by Jeff Sampson
I couldn’t see the man, didn’t know how much damage I’d done. But I could hear him breathing, could hear the rapid beating of his heart, smell his rancid stench.
Again anger flared within me. Clenching my fists, I tramped forward, ready to pummel him for what he’d tried to do to me, for what he’d done to Dalton, to Emily C. And then I would carry his limp body inside, drop him at Jared’s feet, and show that know-it-all deputy that I really do know how to handle my business.
I cried out as stars burst behind my eyes. My stomach heaved, my arm hairs prickled. Doubling over, I clutched my gut.
“No,” I sputtered. “Not now!”
I could hear him moving. He’d fallen, had been knocked over and momentarily stunned by the twirling Dumpster. I could end him. I took another step forward, then dry heaved.
I had no choice. Reaching out blindly toward the damp brick wall beside me, one hand grabbing my stomach, I turned and careened down the alley away from the man, forcing my feet to move even as my head howled, demanding I lie down in the trash, let the pain overtake me, let the change come that I now knew had never been a hallucination.
I staggered out from the alley, into the street. Horns beeped at me, people walking down the street stared, bright lights flashed, and tires screeched as someone swerved to avoid hitting me. I ignored it all, ran into the next alley and the next, splashing through stagnant puddles and nearly tripping over a homeless man curled under an old army blanket.
The pulsating behind my temple turned into a squeezing sensation, like my brain was swelling, bursting free of my skull. I couldn’t keep the change at bay any longer. Finally, in a new alley, behind a new Dumpster, I moaned and fell to my knees.
My hands throbbed like I’d dropped a desk on them, my nails tugging at the skin of my fingers as though trying to pull free. I held my trembling hands to my face, watched as the nails blackened and grew long and sharp, tearing free of my cuticles. My eyes watered as bones crunched and lengthened, the sensation like getting a tooth drilled while jacked up on Novocain. Coarse, dark hair appeared on my palms, spread to my wrists, climbed up my arms.
My arms. They quavered uncontrollably, feeling as though someone was pounding them with rubber mallets. Like with my hands, it hurt only distantly, but it was horrifying to see my skin twisting as my bones moved—malleable, rubbery things that stretched and stretched, pulling tendons to their limits, forcing my muscles to grow taut, hard. The same thing was happening in my legs, and I could feel my now-clawed toes slice through Dawn’s black shoes, my heel elongating, forcing the heels off with sharp pops.
My gut and my chest seemed to bubble beneath my dress, contorting and twisting, the sensation stinging like I was in the midst of doing a dozen crunches. The dress. Stupid as it was to think about something like that in the midst of transforming into a frickin’ werewolf, I didn’t want to ruin Dawn’s dress. So I fumbled and shrugged the dress over my head, balling up the shimmering fabric and letting it fall to the ground.
I grabbed at my chest—it had flattened and grown hard, muscular. My stomach narrowed into tight knots, and fur spread here, too, covering me in black and gray. I wanted to scream at the absolute wrongness of it all, fall to the cobbled stone of the dirty alley and cry, but something new was taking over. The part of my brain that had been whispering its strange urges to me for days now was pushing me back, asserting itself over Daytime and Nighttime Emily both. It was calm and focused, forcing me to relax and let the changes finish.
There was a tugging at the base of my spine, a sharp pain at my tailbone, and something pushing its way into my underwear. For a moment I thought I’d messed myself, but no, no—I knew what it was. Modesty completely out the window, I sliced with my claws, my underwear falling to the ground in tatters. A long tail unfurled and slapped at the back of my legs.
Finally the pressure in my brain burst, my skull becoming puzzle pieces rearranged by unseen hands, pulling and stretching to make my mouth and nose into a snout, to drag my now pointed ears to stand at attention atop my head, to file my teeth into sharp, saliva-dripping fangs.
And then, finally, it was done.
I had changed. I was no longer Emily Webb, Daytime or Nighttime.
I was the wolf.
