The Worst Werewolf

by Jacqueline Rohrbach

  The energy in the room changed. She never called him out on it, but there was no doubt in Tovin’s mind she knew he wanted to provoke her. Just as there was no doubt in his mind he’d succeeded.

  Normally serene, smooth, the lines of her face were clunky. Tovin was unsure what emotion they were being told to represent. Instead of responding, she came and stood beside him, placing a reassuring—or warning—hand on top of his shoulder.

  Beautiful. Confident. Eresna played the part of a queen very well. Standing next to her made him feel like a gauche joke. After all this time, he didn’t wear his clothes any better. Unlike her. No matter what she wore—no matter how over-the-top it would have looked on anyone else—she looked fantastic. Today, she had on a taupe tulle number embroidered with a vibrant blue floral pattern.

  Minutes passed. She didn’t collect him or try to move him away from sculpture. Finally, the lines of her face relaxed until she was the polished queen there to guide him once again. When she spoke, her voice was soft, musical. The words fell out effortlessly. “This door was crafted a very long time ago. Looking at it makes me feel things I don’t know how to express. Sometimes it feels as though it’s asking me to touch it.”

  Hearing her echo his own concerns surprised him. Bonded. He didn’t fully understand what it meant since nothing changed for him, but she had an uncanny ability to guess his feelings. Sooner or later, Tovin knew he was going to have to confront the notion she wasn’t guessing. For now, he was willing to stay stuck in there’s-a-reasonable-explanation mode.

  “Only a door. As you said.” He forced himself to sound unimpressed.

  “But you said danger.” Her lip quirked upward with some humor as it did when she found his lies amusing. Never nasty, those quick flashes gave him a glimpse of who she might be underneath the persona she cultivated. From time to time, he saw it when she interacted with her subjects. With them, she was open and generous. With the humans, she was closed, calculated. Tovin knew the difference. Seeing behind polite façades was his life before all of this. It was the only useful survival skill he brought with him.

  “Time to go back, Tovin.”

  Once again, he got the feeling this was a test of some sort. Did he pass? Only Eresna knew.

  She spun on her heel. Her steps made very little noise as she walked down the hall, a tiny click-clack as heel followed toe. To his ears, his own feet sounded like they belonged to a five-hundred pound, tap-shoe-wearing donkey as he clumped after her. Everything he did felt equally awkward. His speech was clunky—full of stops, false starts, filler words—his mannerisms were jittery, and he could never decide if he should or shouldn’t look someone in the eye. Inept as she was flawless, he tumbled from one moment to the next.

  She expected him to follow wherever. Obedient, like a dog.

  He gave the door one last look.

  Touch, it said.

  Later, he promised himself.

  He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he got the sense the door heard him, and it was waiting.

  * * *

  Tovin was special in all the wrong ways. Yuri could tell from her Alpha Guardian’s expression that she was sure the portal had indeed reached out to Tovin. Bad. Very bad. Humans who heard its call almost always went insane and had to be put down.

  Yuri watched him leave with Eresna.

  Grudgingly obedient, he followed her while thinking, Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong about everything he did along the way. His feet were too loud. His breathing was too heavy. He’d said something improper, gave her a hand gesture he was sure she’d misinterpreted. Unwanted protectiveness tunneled its way through her, pushing practicality off to the side like upshot dirt. Goofy as the boy was, Yuri’d come to care about him all the same.

  Yes, the Portal reached out to him, which was bad…but… “Tovin,” Eresna said gently, “do not visit the gallery again without an escort. Understood?”

  He gave her a small, confused nod. Yuri’s heart swelled with love for both of them.

  Yuri watched her Alpha Guardian shut the door to Tovin’s room, sealing him inside using good, old-fashioned locks and a tiny bit of magic. At least Yuri knew he was safe through the night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: NOT SO SAFE

  Come! a female voice urged Tovin out of bed.

