After Dawn, What Came Next

Native Dawn Series Book 22

After Dawn

What Came Next

Prologue

Twenty-five years is a long time when measured in terms of a human life span. Twenty-five years to a vampire or a wolf is nothing but a drop in a very deep well. Time passed and kept passing. It moved inexorably forward with each swing of the pendulum and the tick of the clock. The town changed with the times. New families set down roots while old ones pulled up stakes and moved on. New houses were built to take the place of outdated homesteads that had stood for generations long since forgotten.

The city much like the town had changed. People hustled and bustled about their daily routines thinking nothing much about the changes going on around them. Such is the way of it for human beings with their limited life spans and the busyness that comes with the work of desperately trying to achieve some measure of immortality in the few short years that are the sum of their lives. Buildings of brick and mortar fell to dust and ruin only to be replaced by glimmering towers of steel and glass stretching high up into the sky. Highways and interstates sprung up and older, slower roadways stretched into the distance traveling to places no one in their haste cared to visit anymore.

Life changed. Technology blazed amazing trails forward always reaching ahead for the future. Pen and paper were novelties of a forgotten era. Everything existed in the surreal world of cyberspace. Money was no longer tangible in coin and dollar. Rather, while real and as important as ever, currency was more of a theory, a concept of cost, receipt for payment, and exchange for services rendered. Commerce took place in the netherworld of the Internet. Anything a person wanted, no matter how trivial or critical it seemed, could arrive neatly packaged in recyclable boxes on a doorstep within hours of a simple point and click selection.

Cars were safer. Travel faster. Houses bigger. Families smaller. Yet, the population flourished in greater numbers than it ever had before. Medical science made amazing advances. There seemed to be nothing that couldn’t be cured by swallowing an innocuous little pill. People lived longer and better lives. Aging and the ailments that came along with it had become a thing of the past. The world was a cleaner, brighter, and safer place. Regrettably, it was also a busier and noisier, and much, much smaller as a consequence.

There were people who remembered the things the rest of the world had seemed to forget in its haste to push forward into the future. Constantly battered, uprooted by the surge, and forced upstream by the relentless flow, the ones who lived through the past and remembered the time before were like rocks in a rushing current.

The compound was full of life and activity. Peace had made the brothers reluctant to recall the times of strife and pain and of blood. They trained to fight an enemy nobody was certain still existed. Black leather gear that hadn’t been worn in decades hung in distant corners of closets growing dusty with the passing of time and soft with age. Nobody wanted to forget the price that was paid for the peace they so enjoyed. But, nobody necessarily wanted to remember it either.

The world was filled with understanding, except for the things it could not accept. Vampires remained hidden from the light of day as they always had, preferring the shadows to the sun. Their secrets were more difficult to protect and the past had a way of finding them no matter how hard they tried to erase it. In this world of progress they were as they had always been, the silent watchers and guardians of the dark.

The clandestine world of the wolf was much as it had always been. Brighter than their dark cousins they walked a dangerous precipice with one foot in the land of the living and one in the mystic universe of the unseen.

Change wasn’t easy for the old ones. Progress was an enticement to the young that had grown up on nothing but stories from a time long since lived. The young were the essence of the current pressing against the solid rock of tradition, trying always to force the rocks upstream.

Chapter 1

Marianne eased a sigh through her pursed lips and tried like hell not to fidget on the stool. Her hair fell in a waterfall of black velvet to pile up on the floor at her feet. Loose tendrils of hair efficiently snipped free by the scissors in Evan’s careful grip tickled the nape of her neck. She rested her palms on her knees and breathed in and out, trying not to think about what was coming with the dawn. She glanced up to meet his guarded expression in the mirror. He smiled at her and bowed his head down to resume his work. Although he tried very hard to hide it from her notice, concern for her flickered in his brown eyes.

The pack had grown substantially from its first few dozen members that had traveled north from the Nevada desert to initially call this place home. In the beginning changes were rapid and not without their share of trials and tribulations. Eloise’s pack had joined theirs, and then Torr’s ragtag pack, and afterwards a myriad trickle of strangers. Lost Children who had finally found their way home.

