Just an Old Legend Ch. 12

They stood before the house on their way to the dock. The day was still bright, but the shadows were now growing long in the afternoon and there was a wall of clouds off to the west.

"I think that we should hurry a little, Lia," he said, "that could be the first of the cold rains that come here in the autumn. I only need to get my clothes and the papers that Elena bought for me from the barn."

He came back from the barn dressed and carrying the rest of his few things. She'd gotten dressed herself in the meantime. "Don't you have anything for the cold?" she asked.

He shook his head, "Let's go now."

The wind picked up even more as they got underway, but once out of the channel and pointed at the town, it helped to speed them on their way. "Don't you want to get a last look at your island?" she shouted over the breeze.

He shook his head as he began to pull the old shotgun shells out of the box to begin tossing them overboard. "No, I've seen enough of it."

Lia watched the deliberate way that he did it. He saved the ones loaded with silver slugs for the last. Reaching for the old scattergun he looked at it and then looked up at her.

"I feel strange throwing this away." he said.

"Why didn't you use it on yourself when you finally had it back?" she asked him.

He smiled and broke open the breech to pull out the two shells there. He handed them over to her as he dropped the shotgun over the side where it was instantly gone from sight on its way down to the deepest part of the lake. She looked at the old shells and noticed the dents in the primers.

They'd been fired but they hadn't gone off.

"I tried all seven of them against my chest yesterday, many times in each barrel. They are too old to work anymore." he said with a shrug.

She stared at him, and thought of kissing the two dud shells for saving his life. She let them go overboard as well.

She shook her head, "And you knew this and yet you played our hunt all day with me, knowing that I might have killed you? My old friend is the bravest man ..."

She pointed to her weapons, "Please throw mine over too, and don't forget the throwing knives. We can't travel with them."

They got to the marina dock and she hustled to get him into her rented van as soon as she could after returning the boat. She twisted the key and set the temperature control as high as it would go and she drove them to a clothing store. The sky was completely overcast now and the gloom of the late afternoon was almost a palpable feeling.

Twenty minutes later, he had his first jacket and Lia was pleased that he'd chosen one like hers. "We still look like a set," she laughed as they trotted through the cold rain.

Nikki noticed a face that he knew in the window of the realty office. He asked Lia to come with him for a moment. He had something to do, he told her.

Stan Beamish smiled as he shook hands. "This is a surprise. I can't believe that you're allowed out on your own." Stan winked.

He introduced the woman there in his office with him as his wife, Maggie. When Beamish had introduced Nikki as the subject of Helen's book, the woman stared and then grinned, "Stan told me that the book was written about the man who came to farm on the island, and what he had become. I loved the book, but of course I never believed it, ... Are you really him? You look so young."

Nikki blushed, "Yes."

It was obvious that Mrs. Beamish didn't believe him, but she was too well-mannered to call him on it.

Nikki struggled for a second, "Stan, I consider you to be my friend. I came to say goodbye. I am leaving. Elena and I are no longer speaking. She is signing her books somewhere and we are not together now for a few weeks. If you see her, please tell her that I wish her only the best, but I cannot act like the pet that she wants me to be anymore."

The old man's face fell a bit as he nodded, "I was a little afraid that it wouldn't last between you. I always asked her where you were whenever I bumped into her around here. She always gave me a reason that sounded like you weren't ready to come over. I had a call from her a few days ago. It sounds to me as though she might not be back for a while now. She asked me to look in on you and close the house up for the winter."

"I understand," Nikki said, "Could you also tell her thanks for me? I am sure that she didn't mean for this to happen, but her book has been sort of a gift to me. Please let me introduce you to my friend, Lia," Nikki said. "We were children together long ago, before this curse on our lives. We are going to be married."

Beamish shook the hand that Lia offered, "We've met, Ion. She came to ask me questions a few days ago. Congratulations! So you're like Ion?"

She nodded, "We were lost to each other from the time that we were twelve or so. His wife bit me even before she came here to bite him. She was my cousin and told me nothing about the man who she would marry until it was done. You know him as Ion, and that is his first name, but he is Nikki to me."

