The Daemon Within

by Jeremy Croston

  I gave him a slow nod. “Yes sir, these kind people took good care of us.”

  His pack was looking on for his approval. He relayed a short message to them in their native tongue, and it must’ve been good. Irina began to tear up and Sergey looked even more proud. Returning to English, “Good. It is time to show you everything.”

  We left the little living area and reentered the theme park. Night had fallen and everything seemed even more desolate and filled with despair. Dmitri led us to an open spot where a large fire was roaring. Standing around the fire were five wolves, all covered up in long cloaks. They each took a knee as we entered the area, as a sign of respect I think.

  Dmitri took his place at the front. “This is pack council. Each is here tonight to show respect to those who vish to help.” On his command they stood up. “Victor, Isa, you have our many thanks.”

  It looked like he wanted us to speak. As Isa reminded me, I was the seasoned investigator here. “You told me a bit about what’s going on. I’m going to treat each case like a murder investigation, if that makes sense,” I worded carefully and slowly.

  “Dah, it does.”

  “Okay, good.” As always, I carried a pen on me with a pad of paper. I enjoyed being a bit old school. “What I need are any witnesses to the crimes and the locations that the deaths occurred. From there, we can start putting the pieces together.”

  One of the pack member’s spoke up fast, yet quiet. Dmitri engaged him in a short conversation. “Tomas vas vitness to the first murder. He can recall details and show you spot.”

  The werewolf took his hood off. He was by far the most severely deformed member of the pack I’d seen. His face looked like melted wax, barely holding on to his skull. My heart panged for him and all the trouble he must’ve gone through.

  Isa acted as our translator. “He says the first murder happened near the largest cooling pond to the power plant. A group of wolves were fishing for catfish at the time. Close to dusk, a small figure appeared like an angel of death and killed Piroug.” Going on, “He claims the murderer used a blade of pure silver.”

  A blade of pure silver; that brought back some memories. My grandfather had fashioned me two twin blades when I failed to transform years ago from the silver mine outside of town. “Did he get a description of the attacker?”

  He was animated with his answer to Isa’s question. She translated for me, “No, whoever it was concealed them self well. They only know it was a vampire due to a lack of scent that figure had and the speed in which they moved.”

  I was guessing an older vampire, too. This wasn’t the kinda news I wanted to hear. “What we need to do is get to that cooling pond and snoop around. Maybe their attacker was careless and left a clue or two.”

  “I can arrange that in morning. Vormvood too dangerous at night.”

  If Dmitri thought the area was dangerous, I sure as Sam Hill wasn’t going to go against that. Even though I survived Neverland, I learned the hard way that when people warn you about an area they’re familiar with, don’t question it. “The morning sounds good.”

  “Dmitri, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s in the woods at night that makes it so dangerous?” Isa asked. She, apparently, wasn’t willing to go on just his word of warning. And why not? She was a bad ass.

  Another of the cloaked figures must’ve understood a little English. He began to tell us in great detail what was out there. Unfortunately, none of it made a lick of sense to me.

  Isa let him finish before she translated. Quietly to me, “Our friend just told us about the Chernybog. It would seem the wolves weren’t the only supernatural creatures that were changed from the meltdown.”

  “What’s a Chernybog?” A hush went over the Black wolves around me. Dimitri even did the sign of the cross over his chest. “Did I say something bad?”

  “They don’t speak his name for fear he will come. The Chernybog,” the wolves bristled again, “is a fallen God that the radiation turned into a monster. Skin black as night, eyes forged from pure hate, and an appetite that’s never sated, he is the devourer of worlds.”

  The way she was talking was about as over the top as one could get. “It’s just a folktale, though. I’m sure whatever it is out there ain’t no fallen deity.”

  It was her turn to look skeptically at me. “As a man who’s dealt with the Sphinx, a wyrm, Oberon, and has the Warg living inside of him, I must say I’m surprised you don’t believe this.”

