Snow Covered Moon

by L M Adams

  “So you’re my babysitter?” I ask. He can take that no argument voice and shove it.

  “The last time I turned my back, you disappeared. You won’t get away so easily next time.” I choose not to respond to that just now.

  “And you, Tabari, you could have at least driven and given the guys in the back some breathing room,” directing my ire at him instead.

  “Ha! And miss this comedic relief? I think not! Jack doesn’t mind. Do you?” Tabari says, barely holding in his laughter.

  “Not at all, Jae actually wants me to come with her.” Jack says pointedly at Lucien.

  The inside of the car begins to warm harshly as heat pours from Lucien. The smell of wolf comes to mingle with the heat. Lucien turns to stare at Jack like he wants to burn him alive. I feel a cold wind try to beat back the heat; it’s actually making a showing against the burning air. The windows fog and begin to drip condensation as the temperature inside of the car wars with itself. I can’t believe this is happening.

  I close my eyes for a second to pray for patience; it doesn’t work.

  “I don’t need a babysitter, I don’t need a protector. I need to get to Big Mike’s without arguing over how to get there with adults who I assumed would have at least an iota of common sense! We have a new werewolf in the car pulling power from me because you all want to act like children! So put that shit away, Lucien, or so help me Goddess.”

  Maybe I should chastise Jack as well, but I don’t. I did actually ask Jack to come. Although Jack should know better than to make things difficult for me right now.

  By the time we pull onto the gravel parking lot of Big Mike’s, you can smell the testosterone in the car, but at least no magic. I jump out quickly, ready to be away from them all. I’ll walk home. Fuck this shit.

  Big Mike, in his red flannel shirt and worn jeans, is standing on the wraparound porch of his place. He’s holding a mug that may be classified as a pitcher to some people. Guess I’m not the only one that likes coffee, a lot.

  I walk straight up to him. “I brought the wolf and I’m fucking pissed at you.” I turn around and start walking towards home.

  I turn around to yell at the boy band of men still standing by the car. “If one of you follows me, I swear to all I hold dear in my life that I will stab you with my really big knife!”

  Lucien moves to take a step but Tabari grabs his arm. Jack just nods. Peter, however, looks lost and a little hurt. I pause in my angry steps, trying to calm myself. I can do angry Peter but not hurt Peter. Leaving him now, standing there with that look. It would make me feel like I was abandoning him. Which I would be.

  “Run!” Big Mike shouts.

  I look around, on edge, trying to find the threat.

  “No girl. You and the boy take a run in the forest; he needs to test his speed and stamina and you need to work off your anger. Run!” I walk up to Jack, taking off my messenger bag.

  Run? Why the hell not. I see the desire in Peter’s eyes, wolf eyes. They’re already starting to change. Brown eyes with flecks of gold and green. They burn brightly. Oh yes, the wolf wants to run. I feel it in my bones.

  “Hold this,” I say to Jack and take off across the parking lot I don’t even look to see if Peter will follow. I know he will.

  His heavy footsteps keep pace with my own bringing a smile to my face. I decide to use one of the trails I know and set the pace slightly above human fast. Peter pushes it farther; I do the same.

  Moving at this speed has its own risks if you don’t react fast enough, but the trail is clear of logs and rocks so I let loose. The sound of our breathing mixed in the forest’s natural soundtrack makes us happy; this is where we belong. Free in the open, the sun shining, the ground racing beneath our paws.

  Paws? My thoughts are intertwined with Peter’s wolf again. He likes having me to himself. He wants to hunt. He craves the feeling of some live thing between his teeth, the first gush of blood, the meat. My stomach growls with hunger and disgust at the same time.

  “No Peter, only run.” I pant out.

  Peter is really making my body work to keep up with his steps. He only growls in response.

  I turn towards the untamed brush. Let’s check those reflexes. I leap over a series of fallen logs. The wolf slows his gait, a little uncomfortable on two legs instead of four. Oh yeah, I know he’ll kick my ass in a leg race on all fours. But Peter can’t change yet. He doesn’t know how to do it on desire.

