The Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 1)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  “Let me go!” she demanded, squirming against his strong arms.

  “Calm down, Katey, please. I’m not going to hurt you!” he said urgently, trying to keep her under control. The sounds of their struggle echoed against the walls and metal lockers.

  “Please, let go of me!” Katey cried, but he didn’t obey.

  She writhed and bucked, but she was much too weak to even wiggle her arms free. He was cutting blood circulation off through most of her body and she could already feel bruises forming.

  “Please, Katey, just tell me what’s wrong!” He tightened his grip, but Katey continued to feebly battle against him.

  “You’re hurting me and won’t let go of me, that’s what’s wrong! Let me go!” she pleaded once more as tears continued streaming down her face, ruining what little makeup she decided to wear that day.

  His hot breath against her neck made her even more terrified for her life. She thought she could hear a guttural growl vibrating in his throat, his muscles tensing and going rigid around her.

  Dustin emerged from his classroom and glared at them with fierce green eyes. Katey had never seen him so upset.

  “Logan, let go of her right now!” he ordered.

  Katey froze at his command and Logan slowly released his prey. Katey crumbled to the cold hard floor, quivering in fear. She tried to push herself up, but her muscles were too fatigued from the struggle.

  “Don’t even try it, Katey,” Dustin barked from down the hall. “We need to have a talk.”

  Katey let herself fall onto her hands and knees and she sniffled back her tears. Dustin promptly pulled out his cellphone and dialed a number, but Katey kept her head down. She could tell Logan was watching her as he breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling with each breath to try and compose himself.

  “I’m sorry I was hurting you. Are you ok?” he asked, his voice sounding very low and deep.

  Katey turned her head around to him and glared through her misting eyes. “No, I’m not ok! You didn’t have to tackle me like that.”

  Logan balled his hands into fists and his jaw tightened under the rage that welled up in him. He paused a few seconds to let it pass. “You didn’t have to run.”

  “And you didn’t have to chase me.”

  He looked away and sighed. “I’m sorry… It’s kind of a habit.”

  Katey wondered what he could mean, but she had a feeling that she would soon find out.

  Darren and Ben entered the hall shortly later and the two students hadn’t moved since Dustin caught them. Katey heard the hall doors open and quickly wiped away the tear stains on her face. Oddly enough, she didn’t care if she looked like hell to any of them anymore.

  Ben gave them a glance as he joined Dustin who waited outside his door. Darren paused next to Katey and offered his rough hand to her with an encouraging smile.

  “Come on, Miss Katey. Let me help you up.”

  Katey glanced between his hand and his kind face and placed her shivering hand in his. He easily pulled her to her feet and the three of them joined the others at the end of the hall. Katey wrapped her arms around her stomach to try and conceal her obvious fear as they entered Dustin’s classroom.

  Logan was the last to enter the room, so he closed the door and locked it behind him. Dustin leaned against the counter with his arms folded over his chest, Darren sat himself in a desk near the front of Dustin’s, and both Ben and Logan sat on top of desktops near the front of the class. Katey timidly leaned against the white board and let her eyes drift over each of them, the metal ledge that held the dry erase markers biting into her lower back.

  Seeing them all together seemed so unusual to Katey. She had never even seen her teachers together like this before. They watched her, each with their own calm expressions that made her even unnerved.

  “You might want to sit down Katey,” Darren suggested, motioning to the front desk in the center of them all. Katey slowly made her way to that desk and sat on the top with her legs in the seat just as Logan sat not too far away. She hugged her stomach tightly and waited.

  “Ok. We have all come to the decision to confide in you about something that we have never told anyone outside of our own circle of friends,” Dustin began. “We’re not exactly sure how to tell you and you have to be sure to keep it a complete secret. Not even your foster mother can know about this… Do you want to start, Darren?”

  Darren paused in thought and then looked up to Katey. “Do you speak any French?” he asked.

  The other three gave him a puzzled look, unsure why he decided to start off on that note.

  Katey shook her head. “No,” she mumbled, keeping her voice carefully even.

  “Well… Wow, this is harder than I thought it’d be,” Darren pondered as her stroked his beard. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of monster movies or at least seen previews on TV for them?” Darren rested his forearms on the desk, his hands folded together neatly.

  Katey nodded her head slowly. She knew where this conversation was headed, but wished with everything she had that it wouldn’t go there. Too much time had been wasted over the last twenty four hours obsessing over this.

  “Good. Because I’m about to tell you that those monsters are not just in the movies, they are real. Well, not exactly how movies portray them. There are shreds of truth, but most of it isn’t true at all. For centuries there have been legends and myths about humans who… have powers or abilities that can allow them to do things that no other human could do normally. Things such as super strength, agility, keen sense, regenerative powers and sometimes live forever… Are you following me?”

  “So far,” Katey replied.

  “Good. These people, these monsters, were always thought to be worshippers of Satan or some demonic entity in order to have these abilities. But, that isn’t the case for most. Sometimes, they are just cursed or different through no fault of their own…”

  Darren was interrupted in his speech as Ben slid down from his seat and walked to the dry erase board at the front of the class, the look of murder in his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Darren asked abruptly.

