by Jason Rose
I reach out and touch the shimmering bubble with my hand. It’s solid and a little bit warm. Touching it causes a tingling sensation, similar to static electricity, to run up my arm. I slowly increase the pressure I’m applying to the bubble to test if it has a breaking point. The harder I press on the bubble, the stronger the tingling sensation becomes. I continue to increase the pressure until the sensation becomes unbearably painful, causing me to jerk my hand back. The painful sensation stays with me for a moment or two even after I withdraw my hand. Running into this electrified bubble at full speed would not be a pleasant experience. I hope that didn’t happen to Adrian.
The fact that there is an invisible wall in the middle of the forest, and it’s being sustained by magic via the sacrifice of a goat, is kind of creepy and gross. I figure it’s a 50/50 proposition on which way the closest goat chunk is, so I turn right and start following the edge of the barrier. I think I guessed wrong because it takes me nearly three minutes to find what looks like a quarter of bloody goat. I pick it up by the hoof, doing my best not to get any of the blood or stench onto me, and awkwardly hurl it as far as I can, breaking the perfect circle. The shimmering wall flashes twice and then disappears. I cautiously probe the area where the wall used to be with my hand and it passes right through. The bubble is down. I’m free to leave. This isn’t really my fight. Don’t I have enough enemies already? Do I really need more?
For a moment, I consider using my pen to draw a gateway on the closest tree and going home. I don’t want Sinn to worry. Is it weird that I am most worried about how Sinn feels right now? My life is in danger and all I‘m thinking about is letting Sinn know I am okay? Is that a normal way to feel about someone you’re not in a relationship with and who barely even likes you? Something to ponder later over a glass of wine. My moment of self-contemplation is interrupted by a single piercing howl that cuts through the air like an electric carving knife through a Thanksgiving turkey.
The howl came from somewhere near the cabin. Whoever that was, they sound like they are in a lot of pain. I hope it wasn’t Adrian. Shit, I will probably regret this, but instead of drawing a gate home, I start jogging back towards the scream. When I reach the edge of the clearing surrounding the cabin, I stop and crouch down. No sense in giving my position away just yet. In the clearing, two red and white werewolves stand in their half-man, half-wolf forms above the body of a large midnight-black wolf that can only be the Lycanthrope. Adrian is bleeding from several wounds and is laboring to breathe, but he is still alive—at least for now. If I leave, even to get help, he will most likely die.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter. Do I really have to do this? I leave the question hanging unanswered in my consciousness because I really don’t like the answer. I’m really not this heroic. I’m not a role model. I’m more of a self-centered jerk who likes to help people because it makes me feel good about myself. If I wanted to be a role model, I would have been a cop or a firefighter or joined the military. By no stretch of the imagination am I a hero, I’m just a lawyer. A self-interested, self-important asshole who likes to hear himself talk. I’m not really going to do this, am I? Fuck, I am. #FML.
Where are the other two wolves? The best-case scenario is that Adrian took them out before he fell. Hopefully, they’re not at the woods’ edge preparing to pounce on me. That would suck. Nothing I can do about it though. If they are there, I’m definitely not going to survive this. Fighting two wolves, assuming they coordinate their attacks, is a nearly impossible task, but simultaneously fighting four wolves is suicide.
I study the two red and white-furred werewolves in the clearing. One of them is badly limping. Neither looks like they are having a very good day. They are big, not nearly as big as Adrian, but still big enough to give me heart palpitations. Maybe I can take them. Maybe not. I’ve been training with Sinn for just this type of circumstance, although not with a real sword. I hate to admit it, I’m actually a little excited to test myself against these two werewolves. A lot afraid, and a lot thankful that they are already injured, but a little excited, nonetheless. Does being excited about fighting, even a little bit, make me a bad person?
