The Worst Werewolf

by Jacqueline Rohrbach

  As the two of them made their way down the hall, Tovin swore he caught small glimpses of the woman. Smatterings of cool blue here and there against the brown of the walls, flashes of a hand knuckled around where walls became ninety-degree angles. Shadows beside him. There was no sound. Heels like hers would have clicked, tiny little drumrolls building up to what amounted to nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: BREAD

  Nadine abandoned him. She pointed to the double doors at the end of the hall, gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder and said, “Library is there. You’ve got this. You were born for this.”

  “Thanks,” Tovin responded.

  Their filing system was straightforward. There was a place to scan the barcode on the form; the machine beeped and then told him where he should go in the vast library. Row 700, section 300b. That’s where Tovin’s story would reside. Anyone who stopped to read it would know his basic details, such as his age, gender, height, and weight and would read a trace outline of the events that brought him here.

  None of it was too terrible. Tovin left out the parts where he tripped and fell. His injuries were attributed to unforeseen problems during capture. Vague enough to save face—one of the few perks of filling out your own account of events. The ending of it all troubled him a bit. Disappointing. The story of his life. Tovin thought about rewriting it. No one would ever check.

  “Maybe I’ll get away on a jet ski.” That would be cool. “Or I’ll find a machine gun loaded with silver and kill them all.” Even cooler. Imagination was fun. Tovin lost himself in the fantasy of it, letting his brain indulge in every whimsical solution to his current problem it could think of.

  Way too soon, he felt someone at his shoulder. Assuming it was Nadine there to drag him back to the gathering, Tovin didn’t turn around. He begged for a few more minutes. He took no response as a good sign. Eventually, the lingering feeling of unease he associated with the presence of others evaporated back to a nice, stagnant calm.

  Nearby, a book fell to the floor. Immediately, his malfunctioning brain told him he had to pick it up and put it back on the shelf. Super important, it assured him.

  “Fuck you, limbic system.” He obeyed the impulse’s command.

  He turned. It was curious at first sight.

  Janitor’s closet. Seductive locks lined the length of the entry, including an electronic one off to the side. To Tovin, they were a tantalizing peek of glistening abs, or a leg lifted up at the edge of the road. Are you going my way? Well, are you?

  He was. Or at least he would have been.

  “Hello, hi, sweet treat.”

  Tovin nearly jumped to the top shelf. His bowels were up in his throat when he said, “Garvey, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing?” he countered.

  “Paperwork.”

  Garvey gave the janitor’s closet an amused glance. “Umhm.”

  “Go away,” Tovin told him.

  “Look at you. Getting all bossy.” Garvey crinkled his nose to suggest how cute he thought that was. “To answer your earlier question…well, I told Eresna I was going to have sex with you.”

  Unwillingly, Tovin thought back to the woods, to Garvey’s mouth on his own, and to the way the other man’s hands felt on his body. He wanted to say so much. Shouting obscenities until his voice broke was the brave thing to do, courageous and certainly smarter, but not as appealing as saying yes until his voice broke. Typical of himself, he decided to say nothing.

  He started to leave.

  “Hold up a tick, sweet treat.” Garvey grabbed Tovin’s arm to prevent him from walking away. “Listen for a second. Eresna has a new boy, if you haven’t heard.”

  “Yuri already told me.” Tovin pulled away from Garvey.

  When Garvey continued, his tone was biting. Whatever he wanted to say, he was hell-bent on saying it, whether Tovin wanted to listen or not. “You’re always in your head. Get out. Eresna doesn’t give a shit about the complexities of your emotions or what you’re going through. She doesn’t want some sensitive soul off on wild fantasies. She wants the guy who was taken away from her—the guy who looked like he was carved from obsidian, had life breathed into him by the gods, and then sent by the angels for her to fuck every night. She wants a delicacy, the type of servant only a guardian could command. You could belong to any of our kind. Even me. Even a False Moon.”