  “You’re taking too blasted long. Tell her in some way kids these days can understand,” Ben replied, grabbing a marker and wrote on the board the words Lon Chaney Jr.. “Katey, do you know who this is?” Ben asked, jabbing his marker under the name.

  “Do you really expect kids these days to know about a black and white film?” Dustin retorted, shaking his head at Ben.

  “Lon Chaney Junior was a movie star back in the nineteen-forties, right?,” Katey replied.

  “See!” Ben exclaimed, waving his arm at her.

  “What was he famous for?” Dustin asked.

  Katey glanced between him and Darren, who both were watching her impatiently. Katey was almost afraid to answer and bit her lips together nervously, and then glanced to Logan. He had his elbows rested on his knees, his face resting on his palms. He was afraid she would answer too. She would have thought he, out of the entire bunch, would be the most eager for her to learn the truth.

  A moment of silence passed and Ben grew frustrated and slammed the marker down into the little metal shelf below the board. Katey jumped as the teachers sighed, realizing they would need to take another approach.

  “Are you familiar with medieval history or fairy tales at all?” Darren asked.

  Katey nodded.

  “Ok, let’s try that route. What was one of the growing hysterias among small villages in France?”

  “Witch hunts?” she guessed.

  “Close, but no cookies,” Dustin said.

  Katey shook her head and shrugged. “Then I really don’t know.”

  “Do you have any idea what a loup-garou is?” Ben asked, feeling frustration overwhelm his tone.

  An eerie silence filled the classroom as Katey looked between each man. Each one held a painful, yet hopeful look in their eyes. Katey looked to Logan and saw that he was staring at her with such emotion
it made her want to cry. She could not only read his apology, but she felt it in her soul.

  This was torture for all of them and the only way it would end, was with her.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “Lon Chaney Junior was most famous for playing Larry Talbot, who was the Wolf Man in the old movies. French villagers were paranoid about hermits being possible shape-shifters eating the town’s children. That legend even dates back to Roman times where the founders of Rome were raised by a she-wolf… Loup-garou means wolf-man in French… You’re all werewolves,” she said, her voice quivering with timidity.

  The room was deathly still as what Katey said began to settle in their minds. Logan let a small weary, but proud smile crawl across his lips. Katey returned the painful expression, slumped a little and looked back to Darren, who was leaning his head in one hand while the other was resting on his bulky bicep. He had a look of satisfaction in his eyes and a smile of understanding.

  Dustin was leaning his head against the door and staring at the ceiling as if willing this moment to pass quickly. Ben had fallen back into his desk and was staring at the ground, looking ashamed and embarrassed.

  “Please tell me if I’m right or if I’m going insane so I don’t feel so stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid or crazy Katey. You’re very smart. And… yes, you’re right. However, we do prefer the term ‘loup-garou’ as opposed to werewolves. None of us are French by origin, but it is the term we have grown most fond of over the years,” Darren finally said with a relenting sigh.

  Katey’s eyes darted between them all and she sat up a little straighter. “Prove it,” she dared.

  The three others looked up to Darren, who gave his permission with a nod.

  Katey hardly knew what to expect.

  In one single head turn, they looked to her and held her gaze with glittering golden eyes, as bright and keen as a wolf’s, but twice as haunting.

  Katey let a gasp escape from her lips and she slid from her desk, backing towards the dry erase board. Her eyes went wide as they continued to stare at her with their wolf-like eyes. They were frightening, yet beautiful all at the same time.

  Katey didn’t know how else to react. None of them were human. Every preconceived opinion of them shattered in an instant. It all made sense now, but it was shocking nonetheless.

  Dustin took a step forward, still able to convey the emotion of concern with his animalistic eyes. Darren sat back straight and put his hands on the desk as if to help himself rise at any given moment. They were all tensed to pounce if she tried to run or perhaps faint.

  “Katey?” Dustin said softly.

  “No, no, just give me a minute…” she said, holding her hands up to keep them at bay. She looked to the ground and took a few deep breaths. When she glanced back up, their eyes returned to normal, but she knew that she would never be able to forget that moment. Those eyes, she knew, would come to visit her in dreams and nightmares alike. And somehow, she knew this would not be the last time she saw them.

  “Katey, it’s alright,” Dustin assured, almost pleadingly. “We’re not bad and we don’t kill people or anything like the movies made it seem. We would never hurt you.”

  “I’m not worried about that, it’s just… I kind of had this feeling that something was different about all of you from the first day of school… I just had no idea it’d be this.” Katey took a few bold steps forward and sat back in her desk, keeping a wary eye on them all.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” Darren said softly with empathy in his voice.

  “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

  “We know you won’t,” Ben said. “We wouldn’t have told you if we thought you couldn’t keep it a secret.”

  Katey shifted nervously. “How many of you are there?”

  “In Crestucky or the world?” Dustin asked, leaning back against the cabinets.

  It disturbed her that she’d have to specify, as if these men were not the only ones out there. “Both.”

  “In Crestucky,” Darren began, “I’d say there are about a hundred or so. In the world, probably thousands, if not tens of thousands.”

