The Awakening

By Gabriel Belin, Jr

Dominic Bradford’s life suddenly and inextricably turns into a nightmare with virtually no chance of survival. Before he realizes, he becomes an animal hunted by an enemy who does not fear anything or anyone. Trapped between the police and FBI on one side, and on the other the powerful international trust that wants him — dead or alive, the writer can neither run nor hide. He begins to play a game whose rules are made by others — players who are far more powerful than he and his two trusted allies.
Through every step of the investigation, the police become more and more suspicious while watching his every move. Then the FBI steps in, and his adversary becomes more fearless by the minute. Barely escaping a kidnapping attempt, he loses his only fragile ray of hope — his new love. Though two friends — his lawyer and his literary agent — understand that something is very wrong, they are unaware of what really fuels this deadly game.
Just when the stakes escalate, a new ally joins the fray — a private eye, owner of a high-tech detective agency, shows up to help Dominic in his private war. Suspiciously, he appears to know things that Dominic never shared with anyone. His channels of information are second to none. His technical equipment is at a level that Dominic would never have believed that a small detective agency could possibly afford.
One thing is certain — Dominic Bradford can rely only on what he fears most — his hidden nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gabriel Belin, Jr
• Release date: Nov 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310844355

Book preview

The Awakening

A Novel

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2013 by Gabriel Belin

Edited by Carl Arnold

http://www.edit1to1.com

ISBN: 9781310844355

Published by Gabriel Belin at Smashwords

Paperback Edition Available

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance

to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my grandmother Zoya, who taught me to read

when I was only five years old and opened a whole new world for me.

The Awakening

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Prologue

The cold current rushed onto his face but did not stop the terrible ringing in his ears. He stepped close to the balcony edge and took a deep breath. A sudden, blinding crack of lightning made him close his eyes. A second later, thunder shook the building with monstrous force. His pulse raced. The beating in his temples throbbed so hard, he grabbed his head with both hands and moaned. The rain that splashed on his face and shirtless body brought no relief. His heart continued to pump litres of blood to all corners of his body in a raging rhythm. The sound of its ferocious pulsation drowned out the noise of the weeping rain.

Shaking, he reached for the medallion and felt the ice-cold stone in his wet hand. The usual flow of tranquility and comfort did not commence. He moved his eyes down to the malachite and gasped — the runic symbols on its surface were glowing and changing. They seemed to pulsate with the rhythm of his heart.

Suddenly, the stone grew cold, so cold it literally hurt his hand. Crying, he pulled at the string and threw the medallion away. The stone sailed in a long arc, hit the glass table on the balcony and fell to the floor.

He fixed his eyes on the medallion. When the glowing runic symbols on the malachite surface disappeared — he knew he was in trouble. At that moment a sudden burst of power from the depths of his diaphragm shook him and made him scream. His vision began to change. Terrified, he reeled back and grabbed the balcony railing. The picture of the whipping rain and the dark forest below uncontrollably flickered, then stabilized and sharpened. Sounds became so crystal clear, they almost carved a picture in his brain. He grunted, then noisily sniffed the air.

* * *

The farm was quiet and sleepy. Nine hundred yards behind the main buildings, the herd of Hereford cows did not stop munching on the lush, wet grass. The cattle were constantly hungry, because their heavy bodies were coming into season. Preparing to breed required a lot of energy.

A muscular bull the size of a boxcar ambled among them, checking for signs of heat. The smell coming from the cows made the testosterone lavishly flowing in his blood push his aggressiveness to a dangerous level. Dangerous for any animal big enough to look like a threat that could be stupid enough to approach his harem.

Seven thoroughbred racehorses grazed near the cattle, but were well protected behind a high fence made of thick wooden posts. The electric current in the fence discouraged any possible fit of curiosity in the bull’s mind, so the big animal gave his entire attention to the cows coming into estrus.

The monotonous noise of the rain muffled the sounds coming from the herd — the only noise in the several hundred yards of pasture. The night breeze carried the smell of the cattle to the treeline of the vast forest in the surrounding hills.

