Awakening the Mare (Fall of Man Book 1) (15 page)

Marie’s home was third on the right and oddly
enough, a large gray structure. The second floor of the structure
was sealed tight.

“Why are the windows permanently sealed?” I
asked.

“We don’t use the second floor,” Marie
stated. “We consider it a buffer, should the Savages make it
through the roof. It doesn’t happen much though.”

The stone path to her home was lined with
small flower bushes. She opened the door and I followed her in,
entering a large room. Remnants of a staircase dangled from the
ceiling, but the top was sealed as well.

Just a few feet into the entranceway, she
gestured to a metal door.

“This is our retreat room,” she said. “Should
a Savage attack become severe, we retreat to it. It’s reinforced.
Typically the steel shutters do the trick though.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep
through a Savage attack like you did. It was quiet in the
bunker.”

“You will get used to it, trust me.” Marie
smiled and walked me down the small hall.

“The kitchen,” I said.

“See?” Marie looked at Davis. “She calls it a
kitchen now, not eating room.”

“Lucy never used her kitchen,” I said. “But
the Tanners always were in theirs. Ha …. Ha-ha …ha.”

Davis laughed. “That’s good.”

“Your room.” Marie pushed open a door off of
the kitchen. “You can place your things in here. Davis has plans
for you, so while you’re out, I’ll try to find you more
clothing.”

“Thank you,” I stepped into the room. The
walls were clean, there was a single bed there, a tall dresser, and
on the wall across from the bed hung a long color picture. With a
gasp, I turned to Davis. “You placed a picture of your God in my
room. Thank you.”

Davis winked. “Figured I had to keep you
focused and spiritual.”

“I will. I love it, thank you.”

Davis clapped his hands. “Well, we better
head out; I want to have you back before evening.”

I set my things on the bed and that was when
I heard Tanner’s voice. Typically it made me smile; this time it
sent this shocked twitch to my gut.

“Oh, cool, I’m not late,” Tanner said. “I can
catch a ride with you. Hey, Vala.” He tapped my arm.

I spun around, stared at him then looked at
Davis. “Can we go?”

“Wow, whoa,” Tanner said. “You ignored
me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“How was the bunker?”

“Fine.”

“Are you mad at me?”

I wanted to say ‘yes’. I wanted to berate
him.
Where were you? Why didn’t you come see me in the
bunker?
More than that,
I want to know who the girl was.
I didn’t say any of that. I just said 'no'. Of course, in typical
Tanner fashion, he was aloof and just said ‘cool’, and followed me
out.

The words were so faded they were hard to
make out. The years had taken their toll on the gold words painted
on the black background. Buildings all around the fenced in
structure were burnt and destroyed, almost like monuments of man’s
final violent hour.

It was obvious the fence had been
restructured and the concrete road around the building was uplifted
with growing grass and bushes.

“What is Men Central?” I asked of the only
two words that were semi clear. The rest were pretty washed out
with only letters remaining here and there.

“It used to say ‘Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Men’s Central Jail’.”

“I know jail. Lucy was in jail. She was
arrested with Ethel, season two, episode thirty-one.”

“Then you know what this place is.”

Tanner laughed.

“That’s funny?” I asked.

“Yeah, that you know the episode and season.
You’re so weird.”

“Grow up,” I snapped at him and returned to
Davis.

His eyes were wide. “Did you just tell him to
grow up?”

“I did.”

“That’s excellent! Anyhow…”

“Are there criminals still here?”

“No,” Davis said. “No. Something else is in
here.”

I took no more than one step and knew by the
odor that flowed my way. “Sybaris.”

*

Just inside the entrance to the jail the
smell was overwhelming, even making me lightheaded. No one else
seemed to notice it as much. It was horrible.

“Why do you have them here?” I asked. “Why
not slaughter them?”

“Eventually we do,” Davis said. “But to beat
your enemy you must know your enemy.”

“They aren’t your only enemy.”

“No, they aren’t. But the Civilized ones
aren’t fighters. We defeat them, we still have all of these to
contend with.”

