The Great Wolf: A Legacy of Kilkenny Novel Book Three (The Legacy of Kilkenny Saga) (21 page)

I walked in and turned the lights
on.  I put the laptop on my bed, took my shoes off and got on the bed, getting
ready to check on Ashley’s Facebook to see what kind of lies she was already
making up.

I had just got on the website when
my cell phone started to ring, scaring me to death.  I had actually changed my
ring-tone that morning and I totally forgot about it.  I looked at the caller
ID to see that it was Justin.

I was kind of curious to know what
he wanted… So I finally picked up the phone, probably right before it was about
to go to voice mail.

“What?”  I said as I answered.

“Kayla, don’t hang up!”

“Fine!  What do you want, Justin?”

“Kay, I made a mistake.  I’m sorry. 
We’re the ones who are perfect together.  Can’t we just get back together?”

Okay, I didn’t see that coming.  I
was tempted to say yes, just to get back at Ashley.  I could always break-up
with him again in a day or so.

I was just about to agree when I
heard the sound of someone sobbing coming from outside of my room.

“Kelly?”  Sometimes, she didn’t
answer, just to get me to call her mom…”Mom?”

Nothing.

“Is everything okay, Kay?  Is that
a yes or no, to my question?” he asked before I even answered whether I was
okay. 
Jerk!

“Justin, I don’t have time for
this, I gotta go,” and I hung-up on him.

I walked to my door and the sobbing
seemed more distant than before.

“Andrew? … Anyone home?”

No answer. 
Great!

It sounded like the sobbing was
coming from downstairs.  I followed the noise, holding my phone and having it
ready to dial 911, even though the smart thing would’ve been to lock myself in
my room and call someone.  I always made fun of scary movies because people
never think things through and make the dumbest choices…funny how that’s just
human nature, and acting on instinct is not always a good thing.

I got downstairs, walked into the
kitchen and saw that the door leading to the basement was open.

“You have got to be kidding me!”

I went to the kitchen counter,
grabbed a knife, and continued to follow the sobbing sound, which was
just…strange.  It was almost as if that sound had a volume switch, going from
extremely high to barely noticeable at times. 

“You know… whoever you are, I
already called the cops, so you might as well show yourself now,” I lied,
hoping that would scare whoever it was.

I opened the door to the basement
all the way, and went down the stairs.

As I got closer, I realized how
familiar that sobbing sounded. 
Okay, so now I’m getting paranoid.

I used the light from my phone to
look inside the basement, but there was nothing…. just that sound.  When I
reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned the basement light on.

The noise was coming from the
closet.  I put my cell phone down, and firmly grabbed the knife with both hands
to stop myself from shaking so much.  I walked toward the closet door.  Freeing
one of my hands from holding the knife, I swung the door open as fast as I
could.

I didn’t know if I felt relieved or
freaked out. 

Sitting all curled up in the corner
there was the lost girl from the museum… Carolyn.

http://www.danielelanzarotta.com

#####

The Deaths of Me

By Cydney Lawson

http://www.cydneylawson.com

There’s nothing
wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.

--Jack E. Leonard

Rory
couldn’t scream anymore if she tried.  She held as still as possible which
wasn’t very. Stop, stop, stop, she silently prayed. The incisions were
everywhere and they were deep.  Every inch of her skin was either bleeding or
covered in blood. 

A nervous,
overly-bronzed young woman rushed in and squatted next to a man who called
himself a doctor. Yes, Rory had seen her plenty of times. She was the appointed
‘nurse’. Tendrils of dark hair had escaped from her white hood. Nervous blue
eyes flitted to Rory’s face as she snapped out, “Are you sure we shouldn’t give
her something for the pain?”

“PLEASE!”
Rory cried out into the chrome room. Her voice was a broken gospel.

The ‘doctor’
glanced over his shoulder at the worried woman and shook his head before making
another incision with a new silver blade down her thigh. Rory choked back her
whimpering gasp. The fluorescent light glint off of the sharp instrument as if
it were mocking her. “No,” he said, and his voice was law. “We can’t chance it.
The Phoenix must remain alert.”