  Katey’s eyebrows pinched in disbelief. “Oh my God… And you’re not dangerous at all?”

  “We are not, but some are.” Dustin answered.

  “Then who is?” Katey asked.

  “People like the Blood Pack,” Ben replied with a very agitated tone.

  “Who are they?”

  “The kind of loups-garous who murder and kill humans for food and for sport,” Darren said, a note of disgust in his words. “We don’t.”

  “So, then what do you eat?”

  Logan finally decided to enter the conversation. “Remember that deer meat you had for lunch with me?” Katey nodded. “That and any other meat is kind of a strict diet for us. We can eat some fruits and breads, but outside of that, we get terribly sick.”

  “So, then you hunt animals?” Katey was relieved to know they didn’t kill people. But the thought that there are monsters out there that do kill humans made her that much more nervous. She wondered how many murders in this town alone were caused by loups-garous.

  “Not as often as you’d think,” Darren replied with a smile. “We do buy meat from the store, just a lot more than the average person would.”

  “You keep saying ‘we’.”

  “Yes. We are a pack. Dustin, Ben, Logan, and myself. I’m the alpha male of this pack.” Darren did seem to be the kind of person that would be the alpha of a wolf pack. He had a natural leadership personality, and a fatherly presence that she learned to enjoy.

  “So, it works like a real wolf pack?” she asked.

  Dustin nodded, finally glad that she was catching on. “Exactly.”

  “Why are you the alpha male? Out of the four of you, Dustin is the tallest.”

  “Size has nothing to do with who is the boss,” Ben replied with a laugh.

  “I’m the alpha because I’m the most experienced and dominant. I’ve also been the only one able to break these three,” Darren said, nodding his head to the group.

  Katey’s mind went hazy with confusion. “Break? Like you break a horse?”

  “It’s a term we use,” Dustin began, “to mean that a loup-garou has been tamed. So, in a way, it is like breaking a horse.”

  “But how –“

  Darren held up his hand to stifle her question. “Some things are a little too complicated to get into just yet, Katey.”

  She nodded in understanding. Maybe one day, she would know. “And since you can live forever, how old are you?” Katey asked Darren, suddenly fascinated.

  “We don’t exactly live forever. There are many conditions to our ability to stay alive. But we do certainly live a long time. I’m going on 450 years, give or take a few. I’ve lost track.”

  Katey’s eyes went wide in amazement.

  “I’m about 240. I lost count at 200,” Dustin said with a lazy smile and shrug.

  “I’m 167,” Ben said.

  “I’ll be 126 at the end of this month,” Logan stated.

  Katey’s jaw went slack. “That’s incredible! But you all look so much younger.”

  “We figured it’s like dog years, but in reverse,” Darren explained. “We haven’t gotten the ratio down exactly, but we think we age one year every fifteen.”

  Katey blinked at the staggering math. “But, how did you end up like this? As loups-garous?”

  “There are only two ways you can become like us,” Dustin said. “The first and frankly the easiest way is to be born with the loup-garou gene that is past down from father to son. This happened to myself, Logan and Dustin. There is no warning when the change takes place, but we know that is occurs around the time of puberty when testosterone floods the body.”

  Katey couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be to be human one second and a raging beast the next.

  “The other way is to be bitten like I was.” Ben’ voice sounded so sad that Katey’s heart b
roke for him.

  “Ben and I met at the battlefield of Antietam and - ” Katey held up her hands for Dustin to stop.

  “Wait… You were both around for the Civil War?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I served under the confederacy in the 7th Georgia division,” Ben said proudly, his chest puffing out a bit with pride.

  Katey couldn’t help but grin at how amazing it must have been to witness such a remarkable piece of history.

  “I was traveling through the battlefield,” Dustin began. “I saw him still barely hanging onto life and I changed him to save his miserable hide.”

  Katey leaned her head in her hands, still in disbelief that this was all real. A part of her wanted this to just be an extension of her nightmare, but another part of her wanted to know everything, to listen to every story with bated breath.

  “So, how did everyone meet up? How did you get here?”

  “I met Dustin in Europe shortly after he changed,” Darren said. “He washed up on the shores of France, fleeing from the mob that was hunting him down. I taught him how to control himself. Then, he taught Ben.”

  Dustin walked away from the cabinets a little, standing closer to Katey. “Then, I went back to Europe and took a very extensive holidays in Italy for a few decades.” He turned to Darren with a taciturn smile. “I still think you two should have left me there, but I digress.”

  Darren stood up and leaned against Dustin’s desk, folding his arms over his chest. “We all came together because of Logan.”

  Katey looked over to Logan, who had his eyes cast down to the ground.

  “Why?” she asked.

  The teachers looked to Logan, but he remained silent to the question.

  “He can tell you some other time,” Darren muttered, knowing how hard of a story it is to tell. He didn’t envy the boy.

  Katey marveled at the kind of stories these men could tell. They had seen centuries on this earth. They were a piece of history themselves.

  “So, how did this all begin? I mean, where did it all start if you didn’t make pacts with Satan and stuff?”