Lycan Alpha Claim 3 (99 page)

CHAPTER 36

The cemetery was exactly as I remembered it, except instead of being silvered by moonlight it had a hazy white quality. The evening sun hung low in the sky, slanting through the trees.

Tim Anderson strode forward, moving between the tombstones and heading toward the caretaker's cottage. He arrived at the front steps and turned around to face us. “Where, oh where, is the crashed stealth chopper? The gun casings? The knives? The remnants of battle?”

We all started scouring the graveyard. Apart from a few tromped-down places of flat grass between the graves, there wasn't a mark anywhere. I couldn’t believe it. There was no way they could have cleaned this place up overnight.

Jonesy opened his mouth, and Dad held up a finger in warning. I guess Dad was up to
here
with Jonesy.

Jonesy nodded then calmly asked, “What about the tombstone that got whacked by the chopper blade? And what about the blade that got stuck in the ground?”

We sprinted to the spot where we thought the chopper had landed. The marker was gone, completely gone. Only the hole where it had been was left.

“They took the whole damn thing!” Jonesy yelled.

Anderson bent down and trailed his fingers over the displaced dirt that hadn't been exposed in over a century. “You might have something here.”

John yelled from a few feet away, “Look at this!”

We ran over there. Well, we kids ran. The adults sort of walked fast. John pointed at a place where a huge gouge had been dug in the dirt. On either side was a crescent-moon shaped swath, like a smile, with the center being a deep well.

“Just a minute.” I ran over and grabbed a long stick from the nearby patch of trees. I returned and stuck it into the hole until I felt it touch bottom. I put my fingers on the stick at the lip of the hole, then pulled it out and held it against me.

Dad said, “That’s about four feet.”

“Looks like you guys might have been telling the truth,” Anderson said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking up at the sky, then back at the wound in the earth. “Let’s go back to my office.”

*

Back at Anderson's office, where we passed through security unscathed by hysterics, we sat for a solid hour, telling our story.  His pulse recorder loaded everything directly to his pulse-top.

A couple of times, Anderson remarked or asked a question to clarify something. But mostly, he just listened. Finally, we were finished.

“Well, that's one helluva story there. A real humdinger. I can understand you coming to me, or someone like me. I will do my best, tonight,” Anderson said.

“Tonight?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, my boss is going to be thrilled. But better than that, it offers a little protection for your kid there.” Anderson pointed at me. “I'm not a real introspective guy, but I'd say you've been given something special. It's how you use it that'll make a difference.”

Standing up, he offered his hand to Dad. “Sorry I was so tough on you in the beginning. It's been a pleasure. You've got a good kid here, Dr. Hart.”

“You can call me Kyle,” Dad said.

He smiled at me. “I know we do.”

“Those other two though...” Anderson waggled his finger at the Js. “They may be trouble.”

Then he laughed, taking the sting out of it.

CHAPTER 37

The article came out and sensationalized the paranormal community. People believed what they wanted to believe. Some thought it was a greatly exaggerated story about a bunch of teenagers who got together to be wild in cemeteries. Others thought the government was putting its nose where it didn't belong, endangering the new generation of kids.

Still others thought the drug cocktail gave humanity a key to power that came with a huge price tag.

Having survived the last few months, I had to agree.

Summer rolled out like a great sea of time before us. I had an awesome girlfriend, a terrific dog, and my best friends, the Js.

Life is good.

But in the quiet dark of my room, questions pressed at me before sleep took hold. Where was Parker? What had they been planning for me? What
had
caused the electrical problem that ultimately saved us? Were we finished? That little voice in my head didn't think so.

A few days later, Jonesy asked if we could go raise some zombies. I told him no. I was zombied out.

But someday, that would change...
sooner
rather than later.

THE END

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THE PEARL SAVAGE

A Savage Series Novel

Book 1

New York Times
Bestselling Author

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2010-11 Tamara Rose Blodgett

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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Prologue

1890

Samuel lay on his back, gasping for air like a fish out of the sea. They had done all they could. Now the burden rested with their descendants. His gaze lingered on the house he loved, covered in ash, the sun no longer a bright orb in the sky, but shrouded in gray. A hush fell over the pewter wasteland. Cold seeped into his marrow inch by insidious inch. Many would enter the spheres constructed by the Guardians. Their saviors spoke of selective population, which rang false to Samuel, or true, as the case might be. His grandchildren were safe and beyond the pale of this time, this world he was leaving.

He let his head roll limply on its side, where his gaze captured Mae, also prone with a strange contraption with hand-hammered copper and a complex, inky black netting covering the greater part of her nose and mouth. Leather straps braided and wrapped her skull, pushing strands of hair around like lost silver. She made odd, whistling noises as she breathed.

“Samuel, wear it.” Mae’s voice was distorted as she lifted the matching mask the Guardians had fashioned in the preceding months.

“No, Mae. I wish to enjoy this fore-night without the chains of their advances.”