The fear and exhaustion clashed in Rory’s brain, so that the pain was
almost an afterthought. For the third time since being kidnapped, she was going
to die. Rory knew it and still the panic came fresh and tangible. She begged,
bartered, threatened; anything to get the man to stop what he was doing. Humans
weren’t supposed to be this ruthless. They had to know better.

Then it
came. Death for Rory was never swift. Death for Rory came in a torrid cycle of
flames. First, two fiery wings sprouted from her shoulder-blades and yanked up
into the air almost immediately. The flames burned her skin as she flapped her
graceless, wounded wings.  The burning was the only thing that didn’t hurt
anymore. The fire started from her feet and ripped fierce ribbons around her
calves and thighs, shooting up her body and scorching her nerves. All she could
see was red shadow. Her arms shot out streams of fire afterward, nearly setting
the entire room ablaze. But the humans were clever and had learned to use steel
cabinets and counters: nothing flammable.

And at last,
Rory’s hair set itself alight, claiming her soul and her body to ashes, as she
whispered, “Please.”

Hurting people is my business.

--Sugar Ray Robinson

A cold drop of water hit Ivy’s bright red hair with an
audible
plunk
noise. Even a sound as small as that echoed ominously in
the murky, sunless cave. It was hard to believe that somewhere, above the
caverns Ivy was standing in, Atlanta traffic crept, inch by agonizing inch.
Ivy’s black steel-toed boots thundered as she made her way up to the Council.
Her knees did not shake. Her lip did not quiver. And of course, her heart did
not beat. Vampires couldn’t show signs of nervousness, and so Ivy was stoic as
she approached the stone steps. Even though her mouth was dry and her mind was
whirring like a slot machine.

She dared a
quick look at the ceiling. Nothing but hanging stalagmites and shadows. Ivy
thought it was disgusting that Underdwellers like herself had to meet secretly
in the hollowed-out underbelly of the city to avoid the humans when they wanted
to gather in bulk. What could humans
really
do to most Underdwellers? It
was by her own conscience and carefully practiced patience that she didn’t
slaughter at least one pimply pre-teen a day. Humans, for the most part, were
pathetic and—ironically enough—beneath her. They walked around in the sun,
ignorant to what lay just beneath them, waiting.

Snapping herself out of her daily mental loathing, Ivy came upon the
cave’s opening. Suddenly, the room beyond the dank hallway she’d been walking
down swelled out into a grand cavern. Candles hid in the natural nooks and
crannies of the old walls, lending a leering glow to the otherwise gloomy
domain. She would have shuddered if she could have without being noticed.
Though the chamber was at least twenty feet high, her boots ceased to make
sound at all as she approached the lone bench in the room. Behind it were rows
and rows of benches, made for rare occasions when a plethora of Underdwellers
had something urgent to discuss. Ivy stopped walking and stared down at her
feet before stomping. No sound at all.

Ivy hated enchanted rooms.

She looked back up and paced forward, ignoring the eerie stillness of the
chamber. She nearly let out an annoyed hiss as she came upon the dozens of
wooden crosses making up the perimeter of the panel. The simple symbols made
her veins constrict and her mouth dry out. She turned her contemptuous gaze
instead to the Council of the Covenant, and stared each of them down. These
were the people who had demanded her presence, never mind she’d been
vacationing in Prague.

At the far
left there was the robust and friendly Pompeii Leodus, the most well-known
diplomat from the largest pack of werewolves in recorded history. But then, Ivy
thought smugly, when were the lycanthropes ever prone to honesty? The man was
not hairy, and from what Ivy could tell he didn’t stink like many of the dogs
tended to, but it made him no better than the rest. Treaty or no treaty. His
bright eyes were set square in the middle of his face, too close together for
Ivy’s liking. She certainly didn’t trust his slicked-back raven hair.

Then on the
far right there was Queen Cayleigh, a fairy if Ivy had ever seen one. Around
her pointed face, her hair was an auburn mess, intertwined with branches that
seemed to grow directly from the roots. Ivy did not bow to her.

