Philodox

  Philodox

  May 1989

  The Beginning

  The steady beeping of the machines attached to my father was starting to lull me into sleep, even with the hard plastic of the uncomfortable hospital chair digging into my back. I was still holding the newspaper up to my face, but the words were starting to blur, and I was fairly certain I'd read the same sentence more than once. I let the paper fall to my lap and looked at my dad. His eyes were already closed, and I could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed, apparently deep in sleep.

  Richard Jones was a retired firefighter for the Hopkinville County Fire Department. He had been able to work for the department for almost twenty-five years, before his illness forced him into retirement. He was a mere shadow of the man he used to be; his skin hung loosely from his brittle bones and there were circles under his eyes that were so dark they looked almost painted on. His hair had turned gray far too rapidly, and it was now falling out in small chunks every time a comb ran through it. He was dying, and the doctors couldn't figure out why it was happening. I finally knew, though, and I planned to do something about it in just a few short hours.

  I do the math in my head and I'm surprised when I come up with such a short time since my life changed completely. It sounds so cliché when I say it like that, but it is a fact. I thought the world was a nice, normal place, and that couldn't have been further from the truth. Vampires and werewolves (and probably a ton of other scary things I haven't seen yet, but I try not to think about) really do exist in this world. I know this, because I am one. A werewolf, I mean. Considering the fact that I'm maybe five feet tall (when I wear tall shoes), and weigh more than a hundred pounds only after I've eaten a large meal, the idea of me being a werewolf becomes even more ludicrous. I recently cut my blonde hair into an incredibly short pixie, and have been mistaken on more than one occasion for a small child. I'm not exactly what anyone pictures when they think about a werewolf, but I can’t deny it.

  I can't fight the pull of the moon. I have all the traits of a werewolf: I can shift into a full wolf and I can shift into the hulking, scary looking werewolf with the big teeth and the sharp claws that won't be winning any beauty contests anytime soon. The weather doesn't bother me, thanks to the way my body regulates temperature, but I won't be jumping into any flaming buildings so long as I can help it. I have heightened senses; I can smell, see, and hear things from a good distance. I can jump high and run far for a very long time before getting tired. I never get sick and I'm resistant to most poison, which makes me fun at parties, when you consider that I can drink just about anyone under the table. While I don't enjoy getting shot with a bullet or stabbed with a knife (with the exception of silver – that is enough to stop me cold), my body regenerates wounds almost immediately. It's quite the perk, although it does mean that I'm hungry all the time.

  The werewolf trait is hereditary. You can't become a werewolf by being bitten, so don't worry about taking a walk at night during a full moon. Werewolves can shift whenever they want, actually, so avoiding the full moon isn't going to help at all. But they aren't going to bite someone and turn them into a wolf. They may bite, I won't deny that - especially if provoked - but a bite from a werewolf is merely painful, not life altering.

  I inherited the werewolf trait from my mother, which is probably why I didn't know anything about being a werewolf until a few days ago, when I met a few other werewolves and accidentally shifted into one. Immediately after that happened, I was taken to a nearby Caern, a place where other werewolves gather to live together in privacy and safety, away from the prying eyes of normal humans. Once there, I received a crash course in being a werewolf. Most werewolves know they're going to turn, and they grow up with other werewolves, spending their childhoods learning about shifting, the different phases of the moon, the goddess that watches over us, and all the other things that are important to know if you're going to turn into a walking weapon. Some slip through the cracks, though, and I am one of them. My mother should have been the one to tell me of my legacy, and walk me through the process; she should have raised me in a way that would make the idea of werewolves seem normal, and not this huge piece of information about my life dumped into my lap a few short months before my twentieth birthday.

  My mother disappeared on me when I was five. My father was aware that my mother was a werewolf, I later learned, but he didn't know if I would be. Once I hit puberty and things started changing, I kept all the weirdness going on inside of me to myself, so as not to worry him, since he was so ill all the time. As far as he knew, everything was fine with me, so he didn't want to bring up the werewolf thing, since it looked like I wasn't one. Not the wisest decision, sure, but my mother was gone, and she was the expert on werewolves.