I stretch, crack my neck to both sides and step out of the woods into the clearing, grip the sword with both hands, plant my feet, and whistle as loudly as I can. The whistling has my desired effect. Both of the six-foot-tall werewolves turn and look in my direction. The one without the limp quickly glances at his packmate, communicating something with his eyes, and then starts moving quickly towards me. It runs not quite on two legs, not exactly on four either, rather somewhere in-between. As it approaches, my battle sense, an inherited ability from my Paladin ancestors, kicks in and time slows. I smile, realizing it is charging me like a bull, and, like a matador, I will simply wait until the last possible moment to step to the side and run it through with my sword. This will be easier than I hoped.
When I train with Sinn, she knows about my battle sense ability, which doesn’t make me any faster than a regular human, but it slows combat down for me so I can make the right decision on how to move my body. I can’t dodge bullets, but I can dodge or block a thrown knife if I see it coming. When Sinn attacks, she disguises her attack so I never know until the last moment where the blow will come from, which makes it difficult to dodge or counter. Or she simultaneously attacks from multiple angles so I can only block one of the attacks. This werewolf’s attack has all the subtlety of a semi-truck backing up inside of a library.
Once the werewolf has narrowed the distance between us to a half dozen paces or so, it gathers itself and leaps. As soon as it commits to its course of action, I step forward and to the left, out of the werewolf’s flight path, while swinging the sword in an arc so it will gut him as he flies by. Just as I’m starting to feel cocky, my plan goes awry. The wolf senses that I’ve moved and somehow contorts itself in mid-air changing the direction of its leap. According to my limited understanding of the laws of physics, that should be impossible. I watch this gravity-defying mid-air adjustment unfold in slow motion and I am confronted with a choice: either dodge even farther to the left, which will siphon some of the power out of my strike and throw the aim off, making it unlikely to result in a killing blow; or stay the course, kill the wolf and take a blow in return. The sunlight catches the werewolf’s long sharp claws and I realize I want no part of those claws raking me, so I dodge farther to the left throwing the aim of my strike off-center.
Instead of its chest, my sword catches the wolf’s shoulder near its collar bone. I brace for impact with its shoulder bone, praying the jarring collision doesn’t wrench the blade from my hand. The idea of trying to finish this werewolf off with my bare hands is not appealing. I can think of better ways to spend a morning. Most involve coffee. The blade continues through the shoulder, past where it should have impacted with bone, and exits the other side, freeing the creature’s arm from its body. Blood sprays out of the empty shoulder socket like a geyser. I’m momentarily dumbfounded. There was no jarring crunch and I am still holding the blade. Either this is the sharpest sword ever made, or werewolves’ bones are soft like putty. The wolf looks equally dumbfounded as it collapses to the forest floor. It has lost any will to fight, along with its arm.
The remaining werewolf scowls at me, looks down at Adrian’s bleeding and barely moving wolf form lying at its feet, and then stares at his one-armed pack mate bleeding out on the forest floor beside me. Finally, it gives a loud howl that I swear sounds like frustration and then turns and limps for the edge of the forest. I can hardly believe my luck. Its sense of self-preservation must have kicked in.
In shock, I stare for a second at my blade, and then at the werewolf on the ground beside me. Its eyes have glazed over and are staring lifelessly into the forest. If it isn’t dead from blood loss already, it soon will be. It’s strange but I feel no guilt about ending its life. If I’m being honest, I feel excited—even a little pride. My eyes are drawn back to the blade; something about it seems different.
I thought it was a bright silver color before now it has a hint of a greyish tint to it. It can’t have changed colors, can it?
I jog over to Adrian, he’s lost a lot of blood and is really laboring to breathe. He will need help and soon. I consider trying to heal him myself, I know some of my ancestors had that ability, and I know I can heal myself, but I’ve never tried it on another person. Plus, the last time I healed myself, I passed out and slept for days. I can’t risk passing out next to Adrian’s body here in the forest. That would likely be a death sentence for both of us. Now that the bubble is down, I should be able to gate anywhere I want, but where? Where do you take a giant black wolf for medical treatment? A hospital? A veterinarian? Fuck, I don’t know. But I think I know someone who might.
