Tainted Blood (7 page)

“Heather, what's wrong?” He asked again as he finally got within reach of her. He was tempted to grab her and drag her away from the cliff. In fact the only reason he didn't was because he wasn’t sure his inhuman strength would actually be available for him here and now, not to mention that even if it was, she could change that in a heartbeat. The last thing he needed was to send both of them off the edge.

“Oh, it's you.” She said then turned away from him and began to swing her legs again.

“Heather, what are you doing here? Why are you dressed that way?”

“Hm?” She looked down at her clothes as if seeing the way she looked for the first time. “I'm not sure.”

“Heather just come away from there and let's talk.” Brian held out his hand to her.

“Why? You don't care.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don't care, so why are you bothering?”

“Heather, I care a lot. In fact, I've always cared, even when we were kids.”

She made a giggling sound that was not as pleasant sounding as it should have been. “If you cared, why did you let me go, and why do you continue to harass me every night?”

Why did I let her go? Isn't it obvious?
He thought.
I let her go because I love her. Doesn't she know that?

“Heather, listen. Let's just go and get some coffee somewhere and just talk.”

“Go away!” She shouted at him. “You're not even real! Just go away.” She suddenly started to sob.

Brian stood there confused as he watched her cry. Her shoulder's shook as her dark hair flew about her thanks to the mystic wind of the gorge. What was he supposed to do? How was he to know that he shouldn't have let her go? If she didn't want to go, why did she leave?

“Heather...listen. I only let you go because I thought you wanted to go. I didn't want you to leave.”

She paused in her sobs as he talked. He hoped that he was getting through to her. Still, she didn't turn back to him. “Listen, I'm sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking when I let you go. I was stupid and insensitive. I want you back Heather.”

“You know,” she began slowly. “I really have been trying to forget you. I've even managed to somehow find Chuck here.” She paused for a second. “But each time I think I'm starting to get closure, you show up and reopen the wounds. Brian I can't take this.”

“Heather...I didn't know. I just...I'm sorry.”

She laughed. “You're just a dream. Look at me talking to my dream Brian.” She looked over the precipice peering into the darkness. “I wonder what would happen.”

“Heather, no!” Brian shouted at her. “No, this isn’t the way. I need you Heather. I didn't know how much I needed you until after I lost you.”

Heather leaned back and looked up at his face. “Don't be silly, this is just a dream. Nothing bad’s going to happen.”

“Then why do it?” he countered. Why risk something over nothing?”

Her face softened as he said that, and he could see that her hair began to lighten. Even the color of her clothes began to lighten.

“I don't know.”

“Then come with me. Let me show you that I care, that I'm not just a dream Brian.” He took a step closer, reaching for her. Her eyes suddenly opened wider as she looked at him.

“Brian?” She gasped as if she had seen him for the first time. A sense of relief began to fill him as the gaping wound in the earth began to close and Heathers appearance quickly changed back to her pink shirt and white slacks. “Brian, is it really you?”

A hand made of pure shadow erupted from the almost closed wound in the ground. Its black fingers engulfed the small frame of Heather before Brian could answer her. He watched helplessly as she was jerked from him and down into the disappearing pit. Her scream of his name echoed in his ears as the ground closed around where she had disappeared.

“Heather!” He screamed and jumped to the now solid spot of ground, digging furiously. “What the hell is this? I hate nightmares.
Damn it,
I hate nightmares. They never make any sense!” He shouted to himself. She
had
to be somewhere. He paused and ran dirt-caked hands over his sweaty face. “
Think,
damn it. Alright. I need to calm myself. This is just a
dream
. She's here somewhere, and that was most likely the monster I need to beat to save her. I can't believe it chose
that
moment to interfere.”

Brian backed up and began to survey his surroundings. “There has to be a clue to where I can find her.”

The stripped trees sat silent as he spun around looking for any hint of what he needed to do next. Then the dream was gone. No blinking, no fading away. Just gone. He sat up in his bed, sweat covering his forehead; he could feel his heart pounding. “That wasn't right. It doesn't end like that normally.”

He wasn't sure, but he began to wonder if something was really wrong. He needed to go back and see if he could find her. Not her dream self, but to actually find
her
. He avoided doing that since she left, as he felt that would be going too far, breaching her privacy. Going into her dreams was one thing. Spying on her real life was something different. He had to draw the line somewhere.

The problem was would she understand if she found out? He hesitated, arguing with himself.
Maybe she just woke up. I mean, after all, I can still feel her out there. How bad can it be?
The need to dream-walk to her was overwhelming. His pulse was racing, and he was still sweating. However the dream came to an end, it didn't feel quite natural. Would it really hurt to just see if she was alright? She wouldn't know, after all...

He thought about it a bit longer, until he noticed what time it was. The fact that it was only 3:24 in the morning created a sense of urgency in him, there was no way she should have woken up yet.

He was going to have to calm down, otherwise he was never going to make the jump.

It took several minutes, but in the end he finally got his fear under control.
What am I doing?
He thought,
I'm seriously over-reacting. You wake up early from nightmares all the time. I guess that dream just got to me as much as her. After all she's still there, I can feel her.

He smiled and shook his head as he sat back on his bed, now feeling much calmer. “That was one
weird
dream” He said to no one in particular still chucking.

Then it died, so quickly and suddenly that he almost thought he still felt it there. The bond that always connected him to Heather, snapped.