  I fiddled with the silver necklace my mother had given me when I was a child. There had been a lot of rage in the thoughts I had about my mother, before I learned what really happened. As far as we knew, she had just disappeared one night, never to be seen again. My father was sad all the time, but he did his best to raise me in a happy home. He may have been a little more protective of me than usual, but I couldn't really blame him after what happened with mom. He trained me to use a number of weapons: knives, guns, a nearby blunt object. He trained me in self defense and taught me car mechanics. He trained me to always be prepared: I have a duffel bag packed with essentials that I take with me everywhere I go, just in case. It contains things like a canteen, MREs, an impressive first aid kit, a couple changes of clothing, my pistol with a few boxes of ammunition, a flashlight, duct tape (of course), and various other things that I've found useful over the years. It took me some time to realize that carrying around a bag like that wasn't exactly normal, but I had been doing it for years by that time, and I was used to having it with me.

  I was great with machines and a crack shot with a gun, but what I really wanted to be was a doctor. My father was not pleased when I decided to go to school in Connecticut, instead of staying in New Hampshire with him, but he was proud of me for going to college, and helped me move into my dorm without voicing his concerns.

  When his illness made him too weak to take care of himself, he checked into a special home with full time nurses here in Hartford. This way, I could visit him more easily between classes, and cut down the travel time on the weekends, when I would drive up to see him. I love my motorcycle, but it would have been a real cold ride in a few months when winter hit.

  As I said before, the doctors may not have a clue what is wrong with my dad, but thanks to my crash course a few days ago, I knew. When my mother disappeared all those years ago, it wasn't by choice. One of the perks of being a werewolf is the ability to travel between the real world and the spirit world. The spirit world is a dangerous place, filled with spirits of both varieties, malicious and good. A lot of the spirits help the werewolves, by offering them gifts, which will enhance their own powers, or by residing in objects that a werewolf can use, such as a weapon or a charm. There are those that offer their strength, and those that have to be coerced through various rituals, but there are also powerful angry spirits that go out of their way to cause trouble. One of these spirits hunted my mother, relentlessly.

  This spirit was powerful, and yearned for my mother's blood, which, through some magic rituals, would make him nearly immortal. He was ruthless, attacking and killing spirits in the Umbra until he was powerful enough to breach the real world. Once he managed to do that, my mother was forced to devote all of her free time to hunting this evil spirit, so that she could destroy it. For years, she traveled the world, searching for a solution to keep it contained, or to destroy it completely. During that time, the monster learned of my father. My father is human, so it couldn't harm him directly, but he could inject a poison in him that would slowly leech away his life, until he withered away into nothing. It started nice and small, completely unnoticeable, then quietly grew in strength, spreading through his body. Now it was only a matter of time before it destroyed him completely.

  One of the more frustrating aspects of this scenario is watching my father die, knowing that he should still have a good many years left in him. Meanwhile, thanks to the regeneration I have, I will have to live for a long time after he's gone. I wish there was a way for me to give him some of my strength, but instead, I have to sit and watch him waste away. Of course, if my dad had been a werewolf like my mom, the two of them would have never had me, so I guess you can't have everything.

  I checked the clock on the wall. Just a few more hours until I had to leave to join Rast and the rest of the werewolves. It had been Rast who had initially found me. It was Rast who told me what I was, explained my heritage, and handed me over to the other werewolves, to give me my long overdue education. It was Rast who told me the fate of my mother.

  A lot of scary stuff had gone down in the past week, starting with my best friend Damon being crushed by a building, which ended up killing him. Damon Truvenart was a gymnast at the college, and the two of us had met while training at Master Fang's dojo, where we were improving our skill in the Chinese martial art of Wu Shu. We became almost instant friends, and spent most of our nights sparring at the dojo. It was after one of these such training sessions that Damon met his fate, and I along with him, as both our lives were changed completely.