Chapter Six
I slowly stagger through the gate into my office and drop, as carefully as I can, the extremely heavy and blood-covered wolf onto the conference table. If Adrian lives through this, I will expense him for a new table—his blood is soaking into the wood and there is no way we will be able to get it out.
Wilson looks up from his desk, startled at my sudden appearance. To his credit, he immediately grasps the gravity of the situation and rushes over to the sink to get some warm and wet towels to start cleaning the wolf’s wounds. Wilson’s facial expression is a mix of concern and relief. Likely concern that there is a giant bleeding wolf on our conference table, and relief that the blood I am covered in doesn’t appear to be mine.
As soon as I release the wolf, I am assaulted from behind. Joycee grips me with two hands and holds onto me like I’m the last Twinkie at a fat camp sleepover. I’m not much of a hugger, but what are you going to do? Joycee thinks of me as her older brother or protector. She’s had a rough go of it, had to endure things, things I can’t even imagine. I endure the hug, it’s the least I can do.
I rotate Joycee just a bit as my eyes hunt the office for Sinn. They find her standing in the back corner, behind her desk, talking on the phone. She looks angry and is in no rush to check me over. Did I do something wrong? Probably. Everything that goes wrong is somehow always my fault. God, she frustrates me. I never know which way the wind is blowing with her. I am pretty good at reading people, but trying to read her is like trying to read Klingon poetry scribed in braille using only your elbows. It’s not only nearly impossible, but you look and feel like an idiot while you do it.
Joycee finally releases me, allowing the air to rush back into my lungs. That girl has a strong grip. Ever since her . . . incident with Roy Silas, a now deceased member of the Dead Pigs, a gang of weak-blooded creatures that are not fully human but not pure-blooded enough to be Concordat citizens, who have a base in the San Francisco sewer system, she’s been spending a lot of time in the gym—cross fit. It’s clearly working.
Sinn finally sets the phone down and stalks towards me like a mother on a mission to scold her naughty toddler for getting into the cleaning supplies stored in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. She pit-stops at the conference table and studies Adrian. Although he’s unconscious and in his wolf form, he’s alive, his chest is rising and falling with each breath. Without making any eye contact and in a softer tone than I expect, she asks, “Where were you?”
Even though it seems like she’s making an effort and I probably should acknowledge that effort with a serious response, for some reason I don’t. “Lumberjack country.”
“Canada?”
“Yep, our neighbors to the North. Adrian there,” I motion to the wolf, “invited me up to his cabin in the woods for a chat—”
“That’s Adrian Varulv?” she asks.
“Yep.”
“What did he want?”
“To hire us, we were just getting to the good parts when we were interrupted by cabin crashers. Four werewolves . . .”
Sinn frowns. Something doesn’t add up to her.
“. . . and a witch. Apparently, that wheel symbol—”
“It’s an invitation. I’ve heard of them but never seen one. I should have known that,” snaps Sinn.
Although I’m slightly shocked by the near admission, I do my best not to show it. That almost sounded like an apology or an acknowledgment that she made a mistake or it’s at least as close to one I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth.
“What kind of werewolves?” she asks.
I squint in confusion and snarkily volunteer, “The kind with claws and teeth?”
Sinn looks up at me, her eyes dress me down like a drill sergeant introducing himself to a new recruit. It’s actually comforting—all feels right in the world. “What color were they?” she dryly asks, in the tone a professor might use with an especially dimwitted student.
I pause for a moment, trying to remember. “I only saw two of them and they were red and white.”
“Sounds like North American Red Wolves. Think of them as the runts of the werewolf family tree. There is a wide variety of werewolf types—Blacks, Reds, Greys, Arctics, mixed breeds.”
“Runts? They sure seemed big to me. Whats a mixed breed?”
