“Vampires are gone, Alpha Guardian.”
Stories of vampire kind were old, far older than she was; fraught with death, destruction, and near extinction, the tales were not good. Before Garvey told her about Mazgan’s plan, she simply assumed vampires were extinct. There were accounts of them living outside their world, beyond the Door, but no one had used the portals for many years. Vampires became children’s tales. Myths. Fodder for human pop culture. Bringing them back seemed like impossible madness. But Garvey said that’s what Mazgan had ordered him to do. Now Kijo had her confirmation.
His dull brown eyes finally had some type of spark in them. Mazgan was excited, renewed. “No, my love. They exist. I will use them to destroy our enemies. This will be our world.”
“It is already our world, Alpha Guardian.”
Her statement had enough Varcolac pride in it to make Mazgan reward her with a benign smile. “Yes, but everyone will know it. No more hiding our true forms. Humans will see. They will bow. We will have absolute control over everything.”
Kijo wanted to laugh at him. Humans were in their place regardless of whether or not they knew it. Seeking to subjugate them in the open was the course of a new wolf or a hot-headed, lower-ranking wolf eager to establish dominance. Guardians existed to prevent such folly, to champion the pack’s best interests over personal glory. There was very little Mazgan could say to convince her releasing vampires to destroy a large chunk of their food source was an idea born from anything but a need to posture.
But Kijo was in no position to laugh. Her fight against Lavario, while hailed as a win, was still criticized by many of her peers. Forfeit—in this context—was her disgrace as well as her father’s. He didn’t forfeit to avoid his own death but to let her live. She was surprised when no other challenges were issued. Mazgan probably had something to do with that. Going against him now would almost ensure the next few years of her life would be challenge after challenge. Confident in her abilities, Kijo had to concede that the process was tiresome and lower-ranking wolves got lucky from time to time. Knowing that, she continued, “I will not help you with this, Alpha Guardian. It is foolish and underhanded. Absolute control often very quickly turns to no control.”
“You sound like your father,” he sneered at her.
I am his daughter. She wanted to say it, but kept silence as her official response.
It was hardly a surprise when he struck her. Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth and began its descent to her chin, down her throat, and then into the itchy fabric of the shirt that she now hated. She would not frenzy. Doing so, flinging herself at him with rage, would only give him cause to punish her. So she gestured to the door, a polite request to leave.
He was half-transformed, fuming. “I came here to offer you my love.”
“Alpha Guardian,” she was cold, logical, “I do not want your love. I want power.”
* * *
To Kijo, the situation with Oscar sounded more like a flashback than a revelation. This would be the second time Lavario took a room away from the guardian. He’d done the same to two others way back when she was a new wolf. This is now mine, he’d said and shut the door on their faces. Once three separate living spaces but now one, Kijo’s new apartment was her father’s admonishment that the might-makes-right mentality of the pack had its unintended consequences. Instead of getting the message, the displaced inhabitants spent the next century trying to get the rooms back using force, something which never ceased to amuse Lavario.
Kijo worried endlessly about the ramifications. He’d always told her they’d never wise up and attack as a group because rules, rules, rules. She wondered how he’d feel knowing his daughter gave up everything without a fight.
Purging him from their memory began with the bonfire. Weeks ago, Kijo’s brothers and sisters took all of her father’s lavish furnishings and dumped them into a big pile in the courtyard and then set it all ablaze. As a community, they said good-bye to an era of outsider rule.
Conflicted and distant as she was, Kijo had been a part of that moment.
Her pack continued on without her. The first wall between her chamber and Oscar’s new living quarters was being erected. Buzzing saws and the steady thud, thud, thud of power tools cut through her reflections on her current situation. Not good. After seven hours of contemplation that was the only conclusion the constant noise would let her come to.
None of her old friends would meet her in the eye after her chat with Mazgan. Even Geri and Freki, long-time belly-crawling sycophants, avoided her, ducking their heads with apologetic licks to their wormy mouths. Last time she felt so alone, she’d been left in the forest to die. Being separated from her pack was like that.
