by P. S. Power
“Thanks for coming. I know this is late. We…” The man, who had dark hair, which was past his shoulders and pulled back into a tail, stared at Liam. Then, after a moment of searching with his eyes, smiled. “Hello! I didn't know that we’d be meeting new people as well tonight. I’m Mitchel. Mitchel Warner.” A hand came out, hovering in the air, toward Liam.
He didn't know how to answer the move at all never having encounter anything like it. Agent smiled then.
“Put your hand out in the same way he did and take his in yours, very softly.” The man watched, seeming anxious again, for some reason.
Liam simply did it, making contact with the new human male. His yellow skin was very different than the pale white of the other man. As to what Agent had told him, he barely touched the man, the warmth of his skin interesting to notice. Others had touched him now but this was the first person to do so gently, other than Mary.
After a moment the man let his hand go and pulled back, so he did the same thing.
“I am Liam. Frankenstein.”
The words got a nod from Mitchel, who looked at him closely again then.
“Interesting! We have Vern Hodler, his wife Junie and their daughter Clarissa inside. Along with Noah Bryant. Clarissa and Noah have been dating for a while. Vern isn’t happy about that. I don’t blame him, given the age difference.” The man spoke to all of them, including Liam. At least he looked at him as well, when he said the words.
Brenner rolled her eyes and then walked in, even if not officially invited. That seemed right, since Mitchel moved back and waved for Agent and himself to do the same.
The inside of the house was different from what he was used to. Instead of tables for drawing and learning, there was a large screen that didn’t have a keyboard attached to it, along with one that did have that kind of thing, off to the side. There was a large sitting bench that was covered with soft fabric. A sofa, Liam knew, since Mary had one of those as well. There was also a smaller, matching piece of furniture. Its child, perhaps.
On the baby sofa was a man, who seemed to be in distress being bound as he was. With some kind of silver-gray rope that was flat and seemed to adhere to the skin. It was placed over his mouth, though his nose was free of it, allowing him to have air. The man’s arms were behind him and his ankles had strips of the stuff wound around them. That should keep him from walking easily, if he simply didn't break or tear it. His hair was soft brown and his face had hair on it.
Liam stared at that, since he’d never seen anything like it in real life except for the lip hair of one of the bad men. Simpson, the leader of the people who had stolen Mary. In turn, the men and women there, except Mitchel, regarded him with equal scrutiny. All of those were thin. A man with silver and black hair and a lined face, a woman who seemed smoother that way, with blonde hair and a type of person that he thought might actually be a girl. She looked older than the ones that had taught him things from the internet, without being as large or as totally formed as the other woman. The ladies were sitting, while the staring man had taken to his feet at some point and not settled again.
All of them wore clothing that seemed different than Agent or Brenner. Even Mitchel had on a shirt that buttoned in the front and a jacket, along with matching trousers. The gray eyes of the older man stared harder than the others for a long while, then there was a nod.
He spoke to Brenner, directly.
“Mitchel said he was calling you. This man has been sleeping with my daughter. She’s only thirteen. I demand payment in blood.” The words were angry seeming. As if he was planning to scream and possibly point a metal pipe at the man on the child sofa.
Agent made a face, which Liam couldn’t understand. His upper lip tightened and the lower moved a bit in response. While he wanted to know what was going on, he didn’t speak, since he’d been told not to.
The older female on the sofa nodded.
“Noah, he’s been hovering around our Clarissa for years now. I… Don’t think that this is the first time he’s done things with her. I could smell something, a few full moons ago. I wasn’t sure, so didn’t say anything back then. He’s a neighbor of ours, from down the way. He and his friends run a meth lab. He’s also near thirty.”
Not getting what was being spoken of, Liam looked from person to person. Trying to work out how they were feeling from the expressions they made. The tied-up man looked scared, he thought. The girl, who was only thirteen, an age which sounded very old to him, seemed that way as well. The standing man paced back and forth several times, his shoulders tight and face showing a thing close to what the bad men had earlier.