  That didn’t even include the angel I’d met named Jack. “Well hell, when you put it like that…”

  “How else am I supposed to put it?” This reminded me of our first encounter in her tree house. “There’s a fallen God out there who’s been adversely changed by radiation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to meet him to see what’s real and what’s a myth.”

  Right on cue, the world wanted me to know to not be a skeptic. From all around us laughter, strangely enough, rumbled like an earthquake. The wolves moved in closer together, Dmitri looking as pale as Irina. I privately cursed to myself. “You got to be kidding me.”

  Even sure of herself Isa paused. “I’m afraid that’s no joke. We do as the wolves say and don’t leave this area under the cover of night.”

  Chapter 3

  The night was hard. The cot I had to sleep on wasn’t good for my back, the air was downright cold, and the Chernybog laughed at the most inopportune times. Why the hell did I have to doubt his existence? He was doing this to heckle me. And it worked. The idea of a fallen god, out there in the night, yeah, I wanted to hightail it back to the safety of Arizona as soon as possible. But the look in Isa’s eyes as she looked down at me after shaking me awake told me that wasn’t happening anytime soon.

  I pushed myself off the hard cot. It was just the two of us in this little section of the old plant. “What time is it?” I asked.

  She pulled out an old fashioned pocket watch. I didn’t see that one coming. Flipping the lid open, “A quarter after five, local time. The sun hasn’t risen yet.” She gave me a soft kiss on my forehead. “We should go check out that cooling pond. By the time we get there, the sunlight should help you to find something.”

  I thought we’d be waiting for the wolves, but it seemed Isa had other ideas. I couldn’t argue with her early start, the sooner the better worked for me. When we left our dwellings, some of the other wolves were starting to rise, but no signs of Dmitri. Man, it was hard to see a community in such shambles. These innocents were being forced to live like lepers, outcasts. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with any of ‘em. They couldn’t help it where they were born.

  Obviously, this issue hit close to home with me. For the longest time, I was the freak that couldn’t transform. Even to this date, I was still just the freak with the angry daemon inside me who facilitated my inner wolf. That’s why I chose to live out in the middle of nowhere. I was tired of being judged and hurt. Even the vampires didn’t want anything to do with me. Liz’s betrayal of whatever we had, yeah that was the knife that cut the deepest.

  The girl beside me, Isa, she was a sweetheart. She accepted everything, all the baggage and bullshit that my life came with. She never judged and always just asked what she could do to help. That’s why I was in the Ukraine. Besides getting me out of a particularly sticky situation on Neverland, she helped me save Liz and Bernard all the same from the traitor Jonathan and kept Cain locked up. Looking over, I gave her a small smile that she returned.

  Her voice the only thing breaking the silence in the cool forest, “You look like you have a lot of your mind.”

  It wasn’t a question. “It’s all good,” I lied. “Just trying to put a few things back in the past where they belong.” That part wasn’t a lie.

  “Victor,” she said, using my full name once again. “Our pasts just shape us to be who we are. If I hadn’t been burned a few times before, would our experiences on Neverland have ended the way they did?”

  I believe she was talking about her total
distrust for me. That got a short, dog-like laugh from me. “That’s the million dollar question. Either way, whoever was dumb enough to do anything bad to you, well their mistake is my gain.”

  We broke out of the part of the forest that separated us from the actual plant itself. It was at that moment Isa placed her hand in mine. “I wouldn’t want to experience these memories with anyone else.”

  I gave her hand a squeeze, demonstrating my affection for her. “You got that right.”

  Our moment was interrupted by a noise that came from behind us. Whoever, or whatever, it was, it was moving awfully fast. The two of us knew what to do without even communicating. I dug down deep and commanded the Warg to come forth and Isa went into her vampire ninja mode. As soon as all four daemonic charged legs hit the ground, we were off to the races.

  I’d gotten a whole lot better at controlling myself in this state. The Warg still pushed back, begging me to let his full power go. But the creature couldn’t be completely trusted. We were uneasy allies, sharing the same physical presence. It was like that kid you sat beside in elementary school – you maybe didn’t care much for him but at times, he was probably your only ally. The Warg was an ally, no matter how contentious.