Kijo wanted to bend. She wanted to visit her father.
Dusty outlines she couldn’t quite bring herself to clean marked where Lavario’s furniture once dominated her space. Kijo’s sparse furnishings only managed to halfway obfuscate the remains. It made her feel like a child dressing up in grownup clothes. Nothing fit, all she could do was stand there and look at her ridiculous reflection. Each time her eye caught movement—a branch or a curtain in the breeze—she turned her head to it to seek its counsel. “Father…” she began. And ended. There were many shadows amid so much negative space. Kijo spent a lot of time talking to nothing.
It was still Lavario’s.
After days of waiting for him to walk out of his bedroom to chide her or to offer her some frilly silk garment he bought on a trip, Kijo just had to admit it. It had his smell. His memories. Even the chair she sat in—the chair she brought from her old apartments—betrayed her in this space. Her father was right. Cheaply made furniture sucked. Functional chairs. Functional bed. Functional clothes. How it itched. How uncomfortable it all was. Odd she never noticed it until she brought her spine-bending chair to a space where a lovely custom-built mahogany chair once stood, its cushion deep and welcoming.
Stiffly, she got up to pace around the room. Why didn’t I just stick with my initial plan? Moondog life couldn’t be that bad. If she’d done that, she would be lecturing him about the dangers of his idiosyncrasies while he sipped away at some fancy wine he had imported from who-knows-the-fuck-where. Instead, she was sifting through his wreckage. Unwelcome nostalgia jolted through her when she came across the bear he’d taken out of the keepsake box. Before he left, he tucked the worn stuffed animal under a floorboard. No doubt for her to find.
She found it. She’d tried to throw it away.
Time was not on her side. She couldn’t afford to sit around feeling sorry for herself for too long. Duty snapped her back to the present. Mazgan would no doubt continue his plan without her. Without Lavario by her side and minus the support of the pack, she would be too weak to stop him. A difficult road lay ahead of her.
Challenges would come. But let them. Kijo was guardian. Kijo was Varcolac. She would fight for what was hers. She thought back to the apartments. Lavario staked his claim to the space, to every space he had ever inhabited. This is mine, he had said. Then, he had turned to her, Now, go find your own.
PART THREE
DEVIL WITH A BLUE DRESS
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE BROWN DOG
Time for another pep talk. Tovin took a deep breath.
Yes, he would say the right things. He would not try to run away. Bloodservants were companions. Companions were destined for great things. Great things included being a werewolf one day. No, he would not laugh or mock any of that. It made perfect sense. Now smile. Bigger. Bigger. No, more natural. Good. Right, now don’t piss anyone off today.
Tovin splashed some water up in his face.
Months ago, the deadbolt of his new home clicked in its place, and Tovin’s position within Eresna’s life took a different road. No less luxurious than his previous dwelling, the villa-like enclosure she moved him to had the amenities of an expensive resort and the privacy of a maximum-security prison.
Eresna tried. Grudgingly, Tovin admitted it to him
self. Preparing him for his new life simply proved a larger task than she was willing to undertake. The more he bungled the role she wanted him to play, the less tolerant she became. He’d been demoted from mistake to liability.
Never alone, whatever werewolf assigned to him followed to make sure he didn’t encounter any of the other companions. Sometimes it was Kurt, a human who knew what the werewolves did and worked with them regardless. Usually it was Nadine.
Yuri was with him today. “Hello, Tovin.”
Werewolves did not knock. Beyond embarrassment now, Tovin didn’t bother covering himself anymore. A bit sleepy, he blinked at her. Water trickled down his chin. “Hello, Yuri.”
“Get dressed. Breakfast. Eggs and crepes sound good?”
He nodded.
A few minutes later, he joined her at the table. The garden are of his new home was his favorite part. Today, the lilacs were in bloom, pleasant company for the new morning. The moment his rump hit the chair, Yuri asked him the same question she always did. “Are you going to see Guardian Eresna today?”
Same answer. “No.”