* * *

The horses stopped grazing and raised their heads. They pricked their ears, anxiously snorting and sniffing the air. The oldest mare neighed and beat the ground with hoof. The other horses quickly gathered and peered into the dark. The two four-month-old foals quickly took their places beside their mothers while the oldest mare took a few steps toward the fence. The rest of the horses formed a semicircle around her. Their nostrils widened and their heads turned as one to the forest. The alarming smell was coming from there and was coming fast.

Suddenly, a big figure burst out from the curtain of the rain and ran toward the horses with long, powerful leaps. The old mare neighed shrilly and two of the other mares reared up. The creature crossed the last fifty yards in a couple of seconds and jumped to the top of the electric fence. A slight buzz of discharge spread when it balanced on the cross-piece. Instantly, the creature jumped back onto the ground, hissing and snarling in the dark. The horses had never seen such wolflike beast raving like a nightmare. But they knew the smell — the fear instinct had been in their genes for thousands of generations. They panicked and burst into a gallop to the far end of their pasture. The two mothers kept to the rear of the herd, waiting for their young to catch up.

The Beast rushed to the fence again but, sensing the electric field, stopped just before jumping on it, growling.

The smell of their panic hit his keen nose. The electric fence kept him at bay, filling his mind with powerless fury, making him fly into a rage. He reared on his hind legs and roared, then turned around, saliva spurting from his mouth, his claws tearing up sods of grass. In total insanity, he crouched, preparing to jump on the fence again when maddening lowing burst from the left and made him stop. The Beast turned and ran along the fence toward the cattle. The moment he reached the corner of their pasture, he stopped again. The big figures did not run, which made him hesitate. One of them stood before the rest and bellowed. The Beast leaped forward.

* * *

Just a second before the hornless head of the bull met him, the Beast feinted. The inertia of the bull’s heavy body kept him on his path a moment too long. While he was still trying to turn, the Beast leaped on its back. The long curved claws hooked deep into the bull’s flesh and the giant canine teeth sank into the neck of the massive animal. Mad with rage, the bull arched and flung out his heels. The sudden burst of power tossed the four-hundred-fifty-pound Beast like a feather and made him slip down the bitten side. Falling, he tore off a big chunk of flesh, opening a massive wound on the left side of the bull’s neck. Blood gushed.

The bull turned like a top and made the Beast lose his grip on its side. The sharp claws left new bloody scars along the bull’s skin but the Beast fell on the grass and rolled over. The bull rushed at him but was not fast enough. The Beast deftly dodged the attempted butt and bit the bull’s front left leg, opening a new wound as the bull flicked his leg and tossed him backward. It was close to crushing the predator under its feet when the Beast swiped across the bull’s head. The claws cut through the left eye, blinding the bull on that side. The bull bellowed with pain and stumbled, his head turning red with blood.

Quick as a weasel, the Beast bit the bull’s neck right behind the ear and tore the skin open. He immediately jumped away from the heavy swinging head, then bit again. And again. The sharp smell of blood spread through the night air. The herd closely surrounded the fighting enemies, mooing loudly. Rage and aggressiveness filled the air.

The bull was finally able to butt the Beast, tossing him to the ground. The cows immediately tried to trample him. One of them managed to land a kick and the Beast again rolled along the muddy grass, then jumped like a cat to his paws. As the bull charged, he slipped aside and bit the bull’s muzzle. His teeth crushed the nostrils’ cartilage and his jaws pressed the breathing holes with monstrous strength. Panting, the bull raised his head with great force, reared up and brutally flung the Beast into the mud. But the predator still clung on.

A distant thunderclap came from the hills and rumbled over the field, drowning the sounds of the fight for a moment. The raging bull tried to stomp its opponent into the mud. The Beast kept a fierce grip on the bull’s nostrils, his claws hooking deep into the thick neck. The bull’s blood stained the head of the Beast and the surrounding mud. The smell intensified and panic spread among the cows.

The bucking and kicks of the massive bull slowed, its breathing became labored. Its legs began to give out. A couple of minutes later, the huge animal fell on its knees for the first time.

