteen year old boy not twenty feet away. “Yes, watch and remember, and run home to your family. But remember this: tell a living soul what happened here and you will be the last to die.” Then he bared his fangs and hissed, snarling in the boy’s direction. But the boy remained frozen in place, fighting the urge to fight for the brother who was dying in front of his eyes. “I’d go before he wakes. He will be hungry, and you are quite …delicious.”
It was Lan’s voice that spurred him, a voice barely heard, speaking with his last breath. “Matt, run.”
That alone put his heels to flight.
Matthew’s retreating footsteps were the last thing Lan heard as he closed his eyes and waited for death to claim him, waiting for that bliss of nothingness, of being one with the universe. But something was interfering with that oneness, something that rose up like a wall between him and the rest nature intended for all things at their end. It began as something that shouldn’t be: pain. He should be beyond pain, beyond the crippling vice grip seizing his innards. If he didn’t know that he should already be dead, he would have thought he was dying. His hands clawed at the earth, his body curling in on itself. It was like growing pains and hunger pangs attacking all at once. He writhed on the ground, grabbing his head in an attempt to quell the screaming he kept hearing, to block out the blinding light hammering its way into his skull. After a moment he realized the source of the screaming was him.
He forced himself to stop, rolled onto his belly, aware that he shouldn’t even be moving. Every muscle was rigid with searing pain, crying out for something he didn’t have and didn’t know how to get. He looked around him. The forest was dark and empty and the fog was gone, yet everything was as clear as daylight. He felt lightheaded and dizzy, as if his brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen, and then he realized he wasn’t breathing. He took a breath. It didn’t help. He couldn’t concentrate. There was something he needed to do, but it was just out of his reach. The pain was becoming commonplace now, though it did not lessen its intensity. He tried to sit up. The world reeled and he began vomiting. He could not stop until his stomach was past empty and found himself surprised to see no blood in it. But why should there have been blood?
He caught the scent of something in the air and looked down at himself, at his torn shirt and the blood smeared on his chest. He wiped it with his hand, brought it to his face… was immediately repulsed by the idea of licking it, yet that was what he found himself doing, dirt and all. He wiped up all he could, then began to suck the blood from the fabric of his shirt.
A dead rabbit landed in front of him, its neck broken. He seized it on instinct and bit into it, suddenly recognizing the fire within him as hunger. He started to eat the rabbit raw, but the moment the blood touched his tongue all he wanted was the blood. The thought of eating the rest of it revolted him. He drained the bunny dry and tossed it aside, looking for more but there was someone in front of him, crouched, watching him.
As he moved towards him, smelling more blood, a taloned hand came up. “Not yet, Stormcrow. Now you must hunt on your own, but first we must leave this area lest you force me to go back on my word.”
“Your word?” he asked, his brain dull.
“Think, Stormcrow. Why are you here?”
“My name is not Stormcrow,” he said, realizing what had bothered him.
“It is now. Now, why are you here?”
“Because…” he racked his brain. Flashes of wrestling with a young boy ran through his sluggish mind. The teen being held by the man in front of him. Some kind of bargain made. “Because I said… I would…”
“Obey. If not I would…”
“Kill them.” It was suddenly painfully clear. He had traded his life for his brother’s, for his family. His life was over. And whatever this man said to do, he must. A coldness seized his heart that had nothing to do with the lack of blood in his system. Slowly he rose.
“We must go before they come looking for you,” he said, picking up the rabbit’s body. “We’ll hunt in another part of the forest.”
Lan followed numbly, looking back over his shoulder only once, towards the home and comforts that had once been his, which he would never see again. In his heart he wanted to throw back his head and howl his sorrow to the wood, but his body simply did not have the strength.
|
|
All
rights are reserved for the work 'The Birth of Stormcrow' by Sandra Leigh Wagner under
Elfwoods all rights reserved copyright policy
License
Main Category: 
Previous...