  Common. Anyone with a van and a whim could pick him off the street without much consequence. Someone might look for a day or two, maybe a week if he were lucky. Then he’d be discarded into the pile of missing people whose pictures muddled the walls of post offices, community notice boards, and benches. The other guy mattered. No one was going to slap his photo on a bench where flatulent hobos slept or on community notice boards where unruly teens with magic markers lurked, ready to scribble away the remaining evidence he ever existed. Tovin was probably a one-eyed pirate with a dick on his head by now.

  “I can’t be that guy. I’m bread. You know, bland and basic.”

  Garvey chuckled a bit and once again touched the side of Tovin’s face lightly with two fingers. “Bread is great. There is nothing more comforting than the smell of it. Can’t have a sandwich without it. Bread is the building block for a lot of great things. Basic. Sure. But sometimes the basics, even if a little boring, are the best.”

  Tovin saw Eresna in his head, her fantastic colorful clothing and the elegant rooms in which she dwelt. He had to do better if he were to survive. Eresna’s impatience with his lack of progress was noticeable. “Yeah, but how do I make bread more interesting?”

  “Slather some butter on yourself.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I was being literal. I took the bread thing as far as I can go, given you all the advice I can give. Now we’re back to sex. Or I’m thinking about eating you. Also literal.” It didn’t help when Garvey cocked his head to the side as if contemplating exactly which one he meant. “Make your decision fast. I have errands to run.”

  “You have errands?”

  “Yes, sweet treat. I have errands.” It was tired, frustrated.

  “Oh. Like the bank?” Tovin was bewildered.

  “Yes, to the bank. To the bank where my money is.” Garvey snorted and shook his head in disbelief. “You are too much sometimes. You want this or not?”

  Despite everything, and there was a lot of everything, Tovin did want Garvey. He knew it was a horrible mistake now—a hellacious, atrocious mistake—as he knew it was in the woods earlier. The more reckless part of his brain simply didn’t care anymore. He might be dead soon. Garvey didn’t say that exactly, but Tovin knew that’s what he was trying to say. “I want to have sex with you. But,” Tovin amended, “I don’t like you.”

  Dry, exasperated, Garvey responded, “Well, I’ll put away the pocket knife I was going to use to carve our names into the tree outside with little hearts around it.”

  “What about your errands?” Tovin hated to think that someone would come looking for Garvey in the middle of them having sex. Tovin was enough of a joke as it was.

  Garvey placed both hands to his own face, dragging the tips of his fingers temple to chin, exasperated. “They can wait. So, yes? No?”

  “Yes.”

  Triumph looked good on Garvey. Gone was the man Tovin remembered from the woods with the humor-filled brown eyes, cautious fingers, and coaxing lips. It was a demanding mouth that closed over his, pressing open his lips; strong hands that pulled him closer until they were torso to torso; purposeful fingers that found the claps and buttons of his elaborate outfit and undid them one by one until Tovin felt the cool air on his exposed skin. No more wasting time. Both of them were naked in what seemed like mere moments. Garvey’s hands—far more confident than Tovin’s own—explored audaciously, cupping and stroking at random while Tovin relegated himself to the shoulders, the torso, the mouth, licking, biting, tasting where he could.

  Garvey put his hand on Tovin’s shaft and stroked it, softly at
first, then with more force. “I love it when I can feel the blood respond. Makes me want to taste it.”

  “What?” Tovin shot up.

  “Only a sample,” Garvey assured him with a harmless puppy dog tilt of his head.

  He didn’t look harmless. Golden eyes, wolf eyes, stared down at Tovin. Fangs protruded. Excited, terrified, Tovin kissed one of the incisors, letting it puncture his lower lip. A taste. Garvey licked at the small wound.

  “Yum,” Garvey said. Tovin could tell he was pleased with himself. Pleased with the noises Tovin made. Pleased with the way hips moved in time with the new rhythm Garvey’s hand created. Even more pleased when Tovin released himself. The smug look on his face the entire time told Tovin as much. “There we go. Nicely done, sweet treat.”

  Garvey did not finish. He was up and moving after planting one last kiss on Tovin’s forehead. Quickly, with a saturated grin, he grabbed a few papers from Tovin’s file and used them to wipe his stomach.