Sinn sighs, “Do I really need to explain to you where babies come from?”
“Maybe you could demonstrate for him,” suggests Wilson. “Private lessons? I have a video camera and a tripod. Maybe we could make an educational video and sell it to high schools, like in that one movie where Raylin plays a porn producer. The Risky Business remake.”
Sinn shakes her head at Wilson and dramatically sighs, as if dealing with his nonsense is the peak of inconvenience. “Mixed breeds are exactly what they sound like. They are wolves that were born, not turned, and they had parents who were different species of wolves.”
I bob my head, to indicate I’m following along.
“Typically,” Sinn continues, “it’s the Black and Arctic wolves you need to be wary of. Some of the mixed breeds can also be a handful. When breeds mix, there are sometimes unforeseen results. Adrian Varulv, ‘the Lycanthrope,’” she makes air quotes with her hands while nodding towards the Black wolf lying on our table, “should have been able to handle four Red wolves all on his own.”
I look at Adrian with newfound respect. If Sinn thinks he’s that much of a badass, his confidence back at the cabin may not have been overblown—although he is unconscious on my table and likely would have been dead if I hadn’t been there—so arguably it was overblown. He did get his ass kicked. “Four runts, they sure seemed big and dangerous to me – and he sure got fucked up.”
Sinn frowns, “Did the witch help take him down?”
“Not really, possibly indirectly. She trapped us in a large invisible dome, which Adrian may have run into at full speed. I don’t really know. I didn’t see his fight; I was busy putting the witch on ice.”
“You handled a witch, by yourself?”
I nod, while standing just a little straighter and puffing my chest out just the slightest bit.
For a moment, Sinn gives me an almost prideful look and then it is replaced by her usual scowl of disappointment as she focuses on the unconscious wolf, “How could you let him get hurt? Tell me what happened? Start at the beginning.”
“It wasn’t my fault he got hurt. Whatever. The letter brought me to his hunting cabin in Canada. We were just starting to get our chat on when he told me we were surrounded. He smelled four wolves and a witch. He thought we could win the fight—I was less confident. I came up with a plan where he would lead the wolves on a chase through the woods, while I dealt with the witch, and then we would meet back up at the cabin and handle the wolves together. He took off, I iced the witch and then two werewolves appeared back at the cabin carrying his unconscious body. I never saw anybody else. I don’t know what happened to him while he was in the woods.”
“You let him take on four wolves at once, while you took on a single witch? That was your brilliant plan?”
“Well, yeah. Aren’t you the one who just said he should have been able to take on four wolves at once?”
“You didn’t know that.”
“What happened to the wolves that were carrying him?” asks Joycee interrupting our banter.
“One is lying dead in the clearing in front of the cabin, sans an arm. I imagine it’s doing an excellent job of fertilizing the soil. The other one fled.”
“You killed a wolf?” Joycee asks, sorrow seeping into her voice. Joycee is a huge animal lover, dogs in particular. I can tell she’s imagining a three-legged dog lying dead in the forest and it’s making her sad. Although emotionally, she’s been improving, she’s still a little off balance and can quickly go from hot to cold. All things considered and taking into account what she’s been through, her level of emotional sanity is amazing. Her recovery is a fucking miracle, but she’s far from completely alright. Sinn, Wilson, and I all think of her as our little sister, and the last thing any of us want is for her to feel upset about anything. I can feel the disapproving stares from Sinn and Wilson signaling that I better fix this.
I turn so I can look Joycee directly in the eyes, “He wasn’t a cute wolf like that,” I motion towards Adrian’s still form. Got to admit, I am slightly distressed that I’m using ‘cute’ as a descriptor of a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound midnight-colored wolf covered in blood, but it seemed like the right word choice. “When I killed the wolf, it was a six-foot-tall half-man, half-monster coming at me on its two hind legs with huge razor-sharp teeth and claws. I didn’t have much of a choice. Either I killed it or it ate me.”