Snow Moon (eBook)

3. Temptation Calls

As a creature of Karma, I had four rules.

Do not directly kill. Do not resurrect. Do not alter emotions. Do not alter time. That’s it. It may not seem like a lot, but for the feat I had to pull off to save her and save this world, it was limiting. It meant I did a lot of watching and popping into physical existence to set things in motion or fulfill Karmic energy. Some referred to me as a guardian angel, when a serendipitous positive event took place; others mistook me for the Devil, when I must set chaos in motion.

Now, I as peered inside to watch this particular scene, the lights were dim inside the two-story office, but from the low buzz, I knew the vamps were already hard at work monitoring accounts. When Julian opened the door, he saw Thane’s large silhouette lounging, legs kicked up in his usual favorite beat up black leather recliner. Pleather, to be exact. God forbid they have an actual animal product in the house.

He was eating his favorite poison, neon blue Taki chips made from every known chemical on the planet plus some salt and washing it down with a diet caffeine-free cola. Caffeine made Therions, especially wolf forms like Thane, literally rabid. The others were feverously typing away, the glow from their laptops illuminating their pale white skin, making their normally silver-blue eyes take on a greenish tint. The obvious leader of the group—a former colleague and mentor of mine from eons ago—walked over to his stand-up desk and placed his sleek laptop into the triple monitor console. He then surveyed the digital scene in front of him on three huge screens. The monitors encapsulated every last detail and nuance of the measly lives of about twelve hundred students and 450 staff members at the private and overly expensive Valiant High School in Emberglow, Colorado. Thousands of social media pages popped up on the screen with notifications pinging at a feverish pace.

“Give me the rundown,” Julian said to no one in particular.

“There are about a thousand photos to scrub from dumbass Therions and Vampires uploading to social media in this sector, but other than that it’s a pretty normal night,” said Thane. “Mia and her crowd are status quo, umbras leaning dark but not too dark. Don’t really need to worry about them. Abbey and Aubrey are bullying Madison, and their umbras are shifting slightly, so may want to start there tonight.”

“What about Luke and his new soccer friend?” Julian asked, never really one to care much or remember names of the creatures he manipulated.

“You mean Liam? He’s fine. He’s trying to fit in with Finn and his group, but he doesn’t lean as bright as the rest of them. You could start there instead. Whatever, no skin off my back. He’s kind of an ass clown anyway.”

I could see Julian homing in on Liam and his social media history. A couple keystrokes later and he’d hacked in to send off a quick DM to Madison.

Pics?

Then he deleted it on his end to erase all proof and waited. Creatures today and their computers. Never in the history of the world has it been easier to manipulate earth dwellers. It was a Vampire’s digital playground, and Julian was the playground bully. He glanced to the left of the screen. Like clockwork, Madison, thinking she got a direct message from Liam, had sent a photo of herself from the neck down in a bikini. Stupid teenage girl.

“Hold that delivery so she thinks he’s leaving her on opened,” Julian instructed his minions out loud. “Then intercept that text from Liam to Finn. We don’t want him backing down. Send the dots like he’s typing, then hold, then remove.”

“Jules, check this text string out between Abbey and Madison,” said one of the vamps. The screenshot popped up on the orchestrator’s monitor.

OMG OMG

ABBEY

ARE YOU THERE

Liam just asked me for a pic

What? Did you send?

Not full, but the one you of me took at the cliffs last summer before I jumped into the lake

You did not!

What did he send back?

Idk he literally left me on opened

So annoying

ikr

Alex left me delivered for like 24 hours yesterday (eye roll emoji)

And then today when I asked for his number he never answered

Don’t send him anything

K

I hate my face in that photo

Omg whatever you look good

No I don’t. My neck looks so fat. It’s true

Thane slumped even lower in his recliner staring blankly ahead. The Therion always seemed perpetually put out during these late-night computer stalking sessions. He let out a loud yawn, opening his mouth so wide someone could stick an entire fist in there. Tempting, I’m sure, to Julian, as he rolled his eyes at his lifelong friend. They’d been friends for years. Like hundreds of thousands of years. More out of necessity than anything else but after all this time, Thane was probably Julian’s most trusted advisor. So many books and movies pit Werewolves and Vampires against each other, when in reality, they depended on each other to survive. It fell under the concept of dualism: balanced equals that the universe is so fond of creating.

Without their bond to one another, each would live in hiding with their own kind or in stasis. Underground tunnels or a cryo chamber for Julian and isolated tent camps in the mountain woods for Thane. Alliances among their species have allowed them to remain hidden to humankind for the most part in modern times. And after all, if you go back to the origin of their species, they were in fact half-brothers.

Negativity consumes Vampires so completely that they are incapable of seeing the light in themselves or in others without the aid of a Therion.

Their blackness, their cold heartedness, exists at an altered, lower vibration than other creatures and they must feed off blood, the ultimate elixir of life, from humans who exhibit negative emotions. They are the darkest of souls that have walked the Earth since the dawn of time. They are the ultimate deceivers, like Lily was.

In today’s modern era, they have tricked society so that they are celebrated in movies and on TV, and some confused and lost humans even desire or claim to be one. For years they have fed human society silly stories about how they can be kept at bay or killed. Garlic, sunlight, stakes through the heart. All nonsense. Well, mostly.

Therions, like Thane, keep Vampires in check. They are protectors of Humans who possess the light. Thane, however, has little regard for Humans. Especially now during modern times when Humans, in particular teenage Humans, allow themselves to be so easily manipulated.

A Therion bonded with a Vampire, a deep kinship rooted in basic universal energies, allows both to live out in the open, balancing each other’s energy with equal light and dark. In my day, you’d see those types of connections often. It was a friendship that could not be broken. But now, and ever since the Alliance was torn apart, it was extremely rare.

The screen lit up like Christmas lights. The addicting notifications are all it takes to suck a teenager in. They could be full on into an in-person conversation, when a little red notice of instant gratification demanded their full attention. I knew Julian rather enjoyed delving into the lives of unsuspecting teens. When you’ve lived as long as he had, being around young people was a necessity in order to stay relevant in a world that changed faster than ever.

“Send Derek a few ads about guns, and blog posts about that crazy social media group we created last month,” Julian said. “We really need to cultivate his friend group into leaning more gray. And then you’ll want to have some emo blog posts pop up on his feed over the next few days. How’s our friend Erick?”

“Nope—he’s off limits,” Thane perked up at the mention of Erick’s name.

“Just making sure you were awake,” Julian responded.

There’s that old Native American proverb about two wolves fighting constantly inside every living creature and the one you feed is the one who wins. The proverb got it mostly right. It’s actually a Therion and a Vampire fighting over souls. Of course, free will is present so humans can un-invite Vampires with positive thoughts and actions as easily as they invited them in. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try to push their luck though. Like with Erick.

“Erick is right at the midpoint. Too soon to tell if he’s ok to mess with,” Thane said.

“You’re such a rule follower,” Julian announced.

Thane inhaled deeply and let out a slow sigh. He responded, “I have high hopes for him. Yeah, he’s down on his luck, but I think he’s born for greatness.”

Thane was an eternal optimist, always trying to protect the humans who hunted his kind for ages. It was utterly annoying to Julian. Once in a while, a human figured out the rules. Thane lived for those moments. While rare, sometimes a bullied kid who was challenged constantly as a youngster chose to face their hardships head on with positive energy and channeled their hardships...