Lunar City

by Samantha Cross

  “But how can this be?”

  “I come from a long line of werewolves. We’re purebreds, you might say.”

  “So, basically, a werewolf has a baby with another werewolf and that makes a werewolf?”

  “That’s how it began, supposedly. My family has been marrying off werewolves for generations.”

  “So, both your parents were this way?”

  “And their parents before them.”

  I laughed, completely blown away. “This is wild,” I said. “I learn one thing only to find out immediately that I didn’t know jack. If there are all these purebreds roaming around, why haven’t I see any?”

  “You could have. How would you know the difference?”

  “It’s true. I was friends with a werewolf for a few weeks and had no clue. I’m not exactly Columbo, I guess.”

  “We’re not that common. There are other families that are purebloods, but it doesn’t pop up as frequently as you might think it would.”

  “So, you’re special.”

  She looked embarrassed. “Special? No.”

  “You’re like a unicorn,” I teased, and got a pretty big laugh out of her. A part of me did it to help break the ice, but a larger part of me knew joking my way through this topic was in fact the only way I could digest it without completely freaking out.

  I had thought the werewolf that had bitten Owen was nothing more than a diseased, evolved beast that had infected him, and come to find out it was something that had been around for generations. How was this real life?

  I opened my mouth to continue the conversation, but was completely distracted by the sight of Melanie across the room, walking toward me with a man guiding her as he held onto her arm. She looked dazed, like she was in one of her drunken stupors, only I knew it not to be true. This was shock.

  I jogged to her so she only had to walk halfway, and asked, “Are you okay?”

  Melanie swallowed hard. “Um… I learned some stuff.” She sounded in shock.

  I guess they were serious about telling her the truth and didn’t waste any time in doing so. I can’t even imagine how that conversation went.

  “What exactly did they tell you?” I had to ask.

  Her eyes were concentrated on my forehead, looking dizzy from what I imagine was all the information she was told. “That everyone here is a werewolf? Yeah, that’d be it,” she replied.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Her glossy eyes finally met mine. “Like a drink is in order,” she said. It was the one time her alcoholic ways were completely understandable.

  The man who brought Melanie to us gave Brinly a nod, waited for her to nod back, and then left the three of us alone. Was he under her orders? I was a bit confused as to how much power she had.

  “Your cousin looks a little distressed,” Brinly noted.

  Melanie turned and looked at her, suddenly realizing she was standing there. I figured I’d do the honors and introduce them. “Brinly, this is my cousin Melanie. Melanie, this is Brinly. She lives here.”

  “Heh,” was all Melanie said. I could tell she was still digesting this all, and me telling her who Brinly was, wasn’t at the top of her need-to-know list.

  “We’ll be having lunch in a few minutes, if you guys are interested,” Brinly said.

  My mouth was practically salivating. “You know I’m ready.”

  “Cool. We’ll be dining alfresco.”

  A confused look came over Melanie’s face. “Who’s Al Fresco?”

  I didn’t even have the energy to correct her. My shoulders just slumped down as I closed my eyes and inhaled and exhaled very deeply. “Let’s just eat, shall we?”

  Brinly led us to the main entrance doors and had us follow her as she walked right outside. I was reluctant at first, fearful that someone might think we were trying to escape and lash out and enforce severe and swift punishment, but yet nothing happened. Perhaps Brinly’s presence let them know we weren’t going anywhere.

  As soon as the sun hit my corneas, I breathed a sigh of relief. As beautiful as the mansion was, I had felt cooped up like a prisoner, and feeling the warmth of the summer heat tingling all over my skin soothed me. It felt like freedom.

  In the light of day, without the heavy downpour or the night sky, the courtyard looked friendly and serene. A beautiful, three tier garden fountain was the centerpiece of it all, built from stone with water dripping from each layer to the next, and there were flowers and vines climbing up the walls that enclosed the area. Being out here, you could hear the waves from the lake smacking against the shore and the seagulls circling above so prominently.

