Artiface of Strength Ch. 13

Her eyes flashed once again, but this time, she was biting back a smile as she snapped, "you just couldn't do it, could you? You'd almost gotten away with it, and then you just had to open your mouth one more time!"

"Yes my darling mate," John said mournfully, "I am male." He was doing his best to feign regret, but he was reasonably certain that she wasn't buying a word of it. So he said, "Would a good morning kiss help at all?" Her smile told him everything that he'd ever needed to know, and the lovers started their day, lying in a morgue, deep in enemy territory, while their people were involved in a war for their very survival, but with that kiss, somehow... they knew everything would work out for the best.

After that kiss, John said, "As much as I'm enjoying seeing you naked, we'd better go see about stealing some clothes and sneaking out of here. We need to find out what's going on, and try to get it stopped before a lot more people end up on these slabs.

As most of the personnel were clustered around television sets watching their commander-in-chief speaking to a nervous nation, they found little trouble in leaving the base. Finding spare air force uniforms in an empty locker room proved to be even easier, and before anyone was the wiser, they were driving through the gate and waving to the distracted gate guard from the window of the official car that they had 'borrowed'. As usual, security was only looking in one direction, they were set up to keep people from getting in to the base, not out of it. In this case, no one really cared if personnel left the base. Getting inside would have been much more difficult, but most of the time, the 'dead' didn't get up, steal a car, and drive away, so they were not set up for that.

John and Beth had intended to go straight to the nearest phone and check in with Jefferson, really they had, but after going through the gate, their initial rush of adrenaline faded and they found that both of them were exhausted and near collapse. Their bodies had evidently used all of their reserves and were now preparing to crash. As John struggled to remain awake behind the wheel, and Beth struggled trying to help him locate one of the last lonely pay-phones in the modern cell phone society, he found himself nodding off. After he'd run their vehicle off the road a few times as he nodded off, the Were reluctantly decided that they'd better pull off the road for a needed nap before they accidentally killed someone.

John managed to pull the vehicle off of the highway and on to a lonely and overgrown farm road in the vast agricultural regions around Sacramento. He wasn't entirely sure where he was, he'd been through the region before, but he'd never had reason to stop in the farm lands. He hoped for the best and prayed that no one would spot the car while he and Beth dozed. Both of them were asleep before he'd set the parking brake.

Several hours later, no one had heard from the sleeping couple, and things had not improved across America. Jefferson's people had contacted the State Department as requested, and they had promptly been connected to Ja-mul. This had calmed the Were significantly, but it had done nothing to calm Reverend Franklin or his followers; nor had any of the militias put their weapons down. Very few of these people were willing to buy into the idea that the President that they hated so deeply could be trusted to deal with the enemies of real Americans like themselves. So things continued to be tense; most of America was terrified, and a smaller portion of it was screaming for vengeance, even though they'd themselves thrown the first punch.

Things didn't improve when the Air Force brass came to retrieve the bodies of John and Beth, finding them to be inconveniently missing, leaving behind only bits of the base metals to show that they'd even been on that slab. Frantic telephone calls ensured...

The White house was notified, and it made an uncharacteristic decision; the executive branch decided to continue telling the truth. They called Ja-mul, and then Jefferson. They owned up to having lost the bodies, and Jefferson exploded, but the Government was adamant that they were innocent of whatever was going on.

Ja-mul had lived his entire life with one item of knowledge that he knew to be absolutely true; the U.S. Government had broken every last treaty that they'd ever signed with his People. They'd taken away the native way of life. They'd stolen their land, and they'd pushed the People to the very brink of extinction...but he knew something else as well, neither John nor Beth was actually dead, and he'd gone out of his way to hide this compelling fact from anyone. But now it was time to play his hand; he picked up the phone and called his grandson.

When William answered his phone, Ja-mul was fully aware that the NSA and a dozen other agencies were listening in, so he spoke in the extinct dialect of the Wampanoag tribe of Tisquantum's birth, telling his grandson to put Tom on the phone. William only understood one single word of what his grandfather was saying, but he did recognize the man's voice, and the one word he understood was 'Tisquantum'; and since the old man had made sure that Will had grown up with stories of the Choctaw code-talkers, he handed the phone to Tom.

Once Tom was on the phone, Ja-mul started his conversation once again, and continuing to speak in the dead tongue, he said, "Alphas John and Beth are not dead. Their bodies merely slept for a while so their spirits could visit Xwun. The white-men have no idea that this is true, and now they believe that someone has stolen their bodies. I'm guessing that the two of them snuck off of the base, and that they are even now sleeping somewhere nearby. They couldn't have gotten far. Find them before anyone else does, and make sure that they are well hidden. Tell no one who isn't in the pack, and that means not even Jefferson. Do you understand me, Tisquantum?"

Everyone in the room saw Tom's face light up as he was getting this news, but no one could understand what had been said, even though most of them could hear Ja-mul clearly. They also heard the respect in Tom's voice as he responded, in English, "I understand and obey you, my Di-yin. Will there be anything else?"

There wasn't, and Tom soon disconnected the phone and handed it back to William. He was still smiling widely, maybe even larger when he saw the shocked faces staring back at him.

Sam said, "What the Hell did he say to you? I mean, 'I understand and obey you, my Di-yin'? Have you lost your fucking mind?"

If anything, Tom's smile grew even larger as he sent a message to the entire pack, "John and Beth are still alive, but we have to go find them where they are sleeping!" Then as the pack was cheering, he added, "and our Di-yin says that we can't tell anyone who isn't pack that either of them are alive... and that means, not even Jefferson! Ja-mul said that he's working a deal."

~~~

Authors Note:

Once again, thank you for reading my story. When I first began posting this, I had no idea how my work would fare here. I had these dark visions of being chased out of Literotica by torch-bearing readers; so I'll admit to being happy that many of you have followed along with my Were, as well as their trusty Di-yin.

As I've posted before, the next chapter, (chapter 14) will be the final chapter in this saga. I hope everyone will be happy with the ending; and that I will be able to resolve all of the loose ends to everyone's satisfaction. If not, feel free to throw fruit at me; I'm pretty good at ducking (and constructive criticism never goes out of style).

I have a few ideas for sequels involving some of these characters, but it isn't anything that I will be writing for a while. I am currently involved in a couple of other projects, and neither of them would be posted under this pen-name, or even in the non-human category.

As always: Characters first, plot second...and then maybe, just maybe, some sex if things work out well. Never do it the other way around!

Thanks again!