Circle Quartet: 29

Chapter 29

I couldn’t stop staring blankly at Stefan. That name stuns me. I can’t believe that he is the stray dog that I’ve been searching for. No words come out from my mouth and Stefan is getting worry as I haven’t say anything after he said Cody’s name. Maybe he is the one that I should be careful of. Granddaddy Saba and Dad told me before that I should beware of a stray dog. Why they want me to be aware of Cody? Is he connected to Alse the Black Magic Woman?

Stefan continues telling me about Cody as I calm myself and told him to tell me more about that stray dog. Cody’s parents died in a mission 15 years ago. Cody’s father was Stefan’s father twin brother and willing to do anything for his brother. Cody’s father married to a werewolf from the minor clan so Stefan’s father has the right to be the next leader as he married to a major clan.

On the third day of the mission, they were attacked by a group of black magic users. Dad was there too, together with Uncle Yale. The fight occurred and they couldn’t easily defeat the black magic users. One of them tried to strike Uncle Azure with black poison but Cody’s father used himself as the shield to protect Uncle Azure. He died during the battle and asked Uncle Azure to take care of Cody for his mother died when he was born.

Cody was 8 years old at that time and Uncle Azure took him and raised him as his own son. He was very happy because the Silver family took a great care of him and he was very close to Zayne and Stefan. One day, when he was 15 and coming back from school, his relatives from his mother’s side came to Stefan’s house to discuss about Cody. And at that time, he learnt that he’s a stray dog and needed to be taken care under the minor clan. Cody got mad and blamed Uncle Azure that he didn’t tell that he’s from the minor clan as his mother was dead on the day he was born. He said that he hated the Silvers and made decision to stay with his relatives of the minor clan.

“That’s too bad for Cody,” I think I can understand how he feels.

“Yeah. Mom and Dad tried to convince him that he also belongs to our family but he didn’t want to listen to them,” says Stefan.

We are not in the library anymore. Stefan and I walk to the fountain and sit there. We stay silence for a while.

“Why do you want to know about stray dog?” Stefan breaks the silence.

I turn to him and stare at him for a while. “Your Granddaddy and my Dad told me to stay away from stray dog. First, I thought they were just joking. But when I realized that they sounded seriously, I decided to find out about stray dog.”

“Stay away from Cody?” asks Stefan.

“Maybe,” I reply hesitantly. “I don’t know. I’m shock knowing that Cody is the stay dog,” I sigh heavily, blowing the white puff from my mouth as the night is kind of cold.

“If you need any help, you can tell me. I don’t want you to carry this burden on your own,” he pats on my back gently. “Does Jeff know about this?”

I shake my head slowly. “No. I don’t want him to be worried. Besides, there’s one thing that we all should be worried of.”

“Yeah,” Stefan sighs, “I know. The special training will be starting soon. I hope that we’re in the same team again, with your cousin Abbie,” he smiles. I know that he wants me to calm down.

The special force training is not as easy as the training that I have gone through before. This one is much tougher and needs a lot of stamina and skills. We’re now dealing with the most dangerous person in this world and we need to stop her from getting her powers back.

Abbie and I are working hard on our training and lucky for us that we train under Jeff’s team. We’re now the assassins and tonight is the night of our first dangerous mission. Alse has managed to create monsters to destroy humans and us, of course. She’s thirst of our blood and to make her stay stronger, she needs the blood from normal human too.

Stefan is part of our team too; I’m glad that he’s one of our team and will join us for the mission. Jeff explains everything in details and we need to scatter into group of four. Abbie goes with Jeff while I go with Stefan. Stefan and I, and the rest of our team, go to the south to stop the monsters from going to another town.

The mission sounds quite easy; just destroy the monsters, but it’s not as easy as it seems. Those monsters are too difficult to handle and our team need to stop 5 monsters from trespassing another town. Those monsters come in many shapes and ugly. Some of them are able to use poisons. We need to be careful on that.

It takes two hours to destroy all those monsters and I nearly run out of energy. One of my teammate, a vampire from the minor clan, offers me a bottle of blood to drink but I refuse to take it because he’s slightly injured and he needs the blood more than I do. We take a rest for a while and some of them have gone to the Academy.

“I think we should go back too,” I say, still exhausted.

Come, I’ll carry you, says Stefan who is in werewolf mode.

“Sure,” I smile and hop on his back. Suddenly, Stefan senses something and he turns around. His ears stand up and he pricks something. “What is it, Stefan?” I ask.

Granddaddy is in danger! We must go and hurry to him!

