No Such Thing As Werewolves

by Chris Fox

  “Is that? Jordan, it can’t be. What am I seeing?” Sheila asked, her weight sagging against him as shock overcame her.

  “Exactly what you think you see. That’s Bridget. And Steve,” he explained, supporting her. Both the occupants wore plain white hospital gowns, but their faces were unmistakable. She had to recognize them. “They rose the morning after the initial attack. Steve was easy enough to take down, but Bridget took out three of my men before she could be contained. Our initial findings suggest females are larger and a great deal more violent than males, though we have no idea why.”

  “I…Why are you showing me this?” Sheila asked, finally supporting her own weight. She was still watching the prisoners.

  “You said you needed help. This is it. They can help you solve the language problem, to find out what we’re dealing with,” he said, leaning over to push the red button next to the door before she could protest. “Steve, I’m here with Sheila. She has a request she’d like to make.”

  At the sound of Jordan’s voice, Steve leapt to his feet so swiftly Sheila stumbled back from the door. He was a different man than he had been at the initial dig site. More confident, calm, and self-possessed. He emanated strength. Bridget didn’t react at all, just huddled in the corner with her head pressed against her knees.

  “Hello, Jordan,” he said, tone that of a dinner party host welcoming his guests. He took a step closer to the window. “Hello, Sheila. Are you trying to open the Mother’s sarcophagus? If so, you’re out of luck. It’s genetically locked to the person who bonded the Ark. No Blair, no Mother.”

  “Why would we want to wake up whoever’s in there?” Jordan countered. “Thus far, the people who built this place have managed to unleash a plague that could wipe out our civilization unless we find a way to stop it. Do you really think waking up the woman who might have caused it is a good idea?”

  “More importantly,” Sheila said, breaking in before Steve could reply, “who is the Mother, and how do you know anything about her? Or that Blair is the one who can open her sarcophagus? What the hell is a genetic lock?”

  “She told me,” he said, predatory grin spreading. It took a lot to rattle Jordan, but this guy did it. “She touched my mind. She’s still asleep, but even now her will is so powerful that it bleeds out and touches everyone around her. Have you had dreams lately, Sheila? I know you have…”

  “Commander Jordan, this is Ops. We have a situation. Are you on the line?” the radio at Jordan’s side blared, breaking off all conversation. He snatched it from his belt and thumbed the receiver.

  “This is Jordan. Go ahead,” he replied, thumbing the red button to kill the feed into the cell.

  “We just intercepted a local police call in a small town near the Peruvian coast. A woman claims two foreigners turned up on her doorstep in the middle of the night. One turned into a monster and killed her husband,” the voice explained. It was a balding tech named Sandoval.

  “How is this attack any different than the dozens of others?” Jordan asked, irritation leaking into his voice. He eyed Steve through the mirror. He was certain the man, even in a sealed cell, knew he and Sheila were still there.

  “Sir, they described the two people. One of them is Subject Alpha.”

  Chapter 33- The Boat

  Blair stared down at the white-tipped waves, hands braced on the ship’s chrome railing. Thick spray washed over him, smelling of salt and brine. It felt wonderful. It tasted of freedom. He inhaled deeply, smiling up at the moon’s thickening crescent. There was movement behind him.

  “I’m sorry.” Liz’s voice was soft enough that he might have missed it if not for his augmented hearing. “About the other day, when we woke up. I mean, how I reacted.”

  Blair turned to face her, reply lost. He couldn’t help but stare. The moonlight polished her eyes to brilliant sapphires and painted her river of bronze hair into platinum. She was a wholly different person than he’d met what felt a lifetime ago but was, in reality, a handful of days. The change was not just physical, though she’d changed dramatically in that way too. Soft curves had transformed into the toned muscles of a lifelong athlete, just as his own body had transformed.