As if he wanted to fucking kill someone. Probably the man who was tied up, since that seemed to be related to where he was looking. You did that to indicate you wanted to harm people, he thought.
The older lady, the one on the sofa, seemed upset as well, though not as ready for killing as the man did. Agent was relaxed, on the surface. Underneath he seemed ready for something to happen. Next to him, Mitchel muttered, the air buzzing a bit. That seemed to flow outward toward Vern, specifically. Brenner just nodded, her face blank.
“We tend to arrest people for things like that. Child rape and making drugs… That’s good for ten years in prison and a lifetime on the sex offender registry. It isn’t death but it’s what the law allows for these things. We need to stick to that. Especially right now.”
The angry man with silver hair moved forward and to the side, taking the tiny child sofa and pulling upward sharply, from the bottom. That made the thing tip over backward, the tied man falling, making muffled noises that showed distress as it did. Then the wolf man, who looked human to Liam, leapt in and started to strike the bound man, many times.
His movements were quick and efficient, his hands held with fingers tightened. Liam tried it himself, correcting what he did, seeing that the man striking the other held his thumb in front, not in the center of his hand as Liam would have figured. After a while, several seconds, the angry man was pulled off the now slightly red and white one. Liquid poured from him.
Blood.
Liam didn't have that, himself but was aware that most human beings did. From the broken open skin on Vern’s hands it seemed the man-wolf person’s did as well. The girl screamed then.
“No, daddy… No! He didn't make me do anything, I wanted to!”
Then, interestingly, she moved in jumping on her father’s back. Trying to make him stop. That had the mother pulling on the girl and Agent moving in to help the smaller female in stopping the gray-haired man. That went on until a very loud noise took place. An explosion, which came from a small pipe weapon with a button on the underside that Brenner pulled out. There was smoke and in a direct line away from it, near the ceiling but on the wall over the glass windows at the front of the house, was a tiny hole.
“Freeze! Everyone back away. Let go and back away. Now, please.”
Things flowed rapidly then, for a moment. The girl let go, when her father stopped striking the bound man. The mother turned to stare at Brenner, as Agent produced a small pipe weapon of his own. Only it was larger than the one that Tiff had, as well as being shiny, instead of plain black. Mitchel muttered something again, which sent a tingle in the air toward Vern, who seemed to feel it as well. That got him to spin in place, pulling a knife from his side pocket, which cleverly folded open.
Then, instead of continuing to attack Noah, the bound man, who was nicely turning red as well as getting that color on the baby sofa, the werewolf man sprung in Liam’s direction. Dancing around and pushing on Liam, until he stood well behind him, with the edge of the silver colored blade against his throat.
Brenner, wide eyed, pointed her weapon at the man, as did Agent. They both screamed then, though refrained from claiming they were going to kill the man if he didn’t obey their nearly incoherent yells instantly. That probably indicated they were more polite than the bad men from earlier. Also, that the same basic thing could be done without screaming th
at kind of thing.
The wolf man laughed. Like with Agent earlier, it lacked the happy, bubbly tone Liam was used to hearing. Everyone else in the room looked at the man, who suddenly smelled different. Musky and slightly unpleasant.
“No, you human bitch, I won’t let him go! You don’t come into my home and give me orders! This is my territory and I rule here. You’re nothing. Not in this situation. Now, you and your partner leave, or I’ll slit this yellow freak’s neck open and kill Noah anyway. There must be blood for what he did. I won’t let you stop me.” There was a sense of pulling and pain at his neck then, Liam noticed.
His hands were by his sides, since this situation was truly new to him and he didn't know where to put them, if that wasn’t the right thing to do. Truly, if he was required to do anything in particular, the nice people from the internet hadn’t told him what that was. Instead of feeling scared, he looked at the others in the room, hoping to get some kind of instruction.
Brenner was still pointing her hole making tool, trying to direct it in a way that should have the taller man’s head hit, if she pulled the button. Agent aimed lower, toward the legs. For his part, Liam thought for a few seconds, then whispered. No one else was speaking, so he could be heard fairly well.
