The Ancient Breed (46 page)

56

N

ick joined Glenna in the kitchen and wearily sank into one of the hand-carved, ladder-back chairs surrounding a massive, round oak table. He watched her direct fire from her fingertips to the gas stove burners. It was the first time he actually witnessed one of the Duneden witches wielding her magic powers in front of him. Maybe they considered him one of their own, but the idea didn’t warm him. It only raised more self-doubts about his own identity. Who or what was he, anyway?

Glenna turned and studied Nick. “When’s the last time you slept?” she asked, filling a copper teakettle with tap water and placing it on the stove.

Nick smiled wanly. “Two days.”

“Well, I’ve got just the thing for you,” she declared in her motherly tone.

Nick was afraid to ask.

“I’ll brew you a special tea that’ll let you catch up on your two days of insomnia in fifteen minutes.” She pulled a dusky red teabag from a canister and dropped it into an empty cup.

Nick raised his brows apprehensively. “Really?”

She clucked her tongue, as she opened the refrigerator and withdrew a large platter of roast beef.

“One question first.”

“You and your questions,” she exclaimed. “All right, just one, and then you sleep. Agreed?”

“Agreed. How do you know about Neo’s capture before it’s happened?” He slumped back in the austere seat, struggling to keep his eyelids from crashing.

Silence.

“I suppose you knew I was coming here, too, right?” he pressed.

Glenna paused, a large carving knife in her hand. “Of course. Do you think that my crystal ball is some kind of cheap trick?”

Nick chuckled teasingly. “Well . . .”

“Shame on you, Nick Bellamy! This is Duneden, home to real witches, not the scamming carnival variety,” she chided him. “Besides, this was all part of our plan.”

He immediately jumped on that. “
Our
plan?”

Flustered, Glenna began carving the roast beef into sandwich slices. “I meant my plan, of course.
My
plan.”

Nick nodded politely, but he wasn’t buying her cover-up. Her slip of the tongue added another entrée to his jam-packed buffet of unknowns. His mind ached as if it was about to implode.

The teakettle whistled angrily. Glenna swept it off the stove and filled Nick’s cup. Immediately, the teabag dyed the bubbling water a swirling crimson and released a strangely exotic aroma into the kitchen air. She dunked the teabag a few times before tossing it into the open wastebasket and handing the cup to Nick.

“Now you go right upstairs to the guest room – second door on the left at the top of the stairs - and drink your tea. When you’re finished, just lie on the bed, and I’ll wake you in . . .” She glanced at an antique wall clock that had no visible means of power. “Twenty-five minutes. Then you can have a nice, country supper before I enlighten you with a few historical facts that’ll help you solve your case. Now scoot!”

Nick did as he was told. The tea had a pleasant, yet unidentifiable flavor, and he drank it all. Within ten minutes, he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

Twenty minutes later, he awoke refreshed and joined the others downstairs for a veritable feast. Salad. Roast beef and turkey sandwiches. Butter beans. Hominy grits. Sweet potatoes. Freshly baked sourdough bread. A finger pie. A Dutch apple pie. It was obvious that Glenna had used magic to accomplish so much in such a short while, but Nick was too busy enjoying her delicious culinary conjuring to nitpick.

Fritz returned to his robust form after cleaning several loaded plates. Hugo sullenly picked at his supper, visibly upset by Nick’s presence at their family meal; but out of respect for his grandmother, he remained silent.

After dessert, Glenna shooed the men from the kitchen so she could clean up. Nick volunteered his services for the dirty dishes brigade, but she would have none of it. She handed him a strong mug of coffee and directed him to her office at the rear of the extensive Victorian home. He didn’t have long to wait. Glenna appeared minutes later, dressed in a light cotton, black-and-gray-flowered housedress.

“Where’s your wheelchair?” he queried.

“Oh posh, I don’t need that contraption now that I’ve been recharged by the meteor. In a few weeks, maybe. Like I said, I ain’t getting no younger,” she answered.