The times had changed and were still changing. Babies were born and some of those babies had grown up to have children of their own. Underneath this roof they were all still one big happy family. Meal times were the same zoo they had always been with everyone seated around a table as long as a football field and then some. The main house had been added to, floor after floor, room after room, until it grew into a maze of corridors and doorways.

There was still a closeness amongst the pack that screamed of family and tradition. In these wee hours before dawn it was easy for her to imagine her grandfather bedded down deep under the comforters with Eloise at his side. No doubt, he was awake though, doing the same as she and preparing for what was to come with the rising of the sun.

Evan fell into rhythm with the sharp snick of the scissors cutting the glorious mane of his wife’s thick hair. Long strands of hair, dark as a raven’s wings fell to the floor, slick and sleek beneath the soles of his bare feet. He regretted that she had to cut off her hair and regretted even more that he was the one to do it. He understood the necessity of it though and had volunteered to set himself to the task of making her ready. Hair down to her waist was a liability she could not afford. The silky length of it was a weapon that could be used against her. It was better this way, to cut it off and eliminate one potential threat to his wife’s safety. Cut off the advantage of her opponent and give her the best chances at winning that he could.

He had spent the better part of the week studying techniques and styles. Marianne’s hair would stop at the nape of her neck, leaving the slender column exposed and vulnerable. There were all types of styles for women with short hair. He wanted his Mouse to look her best, but after going hand to hand in a fight to the death to win control of the pack from her grandfather. She probably wouldn’t care if he accidentally cut her hair crooked or not. Ultimately, he had settled for a simple cut. A short layered bob that came to a tapered point at the base of her skull.

She looked like a little girl or some sort of a woodland sprite fresh out of a fairy tale instead of an almost forty year-old woman with two kids and a doctorate degree in business administration. Evan shook his head still wondering what kind of rabbit he had pulled out of his hat to talk her into marrying him in the first place. It wasn’t luck he supposed as much as it had been destiny that had landed them in the bonds of marital bliss. Destiny was a strange, strange thing. He had been six years old when he first laid eyes on her. He knew then at such a tender age that this woman, just a girl back then, was going to be his wife, someday.

Destiny had blessed them with two beautiful children. Two girls that looked so much like their mother it made his heart burst with joy. Today, the balance of destiny would be paid in full with blood and pain as the currency.

Marianne tried to think of happier things than the task she was about to set herself to complete. She had known, or been told, that this day would eventually come. If someone had asked her twenty or ten years ago, perhaps even as recent as yesterday, if she was prepared for this day. She would have said yes. Now with the rising of the dawn and the challenge issued. She wasn’t so certain. She did not want to do what she was going to have to do to ensure the future of her pack. She had never wanted to do what destiny planned for her to do.

She had spent the better part of her life, once she had reached the age of true understanding, trying to conjure up a way out of this. Evan with his dreamy visions of distant places and times would simply shrug his shoulders and reassure her that everything would turn out exactly as it was supposed to. Somehow, she wasn’t very comforted by his unwavering faith in fate.

Her grandfather held no grudge against her. He was ok with what was about to happen. Not that his reassurance offered her the least bit of comfort either. He was prepared to do what needed to be done to ensure the future. She was the one balking at the burden heaped on her shoulders. Responsibility was something she was used to. After all, she had grown up believing in her role in the destiny yet to come. Her grandfather raised her for this with the full knowledge of what she would someday have to do. He loved her too much. He had trained her too well. She was ready to take her turn at the helm and steer the pack into a new era. She simply wasn’t ready or willing to kill him in a fight to the death to do it.

At one time in the distant past, her grandfather had been the one sitting in contemplation. Perhaps, trying desperately to wrap his head around killing his father in a battle to the death for control of the pack. He understood his time would eventually come. He had fought many, many times for his title and he had won against every contestant that had attempted to defeat him in the challenge. His day was at hand and the time of his term as pack master was finally over. He had every intention of fighting, but no plans of winning.

