The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

  Joshua woke up burning in the sun that poured in through his bay window. They'd forgotten to buy curtains for his bedroom. The sun-rotten old ones had fallen down while they set up his air mattress bed.

  They'd forgotten to buy an alarm clock. He had no idea what time it was except "day." It still felt like morning.

  He wasn't sure what day it was until he started to count out from when he was mauled. That had been Friday. Saturday he'd been discharged from the hospital, fled his parent's house, and met Decker. Sunday he'd gone food shopping, won ten million dollars, talked to a dead woman, met the Wolf King, and spent three hours stuck as a wolf with a resizing problem.

  It was Monday then. He was officially late for school.

  He rolled onto his back, raised his hands toward the ceiling and stared at them.

  Last night he had paws.

  He was a werewolf.

  A werewolf.

  A werewolf.

  A werewolf.

  His arms started to get tired.

  He'd probably been staring at his hands a lot longer than he thought. He was spectacularly not coping here. He didn't seem to be able to tackle his change head on. It was like jumping into a tar pit. It was too deep. Too dark. Too thick. There was nothing to hang on to. He felt like he was going to go under and never come back up.

  What was he supposed to do now? He was a werewolf, but he didn't really know what that meant. What did werewolves do when they weren't out being wolfy?

  He had thought picking a major to study in college was hard. He hadn't been able to answer that question either. What do you want to be the rest of your life? "Werewolf" was not one of his top ten picks.

  He decided to focus on Hoarders: Hipster Vampire. It was something that he could wrap his brain around.

  They hadn't finished in the kitchen. They'd cleared the floor and the counters but hadn't even opened the cabinet doors. He needed to clean all the cabinets and drawers so he could put away the dishes, glasses and silverware that they'd bought the night before.

  Beyond that, everything became too much of a tar pit.

  Right.

  Get a dumpster. Deep clean. Paint some walls. Have a yard sale. Cry a little bit as someone (probably Decker) gently explained the facts of life. Done.

  His stomach grumbled a bit. Oh yes, and go real food shopping. Decker had given him a fist full of fifties. With the microwave and mini fridge, Joshua could do more than just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  Which made him wonder what Decker "ate." And when. So far Decker had spent every waking moment with him, running around, buying things and then they would clean and plan until Joshua crashed out of sheer exhaustion. One minute they were putting the linens on his new air bed, talking about what they'd do the next evening, and the next he'd was waking up at seven-thirty (according to Decker's phone).

  He had one vague memory of Decker patting him on the head. Decker did that a lot. He had large hands, compared to Joshua, that were cool to the touch. Joshua didn't want to think about how much he liked it when Decker patted him on the head.

  Joshua tried to count sit-ups instead of thinking of Decker.

  One sit-up. The man confused him the hell out of him.

  Two. On one hand, Decker was rock solid when Joshua really needed someone to steady him. He made Joshua feel safe.

  Three. The problem was that when he thought Joshua had both feet firmly under him, the teasing started.

  Four. At least Joshua thought it was teasing. He couldn't be sure.

  Five. It wasn't like Decker was hinting that he wanted something from Joshua. Every time he teased, he just took something Joshua said or did, and twisted it. Like last night at Target, Joshua had taken Decker's hand without thinking to pull him to the grocery aisles. Decker smirked at him and said, "Yes, I see the beef log. I'm sure it's tasty." Technically, Joshua started that...

  Six. And when Elise told Joshua to keep his hands off Decker's sword. Decker made that sound sexual even without saying a word. Which was impressive. Maybe it was Decker's magical vampire talent...

  Which would be a weird magical talent to have.

  Joshua had lost count of the sit-ups. Where was he? Five?

  Six. Decker had said that Elise was dear to him. He also said that she'd shoot Decker because she knew it really wouldn't kill him. She certainly acted like she'd cheerfully stab him many times.

  Six. But then Elise warned Joshua not to hurt Decker. Which meant she thought he could. Hurt as in tear off Decker's head? Or hurt as in break his heart?