  Right now he’s trapped by the Moon Goddess, at her beck and call. There is some argument that this is the way it always was. Then the Wolf Mother battled the Moon Goddess for the right to decide her own fate, to be free, to choose if she would be wolf or woman. But you can’t make a choice you don’t know you have. Peter doesn’t know how yet, but he will.

  We start up a steep incline, the muscles in my thighs burn deliciously. My lungs are heaving, heart pumping. Peter is matching me step for step. I jump and kick off of trees here and there, landing smoothly and picking up the run again.

  I smile and nod my head towards a tree.

  “Go on, try it,” I say, encouraging him.

  He laughs, a booming laugh, after he tries the first one. Then he’s moving with the land like he’s always been a wolf. It’s quite beautiful to watch. Being one of us is not always a bad thing.

  My thoughts shock me. When had I started believing being a supernatural was a bad thing?

  When we reach the peak of the incline, Big Mike is standing there like he’s been here forever. He’s wearing his usual red flannel shirt, worn jeans and boots just on this side of the grave.

  He’s not out of breath a bit. I mean really, how did he know we were coming here?

  I look over to Peter with a questioning look. He gives me a ‘how in the hell I should know’ look.

  Well whatever, we find ourselves in a pleasant clearing, high enough for me to just make out the roof of the Big Bad Wolf. I smile at Big Mike and perch my ass on a sun-warmed boulder, chest heaving. That was a good run. Those two need to talk, I’m just here to soak up the great outdoors. Peter dives right in.

  “I don’t understand how I’m a Bâtardi.” Peter remarks a little out of breath, but not much.

  “I’m pretty sure I’d notice if my mom was a wolf. Or my dad, even if he died when I was fifteen.”

  Big Mike doesn’t respond.

  What the hell? Isn’t the point of us being here is for him to answer the questions?

  I roll my eyes in Big Mike’s direction. “I know it’s not your mom with her getting sick. It had to have been your father, Peter. Your blood is full of wolf; even in this short time, you’ve been doing very well controlling your urges. Your father must have been really strong, strong enough to hide it from his human wife and son.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me then? If he was going to turn me someday?”

  “I don’t know, Peter. Maybe he wanted to wait or didn’t want to be part of the pack any longer. He probably wouldn’t need the pack’s magic to turn you on your eighteenth birthday. A first generation Bâtardi can be turned with only the magic of their parents most times. Second and third generations need pack magic. A collective pushing their own energy into you and the Wolf Mother to guide it and turning on those parts of your DNA.”

  “Although Jae here decided she wanted to dress up for Halloween and play the Wolf Mother.” Big Mike chastises me. I look away, knowing what I’d done was a big no no.

  “Well I wasn’t going to let him die,” I mumble in my defense.

  “Yes, well I guess you weren’t,” Big Mike says.

  “And I’m thankful for it.” Peter nods in my direction. I smile in response.

  “So, a pure blood human can never be turned?” Peter asks.

  “They can but it’s vicious. They would have to have been attacked very badly and contracted the lycanthropy strain from an exchange of body fluids. Still, they may or may not become one of the Bâtardi. They may just die from the attack.”

  I sigh,
“If they don’t however, the lycanthropy virus bonds itself with every cell in your body changing your genetic makeup. Obviously this isn’t easy or pleasant. It’s called scratch fever. If they survive, then the ritual can be performed to turn them into lycanthropes. Turning on those genes they now carry.” I answer since Big Mike isn’t being helpful right now. I just hope I give Peter the right answers, this is important.

  “But me, I was born to be this, a werewolf. I understand, I feel my

  wolf in me. He feels so natural, like he’s always been with me, but he wants out, he wants to run. Everything is so vivid; the colors, the smells. I want to rip my own skin off my body to feel free.”

  Peter looks down at his hands, fingers curled in claws as if he’s really about to try and rip off his own skin. I smell wolf then, thick pelt and autumn leaves. Big Mike’s eyes turn slowly, his pupils dilate, or rather transform, yellow, red, green bleed in. Before long, there’s no hint that those eyes looking at me had ever been human. The wolf eyes set back into a human face freaks me out further, perhaps because I’m not used to seeing Big Mike like this.

  The power pouring from him feels familiar as it runs over my skin, it remembers me, I’ve held it inside of me, it knows me as intimately as a lover.