"I read the book that you wrote with Helen and I almost knew that it was him in it. It might surprise you to know how far the book has gone. My old copy was purchased in Bucharest, and I didn't begin to read it until I was in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. I think you should feel a little bit proud of that."

"I do," he laughed, "I'd never have guessed that it would go that far. My other book never made it out of this area. Where are you going now then? This is a bit sudden isn't it?"

"It is sudden, but you only have to understand us, and it might make a little sense," Lia said, "Neither of us was born like this. We began like you. We were friends from the time that we could say our first words. Our mothers used to bathe us together in the same laundry tub. Nikki and I are leaving to go home to the Carpathian Mountains where we were born. We are getting married perhaps sixty-five or seventy years later than we'd ever planned to when we'd first promised ourselves to one another."

She smiled as an idea came to her. "I think that when we get settled, I would like one day to contact you to give you some notes if you ever feel like writing another book. This one would be about us. It is a long sad tale, but I think now that it comes to a happy ending. You could have a follow-on to the first book. Please give me an email address if this interests you. I would hope that if it does, that you might want to write it by yourself. I have also read the book that you wrote about this area's mysteries. I enjoy your writing style better than Helen's."

Stan reached for his stack of business cards and wrote his personal email address on the back of one, "I think that would be an interesting story, Lia. Please write to me at intervals anyway, and I'll let you and Ion know what's going on around here. What do you do there, if I might ask?"

Lia laughed, "I do not think that you really want to know this, but if Nikki calls you his friend, I don't see the harm - especially as you know about us, I mean, what we are."

She glanced at the expression on Mrs. Beamish's face and grinned, "Besides, who would believe what I am about to tell you? There are more of us, Mr. Beamish. For a long time now, we have done things a bit differently. We live among you peacefully, and wish to harm no one. That is how we survive rather than as beasts. In order to do that, we cannot tolerate a werewolf who kills humans for food or out of the madness that besets us in the time after their first change. Those who do are hunted down. We exterminate them ourselves. We cannot allow that behavior if we are to exist with humans. Does that make sense to you? It's not a big stretch if you consider that in your own society you do not allow serial killers either. We know that to humans, we are very hard to kill, so we remove the threat to you ourselves since we have hunters for that purpose."

Maggie looked as though she was about to scoff, but Stan nodded. He could see the sense of it. "And what part do you play in that, Lia?"

"I am one of the huntresses. Over more than fifty years, I have averaged better than two kills per year. I was on my way to four for this year, but I had no proof that the one here was murderous," she indicated Nikki.

"Imagine my joy to find my old friend at last." She smirked, "And try to imagine how it felt to hunt him for a full day to the best of my ability while he had the time of his life turning the tables or just eluding me as though I was an amateur at this."

"That sounds like a hell of a chapter right there, Lia. Please be sure to write to me. I'd love to know more of it."

They wished each other the best after Nikki informed Stan that the old gun and the shells were now where they wouldn't likely cause anyone harm. As soon as they'd gone, Stan began to scribble notes to himself and tried to learn where those mountains might be. He loved the idea that Lia had floated in his mind.

His wife laughed at him for believing a word of it.

Out in the van, Nikki turned to Lia. "Would you really let him write this book?"

Lia shrugged, "I doubt it. I don't think the Federation would be happy to know that a huntress might be in a novel. But if I could think of a way to do it without that part of it, maybe. And anyway, you and I would have to agree, and ... " she threw up her hands in a helpless gesture that made him smile before putting the van into gear.

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"Where are we going now?" He asked Lia as they drove through the rain.

"I thought that you might like something to eat," she said as they pulled into a restaurant lot. She smiled at him, "The choice is yours, Nikki. That one serves what is called 'fast food'. It is designed to be informal, and not really expensive. The food comes quickly, and you can find places from this company all over the world. The other one is more of a regular restaurant. They serve better food, but it takes a little while before it comes to your table. So which one? That one is ground beef, and this one is steak."

He pointed with a smile, and she laughed a little. She was in that lot anyway, so steak it was.

