The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11 Page 22

  “That’s why I love you. Strong as an ox, gentle as a teddy bear.”

  I looked at my beautiful angel. “You are my life,” I said.

  She beamed. Her whole face just lit up when I said that. “You’re mine, Tommy.”

  And then, Maya and I enjoyed ourselves mind, body and soul. There might have been more body than the other two things, but all three entities made an appearance before the night of loving was over.

  Chapter Ten

  Maya and I had had an amazing night together.

  In the morning, I decided to make her breakfast in bed. I just had one problem with that sentiment. I wasn’t that great of a cook. I decided I would hit the local IHOP and grab her some of her favorite chocolate chip pancakes to go. She would know that I didn’t make them, but at least I would give the woman I love her favorite breakfast.

  I grabbed my keys, cell phone and... dammit! There was no wallet. Every time a man leaves the house he needs his trifecta: keys, wallet, and cell phone. Each one was equally as important as the other. I knew those pancakes wouldn’t buy themselves, so I looked everywhere for my wallet.

  I checked in every room, every piece of clothing, and underneath every loose piece of paper. I checked in places where there could be no possible way in hell that my wallet could have been. Something very strange happened. It was as if somehow my wallet had hopped out of my pants and had a mind of its own and found a place to dwell. Like it was hidden in an alternate universe. I wracked my brain. The last place I had had it was—where?

  This completely dumbfounded me. I thought I was about to lose my mind when I heard a knock on the door. I went over to the front door of my apartment because it was pretty early for anyone to be knocking on my door. I quietly peeked into the peephole. To my surprise, it was Dave from the bar. I was shocked, and then a tad freaked out. I opened the door slowly and said, “Dave, what’s up?”

  “You left your wallet at the bar.” Dave reached into his pocket and pulled out my worn black leather wallet.

  “And here it is...” I said, laughing. “I was getting desperate to find it!”

  “Before I left last night, I saw the wallet on the floor where we were all having drinks. I picked it up and checked to see whose it was. At first, I didn’t recognize the name. Then I remembered Marcos calling you Tommy earlier in the evening. I cracked up when I realized it was yours from your smug picture. I looked at your address on your license, and I noticed I lived ten minutes away from you in Corona.”

  “Corona? That’s further south than me. Is that the only bar of its type in the area?” I asked.

  “And what type would that be?” Dave asked.

  “I wasn’t saying it was a gay bar. I mean it wasn’t... was it?”

  “No, definitely not a gay bar.” Dave shook his head as if he had been asked that question before.

  Dave seemed like a legit fellow and I thought he would be a great guy for me to ask some insider questions. “Hey, do you have a minute?”

  “I’m free for a bit,” Dave replied.

  “Would you like to get some coffee?”

  “Sounds good. Is the little missus asleep?”

  “The ‘girlfriend’ is sound asleep, and the kinds of questions I have are not exactly in the need-to-know category for her. There’s a coffee shop around the corner.”

  So, I left my apartment and locked it up safe. I hopped into Dave’s Mazda and he drove us a total of .2 miles to Che’s coffee shop.

  We parked and headed into the fancy coffee shop. Che’s coffee shop was a typical establishment out here. The owners tried so hard to be cool and hip that they usually missed the mark completely. We both ordered a cappuccino and sat down in the very back, far away from the other patrons so no one could hear our conversation.

  “So, what’s up, Kyro? You do want to be called Kyro, correct?”

  “Yes. For now, that is the name I want to go by when I’m among Carni company.”

  When I said the name Carni, Dave’s eyes lit up and he smiled.

  “Was that your first reach out?” Dave asked.

  “Reach out? Hey man, I didn’t do anything with anyone,” I said jokingly. “I would especially know if I was going around giving reach outs.”

  Dave looked at me as if he wasn’t sure if I was kidding or if I was really that stupid. The funny part was I had no idea what he meant by reach out. So I said, “What exactly is a reach out?”

  “It’s when a newly-made werewolf looks to meet up with his or her own kind for the first time. We gave it a name a while back because everyone does it at some point in their Carni journey. It’s like your coming-out party.”

  “Again, with the gay references. I’m beginning to think Carni and gay are equally exclusive.”

  “We have our gay werewolves as does any subculture, but Carnis tend to attract all types, races, and classes. We’re just as gay as any other group.”

  “Good to know. You never know when you might want to take up a bat for the other team.”

  Again, Dave how no idea of what to make of my humor. I was keeping him rattled and that was the way I liked it. Why I liked it that way? I had no clue. I decided to cut Dave some slack and just answer his damn question. “It was a reach out in the classical sense.”

  “Okay, good. Then I’m glad we talked. It’s kind of my thing to help newbies along.”

  “Can I ask you a question, Dave? Did I have a neon sign on my back that read ‘American Werewolf’?”

  “American Werewolf?” Dave laughed. “No, there was no neon sign.”

  Note to self: American Werewolf is a badass name. I looked across the table at Dave in this suburban coffee shop and asked the obvious question that was on my mind. “How did you know I was a Carni?”

  “It’s not that hard, Kyro. When you have been one as long as I have been, it’s not that hard to do.”

