The Worst Werewolf

by Jacqueline Rohrbach

  Little other motivation was needed on Molly’s part. One more charge at the door was all it took. The planks snapped as the song once again hit its refrain. Up came Molly. Her tattered blue dress hung in threads at her waist so that her breasts were exposed. Claw marks branched out across her chest; deep veins ran from her throat to a once-pert left breast. Both the dress and the girl were lovely at some point. Rigby always liked to picture her as a high-class debutant on her way to a spring dance—a matching blue flower corsage on her wrist—when she was attacked. At some point, he was told she was actually the daughter of a whore, and she had stolen the dress from the daughter of an affluent businessman. They let her wear the dress when she met Timothy, the vampire in the holding facility adjacent to hers. Rigby always maintained the first image.

  Unlike Timothy, Molly did not procrastinate—a quick killer. After a few moments of screaming, gurgling, and pleas that started off as frantic and then yielded to half-hearted, Rigby’s coworkers and his date were all dead. Sucking and slurping noises followed, almost worse than the screaming.

  Rigby did his best to suppress his whimpers as he listened to her feed, hoping Molly would simply forget about him and retreat to the basement once her hunger slackened. Often times, his discarded date waited for her there. Even creatures had simple memories and routines. She would leave, expecting more food to be waiting for her below and this would be an awesome story he’d tell to his next date the next hundred, million, billion times he brought girls here.

  The song ended. Rigby doubled his efforts to remain silent, relying on Molly’s inability to count—three humans being the same as four to her. Sniffing. Then, “Rigby.”

  The few times he heard her speak before were always remembered with a thrill. He loved hearing soft murmurs exchanged with whatever man or woman was on that week’s menu. He loved it even more when the captive tried to talk back, when Molly’s food tried to reason with her. This time each syllable of his name pulled something out of him.

  “Rigby.” Dainty feet clad in torn-up blue slippers traced a path to him until he could hear the hem of the dress rustle across floorboards, nearer and nearer until it finally dawned on Rigby that she must be very close for that type of detail.

  “Rigby.” Above him, Molly scrutinized him―part curiosity, part recognition. Denial never had time to work its way to acceptance. He was still telling himself, I’m going to be fine, just fine when Molly cut his brain’s connection to the rest of his body.

  Molly did go back to her cell, Rigby’s head clutched to her chest. Lounging in what passed as her sleeping area was the man she was meant to kill that night. She sniffed the air again. No, no man. A monster like her. She lifted her trophy to show him. “Rigby,” she explained.

  “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” Garvey said with a chuckle.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: THE DOOR

  Garvey stood before an ancient doorway between worlds, created and sustained by powerful magic far beyond what any of his kind possessed. Dragon magic. No one knew where the dragons had gone. If they were dead, alive, sleeping, or exploring other worlds, it was anyone’s guess. But they left behind the Door and its portals, which connected other worlds to the Door.

  Over the course of its history, it had been called by many names—some reverent, some irreverent, some practical, some scornful, some holy. Now it was called Vukojebina, a cheeky nod to its role in the creation of new wolves, who looked upon its threshold their first time after passing their test. It was one disrespect Garvey took exception to.

  Half-breeds like him never stood here as triumphant new wolves. He was the first False Moon wolf to ever stand before it at all. Now, at last, he was here as some type of victor. The moment was undermined by his two vampire companions. Molly, who kept saying “Rigby” over and over as if it were the only word she knew—for all Garvey knew, it was—and Timothy, who kept talking about how hungry he was in only the most consistent and simplistic of terms.

  They were poor company for a moment as magical as this one could have been. Garvey found himself wishing they were, at the very least, the suave vampires from television shows and movies. Realistically, the undead were stupid. And they stank. Decomposing bodies tended to do that, even those repurposed by powerful magic. Garvey always found himself resenting humanity’s romantic notions to the contrary. Still, the pompous aristocratic bloodsuckers going on about ancient rights and species superiority or even lovelorn ancient teenagers moping after some human whose stupidity seemed statistically improbable would have been preferable. Mostly, he wished they were Moondogs like himself who would understand everything he was feeling.

