Ninja Nights - John Stormm (howl and other poems .txt) 📗

to do that all the time.” His father confided, “Sometimes, I feel that such evil moves so easily through this world, and brings such grief to good people, because they allow the evil to get away with it. They tone down justice, when it’s needed undiluted, and then the evil strikes yet again and again. All the time, it is the innocent who are made to suffer for it. It is very difficult for me, to not take matters into my own hands. I have to remind myself, that I do not know ALL of the answers… but what if you saw, what the Lady has seen? How would human justice temper your response?”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t slow my hand a single second.” Jon glared, “If I knew guilt, beyond any reasonable doubt, that person’s heart would not know another beat. I’m afraid of what I’ve become!”

“You didn’t just become this way, Jon.” His father explained, “She only showed you what was already there. Your passions reflect your Sidhe nature. I married your mother for her very human qualities, the best of such, I could give you. You see exactly why I love her so, and can’t bear to live with her? It‘s the extremes. Our bounds are further stretched than humans. They make things a lot easier to take, with moderation, and yet that same moderation can drive us mad at times, when it seems inappropriate. Only a very obsessed human can relate to a fae wavelength. It‘s not healthy for them in the long run. A healthy Sidhe will burn as bright as a star, for centuries longer than a human and not be hurt by it, but in turn, will lack certain human traits depending upon its archetype. Without these traits to balance one extreme from another, you can understand why a fae living in a human society would wind up wreaking havoc. Some think we were never meant to co-exist, and that hybrids, like ourselves, never meant to exist at all. This is what you need to know about who you are, and how you may expect to be received. It was literally, a life or death decision with the entity you had just met. She’s mellowed a lot since we first met, believe me. She wasn’t likely to accept my fae blood until she could smell it, at first. Having established that, it took decades in our court, working as a protector in her very back yard, that she began to really accept me. They used to have to protect me from her, by not holding court with both of us present at the same time. ”

“I can’t believe you would actually expose me to something like that,” Jon scolded his father.

“Call it, a calculated risk,” the old man grinned. “If I didn’t, you’d take years trying to find that part, and doubting yourself. If something like what she showed you, happened before your eyes, you would react instantly and in the extreme, and never understand why. Besides that, you’ll never fly without fae help.”

“Dad, I’ve flown Cessnas, Apaches, Chinooks and more,” Jon shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“She gave us a parting gift tonight,” his father said. “They don’t happen all that often, but I love it when they do. Have you ever flown a zephyr?”

Jon looked oddly at his father as they put on their shoes and resheathed their weapons in their garb. The old man turned back to face the full moon, and gave a rising whistle and raised his arms, palm upwards. To Jon’s amazement, his father started rising in the wind that whipped at his hair and coat. He rose about thirty feet and motioned his hands downward and began to drift back to the meadow where Jon stood.

“Uh, we’re expected to fly a circuit of the park tonight and discourage vandals and other kinds of bad guys, son,” the old wizard said. “You’ll want to get the hang of this. Signal with your hands, that you want to execute the ascent or descent in your mind. We lose this by sunrise, so let’s get started.”

It seemed too simple, but it worked. His father explained it was the air elementals known as zephyrs, that made this possible for them, and that they were, by nature, very intelligent. In the bright light of the full moon, it was a rush to be carried on the very wings of the wind. It was like a wild dream, except he could feel the cool night wind whipping at his face as they flew. His father pointed north, to the beach area. It must be past midnight, so Jon doubted they would find anyone there. But he was wrong. On the not-so-quiet, night time shores of Lake Ontario, some teenagers were dancing around a bonfire, drinking and drugging themselves sick. His father gave out a loud, long whoop and descended to about twelve feet off the ground and buzzed the bonfire. The celebrants shrieked in terror at the sight of the black clad team, swooping down at them out of the summer night sky.

The demonic duo wailed and howled like banshees, spurring their terror to new heights. When someone looked like they might intend to return to the beach, they would knock them down in the sand, asserting their reality on the miscreants. It was over all too soon, and then there wasn’t a soul left on the beach. The old man made several trips to the shoreline, filling his big leather hat with water, and used the rest of their beer, to douse the fire. The exception being the six bottles he tucked into the deep pockets of his big, black duster. Then back into the air, they went again to patrol the park a bit further east, before heading back to the campsite in the deep woods. There were some sheriff patrols heading to the parking area by the beach, where the teens were puking, and piling into waiting cars to leave the area.

To say Jon and his father were in high spirits, would have been like saying the great undersea explorer, Jacques Cousteau, dabbled in water. If the fatigue of the day, hadn’t been catching up with the pair, they would have fallen out of the sky upon day break. They landed in an open clearing by the stream, near the campsite. They noted, with satisfaction that neither it, nor their fire, was visible from above. Jon watched his father stash the beer bottles under an overhang in the cold stream.