  Brinly took off in front of us, heading toward the eating area where several picnic tables were set up. People were already seated, eating food that they had gotten from the buffet table, and when the two humans of the household walked forward they were sure to stare.

  Christ, it was like being back in high school.

  “Where should we sit?” I asked out loud.

  “Just find a spot quick. I don’t want to look like a loser. It’s bad enough I’m standing here with you.”

  “Find your own damn seat then,” I bitched.

  Melanie rolled her eyes. “Remember that time no one would eat with you during lunch, so you took your salad into the bathroom?”

  I shot her a deadly stare. “No, Melanie, that completely slipped my mind,” I barked. “Especially the part where you joined your friends in laughing at me.”

  “Sounds like you remember it pretty well, actually.”

  “Sounds like… your face.”

  “Cora, come on!” I heard Brinly’s voice shout. She was standing by a vacant picnic table and waving me over. I wasted no time in rushing to join her and neither did Melanie.

  I glared at Melanie as we raced to the table like two little kids. “I don’t recall hearing her calling for you,” I said.

  “Don’t be such a baby.”

  I was ready to pummel her.

  As soon as met up to Brinly, she told us where the buffet table was and just to grab as much as we wanted. It was technically lunch time so there were a lot of breads, meat slices and soups. I was a vegetarian, so I knew soup was going to have to be it for me. Meanwhile, Melanie lingered there sniffing it out like she wasn’t sure if she’d take anything. Eventually, she settled on a turkey and cheese sandwich and then we both sat down with Brinly.

  I sipped my soup while Melanie chomped on her sandwich, and the three of us remained in complete silence for two full minutes.

  “You guys enjoying your lunch?” Brinly asked, breaking the ice.

  I nodded, unable to speak because my tongue was burning from the hot soup. Melanie inspected her turkey sandwich like it was a lost treasure map she was trying to read and said, “This is turkey, right, and not werewolf meat?”

  I nearly spit out my soup.

  Brinly glared at her with a face any human being would make when accused of eating slices of meat from their own kind. “Are you serious right now?” She looked at me, hoping for some logical answer, but I was too tongue-tied to speak. “What the hell sense does that make?”

  Melanie shrugged, oblivious to the hostility in Brinly’s voice. “I thought maybe you guys did stuff like that. Aren’t you technically animals?”

  Brinly’s once friendly eyes enlarged like two small planets, and the stare she gave her could have telepathically murdered a small village. “Are you actually hearing the words coming out of your mouth? How does that make sense? More importantly, why the hell would we do that? Girl, you have lost your mind.”

  Oh, shit, Brinly looked ready to cut a bitch.

  “No need to get defensive or wolf out or whatever,” Melanie responded very casually, still unaware of how truly offensive she had been. “How the hell am I supposed to know this stuff? I didn’t know any of this was real until some weirdo pulled me into his room to show me.”

  “Show you?” I asked with a gasp. “You mean he turned into a werewolf in front of
you?”

  “Just his hand. I thought he was going to whip out his dick or something, but his hand got all hairy and he grew claws and I thought I was tripping balls.”

  How terrifying. No wonder she was pale as a ghost when I saw her. It seemed such an extreme way to tell a girl the truth, but I suppose it skimmed past all the disbelief and got right to the point.

  “I told him to put his molester hands away and that I believed him,” Melanie finished and then took a big bite out of her sandwich. “Try getting that image out of your head.”

  “Melanie, these people have to not only seen that every month, but feel it. How do you think that makes Brinly feel?” I looked over to Brinly, but she darted her eyes away from me quickly and focused on eating her meal.

  I leaned back in my chair, but kept my eyes on Melanie. “You should have had some inkling that something weird was going on after what happened to Grandma and I last summer.”

  “You guys said some rabid animal got loose and killed some people.”

  “What about at Thanksgiving when Grandma started going off about werewolves?”

  “I thought she was off her meds again.”