  “Hungry.” Timothy said it at least once every five seconds it seemed. The word was usually followed by, eat now, blood, or human, each stressed with more force as if Garvey did not understand Tim’s needs and further explanation was needed.

  “Rigby.” Molly always followed after Timothy with a sneer. She had lost some of her good humor from before—the toothy smiles and the gurgled chuckles all replaced with a persistent scowl. Though it seemed unlikely, Garvey got the sense she actually remembered Timothy—remembered and hated—but that was impossible for a vampire. Goldfish monsters. She was probably hungry, impatient for another kill.

  “Hold up several ticks. We’ll eat soon.” He’d been reassuring them of that for the last hour, at least. Neither seemed impressed by this point.

  Molly made what sounded oddly like a disappointed sigh, a low clucking deep within her chest followed afterward. Timothy stressed, “Human,” once more. After another grumble and a sideways glance at her companion that looked an awful lot like she was denouncing him as an idiot, Molly moved forward and placed her hands on the door. Synapses were required. The passage only functioned if the person using it could select criteria. Garvey smiled at the long-dead woman. “You have to have this many,” he held up one finger, “brain waves to use this ride, Molly.”

  Under her fingers, the door shimmered. Magic sought out what the user wanted, cycling through all of the various possibilities until only a few scattered worlds remained. Molly wanted human blood. Unfortunately for Earth, it had the most options. Most of humanity was destroyed on the other planets during the population booms of his kind and the subsequent wars that erupted. Earth was meant to be a new start where they could correct the mistakes of the past and maintain a constant and well-regulated food source. With hungry eyes, Molly looked at the new world—a fresh start for her and her kind. “Yes.” It was the first thing she had said other than Rigby.

  Any other wolf might have been alarmed—wolves and the unexpected did not get along. Consistent, predictable, dull: his kind liked the world to function according to rules and structure. Yet here they were with Molly’s rapt face pressed into the frame of time while Timothy stood behind panting out frantic words, Human, blood, human, blood, eat, eat, eat. A more sophisticated wolf would have at least been curious about how something like this happened. Garvey wasn’t sophisticated or typical. He didn’t care how it worked, nor was he bothered by the fact it did. Unexpected and him got along perfectly fine.

  He shrugged and laughed a little bit. “Whelp, time to go make a few people have a very bad day.” He pushed Molly out of the way gently. If she did have the ability to remember, he hardly wanted to be on her bad side. Stupid and fetid notwithstanding, vampires had fangs.

  “This part requires a bit more finesse.” Once the user selected a world, a corresponding portal had to be found to connect the two worlds. Garvey knew exactly where to look for one. The Door shimmered again until a room appeared. Inside the room, a blond-haired man looked back at them without seeing. Extreme focus scrunched all his features together so that his eyes and nose pinched in the center as a fleshy concentric mess. Garvey could make out the green of the eyes—unmistakably his sweet treat.

  Of course, Tovin would be there. What a nerd. Garvey felt a moment’s pinch of envy that the portal had called out to Tovin.

  Surprised, irritated, Garv
ey held on to the leashes as both vampires rushed at the image. Luckily, whatever allowed Molly to sort through worlds did not allow her or Timothy to travel. The two vampires remained pressed against the frame, clawing and licking at the surface while Tovin continued to inspect the passage on the other side.

  “Yes,” Molly repeated whenever Tovin stepped closer.

  “Hungry.” Timothy again.

  Molly looked at Tovin, a yearning not so dissimilar from Garvey’s own and reached her fingers toward the door as Tovin did the same on the other side with a timidity that Garvey remembered all too well. Sweet treat couldn’t even commit to deviancy with vigor. And he was being very naughty. Eventually, his hand found its way to the surface. The muscles in his face relaxed as he stroked the boundary, and Garvey found himself remembering close to the same transformation in the woods when Tovin’s mouth finally opened to Garvey’s.

