by D V Wolfe
Walter picked up on the second ring. “Hello, Bane.” He sounded tired. Not that I could blame him. The last time we spoke in person, I’d had to shoot the specter of his wife multiple times before Nya and Noah burned her possessions in his BBQ grill.
“Hiya Walter,” I said, trying to inject as much positivity and lightness into my voice as possible. “We just caught your latest weather report and we were wondering what the inside scoop was.”
Walter sighed. “It’s a werewolf pack that’s moved into the area.”
No demons, I said to myself, trying to work up some enthusiasm. “Where are they hunting specifically?” I asked.
“Clear Rapids,” Walter said. “It’s a little college town about a hundred miles south of Davenport.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Thanks, Walter.”
“I doubt you need it,” Walter said. “But in case you need a little extra inducement, they’re attacking innocents in broad daylight. Not a lot of them yet. The state troopers found two of the bodies, but the pack is getting bold. I’ve never heard of them doing anything like this before.”
“Oh goodie,” I said. “Thanks for the extra...inducement.”
“Happy hunting,” Walter said and then he hung up.
I tossed the phone back onto the seat.
“Well, what is it?” Noah asked slowly as if he didn’t actually want to know.
“Werewolves,” I said.
“What?! Really?!” Noah’s voice sounded like a little kid, begging to go to Disneyland.
I turned to look at him. “Yeah, is that hard to believe or something?”
Noah was almost bouncing in his seat. “I can’t believe they actually exist.”
I rolled my eyes. “Noah, after everything you’ve seen with me, you’re surprised werewolves exist?”
Noah shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but it’s just...when I was a kid, I loved the movie, Teen Wolf.”
Noah launched into a retelling of the plot as we moved down 44 towards Missouri. It was the most animated I’d ever seen him and for a minute, I didn’t tease or ruin the illusion. I just watched and listened to him remembering something that had made him happy once. It was almost like some of his excitement was catching, rubbing off on me. When he finished though, I remembered why werewolves were not the best news.
“Why aren’t you excited?” Noah asked.
“Because werewolves are strong and they’re assholes most of the time. Walter said these were even feeding on innocents during the day which I’ve never heard of werewolves doing and neither has Walter, which tells you something. I think we’re going to need more than a rolled-up newspaper and a scratchpad to deal with them.” I paused, but in the spirit of being as open with Noah as he was being with me, I sighed and added, “And every time I go up against werewolves, they beat the ever-living shit out of me.”
Noah shrugged. “Well that’s not that unusual, right? I mean, you usually get the crap kicked out of you when we go on a hunt.”
I smiled at the “we” and nodded. “Yeah, but werewolf damage is usually a lot heavier with a longer recovery that we don’t really have the time for. So, we need a plan. A good one this time.”
5
I double-checked my phone just to make sure I hadn’t missed a call from Nya. Nothing. Between no Nya, no ready-made stakes to puncture demons with, no leads on Sister Smile and Joel, and no word with information or additional shit news from anyone else, I was assuming the universe wanted us to go to Iowa to kill some werewolves. The Welcome to Missouri sign flashed by us and a plan, to get a plan, began forming in my head.
“We’re going to make a pitstop,” I said to Noah as I turned north on 49.
“Really?” Noah asked.
I turned to look at him. “What’s surprising about that?”
“Miss Bane ‘I only stop to refill Lucy’s tank’ is going to make a pitstop? I’ve been with you for weeks and I’ve had to retrain my bodily functions to work around your ‘non-pitstop’-taking driving habits.” I can be a pretty big jerk and this certainly sounded like me.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said to Noah. “Usually you would be correct, but this pitstop is essential to the plan.”
Noah leaned towards me. “What is the plan?”
“To make a pitstop,” I said.
Noah sighed and leaned back against the passenger side door. “Can you at least tell me where the pitstop is?”
“Dearag, Missouri,” I said.
“And what’s in Dearag?” Noah asked. “Magical flutes that we will use to lull the werewolves to sleep before we bash their heads in with a plumber’s wrench?” I turned to look at him. He shrugged. “Just estimating based on previous bullshit experiences with you.”