  “As long as you? How old are you?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Dave said.

  “Try me?” I answered, eagerly waiting for his response.

  “Five hundred and five years old.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “I wish I was. But sadly, it is true. I’ve seen it all. I was one of the first back in the day.”

  “One of the first? How did it start?”

  “No one knows for sure, but the consensus is a lot of things went wrong or right at the same moment to create such a species.”

  “So, no one knows for sure. That’s our history? A blank fucking page?”

  “Tommy, our species is young. There aren’t even a thousand of us worldwide. We’re still making our own history. Who knows? You might even become the George Washington of the Carni race?”

  “No thanks, he was a slave owner. I’d much rather be Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Fine, you can be our honest Abe. Right there on the Carni Mount Rushmore will be your grill years from now.”

  I laughed. It actually wasn’t that bad of an idea. I kept studying Dave’s face closely.

  “Why are you looking at me so funny?” Dave asked.

  “I’m just pretty blown away right now. It’s not every day you meet someone who is over 500 years old.”

  “I’m the same as everyone else.”

  “It’s just when you put your pants on, you’re sticking 500-year-old limbs into those pants, one leg at a time.”

  “You never stop, do you?”

  “The problem is when I stop, that is when the world grows cold.”

  “So, you’re ornery for the good of mankind?”

  “I do what I can.” I kept staring at Dave’s face and laughing. “I’m telling you that you look fresh. It’s as if someone just opened you up out of a 21-year-old man package.”

  “I was 21 when I turned. Very good, Kyro. Do you have any other hidden skills?”

  “That’s why I’m here talking to you. I want to know if I do or not... have, as you say, hidden skills. I have a lot of questions about what I have bec
ome.”

  Dave switched gears and became a little more serious. “I bet you do. Imagine how I felt, discovering everything for the first time all by myself.”

  “Tell me everything you’ve learned in 500 years.”

  “I can’t exactly tell you everything off the top of my head. Why don’t you ask me questions and we can go from there?”

  I stared at Dave and my first burning question was the following: “What do I give off that makes it obvious that I am a werewolf?” I asked.

  “It’s not a smell or even an attitude you possess. It’s purely sociological. The bar last night is designed to be pretty uninteresting. So, unless you’re a drunk—and the verdict is still out on that with all the double shots of tequila that you had last night—the only reason like a guy like you would stick around last night with all those dull and uninteresting people was that you were seeking to find some answers.”

  “Well, I guess I gave that off because I didn’t know where to begin and last night was my first reach out.”

  “I know it was. Your cherry was visible a hundred feet across the bar.”

  “My cherry.”

  “Your reach out werewolf cherry, Kyro. Is that too visual for the guy who has made it a point to try to shock me at every turn in this conversation?”

  “Touché, Dave. No one at the table talked about being a werewolf.”

  “What’s there to talk about? Eventually, you run out of things to talk about. It’s like everything else. We don’t need to put you or ourselves on blast volume about it. God only knows who is in the bar at any given moment.”

  “You say ‘we’ as if you’re in on the inside with those guys?”

  “I am. But it isn’t guys. It’s one guy. Marcos is the only person you needed to meet last night.”

  “You’re turning out to be a pretty valuable commodity.”

  “You’re not aware of it, Kyro,” Dave continued. “You came into Daniel’s Den of Lions last night. Everyone who is anyone in the werewolf community was at that big table last night.”

  “But you just said that Marcos was the only important person?”

  “That is exactly my point. The most important person was gushing over you all night. What happened last night was priceless. You couldn’t earn that much Carni equity if you kicked a different Mani’s ass every day of the week for a year.”

  I laughed. “Sounds intriguing. A lone werewolf versus 365 vampires in a year. I’d need a bigger ego for that kind of challenge. And a lot more health insurance.” And boyfriend equity with Maya to pull that one off, without her freaking out on me.

  Dave smiled, as if he had heard my thought. “The boss labeled you a badass. Of course, you will have some haters, but most of us are impressed.”

  “Impressed. There’s nothing to be impressed about.”

  “You’re an MMA fighter. That’s as good as it gets for a Tandra. Now, throw in that you are one of us. A Carni? Well, that is the cat’s meow.”

  “Cat’s meow? You are old school, aren’t you?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s rough. Sayings and slogans come and go, and I remember them all. The other day, I said ‘Where’s the beef?’ in a fast food restaurant and everyone looked at me like I was crazy.”

  “Where’s the what?” I asked.

  “Oh, my God. That was just 1984!” Dave laughed out loud.

  I looked at Dave and I had 101 questions for him. I decided to give him the biggest one first. “Dave, what are the advantages, other than immortality, to being a werewolf?”

  “You’re about 15 percent stronger in your human form.”

  “Fifteen percent,” I asked. “That’s a weird number. Who came up with that?”

  “No one did. It’s more than 10 percent and not quite 20 percent. So, we came up with 15 percent. We didn’t put NASA’s mathematicians to work on the equation. It’s just information we have gathered through our lifetimes.”

  “Are there other things we can do?”

  “What do you want to do?” Dave asked, curious.