  “Not now,” he said to it, pulling his blanket tighter around his body. Every waking hour was spent obeying—yes this, yes that, I’ll get it—he’d be damned if he was going to be as subservient and useless in his sleep. No. He was going to go back to fighting the giant killer robot on a rampage throughout the city. For whatever reason, the shotgun that was also his hand was effective against the metallic menace. Blue and white sparks flew from its left shoulder as it tumbled to the ground, ready for the kill shot. Nearby, the man of his dreams—literally, Tovin supposed—clapped his hands to cheer him on. If previous iterations of the delusion were anything to go by, the two of them were going to do it regardless of what Tovin said next, even if it was something bad like, Now the real sparks will fly. Free from the pressure of being even slightly charming or original, Tovin raised his shotgun arm to finish his kill and—

  It felt like someone had a carjack under his eyelids. A series of commands ticked them up ever so slightly with each iteration: Now. Quickly. Now, now, now. TOVIN. NOW.

  “Later!” he snapped back.

  His room surged up before him as the smoking cityscape with its nearly dead robot overlord fizzled away. Fluttering curtains made a whapping sound as the breeze blew them side to side, up and down. Hair scurried along his scalp ever so slightly, pulling a little bit on flesh that was suddenly hyperaware of any sign of contact. His bedroom door, the one leading out of his prison, was open. Light from the hall, a morphed cut-out rectangle, touched him all the way up to his groin.

  Determined, he walked up to the door and shut it. “No. A whole lot of no,” he said to whatever it was that opened it.

  Tovin rolled back over on the bed and shut his eyes. Pitch black, the room didn’t lend itself to shadows anymore. When a light moved across his face, it was the moon, it was his imagination, it was a werewolf there to check on him, it was… He opened his eyes briefly. A ghost. A motherfucking ghost. And she was the mysterious woman in blue. Great. Fucking fantastic.

  Later, it said and settled down next to him.

  * * *

  Eventually, he followed it. Or her. He didn’t know what ghosts wanted to be called. Perhaps there was some sort of PC ghost-specific pronoun floating out in the netherworld somewhere. He wasn’t about to ask. Bad enough he was where he was, doing whatever it was he was doing. A whole lot of no turned into a terse Okay and then a Fine, fine. I’m coming. Let me put some clothes on as the young woman hummed an eerie, impossible to explain away waltz in his ear.

  This way, she told him, waving her hand cheerfully.

  Fear wasn’t something Tovin could allow himself to feel at the moment. Since he was already being held captive by blood-sucking werewolves, he didn’t think a ghost would add all that much to the danger equation. Besides, she seemed nice enough for someone dead. Their initial encounter aside—he supposed he could forgive her for the open door, the singing, and the not-quite-touching but touching—she had been reasonably polite, not at all prone to boos, chain clanks, or jump scares. Although Tovin could not make out many of her features, she seemed like she might be rather lovely; her long gown and spectrally wispy hair flowed behind her, ripples in a pond. Best of all, she didn’t talk very much except to offer very succinct directions. There were no questions, no “tell me about yourself,” no games, no periods of awkward silence. He was expected to follow, nothing more. More of the usual, Tovin supposed.

  They ended up in the gallery. Very bad. He stopped to turn around. “Uh, why are we here?”

  Come, she told him. It was less cheerful this time. Her brow furrowed in agitation. Hurry!

  Well, he’d gone this far. Although he knew she was leading him to the strange door in the library, he suppose
d he may as well put one foot in front of the other and get down to it. The dead woman was dead set on getting her way. Haha, Tovin thought to himself.

  And here he was. It looked the same as when he saw it last time. Again, he felt the same energy behind it, the overwhelming feeling that he should not, under any circumstances—

  Touch it, she told him. Of course. When he didn’t move, she repeated the command in the same agitated way from before. Tovin took a few tentative steps forward and ran his hand along the frame of the door. His face scrunched up as he concentrated on what he was doing rather than his companion, who had lost most of her good cheer and was now downright furious. Here, she told him while she tapped the middle of the door. Touch it here. Now!