  “You cannot change yet, Peter, you have not passed your full moon; you have to soothe your beast,” Big Mike’s voice holds just an edge of a growl in it.

  I see the skin on Peters hands stretch and pull as his bones try to reform into wolf paws, oh this can’t be good.

  “Jaevia, feed him power through your link. Now!” Big Mike shouts at me.

  “I don’t… I don’t know how.” My voice is small and afraid.

  “Close your eyes, girl. Feel the power you hold, feel Peter’s wolf through the piece that you carry, find the connection. Or he will die.”

  Oh great, no pressure at all. I close my eyes trying to center my Chi, my Sacral Chakra pulses in answer. No no, I don’t need you, I don’t need sex. I need pure power from of my Manipura. I shift through my chakras until I find the pure power that burns inside of me; it has no purpose, no tinge of sex or desire, just energy waiting to be used.

  Warm orange-tinted yellow, oh this is new. I’ve always known I could manipulate chakras, it’s the special power of all the succubae and incubi, but this is downright surgical. Usually I wouldn’t make the connection to my Manipura without sex, without first going through my Sacral. But there it is: the power, waiting for my guidance. I slowly open my eyes, making sure to stay in tune with the connection I’ve formed.

  I walk slowly towards Peter, his eyes are wolf eyes, deep brown with specks of green and yellow in them, his sun bronzed skin is flush, feverish almost, face twisted in exquisite pain. I feel my succubus stir, thinking he is food, thinking it is time to play.

  I think to her, no not now, but what will I receive for being good? We can siphon his power so easily, it’s here in the link; we can make him scream for us.

  No! Not Peter, not him.

  Later with Jack. We will hurt Jack tonight, we will play with him, I think towards her, pleading for her to settle, to not make this go bad for me.

  That I’m bargaining Jack, for some reason, doesn’t bother me at all.

  Very well, my love, tonight.

  Then I feel the control of my Manipura click into place, I can feel the power wanting me to use it, before it seemed almost fragile and dim. Now it burns brightly; fucking succubus was dampening my connection to my own Chakra. I hear, or rather feel, her wicked laugh inside of me.

  I reach out and grab Peter’s hand. The feel of his flesh and bones moving and shifting under his skin is absolutely disgusting. I try not to drop it and rub my hand on my jeans.

  “Please, Jae, do something,” Peter begs through gritted teeth.

  “Make the connection, Jae, make it now,” Big Mike urges me. I throw open that link that connection I’d felt form between me and Peter. I urge the power from my Manipura down my arm into his hand to his belly, to his Manipura.

  “That’s it girl, feed his beast before he rips Peter open to search for food. Feed his wolf until he is full and sleepy with the power.”

  “I don’t think I have enough for that, Big Mike.” I mean yes, I fed well off Jack last night, but I’m not the goddamn Wolf Mother; I don’t have the unlimited power of the Earth at my beck and call. I’ve got to fuck for every scrap of power I get.

  “Which is why you had no business making a new wolf, you will have to feed him power until the full moon. Here, I will help you this time but you have to feed girl; you’re eating for two now.”

  Was that supposed to be funny? I cut my eyes to Big Mike.

  “I’m not fucking you,” I say plainly. How in the hell is Big Mike going to give me power to give to Peter?

  “No, girl, like you did last night, pull my power into your Chi and feed it into Peter. Do not worry, it will not be as bad as last night, but it will hurt.”

  Is that supposed to reassure me? Oh, fuck this. I begin to let Peter’s hand go.

  “Jae, please. Either feed me or kill me. I can’t hold him back much longer. Please Jae, I’m sorry to ask you I swear, but…” Peter collapses to his knees, squeezing my hand so hard I feel the small bones in my hand grate against one another like no skin, muscle, or sinew is in between them. I force the pain back with willpower alone.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, ok do it now before I lose my courage,” I hold out my hand towards Big Mike, he grabs it and Goddess do I feel it then. Wild and hot; the raw power of the wolves. I can’t help but scream as the power rips through every conduit, every connection to my Chakras, pouring into my Manipura. I drop to my knees beside Peter. I gather that alien wolf power and push it towards Peter.