“And the Day Stalkers.”

“Yeah, those too,” Davis said. “So we
experiment. We haven’t fed them, but they don’t die.”

“The Savages?” I asked. “Because the
Civilized will live for thousands of years with very little
nourishment, they just wither away.”

“These do too. The only ones that die from
lack of food are the Day Stalkers. But they don’t eat people, they
are people. They kill people. Make sense?”

“Very much so. How many do you have?”

“About fifty. They aren’t easy to catch. Some
have been here for years. We catch them by slowing them down with
battery operated lights, loop a rope around their necks, like a
lasso, then it takes about three of us to bring one in.”

“Killing them isn’t the hard part,” Tanner
said. “It’s getting close enough or catching them.”

“Which brings us to you,” Davis said. “ You
have this ability and we’re hoping to use it to fight them, if
you’re willing.”

“Very willing.”

“We’re hoping you can kill multiple Savages
at one time,” Davis said. “You have the gift, and if you think it
against them you can make it happen. I want you to come here, see
them, and try it.”

“Think them dead?” I asked.

“Just one. Focus on one and then we’ll
work.”

“I want to train,” I told him. “I want to
fight the Civilized, as well.”

“You’ll be more on the intelligence side of
our Civilized Sybaris battle.”

That made me smile. Not that I was part of
the intelligence portion, but because they were going after the
Civilized and not leaving it to the Sybaris to battle
themselves.

“You realize they aren’t physically that
strong,” I said. “They can be brought down many ways.”

“I do.” He nodded. “If we can do it all at
once the better. But we need to know where they are, their
weaknesses, their city weaknesses, so we can pull off a full scale
attack. Once that commences, the Savages are going to run for
humans and we have to be ready.”

“So you are going to infiltrate?” I
asked.

“Yes, we are. We have a person we feel is
perfect. We are going to send her into Akana or Belau to live, and
hopefully she’ll be chosen. She is with child, so they’ll let her
in. That’s where you come in. Marie said you have been getting
really good with transporting.”

My eyes shifted to Tanner. “Yes, I have seen
things, gone places… the beach.” Of course, Tanner didn’t pick up
on my insinuations.

“I want you to get to know her. So much so
that you’ll be able to tap into her when she goes. You can’t
transport anywhere you haven’t been. But I believe you can locate a
person.”

“It’s so dangerous to send an expectant
mother to the Straits,” I told him. “She risks losing her child to
them.”

“We know, so we’re hoping she gets chosen
before birth and we can get the attack formulated.”

“That sounds good.”

Davis smiled at me. “Oh, you approve of this
one?”

“Yes, because you want to bring them down,
not rely on the others to do your dirty work.”

Davis shook a finger at me with a pleased
look. “I like that you picked up a lot of the language.”

“
Full House
and
ALF
were the
best teachers… and a show called
Roseanne
.” I hurriedly
looked at Tanner. “Smart comment?”

“Um, no, I’m sarcastically challenged right
now.”

“Good.” I returned to Davis. “All right,
let’s go try this Savage thing you want me to do.”

Davis reached for a thick door. “It’s gonna
be loud in there. We’re gonna walk into what’s called a bay. The
cells will surround you. Pick one, any one, maybe the first one.
Focus, and think about his death.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good girl.” He opened the door.

I gagged. The reflex hit me and I had to
turn. It was worse than the time the pigs all got sick and died. I
took a second to compose myself and stepped in.

They went insane. Every Savage Sybaris
screamed and they were hard to see because the area was dark to
shield them from sunlight.

I heard them jumping and banging against the
cages. I brought my hands to my ears to block out the noise. It was
unbelievably loud. I wanted to try Davis’ suggestion and get out of
there.

No more than five steps in, one of the
Savages reached from his cage and grazed my skin with his cold
touch.

I spun to him. That would be the one.

His teeth hung over his bottom lip and when
he widened his mouth and growled at me I reacted instinctively, and
without thought returned a mocking hiss.