  The weather was perfect. It was early May, so the sun was just starting to brighten up our days after a long, cold spring. When the weather was nice, we usually walked back to the dorms from the dojo. It wasn't far, and it helped to stretch our muscles after a workout. W
e had just turned a corner, deep in conversation about something, when I smelled something foul. My senses had always been pretty good, but I usually chalked it up to lucky genetics. Looking back I suppose technically that was the case; I just didn't know how accurate it was. I put an arm out to stop Damon, and scanned the road, looking for the source of the smell.

  It was dark – the streetlights were all out, and that should have been my first clue. There was only one car parked on the side of the road: a large black Lincoln. Otherwise, the street looked completely deserted. A few yards away, the street curved around and disappeared from sight behind the buildings. I could hear something coming from that direction, so I ducked behind the Lincoln and pulled Damon down with me.

  “What are you doing?” Apparently, he hadn't smelled what I did.

  I shushed him as the sound grew closer. “Shh, listen. Do you hear that?” It was a strange sound; there was a clacking noise, then a shuffle, followed by the clacking noise again, and it kept repeating. It was definitely getting closer, though, and now Damon could hear it, too, as he quieted next to me.

  “I hear it,” he whispered. “What is it?”

  “I have no idea, but this street is creeping me out tonight. What's with the streetlights? Why is it so dark?”

  Before he could answer me, a shadow came around the corner. I could see it was a beautiful woman – probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was wearing a dress that looked like it belonged on a red carpet, but it was ripped and torn in places. One long strand dangled down and trailed along the street as she limped toward us. I was finally able to identify the sound, as I noticed she was only wearing one high heel: her one shoe clacked, and the remains of her dress slid behind her. She carried the other high heel in her hand, dangling from her fingers. I didn't think she noticed us, because she wasn't looking in our direction. Instead, she stared behind her, as if waiting for something. There was a muffled boom in the direction she had come from, and the beautiful woman laughed.

  It was the creepiest sound I had ever heard, and I couldn't help a sharp intake of breath as I gasped. I could barely hear it myself, but apparently it sounded as loud as a gunshot, judging from the way the woman reacted. Her head snapped up and she stared right at me. It was at that point that I knew exactly what a mouse feels like when it gets caught in a hawk's gaze. She was the hunter and I was the prey, and I was scared to death. Every instinct in me was screaming to run away, and I grabbed Damon to do just that, but he wouldn't move. I pulled a little harder, but he just grunted.

  “Delaney, we have to help her! She's clearly hurt and needs our help!”

  I broke my gaze away from the hunter and stared at Damon, my eyes wide with shock. “Are you out of your ever loving mind? The last thing that woman needs is our help. We need to get out of here, and we need to do it now!” I stood up, ready to forcibly remove Damon if I had to, but he dodged my grab and ran toward the woman. I cursed, a loud expletive that echoed around us, and followed him.

  The woman was frowning at me, a slight grimace of distaste on her face, but she no longer gave off that aura of danger. For a minute, I thought I had imagined it. I started to relax a little, as Damon asked her if she was okay, or if there was anything we could do to help her - and then she winked at me. It was just a small thing, but it ratcheted up the danger level all over again. As Damon drew closer, she reached a hand out to him, and I growled. Like, a legitimate, low growl that rumbled deep in my throat and made all the hair on my own arms raise.

  I had never done that before, and I think I was just as surprised as the woman was by it, but she removed her hand, which was my goal. She cocked her head and gazed at me for a moment, eyes narrowed, clearly deep in thought. After a moment, the corner of her mouth twitched up into what I'm sure she thought was a smile. “Interesting,” she murmured, her voice almost a purr. “What do you suppose the odds are...”

  The transition was so smooth I didn't even see it, but one minute she was predator, and the next minute she was this simple woman who had clearly been attacked, and was in desperate need of assistance. Damon fell for it, naturally. That boy will do anything for a pretty girl. She told him that the Lincoln was hers, and asked him to help her to it. He held out his arm to her, and I restrained myself from growling at her again. That's when the men came silently around the corner and started shooting their guns.

