The Stray Human: A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves, werewolf community center book 1

by Abigail Smith

  I put them on, and she transformed, waiting for me to hop on so we could make a six-story drop this time. Silvia leapt, and we landed on a person, so it was a much harder landing, especially because another werewolf could distribute the impact more than just a person.

  A few wolves looked bad, hanging out on the sidelines. I saw Daniel, just a few feet from where we landed, get a nasty cut straight across his chest, and he fled to the wolves. Gavin, Lorenz, and David were all in formation a metre or so to the right, taking on guys quickly.

  Despite the fact they’d called Lorenz’s fighting style something different, he seemed to be doing what David was doing, albeit with more kicks. He’d slash twice across the chest, and then kick them back.

  David would get in close to them, slashing at the stomach constantly while dodging their knife slashes as best he could.

  A man came up with his dagger bared on me from my direct right. I pulled out the knife the man had used and swung it wildly in a wide arc, causing him to back off. I kept swinging, unsure where my arm ended and where he began. Silvia covered my side and took out one of the guns from the holsters on my hips.

  Gavin jumped over me and Silvia in wolf form, ducked under the man’s legs, jumped up into hybrid form, and raked his claws on the man’s back. He let out a scream and turned to swing his knife at Gavin, who turned into a wolf to dodge it, then tackled the guy down.

  I looked down and lightly kicked the guy in the temple. Knocking him out, Gavin turned and growled at the remaining mass of knife-wielding, black-clad men.

  Silvia aimed her gun at someone else bearing down on one of the wolves on the far side of the brawl. She looked up at me and lowered the gun, then shot them in the leg. The moment of pained screaming was enough time for the wolf to get the upper hand by kicking them in the chin, sending them reeling.

  I then realized I was pretty much standing still. The group of black-clad men pushed against Gavin, Lorenz and David in the centre. A ring of wolves stood on standby, some sneaking in to retrieve injured wolves, others replacing them in the skirmish. It was chaos, and my muscles were locking up. My body wouldn’t respond. Sure, I’d been in fights before, that one protecting Silvia and a few fights with my brother, but this was a full-on brawl, and I was terrified.

  I think Silvia noticed this as she pushed me out of the area. She holstered the gun she used and looked around to the ring of wolves. One came by, and she put me on them. I wanted to stay, but my body wouldn’t move. I was actually too scared to do anything. They took me back to the community centre and placed me in the infirmary.

  A woman took the extra guns off me and tended to wounded people and wolves. I felt like I was screaming, but no voice was coming out. For the first time, I was glad I didn’t have to face something alone.

  Chapter 14

  Silvia stayed with me through the night, presumably after the fighting ended. She wound up sleeping in wolf form on the foot of my infirmary bed. I felt a twinge of shame for taking up one of the beds as people were rushed in and had to be patched up.

  I’m sure I’d be rather impressed with the efficiency and coordination if I wasn’t still in shock. I stayed awake, though unresponsive, for most of the night, lying there with my eyes on the ceiling, feeling so afraid.

  In the morning, David came to wake us both up. “Don’t worry, Elizabeth. More training will lead to less freezing up in combat. You don’t have to be hard on yourself. You did well. Heck, taking out that gunman on the roof was a big help.”

  Gavin came in with him, holding my purse, retrieved from the roof.

  “Guess he must have joined the fight later, huh?” I asked.

  Silvia’s eyes flashed open and wide as David gave me a confused look.

  “I mean, we knocked him out and took his stuff, but the battle lasted much longer than that, right? He must have woken up.”

  “Uh, no, I’m pretty sure he—” David started to say.

  “Must have panicked without all his weapons and fled!” Silvia said, transforming quickly to her human form.

  She jumped up from her curled-up dog form, and on transforming, a loud crack could be heard, and she grabbed her side. I looked at her worriedly, but it seems transforming while curled up is ill-advised and she wasn’t hurt.

  The two of them had a bit of a look, or possibly a glare off with each other, before I got up and out of the bed.

  “This… isn’t my fault, right?” I asked the room of bandaged people.

  It’s rather heartbreaking to see snarky people and happy go lucky people on beds, clutching at clumps of bandages. Cassy, who I’d never seen without a smile until this point, was laid next to Daniel and Minerva.

  I noticed there were a lot of bandages around Minerva’s midsection, and the area was purplish underneath them, from what I could see of her exposed belly.

  “No, of course not. What I want to know is how that gunman knew we were going onto the roof.”

  “Now you mention it,” Minerva moaned, “they were particularly focused on my stomach. The thing that hurt from before.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “What does this mean? Are they psychic?” Silvia asked.

  “Could they perhaps have divine knowledge on us?” Lorenz said, helping people with food.

  “Mmm,” David mumbled, putting his arms together.

  He contemplated that possibility with his eyes closed.

  “They knew we were heading to the roof. They knew Minerva was having tummy problems, and they knew E-lis was part of us but not a werewolf,” he said, going over the facts.

