Rancor: Vampyre Hunter (Rancor Chronicles) (5 page)

Rancor rubbed the shackles that bound his wrists to his ankles. Thoughts about the week he had spent hanging were no more than a blur, and he wondered how his life could have changed so fast. “Demons? Thoy were ma kinsmen.”

“After te battle, I ’appened upon an infant. I stole ’im. Tat is, I stole ya, and raised ya as one o’ us.”

“Ta learn our weaknesses–ta exact revenge?”

“Ta bring ya power ta our blood-line. What I ’ad noy counted on was ya weakness.”

“Is kindness a weakness? Is mercy a weakness? Is virtue a weakness?”

“It is when ya Alsandair!”

“I was nothing more ta ya?”

“Less, since ya set our prisoners free.”

“I cannoy ’elp it! Dey ’ad done nothing!”

His loud outburst rang throughout the village, but was lost in his father’s ears. Unable to look at him any longer, Ansgar answered, “I amn’t going ta understand ya. Ya could change into te wulf, break ya bonds, kill us all, should ya despise us so. Why would de gods ’ave granted a man like ya such power?”

“Per’aps dey knew I wouldn’t use it. I ask again, what will ya do with me? A man who shall no longer live as you ’ave taught?”

“I shall banish ya. All ya are is a failed trial. Ya noy me son. Ya sword shall stay ’ere, given ta one o’ me flesh. I will give ya a sword crafted by ya kind, per’aps even by ya father. Ya shall be banished for ya mercy.”

“And this time I shall leave. Tis time I shall be free.”

Ansgar laughed. “Free? Ya shall be damned by our memory. Ya shall never know freedom!”

Rellik looked to the heavens, praising God for having it in His will to banish him from the Alsandair. And he begged for it to be in His will for him now to find a place that he could call home. He stared at his wedding band the same way he had stared at his brother over a millennium ago. He closed his eyes, wishing he could find a part of that identity still in him.

Wondering if he could complete his mission without it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Beer. Loud music. Dark rooms. Obnoxious people. This was the part of high school life that Lara was going to miss. With beer in hand, she wove her way through the crowded room. Remind the jocks of what they’ll miss, let the geeks see what they’ll never have. Popularity. Power. Control.

The room spun just enough to make everyone sound interesting, and the bass on the dance music gave the room that special vibe that totally turned her on. Moving through the crowd, she found her way to the couch and sat beside Gord. Lara handed him a beer.

Gord took a swig and leaned in to kiss her. Lara saw they had an audience, mostly the geeks. Lara leaned in to kiss him back and noticed his eyes were rolling into the back of his head.

“How much beer have you had, baby?”

He kept making out, even though his lips were nowhere near her. “I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.”

Lara pushed him off and fixed her blouse. Her heart beat fast and she definitely wasn’t ready to call this a night. One guy, tall, wiry and kinda Bill Gates-looking, stood alone in a corner.
Never had a geek before,
Lara thought and walked over to him.

He pretended not to notice as she stared into his pale face. She took another step closer, then another. He had his hand clenched around the neck of a beer bottle, and as she pressed herself against his chest, she took his hand and brought the bottle to her lips.

“Are you into sharing?”

He didn’t respond. He finally looked at her. His mouth was slightly open, but barely a breath came out. Lara slowly wrapped her lips around his beer bottle. She tipped some into her mouth. Letting his hand free, she said, “C’mon. Let’s take a walk.”

“S-s-s-sure,” he stuttered, wide-eyed.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Len-Lenny.”

Such a geeky name! You were doomed from birth!

Lara took his trembling hand and led him across the crowded floor, and into the backyard. They walked until they were well into the field and the house was no more than a spot of light in the distance.

“Massage my shoulders,” Lara commanded. She sat in the grass.

Lenny came up from behind her and nervously put his hands on her. He started to squeeze, but stopped when Lara cringed.

“Ow! Come on, Lenny! I’m a real girl, not someone you’ve met in a video game! Do it right.”