The bull managed to stand up almost immediately, but not for long. After another desperate attempt to toss its opponent, the bull slipped in the mud and fell on its side. The Beast immediately bit its neck and twisted the head with his left paw. The prolonged moo suddenly stopped when the giant fangs met the windpipe of the fallen animal. It took another agonized minute before the hind legs stopped flailing.

Once he made sure his prey was dead, the Beast unclamped his jaws from the throat. Growling, he turned to the herd and reared up. The cows stepped back in abject fear and widened their circle. The eight-foot-high predator opened his jaws, exposing long, blood-stained fangs.

Lightning suddenly flashed across the low-hanging sky and lit up the field. Thunder mixed with the roar of the Beast and reverberated throughout the pasture. In panic, the herd stirred chaotically, then ran to the farm in terror. The Beast remained standing and growling as the cows retreated, then turned to the corpse. He fell on his front paws and bit the belly. The smell of intestines soon filled the air.

The herd kept mooing as it ran to the farm buildings, which were far enough away to give the Beast time to satiate his demonic hunger. The skin of the corpse’s left side was already ripped off and jagged holes in the flesh marked where the Beast’s jaws had torn bites. The cold rain did not stop, washing the blood into the muddy grass. In the dark, the smell of death spread.

Suddenly the Beast stopped feeding and unwillingly raised his head from the kill. It was not because of the vague light that emerged from the farm, or because of dogs barking.

The Beast reared on his hind legs and took a step back. His big eyes peered into the dark. For a very long moment he remained still, listening intently. Nothing happened. The rain continued its monotonous whisper. The Beast softly grunted, then turned and walked away from the kill.

Less than a minute later, the distinct rumble of beating rotors spread through the dark. About a hundred yards away from the corpse, the Beast fell onto all fours and broke into a run with long, nimble leaps. He was close to the forest now.

Through the pouring rain a strong shaft of light appeared and fixed on the fallen bull. The light remained on the kill only a few seconds. The rumble sharply intensified as the helicopter heeled over and flew straight to the forest.

The Beast was no longer there.

* * *

The smell was so dense and strong, as if coming from the very end of his nose. He flicked his tongue out and tried to lick his muzzle with pleasure. The tongue reached only the upper lip, so he tried again and failed. The place beneath his body suddenly felt cold and rough. He grunted with annoyance and, still sleepy, opened his eyes. Instantly horrified, he jumped up and his head hit something hard. With a deafening crack, sharp pieces of the glass table cascaded around him, some of them cutting his skin.

He screamed. His shrill cry scared away the flock of pigeons resting on the balcony roof. The blood of his new gashes mixed with the older, curdled blood covering his naked body.

Dominic was fully awake. He shut up at once.

Chapter I

The cops had decided to stay in their car in a small parking lot so they could observe everyone going in and out of the restaurant. It was good they were not close — he needed to think in private.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember anything from the previous night. He felt so depressed from that madness, he wouldn’t have left the hotel apartment if he didn’t badly need some change of scene and fresh air.

While reading the menu, he received a message from his editor Angelica — Maryann had found him an apartment in the city. Dominic kissed both of them in his mind and called the waiter.

They brought him his order and he tucked into the food as if he’d been starving for a week. He wolfed down a few chunks of meat, then suddenly stopped. It crossed his mind there was something else he’d put off doing — partly from fear, partly from guilt.

What did the old Indian Ron call it? Being awakened?

He frowned, trying to remember the words.

Don’t take it off your neck. Not until you wake up . . .

Right, he murmured to himself.

He finished his dinner and went out to the parking lot. The rain had intensified and he knew it would continue through the morning.

He sniffed the air. Unexpectedly, the old anxious feeling returned — the sense of eyes watching was so strong he could almost touch it. The feeling had nothing to do with the cops behind him. He looked at the heavy, liquefied night sky. Even without seeing it, he could feel the moon. Dominic waved to the patrol car and ran to the coupe. Once he saw they were following him, he sped up along the wet, glistening road.

* * *

He walked into his room, hesitated for a minute, then went out on the terrace. The rain was so heavy now that its noise interfered with his reading, so he decided that sitting in the soft armchair next to the big window was not such a bad idea. Dominic placed the laptop on the small table before him. He entered shape shifting as a key phrase and the page filled with links. He chose to start with the Scandinavian traditions.