  Six. Would she hold it against him that he wasn't gay and Decker was?

  Six. Exactly how psycho was Elise? There was no question that she was dangerous. The question was how dangerous.

  Six. Was Decker gay?

  Joshua knew kids who thought it was hilarious when they grabbed their groin and said "suck me" when they weren't gay. Decker at least made everything he said sound funny. What if he was just joking about the homosexual stuff?

  It was hard for Joshua to figure out because no one ever acted that way around him. His friends were all male, dorky, unpopular, and straight. The one obviously gay guy in high school hung out with a pack of girls. None of the girls in his grade ever gave Joshua a second look because he was so short and apparently "weird." He was never sure what he was doing that was so strange. Certainly, he'd tried hard to act like everyone else.

  How many sit-ups had he done?

  This was not working. Life had thrown him too many curve balls. He didn't even know which ones he should be juggling. The least important one probably was Decker's sexual orientation. The only thing Joshua knew for sure was that he couldn't go home.

  And he was hungry.

  A hungry wolf was a dangerous wolf.

  * * *

  It was really hard to write and walk.

  Joshua could read and walk easily. It was a mile between his house and his school bus stop, so he always read as he walked. Going to school he normally brushed up for tests or finished any reading homework. (Really, with all the wonderful novels in the world, why did they always pick Godawful ones for class? He hated Animal Farm before he had to live it, thank you very much.) Walking back home, he read for pleasure.

  Writing was a whole different matter.

  He had to stop moving or his handwriting got so wobbly that he couldn't read what he wrote. While he'd gotten dressed he realized that the scary Wolf King manifestation had made him forget that Jack Cabot had gone to high school with Winnie. He felt like he'd wasted all that energy worrying when he knew that Winnie considered Jack "a knight in shining armor." Also he'd spent the twelve-plus hours with Decker without telling him anything constructive about the séance. Sioux Zee made it sound like the ghost's information was probably out of date, but Jazmin had thought his presence meant that it wasn't. Certainly the Wickers seemed to figure hugely into Jazmin's life. Were they the same Wickers chasing Joshua now? And where was the Prince of Boston? In New York with the Wolf King? If Winnie had told Joshua, he'd forgotten. All he could remember was that the prince peeked under her bed for monsters, or something like that. There were definitely monsters under the bed, but Joshua wasn't too sure about a Peeping Tom werewolf prince.

  He needed to write everything down to keep it straight. His life had become worse than being thrown into the middle of a video game like Call of Duty 4 without doing the tutorial.

  He'd started with making a list on Decker.

  Decker is a vampire. A freaky vampire. Other vampires were dangerous.

  Decker had a scary giant sword. Someplace. It had disappeared after the fight with the huntsman. Decker had talked about channeling magic into a weapon. Maybe the sword only existed when Decker needed it---but then how did Joshua use it?

  Decker had lived in Philadelphia before 1959. He came to Boston with Saul, and he was at least seventy years old despite looking twenty. What's that in dog years? (Joshua wrote that down, not as a joke but a question of how long he would live as a
werewolf. Decker implied that the Wolf King was older than him.)

  Decker slept---or something---sunrise to sunset. Where, Joshua was still unsure because the vampire could move freaking quietly. He'd judo-thrown Decker twice last night when the vampire startled him. Logically Decker's coffin was somewhere in the house and most likely the basement. When they went to the coal cellar, however, there was no sign of it.

  Decker could lose control and that would be "bad." When and how were probably important questions. Joshua underlined the "loses control" part. Triggers would be good things to know.

  He had run out of facts that he actually knew about Decker and detoured into myths. Decker didn't need an invitation to enter a public place, didn't seem to have trouble with garlic (they passed a bin of it in Target's grocery section), and so far hadn't reacted to a holy symbol (the cashier wore a cross). No reflection. Joshua circled that one with exclamation points because that one defied everything he knew about the universe.

  Decker might be gay---maybe. Decker liked him.

  Joshua had put lots of question marks next to the last one because he wasn't sure how much Decker liked him. Or in what way. Under it, he'd written, "He smells good" but scratched it out just in case Decker ever got hold of the list.

