Eternity Lost, Chapter 2

Unlike the others, man teeters on the brink between animal unconsciousness and sentient awareness. Whereas they See by their nature, man may choose to See or to Sleep. It is the fact that he can be fooled into choosing the later, that makes him the perfect herd animal.

They do not act on feelings. They believe they do, but the feelings they sense are merely the puppet springs of ideologies deeply implanted. So vicious are most of these ideologies that humans no longer trust their feelings, no longer trust their heart, without knowledge that their connection to that organ has long ago been severed and replaced by sentimental and souless programming.

Chapter 2

         The familiar sights of his living room raced up at Adam like a fist, knocking him off his couche. Lying spread-eagled on the floor his mind struggled to reassemble reality. He remembered his brief canine murder investigation, the barn, and the creature... It didn't take to long to conclude the obvious, that the entire horrific chapter of his life was a dream lived out upon the cushions. Releived but disturbed, Adam walked to the kitchen. On the way he grabbed a notepad, one of many which lay strewn around his house and began scribbling down the event before the dream evaporated from his memory. Never know when something like this might be use...full...
         Adam's notepad dropped, followed by his jaw. The lower half of a very familiar body extended out of his freezer. When the door closed he saw the same face, though now cleaned of gore. She tossed a bag of ice to him which he fumbled to catch. “Put that on your throat.” She walked passed him wearing his clothes.
         “Who...” Adam began hoarsely before following her advice, “what are you?” She didn't answer. Instead she walked into his study and sidled up to the computer. “Why didn't you kill me?”
         Green eyes gazed squarely over the monitor, “I'm not human, Adam, you know that. I only kill what I intend to eat or what's trying to kill me... and I intend to eat. I only choked you to keep you from screaming.”
         “I... wasn't going to scream.”
         “No need to posture, Adam, I only look like one of your females.” Her eyes returned to the screen as her fingers poked at the keys with all the ineptitude of an 18th century farmer.
         “What are you doing?..,” no answer, “I can call the police..,” again no answer, “Why me?..,” still no answer, “Say some...” She stood up and Adam noticed for the first time how she moved, a confident grace devoid of self consciousness. The elegance of her motions was not performed or practiced, but as instinctual and natural as a tabby turning in midair to land on its feet. Simply watching her walk was somehow hypnotic. Before he realized he was staring she was standing at the door.
         “My name is Kim. If you alert any human authorities to my presence here, I'll kill you.” She opened the door but paused when Adam asked, “I thought you didn't kill what you didn't intend to eat?”
         “I never said I wouldn't eat you...”

***

         The line of bikers wound through traffic like a sleek black serpent on spinning wheels. Sunlight sparked upon reflective vizors and polished chrome, engines hummed together, harmonic as a human chorus. When the lead biker pulled onto an overlook the others followed without falter in their fluid trajectory. He pulled off his helmet followed by the woman beside him. Updrafts carried up the mountain by the weather and channeled through the break in the trees brushed the man's brown locks and stroked her silver ones. Below houses and farms sectioned out the green valley into tiny squares like cavities in an insect's hive.
         Both bikers tasted the breeze while the others waited. After they shared a dissapointed look. Meanwhile the last of the riders to pull in had opened a compact computer and was furiously browsing what internet his machine could find in the remote area. The leader gave him a sharp look of disdain.
         “What?....”
         He sighed and cleared his voice with a raking cough before speaking, “what do you expect to find with that machine?”
         The smaller man shrugged, eyes dancing between the screen and his leader, “clues, evidence. When people see something unusual they like to write about it. I'm running a search constricted by address and based on a number of key wor...”
         “You know that's not how we work, Nevon,” the silver hair reminded him, her voice sounding as rusty as her mate's, “let the agency sniff the electric lines. We stick to the wind...” The word caught in her throat as something called her attention to the open sky once more. Leaning upon the rails she thrust her face into the oncoming gusts. Her eyes darted to another rider, a woman who immediately leapt up beside her. “Fresh,” was her only comment after tasting the air. “Fresh and messy,” the silver-hair added. She shared a look with her mate who nodded before she leapt onto her bike.
         Engines instantly roared to life and Nevon fumbled to stow his computer away as the pack began rolling out. Lagging a few embarassing yards behind, he strapped the machine in and cranked the throttle to keep up.