She could be wrong about that, but she didn’t think so. Her grandfather was a long ways from being old and decrepit. He could beat her. That was something she didn’t want to think about. What might happen if and the thought of leaving Evan behind with the task of raising their two children. He stood behind her, his eyes flicking between the digital picture on the virtu-pad and her non-existent hair. He made a calculated snip with the point of the scissors and grunted in displeasure. Licking his bottom lip in concentration, he stepped back and then moved forward to clip the hairs at the base of her neck.

Evan had been just another annoying little boy when he had first asked for her hand in marriage at the tender age of six. Sitting here contemplating her future, it was somewhat easier to think back to her past. He still had the same haphazard hair sticking up at crazy angles in unmanageable spikes. He no longer wore footed Spiderman pajamas or sat dazed in front of the TV watching cartoons. Well, sometimes he still watched cartoons, for the sake of the children, of course. He still slurped the milk from the bottom of his cereal bowl and grinned covertly at her knowing how irritating she found the habit simply because he could.

The younger version of herself hadn’t been a picnic. She was sure of that. She had been a very determined and focused little girl. So serious and always looking forward into the distant future that she rarely gave much stock to what was actually going on around her. She was seven years older than Evan. Sometimes it seemed like much more than that and sometimes, it seemed like far less and she was the younger out of the two of them. This morning she felt ancient. The distant future was here and now, and she wished like hell it wasn’t.

“Should I go wake the girls?” Evan asked. Tara and Lizzie were the apples of their mother’s eye. Born barely one year apart the girls were more like twins, carbon copies of each other, than siblings. Mouse and he had wanted children so badly. They tried for years and years before she finally conceived and gave birth to a screaming, red faced, beautiful baby girl. The girls were still so young, in his opinion too young to be raised without their mother.

Of course, there were bits and pieces of him in them too. They had his sense of what he called other, for lack of a better term. They knew things, though not as acutely as he had at that age. Private things no little girl should know. This morning as soon as the sun broke the horizon his daughters would stand at the bluffs and witness things no child should ever see.

Evan was the good cop to Marianne’s bad cop routine when it came to child rearing. He simply didn’t have the heart to tell his daughters no to anything. Perhaps, it was their long dark hair or the pinched expressions on their faces when they contemplated something intense and puzzling that softened him to the point of doting father.

It broke his heart, the foreshadowing of blood and pain his visions showed him. The battle for pack master was a necessary thing and as such unavoidable. His mind’s eye saw the fight in vivid detail. The red of the blood and the purple black of bruises on marred flesh was a horror show constantly replaying over and over again in his head. His visions of the things to come were shrouded in mist. He didn’t know the outcome, only that there would be blood and pain. He didn’t see the shadows of the future beyond the fight because it had not been decided yet. Marianne, sitting so primly and acceptingly on her stool had not completely set her mind to what she was going to do.

“No, let them sleep a while longer,” Marianne answered. The sun had yet to break through the horizon. She saw no harm in letting the girls sleep in as long as possible. They were young, perhaps younger than she when she had first learned of her destiny. At ages seven and eight they loved their mother and father, but they loved their great grandpa Nash too. She had tried to explain it to them. The harshness of the world she had bore them into and in the end hadn’t been able to find the words. Someday, they would understand and they would forgive her for taking their great grandfather away from them. If that’s what this awful destiny she wanted no part of had in store for her.

“Ok.” Evan made a final pass with the comb and the scissors. “All finished.” He stepped back and allowed Marianne time to view his masterpiece. For unskilled hands the haircut hadn’t turned out half bad. It didn’t exactly look like the digital image on his tablet, but it was close enough and he was reasonably pleased with his abilities.