  That was just about it. He knew next to nothing about the person he was living with. He didn't even know what Decker's favorite color was, just that the vampire was agreeable to painting the walls green if that was what Joshua wanted. And Joshua wasn't sure if it was the real Joshua that liked green or if it was the new improved werewolf part that was talking.

  The blare of a car horn made him jump. He'd stepped out in front of a car. He jerked back onto the curb, blushing furiously. He probably should be paying attention to where he was going. There was a lot more traffic in Cambridge and the drivers all seemed homicidal. He really didn't want to put "werewolves are nearly impossible to kill" to the test. Especially since Decker said it would still hurt a lot.

  Which reminded him. He flipped to the page titled "Things I Know about Werewolves for sure" and wrote "It still hurts even if it doesn't kill you." The list was depressingly short. Most of the things on it only raised questions instead of giving him answers. Things like: Ferals are bad. Pack wolves are good. I'm a pack wolf. That seemed to indicate then he was part of a pack. What pack? Winnie had said that the Boston werewolves were all dead. What pack did the werewolf that changed him belong to? Where were they? Not back home. He would have noticed a BMW i8 tooling around Sauquoit.

  Joshua stopped cold as he suddenly remembered seeing the sleek black car.

  * * *

  They had planned to open the haunted house an hour after sunset. Shortly before people were supposed to start arriving, Joshua had to go pee. There was no bathroom or outhouse at the barn. All the corn had been cut down and the field was open to the sky, brightly lit by the rising moon. The only place for privacy was the trees that edged both sides of the cornfield. The road ran along the east property line, so he'd walked across the rough field to the other set. He was in mid-stream when the BMW growled slowly up the road, turn signal blinking, as the driver looked for the narrow break through the trees that marked the access road. When he found it, he pulled in and stopped, blocking the opening.

  "Idiot," Joshua whispered. He was still peeing and didn't want to draw attention by shouting "Don't park there."

  It was obvious later that the werewolf had deliberately blocked the escape, but at the time Joshua couldn't decide if the driver was just stupid or a self-centered prick.

  A big African-American man unfolded himself out of the car, flexing as if stiff from a long drive. He took off his suit jacket and tossed it in through the open window. His business shirt, shoes and slacks followed.

  "What the hell?" Joshua whispered as he zipped up. He couldn't even guess at what was coming.

  Joshua watched in confusion as the man crouched on the ground, nearly naked. Then he stood, mouth open, too scared to move, as the man turned into a big grey wolf. It only took a few seconds. The transformation had taken just long enough to know that there weren't two beings moving through the moonlit night, that the man had changed to beast.

  The memory fragmented. Bits and pieces followed.

  There had been knives. They were like Elise's twin blades. They gleamed in the moonlight. Frank Cahill had them first, calling orders as if he was quarterbacking the fight. The linebackers piled onto the werewolf, trying to tackle it to the ground. Daphne kept screaming "Kill it! Kill it!" which sounded insane to Joshua. The wolf hadn't actually hurt anyone yet.

  "Just run!" He'd planned to cover the retreat. "Get to the cars!"

  Daphne pointed in Joshua's direction. "Cut him!"

  For a moment, everyone went still and stared toward Joshua.

  "Ilya!" the wolf shouted.

  Joshua looked behind him, hoping that there was someone standing behind him. When he glanced back, the entire chaotic tangle of bodies was surging toward him. Joshua backpedaled, shouting wordlessly.

  * * *

  His memory tattered at that point. He remembered Chris swinging a knife at him as he grappled with D.J. The blade had hit with shocking force and blood rushed down his forearm. He clearly remembered thinking that he was going to die.

  Joshua stopped on the busy Cambridge street corner. As college students brushed past him, he pushed up his sleeve. A long thin scar ran from his wrist to his elbow. He had a lot of scars; he'd lived a rough and tumble childhood. He knew all his old wounds and where he'd gotten them. This one was new.