  The first bullet took the woman right in the back. The second hit Damon in the arm, and that's when my body caught up to what my brain was doing, and started to move. I ran straight for Damon. I was fast, but not nearly as fast as the woman. Before I could even blink, she closed the gap between her and the men shooting, and then seemed to blur. Within the next moment, all six of the men were on the ground, and she was back standing next to Damon, helping him to the curb. I stared at the men – one of them was still groaning, and I thought I saw a second one moving slowly toward the groaning man, but the rest were eerily silent and completely still. I was pretty sure that she had just killed four men, and mortally wounded two more – in the same amount of time it took me to blink. My heart was beating so loudly at this point that I was almost surprised we couldn't hear it echoing back to us in the street. All I really wanted to do was run away from this woman, but then I remembered the bullet that hit Damon, and ran to him, pulling out the small first aid kit I keep in my purse.

  It wasn't until I saw her ease Damon down onto the curb without so much as a flinch that I remembered the bullet that hit her in the back. Assuming it was shock that kept her mobile, I told her that she should let me take a look at her wound, as well.

  “Oh, that was nothing, darling. I was not hit. Nothing to worry about, dear.” She pulled the sleeve up on Damon's shirt, and tsk'd at the hole. Damon, for his part, sat there stoically, not even flinching when the woman put her finger in the hole and pulled out the bullet.

  “Whoa! Stop that!” I yelled, scrambling to get my first aid kit open. It didn't have much in it, but as I continued my education, I kept adding new things to it that I thought would be useful in an emergency. I had never had to deal with a bullet wound before – at least not a real one, on a real person – but I grabbed some gauze and started pressing it against the wound, gesturing for the woman to help me. “Put some pressure on that, please, would you?”

  She smiled and nodded her head at me, wrapping her perfectly manicured fingers around Damon's arm. “Certainly, dear.”

  I was struggling to remember where the nearest pay phone was, so I could dial 911 and get Damon some real help. I keep a Ziploc baggie filled with quarters in my first aid kit for just this situation, and it was while I digging down to the bottom of the bag to find it that I noticed the groaning had stopped. It had not even occurred to me to check on them and see if they needed help. My brain was clearly in shock. I started to stand to head over there and check on them, just as my fingers grazed the plastic of the baggie. There was a shuffling noise near the men, and then a loud grunt. I pinched the bag between two fingers and pulled it out of the bag with a victorious 'Ha!' just as the ground in front of me exploded.

  It was dark. I could hear the snapping and crackling of fire nearby, and a loud alarm was blaring. I tried to move my arms to cover my ears, and nearly screamed in agony at the pain shooting up my side. I stopped moving, but couldn't stop gasping for air, unable to catch my breath from the pain. When it finally eased a little, I tilted my head as slowly as possible, trying to get a glimpse of my surroundings. I couldn't see much to my right – a large beam had fallen from the ceiling, and it had crashed through the large front window. Half the beam was still in the building, and the other half of the beam reached across the sidewalk and into the street. A large crater had appeared where the Lincoln used to be.

  When I looked to the left, I could see the rest of the room. It looked like we had been blown into a furniture store. Shattered wood and burning fabric were everywhere. Glass shards from shattered coffee tables littered the floor, and one gigantic dining room table was so aflame that it looked like someone had started a bonfire in the middle of the store.

  Turning to the left also allowed me to see the reason my body objected so strongly when I tried to move. A large piece of glass from what probably used to be the windshield of the Lincoln had lodged itself in my side. As is usually the case with injuries, it hurt much more now that I had seen it. I wasn't sure how far inside of me it had gone, but I wiggled my toes and fingers just fine, so I was pretty sure I wasn't paralyzed. I just hoped it missed all my major organs. I couldn't remember what the best option for this kind of thing was: do I leave it in, or pull it out? I couldn't move while it was in, and I needed to find Damon and make sure he was okay, so I opted for pulling it out.