Whatever was left of my normal brain was too stunned, too freaked out about someone trying to kill me and the realization that werewolves were real, to do anything. The instinctual wolf brain wanted to take over completely, and I let it.
Something dangled around my neck. I pawed at it with my claws: Megan’s car keys. Some part of me recognized I needed to keep those close, remembered the muddied dress lying at my feet. Because even though I was mostly wolf now, I was somehow still Emily, still me, still all the parts of me.
I snatched up the dress in my jaws, sniffed at the night air. Discarded fish guts in the Dumpster near me. Diesel exhaust from the roads. Brine on the breeze coming in from Puget Sound.
But I didn’t smell the killer’s horrific stench. Didn’t smell the false musk he’d used to lure me out of the club.
He was gone. But for how long?
The moon was a razor’s-edge sliver in the sky above me, its now gray glow searing my pupils. I turned back the way I’d run, the wolf brain knowing without ever being taught that sticking to the shadows was safer.
That man had tried to murder me. I needed to protect myself. Protect my unknown mate.
My mate? The Emily side of me, still mostly overwhelmed, laughed bitterly in my brain. That was what all this was about, wasn’t it? The urges to smell guys, the frantic search for the right one. The wolf side of me wanted to mate.
No matter. To the task at hand.
I stalked forward. My claws clinked against the concrete; I breathed in short bursts through my nostrils. The shooter had been two or three blocks north of where I was. He couldn’t have gotten too far. I would—
I stopped. I wasn’t alone. Someone, something, was watching me within the alley.
I turned to the Dumpster, once green but now dark gray to my new eyes. There, beside it, stood a shadow. Just a shadow, nothing more, in the shape of a man but cast by no person that I could see.
Whatever I had been feeling, been sensing, was there whenever I changed. Wherever I went. It was completely still, featureless. There was a depth to the shadow’s blackness, a solidness even though my human brain knew, rationally, something like that could never be solid.
But the wolf side of me knew for certain: The shadow watched me. It could see me.
Some ancient, primordial fear edged into my head. The longer I stood there staring at the unmoving shadowman, the more my heart pounded, the more my strong limbs trembled.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Letting out a muffled whine, I spun away, southward, away from the direction of the club where the killer had found me. I dropped to all fours and bounded out of the alley, fleeing the watching shadow with its unseen eyes.
I stuck to the backs of buildings until I was forced to run out into the open. It was late, cars were fewer, people were less present, though not gone entirely—not in a big city that’s awake at all hours. I took chances and darted across roads and through an empty sculpture park, until I reached the parking lots opposite the docks with their storefronts and restaurants opened up onto the water, boats bobbing on gentle waves. Keeping low, I darted between cars parked underneath the viaduct above my head, hiding in its shadows as I headed south.
My paws hurt as they slapped against the rough concrete and asphalt. The wolf me hated the city. Hated the endless stone, the lack of trees, the absence of others like me to run with. My frightened wolf brain and my frightened human brain agreed on one major point: I needed to get home.
I ended up in the shipyards, winding between metal cargo containers stacked atop one another like a giant’s multicolored Legos. Steel cranes towered high above, like the remnants of long dead dinosaurs, gray bones that still supported long necks that stretched over the dark water of Puget Sound.
I don’t know how long I ran; it must have been hours.
But with the wolf’s singular focus, the distance didn’t matter, nor did the time. I bounded over wire fences, slunk behind houses, crawled through underbrush, still hearing the endless sounds of civilization—parties behind closed doors, planes flying overhead, cars zooming down the highway.
And finally, finally, I was back to familiar ground. To the suburban streets of my neighborhood. Where before the wolf had decided that even here was too artificial, now the lawns and trees were a comfort after the long night of racing through a city of steel and concrete.
I found myself in the woods near my house. The perfect woods, where pillars of tree trunks rose to hold up the sky, nocturnal creatures darted through branches to avoid me, damp leaves cushioned my claws instead of rubble digging into the soft pads of my transformed hands and feet.
