by Nem Rowan
"I won't go into detail! Bloody hell, we didn't do it anyway, he attacked me." I frowned.
"Don't pay any attention to her!" Ceri exclaimed, his words trailing off into a laugh. It made me laugh, too.
I tried to think of how to explain what happened next whilst leaving out the really raunchy part, but my mind kept going back to it. How as we kissed, his open mouth on mine, I pressed him to me, groping his firm buttocks and feeling all the knotted muscles in his back, excited to have someone there who wasn't about as physically thrilling as a cheese and onion pasty.
His lustful moans grew deeper then, guttural, and his body started to quake; there was the cringe-evoking crunching of bone and I didn't realise what was happening until his face began to change shape right before me. I broke the kiss to look up at him and I saw him metamorphosing into a monster, his overall muscle mass increasing as well as his height. I was so astonished that I couldn't move, I just lay there watching as his body contorted, swelling and growing in size, black hair bursting through his skin like tiny splinters as his ears grew long and pointed, moving position to the top of his head. The moans became agonised bellows as his face cracked and jutted outward into a snout, whiskers and fur sprouting everywhere, his polished teeth lengthening into fangs. The hands that held me down grew talons at their fingertips; only when the hideous transformation into a beast was complete did he finally let out a roar and I screamed then. I thought screaming at Travis had been the loudest sound I could make and how wrong I was. I howled, and he howled back at me.
The slobbering head lunged forward to sink its teeth into me, but by instinct alone, I rolled to the side and left him chomping on a cushion, feathers exploding out of it and shooting out into the air around us. I stumbled from the bed and ran around it, the shower of feathers making it difficult to see where I was going, and I shrieked when he blocked my escape, his huge form larger than the doorway itself.
"Fuck off!" I shouted, fleeing to the other side of the room as he chased me. I turned to leap over the bed, but he caught a handful of my hair and threw me against the wall, the impact knocking the wind from my lungs. I hit the ground, wheezing and clutching my chest.
I cried out as he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me to the wall again, his fist enclosing the entirety of my neck as his glaring eyes stared into mine and his snot-wet snout pushed against my cheek. I scrabbled to get away, clawing at his wrist; I knew then that those sweet nothings he had whispered to me downstairs had been truth. Parts of Travis really were floating in the harbour. My hands searched the ground around me for anything to use as a weapon, then I remembered the curling tongs were probably still heated and I seized the handle, ramming the red-hot poker right into that sucker's groin. The beast let out a gasp then another pained roar, but my victory was short-lived as he threw me across the room, my body bouncing off the far wall and crashing down onto the cabinet, mirrors and china shattering beneath me. Shards of glass embedded themselves in my hands and arms as I shielded my head from the disaster. I heard his paws thundering on the floorboards towards me, and though my body felt broken in several places, and though I was bleeding profusely, I armed myself with a dagger-like chunk of glass as he charged at me, jaws wide. I couldn't escape that smelly, dripping cavern of a mouth, I could only brace myself for it as it clamped down on the arm I held out to protect myself.
"I have never felt such excruciating pain. Holy shit, it was mind-blowing. I honestly thought I was going to pass out if I didn't do something soon," I explained, gesturing to my stump as I lifted what remained of my arm. They were staring at me, rapt with attention as they listened to me talk, and oh boy did I love having an audience.
I told them how his jagged mouth had munched on my limb, bones splitting into many tiny pieces as blood spewed from the wound. I didn't actually realise he had taken my hand and forearm until much later; my mind was focused on my other hand, the hand holding the glass. In a last-ditch attempt for survival, I lifted it above my head and with a desperate yell, thrust the shimmering transparent razor deep into his chest. It was slim enough to slip between his ribs and I felt resistance the deeper it went but I just kept on pushing, driving it home, straight into his demonic heart.
"Die! Die you fucking bastard!" I yelled, remembering the blood spattering my face and pitching in my hair like crimson confetti.
"Did this really happen?" Ceri raised an eyebrow at me and I slapped my hand on the table.