Atypical of her, she didn’t press the issue. No follow up, just a half hour of silence as she watched him eat. The moment he was done, she spoke again. “Guardian Eresna has a new companion. He’s here today.”
Food lurched in Tovin’s stomach. “Oh,” he stammered. “Oh. Okay. Good.”
“She wanted me to tell you you’re fine here. She wanted me to tell you she feels bonded with you, and she wants to know if you’re happy here in your new home.”
“Happy meal! That’s me!” He meant it as a lighthearted joke at his situation.
The sides of Yuri’s face pinched together. Tovin braced himself for a lecture about avoiding dark humor. Instead, her look softened. Her mouth opened and shut a few times as though she were searching for the right words. “Tovin, do you remember the dog in the alleyway? The brown one you’d play with when your mother went to work?”
He did. Quietly, his voice constrained by emotion, he told her so. He’d come to think of his life before werewolves simply as then. Often he told himself the opposite should be true since an aggregate of thens made him who he was today. But the sum total of first kisses, broken hearts, broken bones, garbage disposal disasters, walking home in the rain, and book clubs seemed woefully inadequate, everything within his new life outside of their respective realms of expertise.
Life demanded he leave his younger self behind. Painfully, Yuri brought him back. “That was me,” she told him.
Animals never worried about things the way people did. Tovin depended on that in his younger days. Discouraged from being too outwardly affectionate or emotional, he’d lavished all his hugs, all his tears, all his secrets, and all his heartache on that dog. And doughnuts. Many, many doughnuts. Now Yuri was claiming to be her. “Did you even like doughnuts?”
She shook her head. A moment of humor overtook her somber attitude. “I was even less fond of being tied to hydrants.”
Embarrassment combined with outrage. Tovin’s emotions were a convoluted mix, and he couldn’t separate the individual strands. A thought occurred to him. “Did you… Are you why I’m here?”
“Yes, I brought you here.” Her tone was not even a bit contrite. She must have seen his facial muscles twitch. “Would you rather I’d left you out in the street when your mother kicked you out for being gay? Perhaps you’d rather have taken your chances with your abusive father?”
Tovin bristled. “I got my own life sorted out. I’m not your sad story to fix.”
“Yes. I kept you alive to do it.”
“You don’t feel bad about any of this?”
She gave him a small, indignant sigh. “No, I don’t. You were to be the pampered companion of a very attractive Guardian. Amazing sex, unlimited money…” she trailed off. “Obviously that didn’t happen. Now that my plan has gone wrong, you need to listen. Tovin, Kurt is going to teach you what you need to know. Obey him. I was your friend back then. I am your friend now. I have watched over you your entire life. Do this.”
Reeling, Tovin gave her a few awkward head gestures to indicate he heard and understood. He probably looked like a bobblehead.
“Good. Now go get dressed in some of your finer clothes. I’m going to take you to socialize with a few other werewolves. The more you’re seen, the better. Be charming. Make them adore you.”
He went to do as she instructed. On his way to the bedroom, he stopped by his desk. Items were scattered about—some on the floor, some tipped over—as though someone had rifled through his possessions while he and Yuri ate. Yuri was his immediate suspect. Friend or foe, she’d been the one distracting him for the last hour. “Maybe it was the wind,” he told himself.
Paranoia felt unwarranted. Caution felt necessary. He took a moment to glance back at Yuri, who was sipping tea. Behind her, a woman in blue emerged then vanished behind a tall shrub. His self-described friend didn’t seem to notice, her eyes remained fixed forward. Either Yuri didn’t see the woman, or she knew she’d be there.
It hurt Tovin to acknowledge which was more likely.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: THE WOMAN IN BLUE
Socializing with other werewolves turned out about as bad as Tovin expected, especially since Garvey was one of them. Put Tovin on a couch and he could tell you the exact moment his life went to total shit. Online dating. Adventure. He shook his head at his former reckless self. At least he hadn’t tried sushi.
Daydreaming offered some escape.
