Chapter 2: Rebecca
"You're a... a what?" Elain's eyes bugged out as she spoke. She turned around to stare at her daughter. Rebecca's face had gone pale, her eyes wide and fearful. "Is that it? Is that what's happening to me?" Her voice was terrified. Simon stared at his sister. He wondered if he had been around, he would have been able to tell? Rebecca stared at Luke. "What's going on?" Her voice seemed weak and scared, riddled with fear, laced with confusion. "What- what am I?" Luke smiled sympathetically. "Come have a seat, Rebecca." Luke had always called her Rebecca. Never Becky. Nervous, she took a seat. "Luke, what are you talking about?" Elain asked. Her confusion was evident in her voice, along with a growing sense of fear. Was it possible that Luke could recognize other werewolves? If it was, he must be mistaken. Rebecca couldn't be a werewolf. But her expression was so scared, she must be considering it. Luke opened his mouth to explain again, but this time, Simon stepped in. "Becky, what's happened? Why do you- why do beleive him? What's wrong." Rebecca shook her head. "I got attacked by this enormous dog. Someone, I thought it was his owner, called the thing off. Afterwards, I started feeling really strange. Really horrible angry flashes, and times where I'd feel my life was worthless. Then, almost a month ago, I went outside, I felt really- odd. Like I was crawling. Later, I chalked it up to some crazy dream, but now... now I'm not so sure." Rebecca finished. Luke had a look of uneasy sureness on his face that made Simon nervous. He knew that werewoves could recognize each other- probably by scent- but he prayed that Luke had been mistaken. "Luke are- are you sure?" His mom asked, terrified. Rebecca looked from her mother to Luke and back again. "What's going on?" she asked, her voice cracking. Simon stepped in, dipping his toe into the water, cautiosly. Just like Maia, he thought. "Becky, listen to me. This is going to sound weird. I mean really, freaky, crazy weird. All the stories are true." He said in one breath, rushing it out. "Werewolves, Vampires, Warlocks, Faeries. Demons. It's all entirely, freakishly true." Rebecca wasn't looking at him like her mom had looked at Luke. She was looking at him like she needed something to believe, something to explain away her fear. Simon realized he couldn't give that to her. Being a werewolf would just raise more fear, more questions. But she had to know. It wouldn't make any sense not knowing. And his secret. She'd need to know it too. But, above anything else, he didn't want her to end up hating him like vampires and werewolves were supposed to hate each other. But Simon didn't want to be the one to break it to her. Luke noticed his unwillingness to continue and stepped in, easing himself into the conversation with a smooth, almost wolf-like, grace. He knit his hands together in his lap. "Rebecca. You said that you were attacked by a dog. That was no dog. That was a werewolf. They say that werewolf bites have a one in two chance of passing on Lycanthropy. In reality, its three out of four. I don't think that you are one of the lucky few." Her face, if possible, went even paler. "Luke. Are you saying that... that I'm a werewolf?" she said the word with a sort of thin disgust, masking the confusion under it. Luke nodded. "Yes. Yes, I am." Rebecca gave a sort of little gasp and buried her face in her hands. Small, gasping sobs echoed from the barrier of bones and skin that hid her face. Elain jumped up from her place on the couch and hurried behind it to comfort her daughter. Carefully, Elain guided Rebecca to sit down on the couch. Slowly, Rebecca raised her tearstained face from her hands. "How do you know?" She asked. Luke sucked in a breath before she continued "About all of this? The werewolves, vampires, Demons, all of it?" Luke slowly exhaled. Here we go, He thought to himself. "I know about it all because I was born into it. Demons feed on humans. They would have overrun the world long ago if it hadn't been for the Nephilim. The shadowhunters. Demon hunters, they're like a race of elite humans, trained to hunt demons. I was born as one of them, as Lucian Graymark, not Luke Garrowway." Her eyes widened. "And mom. And you Simon, how did you know?" She asked, looking to each one in turn. Simon answered first. May as well get this over with now. "I knew about all this stuff for- maybe two months. After Clary..." he drew off. "After Clary what? Rebecca pried. "After she discovered she was a Shadowhunter, like her mom." Rebecca's eyes widened. "But there's more." Simon couldn't keep his sister in the dark. "There's more. You know, the vampires Luke told you about, well, I am one. I went to a warlocks party with Clary, to try to find out a bit about this warlock... well, I tried a drink, it turned me into a rat, and I went home with a bunch of vampires." Simon continued, telling her about the hotel, how Clary and Jace had rescued him