"Yes, it fucking did. Because I thought that son of a bitch was dead," I hissed. "I turned my back on him and next thing I knew, he had vanished. Got up and jumped out of the window."
Ceri made a humming sound and Mecky bit down on her bottom lip as they both acknowledged my attempt to kill the beast was unsuccessful. I got the feeling Mecky and Ceri liked a good story, and I was only happy to perform for them. The problem was, I didn't want to tell the story that came after it. The one with all the blood and people running and screaming. I was glad that Ceri didn't press me for it.
Ceri cleared his throat, licking his lips before he uttered: "You know if you kill the wolf that bit you, it breaks the curse, right?"
"What?" I looked at him sharply, my ears pricking at the sound of his words. "Did I just hear that correctly? It breaks the curse, you say?"
He nodded.
I understood why he was collecting all of the newspaper cuttings now, and I understood why he had singled me out and brought me here. He was looking for Wallace Reed's victims in the hope that it would lead him to the man himself. Suddenly I wasn't so suspicious of Ceri's kindness and Mecky's hospitality, because to them I was a ray of hope after the bloodshed.
"It is not just for killing the monster. It is for the revenge and to make the monster regret what he has done," Mecky spoke quietly after a moment of silence passed over the breakfast table. "I do not care if I am monster forever, but I have problem to be monster forever without finding revenge."
I watched the muscles in her throat contract as she pulled apart her slice of toast with her fingertips. She wanted to say more, but she was also fighting them back, nervous about showing her wounds to me, perhaps because she wasn't aware that I already knew. I didn't say anything to prompt her; if she wanted to talk about it, she would do it on her own terms. Ceri's clothes rustled as he leaned towards her, placing a calloused hand on her shoulder and squeezing it, causing her own hand to spring up and grip onto his tightly.
"Do you want to tell him?" he whispered to her.
"I don't like it my words can't tell properly." She swallowed again, seeming to relax slightly. I felt awkward because I wanted to offer her some sort of comfort, but I didn't know how. It seemed inappropriate for me to say or do anything when I didn't know her. Instead I sat there with my shoulders hunched and an unfinished piece of bread on my plate.
"Leon, we need find this monster because it kill my husband and son. I can't sleep when it is night. I am looking all the time. You give me hope." She eventually spoke, her head turning so that she could face me, and it was then that I saw the pain inside her. Unbearable and consuming, a disease-like grief she was fighting. "Please help. You see the man when I am seeing only the monster. One night, we are closing the shop, and it came from the night and chased us into the shop. Piotr, my husband try to protect us, and it made him into pieces, and I am running, running up stairs and it is chasing me. It catch me by my leg. Biting me here."
She pushed back her chair and I looked down as she rolled up the leg of her jeans, revealing the scar in her skin and calf where the wolf's teeth had entered her flesh. She covered herself once more and leaned her elbows on the table, rubbing at her forehead.
"It took Stefan. Made him into pieces. I am crying, no! No! Please stop! But it is like not to hear me, and then it is leaving. Gone. And I am alone," she continued. Each word was a struggle, and it wasn't because English wasn't her native language; the struggle came from the intolerable misery and barely-controlled anger she held inside. Her hands clenched into fists
briefly before relaxing again and she sighed. "And I am alone... And in a second Ceri was there. He try to save my boy, but it was late. He was dead."
The silence that followed was tense. I didn't know what to say, and even Ceri, who had stopped eating moments ago, was wearing an expression of dismay. He glanced at me, his teeth biting at the scar in his bottom lip. I could see that he was replaying the memory in his head, the horrors revisiting both him and Mecky the way they kept revisiting me.
"But we have a name now, which is a name I can use to track this bastard down. Before we had nothing but old newspaper clippings," he eventually spoke up, a lifting positivity in his rough voice as he tried to alleviate Mecky's sadness.
"Yes, this is hope for me." She turned and smiled at me and I couldn't help but smile back. She raised another piece of toast and bit into it. "I guess it is for me to open the shop now. Leon, please help yourself for food here. You are welcome, my guest and I like it we be friends."
