by Jenna Payne
“Beltane,” Jessa replied. “It’s the start of summer. Please say yes.” Her eyes were large, pleading with me. I sighed heavily.
“Okay,” I said. “But next weekend, I want to go nowhere, and do nothing.”
“Deal. I won’t bother you all weekend. I promise.” she said. “I can’t believe we’re going!” She ran off down the hallway.
Thus, I found myself wearing my black Balmain mini-dress that I had splurged my first paycheck on. I wore a pair of black and tan giraffe-print heels that had gold buckles on the side. My hair I styled straight with a flat iron, so that it fell in silky smooth swaths over my shoulders. Jessa was wearing a white linen mini dress with peasant-style sleeves. We both wore flower crowns in honor of Beltane. Mine was made of blue fabric roses, and hers were yellow. Our heels clicked on the pavement as we walked.
“Jeez, Jess,” I said. “My feet are killing me already. How much farther?” She pulled the piece of deep blue paper out of her clutch. It had bronze-painted lettering in a calligraphic script, proclaiming our official invite to Club Walpurgis. She used the light from her phone to check the address.
“Just a few more buildings,” she said. I looked around us. We were in one of the sketchier parts of town. The buildings were all abandoned, most of the windows had been broken, and the chain linked fences surrounding them were rusted and broken through. Most of the buildings had graffiti scrawled across them at human height. Brambles and small trees had begun to grow up around the buildings, as though nature, after being shut out by the urban sprawl, had begun to sneak back in.
It was so silent; I regretted not owning a Taser in that moment. Anyone could have easily snuck up on us. We reached the building that had the street address on Jessa’s invitation. We could hear the faint strains of electronic dance music. Strobe lights were on inside of the building.
“How do we get in?” I asked, looking over at Jessa.
“I don’t know,” she replied, scrutinizing the invitation in the blue light of her cellphone for any instruction on where to go from here. We heard the clink of a chain linked fence being pulled aside, to see a rumpled, scruffy-looking twenty-something man. He had thick black gauges in his ears, and wore a black hoodie over a pair of black jeans. He was holding back the fence, where a large cut had been made.
“Over here,” he said, gesturing. We walked over to him. “Password?”
“May Day,” Jessa said. He gestured us in.
“May Day was the password?” I said. “It’s the first of May.”
“Yeah, so?” Jess shot back.
“Tell me, how is it hard to get in here?” I asked bitingly. Jessa just rolled her eyes, and grabbing my arm tightly, dragged me toward the abandoned brick building that was hosting Club Walpurgis. The doors to the building were open, and we walked inside. It had once been a warehouse, and was in a state of disrepair. It smelled musty. At the center, on a raised platform, there was a DJ. Lights had been placed up near the ceiling, and kept the room at a dim, but safe level of lighting. Two bars were set up along opposite walls, and Jessa began dragging me toward one of them. They had aqua-colored lighting across the back, and shelves of liquor in front of a large mirror.
Across the room from us, there was another raised platform. Upon it, two seats were situated. One was woven out of dark wood, and decorated with wild flowers. A woman sat on it, and she had a regal bearing. Her posture was straight, erect, and her hands were folded in her lap. Her eyes were lined thickly in kohl, and she wore a gold, slinky dress. Upon her head, there was a ringlet of wildflowers, and she watched the crowd like a cat. The other chair appeared woven out of birch sticks, and decorated with red berries. A man lounged upon it sulkily. He looked almost angry. He had high, sculpted cheekbones, and was well-built, fit, but not overly muscular. He was dressed simply in a black oxford, unbuttoned at the top, and black slacks. He also wore no shoes. His gaze shifted, for a second, and he looked right at me. I gasped, feeling the predatory gleam of his sight. He scowled at me, and I kept my eyes on him, feeling that it would be a bad idea to back down.
A look of abject anger shot across his face, as though I were being impertinent. Just as Jess and I reached one of the bars, he got up, and began to walk over. Fear flashed through my chest, and I looked away. I tried getting Jessa’s attention, but she had wormed her way through the crowd to get to the bar, and was leaning over the bar, waving wildly for the bartender. I was on my own. Turning around, I found myself face-to-face with the man from the dais.
He was close—too close. His eyes were a deep, soulful mahogany color, and his hair was artfully tousled. He smelled masculine, clean, yet he wasn’t wearing cologne. Butterflies frenzied through my stomach. I crossed my arms over my chest, and raised my chin. I wasn’t going to let him overpower me with his presence. He seemed like someone who was used to getting their way.
“What do you want?” I snapped. He stepped back a little in shock. Clearly, he was used to people treating him much differently.
“Do you know who I am, human?” he asked.
“No. Should I?” I replied. He just grinned, his eyes smoldering. He put his hands in his pockets. He stood straight, regally, like the woman on the dais, but he was trying to appear casual, and I couldn’t understand why.
“You have no idea,” he said, then pointed. I shifted my gaze, to see a man, kissing a woman on the neck in the corner. Her head was thrown back as though she were in a fit of passion. The man groped her breasts and buttocks.
“Um, okay, ew,” I said. “If you’re asking me to make out in a dark corner with you, you’re mistaken.”