“Well just tell me how you feel,” I snorted. “Don’t hold anything back. These flutes you say, are they the plastic ones from toy stores? How do they work, Noah? And how good are you at playing because I’m going to be the one with the wrench in this scenario. I call dibs.” Noah had taught me about ‘dibs’ about a week ago. It had been an embarrassing gap in my re-introduction to popular culture. Now, I tried to use it as often as I could, just to annoy him.
“Speaking of ‘dibs’,” Noah said. “What was that thing the demon called me? A dibid?”
I shrugged. “It’s probably some Enochian slang word. I never learned much of it. Stacks could probably tell you the next time you see him. Or Gabe.” I felt an inward clutch at my heart, thinking of Gabe and the last time we’d talked.
“So seriously, what’s in Dearag?” Noah asked, interrupting my train of thought.
I sighed. “I have a friend who can help us. She’s got a lot of experience with werewolves and a visit to her will, hopefully, result in a plan that won’t be utter shit involving flutes or fan dances and pipe wrenches and where we both get to walk away with a minimal number of broken bones and missing limbs.”
“So….a good plan,” Noah said.
I tapped my nose and changed lanes.
We rolled into Dearag a little after midnight and over Noah’s protests, I headed for the Dearag Motor Inn. If the Motor Inn was a backdrop for a movie, it would be somewhere between a Quentin Tarantino and a Saw film. But, the water was hot and there were two bed-shaped objects. Noah said that he was pretty sure his bed was just two cardboard refrigerator boxes filled with concrete, under a sheet. But he fell asleep, head back and snoring, only moving when he accidentally sucked a long curl into his mouth.
I sat on the edge of my bed, listening to him and staring at the freshly repacked and re-stocked duffle bag at my feet. I’d spent an hour re-organizing Lucy’s toolbox while Noah was in the shower and after I took my turn, I had repacked the duffle three times to have the best efficiency. Or so I hoped. My gaze fell on the cell phone sitting on the little table. I was not going to think about Gabe. Or calling Gabe or the fact that I had just repacked my duffle bag three times because I wasn’t thinking about Gabe.
I laid back on the bed and looked down at my feet. My sneakers were off and I had one of the yellowed towels duct-taped around my right foot. It hadn’t bled since Noah had cauterized it, but I thought the towel would be useful padding after I had bumped it against a chair leg and almost peed my pants. I wanted to put my socks and shoes back on, but Noah said I should let it air out for the night or it would get gangrene and fall off. I knew he was probably messing with me but to spare myself the argument, I’d left my socks off.
I closed my eyes and I could almost feel those broad, rough, and warm hands, massaging the skin on the sole of my foot. No. I wasn’t going there. During the infamous stitch-up and drink-up, cartoons, and Cap’n Crunch weekend, Gabe had rubbed my feet whenever the whiskey wasn’t enough to put me to sleep. I’d been mad as hell at him, I remember. I had needed to hunt. I needed to get out of there, but he’d just say, “Tomorrow. Give me your foot.” And he wouldn’t stop until I let him have both feet. I didn’t think I’d slept better in my whole lif
e. Even before Hell.
I gave myself a little shake. I needed to forget about this. To put it away and not look at it anymore. We had no future and I had to stop pretending that it didn’t matter. I was going back to Hell, permanently in four months. Gabe was the last in his line and he needed to fix that, fast. He needed to move on and I needed to let go. I closed my eyes and as hard as I pushed it away, I couldn’t stop remembering his hands on my feet. Who would it hurt to just think about the memory, inside my head? Gabe? No. Over my dead body would I ever tell him. Me? Yeah, but I could take it. The benefit was worth much more than the consequences. I fell asleep, the sawed-off on the bed beside me, thinking of warm skin against the soles of my feet.
Noah was annoyingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning and I felt myself wishing that I still had my dart gun. Rosetta had borrowed it for the rabbits that were attacking her flowers in her yard and I hadn’t gotten it back yet. I guessed turnabout was fair play. I still had her hedge clippers. I drove us through fast food and sucked down a fountain-sized orange-flavored juice drink while I watched Noah inhale three egg, cheese, and bacon biscuits.