He whimpered, and yelped like an injured
animal. Then the entire bay drew silent and they all pulled back
far into their containment areas.

“It’s like at the beach,” Tanner said with
surprise. “She scared them.”

“Not good?” I asked.

Davis crinkled his brow. “Not exactly what I
hoped for. We don’t want them scared, we want them dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Davis said. “Not at all.
This is remarkable. We need to move to plan B.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “What is plan B?’

We moved from the jail out to a field. I
assumed it was where everyone trained because we passed a lot of
soldiers doing hand to hand combat, practicing marksmanship, until
we arrived in an isolated area.

Tanner and two other men drove a covered cart
to the area, inside of which was a Savage.

He positioned me about thirty paces from the
back end of the cart.

“We’re going to release him,” Davis said.

“He’ll burn.”

“You'll have about thirty seconds until he
feels it. Up until then he is going to charge at you. I don’t want
you to do that scaring thing. I want you to use the um… magic
weapon.”

“Magic weapon?”

“Yes,” Davis said. “I made it for you as part
of plan B.”

“So you’re a wizard?”

Standing next to the cart, Tanner laughed
loudly until I looked at him and then he stopped.

“No. Just smart.” Davis pointed to his
temple. “Just like the Poison cassette tape only worked for you, so
will the magic weapon.” He raced back to our carriage and came back
holding what he called the magic weapon.

“It’s a stick,” I said.

“A really big one, and sharp too.” Davis
turned the end of it toward me. “Here is the dangerous part.” He
handed it to me.

“What do I do with it?”

“Once you grip it, you will learn to transfer
the power. The power has to go from your mind to your hands, and it
will flow into the stick.”

Drumming up some of that
ALF
sarcasm I
said, “Really?’

“Really.” He turned me to face the wooded
area behind me. “Pick a tree. Any tree.”

“Okay.”

“Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Now grip the weapon and—”

“Stick.”

“Weapon. We’ll name it later. Grip it like a
sword.”

I placed both hands together on the end.

“Now concentrate. Concentrate power going to
the weapon.”

I closed my eyes and thought of power.

“When you know you have concentrated, I want
you to swing out with the intention of slicing through that
tree.”

I nodded, focused and concentrate.
“Ready.”

“Do it.”

I swung.

Nothing happened.

“Try again.”

“It’s not going to work. It’s a stick.”

“Weapon,” he corrected. “Try again. Imagine
the power coming out of the weapon as you swing.”

I bounced my shoulders up and down to release
my stress, got a good grip on the stick, thought about power,
looked at the tree, and swung again.

It didn’t fall down, but I felt something.
Like I hit it.

The tree swayed.

“Yes!” Davis shouted. “Good. Good.”

“It didn’t fall down.”

“It might now fall down, you may just slice
through it. Now, we need some wood to burn. Take that power and
imagine it as a beam of light. A beam that has the power of the
hottest fire you can imagine.”

“Like a laser beam?”

“Hey? How did you know that?”

“ALF.”

“Figures. Yes, imagine a laser beam shoots
out of that weapon and can cut the tree.”

I understood more clearly since he explained
it as a laser beam. In my mind I created it, I swirled it, and
blasted the image into the stick. My fingers were the trigger and I
knew when I swung and squeezed the beam would come out.

Once I was certain I had it, no more
failures.

I swung out, squeezing when I knew I was
close to the tree and the tree fell over with a loud
whoosh
.

Davis cheered, along with Tanner and the
other man.

“Again.” Davis instructed. “That one.”

I looked where he pointed and swung out. That
one went down as well.

“Again.” Davis indicated another tree.

A turn, a swing, and another felled tree.
Davis kept pointing to trees and I decimated them. Again. Again and
again.

Then he yelled out, “Release!”

Release?

I heard the ‘clink’ of the cage and turned
around quickly. Tanner aimed his weapon as well, and out of the
caged cart, the Savage Sybaris charged at me.

He was fast, ignoring the daylight. With a
mighty growl and everything I had, I focused forward, swung
outward, then up.