“I don’t know what bitch or freak means. I heard the first one earlier. Wolf bitch. Freak is… Me?”
No one spoke for a few moments, seeming surprised that he was speaking at all. He had been told not to, which meant that he probably shouldn’t have said anything at all.
Mitchel looked at him then, and smiled a bit.
“Bitch means a female dog in heat. That indicates she’s ready to have sex. A human bitch would mean an unpleasant female in this case. When used to indicate a man it generally is an insult meant to indicate that man is weak in some way. Vern is trying to intimidate Tiffany right now though, so probably doesn’t really think that poorly of her. Freak… That’s a bit mean. It means different or strange. It’s a bit of misspeaking there, Vern. Name calling like that is beneath you. You should apologize.”
There was tightening, with the edge of the knife slicing at his throat as if it were a piece of fruit. That was, in his personal experience, what things like that were for. Cutting food into small bites, which would be more easily consumed.
From behind him the man spoke. His words were harsh. Crackling in the center of them.
“He’s yellow and smells funny. I’ve never seen anyone like him, so, yeah, freak. Now get out of here, all of you. Out of my house. I’ll handle this now.” He tried to walk, pushing Liam in front of him, holding him firmly from behind, by the shoulder.
Agent finally blinked a few times and then nodded.
“Oh. Right. I forgot who we were dealing with for a minute there. Liam, reach up with your left hand and take his arm, then pull it downward. Don’t let him move away from you.”
There was no mention of being gentle this time. It probably wasn’t an oversight, given the tone of voice from Agent. The man didn't sound pleased at all.
Liam managed that task quickly enough. The wolf person tried to move at the last moment but Liam was simply too fast. Then, when he had the arm and was pulling slowly downward, the man couldn’t stop him. As his arm straightened, the other man let go of Liam’s right arm, then cleverly tried to pass the knife over to his other hand.
The others yelled then at the sudden move but Liam got the idea in time and simply took that hand as well. Stopping him from grabbing the knife in the first place. It was easier than grabbing that arm and pulling downward would have been. The man tried to pull away, but was captured too well, so only managed to make them both fall to the floor.
With both arms in front of Liam, held in place. That meant the right one made noise when they both fell on it, since it couldn’t be moved out of the way.
Vern screamed. It sounded different than when the bad men had done it.
Unpleasant still, as well as loud. The man’s mouth was right by his ear on the right side, after all.
“My arm. Fuck! I broke my freaking arm!” The man tried to squirm away, while Brenner and Agent moved in, using a set of metal links, hand cuffs, on Vern this time. When that was done, they both seemed annoyed, for some reason.
Liam had let go, since he’d been instructed to by Brenner as they stopped Vern from moving easily for the time being. The man didn’t pull on the chains to break them however, simply making faces and breathing hard as he sat on the floor.
The small wolf girl, Clarissa, started to do something that made her face wet with damp tracks, as the older lady growled.
“I won’t let you lock him up!” She seemed ready to fight them then, which didn’t make sense to Liam.
For one thing, fighting was a new concept to him. He wasn’t totally certain he even had the name for it down correctly yet. The other portion was that it seemed to him that if she wanted to fight them, she would have done better acting at the same time Vern had, instead of later. Rather than pull her tube weapon again, Brenner waved at the woman. It was a small thing and relaxed enough to put people at ease.
“Calm down, Junie. We might have to have your council in for this thing with Vern here but we won’t arrest him for having strong feelings. You got lucky though, Vern. If you’d killed a human or annoyed Liam, you’d be off to prison for it. As it is you should apologize to Liam. Now.”
The last word was very commanding, Liam thought. Hard sounding and demanding something that she didn't seem to think the other man would be willing to do. At least that idea made some sense to him, when he thought about it. Agent moved slightly, as if to retrieve his hidden weapon again.
From the floor, a still angry Vern growled a bit.