  All right, she had a point.

  “Who was the guy that showed you?” I asked Melanie.

  “I don’t know, some lumberjack looking guy with a wicked looking beard. His face is hairy, his hand is hairy… you think everywhere is hairy?”

  I scrunched my face and dropped my spoon in disgust. “I’m trying to eat here.”

  “I think he wanted to get into my pants.”

  “If it was Kurt, no,” Brinly chimed in. “He’s married.”

  “His wife live here?” I asked.

  “Neither of them do. It’s only the newbie wolves and my immediate family who live on the compound. Most have their own families and homes within the city.”

  “So, everyone in the city is a werewolf?”

  “Not everyone.”

  “Do they know about what you guys… are?”

  “I don’t suspect they do. Everything’s well managed and there’s a forest not far from here where they go to turn. With Papa leading them, they never venture into the city, so everyone here is none the wiser.”

  “Speaking of which,” Melanie began and dropped the remainder of her sandwich. “Who are the people here? I’m seeing a lot of guys walking around and I’m not seeing any wedding bands. Well, you are allergic to silver, so maybe that’s why,” she said and then laughed really hard. It was as if no other person in any other situation ever had made a werewolf and silver joke, and Melanie was quite proud of it.

  Brinly looked like she hadn’t gotten over the cannibal joke, but was trying her best to maintain a polite face. “Who would you like to meet?” she asked, her voice muffled as she spoke through gritted teeth.

  “Just give me the skinny. I see a lot of hot tail around here.”

  Oh, God, she was doing werewolf puns now. Make it stop.

  For whatever reason, Brinly decided to play along. “You see that group over there?” she asked and pointed off into the distance. Our eyes followed the tip of her finger to three people standing by one of the angel statues. They weren’t eating, but leaning against the compound walls in conversation. It was two men and one woman. “That’s Paul’s crew.”

  “Your boyfriend?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s Paul?” Melanie spoke up.

  “Her boyfriend,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes.

  Brinly continued on with the skinny. She went through each of the members of Paul’s crew, including a man named Corbin, who was beefy and small in stature, with only bristles of hair growing on the top of his head, and he was dark skinned except for a white scar that ran vertically across his face. It looked like an animal had mangled him.

  “Corbin doesn’t say much. He’s a bit of a brooder and you’ll be lucky to hear him say more than two words at a time,” Brinly detailed. “But Paul and him have been close for years, like brothers.”

  “What happened to his face?” I asked.

  “Paul said the werewolf that bit him did that to him. They got into a nasty scuffle and Corbin almost died, but he got the best of the wolf in the end.”

  “He actually killed the werewolf?”

  She shrugged. “That’s what they say, at least. You’d have no way of proving otherwise. Corbin was the only one there and he’s practically a mute.”

  I had to wonder if he was one of the men that helped Paul kidnap Melanie and me. I knew he had help, but I never heard anything and I never saw anything, and by the time we were indoors I was too panicked to really look around at the men who had taken us. I tried to get a really good look at him, and for a brief moment, his honey colored eyes hit mine, but nothing clicked. Maybe it wasn’t him.

  “You see that uneventful looking guy standing next to him?” He had a baseball cap on backward and Dumbo sized ears. His face was long and skinny like a horse and when he grinned, he was nothing but pink gums. “His name is Travis,” Brinly said. “His parents have more money than God, and for the past decade have helped support him be the biggest pothead in the Midwest. Travis’ talents include making bongs out of pop bottles and having his nose lodged up my boyfriend’s ass.”

  “Sounds like the kind you take home to Mom,” I said.

  “I’d sooner date a female. Just do yourself a favor and steer clear of him. He’ll hump anything that moves.”

  “Is that a werewolf thing?”

  “It’s a pervert thing. I don’t know if the drugs have stunted his brain growth, but the boy has absolutely no chill.”

  “Duly noted. Maybe you can introduce him to Melanie. They might hit it off.”