He watched her search the spacious office. A small, square table sat in the center of the room. Her glimmering crystal ball and pedestal holder rested on a black tablecloth. There were just two chairs – one for her and one for her clients. The remainder of the room was furnished with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, a rolltop desk, a battered black leather sofa, a magazine rack crammed with tattered periodicals, a pair of oak end tables, and a tarnished brass lamp.

“Silly me!” Glenna berated herself. She waddled to the bookcase, and to Nick’s amazement, continued right through it and vanished!

Nick leaped from his chair and carefully inspected the bookcase. It was solid, not a holographic image.
Then where did she go?
he wondered.

Glenna nearly collided with him as she stepped from the bookcase. She hugged a thick, worn leather tome to her chest. The turquoise leather cover was inscribed with unintelligible gilded letters and symbols. She blew away a thick layer of dust and delicately placed the volume beside her crystal ball.

Nick sat like a dutiful client. “So, where’d you go behind the bookcase?” he asked. His curiosity was aroused.

“My library,” she replied matter-of-factly as she sat across from him.

Nick glanced at the bookcase again. “Are we going to play twenty questions, or are you going to give me a complete answer?” he asked.

“Don’t give me the third degree, Mister FBI Man,” she huffed.

“Sorry. It’s just that it’s bugging the hell out of me.”

She softened a bit. “Okay. My private library is on the other side.”

“In the next dimension?” he ventured.

“Bingo, you win the prize, Nick Bellamy. Now, can we get on with this?”

He nodded. “I’m all ears.”

She cleared a large frog from her throat. “I went and fetched this book because my memory ain’t what it used to be. I can’t leave anything out. It’s too important to our survival.”

“Sounds like I’m in over my head in this.”

“Not for long. But after you have all the facts, it’ll be up to you what you do with them.”

“Me? I thought you were calling the shots on this. After all, it’s your plan.”

“I’m glad you’ve been paying attention, Nick, because you’re the key element in that plan.

He stared intently at her. “I thought Neo was.”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

“So how do I fit into all this?”

“You’re the demon slayer.”

His brows arched. “You’re kidding!”

“No. Now pay attention.”

Glenna held her right palm above the cover symbol that resembled four wide, vertical bars inside a double-lined trapezoid. The trapezoid suddenly glowed and rose from the leather until it made contact with her hand; then, it promptly disappeared. Glenna opened the mysterious tome to the first page.

She noticed Nick’s amazement. “It’s a magical lock so that no unauthorized beings can read its contents. If someone tries to force the book open, it simply disintegrates. To make sure that doesn’t happen, I store it in my ‘other’ library,” she explained.

“So what’s in the book?”

“This volume charts our history from the first days of our crossing over to Earth’s dimension. I heard that Gabriella described the meteor shower and our earliest days on Earth to you already.”

“You might want to cover it one more time to make sure she didn’t leave anything out.”

“I can do that. Then I’ll tell you about the incidents that relate to our current problems.”

“Thanks.” Nick planned to pay close attention to the historical narrative, since Glenna arbitrarily drafted him to slay a few demons. At the moment, he had no idea how he was going to accomplish that supernatural feat.

“Well then, let’s get started. Over a hundred thousand years ago, a meteor shower struck Kundze and tore the dimensional fabric separating us and Earth’s dimension. Thousands of our ancestors were swept into this dimension and trapped here. Most survived the change of climate, but others died of disease or froze to death. Much of Earth was covered by ice at the time.

“After adapting to their new environment, the survivors went out exploring. They discovered the Neanderthal race that ruled your dimension, but they were light years behind our evolution. Our ancestors tried to live peacefully with them, but the Neanderthals considered us a threat and fought with the Kundzean survivors. It’s recorded that more males than females survived the climate change throughout the years, so some of the Kundzean males bred with Neanderthal women. That was the beginning of the half-breeds – your modern
Homo sapiens
race. Those survivors who decided to maintain their genetic integrity were called purebloods. After many generations, our genes displaced the Neanderthal genes in the half-breeds, and that’s why today’s scientists can’t find the genetic connection between
Homo sapiens
and the Neanderthals.”