"Thanks," I replied gratefully, watching as she rose gracefully from her seat and headed out of the kitchen, leaving Ceri and I alone.
"Haven't seen her smile like that before. That's good," he commented as he brought his half-eaten sandwich to his face started to tuck into it again.
"You didn't tell me you tried to save her from Wallace." I looked at him accusingly. "Why didn't you say that before?"
He shrugged awkwardly. "I didn't think it was relevant. What of it?"
"Oh, I see, the modest hero, huh?" I smirked slightly as I picked up my mug of tea and took a sip. It was the perfect drinking temperature.
"Believe me, Leon. I am not a hero," he murmured, choosing not to make eye contact with me and instead examining the crumbs on his plate.
"You ain't modest either." I grinned teasingly, and I was relieved when I managed to make him smile, too.
Four
"Wallace...Reed..." Ceri murmured under his breath as he scribbled this information down on a dog-eared wad of a notepad. "Early fifties...Black and grey hair, you said?"
"Mm-hmm." I nodded as I sat on the window sill, looking down at the people walking along the street below.
"Did he have an accent; did he sound like he was from another town or country? I'm guessing he was a white man?" he assumed, turning to look round at me as he sat to the desk.
"Yeah, he was white. He sounded local, Bristolian accent. Maybe Somerset, it was pretty strong," I replied. A man had set up outside one of the shops opposite and was busking with an acoustic guitar, the friendly music drifting up to me through the glass pane of the window.
Ceri hummed to himself thoughtfully, tapping the notepad with the end of the pen as he pondered on this information. "That makes it harder to track him down. He could be anybody round yere. And I'm guessing he didn't hint as to where he was living, either."
"Nope."
Ceri huffed and opened one of the desk drawers, taking out the phone book and slapping it down on the desktop.
"You think he's gonna be in the phone book? Seriously?" I scoffed.
"You'd be surprised how I've found people through such simple means," he murmured as he flicked through the pages one by one. "And since I don't have a computer or any way to use the internet, it's not like I can just type a name in and get instant results."
"Maybe that's where you're going wrong. Maybe you should get a computer." I smirked as I inspected my fingernails. It was so nice to have clean fingertips, but they'd look even better with a set of falsies.
"If I had the money, I would," he grunted.
"What is a library? What is an internet café?" I mused sarcastically.
Ceri ignored me as he thumbed through the pages. He looked a bit tidier than he had yesterday in a plaid shirt and brown corduroy trousers, but those clothes also made him look like an old man from behind. He stopped suddenly and looked round at me, grinning triumphantly.
"Well, I'll have you know I've found three Wallace Reeds by yere, so you can shut your mouth." He looked down his nose at me.
"As if a werewolf would just allow his number to be in the directory." I shrugged as he searched for his tobacco tin and popped the lid off. I expected him to take out a roll-up but instead he took out a wad of chewing tobacco and squashed it into the inside of his cheek.
"No wonder your teeth look like you've been sucking an exhaust pipe," I commented, and he made a muffled chuckle. I liked how he took my criticisms; I could say anything to him and he wouldn't care. I was struggling not to feel fondly for him for that reason alone.
"Why would you care if I looked like that anyway? That's a bit rich coming from a drag queen in second-hand clothing," he murmured as he wrote the numbers down on another piece of paper.
"Without these clothes, I'm still beautiful. Without your clothes, you've still got black teeth," I retorted. I leapt to my feet and crossed the room, standing at his shoulder so that I could see what he was writing. "Don't go telling me you don't have a phone to call him now?"
"Mecky's got a landline." He looked up at me like I was the stupid one.
I smiled. He wasn't so ugly, after all, especially not when he was giving me back what I gave him. I liked a man who could give me a run for my own money. He was still old though. Maybe he would look better in some nicer clothes; that was something I would have to work on.
"Well, that's very fortunate, isn't it," I purred to him.
He glanced up at me with what might have been shyness for my close proximity, his teeth chewing at the raised scar line in his lip. I could smell the tobacco in his mouth and the musk of the deodorant he wore, but neither of those things disguised his natural scent from my powerful nose.