Today, he went parasailing. Rainbows ballooned above him, arching in a flawless blue sky with a few smatterings of small, white clouds. The wind cut through his clothes. His hair whipped around his face in a way that made him look awesome and feel free spirited. Below, a handsome man drove the boat. He was single. And into trivia, meatloaf, and unfiltered tap water. No, wait. He came with a new filter, one of those high-end ones.
That was nice. Tovin smiled.
“What is he doing?” Nadine asked Garvey.
Garvey shrugged. “Sweet treat.” He poked Tovin in the side. “You almost done with the paperwork?”
Ah, yes. The paperwork. Tovin looked down at it. What he thought was one of Garvey’s nonsensical lies turned out to be a nonsensical truth. Life had become layers of unbelievable: werewolves, werewolves who drank human blood, werewolves who drank human blood and kept humans around as pets, and now werewolves who drank human blood, kept human pets, and made their human pets do paperwork no one even seemed to care about.
It was all as insulting as it was surreal the more Tovin thought about it. “What should I put for outcome of event?” Tovin asked, allowing his voice to hint at irritation.
“Disappointing,” Garvey responded and spared him a slight glance.
Nadine chuckled and pressed her tongue up to the point of her tooth. “You’re only disappointed because you didn’t get his pants off.”
“True,” Garvey responded. “But I’m not sure I could even get to his tree anymore through all the tinsel.”
Nadine snorted at the mention of the clothes.
Yuri had suggested a more elaborate outfit, something fitting for Eresna’s companion. Afterward, Tovin dressed himself in what looked like a traje de luces. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw a car littered with bumper stickers—tacky, tasteless. Everyone probably wondered what type of schmuck was at the wheel. Just me, Tovin thought. Just me.
True to her claim she was his friend, Yuri came to his defense. “He looks fine. And you should have done the paperwork yourself, Garvey. It’s been months.”
“Quiet, underling,” Garvey boomed at her, simultaneously humorous and serious.
“Garv,” Nadine warned him. “Don’t be a suckbucket.”
Bickering, the three of them went at it the way they always seemed to whenever they were in the same room together. Tovin tuned them out until they started to hash out Tovin’s chase and capture. Garvey imitated Yuri’s reactions. “Oh no!” he s
houted, “My poor stupid cub!”
Apparently Nadine didn’t want to laugh at her friend, so it came out as a snort-fart noise hybrid.
The lady from the garden earlier, the one in the blue dress, also chuckled a bit. Tovin glanced her direction. Like him, no one paid any real attention to what she did. Listless, she drifted back and forth across the room without receiving so much as a friendly nod from any of the werewolves. “Hi,” Tovin said to her. She seemed like a good start-up for the whole socializing thing since she was the only other human in the room.
She didn’t say anything back.
“Hello…” the werewolf sitting next to her responded, eyebrow raised.
Tovin didn’t know the werewolf who addressed him. He managed a weak, unconvincing smile. Rickety as its foundation was, it collapsed within seconds. The werewolf went right back to watching the squabble.
Tovin tried again to get the attention of the woman sitting next the werewolf. He stared straight at her, hoping she’d eventually turn her head his way. When she did at last, there was no welcoming smile on her face. Assessing him, her head cocked to the side, she took her measure then got up from her chair and walked out of the room.
“You charmer, you,” Tovin mumbled to himself.
At least he was finally done with the paperwork. “Done,” he announced. As usual, no one acknowledged him. Garvey and Nadine were too busy talking about which member of *NSYNC was the most fuckable. Yuri was off to the side, licking her wounded pride. “The paperwork is complete,” Tovin repeated himself. He wasn’t sure what else to do.
From out of nowhere, Eresna responded, “Excellent. Good job, my pet. How useful you are to me.” It made Tovin jump. He didn’t even know she was there. Almost as a reflex, he tried to hand her the file. Eresna curled her lip, tilted her head, and then turned away from him. Another faux pas to add to the list.
Gracelessly, Tovin flopped the document back on the desk. “Oh. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes. “Catalogue it. Nadine, go with him.”
The Worst Werewolf Page 17