  Melanie’s jaw dropped, repulsed. “Excuse me, but I don’t sleep with horny potheads. I do have standards, you know.”

  “He has money. I thought that was your standard.”

  Melanie’s face went sour.

  With the group was a woman; she was pixie like, not even reaching five feet and her hair was almost white from how blonde it was. Everything about her looked messy, from the way her clothes hung off the shoulder and how her cleavage poured out from her oversized shirt, to the smeared eye makeup and faded lipstick, like she had been dragged out of bed during a heated lovemaking session and couldn’t be bothered to tidy up. She also had this very large cartoonish mouth that took up most of her face when she laughed. It was almost inhuman looking.

  “That’s Kat,” Brinly said, and I leaned in anticipating a detailed backstory about her. Brinly just shrugged and said, “She’s complete trash.”

  I involuntarily laughed. “Well, that was right to the point, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m not usually one for gossiping about a woman’s personal business, but I know for a fact, she’s been trying to sleep with Paul.”

  “Juicy,” Melanie said. Her eyes were big and bright at the revelation there was something scandalous she could sink her teeth into. Somehow, it wasn’t endearing like it was with Priscilla, but more like Melanie wanted there to be confrontation so she could have a good laugh. Okay, maybe that did sound like Priscilla.

  “She drives me nuts,” Brinly growled. “You have no idea what it’s like having a woman try to sleep with your boyfriend on a daily basis while having to fake a smile and be professional because your family runs the place. If I had my way, she would have been kicked out months ago, but Papa claims she still needs guidance.” She shook her head calmly. “I ought to guide her head through a window, snatch that weave of hers, and shove it down her throat.”

  “Damn, using a girl’s own weave as a weapon against her.”

  “That’s so gangsta,” Melanie chimed in, although I really wish she hadn’t.

  “Hey, Brinly,” I heard a male voice call. A man came strolling toward the eating area with a tray of food in his hands, and when he saw Brinly, he nodded in her direction and came toward our table. He had big puppy dog brown eyes hidden underneath a pair of black, thick
rimmed glasses. So much of his face was hidden because of these curly tendrils of hair that hung on his forehead, but from the looks of it, he had some sort of Latin descent. I couldn’t quite tell if he was in his twenties or thirties because his skin looked youthful, but his eyes looked mature, like he had seen a thing or two in his day. Maybe all the werewolves had this quality.

  He sat down opposite of me, soup on tray, and another man sat down beside him. He had reddish colored hair and looked like he threw his outfit together in the dark. One look around this eating area and it was clear as day they were the two nerds of the group.

  Suddenly, something about the brown haired guy seemed familiar.

  “Soup day again, huh?” he said to Brinly as he sipped it from a spoon.

  “Yeah, when is Aga gonna get some real food around here?” the red haired man chimed in.

  “About the same time you two lazy bums get off your behinds and help hunt,” she sassed them. That shut them up.

  Through his glasses I saw the brunette glance at me. “Who’re your friends?” he asked Brinly.

  She looked Melanie and I over like she was considering whether or not to introduce us. “This is Melanie and Cora and they’ll be staying with us for a couple weeks.”

  “So, they’re not…?”

  “No, they’re not,” she clarified. I assumed he was asking whether we were wolves. “Anyway, Cora and Melanie that is Kerry,” she said, pointing at the ginger across from us, “and that is…”

  It suddenly dawned on me who the brunette was. “Cyclonic modulator guy,” I said, surprising myself and pointing at him.

  His dark eyes narrowed. “How did you…?”

  “I saw you guys playing.”

  “Oh,” he responded with a hardy chortle, relieved to know I didn’t have mind reading abilities. “Don’t hold it against me, I’m usually much better. I just didn’t have enough credits to get all the really good equipment.”

  Oh, God, a nerd. Thank the heavens.

  “My name’s Rickey Daggett, but I tell everybody to call me Daggett.”

  “How come?”