         As at home in the woods as on the road, the pack maneuvered through the trees in a wide search pattern. When the silent signal travelled through their ranks, they gathered upon a hump of leaves. The silver-hair, brushed off the top layer revealing what all knew would be there. A twisted pile of broken bones, canine by the look, jutted up from a shallow burial. She searched through scraps of fur until she found a femur. Smiling she showed the broken bone to the others.
         "Not to many predators in this region who can snap bones for the marrow."
         “I don't get it, though,” said Nevon squeezing in from the rear, “if it was her, why didn't she take more pains to hide the body?”
         A shadow passed over the leader's face, “maybe she want's to be found...”
         “Or maybe she's confident enough that she can dispatch anyone who comes after her as easily as this poor pooch.”
         Some of the others smiled sensing a jest, “well she's never faced one of her own kind before, then.” Neither the leader nor the silver-hair smiled, however, and soon the others looked as grave as they.
         “What?,” Nevon blurted, “What, Nylee?...”
         The silver-hair gave him a sympathetic look, “she isn't one of us, brother. She's much much Older...”

***

         Adam spent the day pacing from one corner of his house to the other. His cycle of anxiety intermittedly broken by flurries of internet searching. He imput everything he could think of, tried different combinations, he even tried searching the phrase 'dog-eater', but the internet, electronic seer though it was, returned with nothing more probable than chubacabra. Adam did not think he was dealing with the nefarious 'goat-sucker' though it did give him the idea to sift through the ranks of the paranormal. He eliminated vampire and werewolf rather quickly, which left Demon looking like a tempting option. Maybe her human body played host for some malign spirit, for she certainly looked human enough beyond her eyes.
         Adam was scimming a document on the mythology surrounding succubi when he heard the door creak open. He killed the page with a swift click and waited. The first thing he noticed was the spot of blood at the corner of her lip, had she been feeding again, and this time on something more sentient than the neighbor's Rotweiller?
         Her eyes passed over Adam without much interest. Still she spoke to him with the most concern he had yet to hear in her voice, “I recommend you leave for a few days... maybe a week.”
         “Why?”
         “They'll be coming,” she said, more to herself than her unwilling host, “and this time they're going to find me.”
         “Who's they?”
         Now she finally looked at him and Adam wondered how anyone, seeing those eyes, could mistake her for a human being. “...I don't know, but I intend to find out. Then I can discover...”
         “...who you are,” Adam couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before; it was so obvious, “you don't know what you are, do you?...” She answered with an ungratifying glance then she headed to the stairs. “Where are you going?”
         “I get groggy after I eat a big meal, don't you,” she replied before vanishing into Adam's own bedroom. Once she closed the door, he opened up the browser again. Perhaps another bout of surfing might take his mind off the creature currently lying in his bed. Looking at the sofware menu, a thought hit him. Superhuman though she was, her computer skills had looked no better than the average grandmother. Did she know about web-histories...? Adam's mouse moved deftly through the interface clicking until the browser's history window popped up. After scrolling past three pages of his own listless paranormal research he saw an unfamiliar government web page. His breath stopped as he selected it and awaited the load. 'What would a dog-eating, man-eating monster be doing searching a government site? Its not like they make menus for cannibals...'

Find Convicted Sex Offenders in Your Region
You Have the Right to Protect Your Family