I had trouble breathing; the wolf brain longed to drop the stained dress still held tight in my teeth. It was bad enough having the jingling keys smacking against my chest as I ran, the twine digging into the fur around my neck.
But I refused to drop the dress. Not after I’d already destroyed so many of Dawn’s clothes; this one needed saving. Instead, I snorted for air through my nostrils as, finally home, I came to a stop in the trees.
I smelled him then.
My mate.
My human side was terrified by what this meant—it could be the killer trying to trick me again. Waiting behind the trees with another vial of liquid musk open at his feet, waiting to shoot me.
The wolf side, the dominant side, didn’t care. My head snapped to attention. I strained to be sure. Some part of me just knew: This wasn’t like Dalton’s smell, and it also wasn’t like the scent that had wafted off the puddle released by the killer’s vial. This was the real thing.
My nose told me all: My mate was here. After my long, thrilling, and terrifying night, how I needed him. I had searched for him for far too long already. I had to know that he was all right, hold him close to me and nuzzle his neck.
With renewed focus, I darted through the trees, kicking up leaves and dirt as I ran. I sniffed the ground, ignoring other animal smells, following his.
And then there he was.
He was far away, deeper in the park and moving steadily. Thanks to the pale streetlights that managed to glow through the canopy, I could see clearly that my nose had been right: He wasn’t a normal wolf. He was like me—half human, half wolf; tall and gangly, humanlike muscles covered with dark fur, his face elongated into some bastardized version of a real wolf’s head.
I wanted him to smell me, to turn and run to me. But he kept moving. I could howl to catch his attention, but then I would drop the dress, and still my human brain refused to do so. So I followed, not worrying about being stealthy, bounding through the underbrush like a noisy, bulky, careless human.
He broke through the last line of trees before I did, loping out onto a suburban street toward a row of small houses. I didn’t see which one he ran toward as I, too, reached the street, but the part of me that was still Emily Webb recognized where I was from my years driving through my small hometown.
I longed to follow the scent to my mate’s comforting side. But exhaustion washed over me and I found I could no longer run. My head felt light, woozy. Heart thudding against my transformed chest and my insides tightening, I knew my night was coming to an end. I had to get somewhere safe. Had to hide from eyes that would see me transform back to normal.
The run home was a blur, but soon I was standing outside the two-story home I’d known for years. Even though it was so terribly human, it smelled comforting to my lupine nostrils. This was where I belonged. Where I would be safe from men with guns, from men of shadow.
I wanted to leap up and through my bedroom window, but after the long run home from Seattle, I could no longer perform such feats. Instead, eyes drooping, I staggered into the backyard. There, in the back corner, was our old toolshed. Standing on my hind legs, I pulled the door open with my claws, then crawled inside.
No longer able to keep my eyes open, I collapsed to the rough wood floor, a rake and the lawn mower shadows above me. Spitting out the soggy, messy dress, I panted, my tongue lolling free from between my sharp teeth.
So tired that I felt it to my bones, I rested my wolfish head atop my long arms, and I slept.
The Vesper Company
“Envisioning the brightest stars, to lead our way.”
- Internal Document, Do Not Reproduce -
Partial Transcript of the Interrogation of Branch B’s Vesper 1
Part 4—Recorded Oct. 31, 2010
F. Savage (FS): So he had some sort of bottled pheromone he used to lure his victims. That would be one way to do it. But how he found you when—
Vesper 1 (V1): When you couldn’t do it? Maybe he just had better tipsters than you did.
FS: Emily, you understand that we tracked you and your fellow deviants down not to harm you. You were simply, ah, mistakes that needed to be contained until we could help you return to a normal life.
V1: So now I’m a mistake?
FS: No, it’s not . . . Look, Emily, all I am saying is that our sources were not looking to bring you any harm.
V1: I know your sources, Mr. Savage. And I guarantee you that’s exactly what they wanted.
[Silence.]
FS: I can sense you’re feeling overwhelmed when it comes to the subject of the killer—
V1: I’m not overwhelmed.
