by DG Wood
Marvin’s wife had learned how to turn at any moment. As a child, she first turned in the schoolroom at the age of six. She had been so embarrassed afterwards. But for Marvin, a convert, it must be the touch of the moon that initiates the transformation on the first nightfall after consummation. So, Marjorie took him by the hand and walked him naked into the moonlight.
All were naked. It was Carter who helped Mary, lifting her up into his arms and marching proudly into the light. Then Jake, then Serena, then Gus, lying on the grass, his hand gripped tightly by Geraldine’s, felt the heat of moonlight on their faces. And their lives were changed forever.
Buck and Darkly dragged the canoe up towards the old mine, behind the rock outcrop.
“We can’t just walk into town. We need to get a look at what’s been going on first.”
Buck reached into his pack and pulled out his and Darkly’s gun. He handed Darkly her gun.
“Here.”
“You didn’t think of giving it back before now?” Darkly asked, incredulous.
“You didn’t need it where we were going,” replied Buck, “and now you might.”
Buck forged ahead, and Darkly pulled him back.
“Hey, macho man. I don’t have time to deliver a lesson on sexism just now. But, I’m willing to bet the RCMP firing range made me a helluva lot better shot than the tin cans you grew up throwing rocks at. I’ll take point.”
Darkly took the lead moving up the hill, and it wasn’t long before they reached the movie’s circus. Darkly and Buck searched the cast trailers.
“They’ve been turned upside down,” said Darkly.
“And the truck’s gone,” Buck noted.
“Maybe some of my people got away,” Darkly said.
They made their way to the railing of the overlook. Each removed a pair of binoculars from their packs and scanned the town.
“Looks peaceful enough,” said Darkly.
Buck moved his binoculars up to the field above town. There, he spotted the newlyweds turning from human to wolf.
“Geraldine,” he said aloud, incredulous.
“What?” asked Darkly.
“Your people are now my people,” Buck responded.
Darkly watched through her own binoculars as Gus leapt up off the ground a whole and powerful wolf, while Buck lowered the binoculars back down to town and The Blue Moon Diner. Outside the front door of the diner, Wyatt was waving at him.
“If I have any people. Shit.”
Darkly also focused her sights on Wyatt and lost her breath. Waving back at her was the man she had tasted all those years ago in Algonquin Park.
“Throw your weapons over here,” the voice behind Buck and Darkly ordered.
Buck and Darkly turned slowly to see Zig standing over them, a rifle pointed between their two heads.
“In case you’re wondering, Buck, I’m packing silver bullets. It is Buck, right? You match the description.”
“That’s me,” Buck confirmed.
“And this must be the Mountie? I’m going to enjoy this. I always hated you people. Seeing as Wyatt’s brother likes you so much, I’m to kill you. Wyatt prefers to do the honors with you, Buck.”
Zig moved the rifle directly in front of Darkly’s head. “Bye bye.”
Darkly did not freeze when confronted with her own demise. If she was going down, she was going down in an offensive stance. But, as she leapt forward, Buck valiantly dived in front of Darkly, resulting in an outcome reminiscent of an American football tackle.
In the fractions of a second between Darkly and Buck’s mash-up and Zig repositioning his rifle’s aim, a black wolf flew out of the darkness behind Zig and tackled him to the ground. He barely had time to scream, as the wolf tore into Zig’s neck, separating his head from his body. His head rolled away before the rifle barrel hit the ground.
But when it did hit, the rifle discharged a bullet into the black wolf. The wolf stumbled and collapsed in a God-awful yelp.
Darkly expected to be dead seconds earlier. The shock of what just happened seeped in. The wolf that saved Darkly’s life licked at its chest, and Buck went to the beast immediately.
“She’s seriously wounded,” Buck said.
“She?” asked Darkly.
Buck nodded his head. He crouched down and ran his hands across the top of her head. Darkly held back. The wolf looked up at her and whimpered.