"Come on then, let's give old Wallace Reed a go on the blower." I pushed away from the back of his chair and headed for the door.
Downstairs, the middle floor was empty as Mecky was in the shop below. I could hear people's voices talking in Polish as regular customers came in for a chat. Ceri had warned me not to go down there when there were customers visiting because he seemed to think that I would put people off, but I really couldn't see what the problem was. In the living room, I fell back onto the cushy pink sofa and propped my bare feet up on the arm, facing towards the tall windows that gave me a good view of the buildings opposite.
I could see a woman sat at her desk in her office, the telephone pressed to her ear as she tapped away at her keyboard. Ceri went to the Edwardian table in the corner by the television cabinet and picked up the receiver before dialling the first number. I turned my head and looked around at the photo frames on the white walls and beige shelves; pictures of Mecky's family. There was a large one near the television of her and a dark-haired man; she was wearing a white, lacy wedding gown and he was dressed in a smart tux as they held hands on a sunlit lawn. Their faces were bright with joy; childlike hope. Knowing what had happened to her husband and child made the photo all the more heart-breaking. Below the frame, on the telly cabinet itself was a smaller picture of a chubby, blonde baby gnawing the face off a stuffed bear, his plump body clad in a knitted jumper and jeans. I had to look away, then.
"Hello, I'd like to speak to Mr. Wallace Reed? Is he available?" Ceri spoke into the phone as he leaned against the wall, his hair getting played with by the tendrils of a spider plant that grew on the shelf above him. "Oh, I'm calling about an appointment I made with him. Yes, I'd be grateful if you could put me through to him. Thank you."
Ceri waved his hand at me to get my attention and I looked towards him as he covered the receiver with his hand.
"This Wallace Reed is a solicitor," he hissed at me before quickly putting the phone to his ear again. As soon as he heard the person on the other end speaking, he put the phone down.
"What did you do that for? Weren't you at least gonna speak to him?" I frowned as I sat up and moved to the edge of the seat.
"He had an American accent. Pretty sure that's not our guy," he answered flatly as he dialled the next number.
"Maybe he was putting it on?
"
"Why would he bother to put on a Texan accent?" he smirked at me incredulously as he waited on the dial tone.
I rolled my eyes and looked out the window again. Someone must have been feeding the birds below because seagulls and pigeons were swooping down in circles and fighting with each other.
"Hi. Hello, yes I'd like to speak to Mr. Wallace Reed?"
I sighed, folding my arms as I listened to him speak; this was a dumb idea.
"Oh, that's a shame. Do you know roughly when he moved out?" Ceri was tapping the table top with his pen again. "Ah, I see. Do you know where he went to? He's an old friend, y'see. I'm trying to reach him for a funeral, it'd be great if you could... Yeah. Yes. Thank you."
A few minutes passed, and we looked at each other in silence.
"That's excellent, thank you. Thank you very much. Bye now." Ceri put the phone down and wrote on the note hurriedly. "Okay, this second Wallace Reed moved out and is living in Bristol still. I think that might have been the reception desk of an apartment complex. The woman on the line said he left about six months ago, which interestingly coincides with when Mecky was attacked."
"So you think this is the guy?" I prompted, and he shrugged slightly.
"Still got one number left to call, so let's find out," he replied as he dialled the next number.
As it turned out, the third Wallace Reed was an elderly man suffering with Parkinson's Disease who was now living in a retirement home, and it was his daughter who answered. That definitely crossed him off our list. The only one that seemed promising was the second number. I followed Ceri back upstairs and watched him examining the articles he had on the wall, his hands on his hips as he peered at them.
"Here we go," he said as he stepped back to let me see, pointing to a small column of writing near the bottom. "Brutal animal attack in newly built flats on the Bath Road."
"You're kidding me." I got up to go and read it myself. According to the article, late one night inside the building, several people were chased, and one person was killed and badly mutilated. The attack was blamed on a large breed of dog owned by someone who lived there, and the poor pooch was promptly put down. A few of the tenants had moved out shortly after.