  For a moment, Molly’s hand lined up with his. She jerked back on contact and then looked to her hand quizzically. “Felt him.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Surprises abound tonight. She hadn’t done any of this during their test run.

  “Yes. Felt him.” Looking at her hand, she traced her palm where Tovin supposedly made contact. A new emotion slowly nudged out the dull animal hunger in Molly’s face until she almost looked like she was back on track for the dance. She stole a dress. She could steal the handsome young man on another world, too.

  “Dibs,” Garvey said. Molly jerked her head in Garvey’s direction with a scowl. “He likes men, and you’re dead. It wouldn’t work out.”

  “Mine.” She wasn’t having any of it.

  “We’ll sort it out when we get there. For now, let’s agree we’re not going to eat him, right?”

  “Eat.” The animal was back. She lunged at the door again, pushing Timothy aside.

  “No. Don’t eat.”

  “No eat.”

  “There you go. You got it.” He watched her grin and prance eagerly. “That’s not making me feel super optimistic, Molly.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: FORM AND FUNCTION

  Relief irritated Garvey. Watching Tovin’s backside as he hustled out the room shouldn’t make him feel anything other than vague lust, perhaps some annoyance with the young man for putting him in a position where he had to stand around and wait while two hungry vampires tugged at their leashes. Instead, he let go of all the dread he’d been holding onto on the other side of the portal. Tovin was safe.

  Maybe. Sort of. Garvey gritted his teeth at the ideas nagging him.

  Be less discreet.

  Again. This was the last order Kijo gave him before turning him loose, a direct contradiction to Mazgan’s orders to keep everything low-key for now. Fretting over how to compromise between the two orders became Garvey’s new pastime ever since Kijo pulled him aside and spelled out his options—obey her or die.

  At least she was always straightforward. Mazgan was more of an artist about the whole thing, waiting for perfect moments to unleash a master plan, which would paint the world with broad strokes. Everyone needed to know who did it, why he did it, and how it was going to change everything. Kijo only wanted the world to function. She didn’t especially care how that was accomplished or who accomplished it. Art v. science, Garvey supposed.

  Here he had both. Predators understood opportunity—it had a smell, a feel, an electrical current akin to sexual awareness that teased at possibilities. The two vampires at his side sensed it the same way he did. Watching Tovin was akin to watching a vulnerable animal swim to shore.

  Leashes snapped, snapped, snapped at the force of the two creatures jerking themselves toward what instinct said would be an easy meal, trying to close that all important gap before it was too late. Garvey felt his teeth protrude from his gumline as he watched Tovin, who was now nearly outside of his reach, almost too far away to be of use, with a strange mixture of arousal and hunger.

  “We did agree we’re not going to eat him?” Garvey asked Molly. He didn’t bother with Timothy, lost cause.

  “Eat him,” Molly said.

  “No, don’t eat him.”

  “Ummm,” she responded.

  Garvey told himself he was doing this to prevent the death of his pack. One human boy is worth that. Garvey dropped the leashes.

  * * *

  Supernatural creatures were such assholes, Tovin thought. The ghost left without so much as a “Thanks” or “Good-bye” after she’d made him follow her.

  Minus an explanation, he was left to assume business here was concluded and he was free to go, so off he went quickly as he possibly could. His footsteps sounded like shotgun blasts in the empty room. Under the constant, heavy-handed thudding reminder he wasn’t supposed to be there, Tovin thought he heard a leather whip crack. Only imagination, he decided, although he simultaneously made up a very long list of other things it could be.

  Then the whipping noises stopped and the heavy thuds began, staggered like out-of-time drumbeats. Tovin hurried his pace, gradually at first, but soon he was running without knowing what the danger was, only that previous history suggested it wasn’t likely to be anything good.

  Something slammed into Tovin’s back with enough force to launch him to the floor. He hit it with his shoulder, sliding a few feet before righting himself to face forward. What looked like an old man was on him an instant later, reaching with water-parched hands cracked like dry earth. Facial skin drew up in a feral snarl and puckered up around his eyes. The dull brown of the irises were covered with layers of cataracts. Not an attractive package. And then there was the smell. Jesus. It was rotting potato levels of earthy-yet-sour. Tovin scrunched up his nose and held his breath.