  Her tone was fierce. He obeyed in a rush, no longer thinking about anything beyond pleasing the entity so he could get back to the relative safety of his room. An electric shock went straight through him with a jolt. Tovin stepped back, grasping his left arm at the wrist as though he’d been bitten by something venomous and was trying to stop a toxin from going straight to his heart. Panting, he scrambled backward to gape, open-mouthed, at the door from a distance. It hadn’t changed. Or had it? Though it was standing, Tovin got the sense it was in motion.

  “Happy?” he asked the woman.

  Her eyes, nothing more than bright lights in the darkness, gleamed.

  CHAPTER FORTY: DEVIL WITH A BLUE DRESS

  The portal in front of him was one of the hubs to the Door itself. Behind it, a whole other world waited. There were at least three humans there—Rigby, Lance, and Ace—who were about to have a bad day. They deserved it. Not that it mattered much to Garvey. Good or evil, they guarded the last two remaining vampires and were therefore in the way. Sure, he could take the vamps from them easily enough. But then they’d be alive to tell stories.

  He had other problems right now.

  Less discreet, Kijo’s mandate could translate into almost anything. Garvey decided it meant he globetrotted using the portal in the Boo Hag rather than the one Mazgan had acquired. Garvey wondered if it would be enough for Kijo. Subtlety wasn’t his defining trait, and this had a whiff of caution Kijo might detect.

  Garvey puzzled over his options.

  In front of him, the portal called out its steady, never ending mandate. Touch. “Hold up a tick,” he told it. “I’m thinking.”

  As if it understood, the portal ramped up its efforts, sending out a wave of energy that twisted itself up along his spine.

  Thinking became impossible. He wasn’t clearheaded enough to plot any further mischief.

  Garvey surrendered to its will. “All right, all right. Time to go pay a visit to Rigby and the gang.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the door…

  “Come on.” The girl giggled again as Rigby pulled her forward. “Best seat in the house.” This was a sure thing. Women loved this shit. The danger, the thrill, the taboo of fucking while the floor beneath pulsated as the monster below unleashed its fury on whatever fool was this week’s fodder. It was a scene that had played out for Rigby a hundred times before.

  He knew what to say. “I’ll let you push the button.”

  And she was in. It was the button. Chicks loved it. Rigby’s friends looked at them both as he pulled her farther into the control room. They smiled wider when he shot them a quick wink and a thumbs up. Melinda pretended she didn’t notice the exchange—the quick manspeak for I’m totally getting this tonight. Give me your praise and approval. Rock on, Rigby. Rock on.

  “Where is it?” she asked shyly. Affectation or not, Rigby didn’t care. The coy looks, the way she stroked his muscles, her rapt interest in his job…it all made him hard.

  “It’s right over here, doll.” Rigby cool-walked to the panel and presented the button as though he was one of those game-show girls presenting a prize. “It’s even red. Like blood.” Ghoulish, he drew the word out while sticking his fingers up to his incisors to simulate fangs. His boys laughed. Obligingly, Melinda shrieked attractively and drew into a scared ball, even placing her hands to her reddened cheeks. Nice.

  Then, again. “No. It,” she whispered, as though she thought she would be overheard. Reverence, almost delight, touched her voice.

  “Oh! Ho! Right for the jugular, huh, doll? Molly, it…” He whispered the word in the same hushed tone. “…is right below us. She’s sleeping. Hungry.” His buddies—more props as far as Rigby was concerned—all oohed in unison, the usual pre-sex soundtrack. A hundred times. A million times. A billion. Rigby was red-button deep in pussy that wanted into this room. The girl shivered in response but smiled at the same time.

  “When does it…she…come out?”

  “Her door opens on a timer. Right at midnight. You’ll know when it’s time. You’ll hear her favorite song.”

  “Her song?” Melinda acted surprised that he would do such a thing.

  “Yeah, me and the boys gave her a theme. Let us know when the show is about to start. You’ll hear it, doll.” With that, he turned, dismissing her for the moment. He had man stuff to do. She had man stuff to watch him do. “All right, down to business. How’s our guy doing?”

  “About how you would expect.” Lance beamed his toothy, crooked grin. No girl, no matter how desperate she was to see this show, would fuck that boy. He got one to jerk him off once. Everyone watched through the blinds while the girl turned her grimaced-yet-determined face away as Lance huffed and wheezed his way to completion. She didn’t even get to push the button. Rigby was sure she felt cheated through the whole process. “He’s about to shit himself.”