***

         Niven bent over the carcass, while the others searched and smelt, “I thought you said we'd be looking for animal prey when we started this.”
         “That was the assumption,” Nylee replied, “but they also told us she hunted humans in the past.”
         “So why should she start again?”
         “That's not for us to ascertain, Niven,” the leader answered before his sister could reply, “now go help the others.” Once Niven was gone, he threw a condescending glance at the silver-hair.
         Your parents would have done better to raise you both in the traditional way. Bathing him in human speech and customs has made him weak, dulled his gifts. Its a wonder you grew to have any talent at all.
         Niven has always been different, he has seen more human lives than the rest of us, its no surprise his gifts would be weaker. Still he has... other gifts.
         “Hmph.” I have yet to uncover them.
         You admit failure?
         “...I can smell a cat outside, go see what it knows.” Nylee nodded with mock subservience and left, but even as she passed through the front door her thoughts drifted back,...why not ask one of the others, those not so impeded by upbringing? He replied in neither word nor thought, they both knew the answer.
         Nylee cradled the cat in her arms, a warm purring body gently kneading at her jacket and within a warm soup of simple thoughts and intense emotions. Closing her eyes she saw images pass, uncollated by the concept of time, a jumble of experiences some hazy some sharp. She took note of the sharper ones, in particular the image of a tall redhead. The woman bends down and pets Nylee making sure to massage those cheek-sensors that so few humans know about. Then she stands and puts her first through the door ripping it in half in a single motion. Nylee feels animal fear, not so different from her own brand, and bolts for cover. Through the darkened windows above, shadows pantomime scenes of horrific violence and fresh blood sprays upon the glass.
         The green eyes of the tabby replaced the vision and Nylee found herself back in the present, comfortably lodged in her own body. She put the cat down, giving it a parting stroke before heading back inside.
         It was her.
         You saw her?.. Send it to us..... Not exactly what I was expecting.
         Have the others found anything?
         We have her scent, she'll be ours by sundown.
         “Wait,” Nivon blurted, interupting the soundless discourse. Wild impatient eyes trained on him from all corners of the room, “I... I found something.” They followed him to a computer flanked by leaning towers of pop cans and piles of crumpled wrappers. “There's a reason behind who she kills.”
         What she... “What she kills people because they're messy?”
         “No, sir, look.” Nivon opened up a folder and clicked on one of its ambiguously named files. “I found this folder open when I sat down.”
         “Leave it to Nivon to search a computer instead of looking for.... GAH, that is vile. Half the pack turned away, the rest watched in disgusted awe.
         How can they do that to their young?
         He's human, its no surprise really.
         Backwards, everything is backwards with them.
         “NIVEN!”
         After having killed the program, he selected all the folder's contents and deleted them, scourging the imagry from the harddrive. “Don't you see, she's not just hunting just anyone, she hunts humans she actively despises.”
         “Like the old ones?... She's trying to steer their evolution?”
         The packleader shook his head. “I doubt it's anything that rational with her. The file describes her as ruled by passion alone. I suspect she just doesn't like them.” His eyes met Niven's for the first time not entirely condemning. “This is interesting omega?”
         Excited to be recognized for something other than his ineptitude, Nivon grasped for a scrap of paper covered in his neat hand. “I figure there's only one way she could have found this person. The human government lists their whereabouts for safety purposes. I took the liberty of visiting that site and finding the others in the vicinity.” He passed the paper into his leader's curious hands. “Now we can split up, go to these addresses I found and wait for her to strike, she has to get hungry some ti...” In a flash of feral motion Niven was on the floor with a boot crunching any further words out of his layrnx.
         You forget your place one to many times, omega! came the leaders thoughts laced with so much intensity that not even Niven could fail to read them. Stoked by ancient instinct they burned into his forebrain, your sister is my mate and a valuable member of this unit and for that reason I have allowed your deviance and insubordination. No longer. If you ever again presume authority you do not and never will have I will rip out your throat and leave you to bleed! Do we have an understanding? A spasm of nodding ensued and the Alpha Male raised his boot. He left his scowling mate to tend to her brother's injuries and summoned the Beta with a glance. Transmit these to the Agency, he slipped her the list of addresses Niven had transcribed, explain the situation. To the others he broadcasted, we will follow the scent, we will find the Beast, and we will apprehend her as One.
         As One, eight minds minus two echoed.

