Chapter 7

Chapter 7

They had left before dawn. Traffic to the airport had been minimal which he was grateful for. They had stopped at her motel room so she could pack a few things. He stood guard just to make sure no demons or vamps had been lurking in the hallway. He was glad to have other things on his mind while she showered and changed. It had surprised him that she loaded her body with so many weapons. Mostly knives she kept hidden beneath her clothing. She was definitely no light weight that was for sure.
He thought he’d lost his sense of balance when she reached above her to pull down a bag and her sweet sapphire studded belly button came into view. He moaned and cursed himself seven ways to hell and back. He knew then they needed to get this job done and over with as soon as possible before his reserve vanished completely.
Damn good thing he owned his own private plane cause they were loaded for a fight and would never have made it through all the bells and whistles of the airport security systems.
“Ever flown in a Cessna before?” he asked as they lifted off the runway.
“No.” she stated as she held onto her seat, her knuckles turning white from the tight grip. He noticed her breathing was getting heavier by the minute.
“Just relax. Take a deep breath. In. Out. That’s it. I’m an excellent pilot. Don’t worry. I can thread this baby through the eye of a needle if I have to.”
She nodded her head and tried to calm her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. This was not working. In. Out.
“How many times have you flown?” he asked curiously, banking left and heading southwest.
“This is only my second time in a plane. I do not like flying.”
He noticed she was a little green around the gills or should he say whiskers? He smiled ruefully to himself then looked back at her.
“How can you not like flying? it’s the fastest way to get where you’re going for any given mark.”
“There are other modes of transportation besides flying. You can walk, run, ride a motorized vehicle.”
“Sure if you live in the backwoods, jungle or cave.”
She gave him a look that said he wasn’t far from his mark. Where exactly did she come from? He had never asked her. Guess the time was right.
“So, where do you hail from?”
“Around.”
Jake dipped the plane and she lost all color from her face and she had a death grip on the seat handles.
“Sorry. Air pocket. So where did you say you lived?”
“The string of islands humans equate with what they call The Aleutians.” she said shakily, looking out the side of her window as they climbed higher into the air.
“That’s a little vague don’t you think? Care to elaborate? From what I remember of them they are very inhospitable.”
“Actually that is what we want people to believe. There is an outer barrier that most everyone sees when they come to the island or pass over it, but in actuality, it is very lush and tropical. We don’t like intruders so we keep to ourselves as much as possible. The lest amount of humans that know about us, the lest distortion to our bloodlines will occur.”
Jake noticed she was starting to relax. He just needed to keep her talking.
Old memories came flooding through his mind about bloodlines. His temper started to flare. Calm down, this has nothing to do with you, he reprimanded himself.
“Let me see if I can get my demographics in order here. Your ‘barren’ island is located just southwest of Alaska, right?“
“Yes.“
“Isn’t it part of what is called the Ring of Fire? Loaded with volcanic activity?“
“Yes it is. Because of its location, scientist believe it is part of a major broken bridge landmass that served to join Asia and the Americas together.”
“So which island are you from?”
“Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” She gave him a kind of smirk and relaxed enough to fold her arms over her chest.
He had to smile at her candor. It was very refreshing from what he was use to. But he wasn’t through with the questions just yet.
“So what’s wrong with your bloodlines?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but inside his gut was wrenching uncontrollably.
She looked askance at him and pondered her options. How much should she tell him? Since he was a night stalker she was sure he knew their kind was dying out. Hell, he probably had helped destroy quite a few of them himself. He‘d most likely hunted Alusian‘s many times over the years. No harm in telling him she supposed.
“As you probably already know, our kind has been dying for the past few centuries. Fewer and fewer females are able to breed so there are fewer and fewer births to insure the lineage is passed on.”
“Too much inner breeding?” he asked, his temper just to the temperate point.
“Possibly. We are not sure. Our scientists have not found any clues as to what is damaging our DNA.”
“What about outside influences? Couldn’t you bring someone in and use them for breeding purposes?” He was seething inside and waiting for her answer. What he would do he had no clue, but for some reason, he needed to know her stand on that question.
“Yes, it has been mentioned about our females breeding with others and even though that would greatly increase our numbers it would all but eliminate our lineage. Unless we found a new group of Alusian’s and that is highly unlikely. We are pretty much gathered within the same group of islands although a few bands have broken away.
“That was another reason my brother went looking for the Shan-da artifact. When Tin-nak-qua takes the high priestess, the artifact will ensure that his seed is contained within it and be passed from female to female for generations to come. Insuring a bountiful regeneration of Alusian’s.”
