by Kizzie Hayes
I wanted to back away the second his blood touched my lips. It tasted awful, but I knew it was a small price to pay. After a few seconds, I pulled away from Kyle’s wrist and wiped at my mouth in case any blood escaped – like it frequently did with the other two. The amount of times they’ve almost walked in public with my blood on their lips…
“Now what?” I asked.
“You have to die,” Ellen said. The word ‘die’ shocked me a bit, but it made sense. Maybe I was being reckless. At that point, I could not care less. I simply nodded at them, leaning in to kiss Ellen before reaching over and kissing Kyle. Right as I pulled back, Ellen placed her hands on both sides of my face, giving me a small smile before twisting both hands.
And everything went black.
*****
Once I came to, Kyle and Ellen fed me a little bit of blood from one of their blood bags and the next morning, we took off for Chicago. One thing they learned is that it’s easier to spend a long time in a city where you never see the same person twice.
“We both loved Chicago eighty years ago,” Kyle said.
We settled into a small apartment near downtown. In a city that size, no one would be able to judge the three of us for being together. Everyone had demons in their minds and skeletons in their closets; it would be hypocritical to judge us for making different decisions.
It was easier for Ellen to find blood bags for us, and with all of us sharing one apartment, we didn’t have to worry about a walk of shame in the mornings, unless we counted walking from one bedroom to another.
Even though I knew we wouldn’t be able to stay in Chicago forever, it was a good start. A start to the beginning of the rest of my life.
THE END
Another bonus story is on the next page.
Bonus Story 13 of 44
Skin-Walker
“Ms. Morgan, do you have children?”
Of course I didn’t. I had no children and I had no intention of ever having any of the little parasites. Still, I put on a sad and sympathetic face. I smelled a story, a good one. Children in the countryside had been going missing, but, strangely, they always would be gone less than the twenty-four hours needed to call in the FBI.
A child, usually about age twelve, would fail to get off the school bus or his bike would be found abandoned and frantic parents would panic while the police mobilized. Later, the kid would be found dazed and confused wandering in a park or somewhere similar. The child would show no signs of any harm or molestation and the cops would blame it on drugs or some sort of pre-adolescent stunt.
I stared at the woman a few moments, trying to find my empathy. We were in my office after she had turned to my newspaper in real desperation. I needed to milk her for information, so I shut my eyes and shook my head slowly.
“No, Mrs. Phelps,” I said softly, “I – I do have a niece but, well, I am not a mother and so I cannot begin to imagine.”
“Call me Anna,” she said.
“I’m Eileen. So tell me, Anna, what happened?”
“Sean was playing baseball with his friends at the park. It was going on sunset,” Anna explained.
“Which park?”
“McBride.”
“You live in Maple Bluff?” I asked, smelling money.
“Yes,” she said. “So, anyway, he chased a ball into the trees and that was the last anyone saw of him for almost eighteen hours.”
“You called the police.”
“Of course. There was nothing. Then the next morning security at the airport found him wandering in the perimeter.”
“Was he…”
“No,” she said. “That’s just it. He wasn’t harmed in any way. The doctors found nothing. Sean says that it was like he fell asleep and woke up when a jet roared overhead. He remembers nothing. But --”
“Yes?”
“Our own physician found the smallest of puncture marks on his arm.”
“Like if somebody drugged him?”
“No. Like somebody drew blood from him.”
That gave me pause.
“There is something else that you must understand,” the woman said. “My wife and I are Wiccan.”
That gave me even more of a pause.
“I thought,” I said, “that the Wicca are, um, pardon the phrase, good witches.”
“We are. But there are those who would take our knowledge and wisdom and pervert it for their own selfish purposes.”
Right then I figured that I had a lulu. The Wicca are a harmless bunch of Druid wanna-bes into herbalism, hodge-podge spiritualism and very cool, sexy clothes.
“Okay,” I said drawing hard on my empathy, “so you think that some dark coven is gathering elements for some evil reason, like hair or blood or something.”
“Yes.”
“So why come to me?”
“Well,” she said, “I first came because no one would listen to me, a crack-pot lesbian witch. But I have seen your work and you have gone national. And while your investigations have been, um . . .”
“Sleazy.” I said. “I’ll be the first to admit that.”
“Yes. You seem to enjoy taking people down.”
“Only the jerks.”
“Be that as it may,” she said, “my wife suspected something about you. And the moment I walked in here I knew. You are a Skin-Walker.”
I was so very glad that I was sitting. She looked at me with a deep and long stare.
“A whaaa?” I said.
“A shape-shifter,” she said. “I see the shadows on your face.”
“Mrs. Phelps,” I began. “I may be many things but—“
“I understand your denial,” she said. “And your true nature is none of my business or concern. Someday society will understand and accept, but this is not that day. This is the day that I am asking you to help me.”
I had a sudden new respect for Wicca. I grabbed a pad and pen.
“I’m gonna need the whole story.”