  “Let’s see what we’ve got, boys. Open ’er up.”

  On his command, the metal support beneath the planked wood floor slid away. Light creaked between the slats, barely illuminating the face of a young man, probably midtwenties, tied up with ropes in the room below. When the metal door clanked into its casement, the sound made him jerk his head quickly toward the noise. “Hello?” Desperate. Tired. It never failed to get Rigby started.

  “Hiya! Comfortable?” His friends chuckled. Some fake poor-thing noise came from Melinda. She grabbed at his shoulder as if to stop him from teasing the man any further. But there was a glow—her eyes, her cheeks—urging him to continue.

  “Please,” the man began as each one always did. “I haven’t done anything. Let me out.”

  It was hard to see tonight’s special. What little light went to the lower level reflected off dust particles, making the facial features of those trapped below appear warped and grainy. The person who built the facility no doubt did it by design. In the old days, this was a horrible but necessary task only given to those deemed suitable. No one wanted to see the victim or think about him back then. Hell, they probably knew the person. Today, it was the job of any tech who could push a button and withstand a few minutes of screaming and then body disposal. Rigby was self-aware enough to realize he was exactly the type of person who would want this job, even going so far as to ask his superior for a high-powered lamp. Riffraff-ish, or so he was told. “We know, man. We know. It’ll be over soon, though.”

  All smiles, he and the boys continued the prep while the man begged for his life and the girl looked down at him with feigned discomfort. She was trying hard to make out his features without looking like that’s exactly what she was doing. It was enough to make Rigby think about a second date. Of course, then he’d have to figure out some way to get Molly back into the other room without pushing Melinda down into the pit. Hardly seemed worth the effort. “That about does it. Let’s run the security lock.”

  A hundred times. A million times. A billion times. The system was always flawless—locking and unlocking, then resetting itself as it was designed to do. System checks were supposed to be done daily every five hours, but Rigby only did them the night of the event and only for the pageantry of it. Decisions you reflect on when the door jams at 11:57 PM.

  “What’s wrong?” The girl furrowed her brow a
s the gear clanked and clanked, not catching. “The door is going to shut, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course.” Nonplussed, Rigby pushed the lock button over and over. “What’s going on, Ace?” The tech guy, another guy exactly like Rigby but with a longer title, gave him a wild look that said, I dunno. I don’t fucking know. He swatted Rigby’s hand away to push and re-push the same button.

  “The door is going to close, right? It’s going to close before twelve?” At 11:59 PM, the girl stared at him and shrieked. “It’s closing now. Tell me it’s closing.”

  “It’s closing.” Everyone looked beneath them. The man below peered back up, a smile on his face, a long incisor poking out on his bottom lip. No longer begging or crying, the man looked more amused than anything else.

  Twelve AM. Devil with a Blue Dress, the song Rigby heard a hundred, a million, a billion times before started to play.

  Beneath them, another door slid open and out came Molly. Not wearing a wig or shades to match, she skipped the man below and went straight for the hatch. There was a crash at the door. One of the planks buckled with the force of the impact. Rigby glanced down to see one pale white esurient eye, as glassy and clear as a child’s marble, glowering up at him before the next impact. This one dislodged one of the planks, enough for one hand—clawed and grasping. Molly hissed each time her arm retracted with nothing.

  Everyone had his own way. Ace cried while he pawed at a door that was layers upon layers of steel. That door locked like it should have. No one was grateful. Lance took over button-pushing duties. Melinda stared dumbly down at the man below, who looked back up with some half-apologetic grimace. Rigby regressed to a childlike state where sensory deprivation made everything better. He covered his ears, trying to block out the song. Frustrated, he fled to the back room to hide in the hammock, rolling himself up in the fabric so he at least blocked most of his vision. Melinda snapped out of whatever state she was in as she watched him leave. She started to scream. And scream. And scream. It felt like a hundred times, a million times, a billion times before she was done.