He started poking with his fingers, but stopped again when Lara twisted away from him. “I can’t believe what a loser you are!”

“I-I-I-I’m s-s-sorry!” Lenny stuttered before he ran back towards the house.

Lara laughed at him, her voice echoing against the starlit sky.

She didn’t even hear the footfalls that approached from behind, each one crunching the long dry grass.

“Follow me, or tonight you will die.” It wasn’t a familiar voice that had spoken. It was deep, raspy and scary as hell. Lara couldn’t move. Footsteps rushed around her until a kid her height, with long dark hair and the most amazing emerald eyes, stood before her. He grabbed her shoulders and asked, “Do you want to live?”

“Yes,” she said as tears ran down her cheeks.

“Then follow me, or you will die!”

Lara pulled free from his grasp. She ran fast as she could toward the house. She did not look back, not even when she heard the sound of metal being pulled from leather. She cried and wailed. A wolf howled, metal clanged against metal, and a scream echoed.

Lara’s shins hit something hard. She flew forward. Her face smashed into the grass. Mud filled her mouth. She must have landed on her nose, as blood ran down her chin. Placing her palms against the ground, she pushed herself up and slowly turned to see what had tripped her.

Lenny, hog-tied with a gag in his mouth, struggled for freedom. His eyes begged her for help, as did his muffled screams. Whoever had caught him had sliced open his arm from the shoulder to the elbow. He was bleeding fast. Whoever had caught him was still out there!

Not so far off in the field, the clang of metal echoed across the prairies.

Lara screamed, turned to run, but her cries of terror were quickly silenced.

For as the Northern Lights flashed streaks of green, blue and pink across the sky, she looked up to meet the face of death.

Alix was dressed in a tight black mini with a red sweater. Her hair was crimped and loose over her shoulders and she wore red lipstick. It was not exactly her usual attire, but Betty had insisted, and Betty seemed to know what boys wanted. As Alix strolled through the crowded room, even over the loud dance beat she heard whispered comments of disdain from girls and appreciation from boys. She stopped when she reached a comfortable spot against the wall.

“See? Toldja you looked hot!” Betty said, as she sidled up to her.

“I do, don’t I?” Alix crinkled her nose and smiled.

Betty laughed and pointed at the couch. “Check it out! Gord’s totally faced AND he’s lost his pants!”

Both Betty and Alix laughed.

“I’m going to get a beer. You want?” Betty asked.

Alix got that look. Her eyes narrowed and she nibbled the inside of her bottom lip.

Betty prodded, “One beer won’t hurt. You are almost eighteen!”

“Okay!” she squealed. Betty looked around and found the keg. Three jocks were manning it. When they saw Betty approach, they poured her a beer.

“Thanks, boys. Got one for my friend?” Betty sang.

They looked at each other. Then one said, “Keg’s dry. And that one’s special for you.”

Betty winked at him before handing it to Alix, who asked, “What about you?”

“Carl must have more in the kitchen. Be right back, baby.”

Alix looked at the people around her as she sipped her foul-tasting beer. They seemed surreal through the smoke-laden air, each one pounding back drink after drink. Everyone was here, the jocks, the drama club, the geeks and–her. Alone, by the wall. Where was Betty and what was taking her so long? Alix started to walk through the crowd, pushing through the drunken revelers, trying to ignore each time someone grabbed her butt. So this was what she’d been missing by not being popular.

Eventually she made it to the kitchen, but when she entered, the whole world stopped. There was Betty, wrapped in an embrace with Carl. Wrapped in an embrace with Carl! Tears quivered on Alix’s eyelids. Dropping her beer, she ran from the room and the house. She ran out the back door, into the darkness.

Alix ran until she stumbled over something wet, sticky and horrible-smelling. The scent overwhelmed her. Falling to her knees, she emptied her stomach. Alix looked down and saw she was crouching in blood. And, as her vision focused to the darkness, she saw the remains of what had to be a corpse.