We talked for over an hour. She left and then I sent out for lunch. Over pastrami on rye I started researching the other abductions with the same M.O. There was nothing outside of Dane County, not even national. It was one of those stories that we could give banner headlines to. It was begging for our spin.
Then Nick, my editor, poked his head in my door.
“Eileen,” he said, “I want you.”
“And I want you, baby,” I replied, “but you know I have all those slaves back home and—“
“I got a werewolf.”
I chuckled.
“No, really,” he said. “I got three sightings of a werewolf in the University Arboretum.”
“The Arboretum is a big place,” I said. “Where was he spotted?”
“Six guesses.”
“The effigy mounds.”
“Bingo,” he smiled “This could be our very own Bat-Boy baby.”
“Bat-Boy worked,” I sighed, “because it was two syllables and they had a cool graphic. What are you going to call this? The Arboretum Werewolf?”
“Madison’s Monster,” he suggested.
“The Park’s Dark.”
“I like,’ he said. “We could do that with a one-forty point black and white banner. So, am I sending you out tonight with a photographer?”
“I’ll go alone” I said. “This witch came in crying about her boy. I’m digging right now.”
“Those semi-lost kids?”
“Yeah.”
“Be cool if you could tie ‘em together with the werewolf.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, “it would.”
Nick left me with a voucher for a good night camera. I knew a little bit about werewolves. And I knew that they didn’t like cameras.
***
So I work for The Exposé; a small tabloid in Madison, Wisconsin with a thriving circulation. I have a by-line and copyright on all my stories. I get picked up a lot by the national rags because my stories are good. That’s because I am good, and that’s because I have an edge.
&
nbsp; I have the advantage that every reporter on the planet wants: I can be the fly on the wall or the stray cat in your backyard. I am a nagual, animagi, face dancer, skin-walker, whatever name you want. I’m a shape-shifter.
*****
One of the hard parts about being a skin-walker is that you need to do it naked. I mean, I have shifted before when clothed and it’s a hassle. If my body mass expands then the clothes shred. If I contract then I have to spend time wiggling my way out.
So I went into the Arboretum in the dead of night. I found a spot in the Wingra Woods near the ancient effigy mounds and I lit some candles around a stone cairn. I figured that if I got caught it would look like I was some sort of weirdo spiritualist. Then I stripped and walked to the tall Norwegian pines. The night was cool, the scent was wonderful and the lush carpet of long needles was so soft beneath my feet. I wandered. There was no moon and the darkness was so lovely. Standing alone and naked was, itself, a luscious feeling and I could have been lulled into those sweet sensations.
But I had to keep my mind focused. I sensed the thing and I knew that it was out there. It was behind me and stalking me. I could smell its musk. It was aroused and I was such a tempting morsel. I paused by a cluster of moon-flowers and knelt to gather them. The werewolf took that time to circle me.
I liked that about him. He was going to go with a frontal assault. He wasn’t one to grab from behind and that spoke of honor. He crept quietly and when he had stepped into the clearing I heard his low snarl.
When I saw him, his hind quarters were hunched and bent backwards like dog legs. The paws were wide like elongated toes and the claws were like those of a bear. His arms kept something of their human shape but his hands had savage gnarly fingers. His chest was broad and his belly slender. Sleek, dark hair swept along all of his flesh.
A wolf is a majestic animal with a noble, sometimes soft mane. But this thing was a cross between animal and human and was the stuff of nightmares. The snout was long, yet wide, as if a man’s nose and jaw had been pulled and stretched by some evil force. His teeth were hidden but the canines gleamed as his lips snarled. But his eyes were hauntingly human.
Still, I saw that deep in those round yellow eyes there was something beautiful, tender and loving. But wrapped as they were in that hideous skull, they became narrow, slanted and evil, and that evil was framed with silver hair sprouting over his brows.
He was lit by a light from no moon or star and as he loomed I saw that, even though he was a truly frightening vision, the vision I saw was a captive. He was someone’s slave and I could feel that in his heart.
He was a wily one. He was waiting for me to scream. He was waiting to draw from me my fear and so blind me with his power and strength and might, feeding on my terror as he fed on my flesh.
But I stood up.
I stood up and looked him right in his yellow wolf eyes. I focused my camera and the flash dazzled him a moment. As he howled and recovered I sang my soft chant and began to change myself. The werewolf froze. It is not in a wolf’s nature to back away but I felt him wanting to flee as I began to form into his likeness as I stared, unflinching, into his eyes.
My legs took on mass and muscle. I had to keep from crying out as my knees bent backwards but in a moment I felt as if I could leap like a gazelle. My chest tightened, the soft hair sprouted and the long bristly hair grew. I began to see in different hues; yellows and blues became dominant and his eyes were glowing in my sight.
He growled. I growled back. He suddenly rose up on his hind limbs and leapt at me. I bolted under him and he landed in the moon-flowers. I turned and sprang, landing on his back. He stood and howled, thrashing, but I clung and clutched my arms around his throat.
That’s when I found it.