  “Seriously?” Tovin hoped he wasn’t going to have to redo that. It was torturous enough to begin with without having to approach Eresna to ask for a new form, especially if it occurred to her to ask why he needed one.

  Garvey chuckled in response. “I put these papers to some actual use.”

  Irritated, Tovin finally found his voice. “Are you going to—”

  “Nah, I owed you this one. Denying myself today gives me something to look forward to later when I’ll get more than a taste.” The eyes were golden again when he said it. This time, Tovin found it a little less titillating. “We’re going to finish this someday, sweet treat. Unless you die. Try not to die.”

  There wasn’t much Tovin could think of to say to that.

  Worried, he watched Garvey leave. Whatever the werewolf was up to, it couldn’t be good. Garvey was an id-filled comet wobbling in its orbit. He was shoemaker levy 9. “What’s Jupiter?” Tovin asked himself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: OTHERS LIKE US

  Smells of land and sea merged, crashing and rolling along a deserted shore until the silhouette of a man emerged in the distance. Tovin put him on a white horse and then dressed him up in a pirate outfit. At some point he’d get off that horse and swashbuckle the hell out of—

  “Are you with me?” Kurt’s voice was clipped. His face was a misplaced comma, full of awkward stops and starts that couldn’t possibly be deliberate. One of the few people Tovin could interact with, Kurt already knew everything Tovin knew about the werewolves and then some. He just didn’t seem to care. More than that, he seemed to admire what they were doing. He actively worked with Eresna and the others to perpetuate the myth the bloodservants were the beneficiaries of destiny.

  “What? Yes.” Reality sucked. Tovin only popped in briefly to answer the few scattered questions Kurt would occasionally snap his way. Lucky for him, clipped, noncommittal responses worked just fine for the other man. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

  Kurt moved on without him, gesturing to the television in front of them. “Amazing, isn’t it?” The end result of the brainwashing process showed movielike on a big screen within Tovin’s very posh, extremely comfortable dungeon. Jerald’s face—the face of the man Eresna would take as her public bloodservant—had loomed on the big screen, a hovering hypermasculine reminder that Tovin was not what Eresna wanted.

  “Yes. It sure is,” Tovin agreed pleasantly enough.

  Jerald reacted as Tovin expected at first. Obscenities, first shouted in Spanish, then translated into English a second later for either clarification or effect; violence, blows that probably would have been devastating to any human adversary landed like swats on an immobile Eresna, who would occasionally blink at the man as though she simply couldn’t fathom what it was he hoped to accomplish; grief, loud moans that escalated to caterwauling only to devolve to small whimpers and croaked requests to call his wife and daughter. All of it cycling right in front of Tovin for reasons only Eresna and Kurt knew.

  You’re special. You’re destined for something much more than what you were before. Other people in your life didn’t understand you. Everyone was holding you back. Become what you were meant to be. She repeated variations of the same song until the man got it stuck in his head.

  It started slow. One day he didn’t scream, run, swat, or ask for his family. Soon after he was wearing the clothes Eresna gave him with great pomp while spouting snippets of the tune in what was actually a singsong voice. Then it was full on delusional—great destinies, the burden of being chosen, good-bye to cargo pants. Today he and Eresna were having a friendly chat about what he’d do once he was a werewolf like her.

  “Amazing.” Tovin repeated again with what he hoped would pass as sufficient awe before switching to what was on his mind. “But why am I watching it?”

  “Feeling more comfortable here?” Kurt had a habit of ignoring the current line of conversation in favor of useless small talk.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Tovin learned not to re-ask questions. Kurt would answer them in his own sweet time, or he wouldn’t at all.

  “Good. Your room is to your liking?”

  “Yes, it’s fine.” Tovin was at least free to wear what he wanted as he was free to move about the rather large villa-like enclosure she gave him. He had all the books he could want, an outdoor patio and garden, and Kurt for whenever he wanted to feel the presence of another human being. Not a horrible deal all in all. Comfortable as it was there was no purpose to any of it. Tovin woke up, showered, read, and lounged in his pool all with ennui that he oddly never felt during his petty little life as a salesman.

  “Good. Good.”

  “Yes. Good.”