Samuel knew his stubbornness would cost him his life. The Guardians, who were equal part savior and bearer of terrible news, had made concessions for the elders. But those who survived would be the strongest, most virile, agile, and smartest among them. Samuel and Mae both understood at their advanced age of sixty and one years that they would be excluded from the mercies of the sphere.

With blurred vision, Samuel saw a familiar figure approach.

“Father! Why do you not take rest in your own bed?” Stella’s comely face was a salve in his approaching death. Her wool skirts swirled as she knelt and set an illuminated candle, hissing steam from its seams, beside him.

Raising his hand, he cupped the loveliness of her face, knowing the time had come for her to enter the sphere the Guardians had constructed for the
select.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Papa, the Guardians have told you that you might survive... All is not lost.”

Samuel put a finger to her lips. “Silence now, child. This is your place now. Do not forget the things you have been taught. Take this, Dear Heart. Hold it safe to your breast. Guard it. It is our history.” Samuel handed her a slim leather book bound with a black silk tie.

Stella pressed it to her chest, tears overflowing down unprotected cheeks. Mae's eyes met hers. “Go now, Stella-girl. Take the opportunity you have been given.”

Her knuckles whitened as Stella clutched the book. Misery etched its path on her countenance. “It will never be the same without you both.”

A clear bell-tone pealed, reminding Stella of duty, her duty to leave her parents behind. The knowledge of her future, the safe environment of the sphere, was a burden on her heart.

Stella turned to look at the sphere shimmering in a watery iridescence like a giant cloche. But people were not plants. Their future safekeeping was a promise of a life with a family fractured by separation.

Stella bent to kiss Samuel and Mae goodbye. Gently unwinding the facemask the Guardians had constructed, she placed a kiss, soft as butterfly wings on the woman who had nurtured her. The skin gave way like tissue-thin silk under the pressure of her lips. Turning to her father, she saw his pale blue eyes watering. She cradled his head while she pressed a kiss to his forehead. She lowered his head and took a last lingering look, knowing this was the final time she would view her parents in this realm.

Lifting her skirts, she pivoted away, dropping them as she walked—no,
as she ran
—brushing tears from her cheeks, the book clutched tightly in her other hand, the candle hanging from its copper loop in her squeezed finger. Approaching the doorway to the sphere, she was the last
select
to be ushered inside. Casting one final glance, she saw her parents’ supine forms, their clasped hands held tightly, her mother's mask forgotten beside her.

Stella whirled toward the entrance, losing hold of the book, dropping it on the ash-laden earth. She picked it up, her last gift from Father. Seeing the title, she peered closer:
Asteroid: A History of When the Rocks Fell.

Stella moved forward as the hole closed behind her. A fierce idea bloomed in her consciousness to remember who they had been
.
An indeterminate future stretched before her.

CHAPTER 1

One Hundred Forty Years Later

Clara beheld the shrouded exterior as she did each morning, her hands pressed against the pliable interior of the sphere. Her fingers sank into its surface, stopped before breaching the Outside. The yearning was the same. She wished to experience the Outside
.

Sighing, Clara turned from the misty view outside the molded window. Her petticoats swept together, wrapping her bare legs, as she found the stockings laid out for her on the bed.

Olive knocked on the door. “Mistress, may I enter your chamber?”

“Yes.”

She entered with scads of rich turquoise steam-pressed clothing draped over her arm. Clara hated it, hated it all.

“Princess.” Olive inclined her head.

Clara recognized she was penalizing Olive unfairly. Who truly wished to celebrate her Day of Birth? Utter nonsense.

Olive peered at her Princess from under her lashes. She was a formidable young lady with aquamarine eyes that flashed with energetic temper, deep mahogany hair cascading to her waist—very handsome but uncooperative when it came to dressing.

“Please, Princess, they await your appearance.”

“Does my mother?”

Olive knew that the Queen was deep in her cup, and it was not yet midday. “Our Queen has begun her own celebration.”

No surprise.

Clara’s people wished to see her adorned in her finery (a loathsome pursuit) to be reminded that she was their Princess, the one who saw to their happiness, unlike her mother, the Queen, who failed them at every turn.

Olive interrupted her musings. “My lady, please employ the bedpost.”

Grabbing the stays that bound the corset, Olive took up the slack. Reaching the end, she pulled with all her might. Clara gasped. “Must it be so tight? I cannot breathe properly.”

“It must be hand-span.”

Finally, Olive bent to use the shoe hook on Clara's high heels, each button a luminescent mother-of-pearl.

“Do you not think you are agreeable, mistress?”

Clara gazed at her image. Creamy expanses of pale skin met the weak light from the sphere window climbing up to a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and strange-colored blue eyes, a dark fall of hair that was fiery red in a certain light, brushed her hips where they swelled. Her mother would be pleased, she supposed. But Clara wanted to change into the waistcoat and linen skirt she wore when she visited the oyster fields.

She turned to Olive. “I look comely enough to satisfy the Queen.”

“And Prince Frederick.”