  “How do you know they knew she wasn’t a werewolf?” Silvia asked.

  “If they did, they wouldn’t have tried to talk to her. They believe werewolves are bad, sinful creatures. Sent by their devil or something, and they thought they were in the right. That they could make a fellow human see the error in affiliating themselves with us.”

  I was on the verge of finding the through-line. I thought back to the first night I’d been stalked. The man I’d interacted with had on similar black clothes and asked for the time. I needed to find the logic behind everything, and then when I got a flash of the black-clad man with the phone, something suddenly clicked.

  “My voice…” Everyone leaned over and tilted their heads.

  “I don’t follow,” Lorenz said.

  “Back when I was first stalked, a guy in black followed me that night. Another person, also all in black, asked me for the time, and then texted with his phone.”

  “Why was he asking for the time if he had a phone on him?” Lorenz asked.

  “Because he didn’t want the time. He wanted my voice to compare it to what he’d heard.”

  David’s eyes lit up with rage. “They bugged this place?” he asked, gritting his teeth.

  I nodded, and he looked around, suddenly looking from place to place trying to find the bugs. “Shit, how’d they get in here? How’d we not notice them bugging us? Can they speak wolf?”

  I realized what was going on and grabbed David’s arm and moved him out of the infirmary. Gavin and Silvia followed. He struggled, but I kept a firm grip. He might have been holding back because, even in his confusion and panic, he didn’t want to hurt me.

  “Calm down. Do you have surveillance cameras on-site?” I asked, whispering in an attempt not to let the buggers know.

  “Yes, of course. They are in the basement near the earth elemental plane portal,” David responded.

  “We’ll search them and see if we can’t find where and when they were placed,” I said, walking with a purpose.

  “The stairway is this way,” Silvia said, pointing in the exact opposite direction.

  “Right, still new here,” I informed them.

  We all got down and started to run some of the security footage, which was the point we realized we didn’t know when this all started.

  “Did you guys say something that’d lead them to believe Silvia was going to be alone?”

  �
��No, at least not here,” David said, thinking back.

  “Well, let’s just look for anyone who doesn’t seem to be part of the group,” I said, scanning through the tapes at a manageable speed.

  The booth was really only made for one person, one very reserved and organized person, so having me, Silvia, David, and Lorenz there made it extremely cramped.

  Each one of us was more focused on the tapes, though. We needed to find this spy who’d bugged the community centre. We probably should also find out why.

  “Hey, did you manage to capture any of those guys you got into the brawl with?” I asked.

  “Why do you ask?” David asked.

  “You know, so we could interrogate them, learn why they are doing this, maybe where their base of operations is.”

  “I’m afraid we didn’t,” David admitted.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Silvia threw her arms around me, and I patted her head. “So, I guess that means they’re pretty dangerous, huh?”

  “What?” Silvia asked.

  I also got some looks from the others. “I mean, they must have been tough to get through, or else you’d be able to capture them with ease, right?”

  “Uh, yeah sure, let’s go with that,” David said, blushing and looking away from the screens.

  I raised an eyebrow, a little confused as to what he was getting at. I squirmed my way out of the booth and grabbed his hand, so we were both in the hallway going towards the… earth elemental plane portal?

  I looked through the open door. The thing was purple and swirly and seemed to be encircled by a golden ring. With bulky, golden clamps around it, all ninety degrees from each other, it pulsated, yet seemed calm for the moment.

  I returned to the topic at hand. “What’s actually going on?” I asked.

  “Up until now, the only intelligence work we’ve ever needed to do was scouting, though we did do it a lot since the plane kept shifting.”

  “The place in there… constantly changes?” I asked, pointing to the portal.

  “Yes, though the portals always remain inside massive caverns. The point is, when we fight something, we typically kill it. That was the case with those guys. Sure, this time it was more self-defence than a war to protect the Earth from… well, earth creatures but still.”

  “Tell me more,” I said, looking him dead in the eye.

  “More about what?” David asked.

  “Everything. I need to know more to help you,” I said, as if it was obvious.

  “No, you want more so you can feel some kind of safety, but this knowledge isn’t going to give you that.”

  “What makes you think I want safety? If I wanted safety, I wouldn’t be coming back here. I’d be telling them all I knew about you! They’d let me go back to my life of poverty and a stupid university—”

  I went rigid and wide-eyed and slowly gasped.

  “W-what’s wrong?” David asked loudly.

  “I’m late for class!”

  Chapter 15

  I walked out of my third class that day, with David waiting by the door. “You clearly don’t like these classes, so why do them?”

  We walked over to a column that had a bench on it so we could sit down and talk.

  “I… It’s hard to explain. It’s like the expectation after high school was university, and after that, you’re done with school,” I said.

  David gave me a quizzical look.

  I took out a few plastic containers from the bar that I’d yet to label. “I’m going to finish labelling these, and I guess… head back to the community centre,” I said.