I hold on tight to Stefan’s back and he runs as swiftly as he can. I know that he’s worry about Granddaddy Saba for he also is in the mission to stop Alse. We reach to an area which is to shock to be seen. Bodies of injured people lay on the ground. Some of them are groaning in pain. Then Nash appeared with his injured shoulder.

“Nash!” I cry and hop down from Stefan’s back. His legs wobble and I help him to stand. “What happened, Nash?”

“We’ve been attacked,” groaned Nash. I call for Deena and Beatrice by using telepathy and they are on their way. “Granddaddy…he’s been attacked!”

I look towards Stefan who is now in human mode and kneeling on the ground. Granddaddy Saba, who is lying on the ground, speaks with Stefan. I take Nash to him and am surprise to see Granddaddy Saba who is badly injured. His chest have been ripped by something sharp, like a claw, and blood splutter everywhere from his body. He can hardly breathe and Stefan gently put Granddaddy Saba’s head on his lap.

“Don’t talk too much, Granddaddy. You’re going to be okay,” whispers Stefan as he strokes Granddaddy Saba’s grey hair. Nash and I also kneel beside him. He looks so weak and he manages to smile to us.

“Who’s done this to you?” I ask, holding back my tears as I take his trembling hand.

Granddaddy Saba says something but I can’t hear what he’s trying to say. Deena and Beatrice arrive with the healing team and they quickly heal every injured people. Beatrice heals Granddaddy Saba while Deena heals Nash.

“We have to take him to the Academy. His wounds are too deep. Besides, he loses too much blood,” informs Beatrice. Stefan only nods and Beatrice calls for her friends to help her to get Granddaddy Saba back to the Academy.

Stefan and I watch everyone go until they leave. Only two of us are at the area now. I don’t know what to say to Stefan as he seems very angry.

“You’ll pay for this, Cody!” he grits his teeth and clenches his knuckles hard.

Circle Quartet: 28

Chapter 28

“I can’t believe that Yvonne is Black Magic Woman in disguise! She’s kind and gentle. And smart. Always help her friends in solving some of the assignments,” says Harley.

“And hot too!” adds Sable.

“Oh yes, she is! If you guys didn’t careful, you’ll get into a hot soup,” warns Jeff while crunching the chips.

We’re now in Alex room where he always keeps his junk food and chips supply in a big cupboard. After the out-of-the-blue meeting, our parents shuffled back to their chambers while we rushed to Alex room because he texted Jeff that he wanted to discuss more about that damn woman Alse. After all, we can eat chips and drink Coke, which are forbidden to be eaten in this house.

“So what are we going to do? She might be targeting us soon,” Sable is getting worry.

“Oh yes, she is targeting you guys. The reason why she wanted your classmate is because you carried the name Black. And you guys know that she desperately wanted to take revenge on the Black clan,” I state.

“Then, what shall we do?” asks Sable. He’s getting double-worry.

“Oh, I know!” Harley snaps his finger and beams like he’s gotten the greatest idea ever. “I can turn her into a frog. A big ugly frog,” Harley raises his eyebrows few times.

“She’ll turn you into frog, Harley. Remember, she still has some black magic powers even though she’s not in a complete form,” Beatrice jabs her finger to Harley’s chest. Harley gulps and chuckle uncomfortably.

“All we need is a very careful plan to spy on her. We might not know her next step is. And since Grandma has ordered that we shouldn’t go outside of her enchanted range, except for school, we need to find some ways to follow her,” says Alex who is being silence since out gathering started.

“Raven, can you turn into small things like a fly or a bee?” asks Ace who is tearing a bag of chips for third times.

“No, I can’t,” Raven shakes her head. “But Armand can. He can turn into insects by shape-shifting and using magic at one time. Hey, Armand, can you do us a favour?” Raven turns to Armand who’s supposed to be with us in Alex’s room.

The only response that we get from Armand is the sound of his snores. He’s sleeping on the floor. Everybody laughs.

“I guess that he’s a little bit tired. He’s not used to be up this late,” says Jeff and slowly picks him up. “I’m going to tuck him to bed.” Jeff leaves the room.

It’s nearly dusk when I awake. I don’t sleep on bed anymore. After I’ve been through the blooding ceremony, I demand for a coffin; a big black coffin just like in the Dracula movies. I don’t want to sleep in bed anymore. Dad told me that coffin is too out-of-date since bed is more comfortable but I don’t care. I longed to sleep in a coffin since I knew that I’m a vampire.

I slowly open my coffin, stretching my body and gulping two bottles of blood supply which came in last two days. Recently, I drink five bottles of blood per day. Dad says that I’m in a stage of ‘growing up’. After taking a hot bath (since its winter), I go downstairs to join them for dinner. Shockingly, there’s no one in the dining room except Jeff and Beatrice.