A voice from behind her spoke: “You need not fear. Your prayers have been answered.”

Alix couldn’t move a muscle. She tried to scream but had no voice. She shivered and again felt nauseated.

The man walked to stand before her, uncaring about what he had stepped into. He was tall, wide and unbelievably muscular. A halberd was strapped to his back. A handgun was holstered to his belt. A machete was sheathed against his chest. He had a short, spiky box-cut. His square jaw was bearded with heavy, thick, black hair. He reached out and caressed her cheek as tears started down them.

“Do you want to save hundreds?” he asked.

“Please don’t hurt me,” was all she could muster.

Then another voice, Rellik’s, from behind, said, “Run to me, Alix, or you will die.”

And she did. Alix ran toward Rellik, who stood against the darkness. The man chased after her, his heavy strides loud against the sod. Rellik reached into his coat and drew a long sword. Its blade was crimson, with black lettering and a hilt shaped into the head of a wolf. As Alix drew near, Rellik grabbed her hand.

When they touched, there was a charge that passed from him to her. The ground itself began to harden and solidify. The air about her froze like black ice. The man who clearly had meant to kill her had disappeared–and so had Rellik.

Alix closed her eyes and screamed in silence. When she opened her eyes again she was in her room, tucked in her bed, gripping her grandmother’s comforter to her neck for security. She held her eyes shut to ward off the darkness, unable to stop her body from shaking as beads of perspiration mixed with the tears that streamed down her puffy cheeks.
Had it been a dream?
Never had a dream been so vivid, nor so real.

She mustered the courage to open her eyes a crack, half-expecting to still be in that field with the giant and Rellik. The wall’s shadowed floral patterns relaxed her. Her room was a sanctuary. She took special comfort in her giant Pooh Bear that sat in the wicker chair, gently showered in moonlight.

Alix released her grip from the comforter. She rolled on her side, feeling around for her Kleenex box. Grasping a tissue, she pulled it to her face, wiping away the tears.

Her clock read 4:00 a.m. When had she come home? What had happened with the crazy, sword-wielding freak? What about Rellik?

Alix rubbed her swollen eyes with clenched fists. Had someone spiked her drink, and she’d just had some psychotic episode? Or had there been a murderous stranger? And what of Rellik and the strange charge that had passed between them?

Then she recalled the boy who had handed Betty the beer and said, “This one’s special for you.”
Bastard!

The only thing she knew for certain was that she wouldn’t fall back asleep tonight. Climbing out from her warm bed, she dragged her blanket to the wicker chair, nestled into Pooh Bear’s lap, and relaxed as its arms embraced her. As she leaned her head against its chest, she stared out her window at the foreboding red moon.

“The Alsandair hated me for the kindness I had shown our enemy, and they also hated my brother for that which he had shown me. It would not have mattered to my clan even if we had gone on every day after that living the evil they worshipped. We were now an abomination, because we were not the same.

“And now I must wonder which the greater deed was: my liberation of our prisoners, or Kendil who had set me free?”

-Wulfsign

C
HAPTER NINE

Day Two was not Alix’s favorite part of the week. Not only did she have Math again, but today she’d have to figure out an excuse for why she had missed class on Friday.
Thank goodness I finished most of the homework, at least,
Alix thought, as she turned back to her locker. Until now she’d all but forgotten the events of the party, especially since news of another wolf attack had overshadowed her drunken blackout.

She grabbed her copy of Hamlet for first-period Lit, and her algebra for second period as she shuddered away horrific thoughts about the attack. She didn’t even notice that her jacket had caught in the locker as she closed the door.

“Hey rude-baby!”

Alix jerked and spun. Her jacket, still caught, forced her to pull back and hit herself against the lockers. The surprise broke her trance and sent her heart racing, but it was only Betty. Betty of the embrace-with-Carl Betty.

Closing her eyes, Alix calmed down and told herself not to show her jealousy.