  The changes went deeper though. The determination and borderline hostility in her gaze had softened, hinting at a vulnerability he doubted she’d ever willingly show him, or anyone for that matter. Though he’d only known her briefly, he had the sense that she prided herself on being self-sufficient. She’d have to be to travel South America as a lone foreign woman. That took a mix of courage and savvy.

  “For pelting me in the face with a rock?” Blair said, flashing a grin. He leaned back against the railing, exalting in the spray as another wave crashed against the bow of the freighter. “Can’t really blame you for that, given that you woke up naked next to a man you didn’t really know.”

  The moonlight hid her blush, if there was one. She momentarily averted her gaze before replying. “Still, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You’re just as much a victim of this whole thing as I am.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Blair said, snorting as she moved to the railing next to him.

  Silence stretched as she stared out over the waves, wind playing with her hair that made his hands twitch. He wondered what it felt like. Blair glanced up to the higher deck, but other than the bearded captain steering the boat they were completely alone. He was out of earshot, giving them as much privacy as they could really expect.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said, glancing at him as she spoke. She brushed away a lock of hair that had blown into her face, “about what we’ve become and how it happened. About this pyramid and why it might have come back now. Have you ever wondered about all the myths about werewolves and elves and vampires? I think there’s more truth in them than we ever could have guessed. What if our legends are half-remembered stories?”

  “I think that’s a bit of a stretch,” Blair said, caught a bit off guard by the question. During all the running, he hadn’t thought much about the origins of the werewolves. “Not the werewolves, obviously, but vampires or elves. I haven’t seen anything to suggest either exist.”

  “You have to wonder at least. This pyramid turns everything we know on its head. If werewolves exist, why not other mythological creatures?” she said, delivering a slight smile. “There’s a lot more to the universe than most people are willing to admit. Do you know why I was in Peru to begin with?”

  “I’ve been wondering,” Blair admitted. He turned around, resting his forearms on the railing as he turned his gaze to the ocean. It glittered under the caress of the moon, like a field of carelessly discarded diamonds.

  “I came to meet with a shaman, a spirit guide who helps the locals,” she admitted, eyeing him sidelong as if waiting for a reaction. He said nothing. “I took ayahuasca. I went on a spirit quest.”

  “So you believe in all that supernatural stuff then?” he said, before he could catch the words. Her face hardened, mask back in place immediately.

  “Yeah, I believe in that woo-woo stuff,” she shot back, tone heated. “You can make fun of it if you want, but there’s a lot more to it than just superstition and mumbo jumbo.”

  “Next you’re going to tell me you think the pyramids were built by aliens,” Blair said, rolling his eyes. He didn’t want to slight her beliefs, but he’d dealt with this uninformed crap for too many years.

  “Who’s to say they weren’t? Or if not aliens, then something modern people would consider to be magic,” Liz said, brushing her hair from her face again.

  “History,” Blair countered, moderating her tone. If he wanted her to listen, he couldn’t be an ass about this. “We know when and how the pyramids were built. We’ve even found a complex built by Pharaoh Khufu to house the workers who did it. We’ve been able to piece together their lives, from the beer they drank to the games they played. The Egyptians were very meticulous in their record keeping.”

  “What about Abu Gorash?” s
he asked, eyes alight with triumph.

  Blair was taken aback. Very few people knew about Abu Gorash, the pyramid atop a mountain, so remote that almost no tourists visited it. The stonework was so fine that it appeared to have been machined.

  “I watched a documentary on the pyramids, on Netflix. It said that the pyramids were used as a power source and that you can still feel the electrical charge at their tips. Even if that wasn’t true, how did the Egyptians get all those stone blocks to the top of a mountain?” she said, clearly enjoying herself now. “Magic, or something we’d consider to be magic. We haven’t had any proof that it exists, at least until now. You said the pyramid you discovered is larger than the Egyptian ones and that it caused an earthquake, right? How much more proof do you need?”