“Is Seth still the youngest of this group?” his father asked.

“Yep, he turned twenty one, some months back,” Jon replied. “Is that beer for later? My mouth is hot and dry from all that screaming.”

“It’s for Saturday night’s campfire time,” his Dad said, “They’ve done real good this year. It’ll be a nice touch. Let‘s go get some sleep.”

* * *

     Saturday morning came all too early, the team was up and combing the woods for edibles. Seth had managed to find a few sassafras saplings and yanked up some roots for some hot sassafras tea. The old man pulled some sugar packets out of his voluminous pockets and enjoyed the brew.

“You wouldn’t have some flapjacks and sausages in those pockets of yours, huh?” Seth asked the old man.

“I might surprise you,” the wizard replied enigmatically, and tossed him two sugar packets for his own cup.

* * *

     The leftovers were again gathered and taken to the offering stone. The boys broke camp, and made the area appear as if they were never there. Practices of the day, included sparring on logs over the stream, the loser got wet, and shuriken practice along with knife throwing at some deadwood targets they set up in a clearing. Later in the afternoon, they had water training in one of the many ponds in the back of the park. Canvas ninja gi, swelled up with air bubbles as the boys tied off the thighs and waist to keep them afloat. In the process of exploring the cattailed shrouded back section, the boys caught two perch, about twenty crawfish near the rocks, and a really large snapping turtle. They later released the snapper, because no one remembered exactly how they might prepare the meat. When two more snapping turtles were found to be the size of large wash tubs, it was decided they should clear out of the pond, lest someone lose a limb to the large, amphibious carnivores.

Back at the stream, where it fed into the pond, were numerous flat stones. Searching these, back another hundred yards, yielded another three dozen crawfish. More duck potatoes were dug from the mud close to shore, and the boys mixed some milkweed sap with water to splash on their skin to keep the bugs off. It was a really good day to be out in the woods. A new camp was built, closer to the stream, and when all was to comfort specifications, a hearty meal consisting of steamed crawfish tails and duck potatoes and greens, was prepared.

“These taste like shrimp,” Seth remarked. “You wouldn’t have any cocktail sauce and maybe some cold beer in those pockets of yours, would you? He kidded with the old man.

“No cocktail sauce,” the master replied, rummaging through his pockets, “But I’ve got a few packets of ketchup and some cold beer.”

“Ketchup will do okay,” Seth accepted gratefully, “and WHAT?”

The master reached down, under the overhanging stream bank, and hauled up six bottles of beer, one for each of the amazed ninja trainees. He toasted the men on their fine work and great meal, after which, they thoroughly enjoyed the woodland shrimp dinner with a hearty cold brew.

“So, how did you come up with that beer?” Seth asked the master.

“Magic,” the old wizard grinned.

“No, really,” Seth insisted. “You’ve been hopping, climbing and dancing around us since yesterday, and I’ve never heard the single klink of a single bottle. How’d you do that?”

“They were obtained by purely magickal means,” the master laughed.

“Okay… Jonathan, how’d he do it?” Seth was squirming with curiosity.

“Like he said,” Jon replied mischievously, “it was by magickal means.”

“Can’t one of you tell the truth?” Seth said exasperatedly.

“If you MUST know,” Jon drawled, “We flew out to the beach, last night, and found some stoners, partying their little buns off. So instead of biting their throats, we decided to take some of their beer. So we flew back, and stashed it in the stream to keep it cold and have for tonight‘s dinner.”

“Okay, I’m not going to get a straight answer out of either of you.” Seth conceded. “Just forget I asked.” Jon and his father looked at each other and laughed themselves to tears. It was a great meal to cap off a great day.

After the sun had set, it was time for night practice. Dressed in their night suits, of hooded, unbroken black, the men split into two groups. No flashlights were allowed, they had to develop their keen night vision and learn to negotiate the darkness. The master took O’Brian and Jones northward to the beach area and then to the western park boundaries. Jon took Seth and Goldberg northeast, past the golf course and picnic areas to the east of the King’s Highway and then they would wind their way in the dark, back to the campsite. There would be a covered kettle of sassafras tea, cooling next to a doused fire pit. The sun had set a little after nine o’clock. They estimated that they should all be back by one a.m.

Jon’s team had just cut across the golf course at one corner, and were making their way uphill to the King’s Highway near the playground area, when they spied a van, parked off the road in the darkness of the trees. The headlights and engine were off, but the faint cracks of light, gave evidence that the internal lights were on. The