  “It just seems that vampires have it extremely good. They turn into birds and can fly. I’d seen some fly even when they aren’t birds. They seem a lot quicker and stronger than we are.”

  “I guess it’s the law of the Triat. Vampires have no part of the day. They can’t function on any level during sunlight. Could you imagine how bad that would suck?”

  “I know firsthand how bad that sucks. I had a good friend who was one.”

  “Was one?”

  “Well, he still is. He went away. He was pretty ostracized by his own kind.”

  “That’s the way they are. They are savages. They call us dogs and beasts, but we are still human except for three nights in a month. Even then, we have no clue what happens to us.”

  “That never changes?” I asked. “I was hoping the more I turn that eventually, I’ll start remembering things that I did on four legs.”

  “You’ll start to remember more things as time goes by. You see things in your human form that remind you of something you experienced as a Carni. That is always evolving. It actually gives me hope that someday we will have cognitive thought.”

  I had more questions for Dave so I threw him another one. “This is my biggest question,” I said. “How come no one knows about us?”

  “Regular folks know about us. Why do you think their folklore is so accurate? They have some facts wrong, but they sure as hell can draw us and even act like us if necessary. Look at Hollywood. They got some of it right, anyway.”

  “Carni are commonly seen?”

  “I wouldn’t say commonly. We only turn at night, so more often than not people think their eyes are just playing games with them. But, they have seen us. Have you noticed that all Bigfoot sightings are in the wilderness?”

  I looked at Dave and had no idea what he meant by that. “What are you saying?”

  “We are Bigfoot,” Dave said plainly.

  “Holy shit. We’re Bigfoot? Werewolves are? Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. All of the Bigfoot sightings have been werewolves.”

  “How come the pictures look more apelike?”

  “Because only the sightings are at night. We often contradict the actual eyewitnesses’ story. After one of us is done telling about what we fictitiously saw, we have the guy 8 feet tall and a friend of Tarzan.”

  “Wow. I’ve seen some pretty adamant folks on those Discovery Channel shows,” I said.

  “Luckily, most of the sightings are by people who aren’t the brightest or the most sober when they have seen us. When that happens, we let the crazies have at it. They see a blur and for some reason, they think something that large creature has more human qualities and the closest thing to a human is an ape. So, they say they saw an ape creature. And werewolf becomes Bigfoot in their minds.”

  “You said there are almost a thousand of us. Where does everyone stay?”

  “Marcos’ other business is a luxury Carni kennel. It’s high priced, but he has some extremely rich folks who make their monthly pilgrimage to Anaheim and camp in his junkyard.”

  “His high-class luxury kennel is a junkyard?”

  “It’s the best cover. On the outside, it looks like a dirty garbage dump. On the inside, it’s a Carni paradise.”

  “Is that where you stay?”

  “I can’t afford that place. I’m not working, just living on savings right now.”

  “He doesn’t give you a deal?”

  “You obviously don’t know Marcos. That man and the word ‘deal’ have no business in the same sentence.”

  “He seemed pretty generous last night.”

  “That’s his thing. It appears he is, but he was serving us the cheapest alcohol he had.”

  “Very classy, and I say that with dripping sarcasm. It tasted like Patrón. Oh well. So, what do you do?”

  “In what regard?”

  “When you turn? Where do you go? I need a better set up than the one I have.”


  “I have a place up north where I go. In a couple of weeks, I’ll take you up there on the next full moon. There’s a Carni-friendly rancher who allows a few of us to roam his property. It’s actually quite nice being able to run free all night. He has no livestock to kill so we just roam the forest and run under the moon, free as, well, wolves.”

  Wow. No cage. The thought gave me a thrill. “I have one last question.”

  “Go for it, Kyro.”

  “Do you have a girl at home?”

  “Oh, you’re wondering if I dig women? The answer is yes, but at the present moment, I do not have a woman at home. I’m flying single.”

  “Up until this year, that was the only way I knew how to fly, too, but I met an amazing woman. I have just made the mistake of not getting that kind of thing out in the open in the beginning of a friendship.”

  “What happened?” Dave asked.

  “He was very confused when I came out to him,” I said with a smirk on my face.

  “You should do standup comedy.”

  “I once did an open mic night and completely froze.”

  “I would have paid big money to have seen that.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The truth of the matter was that I had no idea how to live without either thinking about or preparing to be a mixed martial arts fighter.

  Putting MMA out of my life was hard. Josiah seemed heartbroken that I was giving it up for now. He even called his sister a dream wrecker and they had words. I told the kid to back off because it was my decision at the end of the day. He wasn’t buying it. He and I were cut from the same cloth. It was what I had to do to keep my girlfriend safe and happy with me. In my mind, I was confident that this was the right decision. For now.

  I quickly learned that you can take the fighter out of the fight, but you can’t take the fight out of the fighter. During the next few months, I tried to play the role as the good and obedient boyfriend. Honestly, I was bored as hell and trying to figure out what to do with all of my testosterone without wearing out Maya in the bedroom. I was used to expending adrenaline and now, without fighting, I felt a loss in my physical being that could not be replaced by working out with no goal of fighting. Yes, even working out became sort of lackluster. Not to mention, I missed the money that I usually made in MMA.