“Is she going to make it?” Darkly asked.
“The bullet was a silver bullet,” was all Buck said in reply.
Darkly looked over at Zig’s decapitated body, and the magnitude of what had just happened sunk in. The attack was calculated, protective. Darkly looked down at the wolf that Buck would have her believe was her mother. What if she was her mother?
Darkly sat down next to Buck and took the wolf’s head, placing it in her lap. She stroked the wolf’s chin, as the animal continued to look up at Darkly. The whimpers turned quiet, and the wolf’s breathing labored until it lost consciousness.
The wolf’s blood-soaked chest continued to expand and collapse, but the movements became gestures of ever-increasing importance. The labored intakes of air gave way to the hiss of life lost. Darkly felt the final release of breath on her face.
Darkly buried her head in Buck’s embrace. He said nothing and simply held her. When she looked back, the wolf’s head in her lap had, after many years of exile, changed back to that of her mother, Catharine. Catharine, the wolf, had somehow recognized her and followed her back to Wolf Woods. Perhaps Buck expected that very thing to happen.
Darkly bent over and pressed her cheek next to her mother’s, wishing she could never let go. The memories of her childhood came flooding back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Buck could only give Darkly so much time to grieve. He persuaded her to allow him to bury Catharine’s body, properly, in the cemetery where Catharine’s own parents were buried. But not tonight.
So, they hid Catharine unceremoniously under a pile of leaves, and Buck prepared to say goodbye to Darkly forever.
“That shot that killed your mother. Wyatt will think that is you under the leaves. He will think everything is going according to plan. I have to go down there and face him now.”
“I can help,” Darkly said, believing it.
“No, you can’t. This isn’t your fight.”
“Gus—”
“Gus is my cousin now. You can damn sure bet I’ll be keeping a man of his skills close. That goes for all the new…”
“Werewolves,” Darkly finished Buck’s thought.
“They’re all my kin now. You don’t have to worry about any of them. I promise you they’ll be happy. So will your brother. Now, you need to leave. Or Wyatt will find a way to use you and that cure of yours to turn the town against me. If he hasn’t already. He’s a very persuasive sociopath. You stay, I lose.”
Darkly stood in silence, plotting a leap over the railing. Buck would follow and chastise her later while they were mopping up the mess. She wanted revenge. She could taste the death she was about to deal out.
“I know you think you can help, and there’s no one I’d rather have by my side for what lies ahead. This is bad. But, you’ll only make things worse. Go.”
Darkly had not run from a fight before, and maybe her emotional state was compromised, but she could not deny Buck was right about this one. She had been trained to exercise control in the most harried of circumstances. Darkly saw the truth through the haze of her quiet rage. She put common sense to use, grabbed her pack, and began walking away. Then, she ran back to Buck, grabbed his face, and kissed him deeply.
Buck opened his mouth to speak, but Darkly silenced him.
“I know,” she said.
“I was about to say, ‘Would you just go!’”
Darkly left. Now it was Buck’s turn.
“Darkly Stewart,” he called.
Darkly didn’t take the bait. She just kept walking down in the direction of the highway.
“If you ever find yourself in the woods and think a wolf is tracking you, you’re probably right.”
Darkly smiled through the tears and turned to see a wolf leaping over the guard rail.
Darkly made it to the rural highway, and then to the Trans-Canada Highway, where she hitched a lift to Prince Rupert.
Whether Buck had saved the day or just bought her time, no wolf had caught up to her. She found her way to the Greyhound Station, where instead of hopping a bus back east, she decided to explore some old memories. She bought a ticket to Portland, Oregon.
Just north of the U.S.-Canadian border, the bus pulled over at a rest stop. Darkly had been on the bus for twelve hours and needed to wash up. She stepped into the small women’s room and locked the door.
Darkly removed the scarf from around her neck and ran her fingers along the blue spider webs and the moon pendant that produced them. She thought about Buck, about Trey, about Gus and Geraldine. What would become of them? Had she done the right thing in leaving them behind?