  “That’s true,” he admitted, considering the notion. Could she be right? It just wasn’t possible. There was too much proof showing that the Egyptians had used conventional labor to build their monuments. “It’s possible the Egyptians were aping an earlier culture, but their work is elementary compared to what we found in those mountains. Clearly this culture had technology so advanced we might call it magic, but if the Egyptians did, why was their work so primitive in comparison? Why did future cultures not use this ‘magic’?”

  “Maybe some of them did,” Liz said, giving a pleased smile. “The Mayans built pyramids. The Celts built Stonehenge. What about the moai statues on Easter Island? There’s evidence all around us.”

  “Ok, let’s say you’re right. You’re not—we have too much evidence to the contrary—but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that all these places were built with magic,” Blair allowed, crossing his arms and giving a smile of his own. He had her now. “What happened to the magic, Liz? Why did these cultures stop using it? Why don’t we use it today? People all over the world call themselves magicians or shamans, but not a single one anywhere can demonstrate anything concrete. They’re not throwing fireballs or conjuring demons. They’re not healing the sick or levitating twenty-ton stone blocks through the air. Why not, Liz?”

  She was quiet for a long moment, staring up at the moon while she bit her lower lip. Then she straightened suddenly, eyes alight as she turned back to him. “This pyramid came now, of all the times it could have appeared. You remember all those 2012 prophecies, that the world was going to end? It was based on the Mayans; their calendar ended in 2012.”

  “I’m familiar with it. They called it the long count,” Blair said, quirking an eyebrow. “I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

  “The Mayans believed time was circular, that it flowed in a great cycle. So what if magic is a part of this cycle, that it comes and goes,” she said, as excited as Blair had ever seen her. Liz’s energy reminded him a little of Bridget. “Maybe magic has been gone for a really long time, thousands of years. We have legends about it, but people today can’t duplicate it because its been gone for some reason.”

  “And you think its back now?” Blair asked. He wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand, it sounded crazy. It was just the sort of rationalized pseudo-science that he’d contended with his entire career. On the other hand, he’d turned into a werewolf, and a pyramid from the Mesolithic had appeared all on its own. Like magic.

  “Exactly. Maybe it’s been building up slowly and we’ve hit some sort of tipping point,” she said. It was obviously a topic she was passionate about, and that passion made her even more beautiful. “If it’s cyclic, maybe the magic got weaker, and that’s why by the time the Egyptians built the pyramids, they had to do a lot of it with conventional labor. That explains the evidence you said we’ve found. It could also explain why they built them to conduct energy. Magic.”

  “If you’re right, if there is some sort of energy we’d think of as magic, then that makes a kind of sense,” Blair said. He didn’t like where this was going, but he couldn’t fault her logic. “If it was fading away, then the Pyramids could have focused what remained. Maybe it was a last gambit to keep their magic alive. The Pyramids were built during the fourth dynasty, what we call the Old Kingdom. Maybe they worked for a little while, but by the time the Middle Kingdom rolled around, they were just lumps of stone. That could also explain why they don’t have any adornment inside. The Egyptians love to decorate their monuments, but the insides of the Pyramids are completely bare. If they were functional, not decorative, that would make sense.”

  “We’d have to rethink history,” Liz said, with a genuine smile. “Every ancient civilization has their myths about magic. Atlantis. King Arthur. Ancestor worship. Gaining strength through human sacrifice. What if all those legends are based on something real? They were real in the beginning, but as magic faded, all the miracles stopped. That’s why no one believes in it today.”

  “This is an interesting theory, but I’m not comfortable calling it magic,” Blair said, shaking his head. The boat creaked as it crested a wave. He squinted. There were city lights on the horizon.

  “Then what do you want to call it?” Liz asked. She leaned against his shoulder. It wasn’t a cold night, but her warmth was welcome for other reasons.

  “Something the beast in my head said. Shaping,” he said, wondering exactly what the word meant.