“No, human,” he replied. “Look closer.” Suddenly, I realized that blood was flowing from the woman’s neck, and the man was drinking it. His skin had a strange pallor to it, only heightened by the darkness of his hair and clothing.
“What the—” I looked back at the man from the dais. “Is this some weird sex fetish club, then?” He laughed.
“No,” he replied. “He’s a vampire.”
“You’re not serious,” I said.
“This is a club for supernaturals,” he replied. “We are here to make peace among our kinds. We bring humans here on Sabbats to appease the darker ones. The vampires, the faeries, the witches.”
He gestured beyond the man drinking the woman’s blood, to a group of women who were glowing slightly, and dancing around a man. The man looked drunk, and very happy. As the women laughed, they displayed their mouths, filled with pointed teeth. Their ears were equally pointed.
My strange companion finally motioned toward the dais, where the cat-like woman in gold was observing us.
“Is she the priestess?” I asked.
“Yes. Eavenna.” he replied. “Her coven is quite powerful in this city.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” I asked. I didn’t know why that mattered to me.
“No,” he replied archly. “We are more like political leaders who work together.” I glanced back at the vampire and his victim.
“Is he going to kill her?” I asked, gesturing toward the vampire.
“I certainly hope not,” he replied. “That would betray our trust. They are quite able to drink without releasing venom, or draining their victim. It could, potentially, make things quite messy for Club Walpurgis if our human guests began disappearing.” The vampire man looked up from his “meal” to look at us. His eyes glowed with red fire. I wondered if he could hear everything that we were saying. He smiled, wiping his crimson-stained mouth on his sleeve, as he began walking over to us.
“Wait. What does that make you?” I asked, looking at him suspiciously.
“Werewolf,” he said. “King of the werewolves, actually.” He paused watching my reaction.
“Am I supposed to bow, or curtsy, or something?” I asked, wanting to laugh. This was all so bizarre.
“Do you want to?” he asked.
“No,” I replied bluntly. He laughed, and it came out almost as a bark.
“Most p
eople,” he said, reaching out, and taking a lock of my hair between two of his fingers. “Would be quite nervous to be talking to a very powerful supernatural being, and royalty, no less.” As he released the lock of my hair, he ran a finger over my collarbone. I could feel a hum in my blood as desire shot through my bloodstream like caffeine.
“I’m not most people,” I replied.
“Do tell,” he said. I found that I didn’t have an answer to that.
“I—”
“Yes?” he said, raising an eyebrow. But he was not meant to find out what my reasoning was, because there was a sudden outcry, and people started running for the door. It appeared that people were being attacked on the dance floor. The king of the werewolves grabbed me, picking me up as easily as you or I would a lightweight basket of laundry. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around his neck.
Suddenly, the DJ’s booth began to spark, then went up in flames. People were flocking to the exit, which was not large enough to allow everyone out at the same time. Glass was breaking, and the werewolf king was running, quickly toward the side opposite to the entrance, and I was forced to go with him. His arms were wrapped around me like a vise. As I glanced back, I saw the vampire watching us; he smiled at me and waved.
“Jessa!” I yelled into the imbroglio. I turned to the werewolf king and said, “Wait, I have to get my friend.” I fought against him, but I wasn’t strong enough. He carried me past the dais with the two woven chairs on it. The high priestess had vanished. Several people were standing by a door on the wall beyond the dais. It was dark here, and I couldn’t see any of their faces. I counted eight people in all.
“What’s going on?” the werewolf king snapped.
“We have to get you out of here, my lord,” a man said, holding the door open.
“Who is attacking?” he demanded.
“The Dvina Vampire Coven,” a woman said.
“Please,” I said, still fighting the king. “Let me go find Jessa.” Not listening to me, he walked through the door, still holding me tightly.
“Get the humans out,” he said. “Destroy as many of the Dvina as possible.”
He began to run down the hallway, a few of the people following. I was crying, I realized, desperate to go back for Jessa. But it seemed that I was being rescued against my will. In a few heartbeats, we were outside, running through the city streets. I looked around me at the people, just in time to see them shift into their wolf forms.
They were large, with mournful eyes that glowed with a golden fire. They loped easily alongside us. We were going fast—as fast as one can drive a car on the freeway. I felt overwhelmed and absolutely sick with worry because I’d left Jessa behind. I hoped that she was okay. I thought back to the night that I’d planned—one in which I stayed on the couch and remained clueless.
*****
We entered a building that, from the outside, looked abandoned. The inside, however, was beautifully finished. I had no idea where we were; I was overwhelmed by guilt that I had been saved, and Jess had been left to fend for herself. The building that we were in had been gutted, and all of the floors taken out, so from the ground floor to the third story ceiling, it was open. It was extravagantly decorated—hardwood floors, huge chandeliers dripped crystal from the ceiling, and the windows had been replaced. There was plush furniture spread throughout, and a long wooden table that was big enough to seat about twenty. In the back corner was a large round tent, made of a red material. It was in here that the werewolf king took me. Setting me on my feet inside of the tent, he walked to the back of it, where there was a high-backed chair. The structure was about the size of a small room and was lit by fairy lights. There was a bed, I noticed, a desk, and shelves with books on them.