Berserks were Viking warriors who, as the author speculated, turned into wolves in battle. They were fighters who knew no pain or fear, and the fury toward their enemies drove them to madness.

Or to a bloody feast.

Someone named Howard D. Fabing described the strength berserk warriors used in the days of peace and hard work, when accomplishing feats that were unbearable for the average person. It also sounded familiar to him. These days he was capable of working all day long, and two hours of sleep were enough for him to wake up like a newborn.

Dominic opened a new link. Indian medicine men in North America practiced shape shifting for thousands of years and taught that art to the leading warriors of their tribes. Today they call them Skinwalkers. Dominic read that behind this word was a history of human blood and atrocities.

The Navajo people feared a medicine man in wolf’s clothing, called Yee Naaldlooshii. In some traditions they replaced it with the word Mingan, which was the Navajo for wolf. These Skinwalkers, goes the tale, were creatures having superhuman speed, agility and strength, making it impossible to catch them. Yee Naaldlooshii were simply invincible.

The Navajo also believed the Skinwalkers had the power to read human thoughts. These creatures, they said, sometimes killed whole families in their homes.

But why, damn it? Dominic thought, massaging his temples. He continued through the text but sensed that was not the whole story — more was revealed in the mythology of First Nations people living in the northern parts of today’s northwestern US and southwestern Canada — the Ojibwe people. The Ojibwe had a tradition of Wendigo — monsters that horrify Indians even today. Dominic tried to find how those creatures looked but the link offered nothing. He continued reading, only to find that the Wendigo were man-eaters.

Damn it! he murmured.

He stopped and stretched, then stared back at the text. In Louisiana, Cajun Indians called a similar creature Rugaru. The story did not describe the creature — whether it was a descendant of the Wendigo monsters or something entirely different. Local Indians had simply borrowed the word from the French settlers.

Dominic browsed the names of authors writing on the subject. All the written information relied on tales of the trappers, explorers and missionaries from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They described a beast with a human body and the head of a wolf.

And ferocious. Bloody ferocious.

The thought made him sigh.

Rugaru was not an Indian word. Why? he muttered. Not only did the Cajun tribes use this word but also northern tribes, like the Ojibwe. They are one of the three major Indian groups, along with the Cherokee and Navajo, he read aloud. Why do they all use this word? Technically, the word looked much like the French loup-garou — werewolf.

Oh great . . .

Another link carried him back in time to the beginning of this myth in continental Europe. The first known sources came from excavated ancient mammoth ivory and bone engravings made by primitive hunting tribes. There were even coal drawings of wolfmen on some cave walls.

Some of the drawings that presented man as wolf transformations were found in archaeological excavations of prehistoric settlements as well as in caves of Middle and Southeastern Europe. Most of them dated back at least twenty-six thousand years. Dominic read there were even older artifacts. He went back to the article on North American Indians and saw that they had also painted similar figures or similar rituals more than seven thousand years ago.

Some of the Native American legends told of wolf-people who were descendants of the ancient Wendigo. Other traditions said that it was the wolf totem that passed the ability to young warriors to turn into beasts before they had chosen their real Indian names. It sounded illogical enough to be funny.

Indian crap! he exclaimed.

Most legends told of men who were transformed into wolves only if they had been bitten by a wolf at full moon. Dominic tried to suppress emerging memories from his last hunt in Canada and turned his eyes back to the screen. He wanted to read something reliable, something illuminating, something he could hold on to.

Other beliefs said a man could become a beast simply by seeing the creature.

What bullshit, damn it! he spluttered.

From everything he read so far, it wasn’t clear to him whether the origin of wolfmen was unusual spiritual possession or provoked by some totem. Whether it was by birth or by magic. Whether it was an infection, such as rabies, transmitted by bites, or some form of lunacy. Either the truth was hidden or it was highly complex. The websites were so damn vague.

To hell with that! Dominic growled. It was just nonsense. Most of it at least.

He leaned back. The lines on the screen rolled before his eyes. He had so many questions, but after this research, the questions only increased and his fear grew larger. After relaxing in the soft chair for a minute, he opened more links.