  Having semi-recovered from the fight, I lamented the fact that I couldn’t have done this on the roof. I tended to do this with spices and other things at various workstations to ensure they were all labelled for my next shift, and having to delay irked me. I set them down on the bench and got out a label maker and started to type in one name I knew.

  “Maybe we should stop by your apartment?” David asked.

  “I don’t know, they might have people scouting me out and might kidnap me, or maybe hold my roommate for ransom.”

  “Do you like your roommate?” David asked as I typed out what I had on me.

  I’d used these two before, the electromoss and the pyro putty powder.

  “Well, I don’t want an innocent human being harmed. Hey, is pyro putty made from bacteria or synthesis?”

  “A bit of both. I think most people have bacteria, but we synthesize it,” he said, looking around. “You know, you didn’t answer the question.”

  “Huh? What question?” I asked as the label maker made its little motor sound.

  “Do you like your roommate?”

  “God, she’s always on my case and is way too chipper in the mornings.”

  “Night owl versus morning person, huh?” David asked.

  “She always butts into my life, too. If she was an inherently terrible human being, she’d be just like my father.”

  “Okay, that’s a sudden change in tone,” David said, shifting his body weight so he faced me head-on.

  “And one you’re going to have to live with since I’m not discussing that now.”

  “He’s the reason you’re a loner, isn’t he? Every time you tried to make him happy, he turned you away, and you grew to want to be alone.”

  “Oh, don’t act like some great big psych major,” I said, peeling off part of the backing of the label.

  “Just looking out for ya.”

  “Well, I…” I swallowed my words as that battle scene played out in my head.

  David’s expression grew more serious. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said, sounding more genuine than I’d ever heard him.

  “So, you guys live for that kind of fighting, right?” I asked, wanting to know some information of my own.

  “Well, typically, it’s not against people. I mean, yeah, some bad eggs pop up and come here, thinking they can get away with it since we’re new and… kinda unorganized, but mostly it’s earth elementals.”

  “What are they like?” I asked, trying to picture them in my mind.

  “They are like six main rocks, connected by other rocks that make a vaguely humanoid shape, for the most part. Smaller ones can be any sorta shape. They typically attack on sight, but rarely come out of portals.”

  “Guess it’s kinda hard to scratch through rock.”

  “I mean, not as hard as you might think,” David said.

  “And it’s just day in, day out, wait by the portal and scratch some rocks?”

  “Pretty much. Other communities that are larger will have some expeditions. Some even tried to find other portals.”

  “To think they’d do that, and yet you guys are getting annoyed by someone bugging your bar and some random religious guys.”

  David’s head suddenly swiveled as what looked like a campus security guard walked through one of the feeder halls.

  “What’s up?” I asked David.

  “I’m keeping a nostril out to try to see if any of those guys are coming around.”

  “You’ve got dog scent even in human form?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. The human nose is a bit better, but I’m also linking to the wolf nose.”

  “Like how you only shift your hands to take your Clawv Maga stance?”

  “Kinda, except someone walking around with a dog nose wouldn’t be very discreet.”

  He turned his head as the person got close. I looked at them again. The place where it should have read security read police.

  “Are you Miss Elizabeth Brown?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Mind answering a few questions about the recent attack on your person?”

  Chapter 16

  “Would you like to come down to the station—”

  “Uh, could we like… do it here? I have places to go and such,” I said, looking at David.

  I assumed the man took this as I was going on a date, but it was more. I felt safer with the werewolf than the cops.r />
  “Very well. What can you tell us about these people who attacked you?”

  The man was dark-skinned and had a shaved head and held a notebook like an old-timey detective.

  “They were wearing all black, covering their faces. I saw one of them had their jacket pulled down, and he had, like, a reverend collar around his neck.”

  “Alright, did they have any sort of political paraphernalia? Do you believe they were hunting you down due to your political beliefs?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so,” I stammered a bit, looking at David. “I think the reason why is because I stopped one of their members from attacking someone.”

  “Attacking someone? Why wasn’t that reported to the police?” the man said, giving me a shifty eye.

  “By the time I had the ability to call, I was dropped off at my apartment and didn’t know where either side was, and I didn’t know the non-emergency number by heart and didn’t have time because I had to go to work, and you know… she was safe.”

  David reached down and squeezed my leg slightly as if to say that’s enough about our organization.

  “Do you have any idea why he might have attacked her or why it might be related to you?”

  “He was talking about sin. Maybe he assumed I was… you know…” I waved my hand around.

  The cop raised an eyebrow but wrote that down on his little pad.

  “Now, you don’t know where these people come from or anything else along those lines?”

  “Other than the assumption they’re not making an hour commute to stir up trouble, nope.”

  “Now, ma’am, if you feel unsafe, we can help you, we can offer you protection, and if the worst happens you can get into the witness protection program. You may be apprehensive due to your schooling. I assure you, credits can be transferred to another university, possibly even one with a better reputation. Don’t feel obligated to risk your life for your schooling.”

  “I…” I looked to David, “think I’ll be fine, but I’ll keep that in mind, off—”