Darkly wrapped her hand around the moon pendant, gripping it tightly.
“What if?” she asked herself.
Darkly Stewart pulled at the necklace until the silver chain snapped, and the moon pendant fell away.
THE END…until...
DARKLY STEWART: LIGHT AND DARKLY
Hellbent on revenge, Darkly returns to Wolf Woods, where evil forces have taken hold, and young children are being stolen away from their families. Darkly comes up against a local superstition her fellow Mounties have had run-ins with before... a creature that lives deep in the woods and is far darker of spirit than werewolves.
Nebuchanezzar clawed his way through the red dirt with hands he had not used in more years than he could recall. This was a man dragging himself back from the wilderness. A man reborn. He reached the stream’s edge and looked down at the moving reflection, startling himself. Nebuchanezzar vomited. The haze in his mind was clearing, but his natural visage was alien and unnatural to behold.
The young wolves had followed him to the stream, whimpering from a lack of comprehension at the transformation that was taking place. Their fear surpassed their curiosity when the Angel of the Lord descended upon Nebuchanezzar, and the wolves retreated into the cover of brush.
The Angel’s feet slipped through the water, and ripples washed over Nebuchanezzar. He waited for death.
But, the Angel of the Lord lifted Nebuchanezzar to his feet and said, “You are a beast no more. Stand as a man stands.”
Nebuchanezzar’s naked body shook from the cold. So, the Angel commanded him to sit and called the wolves to the man’s side. They came, unafraid, for the Angel of the Lord wished them to be so. The beasts wrapped themselves around the man and warmed him.
“You are redeemed, Nebuchanezzar,” proclaimed the Angel. “Let your children of the wilderness be a constant reminder to you and your descendants of past sins.”
Then, the Angel of the Lord became like the water he stood in, maintaining his shape for a split second, before collapsing into the stream.
There was that taste. It reminded Darkly of pressing the tip of her tongue to a battery. The man appeared benign enough. Middle-aged, he wore an immaculate suit, and his expression revealed neither impatience nor a carefree nature. Darkly thought he looked like a CEO. Where was it that she read four percent of all CEOs were sociopaths?
Threat to society or not, this man standing in front of her at the post office had killed someone not that long ago. Was it a relative’s suffering he brought to an end with an overdose of morphine? Or had this man recently fulfilled a taboo desire?
Darkly took a swig of the diet coke in her hand and shook it off. She looked down at the postcard of a vineyard in the Okanagan Valley and turned it over. The ends of her hair dripped due to the rain outside from which she had just escaped, and the ink was a little smudged as a result. But the message was still legible. I’m safe. Don’t worry. You’ll see me again. Love, Darkly.
Darkly thanked the trucker and climbed down from the cab. She’d found him in a diner on the outskirts of Vancouver, where she binged on complex carbs and proteins after flashing her RCMP badge and joining him in his booth. She had to get herself as far away as possible from any populated area, and Darkly didn’t know when she would next eat a full meal. Would she feed when she turned? Would the need to hunt take hold instinctually?
At this moment, she listened to his eighteen-wheeler shift gears as it disappeared in a bend of the road up ahead. She was alone and as ready as she’d ever be.
Darkly estimated she was thirty miles from Wolf Woods. Maybe a little less. The rain had not stopped pouring on the drive north, and Darkly pulled her water-proof hood tightly around her head as she left the road for the cover of the pine woods. Tonight, she would camp a few yards from the road, and then follow the highway for most of the next day. She knew how much ground an animal the size of a wolf could cover in a night. But she would not confront Wyatt until she knew the facts about herself. She would face those facts alone in the woods, and then she would kill the man responsible for the death of her family.
THE AUTHOR
DG Wood lives in Los Angeles with his wife, daughter, and little werewolf. He is a screenwriter and novelist, as well as a voting member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.