by Paul Kane
The bandit from Mexico, meanwhile, had acquired his curse from a visiting relative; his cousin, a nobleman from Spain. That man was a count, who had himself terrorised many villages with his antics, reasoning that if he ate peasants and farmers then who would shed a tear? There were rumours about him, of course, but no proof; only I saw that, when I was shown the truth behind that man’s own condition. An orphan, taken in by nobles after his mother passed away in childbirth (and here I thought about Neil again, about his life and times and what would become of him). What they did not know was that this peasant girl had been bitten by a wolf during the act of conception, the werewolf who was having his way with her at the time to be exact: a travelling beggar; a madman filled with lust. That scene made me cringe, a woman and a beast copulating – against her will, I have to say (even if she hadn’t died during the birth, if this had come to light she’d probably have been burned at the stake as a witch).
There was little wonder the count turned out the way he did, a true monster like his father.
And like the one who had ‘sired’ that wolf as well. Back and back I went, to gain a glimpse of a legendary figure who very rarely let anyone get away once he had targeted them. The beggar had been ‘lucky’, merely an interrupted snack… I went back across Europe, to what some called The Old Country; an old country with old ways. The one who had bitten the beggar was just as old – ancient in fact – and would be older still by the time he was done. An actor, a shape-shifter who was not at the mercy of the moon, though did grow stronger the fuller it became. A monster who had once spotted a young girl dressed in crimson making her way through the woods and decided he wanted her, just as much as the beggar wanted that peasant girl back in Spain... Only in a different way. A meal to be relished, a succulent and tasty dish.
He’d disguised himself as a strange bearded man who stopped her on the path and asked where she was going. Being the naïve and innocent girl that she was, she’d told him that she was taking wine and cake to her sick grandmother who lived in a cottage (hut…shack…) in the middle of the woods. Then they’d gone their separate ways – the creature deciding to make a game of this.
Oh, he did so love a good game!
Filled with desire and hunger, he raced ahead of her to the grandmother’s house. I was forced to watch as he shredded the trembling old woman, devouring her and sucking the flesh from her bones before changing into her, his face taking on her shape, fur becoming clothes – the only clue that this wasn’t her kin, his reflection (something he had never been able to hide).
The girl had knocked, hesitating only slightly when the door to the cottage in the woods had swung open on its hinges. She’d placed her basket down on the table near the entrance, venturing inside.
“Gramma? It’s Red. Little Red,” she’d called out. And I saw the monster in the bedroom waiting for her to come inside, grinning, hardly able to keep the drool from cascading down his chin. “Are you there? I’ve brought you some food.”
“Yes, I know you have,” the creature had said softly then, and I could see in his imagination what he wanted to happen: the feast he would make of her.
“Gramma?” The girl toed open the door, looked inside the dim room and saw the impostor there, laying in the bed. She’d opened the curtains, much to the monster’s chagrin, but it didn’t discourage him any. He’d bid her to come closer with the voice of her grandmother, and the girl had done so – in spite of her misgivings, in spite of tingles at the nape of her neck. Her discomfort at the fact Gramma kept licking her lips.
Then it was too late, he was on her, only now revealing his true form. Pinning her down on the bed, slavering over her. He was going to enjoy this so much! She screamed with all the breath she had in her. Screaming for help. Screaming for a hero...
Who had arrived in the form of a passing woodsman, axe in hand – silver blade sparkling. He attacked the wolf, wounding it…though not mortally. But it gave the girl a precious window of opportunity in which to escape.
That was all I was shown of this, the events that followed clouding up like the fog that was filling those woods. I was shown a glimpse of the future of that story, however, which still carried on to this day. A replay of events, only now on a council estate and with a young carer called Rachael Daniels; Rachael Elizabeth Daniels. The living reincarnation of the girl from this tale, this fairytale as some called it later. Targeted again by the wolf, by William Oliver Finch (so clever this one, so damned clever).
His was a story that stretched back even further, I realised. Back and back and back. I saw that he was there at the start of the war between his kind and the Nosferatu, that he’d fought Vlad himself at the very beginning. I was shown a scene where Finch was chasing a mounted patrol of vampires – their armour detailed and elaborate, their swords made of silver. Transforming into the terrifying creature I’d seen back there in the cottage, he’d cleaved the soldiers from their horses before cleaving off their heads; one of the few ways to truly kill them. Next I saw him with others that he’d ‘recruited’, passing on part of the curse to build his army, leading them into battle against the enemy, storming a castle.
Finch twisted off heads, clamped his teeth onto necks and came away with thick clumps of flesh and blood...dodging the silver bolts fired from crossbows. To watch him, you wouldn’t think his was a curse at all. He was the living embodiment of what it meant to be both wolf and man, yet at the same time was something else entirely.
Something more powerful than anyone could imagine.