  Not human, Tovin realized. “Get off!” he yelled, more of a reflex than a serious command.

  The thing hissed in response. Saliva dripped between teeth gaps; pointed yellow canines mired in a glossy-white gumline rushed forward, snapping.

  Tovin grappled with wrinkled flesh that slid jellylike around bone. He kept trying to push the creature away as it lunged again and again and again, but his hands only sunk into flesh or slid around it. Punches made it hiss louder. Insults made no difference. Tovin refused to plead.

  “Off!” he repeated. This time he planted his left leg in the thing’s stomach and pushed outward. The creature staggered backward but, relentless, it quickly regained balance and charged before Tovin could pick himself off the ground to either run away or put himself in a better fighting position. Once again on top, the creature snapped and clawed. Burning pain launched itself through Tovin’s arm and into his shoulder as nails grated his flesh, twisting up chunks of flesh with each swipe.

  Tovin assumed it couldn’t get any worse. After thinking that, the sky didn’t open up to rain exactly, but he heard the same out-of-time thuds he heard before—louder and louder—until a shape emerged. Tovin was pretty sure that meant he was going to be dinner for two. The other creature, this one female, looked every bit as hungry, a single-minded animal gleam in the eye, and moved toward him with as much purpose as her male counterpart.

  Instead, she sank her teeth into the collarbone of Tovin’s assailant, shaking herself once her teeth pierced through flesh. The male howled in fury. Claws that had been ripping at Tovin’s flesh windmilled up above its head in long arcs as it tried to dislodge its attacker. The female bit in deeper, this time on the side of the other creature’s throat, and twisted upward. Black ooze the consistency of river-bottom silt dribbled out of the puncture wounds at the neck. A large bubble of it pushed past tightly clenched lips. Without much ceremony beyond that, the thing’s eyes closed, its legs stopped twitching, and it looked…deader. Tovin guessed.

  The theoretically female ate at it. She stopped briefly to look up at Tovin as he slouched away from the scene. “No eat,” she said, mouth full of dribbling flesh. “No eat Ovin.”

  “Thanks,” Tovin said without much certainty.

  “Good girl, Molly. No eat Tovin.” Garvey looked down at their topic of c
onversation, who was panting and clutching at the long gash in his arm. Almost absentmindedly, the werewolf bent down and healed him. Afterward, his expression darkened, his voice deepened. “You’re not supposed to be here. Were those bites or claw marks?”

  In shock, all Tovin could manage was a weak “I know. And, uh, claws.”

  Brown eyes veered further away from mirth. “It would be best if you didn’t say anything about this to anyone, sweet treat.”

  “Treat.” Molly, the creature, said to them both.

  “Stop that.” Garvey glared at the creature, who said it again between mouthfuls. Bewildered, the werewolf shook his head at it.

  Getting out words was a struggle for Tovin, especially since Molly was at his feet happily eating away. Every so often she’d lift up her head to smile at him, her mouth covered in corpse gunk. Bile worked its way to his mouth. He swallowed it back down and forced himself to look away from the scene and back up to Garvey. “What is that thing?”

  “A vampire.”

  “Oh.” Tovin sighed at himself and tried to start again. Foggy, he shook his head and stumbled out, “A what?”

  Garvey repeated himself with less patience. “Vampire.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “No more questions. And what did I say to you about trying not to die?”

  “Just that. Try not to die.”

  “Right.” Garvey quirked his eyebrow at the response. “Well, you’re doing a shit job of it. What are you doing here?”

  “My bedroom door was open.” Tovin did not mention the ghost or anything else.

  “Ah,” Garvey chuckled, the brown eyes lit up with glee. “I know how that goes. All right, you seized the day. Did forbidden stuff. Fun, fun. Time to go back upstairs, get in your jammies, and then go back to bed.”

  “Wait. What are you doing—”