The Great Wolf: A Legacy of Kilkenny Novel Book Three (The Legacy of Kilkenny Saga) (17 page)

I lean over and nuzzle her neck in a show of devotion. 
Birds are singing somewhere behind us, and the nocturnal animals are seeking
out their beds for a day of sleep.  This is the meaning of perfection, sharing
the beauty of the world with the person you’re destined to be with.

My pack is getting restless with us exposed out in the
open. 
“Let’s go eat,”
I say, breaking the silence.  We stand together
and lazily walk back to the Inn.

****************

The meeting with Patrick and the necromancer begins in five
minutes.  My dad’s at the door with Brianna at his side.  I’m sure he’s been
chatting her ear off about Oklahoma.  She gives me a sideways grin making my
heart race for a moment.  For two seconds, it was only the two of us exchanging
mental waves of trust and admiration.

We’re quickly brought back to reality when my dad’s
prattling about zombies catches my attention.   Ever since breakfast, dad has
talked nonstop about seeing a real zombie.  He’s always speculating what types
of supernaturals are in the world and has convinced himself zombies are among
them.  He even had a zombie birthday party this year. 

One of the bodies was brought in an hour ago and set in a conference
room we haven’t used.  My mom started wigging out, because at the Indian Reservation,
they have protocol for the dead.  Sapphire agrees with her and says we
shouldn’t disturb the dead without expecting some type of backlash. She’s asked
Dolly to get the witches to place a protection spell on the pack to keep any
residual effects at bay. 

I’m not sure how I feel about what we’re about to do.  Of
course I want to save Oakley and keep Pru from going crazy, but where do we
draw the line?   Resurrecting the dead is a disturbance of God’s will.

We all take a seat and wait for the action to start.  This
is Patrick’s shindig so I decide to sit next to Pru and be a spectator.  Three
Council members enter the room with Patrick and a petite brunette.  She is thirtyish
with long flowing dark hair with a grey streak in her bangs.

“Look at her eyes,”
Brianna says.

She has one blue eye and one brown. 

“
All necromancers have two different colored eyes,”
Pru
tells me.  She’s been anxious to find out who did the killings and get Oakley
out of the Council’s custody.  Her wounds are all healed on the outside, but
her heart is still broken without Oakley. 

“Have you ever known one before?”
I ask Pru.

“I’ve seen one once when I was with my dad.  I didn’t
meet him or anything, I sat in the truck while they talked.”

“Oh, I wonder what he needed one for.  You look a little
pale, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Dolly’s dressed in suit pants and jacket with a dark purple
shirt.  Her fingers glisten with her jewelry, including her wedding ring.  Dolly
rarely wears jewelry because as an alpha’s wife, you have to be ready to shift at
any given moment.  I want her to continue leading our pack when we’re at home. 
I’ll do my alpha duties as needed for the rest of the world, but in our home
she is the Matriarch.  It’s time for her to enjoy life and travel like she’s
been talking about.   We’re all going to feel growing pains for a while.

Thankfully, Dolly agreed to be the liaison for the meeting.

I take Brianna’s hand and lace our fingers together.  She’s
worried about saying her final goodbye to her pack.  We’ve decided to leave
tonight for the sake of Pru and Oakley.  No one has told her about the
agreement we made with Arien.  The longer we withhold the promise, the angrier
she’ll be with us.  It will take Oakley’s touch to calm her down. 

Arien hasn’t bothered us since taking Pru to the hospital. 
Allie called and told me that he’s put a bounty out on Tao.  I’m guessing he’s
out trying to find him.  I thanked Allie for calling and asked her to get up
with me if Arien catches him.

I stand up to do introductions with Patrick.  He tells us the
necromancer’s name is Ziah and she’s originally from Norway.  It takes me a
couple of times to break into her thoughts, but I finally do.  If I didn’t know
better, I’d wager she was trying keep me out.  She keeps thinking about a soup
recipe.  Pru tried to block me out with thoughts of other things at the surface,
it didn’t work.  It was easy to break through by distracting her and causing
her to drop the wall.  Seems as though I’ll need a distraction for Ziah to find
out what she’s hiding.