Sure,
now
she was protected by the Treaty of Nature and Dark, but Ivy would never
forget that the Queen had been the last to sign her people into alliance with
all
other Underdwellers. The Queen seemed unusually excited; her eyes were
bright with dark mirth, and Ivy wanted to be the first to smack that
self-righteous grin off of her face. Her kind had taken away the closest thing
she’d ever had to a brother. A debt Ivy would love to repay.

And in the
very middle was Marcus, the leader of the Blue Moon clan. Ivy sighed
internally, visibly relaxing at the sight of him. The Blue Moon vampires were
the Full Moon vampires’ sister clan. Ivy was a Full Moon vampire and had the
tattoo in elf’s blood on her wrists to prove it. Marcus had recruited Ivy into
the Covenant, basically saving her life. His hazel eyes, broad shoulders, and
propensity for laughter were branded in her head and her heart. He was like the
uncle she never had. Finally, she thought as she caught the twinkle in Marcus’
eye, someone with some sense. This meeting was anything but expected, and Ivy
was not a fan of being blind-sided.

Queen
Cayleigh spoke first, and Ivy reluctantly turned her attention to the fairy
monstrosity.

“Ivy Parker,
you have been summoned by the Order of The Covenant—”

“I solemnly
swear and all that crap to protect, serve, kill for the cause of all
Underdwellers and freaks.” Ivy smirked inwardly, keeping her cool on the
outside. She couldn’t hide it; she got her kicks by pressing buttons. After
five-hundred years nothing else was really fun anymore. At the disapproving
look of the Council, she amended the vow, this time reciting it correctly: “I
solemnly swear to uphold the Standards of the Covenant by any means necessary.
May all humans remain under the realm of my protection or may I commit my soul
to eternal torment.”

Marcus
nodded in approval, but his eyes were tight.  Either the crosses were bugging
him as well, or Ivy wasn’t exactly making their clans look too good. 

The queen
piped up once more, her voice drowning in a heavy Irish accent, and Ivy could
barely contain her exasperation. “We apologize for the
precautions
, Miss
Parker.” Her freakish eyes examined the crosses guarding the bench as if to
double-check that they were still there. “But we’ve heard many things about
you.”

“What,
someone told you I was a Christian?” Ivy gestured to the row of crosses. “That
part of the job application is private, your
Majesty
.” 

She knew
exactly what they’d heard. It wasn’t that she was a kill-for-hire and a
ruthless one at that. The Council had been the ones to recruit her, and she
owed them a debt. No, it was more likely that they knew she was beginning to
exhibit signs of light sensitivity recession. She was becoming old enough that
the sun was losing its restraining effects on her. Finally, Ivy would reach a
level of strength that only a few hundred vampires ever had, Marcus included.

She wasn’t
surprised that the queen was especially nervous. But if she thought that Ivy
was going to upset the Council all over again by murdering the queen of the fairies,
she was sorely mistaken.

Queen
Cayleigh’s fingers stretched out over the table in front of her, as if she were
itching to strangle something. Ivy plastered on an innocent smile.  Her fangs
extended slowly, stretching down to her bottom lip. She had always wanted to
taste royalty.

Ivy’s
normally bright green eyes had dulled, due to lack of feeding, but they were no
less menacing as she daringly glared at the queen. The queen was almost
beautiful in a threatening way. Her eyes were wide and completely blackened.
She was thin and regal with an air of amusement that made her victims, or
subjects
,
feel as if they were always the butt of some horrible joke. And as for the
things she referred to as hands, Ivy made a note to watch out for those talons.
But she was more than confident that the odds were in her favor.

Queen Cayleigh flexed her talons and relaxed a bit into her
chair. "You don't intimidate me, little girl. Not in those rags." Ivy
glanced down at her gloomy wardrobe. It was mostly tattered gray and brown
layers which made her look homeless. Except for her boots, those were expensive
steel-toed beauties that she rarely ever took off. She liked the way she
dressed; it helped her blend into the crowd. No matter how starkly it
contrasted with her nearly neon red locks.

Ivy wanted to snap something out at the queen who reminded
her more of a vapid cheerleader than royalty, but Pompeii didn't give her the
chance.

“Ladies,
please. This is a safe-haven for all of us. Do not soil such a bond with
violence,” Pompeii stated in a husky, reasoning voice.