He let her order for him and was pleased with his choice of establishment, since he sat across the table gazing at her in the soft glow of the candles there on the table. He shook his head, "I would have laughed if I'd had the idea this morning that I would be here now with you of all people. My hope to see you again left me a long time ago when I thought that I would be on the island forever. To me, you were gone from the world."

She smiled, "As I had thought you to be. You have to meet my friend, Dacia. You would love her from the first five minutes. She was the one who put the book in my hand. I didn't think it would even be a good book, but as I began to read, I just knew, and so I began to think about how I might find out if anything in it was true. I have to thank Dacia for this - and I think that you do as well. You will meet her soon. Dacia is a bundle of nervous energy like a bouncing top. She can't often sit still, but when it happens, she is so quiet and as thoughtful as a young girl, maybe a little bit vulnerable too."

"Then I have to thank her," he said, "How will we get home?"

"We have to go to the consulate, and from there, we go by airplane. This will be something very new for you. You came here by ship, no?"

He nodded grimly, "Yes. I went by train to Germany, and then by ship. I haven't thought of this in so long. I hung on the rail and was sick most of the way, it seemed. I was far below the deck, but always I had to run to be outside. I could not stand to be in a room that bounced like that for ten days. What is it like, the way that we will go?"

"Less bouncing, and no place to go if you need to be outside. We sit in seats and look out of the window. The world is smaller and far below - if we can even see it through the clouds. You cannot go outside, it flies too fast. If you break the lock and you could open the door, everyone inside would die. There is not enough oxygen that high up. Everything inside would be sucked out, so you will have to sit still and behave yourself, Nikki. If it bothers you, just try to sleep. It takes only seven hours, maybe eight."

"Seven hours, ..." he couldn't believe it.

"Yes," she smiled, "but it is not so easy anymore. We have to be at the place hours before we leave, then we leave the ground, fly across the ocean, and then land again in Bucharest. We will take a car to my home."

She looked thoughtful, "Tonight, I have to make a report that I am bringing you back with me. It will not be a problem. You will be welcomed, but they will want to know how it was that I couldn't catch you."

He smiled, "So? Don't tell them then if it will be trouble."

"I have to tell them," she said, "it won't be trouble, they will only be curious, that's all. And anyway, they are paying for the fare. You will stay with me for a few days. If I must be away for any reason, Dacia will stay with you. And then they will want to meet you. You will go to the school for a while to learn about yourself and how to live today. For this, I think that we can stay together at my home, and if not, then I will stay wherever you are. I will not let us be apart for very long anymore, Nikki. Not now."

He thought about it, "When can we go to our village?"

"We can go to see it if you want to, but winter is coming. I think that we should wait to begin our home in the spring. That way, you can learn all that they can teach you."

"What do I need to learn about me? This sounds strange."

Lia laughed, "We know much more about ourselves now. You need to learn about you, and about me too." She smiled at him mischievously, "Do you know what our babies would be? Tell me then."

She had him there. He didn't know. His answer came out weakly, "Loved and beautiful?"

She gave him the smirk that he'd loved long ago and hadn't seen in so long.

"I understand now," he said a bit sheepishly.

They talked quietly in Romanian all through dinner and then drove to the motel. He sat and watched as she wrote and filed her encoded after-action report. She sat back and waited.

Nikki asked her what she was waiting for.

"My reports got to files, but also, my superior sees them instantly. I know that you do not know about this -- but you will soon. It is early morning now in Romania. If Micha is awake, he will see this and I need him to give me approval to bring you home. I know that he will do that, but I hope that he sends it right away."

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Half a world away, an email server noted the match on the address and miles away from that, a notebook which had been in sleep mode on a small desk in a bedroom awoke.

Micha had been awake for a few minutes already anyway. It was early on a Sunday morning -- far too early. He considered whether he ought to get up now, or sleep for a bit longer. He ran down his list and would have gone back to sleep but for the activity on his computer. There were a very few email addresses that he wanted routed to him at any time, and this had to be one of them. He got up to sit at the end of the bed.