I take my seat with Brianna and Pru, and watched Patrick
with Ziah.  The Council members are standing with clipboards in their hands. 
One of them is from Germany and he looks like a grunge rocker with his black
hair, facial piercings, and the ever-popular chained wallet.  A woman who’s
with them is so pale it looks like she’s never been in the sun a single day of
her life.  She has pale blond hair that’s cut like Pru’s.  She looks like she’s
fifteen but dresses like she’s six with her green and black thigh high socks
and tutu. 

“Her name is Wisp, she’s fae,”
Pru thinks to me. 

“
Of course she is.”
  The third member of the Council
has movie star looks and he’s possibly forty.  Dolly is standing next to him
and they keep whispering to each other. It’s nice to see her being flirty with
someone.  I’m not going to bother listening in to them to them privacy.  Her
eyes dart over to me, almost instinctively and gives me a knowing nod.

As Patrick blathers about serving the Great Wolf and helping
to free one of our pack members, I sit and concentrate on Ziah.  I don’t need
to listen to my dad’s thoughts to know he’s thinking Patrick is just tooting
his own horn.  Ziah is walking around the body with a smudge stick of sage and
chanting.  It took me a long time to get used to the smell of burning sage.  In
the beginning I thought they were burning pot or something.  Not that any of
them would do drugs but the stuff stinks.  Pru and Dolly burn it when they cast
circles and if we have too much
negative energy. 
She’s all about
serenity
now
and the house gets cleansed.  I halfway think they wish they were
witches.

I don’t know how she’s doing it, but she’s able to chant and
think about the damn soup recipe.  No one loves soup that much.  Not even a
necromancer named Ziah.  Over the last year, I’ve tried to figure out strangers
thought processes.  If I’m in the mall I’ll take a peek into random peoples
thoughts.  It became clear that very few people are focused on one thing.  Most
of the time, people show signs of A D D by their random thoughts.  They’ll look
at a dress and it might remind you to do a load of laundry or pick up the
kids.  Parker is probably our most focused wolf of everyone.  His thoughts are
straight forward, just like him.  This soup thing is starting to piss me off.

I wonder if this guy is going to rise from the dead and be
all rotten corpse-like.  That would be so disgusting.  Dad is the only one in
the room hoping to see this guy rise up.

Ziah nods her head at Patrick and he announces they’re about
to begin.

“Ziah wants complete silence while she raises the victim. 
Please turn off any recording devices and cell phones,” Patrick says to us as
he takes a seat next to Dolly.

MecKenzie lights candles that are suspended from the
ceiling.  The body is on an alter surrounded by candles and fresh cut flowers. 
Everyone clicks off their phones as Ziah walks to the head of the body.  She
places both of her hands on each side of his head without touching him.  The
victim had flaming red hair and freckled covered skin.  He couldn’t have been
much older than me.  I wonder if they embalmed him.  He doesn’t reek of rotten
flesh for someone who’s been dead for close to a week.  Maybe they have a
special supernatural preservative for dead supers.

Ziah begins chanting in another language with pauses of
sharp squeals.  My ears pulsate when she yells out loud.  She’d bring her hands
in front of her in prayer.  Her hands would go up above her head and out to her
sides over and over again.

Pru shifts in the seat next to me. 

Ziah yells out, “WELCOME FRIEND!” 

Pru suddenly slumps over in her seat and Dolly yells out. 
Ziah shushes us.  I put my hand on Pru just as her head lifts up and her eyes
have gone completely white.  Oh HELL NO.

“Silence.  Everything is okay, your friend will return to
normal momentarily,” Ziah demands.

“Everyone, just listen to her.  We’re doing this for
Oakley.”
I tell the pack. What on Earth is going on?  I think to myself.

“Tell us your name,” Ziah says to Pru.

“Joe,” Pru says with an Irish accent.

“Are you one of the men who died this week?”  Ziah walks
closer to us.

“I am.”

“Have you seen any of these people before?”

“Him, he was there,” Pru says and points at me.

As Ziah gets even closer, I notice that both of her eyes
have a reflection of a fire in them.  Instead of Pru, she sees fire.  “Very
good.  Can you tell me who killed you?”  Ziah asks.

“I didn’t see my killer.”

“Okay, I’m sorry we had to ask.  Before we go any further,
Patrick please come and put your hands on this man.”