“Good morning, Alice. We have something to tell you,” greets Jeff as I take a seat beside Beatrice.

“Wait, before that, where’s everybody? And the food? I’m starving. I think I can eat a whole elephant,” I ask as I can see no one is around during dinner time. It dinner time and it’s compulsory for us to dine together.

“Guess that you haven’t received the news yet. Grandma Zelda, Mom and Aunt Ada are in the Magic Chamber. While Dad, Uncle Yale and Uncle Archie went out for a mission since this evening,” replies Jeff.

“Aunt Nadine needs to take care of the children. They are not allowed to go out in this short period of time until Grandma Zelda tells so,” adds Beatrice.

My stomach growls. I need food!

“Can I just eat something before we go on with our conversation that you’re saying just now?” I pat on my grumbling stomach.

Beatrice sighs and goes to the kitchen. Later, she brings out chicken pie with wine since I’m allowed to drink that.

“Great! Chicken pie! Okay, move on to the discussion!” I clap my hand and gobble the pie. Jeff chuckles while shaking his head. I smile sheepishly at him.

“I have one bad news,” announces Beatrice that nearly chokes me. “Three of us need to go back to the Academy in midnight by train. Zayne and Stefan will join us too.”

“What?” I choke and gulp down the wine. Jeff gently pats my back. “So soon?”

“This is an emergency, Alice. Alse is getting nearer and we need to get back to the Academy, preparing ourselves for the upcoming war,” says Jeff.

“This is getting uglier,” I blurt out. I hate war. I never been in war before but I hate it.

“One hour before midnight we have to go to the train station. Mom has already booked the ticket for us. We’ll meet Zayne and Stefan there. And bring weapon in case any nasty thing happens,” says Beatrice.

I groan in frustration. I guess I have to burn up my precious holiday. I still have 5 more days to go. Five more days! That damn Alse is ruining my holiday!

We reach the train station 11 p.m. sharp. Zayne and Stefan are already here when we arrive. We don’t talk much as we are aware of what we had received these past days. I don’t even talk much to Stefan even he sits next to me as we wait for the train.

There are not so many people at this hour except for those who work in night shift. I read a book while waiting for the train. Jeff is talking to Zayne but in whisper. The train arrives 10 minutes before midnight. We board the train and share one room.

I take a look outside the window. The city is shimmering with city lights. I can barely see the stars up in the sky. Two hours later, we safely arrive at the Academy. We are greeted by Grandma Maegan and Granddaddy Saba. The Academy is tranquilly quite but there are some students who haven’t gone to bed yet; the nocturnal like us.

It’s still early for me to go to bed when I get into my room. Abbie hasn’t arrived yet. Perhaps tomorrow she’ll be here. I text her that I have arrive and ask her when she’ll be coming. I really miss her so much and I have a lot of things to tell her.

I go to the library as its open during night time. I search for the book that will entertain me before Abbie’s arrival. Then I spot a book about dogs. Since I have two cute little puppies at home, I think I should read more about them. Taking care of puppies is quite difficult rather than adult dogs. After all, they are parentless.

Then I remember about a stray dog that Granddaddy Saba and Dad told me earlier. They wanted me to be careful of stray dog. Stefan comes as I’m searching for the book about werewolves. There are a lot of books about them on the shelves but I don’t know which one to pick.

“Hey, Alice. What book are you searching for?” asks Stefan as he stands next to me. He’s wearing his black leather jacket.

“Hey, Stefan. Oh, it’s good that you’re here. I need to ask you something about stray dog. Do you know the term of stray dog in your clan?” I ask.

Stefan is surprise when I ask him that question. He asks me to sit down before he can explain. I know that he knew about stray dog.

“Why do you want to know about stray dog?” he asks as we take a seat.

“Well…your Granddaddy and Dad mentioned about stray dog. I thought that they’re joking or something but that thing keeps bothering me sometimes,” I reply.

“In our clan, stray dog is a term for a werewolf who has been abandoned by the parents, whether the parents died or just left. It’s an old term actually because there’s once a couple of werewolf abandoned their child for the war. Then they died and the child had nowhere to go. He’s been on his own, alone, until one day another relative of his came and rescue him. From that day, that child was called ‘stray dog’. But we didn’t use that term anymore. For those who parents died will be taking care by any other relatives,” explains Stefan. I just listen to his story and nod once in a while.

“So there’s no stray dog in your family?” I ask.

“Actually, there is,” he replies shortly.

I blink at him, waiting for his answer. “Who?” I frown at him.

He closes his eyes and sighs. “Cody.”