Chapter 11 LEGENDS OF THE LOBO.

MONDAY
Two days had passed since we frolicked in the forest. I drank blood from the flask in the kitchen and spent most of the time reliving the day.
I missed Dawn more than anything else. We weren't exactly together but then I wondered why I felt guilty for kissing Tia, no, I actually felt guilty for enjoying it. I loved Dawn's company no more than I enjoyed the tasted of blood.
She somehow made me feel more alive than I actually was and it made me wonder if I ever even loved her or if I actually loved the way she made me feel. Either one it was, I enjoyed being around her all the while.
I stared up at the zinc above my head. This attic-room was an old, mould smelling, dusty living space, but it was mine and I liked that fact about it. Today was a cloudy day; it made the possibility of meeting Dawn more of a reality than a thought.
I could leave once the others go out but from the look of things that wasn't gonna happen; Jhan was in the parlour discussing some obscured topic with Jereum and Tia was with Leya at the garden.
'I could just tell them I was going for a walk,' I thought, but my plan was thwarted before I could consider it because I reckoned that Tia would most likely object to following me and if I refused I might raise suspicion and that's the last thing I wanted.
I sighed in defeat but rose in alarm when it dawned on me that Dawn might come here to meet me. If that happens then they will immediately know that I have been seeing her.
But when I came to think of it, they hadn't said anything about not having a relationship with a human girl. In fact, nothing had been said in reference to that topic, so I could use that I my excuse.
I heard a soft knock on my door and, without even asking for permission, Jhan opened the door and stepped in.
'Doing alright?" He asked.
'Yeah, I'm good," I said, a distracting light from the silver boots he wore reflected into my eyes and I groaned in the irritation.
'I apologize, the light reflected from silver surfaces does distract and irritate vampires, Supremes the most."
I got up from the bed, trying my best not to look at her silver boots he wore.
'Are you an adjudicator?" I asked, faking curiosity as I disliked them.
'No," He said simply.
'Oh, then why are you wearing those." And I pointed at the boots.
'I am part of a difference group that serves the higher court," He said.
But he spoke up before I could ask the question. 'There are more important things at had Kaldar."
'Oh, okay," I said, feeling a bit sheepish. It was always business around Jhan when we had had fun; he treated it like business, strictly fun and no holding back. It was the only time I saw Jhan playing like a child and I was sure the last.
'What is it?" I asked.
'I think I should share with you some of our kind's history, just to bring to your some aspects of our kind to the light," He said, and this time I was genuinely curious.
'Okay," I said, 'do we go now?"
'If you are ready," He said.
Jhan drove faster than his usual speed. I looked at the flashing lights from the houses and buildings we passed.
'Where are we going?" I asked him.
'Towards the end of the town," He said. We drove past Dawn's house and I couldn't help but stare at the light blue duplex. He made a left turn and the duplex was out of sight.
We drove at a constant speed towards the end of the town. It was s small town anyway, like really small, and most of the occupants were vampires with only a small number of humans that lived ignorantly amongst us.
At the far end I could see the beginning of a forest and as we approached it, a large white, castle-like building came into view.
'What in the…"
The minivan came to an abrupt stop and Jereum got out. I open the door and hopped onto the tarred ground.
Still amazed at the large building, I gawked at it.
'This is the building of the higher court for this area, Kaldar," He said, but my attention was already too captivated by the large building.
'But this is so—"
'Suspicious, open, dumb… Stupid?"
I didn't even feel him in my mind, but as soon as I realized he had used his mind's-eye on me I tried as hard as I could not to think about the other theories I had about the siting of this building.
'Just as I pried into your mind undetected Kaldar, so does the watchers." And he pointed to several adjudicators that stood motionless around the building.
'This, is what people see…"
His trailed off and this time I had felt his presence in my head, it was like someone had drilled a hole in the back of my thoughts so I felt like my thoughts were being siphoned away from me. A total invasion of privacy.
I watched as the building, adjudicators and all, seemed to converge to a single point and disappear, leaving me to seeing just a stretch of forested area that blended in with the surrounding forest trees. The fact about this impressive and resourceful trick was that even the ground seemed to turn into dirt road. I could even see sand particles crumple and fold at the sides of my boots.
'Whoa…'
The illusion was perfect, down to every last details as I heard the rustling of the leaves on the trees as they shook with the wind and I even saw a bird fly from one tree to another, chirping as it went by.
It stopped and the building diverged out of thin air again.
'So anyone who comes across this place, sees just forest?" I asked him.
'Yes," He said, 'but the watchers also have to be careful, you were ignorant as in the illusion you saw the moss that grew on the tree stem grew to towards the east, instead of the north. It is little details like that that could pose a greater risk to us."
I nodded as if I understood a word he had said but taking notes of the fact that moss should grow facing the north in this area.
We proceeded towards the building and the red robed vampires still stood, motionless totally ignoring us. We got towards the white gates and the adjudicators that stood there looked at us carefully, Jhan stopped and I saw his eyes light up and so did theirs. It made me wonder what he was telling them.
They stepped aside and we entered through the gates. There was a short walk to the entrance of the building and once we got to the large white door, they opened up for us.