Marianne didn’t bother with studying her reflection. She stared down at the hair and felt a pang of sorrow for cutting it off. Her former waist length glory littered the floor in untidy heaps. Her fingers flexed and curled into fists. She clenched them tightly in her lap to still the trembling. Nodding silently, she lifted her head and searched Evan’s face for answers. He said nothing. His expression was calm, almost placid. There truly was nothing more to say. If he knew what was going to happen today, he kept it to himself and perhaps it was better that way. That she didn’t know the future hinged on the present.

Evan reached out and gathered Mouse into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder, burying her face in the warmth of his sleep rumpled t-shirt. She trembled in his embrace. Scrabbling to find her courage and her focus in the uncertainty of things to come. He said his visions weren’t a certain thing. Sometimes, they weren’t accurate, or so he claimed. She wanted to believe that now more than ever and clung to the cloud of doubt like a life preserver in a turbulent sea.

He knew so much, but nobody could know everything. She thought back to the night they had conceived Tara. He had smiled at and traveled down the length of her spent body to gently, almost reverently, kiss her stomach. He had whispered a name then and grinned his crooked grin up at her. His eyes had glinted with the knowledge of things yet to come. He had named their daughter before she was more than just the tiniest spark of life in her mother’s womb.

The sound of a car idling up the driveway broke them apart. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. The car wasn’t powered by electricity and silent as a whisper in the pre-dawn stillness. She could hear the noisy rattle of a combustion engine and dual exhaust as the driver revved the engine and parked at the mouth of the garage.

The car wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t exactly practical either. The era of petroleum products and fossil fuels had come and gone. Nature and scarcity had forced humanity’s hand. Everything operated on electricity now. Owning and maintaining a classic car was a hobby only for the very rich and the driver of this car certainly wasn’t rich.

Marianne glanced up from the shelter of Evan’s chest. She knew only one kind of machine that was capable of making so much noise. Surely, the car wasn’t still drivable. That old Camaro had to be at the bottom of a scrap heap somewhere. Yet, there was no mistaking the unmistakable roar of a V8 engine. “You called him?”

Evan nodded.

“Why?” Nobody had seen her brother in over twenty-five years. Occasionally, there were video calls or packages sent from Texas. He would randomly and unexpectedly call out of the blue whenever the mood struck him and spend hours chatting with whoever answered the phone. Sometimes, he would answer the phone or return a call whenever someone thought to call him and sometimes, he wouldn’t. There were months at a time when nobody would hear from him at all and then without any provocation, he’d call or drop an e-mail.

There was no bad blood. It was just that sometimes the awkwardness got too much to handle and it was easier to let things go than to try to salvage them. Daniel had left home shortly after his nineteenth birthday and had gone to South Texas to try to make a life for himself in the refuge left behind by Eloise’s pack. He hadn’t returned for a visit and nobody had traveled down to see him either. For all intents and purposes, her brother was a ghost. An empty plate set at the dining room table with the hopes that someday he would return to claim the seat.

Evan shrugged. How was he supposed to answer her question? More importantly, how much did she want him to say? Daniel needed to be here. Marianne needed him here, so did her grandfather, and so did somebody else that had been keeping a promise whispered on a cold December night, long, long ago. “Maybe, he decided it’s time for him to come home. I guess.”

Chapter 2

Fallon spent the night pacing the floors. Even with all the technology in the world people still needed doctors. Thomas had retired and given up his practice, leaving it in her capable hands. She carried the torch within her meager capabilities and did her best to pick up where he had left off. Unlike Thomas, she limited her practice to the more clandestine of the world, to those that dwelled in both myth and shadows, to those like her. She delivered babies, nursed the occasional rare ailment, set broken bones, and doled out gallons and gallons of Nana’s infamous tea in an attempt to fill in the gaps left between science and magic.

She had a medical kit outfitted and ready to go. Nobody was going to die today. She wouldn’t allow it. Marianne was her best friend. Nash had been a surrogate grandfather to her since she was a little girl. She loved them both too much to step aside and watch them bloody one another to the point where only one of them was left standing. She was not going to stand idly by and watch either one of them die for the sake of a barbaric tradition.