from it. He left out the wolf pack. That was for Luke to tell. "... And I woke up in a graveyard with Rapheal, Clary, Jace and a few others." He finished. Rebecca looked astonished. His mother looked suprised. Even she hadn't heard the whole story. Rebecca blinked. "So my brother's a vampire. I'm a werewolf." She glanced at her mother. "You must feel weird. You're the only human here." Her mother smiled weakly. "Wait." Rebecca said. "There's one more thing." She glanced over at Luke who sat, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Do all Nephilim know when werewolves are near?" Luke could have lied. He could have told her yes, and there would have been no one to blame him for protecting his secret. The fact that he did not lie increased Simon's respect for him all over again. "No. Nephilim can only tell when another of their own kind is around. The same rule applies to werewolves and vampires." Rebecca stared as revelation dawned across her dampened face. "Luke. You, you're a werewolf." He nodded. "yep." The word sounded simple, too simple, an inadequate response for an entirely adequate accusation. Suddenly, he was transported back to a moment in the pack headquarters, Clary finding out what he was. He shook off the memories. This was Rebecca, not Clary. "If I ever found out who did this to you, Rebecca, I'll tell you. I'm sure they're not in my pack. If they were, they would be dead within the week." He said with finality. Rebecca's eyes widened. It had obviously not occured to her that Luke, the man that had treated her like a daughter for a long time, could have killed someone. Luke backtracked hastily. "Rebecca, that's how werewolf politics and punishment works. It's painfully simple. If you do something bad enough, you die. Biting a human is against the most ancient of werewolf laws, unless provoked. To replace a pack leader, the first one must die. The one who killed it becomes pack leader. I'm the pack leader here in Brooklyn. The headquarters is the abandoned police station, If you ever need a place to stay." Simon was sure he didn't mean to, but Luke glanced at Elain. Luke, even for a bachelor who had never had a child of his own, would always look out for anyone he considered under his wing. Rebecca, being a new werewolf, fell into that category. Elain shot him a murderous look. "She doesn't need a place to stay, she'll always have a place here if she wants it." Simon glared at his mother. What are you? What have you done with my son? Her words echoed through his head. Monster. He stood abruptly. His mom looked up at him, as if just realizing what she'd said. With long strides, he opened the door and left, slamming it behind him. Elain jumped up as her son left. "What did I say? What have I done?" She covered her hands with her mouth. Springing up from the couch, Elain sprinted out the door, leaving Rebecca and Luke sitting in the living room.
"Luke, you weren't born a werewolf, were you?" Rebecca asked, curious. Luke shook his head. "I was born Nephilim, as I said before." Rebecca cocked her head to one side. "What did you think when you found out? About Lyncanthropy, I mean." Luke exhaled slowly. "well, it was different for me, because everyone I knew already knew about the existence of werewolves. But at that time, I was part of an organization called the Circle. The leader of it was Valentine, Jocelyn's first husband and Clary's father. He was my greatest friend. The two of us were Parabatai, warriors that fight side by side." Rebecca's face was sad. "Jocelyn married your best friend?" He nodded, his face sad, remembering the horrible day. It was one of the worst of his life. "Yes, but that's not the point. Valentine was a cruel, evil person, but not everyone thought so. You see, the main aim of the Circle was have the laws that kept peace between downworlders like you, me and your brother, annihlated and all downworlders hunted like demons." Rebecca gasped, grasping the implications of his words in an instant. "I was Valentine's second in command. But when I was bitten and I discovered my Lycanthropy... The first time he saw me after he discovered what I was, he handed me a knife and told me to kill myself... because it was the honorable thing to do." Rebecca gasped. "That's horrible! Did you leave after that? Where did you go?" Luke grinned, remembering what had happened after. "No. No, I didn't leave."
It had started to rain. Simon hadn't stepped outside yet, he stood in the doorway, staring out across the street at the bright coloured cars and yellow taxis flying past on the road. Where would he go? Behind him, he heard footsteps, then "Simon, Simon, wait!" His mom hurried up beside him. "Simon, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean what I said. You'll always have a home here, no matter when, no matter what you are. So will you, so will your sister." He looked at his mom. She reached up and hugged him. "No matter what, you will always be my son."