  Chris and D.J. had tried to kill him. He'd known them both since kindergarten. D.J. had held him down and Chris sliced open his arm to the bone. He should have bled out long before the paramedics arrived. They'd tried to kill him.

  Then the werewolf tore Chris's head off.

  Joshua whimpered. He needed something to eat. Now.

  * * *

  Fifty dollars bought less pie than he expected. To be fair, it was very good pie. The little café called Pesti Pie offered slices of pie and coffee. The wolf just pointed and paid and it was several slices in before Joshua could regain control. It felt very much like sitting in the backseat of the car, watching someone else drive. He experienced all the sensations but had no control of direction or speed. He managed to pause in the middle of a piece of salted caramel apple pie to establish control. He had already eaten a slice of butternut squash, caramelized onion, Gorgonzola, and walnut (which sounded weird but had tasted amazing) and a bacon, leek and Gruyere pie. Bacon pie. Why hadn't anyone thought of that before? He still had two pieces of banana chocolate cream to eat. Life was good.

  Where was he going? Beyond just getting food? Oh yes, the hardware store. The magical paint formula.

  He sat eating pie, watching painting videos and taking notes of things he'd need. He liked lists; they kept life neat and orderly. If it was on a list, it was already halfway conquered. There were lots of videos on YouTube but all of them were fairly boring. It gave new meaning to "watching paint dry."

  Only after the pie was gone, the lists seemed complete, and he hadn't whimpered or growled for half an hour, did he try thinking about Friday night again.

  * * *

  He had come to with people lifting the wolf body off him. A female paramedic pressed a hand to his neck and shouted, "I've got a pulse!"

  That brought a gathering of people looking down at him, all with flashlights that they shone in his face.

  "What's going on?" he asked. "Why am I on the ground? What happened?"

  "You're going to be okay," the paramedic said loudly and then murmured to someone that he couldn't see, "I can't tell how much of this blood is his."

  "What?" Joshua cried.

  "It's okay," she said as she examined his chest and stomach. "We're going to get you to the hospital."

  A policeman crouched down beside Joshua. "Son, how many kids were here with you?"

  "Where is here?" He could tell they were outside and i
t was night and the ground beneath him was painfully uneven. "Where are we? What happened?"

  "He doesn't have any ID on him," the paramedic said.

  "What's your name, son?" the policeman asked.

  "I-I-I don't know."

  "He might have a concussion." The paramedic focused even more light into his eyes. "Do you know what year it is? Who is the president?"

  Joshua squinted against all the bright lights focused on him. "Why are you asking me? I don't even know what's going on!"

  The paramedic turned off her light. "You've been hurt. We're taking you to the hospital." And then to the policeman, "He's not going to be able to answer any questions."

  The night became another confusing jumble. Then later, the police came with photographs and questions. Who had been at the barn? Were there only ten kids there? Had he noticed any strangers? How did the animal get there? Did someone bring it? Who had driven the BMW i8?

  All those questions, but they'd never mentioned the knives.

  Did they not find the knives?

  Elise had wanted to know how anyone managed to kill a werewolf. He should call her and tell her.

  And go buy paint.

  16: Elise

  The den of forbidden carnal pleasures came with a "honeymoon breakfast" brought to the room via a room service cart. The hotel made it seem like luxurious by providing a soft boiled egg in a hand-painted china cup and three pancakes. It cut corners by having only one piece of bacon and a single strawberry on each plate. It was not designed to satisfy three people, especially when one was a teenage werewolf who'd skipped two meals the day before.

  "Are you sure?" the prince asked before attacking her plate.

  "I normally just do a coffee and donut. There's a Dunkin' Donuts a few blocks down. I'll grab something there." It was almost a lie. Coffee was a must but she normally tried to make something for breakfast every morning. She couldn't stand cooking dinner just for one; it was too empty a ritual to bear. Healthy dinners were easy to come by eating out. Good breakfasts, on the other hand, were not. She suffered the silent emptiness of her studio apartment to make omelets with graviera cheese and siglino or occasionally trahana with feta cheese.