  The target we were chasing had no scent, only the sounds made as they moved through the forest, rustling the leaves, gave me an indication of which was to lay chase. Isa went high, using her superior jumping and agility to go from tree to tree. If we could close in fast enough, we’d have a high-low attack planned and ready.

  And then, as quickly as the noise came that alerted us to a possible suspect, it was gone. How in the hell could that happen? I came to a skidding stop and shifted back into my human form. “Damnit!” I cried out. “What the hell?”

  Isa landed beside me from the tree she’d been in. “It seems we were played, Vic.”

  I kicked out, hitting an old tree and getting my foot stuck in its rotten stump. A soft giggle was the only response. Yanking my foot out, “Whoever it was, it goes with what the wolves said. It has to be an elder vampire. Moving that fast,” I swiped my hand in the air, “giving me no scent. Yeah, this proves everyone’s suspicions.”

  “We should let our failure go. Before we jump to conclusions, let’s check out the cooling pond as we were planning.”

  Our side trek back into the forest had brought the first hints of daylight to us. The sun was just starting to peek out over the horizon, lighting up the lifeless area we were standing in. “You’re right, let’s do it.”

  Twenty minutes later, we were coming up to the scene we’d been informed about. The first thing I should tell you is that radiation does have a smell. The moment the pond got within my range of senses, this acidic smell touched me. Now that we were lake side, I felt a tad bit ill. It was so strong, it actually did a semi-decent job of covering up the blood smell until I got closer.

  But don’t worry, the crime scene was quite evident when it came into view. The ground was stained red. Whoever the killer was, they sure didn’t mind making a mess. “Good lord,” I sighed. “This looks like a slaughter.”

  “In the presences of an elder vampire, the werewolves didn’t stand a chance.” Isa was dead right on that. “This pack consists of farmers, gatherers, and survivors. They are by no means fighters.”

  “That makes what happened even sicker.”

  She had no response. What could anyone say? I walked closer down to the scene and began to process everything. There was a fishing pole sitting on the ground, along with a makeshift tackle box. There were no signs of struggle. In fact, there were two minor indentations in the ground that could very well have been the victim getting on his knees, begging for mercy. Another wave of nausea washed over me.

  Isa’s hand gripped my shoulder. “Are you okay to do this?” she asked.

  “Okay, no.” I shook my head to get the bad thoughts out. “Can I continue, yes.”

  With that settled, we each took a side of the pond and started to walk around it, covering the entire shore in half the time. A little ways down from the murder scene, I found something rather suspicious. And by that, I mean freaky as hell. It was a giant catfish, easily over two hundred pounds. The beast was just chilling by the shore, its giant mouth opening and closing at random times.

  The size wasn’t the only suspicious thing about this fish. It smelled like a werewolf, a Black wolf to be exact. “Isa, get over here!” I called across the pond.

  She sprinted over to me, a curious look on her face. “Did you find something?” I pointed to the fish. “My word, that’s huge!”

  “Do you think we can catch it?” The fish slowly began to turn its attention to us. It looked to be getting ready to swim off into the black, radiation filled waters.

  She did better than that. In a flash, she vamped out and stuck the creature with fangs behind the head. With it dead, she dragged it out of the lake. “How’s that?”

  I had no words. Nope, all I could do was open the mouth of the dead catfish. My senses were rewarded with the confirmation of the smell. The partially eaten head of the dead Black wolf was looking up at me from inside the fish. Even Isa, who was as calm and cool as they come, took a step back. “I didn’t expect that,” she summed up nicely.

  Chapter 4

  The worst part was pulling the head out of the dead fish. Talk about one disgusting job. It was necessary, as any part of the body we could examine might give us a clue into whom, or even how, this wolf was killed. As the head plopped on the ground, Isa kicked the fish carcass back into the lake. When I looked at her, she responded with, “What? It was creeping me out.”