FS: —and so we can move on to other, more important subjects detailed in this past chapter.
V1: Like the shadowman?
FS: Er, yes, though I am sure you are aware they are actually—
V1: If you can call me a deviant, then I can call them shadowmen.
FS: Fair enough. Then let us talk about your impressions of—
[Loud thumping sounds, most likely from outside the room. Muffled shouting can be heard, also from outside the room.]
FS: Oh my.
V1: Okay, something is seriously going on out there.
FS: I—I will be right back. Stay here.
[Chains clang.]
V1: I’m not going anywhere.
[The door to the room can be heard to open and shut. The muffled thumping and shouting continues.]
V1: So I guess it’s just me and me.
[Moment of silence, save for sounds outside the room.]
V1: Sounds like Mr. Savage and his friends have their hands full. Good.
[Silence.]
V1: I’m thinking of smashing this tape recorder. I am saying this out loud, because I’m going to resist that urge. I want you to know I thought about it but didn’t do it. Instead I’m going to leave this recording intact, and I’m going to leave behind everything I wrote. So you won’t forget. So you—
[The door to the room can be heard to open and close once more. Outside noises have ceased.]
V1: What was that all about?
FS: Ah, yes, yes, it was nothing to concern yourself with. Just a slight situation. But we have it under control.
V1: You do? That’s a relief. Sounded dangerous.
FS: Nothing to worry about. I, we, have nothing to worry about. We’ll get back to the subject of the shadowmen later. For now, let’s continue. It’s getting late.
Chapter 14
When Will It Be Me?
Gray, misty daylight slowly filtered through my eyelids. Groaning, I clenched my eyes tighter, mumbled something about needing five more minutes, and tried to roll over to get away from the morning sun.
Splinters scraped against my bare back and I yelped. I sat straight up, rubbing at my back and feeling little shards of wood stuck in my skin.
And I realized I was sitting in the middle of our tiny, dusty toolshed, completely naked.
Realizing something like that? Yeah, it’ll wake you up right quick.
The night came back to me in a rush—drugging Megan, stealing her car, teasing an older
guy at a club, being a total jerk to Jared, getting shot at, turning . . .
Turning into a wolf.
Trembling from shock, and from the cold air seeping through the cracked-open door, I hugged myself, covering my bare chest. The car keys still dangled around my neck, the metal cold against my skin.
Part of me didn’t want to move. Wanted to stay inside the toolshed, surrounded by yard tools that looked all blurry to me without my glasses—the lawnmower with bits of ground-up grass stuck to its side, the rake and the pruning shears, the nail gun and the saw hanging from the back wall. If anything, I was safest in here. Lots of weapons if the man from the night before came back, pulled his gun on me, tried to shoot me . . .
And I wouldn’t have to go outside, face the day as rational, emotional Daytime Emily, the only one of my apparent three personalities that ever had to frickin’ deal with the actions of the other two.
But I was so cold, damp from early morning dew, and my back stung from where I’d lain against the plywood floor. I felt around until I found Dawn’s sparkly blue dress.
I held it up and grimaced. Sequins had fallen free and it was wrinkled, stained with mud, and stiff with dried wolf-girl drool. Part of me wanted to cry. I’d tried so hard to keep the dress Nighttime Emily had stolen from Dawn safe. Lot of good that had done. But another part of me felt . . . pride, I suppose. Because I’d changed into something monstrous, but I’d still kept part of me there. Kept in enough control to at least have some priorities. Which I couldn’t say about myself when I was Nighttime Emily.
The ruined dress was disgusting, but it was all I had. I pulled it on, feeling like I might as well have put on nothing but a potato sack for how exposed I still felt without any underwear on. Reaching out an unsteady hand, I grabbed the top of the lawn mower and pulled myself to my feet.
The door to the shed opened with a creak, and I blinked, trying to get used to the daylight. Everything was blurry—if there was one thing I could actually keep from my transformation into Nighttime Emily, I wished it were her perfect vision.