Yes, she must not forget her upcoming nuptials to the Prince. The thought brought a searing tide of resentment, coiling painfully under her breastbone.

Clara sat at the vanity while Olive wove pearls into her hair. A rainbow of shimmering colors winked in the plaiting. “Do you wish to wear it all up, your highness?” She indicated the back of Clara's head.

She wished to not attend her Day of Birth celebration.

“No, Olive, just the forward section... leave the remainder down.”

Olive swept the forward part of Clara's hair off her face in an elaborate coil, twining at the top, back of her head and weaving around it like a crown. Then arranged and rearranged Clara's hair until she was satisfied.

“There. That will do,” she said with satisfaction.

Clara stared at her reflection. He eyes gazed back, huge in her small face. Pearls shimmered in the low light.

She stood, giving Olive a gracious nod. “You are most clever with your ministrations.”

Olive gave Clara a deep curtsey, which she bore as she did her other royal obligations.

Clara wandered over to her window again, pressing her face almost to the sphere barrier, its soft but impenetrable surface her prison.

“Princess?”

“Yes, Olive,” Clara said without turning.

“I implore you. Do not stand so close to the window. You have heard the reports of
savages,
have you not?”

Yes,
she had
. Again Clara thought of how she longed to explore, to see for herself what lay beyond her world, the Kingdom of Ohio.

“Yes, I
have
heard and it aggrieves me mightily. If some have survived the bounds of this place,” Clara stretched out her hand to encompass the sphere, “who are we to feel disinclination? Should we not welcome others?”

“It is not safe, my Princess.”

“And who has such musings?”

“The Record Keeper, my lady.”

Clara's full lips thinned into a line of distaste. She detested the idea that one individual held the history and direction of so many.

“Please... make my excuses for another half hour hence.”

Olive hesitated, thinking of the Queen's displeasure. “Yes, Princess.”

“You are not to be blamed. Tell the Queen that I was obstinate, as is typical.” Clara's mouth curved into a smile. It pleased her that Queen Ada would suffer irritation and keep the dreadful Prince Frederick waiting. A bigger pompous ass the spheres had never seen.

Clara turned to face Outside again. Olive slipped out the door and closed it quietly behind her. Tension slipped out of Clara's shoulders. She felt relieved to own another moment of time before the abhorrent celebration began.

She stood watching the wind (as she had been told that was what it was), caressing the Forest of Trees. As she turned away, she saw movement. She pressed her face to the sphere's interior, her nose pushing in the softness. Outside her window, a great male stood, partially obscured by trees. On his face lay a fierceness. Arrows were slung over a shoulder corded with muscle. He had a bow in one hand and strange clothing covering only part of his body. A shocking expanse of skin showed.

He was fascinating and most assuredly a
savage
.

Without warning, he flew the stand of trees that Clara had been admiring since her childhood, rushing straight for the window she leaned against. Clara clenched her teeth, holding her position, knowing that the sphere was impenetrable, but stale fear flooded her mouth as she watched the huge male advance at an incredible speed. Clara's heart thumped painfully in her chest. When a hair's breadth remained between the sphere and Clara, he stopped.

*

Bracus looked at the female behind the sphere that the Evil Ones had constructed in his grandfather's grandfather's time. He had watched the female for months and had seen her supervising workers in the fields of sea creatures that yielded shimmering jewels.

He also knew she was beautiful. He wanted her.

She was unlike any of the females he had seen
. In his clan, females were rare, highly prized, and safeguarded. His eyes caressed her face, the skin like cream from the cow, her eyes like the sea near his cousin's clan, hair the color of fire burnt down to embers. Bracus looked around warily, knowing he must leave. He was too exposed without the trees at his back. He gave a last look at the female. Her expression seemed indecipherable. He felt
vulnerable that he had revealed himself after his careful months of hiding. Turning, he climbed up the hill toward the stand of trees, his long and powerful strides eating up the ground. Reaching the forest, he looked back at the window where the female watched him. He turned back toward the clan.

*

Clara released the breath she’d been holding, letting it out in a rush. Light-headed, she sat on the fainting couch and put her head between her knees. Between the strange episode with the
savage
and the absurd corset, she could not regain her breath. This is how Olive came upon her when she returned to escort her to the celebration.

Olive rushed to her. “Princess, what ails you?”

Although not her favorite transgression, it was effective, and she lied smoothly to Olive. “I think my stays may need loosening.”

“Oh! For the love of the Guardian! Please... forgive me.” Olive rushed around to loosen the corset, but Clara knew that would just lengthen the horror of the event and incur additional wrath from the Queen.

“Never mind. It matters not, Olive... hand-span it shall be.”

“As you wish, Princess.”

As she walked to the doorway, she turned, giving one look back to the window, where the
savage
had looked at her so intimately. He had been
so
alive, so
vital.
She knew one thing she had seen would distract her during the entire celebration.

The
savage
had gills.

Clara made her way to the door, swinging it open to the hallway which led to the Gathering Room, a place of joy. But not for her... not today.