Rubbing the back of my hand over my eyes, I began to rummage through my purse for my cellphone. I needed to text Jessa, to see if she was okay. When I pulled it from my bag, though, the werewolf king shot upwards from his seat, snatching the phone out of my hands. He threw it to the floor, smashing it with his foot.
“What did you do that for?” I asked.
“You can’t be tracked back to here,” he replied. “I need to keep you safe.”
“From whom?”
“The Dvina Coven will be looking for any humans that were there tonight,” he said. “They will consider you their property.”
“But what about my friend? I have to make sure that she’s okay,” I snapped.
“You can’t,” he replied evenly, his face not changing. He turned away from me and flung himself down on the chair.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Do?” He asked, giving me a blank look. “Stay here. Most of the human population is too slow or too weak to fight a vampire successfully.”
“I have to go back. Take me back,” I said.
“You are not in a position to be making demands, human,” he said. Just then, the flap of the tent was pulled back to reveal what I assumed to be werewolves in their human form.
“We cleared the building, my lord,” said an older man with a grizzly beard. “Several humans are missing, and the human fire department has shown up to extinguish the fire.”
“Very good,” the king replied.
“What about Jessa?” I asked. “Is a girl named Jessa Wilson missing?” The man looked at me, confused. He looked to his king, who nodded.
“No,” he replied. “There is no one by that name on the list.”
“But she was invited,” I said. “We were invited.”
“What is your name?” he asked me.
“Katrina. Katrina Smith.” I replied.
“What was the password?” the king asked me.
“May Day,” I said. “We were let in by a young man with gauges in his ears. It was through a hole cut in the fence.”
“That wasn’t the password,” the old man said.
“No,” the king agreed. “That wasn’t our doorkeeper, either. The vampires were letting more humans in so that they could kidnap more of them undetected.” My stomach sank. We had been targeted. I remembered the eyes of the vampire at the club, and how they blazed with a red fire. My heart was pounding, and the room had begun to spin. I felt as though I were going to pass out. I knelt down onto the floor, just as darkness took me.
I awoke to the werewolf king’s face over me. The red of the tent fabric made everything glow crimson. The king was rubbing a soft, cool damp cloth over my face.
“How are you?” he whispered.
“I’m okay,” I said, going to sit up. “I think.” He pushed me down with a hand. I realized I was lying on his bed.
“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. But it has to be this way. You and your friend were lured there by the Dvina Coven. She’s probably not going to be found. That’s what happens to humans who come into our world—they often disappear, despite our efforts to return them.”
I started to cry.
“She had been so excited,” I said. He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“I will do everything in my power to recover her,” he said. “Do you believe me?”
I nodded. I believed that he wanted to find her, at least.
“What time is it?”
“About one in the afternoon,” he said. “We got here last night at about midnight.”
“So I slept—”
“All through the night,” he replied. “It happens after something stressful—it’s the body’s way of healing itself.”
“Come,” he said. “You will need food, I imagine.” He got up, holding his hand out to me. I took it, feeling the comforting roughness of it. When we exited the tent, we stepped out into a room crowded with people, all of whom stopped talking when they saw their king. In the sudden hush, his voice rang out.
“This human is under our protection,” he said. “You are to welcome Katrina.” The werewolves all circled around me, holding out their hands. I pressed each hand offered to me. For large canine-human shape shifters, they were quite affable.
“Come,” said the werewolf king, taking my hand and leading me over to a long wooden table that took up a great space in the old warehouse. The werewolf king seated himself at the head of the table, motioning for me to take the seat to his left. I sat, and was served by a young werewolf boy, not much older than ten.
There was a small portion on my plate—much smaller than that of the werewolves, and it was cooked, I realized. Their portions all seemed to be completely raw, and they ate with their hands, while I was, luckily, provided a fork and a knife. It was mundane, to be eating at a table; but I was dining with werewolves, so at the same time it seemed so very strange.
The older man who had spoken with the king in the tent was sitting across from me at the table, and he was completely involved with his food, blood smeared across his cheeks. The king addressed him as Davey. The other wolves, in human form, sat at the table, which was silent, except for the sounds of chewing. I cut into my meat gently. Beside me sat a woman, who chewed her meat gingerly. She caught me looking at her and smiled at me. She had bright green eyes, and close-cropped black hair, with a pixie-like face.
“Hello, human,” she said brightly. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Katrina,” I said.
“Mia,” she said, taking a bite. She chewed for a minute before swallowing. “So how do you like our little ragtag band?”
“You all seem really nice,” I said.
“Any dog can wag its tail,” she said. “Just watch out for the teeth.” I wasn’t sure how to react to her statement. Was it a threat? A warning? She looked over at me, and smiled, laughing.
“Relax, human,” she said. “The wolves of this city are a peaceful bunch of pooches.”
“How long have you—” I ventured. She raised her eyebrows.
“Been a werewolf?” she finished.
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“Fifty years,” she said. “You should probably learn to refrain from asking that question of our king.”
“Why?” I asked.