“Fuck you. Both of you. You’re letting this rapist go. That’s the human way isn’t it? As long as it’s someone else being screwed over you can’t be bothered to care about it. What if it was your kid though, Agent Brenner? Would you be as willing to just let this animal go off to a comfortable cell for a while?”
Liam watched the scene unfolding, not certain what all the words meant. Fucking or fuck had been used all night, which seemed to be either a thing of hidden meaning or many uses. Most of the time it seemed to indicate anger, if he had that right. Rape wasn’t a thing he’d ever heard of at all.
Also, the bound wolf man, who looked very human, even if he didn't smell like one now, had accidently called Brenner by Agent’s name. She was Tiffany Brenner. Agent Sanchez was the male. To him it seemed glaring and clear. Confusion was possible though, so he didn't judge the man for his mistake. The trick to learning new things was to accept them, when you found out about it. To that end Liam nearly started to whisper a correction, to help the other man.
Tiffany spoke first, looking at the gray eyed man directly.
“No, Vern. If I had a child and someone did this to her, I’d be trying very hard to kill them about now. Just like you are. Which is part of why you aren’t going to prison for what you just did. If I were in your place, I’d be doing the same exact thing. Then someone would have to come along and stop me, like I’m doing for you. I understand the feelings but we have laws for a reason. We don’t kill people for sex crimes. We lock them up and hope they reflect on what they’ve done wrong, so that they don’t do it again.”
From the floor, about ten feet away, Vern the wolf shook his head. Slowly.
“That’s not right. If we let him go, he’ll do it again to some other girl. If we do it my way, the traditional way, then he won’t prey on our young at all. We could stop him here. Forever. That doesn’t just protect my pack, it protects your people as well. There are a lot more of them, Brenner. The next girl won’t be one of my people. She’ll be one of yours.”
Brenner nodded. When she spoke, her own words were very soft. Nearly the same whisper that Liam always used. That surprised him, since he’d never heard anyone else do that before. He hadn’t known they were even able to, since Mary had never done it.
“I
know, Vern. It’s just the system we have. The agreement says that anyone living with humans has to follow human law, so we have to do it that way. Even if we don’t always like what it means. Trust me on this, the humans don’t always like it either.”
They didn't let Vern free. Not until after the police had come and taken the still bloody Noah away. To the same cage that Liam’s mother was being kept in, possibly.
Chapter four
Agent sat in the front right-hand seat again, as Brenner drove away, into the night. It was closing in on morning however, with light showing at the eastern edge of the sky. That was behind them and to the left, since they had to go in a different direction to find wherever it was that Liam was to be held while things worked out. Watchfully, he sat in the back again, belted into place this time. Begrudging the restraints, a little.
Not that he was confused enough to think that these people were claiming he’d done anything wrong. If Vern could beat Noah like he had and be allowed to walk away… That part was harder for him to work out. From the conversation it seemed as if Vern had been allowed to go free after attacking the tied-up man, not because it was good or right at all. For some other, different, idea.
“Is it good, to beat people? That seems bad to me.” He whispered the words, not knowing if either of the people in the front could hear him over the engine noise. They were driving a far more sensible speed now, having left Mitchel Warner at the house with the upset wolf people. Not because it was safe. Only due to the man being in charge of the area, for some reason. No one had explained why that was, though clearly the man wasn’t strictly human.
He’d seemed nice though and had been helpful, explaining things to Liam as he had.
Waiting for an answer, if one would come at all, Liam watched the world go by outside his window. It seemed to move slowly, even if it was clear that they were making good time in their travels. Finally, Agent made a soft sound in his throat.
“It isn’t a good thing to be violent, no. It’s allowed, if you’re protecting yourself or another. With Vern… There are two things going on. The first is that he really was just trying to protect his daughter. A lot of people would have gotten violent there, given that. We pretty much can’t tell anyone in the legal system about it, since what he did to you is enough for him to get five to ten years in prison. Kidnapping Noah and then beating him while bound would as well. He was angry and made some poor choices. We can only hope that he won’t do it again.”