***

         Adam allowed what was probably a suicidal compusion carry him upstairs. Though his door posessed a lock, it swung open at a nudge. The stranger lay upon his stripped matress, the liners and sheets having been discarded in a pile alongside. Her long legs catapulted her feet over the edge of the bed where they dangled, toes idly flexing. As Adam watched her sleep, he wondered what she really was and what else one could expect of a world containing the likes of her.
         “What do you want?” The sudden speech petrified the man where he stood, causing his jaw to momentarily sieze.
         “...I just... I... How long must you stay here?”
         She flipped her body to look at the man. Her appraisal found less fear than she expected. “Not long now I suspect.”
         “What are you waiting for?”
         “Like I told you.. answers... Are you sure you don't want to leave?” Kim observed the human's hesitant nod with alien interest. “Why?” Adam fumbled for words, but found nothing to justify the desire. “Its alright,” she said sliding sanguinely off the bed, “I do things for no reason all the time. That's just not the behavior I expect from your species.”
         “We do things without reason...” Adam only realized when he'd finished speaking that he was actually arguing with it. But instead of being annoyed she smiled.
         “Being unaware of the reasons and having none are two very different things.” As she spoke she walked to the window and peaked through the drapes.
         “What's chasing you?...”
         Her eyes lingered long beyond the glass before returning to Adam with an answer. “I've only smelt them.”
         “..What do they smell like?”
          “...dogs...”

***

         The leather clad pack throttled down the gravel line as far as they dared and dismounted. Guns of all shapes slid from cleverly concealed holsters, ammo was loaded and safties were checked. Nylee closed her eyes and sent her calm into the group, careful to strain the emotion of her lingering rage. We circle and converge on the scent, groups of two. She walked to the Alpha knowing the pairs would be mates, but was surprised to hear the thought broadcasted for her benefit, go with the Omega I will take point.
         They made use of the bordering brush to approach undercover, dark clothing blending with shadows, bodies blurred by branches. The scent drifted to them through the weeds, palpable as a slick fog. Its source, a nondescript farmhouse, betrayed nothing of the monster residing behind its paint chipped walls. Motionless by the order of the Alpha and serene by the force of her mate's eros, the whole pack hung on a thought. When that thought was given each unit broke cover to encircle the house, barrels bared and ready to fire. The Alpha alone but pursued by the Beta pair approached the backdoor. He hit it without pause smashing through behind the but of his rifle. Others assaulted windows, crashing through with a flurry of glass and splinters. Niven climbed in behind his sister to see a typical human home containing none of the horror he'd expected but filled with the scent he'd learned to associate with horror. Betas secure the first floor, Niven, Nylee secure the basement, slowly now; Andil, Kara with me, everyone else mark a perimeter.
         As the alpha sprinted to the stairs he afixed his weapon's unique bayonet, a foot long metal rod bristling with electricity. The manual said it could bring down an elephant, he hoped it would slow her down. He turned the corner and thrust it into the space he soon found to be empty. Andil and Kara followed him up the stairs taking aim over and under his shoulders. Wide angle spread when I bring down the door...

         Niven caught her sister when she collapsed. He could hear the screams, the bursts of plasma fire, but could only imagine what his sister, linked to all members of the pack, felt. He watched her jaw lock against the pain and heard her thoughts, they're dead, he's dead. More shouts and shots forced Nylee to her knees as she tried to acsend the stairs. Torn momentarily between two sets of instincts, Niven eventually took up her sister's rifle and charged out to meet the massacre which had disabled her mind. Beyond the door he found one of his packmates suspended by an unforgiving hand, its fingers slowly crushing his neck, “put him down!” Untamed green eyes turned on him. Niven noted the burned remnants of her shirt and the unmarred skin beneath – was there anything he could do?
         “You, there,” the creature spoke, her voice suprisingly civil despite the circumstances, “can you tell me?”
         “...” Niven's finger vibrated overtop his trigger, “...tell you what?”
         “What am I?”
         “You're... you're not human.”
         Her hand flexed snapping her captives neck, “neither are you, humans break easier.” Rage overiding reason, Niven unloaded both rifles, his and his sister's. The target stood unmoving in a storm of plasma. Molten bolts rolled off her like droplets of water, igniting her clothes but leaving her seemingly soft skin untouched. As quick as the same starfire she crossed the span and had Niven by the throat. “Time to elaborate,” she whispered.
         “You...re... an.....