  I turned my attention back to the goo covered head. “What I can tell right away is that the head was removed with a blade. Thanks to the catfish eating it, you can barely see the marks left by the slicing motion, but they’re present.”

  She knelt down beside me. “Can you tell what kind of blade was used?” she asked.

  This would require me getting even closer than I really wanted to. “I’m no medical examiner, but I’ll give it a shot.” Knowing the murder weapon would be ideal. Using my index finger to poke the head around, “The blade was sharp, that’s for sure. The markings on the neck indicate an incredibly fast moving object with an edge that’d be very thin.”

  “I’m surprised the culprit behind this used such extreme measures. The radiation has weakened the wolves’ body structure.” Standing back up, “Even the youngest of vampires would have no problem breaking one of these poor beings.”

  She was right. The moment Isa offered that up, I looked at the visible part of the spine. It was discolored and just looked brittle. I took my pocket knife out and with the tip of the blade, poked the bone. It crumbled under just the slightest of touches.

  Two very different thoughts popped into my head. One explanation was the murderer wanted to show off how powerful they were, and took incredible pleasure in such an easy kill. But, another thought was also there – could the person be trying to be humane? A quick painless, death is a whole lot better than a prolonged, torturous one.

  I needed to think of this. Until I knew for sure… “I think the right thing to do is to take the head back to the pack. With some closure, they’ll be able to send off their loved one the right way,” I said.

  The walk back to the rundown amusement park was something else carrying a half-eaten head. Before we left the cooling pond, we had to cut open the fish to make sure there weren’t any other pieces of our victim inside. Thanks to Isa and her ill-advised kick, that meant I had to get back into the cold, radioactive water to pull the carcass out.

  There wasn’t anything else in the fish, after we’d removed the head. I looked out into the shallows to see if I could see any other parts of the body, but the water was dark and I was pretty sure just out of sight were some even bigger fish. I wasn’t willing to tangle with them to find out who got a free meal last night.

  Dmitri was waiting for us at the gates to the wolf community. There was definit
ely a bit of concern in his voice when he addressed us. “Isa, one of my volfs vould have escorted you, da.”

  At that moment, I wondered just how long these two knew each other. Isa just smiled and said, “Dmitri, your pack has too much to do here to waste time showing us around.” Then, more somber, “We found what we could of your fallen wolf. Here.”

  I took that as my moment to set the head down as gently as I could. He hadn’t realized it was there, I guess. I don’t know how given the amount of fish smell that was coming off of it, but maybe the radiation screwed with their senses. Either way, Dmitri fell to the ground and began sobbing at the sight of his pack mate. Even with tears in his eyes, he began to transform into his wolf form.

  Where there should’ve been thick, black fur to match the species of wolf he was, Dmitri’s fur was a dirty orange color. I’d never seen anything like that in my life. His bad eye stayed the same way from man to wolf, and he had two tails. With his transformation complete, he let out this primal roar – not a howl like a normal wolf, but something far more corrupted. With each thing I learned, the more I couldn’t believe how much this pack had suffered.

  His wolves responded to his call and sure enough, they all were in some way deformed. I spotted Irina, the bright white fur of the albino. I saw a wolf with two heads and another with an extra set of legs right behind the front pair. If you hadn’t met these people beforehand, I could see why some would be frightened.

  Dmitri looked at me. It was time for the run of mourning. As a guest, even though I had no connection to the dead Black wolf, to refuse to join in would be the ultimate insult. Isa knew what was about to happen and gave me some room.

  With a slight nod to the Alpha, I released the Warg, who was more than happy to take over and enjoy the freedom I was giving him. In a land where no one was normal, my daemonic hellhound state wasn’t even noticed. The jet black fur rustled in the cool breeze and the red, evil eyes of the Warg took in everything. The other wolves circled me, as if to accept another outcast into their own. I felt connected, at ease with everything. I felt welcomed.