Patrick gingerly walks over and sets his hand on Joe. 
Within seconds, he lifts his hand and returns to his seat.

“Joe, I have one more question for you.  Where can we find
the man they call Tao?”

Pru’s head tilts back and a crazed demonic laugh erupts from
her mouth.  No freakin wonder that woman didn’t want a recording device used. 
I wonder if my dad is about to crap his pants after seeing this.  I am.  Oakley
would think twice about kissing that mouth if he just witnessed that insanity.

“Even in death, I will not betray Tao.  Be warned, troubled
times will plague the new Great Wolf.”  Pru’s head snapped to face me.

I’m practically nose to nose with demon-eyes Pru and her
rotten dead person breath.  I take in a deep breath, which now I can smell the
rotting flesh.  I really wish she hadn’t just looked at me.  I’m crawling in
bed with my parents tonight.  Great Wolf or not, damn Pru scared the crap out
of me.

Pru’s body goes limp and she falls forward.  I catch her
before she falls all the way out of her chair. 
Please don’t have crazy
eyes,
I think to myself and then realize the pack heard me.

Ziah throws back her head and screams at the top of her
lungs.  I am never using a necromancer again.  Ever. 

Troubled times?  Like we have had a walk in the park?  I
am never watching The Walking Dead with my dad again.

Patrick stands up and asks us all to hold hands.  A current
runs through us as Joe’s memory is shared with us.  It was all very fast, like
a slide show on high speed.  Joe didn’t know the people either, he knew them by
numbers and they only wore masks.  The effort is futile.

I ask Patrick if Dolly and I could visit with him alone for
a few minutes.  Everyone clears the room with the exception of the dead body.

“Thanks for staying.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of
this the other day, why don’t you pull Oakley’s memories?”  I ask.

“I did and it didn’t help.  Whatever was given to him to
make him forget, jumbled his memory.  Trying to pull information from him was
like watching water going down a drain.  His memories literally blended into a
swirling pool.  Dolly’s aren’t much better, but she wasn’t in the area when it
happened.  Whoever did it was fast.  Fast enough to pull something off so
quick.”

Damn.  “Okay, thank you.”

****************

THIRTY MINUTES LATER

The Council members appear after convening for the last half
hour.  They’ve decided to move forward with the case against Oakley.  Pru picks
at her cuticles nervously.

Everyone clears out, leaving Pru and I alone to talk.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I say to her.

“I know.”

She keeps her gaze straight ahead as we sit side by side. 
Her body was rigid as she tried to keep her emotions under control. 

“If I find Shaynie first, I’m not going to let her live. 
She was trouble from the very first time we met.  This is not the end of our
story, they’re not taking Oakley away from me.  Even if I have to run away and
go rogue with him, I will,” she blurts out.

I nod my head.  She would go rogue for him, I have no
doubt.  “I know.  We will get to the bottom of this Pru.”

She opened her mouth to continue; instead she clasped her
hands in her lap.  “Let’s get out of this place.  I want to go home,” she
finally says.

“Okay kid, let’s go.”  We stood up and made our way to our
suitcases.

****************

The farm has always been a place of solace for me and my
wolf.  Now I get the chance to share it with my mate.  It’s been a week and
Brianna is settling in nicely.  She’s been spending time with every member of
the pack to get familiar with all the personalities.  As the female alpha it’s
good for the pack to see she’s trying to know them.   Despite having Violet
with her, she’s bonded with Pru very well.  Marc has been an asset to the
dynamics of the pack.  He’s turned into the Parker of the pack.  The workouts
have been intense since he started leading them.   Parker and Bryon stayed in
Ireland to gather information about Tao and try to find him.

“What has you so deep in thought?” Brianna asks.

I reach my hand out to her, pulling her down on the porch
swing with me.

“Stuff….you know, the usual.  Pru’s been at the safe-house
visiting Oakley all afternoon.  I haven’t heard from Bryon today and that
worries me.”  Her delicate hand feels so small as we lace our hands together.

“It’s nice they’re allowing her to be with him so much.  The
human world would never understand the bond of two werewolves and how our wolf
needs
the other wolf.  We’re going to find Shaynie and Tao.  I forget, did you talk
with Kane?”