         Another display turned to static. Shadows in the observation room shared their concern through glances darker than the air around. “How can she be so strong and not yet remembered?”
         “Her body is beginning to remember, but her mind is lost in samsara.”
         “We need to capture her before her mind remembers, or kill her.”
         “What good would killing her do?”
         “...Atleast it would buy us time.”
         “There is only one thing to do. To defeat a primordial one must use another primordial.”
         “The only one older is her...”
         “....Velana.”
         “She is more dangerous as the beast.”
         “What about the Avan the one who maimed her, he can be controlled... he has... ethicsss.”
          “If one could call them such...”
          “Find him.” All shadows turned as light flooded the room. Witherered arms rose to shield wrinkled eyes. “And this time make sure he does not just exile the beast, but removes it from the Circle for eternity.”

          The whole livingroom wobbled under the impact, each object splitting into pairs of blurry doppelgangers. When all finally reformed into a single image, Niven was still looking down into those green eyes. His helmet, catapulted by the blow, lay crumpled against the far wall. “What does that mean?” She waited, her grip betraying her imaptience. Niven strained for every drop of air. “You're... like … us.. Only much older...”
         “How old?”
         “...Don't know... thousands... millions... years.” Her fingers momentarily relaxed as the enormity of the numbers permeated her mind. The life she'd lived, the life she remembered was only the most recent line in an age-old drama. But what could live so long... “Your lying nothing could live that long.”
         “...Many... lives...” She waited for more but she'd crushed any other answers out of him. Letting him drop she returned up the stairs through a tunnel of dripping gore.
         “You can come out now,” she said to the quaking bedframe. Slowly and suspiciously like a turtle exiting the shell Adam squeezed out. The bloody scenery sent him immediately into the corner where he spent the next few minutes vomiting and dry heaving. Behind him, Kim waited with surprising patience, her red stained forearms crossed.
         “Did you find out the answers you were looking for?” he finally asked as he wiped the acrid ichre from the corners of his mouth.
         “Not.. exactly...”
         Adam turned eyes suddenly accusing, “did you have to kill them all?”
         He saw an unfamiliar pause in her expression, for once unsure of herself, “they're...not dead?”
         The young man laughed despite himself, his eyes hanging on half a toso still spinning along atop his ceiling fan, “somehow, I doubt they'll survuve.”
         “Trust me,” she said back to her old confidence and abruptly left the room. Adam floundered behind her trying not to trip on any dismembered limbs.
         “Hey! Hey, where are you going?”
         “I don't know.”
         “And you're just gonna leave me in a house full of murdered people?”
         “Yes.”
         “You can't do tha...”
         She turned on him, eyes dangerously lit, “don't ever dictate to me human. If you insist on using your words as other animals use their urine then spray it on your own kind.” Adam stood shaking in his boots as he watched her walk off. For a moment he'd forgotten he was dealing with a monster. “And I told you to leave, didn't I.”

         One advantage of being an apex predator, is that you never needed to pack food. Kim had no posessions either, so after washing herself clean of blood and bits of vitrea, she was ready to leave. However, at the door she realized she'd forgotten something. She turned and felt a soft package collide with her chest. Instinctively she caught it, opening the zipper she saw it was full of clothes. When she looked up she saw the young man trying valiently to avert his eyes.
         “I... forget sometimes,” was the only explanation she could offer.
         Once dressed she made her way out the door where the bodies she'd thrown through the windows still decorated the yard. She felt what she thought must be a wind and then saw it was the human walking past her and toward his car. He opened it with click of a remote, “lets go then.”
         Kim just stared at him. “... I have no intention of mating with a member of your species...”
         “Uhhh that's not why I'm coming.” Kim waited arm's crossed. “Don't you get it, this isn't just your mystery anymore. You're just... the tip of some massive iceberg and I want to be there when you dredge the whole thing up.”
         “You'll likely be dead when I do.”
         “Well if I stay I'll be in jail.”
         Kim considered for a moment, she'd never before travelled with one of them. It seemed as odd as a rancher taking a cow as a companion. Then again, to be comepletely free one must not only demand but give freedom. “...Fine, but you are your responsibility not mine.”
         “Agreed.”
         “And if you ever dictate to me or manipulate me or try any of your fascistic primate behaviors, I'll rip your limbs out of their sockets and let you experience life as a torso.”
         If Adam hadn't spent the last few minutes navigating a house of dismembered body parts he might have taken the threat less seriously. As it was, however...“...Understood.”