In ancient Greece, they called wolf-people lycanthropes, and the name of the condition was lycanthropy. As he now understood, the study of this disease went in two directions. One of them was medical — studying people suspected to be mentally ill and committing them to insane asylums. The other was the study of lycanthropy, which science placed within the paranormal.

There was a contradiction, though. The Church. The Church hated lycanthropy but recognized it as real.

At least real enough to kill those who suffer from it, he thought with sarcasm.

The Holy Office not only recognized the existence of werewolves, but between 1600 and 1800 had begun a holy crusade against them. The Holy Inquisition threw those accused of being a wolfman into dungeons. After a terrifying period of torture, the Holy Office made those who survived face a trial. Those cases were mainly in France and England, but the article stressed they were just two of the many countries that carried out investigations and had trials.

Christian saints also turned people into wolves. St. Thomas Aquinas once addressed his followers by saying that angels have the power to transform their bodies. Another legend told that St. Patrick had turned a Welsh king into a wolf.

Why had he done this? As punishment or reward?

There was no explanation. Anyway, it was done by the same St. Patrick who had banished the snakes from Ireland.

Reptiles? Are they talking about snakes or do they mean something else?

Dominic frowned and shook his head — he hated those creepy coldblooded creatures, and he hated that he couldn’t find anything reasonable to grasp onto.

All were legends. They were beliefs from hundreds if not thousand of years ago. He lived in the present and worried about his real life, about what he did not know. Again, his mind held the image of himself that morning a few weeks ago, when he woke up smeared with someone’s blood. That was the first time he thought he might have some unknown mental disease. What if they shackled him forever in a madhouse? His heart sank, realizing that he was afraid of the answer.

He felt exhausted, thirsty, tense. Anxious, he rose, pulled a bottle of mineral water from the bar and poured a large glass. He drank it, poured again and returned to the computer. Outside, rain still whipped at the window.

He was getting sick of reading that creepy nonsense, he was getting sick of his life . . . and promised himself that this next link would be the last website he’d open that evening. He clicked on it and found a description of a little known trial that the Holy Inquisition had held in 1692 in Jürgenburg, Estonia, against someone named Thiess. Dominic frowned at the thought — another victim of the Holy See.

At the trial’s beginning, Thiess said under oath that he and other wolfmen were the dogs of God, soldiers of the Almighty, who sent them to hell to fight the demons there.

Yeah, right, he said sarcastically.

Thiess told his judges that the souls of those who died in those battles would be met in the sky with honors for their bravery. He claimed that werewolves were not creatures of darkness but warriors who fought against the evil demons of the Devil’s dominion. To say something like that nowadays was crazy but in those centuries was a virtual guarantee of death.

Strange, Dominic whispered. Even more strangely, the Holy Inquisition did not burn Thiess. Instead, the Vatican court sentenced him to flogging and, to Dominic’s surprise, not for blasphemy, heresy, or witchcraft, but for idolatry.

So, they didn’t want to kill him. They just wanted him to serve as an example for the common folk.

Thiess suffered his punishment without denying his claims. Dominic smiled. If this man were like him, his only concern would have been whether his wounds healed before they untied him from the flogging post. Nevertheless, it had happened long ago and he could not know what else occurred in the preceding or following years.

Are there others today? he asked out loud. Dominic already knew about the old Indian, but were there more like him? He had to understand, but felt extremely tired and was no longer able to read. He switched off the computer and stood.

Thunder echoed from afar. Dominic winced. He stretched and took his guitar that was leaning on the wall. Without realizing it, his fingers began to strum the melody of To be with you. He sat back in the chair, playing it as naturally as breathing.

Some time later, his mind whispered that it was time to rest. He felt an overwhelming desire to sleep, so he left the Hummingbird on its resting place. He yawned and stretched again. The huge chair rattled under his weight, then he rose and shuffled to the bed. He glanced at his watch.

It was nearly midnight. There was no full moon.

Chapter II

From somewhere far away, an annoying humming began. It was familiar but Dominic did not want to dig up the memory. He