“Hi.” Freeing her jacket, she tried to regain some composure.

“What happened to you Friday? Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” Betty threw her long, dark hair back.

“I think I blacked out. I thought I was outside. Then, suddenly, I was at home.” She tried to say this as calmly as possible. “You can thank your friends for spiking my beer.”

“There’s no way my friends would spike your beer.” There was a pause. Then Betty sighed and added quickly, “I heard you left because you saw Carl and me in the kitchen.”

Alix felt her face turn warm and hoped she wasn’t going red. “What if I did?”

“We were just goofing around. It wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Whatever,” Alix said, trying not to sound like she cared.

“You worried us, y’know. Lara and Lenny were found dead. Totally ripped apart by a wolf. The ground’s so frozen Carl’s never going to get the blood out of the grass.”

“Lenny and Lara?” This time Alix knew she was turning red. Chills shot through her as she recalled how she’d seen a hog-tied corpse torn to pieces.

“Want better news? Guess who’s asking you to the dance today?”

Alix didn’t answer her because now she was recalling Rellik at the scene. He’d had a sword, and fought some huge guy who also had a sword. Had that been real?

“It’s Carl!” Betty squealed. “Isn’t it sweet? You have Carl, I have Simon.”

“What class do you have first?”

“Psych. Are you even listening to me?”

“Fred’s in your psych class, right?”

“The geek with the A-plus? Why do you talk to him?”

“He’s been my friend since kindergarten. Deliver a message for me, ’kay?”

“I’m not talking to that dork!” Betty turned her back on Alix. “And if you want popularity you won’t, either.”

“C’mon, Betty! Tell him to meet me in the library at lunch.”

“You owe me big time, girl,” Betty said, without even glancing back.

Minutes that day crept by as though Father Time had fallen into a deep slumber. Ten minutes into Math, even after Miss Whelps’s emotionless voice had lulled Alix into near unconsciousness, one disturbing thing stopped her from succumbing to slumber. Lenny really was missing from class. And until today, Lenny had boasted of a perfect attendance record.

“I need a volunteer. Who’ll put number five on the board?” Miss Whelps always sounded like a mare caught in a barbed wire fence when she asked for a volunteer. It was the only time her voice didn’t sound like a droning engine. She scanned the room with eyes as piercing as a raven’s, until they landed on . . . “Simon! Simon, come up here and put number five on the blackboard.”

“I didn’t understand number five.”

“Then do as much as you can!”

Simon looked at Alix and started for the board. When he slapped Carl’s hand on his way, she knew he was up to something but was just glad the teacher hadn’t called her. The only two she couldn’t understand were numbers five and–

“Number six, Miss Conway.”

“I didn’t understand it.”

“Then I better see you in here Thursday morning.”

“I have–home obligations.”

Miss Whelps shook her head. Just as she was about to lace into Alix about priorities, Simon returned to his seat. “I’ll speak with you later, Miss Conway,” the teacher said.

She turned to the board. “Now then–who did number five?”

“That would be me.” Simon couldn’t conceal his smile.

“All you did was write the number five.”

“That’s all I understood, and just so you know, I have football practice Thursday mornings.”

As Miss Whelps preoccupied herself with Simon, a girl beside Alix threw a note on her desk. Large black lettering on the front read: ALIX. She opened the note.

“
Meet me by the dumpster at lunch. It’s important.–Kim Q
.”

Alix folded the note and stuffed it into her binder, glancing at the clock. Another thirty minutes of class remained. She wondered what Kim wanted. Should she bring Carl in case there was trouble?

When at long last the bell rang, Alix hurried to join the mad rush of students. She fought her way against traffic, away from the cafeteria, toward the exit. Once outside, she walked to the dumpster. Kim was waiting.

“Hi, Kim. I got your message. What’s up?” She did her best to sound casual but stayed alert to her surroundings.

Kim sighed and rolled her eyes. “Look, Blondie, I don’t have some posse waiting to kick your ass. But my brother is going to fight Carl today.”