His wife Jenna noted it and sat up as well. For the decisions and actions that her mate had to deal with, she'd learned a long time ago that it paid to know at least something. "What, Micha?"

When he didn't answer right away, she sat up herself and got behind him to rest her head on his shoulder as she hugged him.

He shook his head slowly, "I don't believe it, Jenna. Lia has scored again."

"So?" he felt his mate's smile against his shoulder, "Lia is always scoring. That's why she is the best, no?" She ran her hand over his chest. "Was it someone important that she hunted this time?"

He chuckled, "If this is correct, I think that he is so important that we can't even use the word. She hasn't killed this one and she's bringing him in." He began a reply concerning monthly sales forecasts. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment to be sure that he remembered the key words that he'd need to include.

"She's used a key word here that I've never known her to use before. She's happy."

"What does that mean in your crazy spy-world, Micha?" Jenna asked with a grin, "It all means nothing to me. I am happy all the time, though I'm only a happy wolf-bitch in love with her male and a busy mother to their whelps, all four hundred of them."

He stopped for a second. "Four hundred?"

She sighed, "Alright, eight. But it feels like four hundred most days. What does this mean that she's happy - that she's murderous again? Lia is always at least a little murderous. Does she say now that she's happily murderous or does it mean that she is murderously happy?"

He shrugged, "No, she didn't use it as a key word. She used the key word for 'happy'. It means that she's happy. She says that the one that she was after this time is her childhood friend. Have you ever heard her story? I'll tell it to you sometime when we have too many boxes of tissues around the house. You'll need them then, trust me. She says that she will need some time off very soon. She says that they're getting married."

Jenna's head lifted from his shoulder and popped up so that she could see some of the screen as well, though the coding that they used prevented her from understanding any of it. "Married? Finally a word that I can understand in the mystery world that you share with her."

"It says that she hunted him for a full day on an island and HE caught HER. I need to find out why he's still alive. I need to learn why she failed. Lia has never failed."

He heard Jenna's soft chuckle.

"I see no failure here," she said, "These are things that you should ask me about," she said. "This is nothing mysterious, Micha," she whispered as she stroked his ear in a way that she knew would make him shiver. "It's just what we females do."

Jenna stretched a little to kiss his cheek, "We chase you though you don't know it and then we catch you by letting you think that you have captured us."

She laughed softly, "You do what you need to do, Micha. You sort and sift and think and analyze probabilities all that you need to when they come in. Me? I have my own task ahead of me."

He looked at over his shoulder at her, "What task?"

She slapped his handsome cheek softly, "Idiot. I have a wedding to plan for Lia -- who is so happy. If she wasn't needed all of the time, I would have had her modeling with me before -- but for two things; she would want no part of it, and the expression that she has always worn. She is so beautiful, but her face has always worn a blank inward look, hardly ever smiling, and even then, it was always a restrained smile."

She laughed, "If Lia is happy, Micha, that is something that I must see for myself -- and I want to meet this childhood friend for myself as well. Have you sent your reply yet?"

"Half a moment," he said, completing the code needed to give the huntress authorization to bring the individual to the Kaze. "I'm giving her the authorization that she requires."

He felt her fingers begin to work their subtle magic on his maleness. "Well hurry, my love. I'm giving you all the authorization that you need for what I require right now. We have at least two hours before any of our little ones wake up to whine for their breakfast and I intend to take full advantage of it."

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Back at the motel, Lia's in-box showed the receipt of Micha's reply. She read it and told him that they had permission to go home. Nikki was amazed. She brought his attention to a pair of photos that she'd opened on her laptop's screen.

Ion stared at the corpse caught in the glare of the flash, the subject's final agony immortalized in gory detail. "This was the one who turned Danaya. It was taken about ten days ago less than a minute after I killed him. In werewolf terms, you could think of Danaya as our mother since she bit us. This bag of dung that you're looking at would be our grandfather since he was the one who bit her. He was old, over a hundred and fifty years as a werewolf. There is no telling how many he turned by drunken accident, intentional bitings and bitings while he raped someone, but he killed hundreds of people for food."