  And the stimulating conversations didn’t help much.

  It felt like they’d almost reached their cap for the day. Kurt pushed one of Tovin’s books around a table with the ridge of his thumb, sending a clear signal that he was now disinterested in whatever Tovin would do next. Nothing about that bothered Tovin much. The beach—where his comforting yet cliché daydream waited—called to him.

  “Hello, Tovin. Kurt.” Tovin jumped a little bit, once again startled out of fantasy. It was the first time he’d heard Eresna’s voice since he’d found the janitor’s closet. Panic tasted like copper. He was so sure she’d know he wanted to investigate, that he was planning on breaking in there. If she did, she didn’t give any indication of it. As usual, she only gave him the briefest of glances before directing her attention elsewhere.

  “Guardian,” Kurt greeted her.

  Eresna gave Kurt a small peck on the cheek as a response, which he accepted with a very businesslike head nod. No one reciprocated affection quite the way Kurt did. He probably gave her a firm handshake after fucking. And boy did they fuck.

  “Good afternoon, Guardian,” Tovin echoed, trying to keep his voice light but respectful.

  Eresna didn’t touch Tovin. She didn’t even move toward him as though she considered it an option. She went directly to whatever business brought her here. “What do you think?”

  “About?”

  Unlike Kurt, Eresna had precious little patience for one-word responses. She wanted Tovin to tell her all he knew at once, not half an hour’s worth of yes-no exchanges. “About what you’ve seen these last few months. About Jerald.” She made a hand gesture that said: I’ve told you what I want, now get to it.

  Everything that immediately hopped into his mind—crazy, creepy, mad, stupid—was all wrong and he knew it. Eresna may have known that’s how he felt, but Tovin knew better by now than to flat-out say it. Though he knew it would annoy her, he kept his responses clipped, direct. He was safer that way. “It was fascinating. Jerald seems nice.”

  “You need to get better at lying.” Her eyes narrowed; her nostrils flared. Tovin—his collection of mannerisms, especially the way he drifted in and then out of his present-day situation—was a constant source of irritation to her. He just wasn’t sure why in this particular case. “Work on it.” She directed that to Tovin. Afterward, she tu
rned to Kurt. “Help him work on it.”

  Kurt gave the table a grimace and an eye roll before he stopped to answer. “I’m trying.”

  She didn’t exactly say try harder. Like everything else, Kurt was just supposed to know that’s what she wanted and then act accordingly. She left with no other word—just a terse peck on Kurt’s cheek and a small nod for Tovin.

  “What was that about?” Tovin asked as soon as he heard the door click, the lock snap in place. Normally Eresna at least stayed with them for a few hours in order to put up the front—for whose benefit Tovin could never quite tell—that she liked him or was at least interested in his comings and goings. He wasn’t exactly sad to see her go and miss out on those precious moments of forced, awkward conversation, but her rapid departure was atypical. Atypical bothered Tovin.

  “She wants you to be ready,” Kurt answered.

  “Ready for what?”

  “To mingle.”

  “Oh.” Tovin blinked. “I thought I was never going to see anyone other than you.” He assumed he’d remain in his little prison forever, reading books and passing time as Eresna said he would. Social interaction wasn’t something he craved. He didn’t recall ever asking her or Kurt for the chance to meet all of the other human slaves. “This seems to be working just fine.” Tovin pointed to the room around him.

  Kurt’s face was mired in agitation. “You’ll have to join the other companions.”

  “You mean the cult?”

  “Careful.” Kurt’s eyes snapped to his. “She’d be very displeased to hear you call it that.”

  “It’s not a cult. I’ll do better.”

  An honest spy, a spy nevertheless, Tovin often thought of the other man as the tinfoil hat perched on top of a paranoid head, a pseudo-filtration system that only worked because Eresna believed in it.

  “She’s right. You are a terrible liar.” Slight as it might have been and as quickly as it was gone, the smile Kurt gave him was one of the first Tovin had ever seen on the other man’s face. Before it could possibly be misconstrued as a moment between them, he rushed into his next point. “She’s also right that you need to get better at it if you’re not going to be a liability.”