Next I went back with him to the days of the Vikings, who he joined after they’d invaded Britain. He’d fought the Saxons alongside them, earning the nickname of Wolfhammer due to his love of that particular weapon and his ‘resemblance’ to that particular animal. He sacked villages, drank wine and killed – making little or no attempt to hide the fact he ate his victims. He said it gave him their souls, their power, and there was some truth to this. It recharged him, like a battery: women, being the stronger sex, giving him the most charge.
I saw him in the final days of Rome, amidst the chaos, claiming his fill of victims and filling his belly at the same time, but avoiding the deadly fire as that city burned. And in the days before that, sating other appetites, being whoever he wanted to be, whenever he wanted to be it. The consummate actor, he would also prance about in the amphitheatres to great applause – enjoying the adulation. But he was there at the birth of Rome as well, lending himself heavily to the mythology of Romulus and Remus, the she-wolf Lupa who suckled them being a result of Finch’s bite.
I saw him as King Nebuchadnezzar of the Old Testament, of Babylon, who refused to bow down before God and was ‘punished’ by being turned into a wolf – the truth being a little more complicated than the Bible would have us believe. I saw him in ancient Greece, passing himself off as Zeus – who was said to be able to turn into a wolf at will. There he seduced and ate to his heart’s content, safe in the knowledge he would not only be free from reprisals – who would be foolish enough to rail against the king of the gods? – but also worshipped for, in essence, being a complete and utter bastard. I saw him in Egypt, as well, where they had a tradition of worshipping dogs; and his ability to transform his features into that of a canine, a wild jackal to be precise (a scavenger), whilst still maintaining the body of a man earned him the name of Anubis, a god associated with death – for that was what he brought – and the afterlife. Mummification only served to preserve his meals for a later date. In ancient China, his skill at taming wild dogs saw him in great demand, which was where canines started to be kept domestically. But these were just the high points, where he raised his head above the parapet. Mostly he just blended in, stalked in secret – the very epitome of an expert hunter.
And yet, he was still not the first.
He had an origins story of his own, and was at one time just a man – a very unique man, but a man nonetheless. I was shown him now, covered in furs and out hunting for food, brow low on his forehe
ad, figure hunched and stooped. It was cold where he was, snowy and white, and he carried a spear – which not only helped him with the kill, but also with his progress across this terrain. He was alone now, but he’d once had family. Like Romulus and Rebus, he had once been a twin – he and his brother indistinguishable in looks, inseparable in location, but so far apart in deed and ability. Finch had looked after his brother, for he was the dominant one, but when the cold came and his sibling grew weak and frail, while the meat he hunted grew scarcer, Finch had put the man out of his misery with a rock and cooked the remains. That way his brother would remain with him, always…and he would survive.
This was the first time he realised the power of human flesh, the feeling it gave him. The ability to absorb and take away from it, not just sustenance but a different kind of strength and energy. It was such a feeling, unlike anything else…one which would mark out his targets for many centuries to come.
(And I saw a flash now of a descendent of the beast, an extremely distant cousin of sorts… A killer who also stalked his prey, a twin who absorbed the power of his victims and would come to be known as The Gemini by some…)
On this day, though, I saw him fighting against the elements for prey that he never found, eventually having to take refuge in an isolated cave. There, the bearded man, already as hairy as any animal I’d ever seen, toiled to light a fire in the darkness, gathering together dried moss and striking stones to cause a spark. But, as with the boy so far in the future, who’d stumbled upon that shack in the middle of a different kind of storm, he had accidentally taken refuge in another’s home.
This he discovered when its owner returned that night, the night of the full moon. A wolf, unlike any he’d ever seen, black but streaked through with grey. It had the brightest eyes, and was so big! Unlike any creature he’d ever faced in fact! The hunter had trembled when he first saw it, though he’d set his jaw firm, held his spear in front of him, ready to defend himself.
I watched the fight, one of the most brutal I’ve ever seen – one of the most bloodthirsty scenes, and that included everything else in this parade of nightmares. Finch fought with the ferocity of an animal, the wolf with the cunning and strategy of a human. Each bite and slash weakened the man, but at the same time each jab with the spear did the same thing to the wolf. For the tip of the spear had been forged from a strange metal that had no name at the time, but would come to be known much later as silver. The spear even broke in two at one point, leaving Finch to fight with his bare hands – though he still held his own against his opponent.
Finally, just when it looked like the wolf had got the upper hand, retreating only to make room so it could leap at the hunter and finish him off, the man grabbed the end of the spear. And as the wolf sprung into the air, he rammed the tip hard into its underside, where he knew it would do the most damage. The spear tip plunged into the heart of the thing, which let out one last howl before slumping on top of the man, dead. It was the only thing that could have killed it, though the hunter had no way of knowing that (later, of course, he would come to understand that the wolf’s weakness had been passed on to him, that he owned it now).