We stepped into a large vintage looking vast room. Long pillars stretched up to the ceiling and as followed up their lengths I saw lighted chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
The building was made out of red bricks and had painting, what so ever, on the inside. Giant oil paintings, of vampires I knew I wouldn't recognize, hung from the walls. This part of the building was large, in fact, it was so large I wondered how it fit when compared with the exterior.
Jhan walked straight to a door at the very end of the room and I followed behind him. Several adjudicators stood at the walls and I looked at them as I passed. Most of them looked to be in their thirty's (that is of physical appearance) except for one, a girl. She seemed to be about Tia's age and, unlike the others, she wore a small smile on her face.
I followed her gaze as I walked until we got through the door.
We walked through a long corridor that was littered with oil paintings on either side of the walls. And then Jhan took me through a door on the left. We entered into a small office and, seated behind a wooden desk, was an old vampire.
'Sir Much,' Jhan said with a slight bow and I bowed my head as well.
'Ahh, Kaldar, what a pleasant surprise," He said.
'Kaldar this is Sir Nich, he is the curator of this library and he would be the one to tell some about our history," Jhan said.
'A young one, eh Kaldar?" He asked.
'indeed Sir, just a few months old at that."
'Hmm." The Man looked at me carefully. 'This one is a supreme," He said slowly.
'Very well then, I will leave you to it, Kaldar." And with that Jhan left the room.
'Now let's begin shall we…"
Thirty minutes had passed and he ran me through the brief history of vampires, our rules and customs. He showed me millennia old books of vampire records and oil paintings of the ancient count Dracula, who is rumored to live in a castle, hidden within the mountains.
He told me that the town we live in is higher court territory and laws have been made to abolish all human hunting activities in this town—something I was grateful for because it satisfied the worry I had for Dawn's life.
'But how has it been possible for vampires to remain a secret for this long? Surely we could get past the civilians but how about the other humans, the ones in charge?" I asked.
'A good question young one, but we vampires have people in the offices as well, people that could manipulate political decisions and strongholds without being detected," He said, 'it is how we vampires have remained on top, all these years and kept our existence a secret from the humans for their own safety."
He told to help myself to whatever book I may want to read and he took his seat behind his desk, writing away on a parchment with a quill pen.
I schemed through ledgers of the books, reading titles that were written in languages I did not understand. All the books were red, except for a particular purple one. Curious, I picked it and read the words written on the hard cover; ‘Lobo' was the single word that was inscribed into the thick cover.
I opened the first page and saw that it was written in foreign language. I glanced at Sir Nich, he was engrossed in whatever he was writing. I returned my attention to the hand-drawn, black ink pictures in the book. They were of some kind of beast. The beast that I saw looked like a giant wolf and the artist had put extra effort in drawing their deathly eyes.
There were several writings on the page.
‘Only if I could understand this,' I thought. The book had caught my interest. I was so indulged in the drawing of the creatures that I hadn't noticed Sir Nich was now standing beside me.
'I see you've taken an interest in the old legends and myths," He said.
'Well…these are good drawings," I said.
'Err…Sir, you wouldn't mind translating these words for me would you? It's a language I cannot understand," I said.
'No worries all will be taken care of." He took the book from me and kept it on his desk. I stood beside him as he lowered his weight onto his chair.
He started with the first line, 'The legend of the ‘Lupine human', dates back to the century of the first vampires. Though they only made their first appearance after the lord Dracula disappeared, these powerful creatures were immediately became the natural enemy to the vampires. The Lupine humans have human appearances and lived amongst them for generations, but they are no ordinary human, in fact, they are a species that have once driven the vampires to their nigh extinction.
'They possess the ability to morph their bodies to that of the Lobo, the wolves. A ‘Lupine' would usually appear as a tall, well-built and long limbed human. They would still possess certain abilities in their human form like, advanced hearing, sense of smell, ability to see in the dark, speed, strength and agility.
'Though they possess these extraordinary gifts, the Lupines could never defeat a vampire in their human form as the strength and speed of vampires is five times greater than theirs. But they would still be able to kill humans and leap great heights."
He paused. Silence fell in the room, the kind of eerie silence that brought along goose bumps to my neck. Seeing the impatience and eagerness in my eyes to hear the rest he continued.
'In their beast form, they would appear as enormous wolves with a deathly gaze to their eyes. They would often be in packs led by an alpha and, in this form, would be able to kill and even destroy a vampire. These beasts are not to be underestimated and it would take uncommon skill, power and mental capacity for a vampire to single handedly kill a Lobo.
'But with the growth and expansion of human civilization, and the affinity for the Lupines to remain a secret, they drove themselves to hiding. Once to return again and destroy their natural enemies."
He flipped the page, and I saw the picture of a beast like man. The man in the picture stood on two wolf-like legs, had thick fur covering his entire body, his face was ugly and wolf-like and he had long talons for nails.
'The origin of the Lobos remain unknown, but because their existence was first recorded during the first century of vampires, it is generally believed that their first human ancestor had asked a demon for power, but was cursed to only be able to use that power in the form of a great wolf.
He stopped and I looked at the creature depicted on the page. I wondered if these beasts were real and the fact that I knew of my species existence only meant that the existence of such creatures could be possible as well.