“What?” Noah asked, around a mouth full of biscuit.
“Just taking a mental snapshot,” I said, turning towards Main Street. “So when I describe this scene to Nya, she’ll feel like she was actually here.”
Noah gave me the finger and swallowed hard. “Sorry, I’m just really hungry today.”
“The question I have,” I said. “Is where does it all go?”
“Well if you want, I can show you,” Noah grumbled.
“There you are,” I said. “I was starting to get weirded out by the Rainbow-Out-the-Ass-Sunshine Noah that climbed in the cab with me.”
“Well, Rock-kicking-stiff-middle-finger Noah is back, call off the search party,” Noah said.
I pulled over and ignored Noah’s not-so-helpful coaching as I parallel parked in front of a used bookstore. I had finally had to reach over and pinch Noah’s lips closed while I finished the parking job with one hand.
“I know you were trying to help,” I said, shifting into park. “But...don’t.”
Noah sighed and climbed out. He looked up at the used bookstore and turned to me, looking very proud of himself. “I’ll bet your friend works here, huh. Bet she’s a retired librarian who has shit tons of books on werewolf lore. I’ll bet she’s…” I walked past the used bookstore and pulled open the door to Hair by Tiffany and waited for Noah to enter first. “A hairdresser?” Noah asked, looking skeptical.
I bowed like a French waiter and motioned him in ahead of me. The shop was empty except for two older women under the hairdryers, and a forty-something woman who was reading a magazine and looked like she might be waiting on one, or possibly both, of the older women. A bell above the door tinkled as it shut behind us and we caught the attention of all three women. They had almost identical reactions of curiosity, and then disgust, teetering on horror. I glanced at Noah. His socks didn’t match but his shirt was somewhat clean. There was only a tiny amount of blood spatter on the shorts he was wearing and he had two shoes on. I knew I was worse. I was on my last a-shirt and it had blood spatter, sulfuric residue from the black goo, and hot sauce from dinner two nights ago. The jeans I was wearing could no longer be called blue but most of what caked them was dirt with a little demon goo and blood mixed in. I was limping slightly and my shoes looked like they didn’t match because one was dried-blood brown while the other was still grey.
“Can I help you…” A familiar voice called as a tall goddess of a Black woman drifted out of a back room. She’d been mixing something in a bowl and didn’t immediately look up at us. I reached up a hand to try to flatten my hair, wishing for the second time that morning that I’d showered after sleeping, and not before since we were going to see Tiffany at her salon. We didn’t say anything or move towards her, mostly because I didn’t know what to say and how she’d react if I just came up to her. It had been a long time, but Tiffany always looked the same. She looked like a goddess. But, I knew first hand that the reason she looked timeless was because Father Time picked a fight with her, lost, and now shits his pants whenever he has to pass by her.
Tiffany looked up at us and I saw the spark of recognition hit her. She started to smile but then she furrowed her brow and put one hand on her hip. “You know when I got up this morning, I asked myself, ‘Tiff, who would be the last person you’d expect to walk in today?’” In a few graceful strides, she’d moved across the room. She set the bowl she’d been mixing down on one of the lighted vanity things that sat in front of her hair-cutting chair. “And do you know who I came up with?” She asked.
“Me?” I said, with a shrug.
“No,” Tiff said. “Joe Pesci, but you’d be a close second.”
“Good to see where I measure up next to Joe,” I said.
Tiff pointed one of her long, slender fingers at me and cocked a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Your sass, now I remember her.” Tiff walked off towards the back room.
Noah looked at me. “Should we follow?”
Before I could answer him, Tiff called. “Get your asses in here. I only have an hour before my next client.”
We followed Tiff into the back room of the salon where there was a fridge, table and chairs, and an open doorway. From what I could see of the room beyond, it looked and smelled like the place that all the hair gunk was made.
“Tiff, this is Noah,” I said to her when she turned around to face us.