There he lay for the longest time, under the cooling body of the dead wolf, wounded but victorious. He could feel the bites and the scratches tingling, but paid them little mind. The hunter was more concerned by the fact that his belly was rumbling, more so in fact than it had before he set out to find his next meal. So he began to eat, biting into the flesh of the wolf and tearing it away, fur and all. Chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing. It wasn’t long before he started to feel better, that he was able to shift the body over and slide out from underneath. His wounds no longer ached as they’d done only a short time ago, and so he continued to consume the wolf, eating every part of it.
When he was finished, he not only felt sated, he felt…different. Not even his own twin had had this affect on him. It was almost as if the wolf had become a part of him, was threatening to overcome him if the truth be told… Not only that, it was triggering something which had lain dormant until that time, an ability he hadn’t even known he had. The ability to transform himself, though this was far from under his control at that moment (it would take years to master the talent, in fact). Right now, he felt unable to resist the change, running out of the cave screaming, howling, bathed in the light of the full moon above.
The first of his kind, the first ever werewolf (all the rest, all the ones that followed would just be pale imitations). Man and wolf as one…except they weren’t, I realised. Two sides of the same coin, yes, they completed each other – but weren’t one at all. Thus began a battle, a war, which would make the one the wolves and the nightcrawlers were fighting look tame by comparison. The wolf was ferociousness given form, a feral thing and nothing else – existing to hunt, to feed. In its defeat, it had found someone to bond with, someone who shared some of those qualities, but was still a man – mutant or not. It was doubtful even whether they could co-exist, and seemed more likely that they would continue to fight for dominance forever.
The true curse of the wolf.
A wolf who had also passed on its longevity, for I saw now, still going back and back, that it had existed since the beginning of time. It had no name, this wolf, but it had trodden the Earth before man was even born, back when dinosaurs ‘ruled’ the planet. And it had outlived them as well…only to be defeated by a simple monkey. A life-form born of the primordial sea.
That sense of hatred would always be there, in some regard. That resentment. The rage.
It had been rage before rage even existed, the wild before there was anything to tame. A single scream in the darkness, appetite and desire, hatred and hunger. All this and so much more, too much more. Too much for me to comprehend, going back and back, to before the world even existed, to a time before there was time.
It was enough to blow my mind, enough to send me spinning forward, or coming round full circle, I had no idea which. But I was left with a strong desire, as well.
To get back to the life I knew; one, single life, with all that would entail. How I’d deal with things from that moment on, I had no idea. I still had no real clue whether I was even alive or not at that point!
(And I wondered, if I was, whether someone else would watch what I became, would see how I came by the curse when it was my turn to pass it on – either by accident or design, though the thought of giving this anyone willingly was insane…)
A longing to live, to survive – perhaps the same survival instinct that ensured the artist couldn’t kill himself back in that mansion. It was against our nature, flew in the face of everything we knew.
And so, my journey through the curse – my particular curse – over, I opened my eyes and woke up…
Everything was blurred at first, but then I remembered that I’d lost my glasses back there in the rush to get away.
Although the more I blinked, the more things swam into focus. Now, I’ve been short-sighted since I was about eight, always needed them for distance, for driving – though the opticians said that with my prescription it would be okay to read wearing them, as well.
This was the first time in as long as I could remember that I hadn’t needed those things to see (I hate the idea of contacts, preferring instead to struggle on with my specs). It felt weird…as did I. If I’d been entertaining any thoughts that what I’d just experienced had simply been a vivid dream, a crazy jumble of all those films, TV shows, books and legends, then my senses soon told me otherwise. Not only could I see better than I ever had, probably even before I needed glasses, and it was getting better by the second – was that a spider in the corner of the room? – but like the agent I could also smell much better, hear much better than ever before. Preternaturally so…
To be honest it was all a bit overwhelming at first, a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. I could hear a couple having an argument about finances a few floors above me, about who earned the most and who was or wasn’t c
ontributing to the family home; hear babies crying for their first feeds; hear the sound of sirens approaching from a mile away.
I could smell the disgusting specials in the canteen, below me; the flowers someone had brought for a present; the atrocious aftershave belonging to one of the staff who was on the pull…
I ached, but there wasn’t any pain in my arm – and my back didn’t hurt. Could have been drugs, I guess – because I was in hospital, you see, in bed, in a private room (one of the perks of the job…I’m a porter here, should have mentioned that before; if you’re going to get savaged by a werewolf and pass out in your car, I guess this is the place to do it). But somehow I knew it wasn’t the medication, it was my own body healing itself much quicker than any normal person’s.
The doctors came to see me, were very happy with my progress – puzzled by it, too, I could tell. The authorities came and questioned me, and I told them the truth, more or less, which tallied with the canine DNA they found in that blood (what I didn’t discover until later on was that they’d also found the body of a naked man a few streets away, shot in the gut – shot, I knew without anyone telling me, by a silver bullet).
And my best friend, my flatmate, came to visit as well. That was more of an eye-opener, even more so than the one I’d experienced before I woke up. Because I could smell what he really is, what he’s been hiding from me all this time, just as he could smell what I’d become. We should be mortal enemies, but neither of us are interested in that stupid war; we just don’t want to get sucked into it.