There was less than an hour left before the sun would be rising. Brian had been out walking any dark back street he could for a little over an hour now. The current one was dirty and covered in what looked like old newspapers. The smell of urine seemed to permeate the entire area. It hadn't been a very productive walk so far. His hopes of drawing out Garn seemed to be fading fast as the night quickly slipped away. If it didn't work, he wasn't sure what to do next. His aunt still had not responded to his emergency call, at least as far as he knew. He would think that she should be able to find him,; after all she was supposed to be some kind of spy.

He had dialed the three digits she had given him expecting the phone to ring. Instead it had just remained silent, like it was still waiting for him to input the final four digits. Just to be safe, he left a message. That Heather was missing, and that he thought the werewolf had taken her. At least that was his hope. He had no other explanation as to what had happened to her. There were not too many possibilities that he could think of.

Either she was behind some sort of weird barrier that didn't allow him to feel her, or...it was almost impossible for him to think it, but he had to. He had to be willing to come to grips with the fact that the werewolf might have done more than just take her away. As far as he knew, only death and that weird barrier he had encountered where the Anunaki had been in the old Warren's place could break the connection he had with her.

“Come on, come on.” He mumbled to himself as he came to a 'Y' in the road. “Where can that monster be?”

He chose to turn down the road to the right. After all, it seemed like the best way to go.

Well, at least he had a hunch it was.

“Damn you, where are you?” If it wanted to kill him, why wasn’t it here yet? Was it really so far off the trail that it couldn't find him? Yet somehow it could find Heather? It just didn't make sense. Somewhere inside of him he could hear a little voice questioning whether the werewolf was really responsible.

He tried to shut that out. It didn't serve any real purpose. After all, who else would have taken her and been able to hide her away? But the little voice would not be silent. It suggested the Anunaki, or even maybe his aunt could have taken her. The damn thing just wouldn't be silent. After all, wouldn't Heather make a good bargaining chip to force him to go after Jason?

Why else hadn't she answered his emergency call?

Around and around he would go with that small voice in his head, to the point that he wondered if he would even hear the werewolf coming over his own mumblings and arguments. He was sure if anyone overheard him, they would think him completely crazy, and maybe he was, after what just happened.

The idea of him ever losing Heather permanently was a maddening thought. An idea he tried desperately to purge from his mind. It refused to go, and nested itself somewhere between madness and sanity, trying to woo him over closer to the darkness that would ensue if he lost his mind. The back road that was not much more than an alleyway ended into a proper road. An empty one, but still a normal one. It looked like he was going to need to head back and try the other turn.

Sighing, he turned to go, just as he thought he saw movement off to his right. He paused and listened for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing unusual came to his ears, so he hazarded a glance in the direction that he thought he heard the sound. Nothing. No animals, no people, nothing.
Great,
he thought.
Now I'm starting to imagine sounds outside my head.
Was he really so desperate to find this beast that he was willing to create phantoms to chase, just to feel like he was doing something to get her back?

Perhaps he needed to go back to his apartment, and wait on his aunt to contact him. The sun was going to be up soon, and even if the werewolf did shape change in the day as well, he doubted he would show himself again. After all, from all accounts he had almost been tagged by the company the last time he showed his face in the daylight. The turn in the road was coming back up. He was going to have to make a decision. Head home and hope to God his aunt wasn't the one who took Heather, or head down to the other side of the 'Y' and hope just maybe, what he was looking for was down there.

He shook his head and almost chuckled to himself.

“Listen to me... I'm just getting desperate now. Hoping deserted streets will somehow lead me to Heather...how sad of me.”

Debris hit the top of a large greenish-blue garbage dumpster, causing Brian to snap out of himself, and send all of his senses on alert. Something was happening. He looked quickly up and down the street, as well as up towards the roof that the debris most likely fell from. Nothing moved to alert him, no sound carried on the wind.

He sniffed the air hoping against hope he might smell something besides the urine that filled the small roadway. Nothing. Not that he ever was much at smelling things out. Still, there was always the chance. The thing in essence was a canine. A giant humanoid one, but a dog nonetheless, and as far as he could always tell in the past, dogs smelled like dogs.

A scratch sound alerted him to movement behind him. It sounded almost like claws on pavement, as he spun around, half crouching, his right hand preparing to reach behind and under his shirt to grasp the knife he had hidden there just in case. The towering figure of a man-shape covered in fur stood in the shadows across from him.

“I could have killed you already.” The wolf spoke with a low growl in his throat. “But then how would you have known why you were dead?”

“I already know why you're hunting me, Dog.” Brian responded. He watched as the werewolf's considerable ears flattened on top of its head.

“You show me far too much disrespect Little One.”

“Why should I show you any respect?” Brian shouted at him “Not after you kidnapped Heather! She did nothing to you.”

“Who?” Garn asked as he stepped further into the alleyway, giving Brian a better look at him. He easily stood seven feet tall, much closer to eight. The gray black fur was well combed, like he had been recently groomed. His humanoid hands ended in sharp claws that were seven or eight inches long. A glance at his feet revealed the same and the reason he had heard his approach.

“Don't lie to me, Garn!”

“You know my name? It seems there has been quite some mischief going on here.”

Mischief? What the hell was he talking about? Did he think he could confuse him? Well it wasn't going to work. He was going to kill the wolf, just like the last one, and before he let it die, he was going to force him to tell him where his girl was.

“Just tell me where you hid her, Assassin, and maybe things won't go so badly for you.”

“You are sadly mistaken, Whelp. The only thing I'm here for is revenge for what you did to my nephew. This is a matter of honor, no one else is involved.”