“And do you condone breeding outside your caste?” he asked, all but ignoring her last statement, his breathing becoming too labored for him to speak more than a few words at a time.
“I do not have the luxury of allowing myself to think along those lines.” she stated quietly, looking out the front windshield of the plane.
Interesting answer. He wasn’t sure how to take it. He glanced over in her direction still spitting out questions.
“But if you did allow yourself to think along those lines, how would you vote?”
Serena unfolded her arms and dropped her hands into her lap. She didn’t say anything for a few moments but Jake could tell she was thinking hard about his question. Why did it matter what she thought? There could never be anything between them.
Her voice brought him out of his musings and he glanced in her direction again.
“I suppose, if I cared deeply for the man, no matter who or what he was, then yes, I would procreate with him.” Serena looked directly at Jake and immediately a lump formed in his throat. It became hard for him to swallow as his heart melted a little more toward her.
Ok, so that was a really good answer, he thought, turning away from her and checking the instrument panel just so he could look busy. Those bright green eyes of hers had bored right down to his soul and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“So tell me about yourself Jake.” she said still looking at him.
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, for instance, have you always been an Immortal?”
“Contrary to popular belief, no, I was not born an Immortal. In fact I was about as human as a human could be.”
“What happened?” she asked with interest.
“A little over two thousand years ago, I was a soldier in the Roman Army.” he started.
“I’m thinking you were more than just a soldier.” She eyed him perceptively.
“Yes, actually, I was the Captain of the Royal guard. It was my duty to guard the royal nephew of the emperor. Flavius was sent to see the Oracle at Delphi about an impending battle.”
“Interesting.” she said softly, getting comfortable in the seat. Talking to him like this had relaxed her enough that she no longer feared the mode of transportation that he had decided on.
“Anyway, to make a long story short, I was not a staunch believer in the Oracle. A mistake I have to live with forever. Standing in her holy temple, the very navel of the world, she told me to beware of the moon’s rising and the shadow that would fall upon me. I scoffed at her words and as we were leaving her temple she told me that I would regret my decision. And she was right. I have regretted it for over two thousand years.”
“What happened?”
Jake took a deep breath. He did not really want to relive the horror that came at him that night but felt he should make things clear for her.
“As I slept in my tent and the moon rose above me I awoke with a shadow that covered me. It was a woman that turned to wolf form right before my eyes. She bit me and drew blood. Before I could recover enough to grab my sword to slay the beast she ran from my tent and disappeared in the night.
“The next morning the wound had festered and made me very ill. My men took me to see the Oracle and beg for my life. She turned a serene eye upon me and her words still ring in my ears sometimes.”
“What did she tell you?” Serena was now poised on the edge of her seat looking at him with wide eyes.
“She told me my life was not my own any longer and that I now would be one with the night. For a thousand lifetimes I would roam and the night would bring me naught but loneliness.
“A week later, when I had recovered from my wounds the first stirrings grabbed me and the realization of what I had become dawned on me.”
“You had become an immortal werewolf.” Serena whispered softly.
“Yes. Immortality was something that afflicted the gods not me. It took me a very long time to be able to deal with that and to control my turnings. Now both are just second nature to me.”
“Amazing.” she said reaching out and touching the side of his face. He didn’t pull away from her but he wondered why she had done it.
“I was born who I am. How hard it must have been for you to give up everything that you ever knew and start over as something different altogether.”
“I had no family. They deserted me when I was young and had to fend for myself at an early age. When the transformation started, it wasn’t like I couldn’t be around other people, it’s just that I chose not to. Stories that I’d heard about shape shifters were horrifying at best. Until one night I happened to stumble onto a rogue encampment and they accepted me without hesitation. That was the first time I’d learned what a family unit was made of. I did have to leave my post however. My men feared me and tried many times to kill me, but I always came back. It wasn’t until a thousand years later that I understood what silver was meant for.”
“Is that why you became a Night Stalker? In hopes that by some miracle you could find a cure or-”
“Or kill myself? I can not kill myself and neither can others unless they sever my head from my body and if I let them get that close to me then I deserve to die. I have long since stopped having a death wish and started enjoying what the gods had given me. I no longer blaspheme them or give them any cause to turn their eyes upon me. And yes, I became a Night Stalker because it was good money and I could destroy the evil that goes bump in the night. It was something I was good at and hoped that I could make a small dent in the rising horde of murderers roaming the earth.”
Serena sat back in her chair but said nothing else. This man had aroused something in side of her that she thought had been buried for a very long time and she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not. For what she had been bred for, one did not give rise to human feelings. No, she wasn’t sure she like this new wrinkle in her plan at all.