  It burns like lava through my arm, but surprisingly, it is not as bad as when I first turned Peter. My synapses aren’t frying, blood isn’t leaking from my ears. All in all, this is going pretty well if I ignore the pounding headache and the feel of being burned alive.

  I begin to ride the waves of pain. It’s then I realize, without her training, I would never be able to keep going, to manage and withstand this much pain. She made pain a constant companion in my life.

  If this could be the one good thing that comes from my time as being a slave to a succubus, then so be it.

  My breathing and heartbeat syncs with Peter’s. I feel his hand begin to settle, the bones under his skin no longer twisting and shifting.

  “There we go, not so bad at all,” Big Mike says, letting go of my hand.

  I push the last of the wolf power through my Manipura, changing the frequency of it and feeding it into Peter. After the last of it has escaped my body, I let Peter’s hand go. But I don’t even attempt to stand up yet, I learned my lesson last night: ‘When manipulating wolf power, do not try to stand up too quickly.’ I’m going to make note cards; oh god here come the random thoughts.

  I heave a breath and touch my Sacral, the purple power of me flares to life, the scent of citrus leaks from me, but I don’t mind. I need to make sure I am still me. Too much wolf power in the past twenty-four hours, I’m going on a no pack power diet ASAP.

  “Oh fuck, Jae, that was intense,” Peter says slowly with a lopsided smile and snort.

  “He’s high on power, girl. Give him a minute, it’ll wear off soon enough. I will give you the telling of the first wolves meanwhile,” Big Mike advises, moving away a bit and standing looking out into the forest.

  I plop my ass on the ground beside Peter, we lean back against the boulder, both exhausted.

  “In the beginning, there were only the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon. One male, two female powers. And on Earth came all the creatures of their hearts. The werewolf was a child of the Moon Goddess. Although it worked differently in that time, werewolves only walked as humans on the full moon; all other times we were our true selves, wolves. And so one night a female werewolf, a lupa, found two bawling human babies in a river, close to death. She saved them both, suckl
ing them from her own body, caring for them as her own.”

  “If it was her power, or the wish of the Moon Goddess, I do not know. But they became wolves. The lupa desired them to have the right to choose to be wolf or man and so she fought the Moon Goddess and was mortally wounded. And when the Moon Goddess asked her daughter, dying in her arms, ‘Why have you turned on me? I have loved you so’. The lupa responded, ‘And what would you not do for the freedom of your children?’ So the Moon Goddess made the lupa the Wolf Mother and gave Remus and Romulus the power to be wolf or man. We pay our due to the Moon Goddess on every full moon, and so we shall, until there is no wolf and there is no moon to pray to.”

  Big Mike’s eyes, back to human, actually gloss over with the telling of the first wolves. Who would have thought Big Mike was sentimental? I’m slightly uncomfortable seeing it.

  “You carry old power in you now, Peter. You must never forget the order of things and where you belong, one part of a larger whole. Without us, all lycanthropes in fact, the Moon Goddess and the Wolf Mother would fade into time, and so would the magic of their blood.”

  “We need them and they need us,” Peter says, gaining his feet slowly. I stand up beside him.

  “Yes, balance. Push and pull, give and take, it is the center of all things in the universe. It is the same with the magic of the Old Gods, although none would ever admit a need for us, the faithful. Still, belief is power and they need that power to survive.” Big Mike says, turning to look at us both.

  Peter clears his throat, “So who do you serve? What exactly are you? Were you a Bâtardi but just got different kinds of supernatural?” Peter asks, turning to me.

  I open my mouth and then close it, pausing. “Daemons are complicated. The word itself used to mean ‘benevolent spirit.’ That definition changed with the human bible. But we are still daemons. Daemons have a special affinity for creating new things, new life forms. After the First Great War of the Night, we were charged with keeping the peace. And so, some of the Old Gods gave us their blessing to mix with all species of all worlds. We are a mix of all species but living outside the rules of the individual supernatural groups. As far as who we pray to, I guess whoever we choose. I usually pray to the Moon Goddess as both sides of me, vampire and succubus, fall under her power. I, from time to time, will pray to Lilith. She is a small god, a New God. They are more in touch with the mortal flesh than the Old Gods. Because we are so mixed, we pray to whoever is most likely to give us their blessing.”