The Watchers Wake

Chapter 26 - Acting

CHAPTER 26 - Acting

I woke up on the sofa in my house.  It was all a dream, right?  It must have been a dream.

I reached out to find him, Scott are you there?

Natalie, I love you Natalie.  Please remember that. He sounded tired, listless.

Where are you Scott?

I don’t know, it’s dark and they... they hurt, Natalie they hurt so much. I am so scared Natalie. I don’t want to die. 

His pain constricted my throat and brought tears to my eyes.  I could feel him breaking down.  He sobbed almost in defeat and I could feel his courage leaving him. 

Don’t give up Scott.  I am coming for you.

NO!  Natalie, the pain, no don’t come, I love you too much.  Don’t come, they aren’t human.  Don’t let them do this to you, I can’t, I won’t... Please don’t Natalie, live for me,” The pain and panic in his voice as it spoke directly into my mind left me gripping the sofa and sobbing. 

They are here again, I can’t stop them. I can’t do anything.  They hurt, please Natalie, please ... I love you.  His voice trailed off and I could feel him trying to block the pain he was in from finding me. 

I opened my eyes and wiped the tears away.  This was no dream.  Vampires were hurting Scott and I had to be strong.

I was going to bring him home so that together we could rescue Jari.  I tried to remember the full details of the plan.  It was insane.  How could Scott and I stop an army of vampires fuelled up on Jari’s blood?  Hell, we couldn’t even beat one non-vampire Jari in the boxing rink. 

So really what all this truly meant was that I was sacrificing my absentee, womaniser of a father for my in-the-dog-house boyfriend and in the process handing them a lifetime supply of Archangel power-juice and a free set of steak knives.  Just insane, it just didn’t make sense.

The house was dark but I could hear voices in the garage.  I opened the door to find Jari and Aze sparing in the rink.  The bodies gleaming with sweat as they fought bare fist with no safety equipment.

“Hey look it’s sleeping beauty, want a kiss...?” Aze’s flirtatious smile was interrupted by Jari’s right hook which knocked him into the side of the rink.

Jari grabbed a towel and swung himself onto the floor in front of me. 

“You OK?” His wiped his face without taking his worried eyes off me.

“No.  Actually I am about as far from OK as you can get.  How about you?”

He just smiled and rubbed his neck absently.  “How’s Scott?”

“I expect you can guess.  Jari it isn’t club med.  This plan of yours, are you sure that it is the only way?  Couldn’t we just go rescue Scott and walk away?”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he said with mock sincerity.  Off to the side I heard Aze sniggering.

“What?  Why can’t we?  I mean your plan is just stupid!”

“This isn’t TV Natalie, we can’t just storm in and get him out, it doesn’t work that way,” Jari grimaced and sighed before he looked at me and then softly spoke, “Natalie, Scott is with the Brood and they are in a hive.  Vampires are dangerous in pairs.  There will be a few more than two guarding him.  They will know that he is Nephilim and they will suspect that he might be the next Irin.  They will assume that he hasn’t found his Qaddis and is only starting to wake up.  That will explain why I was shadowing him and why I am willing to hand myself over for him.  The fact that he hasn’t fully linked with you is the only thing saving him.”