Glenna conjured two glasses of ice tea; she quickly gulped hers, while Nick politely sipped his. He was too engrossed in her history lesson to worry about thirst.

She set the sweating glass down and picked up her story.

“I’m sure Gabriella told you that it was many generations later before we learned the rogue meteors that ripped through the energy barrier into this dimension gave purebloods certain abilities. The Neanderthals referred to these abilities as
magic
in their primitive tongue.

“Among other things, one of their new powers enabled them to cross the energy fabric into their home dimension, but unfortunately, none of them could remain there very long before dying. Of course, if a half-breed, or any other earthbound creature, for that matter, somehow managed to cross the barrier, he or
it
would die instantly.” She inexplicably emphasized the word
it.

Nick stiffened. “Then what about Gabriella? She’s been back home
for a year
!” he asked, alarm quickening his speech.

“Don’t fret about, Gabriella,” she replied with a surreptitious grin. “I ‘spect she’ll be just fine, Nick. The elders back home know what they’re doing. Her offense didn’t warrant a death sentence, that’s for sure.”

His body relaxed some. “I hope so.”

She chuckled. “Nick, you’ve got to learn to trust your Aunty Glenna.”

“Right.” Nick smiled to mask his concern. He wasn’t totally sold on Gabriella’s safety. Just the notion that she’d die alone there sickened him.

“Now, back to history.
Pertinent
history.”

Nick found it tough to regain his prior focus when Gabriella was the subject of his thoughts.

Glenna carefully turned the ancient pages past the center sections, stopped, read it silently, and then glanced at Nick.

“About thirty-thousand years ago, a group of pureblood explorers discovered a large, metallic cylinder half-buried in a valley in what we now call Germany. It was about a quarter-mile long and, let’s see, about three hundred feet wide. They observed the object for several weeks from a distance before attempting an investigation. When they finally decided it was safe to venture into the valley, an enormous beast emerged from a camouflaged entrance at the visible end of the cylinder. It was the most savage hunter they had ever experienced.”

Nick leaned so far across the table that his breath fogged the crystal ball. “Did they describe that creature?”

Glenna shook her head at his impatience. “Of course they did! May I continue?”

He fell back into his seat, folded his arms across his chest, and waited.

She cleared a smaller frog from her throat this time. “According to their records, the beast was fifteen feet tall. Thick gray, armored plates protected its massive chest, torso, and legs, which they compared to the legs of the extinct
Tyrannosaurus rex
.”“Jesus!”

Her eyes drifted back to the pages. “The toes were thick and splayed, and ended with . . . scimitar-shaped claws.” She glanced up. “Remember, I’m translating this for you the best I can in modern English.”

“I’ll remember. Please, go on.”

She read more from the ancient text. “Its eyes were elliptical green ice with black pupils, radiating death from its bony sockets. A heavy fold of creased flesh hung between them, giving the beast an even more menacing appearance. Atop its short neck sat an elongated skull, with a pair of brief, pointed horns protruding from a spiny crown. Its nostrils were flat, ears curved to a point, and the jaws were enormous. The mouth was wide and filled with two rows of black, spiky teeth, similar to . . . picket fences.”

Nick started at the mention of the monster’s black teeth. He recalled the Walkingman creature’s teeth. Could the two species be related?

“Its chest and shoulders were massive, the muscular torso narrowed to its broad hips, and the arms were exceptionally long and sinewy, with tripod digits tipped with razor talons.” Glenna paused, massaged her eyes, and continued. “The Neanderthals referred to it as a
Cumalodin
in their primitive language. Loosely translated, according to our ancestors, it means
Devil
.”