  Chapter 34- A Spiral

  Ahiga laboriously placed the last stone, as large as a man’s head. He added it to the growling spiral, hot sand kissing his bare feet as he completed the spiral’s third revolution. It was far larger than the ones he’d created in ages past, but power was thin, and he needed all the focus the stones could provide. It was the only way to accomplish what he must.

  He shaded his eyes against the harsh sun, large in the sky over the western horizon. It nearly touched the water, its yellow brilliance already fading to orange. Soon it would become red; then it would vanish into the ocean, like some slowly cooling ember. Already, the moon hung in the sky, the fat crescent pale and weak. Drowned out by the sun’s lingering majesty.

  Ahiga took slow, deliberate steps across the sand. He followed the spiral inward, his breathing shallow as he approached the center. When he reached it he squatted, knees out-thrust slightly with his forearms resting against his thighs. He closed his eyes, crouched at the exact center of the spiral. The apex of the power it could provide.

  “What are you doing?” a voice said, the high shrill of a young child.

  Ahiga’s eyes snapped open, and he turned his gaze on the unexpected interruption. The beach was empty save for a small girl of perhaps six or seven. She wore a bright-blue bathing suit, and her long, dark hair sent runnels of water down her bare shoulders. Too young to fear a stranger and armed with all the curiosity such a young child could muster, she watched him with large, dark eyes.

  He scanned the beach and spied two figures in the distance. A bare-chested man sat on a bright-red blanket while his mate emerged from the deep-green waves. She wore tiny white garments that barely covered her chest and crotch, highlighting bronzed curves rather than hiding them. The child bore a strong resemblance, the same hair and heart-shaped face.

  “I am gathering power,” Ahiga told the child, turning his attention back to her. She was too young to accept the gift.

  The child’s parents are of the age, his beast rumbled, voice echoing through his mind. They could be slain quickly.

  He considered that option; then discarded it. Imparting the gift would cost both power and time, and he had precious little of either. He would need all that he possessed for the ritual he must enact. He had to know how quickly the champions were spreading. More importantly, he had to locate the whelp, or all would be lost.

  “No, you aren’t,” the child said, planting her hands on hips. “You’re just playing with rocks.”

  He blinked, taken aback. Few among the blooded questioned his word. None among the unblooded would dare. Yet here was this simple child doing just that. Ahiga leaned his head back and laughed.

  “I am, child. These stones help to focus my power. They will enable me to perf
orm a ritual of great power, one that will send my consciousness winging across the sky. Higher than any bird can soar,” he said, though he knew she couldn’t possibly understand what he was doing.

  “The rocks are going to help you fly?” the child asked, her tone dubious. “People can’t fly. Not like birds. We have to take an airplane.”

  Ahiga didn’t need to pluck the concept from her mind to understand. The strange silver birds in the sky were conveyances, carrying people from land to land with shocking speed. He’d already puzzled that much out.

  “I will show you,” he said, closing his eyes. Establishing a link to the child’s mind took a bare trickle of energy compared to the vast expenditure required by the ritual.

  He focused on the first stone, feeling the weight and substance of it with his mind. Then the second. Then the third. Faster and faster, he touched them, working his way outward across the spire. The world faded away, the crashing of the waves and the hot sand gone as he rose from his body and into the sky. He could see pinpricks of light dotting the world beneath him, dozens of them.

  They radiated out from the Ark, like the arms of an octopus. One arm curled down into the River of Life and the vast jungle that surrounded it. The rest snaked through the mountains, toward the ocean, growing wider as they reached the strangely sprawling cities. Excellent. Many had reached large population centers, and that meant the champions could spread swiftly.

  The lights closer to the Ark pulsed strongly, while many of those in the cities were weaker. Each indicated the relative strength of a champion. None were potent enough to be the whelp he sought, but then he hadn’t expected them to be. Ahiga cast his will north, across the waves. He followed them until he found a pair of lights in the vast ocean of darkness. They blazed like the full moon, both potent. The whelp and his direct progeny.