There was a thin leather collar around his throat. My wolf muzzle dug through the hair as he went wild trying to cast me off. But when my teeth sank into the collar, he froze, dropping onto all fours.
He was panting. I was gnawing. I bit through and felt electric sparks. If I had been human I’d have immediately jumped away but I was an animal and my animal brain was focused on one thing and that was to chew through the collar. I smelled his fur burning as the collar sizzled and snapped. I shut my eyes against the flashes and kept biting and gnawing even as he howled.
Then I bit through. The collar cleaved in half and I took one end in my teeth and flung it off and away.
He collapsed.
I collapsed on top of him. I felt his fur fade and, beneath me, the strong muscles of a man formed. I slid off, exhausted. I was spent and I felt myself melting back into a human. I could feel him breathing hard, as though he was relishing every breath.
I opened my eyes. He was lying on his side gazing at me. His eyes were green.
“Thank you,” he said, “you freed me.”
“You’re a werewolf,” I said.
“And you are a most excellent shifter,” he smiled, his finger tracing my burned lips.
“And we,” I said hearing the police sirens, “we are so busted.”
*****
I rolled him onto his back as the cops played their flashlights around us.
“Okay wolf man,” I said. “Unless you want to spend the night in jail do what I say.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Cool. Your name is Steve O’Malley. You live with me at five-oh-one Clemons Avenue. Repeat that.”
“Steve O’Malley. Five-oh-one Clemons Avenue.”
“Excellent,” I said straddling him.
I paused a brief moment. It was as if my thighs were gripping a living tree, he was that solid and yet he was also so warm and . . . endowed.
“What are you doing?”
“Making it real,” I said, “lover.”
“But—“
“Shut up.”
I started rocking and groaning while he lay wide-eyed and amazed. The cop’s lights danced about us. I shrieked.
“It’s okay,” a woman’s voice called out. “We’re the police. Just stay calm, it’s okay.”
“Ohh gawd,” I groaned covering my breasts.
“It’s okay,” she said. I heard her partner chuckle. “Just want to know what’s going on.”
“Isn’t it obvious,” I said.
“Yeah, but . . .”
“It’s the Beltane Fires,” I said. “We were just – just saying goodbye to spring and welcoming summer.”
“Those your candles back there?”
“Yes. Look officers. We haven’t committed any crime.”
They had us stand, took us away from each other and asked their questions. Then they switched and we were grilled again. Then they left us to huddle in the pre-dawn chill while they conferred. They gave me back my sundress and purse and asked where his clothes were.
“He came this way,” I said. “It’s—it’s how it works. He needs to be—“
“Yeah, it’s okay,” she said. “So here’s the deal . . .”
It turned out that we were trespassing on State property. The park closed at 10 pm. The cops made noises about public indecency but I argued that it was four in the morning and the public was restricted. They laughed. I felt that we were going to skate.
“So listen,” the woman said, “there are rumors about this place.”
“The werewolf?” I chuckled.
“Yeah.” she said. “Someone called in a disturbance in here. Said something about animals fighting. Big animals. You know anything about that?”
“Someone?” I said. “There was someone here? Watching?”
“A couple of teenagers looking for the werewolf. You two see or hear anything like that?”
“No,” I said. “But then we were – you know.”
“Right. Okay then. Go finish your ceremony at home.”
***
In Wisconsin you always carry an extra sweater, a blanket, a shovel and a bunch of rock salt in your car during the winter. I gave the wolf man the blanket and drove him back to my house. Ne
ither of us said anything the whole drive. I led him to my kitchen where I cracked open a beer. I offered him one but he asked for water.
I got to check him out in real light. He was . . . attractive. His hair was dark brown and grizzled. He had a widow’s peak and long sideburns. His face was chiseled with sharp lines and yet he had such a soft and gentle look. His eyes were light green and piercing, but with an almost innocent air. He had a week’s worth of beard growth and he was built like a boxer.
“Okay wolf man,” I said nodding. “What’s your story?”
“You,” he said.
“What?”
“May I have another glass?”
I stood away. I took my can of mace from my purse. I nodded him toward the sink and he drank three more glasses.
“So,” I said as he breathed deep. “Why is your story me?”
“I am in your debt.”
I looked at him somewhat perplexed.
“I was enslaved,” he said. “That collar. It kept me from my human form, and you freed me. How did you know?”
“I guessed,” I said “A werewolf wearing a collar is a bit unusual.”
“So is a woman who believes in and seeks out a werewolf. It makes me wonder about your story.”
“I’m asking the questions.” I said. “So who enslaved you?”
“I cannot say.”
“You don’t know?”
“I cannot say,” he repeated. “I have been sworn.”
“To whom? To what?”
“I cannot—“
“Right,” I said, “I know, you cannot say. Can you at least tell me what you were doing haunting the Arboretum.”
“I was protecting.”
“Protecting?” I said. “Protecting who from what?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, “I was a slave. The collar enslaved me. You broke that. I am in your debt.”
“Look.” I said.
“What matters now is that you saved my life, and now I owe you that life until you release me.”