Noah held his hand out to Tiff and she politely shook it. “Nice to meet you.” She was smiling at Noah, but as her gaze turned to me, like an oscillating fan, the smile quickly became a thin angry line. “Bane, I didn’t know you had a new partner. Especially one so young and innocent.”
“He’s not exactly my partner,” I started. Though, considering everything Noah did, I wasn’t sure if that was accurate anymore.
“I’m eighteen,” Noah said quickly. “And I’m not an ‘innocent’. I can burn things with my hands.”
Tiff didn’t look like she believed him. She slid her gaze to me and I nodded. Tiff took a step back and moved to the open doorway, pulling the door closed on the hair gunk room. She smiled at Noah. “Can’t be too careful then.”
“Oh,” Noah said. “I can control it. Well, most of the time.” Noah was digging away at the hole he was standing in, so I decided to save him.
“I’m really sorry to bother you, Tiff,” I said. “But Walter put out a weather report…”
Tiff put both hands on her face. “Oh gods, not in Dearag, not here.”
“No,” I said quickly and she pulled her hands away, frowning at me. “In Clear Rapids, Iowa.”
Tiff’s face fell. “You’re going after the pack, aren’t you?” She asked quietly.
“You knew about it?” I asked.
Tiff made a dismissive noise and motioned for us to sit down. “Please, I knew what was happening before that old man got up this morning.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” I said. “Walter says that the pack of werewolves are staking out the whole area around Clear Rapids.”
Tiff nodded. “I felt them to the north.”
Noah was gaping at Tiff. “So you’re a hunter too?”
Tiff shook her head and I let out a laugh that I tried to turn into a cough when both of them glared at me.
“No,” Tiff said. “I’m a Faoladh.”
“Sorry, a what?” Noah asked.
“A Faoladh,” Tiff said. “We’re a race of Irish werewolves to put it in layman’s terms.”
Noah pushed his chair back from the table and I grabbed him by his cargo shorts pocket and pulled him back.
“Tiff isn’t going to attack you,” I said. And then I grinned at Tiff. “Unless you start singing Sugar Ray, right?”
Tiff nodded. “I’ve added most of the early 2000’s pop music to that list of music that makes me murderous.”
“Ok,” Noah said, but he still looked worried
and turned to me.
I sighed. “Tiff you might have to give him a little more reassurance.”
Tiff nodded. “Faoladh are more like guardian wolf spirits of Ireland. We protect and watch. We only fight when we have to and except for my little vacation every seven years, we live normal lives.”
“Oh,” Noah said. “What vacation?”
Tiff looked at me. “He’s not shy, is he?”
I shrugged. “He’s pretty excited about werewolves.”
Tiff gave a mirthless laugh. “Well, it’s not all full-moon antics and clothes ripping. Every seven years, I transform for seven months and I go into the wild.”
“Wow,” Noah said. “Where do you go?”
Tiff shrugged. “I stay around here, patrolling the edges of the town, laying low during hunting season, and during the day so I don’t get shot by someone wearing bizarre camouflage.”
I nodded. “It’s getting out of hand. Have you seen the stuff with the pink background? I mean, where the hell does that work?”
“Hell, I’d imagine,” Tiff said.
I paused. “Maybe I should get some.”
Noah hadn’t moved. I looked at him and recognized his expression of ‘shut down for maintenance’ on his face while he processed what Tiff had told him. Every now and then, he glanced at Tiff, dropping his gaze when she caught him. I decided to press on with why we had stopped by.
“Tiff, Walter said this pack has started hunting by day,” I said. “He’d never heard of that happening and neither have I.”
Tiff shrugged, but her expression was worried. “If a pack is starving, they’ll hunt day and night to get enough to sustain them.”
“Any other reason?” I asked.
Tiff turned her arms over on the table and I saw the small black tattoo of the Dara Knot on her left wrist. She had told me once that all Faoladh are born with it, like a birthmark.
“I don’t like to think that it would be possible,” Tiff said, lowering her voice. She looked up at me. “But it could be that something outside of the pack is controlling them, making them bloodthirsty.”