“Oh?”

“I’m making a stand. You can either make one with me, or stay a Barbie doll forever.”

Alix was a little shocked by Kim’s abruptness and didn’t exactly know what to say. She also didn’t know what she could say that would somehow stop Carl from getting into a fight. It wasn’t as though she’d been close friends with him for years. In fact, from what Betty kept reminding her, it was still being decided if she was friends with the two of them at all.

“What are you going to do?” Alix finally asked.

“Embarrass some sense into them.”

Kim stared at Alix. Another long silence ensued until Kim said, “Be a sheep, then,” and stormed off.

Fred, his face buried inside a World War II history book, waited for Alix in the library. He sighed, his thoughts drifting to Betty and away from his book. She’d looked so beautiful when she spoke to him in class today. He couldn’t believe she really
had
spoken to him! He sighed again, and his glasses slipped down the slope of his nose. Catching them with his middle finger, he pushed them snug against his brow and looked up to see Alix.

“Hi,” he said, indicating with a sweep of his hand that she should sit in the chair next to him.

“Hi, Fred. Thanks for meeting me.”

“You look worried. What’s up?”

“I had the oddest thing happen this weekend, and I don’t know what to make of it.”

As Alix unfolded the events of Carl’s party and her blackout, she avoided Fred’s analytical gaze. She picked up a book from the table, flipped through the pages, and though she tried not to, she periodically met his eyes. Fred sat straight up, listened intently, and tried not to look hurt that he hadn’t been invited to the party.

When she finished, Fred just stared at her through his thumbprint-stained glasses. He took them off. After wiping them with his tie, he put them back on and asked, “Is there anything special going on in your personal life? With Carl, perhaps?”

Alix frowned. “Y’know, all you did was smudge your glasses more.”

Taking the glasses from Fred, she cleaned them with a tissue. Quietly she answered, “Nothing’s happening . . . not really. Though I did see him kiss Betty.”

“All right, then.” Fred’s face turned red. “Did you eat anything substantial, or different, before going to bed?”

She gave him back his glasses and shook her head.

“Is there anything going on with school? Home?” He sounded desperate now, searching for a logical explanation.

She suddenly smiled and her face glowed. “Sam’s reopening the store. He’s trying to quit drinking.” Pausing, she added, “But he still came home loaded last night.”

Fred relaxed his thinker pose and slouched in his chair, as if relieved that logic could answer everything.

“Alix, it’s all very simple.” He emphasized his words with chopping movements of his right hand. “Your blackout was a dream. Obviously it’s symbolic of this change in your life, the murdered body being your fear that your father will fail.”

“But Lenny and Lara really were killed.”

Fred’s face drew tight. “A pure coincidence. You probably added the details after you heard about them.” Fred pushed his glasses up his long, thin nose. “Forget about it. You have a wonderful opportunity ahead of you. Don’t let this weird circumstance take that away. Do all you can for your father.”

“Thanks. I guess you’re right.”

“Anything else I can help you with?”

Betty, leaping into the private conversation, slammed a chair between them. She sat in it backwards, completely oblivious that she had interrupted Fred, and stayed silent. By her pursed lips, it was obvious she was holding back some incredible news. She just stared, her eyes wide.

Alix took a discreet gander at Fred before asking Betty what was new. Fred had never spoken of his affection, nor would he ever admit to it. But Alix knew. She also knew he was wasting his time if he thought he could wait until Betty realized the sexiest muscle of all was the one within a man’s head.

Fred tried desperately to remain calm and relaxed, but his face was burning to the point where his nose turned purple. He tapped his foot. He looked into Betty’s eyes, as opposed to most boys, who stared elsewhere.

“What’s the news?” Alix asked, saving Fred from further humiliation.

“Carl and Derrick are ready to fight in Dead Man’s Alcove!”

Betty nearly burst as she sprang from her chair. She pulled Alix’s arm to force her friend to come with her.