Chapter 6: Lycanthropic attack

I am standing in the middle of a forest. Surrounded by werewolves, their howls piecing the night. I'm not afraid of these werewolves because they work for me. They treat me as their leader, because this is my pack. I am no human, but I'm no wolf either. I am both, a half werewolf, with the ability to be a full werewolf, strong enough to lead this pack.

I listen to the howls, and then among them I hear a scream. It's somehow quiet and loud at the same time, it's definitely quieter than the howls, but stands out as if the howls are nothing but soft whispers. I ignore the sound, but then I hear it again, it pieces through all the other noises.

The forest starts to fade. It's just my imagination, the trees elongating and then start fading, the howls of the werewolves becoming silent, and the feel of the ground beneath my feet disappears. I wait a few moments and then open my eyes. The dream wasn't important, but what is it that woke me up? I can't remember what I was dreaming anymore, something about werewolves possibly?

I stay lying where I am for a few seconds. I remember hearing a scream, quiet, but definitely I heard it. The scream woke me up. I wonder where it came from? Are we in trouble? I concentrate for a few seconds. There's no magic in the air, there can't be any demons around. I relax, however surely someone is in trouble. It's dark in my room, but quickly I change my eyes and ears.

The room becomes much lighter, but everything is a dull grey. Dervish and Kirilli are both asleep, and I can hear their breathing perfectly. Then I hear the scream again, it's quiet, but to my ears it's rather loud, and it's coming from a different room.

I jump out of bed. Quickly I put on my clothes and rush to the door. Suddenly I feel pain in wrist. I look down to see a cut where I felt the pain, it's not bleeding much, but it hurts, and I wonder how it happened, it's very recent. Damn! I must caught it on my nails. I look down at my hand, my eyes straining to see, or ... claws perhaps? Yes I have claws. "Have you got a problem wolf?" I mutter to myself, "you want to get out?"

I growl to myself. It must be close to full moon, my wolf half it stronger during this time of the lunar month. Still however, it's fully under my control, allowing me to shift between my two forms, and stay anywhere in between. I hold my hand out in front of me, and stare at my claws in concentration. Come on! Contract! Rather stubbornly they slowly shrink, and are replaced with finger nails.

I hear the noise again. Quieter than before. It sounds like someone talking in their sleep; no, not talking, moaning about something, like someone having a nightmare. Well, it's the room next to this one, so... it's Bec.

I guess it's to be expected she'd suffer from nightmares, after everything she's been through. I pause with my hand on the door handle. Should I really go to check on her? Surely she'll be fine, but ... she sounds like she's awake, and she sounds like she's suffering from something. Maybe I should go and see if she's ok. Hasn't she woken up Meera? No. She's still rather quiet.

I open the door and step out into the corridor. I take a few steps to her and Meera's room. I pause at the door for a few seconds. Staring at the grey door, a rather bright grey. I can hear her, it sounds like she's struggling with something. What could it be; now I'm driven by curiosity as well as concern.

I open the door and step in. I can her now, she's struggling, as if wrestling someone, but there' s no one there. Meera is still asleep on the other side of the room. I stare at Bec, maybe she really is just having a bad dream. She looks asleep, but she seems to be struggling, quite literally. She's putting a lot of physical effort in. She'll wake up more tired than she was when she went to bed.

She's currently sitting up, and she's acting like a python has wrapped around her and is trying to crush her. She moves her head slightly, and I can see that her eyes are open. She's awake.

I take a few steps towards her; I'm quite curious and concerned now, what's wrong with her? She keeps moving around, in her desperate struggle against nothing. She jerks from side to side, and every now and then grabs onto the sheets so hard she looks like she'll rip them. Her movements are in waves of spasms.

I look down at my hand. At the small cut on my wrist. Caused by my own claws... claws. I didn't means to have claws, it happens because the moon is close to full. It's during the time of the month when the lunar power is strong; the influence over those with lycanthropy will be increased.

My eyes widen in understanding and I drop my arm to my side. I look at Bec, I understand now. She's suffering from the curse. She's turning into a werewolf.

"Bec!" I say loudly in realisation. She's fighting against the wolf. I rush to her side, and she looks up when she hears my voice. I hear the breathing of Meera change, she's woken up. Bec looks at me, her face full of concentration, "Grubbs," she says.

I hear Meera shuffle, her breathing increases in pace until it's normal. She'll be able to hear Bec now, I wonder if she'll work it out straight away. "Bec?" I hear her say, "what's going on?"
I rush to the wall and turn the light on. "Argh!" I complain instantly. The light it's so strong it hurts. My ultra sensitive lupine eyes are stinging under the strong light.

"Grubbs?" I hear Meera say. My eyes get used to the new light conditions. I look at Meera.
"Bec's turning into a werewolf." I say. Meera still loos confused, she looks like she's irritated at being woken up. "What?" She asks.
"Bec. She's turning into a werewolf!" I say, loudly this time, and then regret it, realising we're in a hotel, and shouting werewolf, is not a good idea.

After a few seconds Meera seems to be understanding what's going on. I look at Meera, fear creeps into her eyes. "You think she's changing?" She asks, looking at Bec. "Get Dervish now!" Says Meera too loudly.

I rush back to my own room to find that Dervish is still asleep. Typical of him to sleep through all this noise. I glance over to Kirilli, he's asleep too, well, I might as well let him sleep. I focus on Dervish again and nudge him slightly, and he rolls over. I'm about to roll him of the bed when I pick up the change in his breathing pattern. He's woken up.

"Grubbs?" He asks, sounding a little bored. He's not facing me, he's lying face down, but he knows I'm there. Who else would wake him up in the middle of the night. Then again, not even I would do that, he must know something is wrong.

Dervish rolls over so that he's facing the ceiling. It's dark in here, the lights in the corridor and this room are off. However Meera's room is open, and the lights are on in there. So there's a little illumination. "What is it Grubbs?" He asks calmly.

I consider what to tell him. I don't want to give him too much of a shock, might give him another heart attack. However I'm not sure what can shock Dervish, certainly not an invasion of demons. So werewolves wouldn't be any trouble. Though, it's a werewolf attack that caused him to have a heart attack in the first place.

"Bec's turning into a werewolf!" I exclaim. Dervish continues to stare at the ceiling as if he didn't even hear me. He frowns "What?" He says, not posed as a question.
"Bec! She's turning!"
Derbish says nothing for a few seconds. "She's becoming a werewolf?" He asks, sounding concerned this time.

I hear a quiver in Kirilli's breathing pattern. Great, now I've woken him up too.

"Yes!" I say, this time I'm getting impatient.
"Has she already changed? Is Meera ok?" He asks worried.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "She hasn't changed, she's fighting off the transformation."

"You what?" Asks KIrilli. I guess the fragments of conversation he just heard don't make much sense on their own. Am I going to have to explain the situation to another half asleep person. "Transformation? What are you talking about?" He asks again.

"Oh," says Dervish "so she hasn't changed." There's only the slightest glimmer of relief in his voice. He jumps out of bed and walks calmly over to the wardrobe. "you say, she's fighting off the curse?" He asks as he puts on dressing gown. "Just like you?" I think for a moment. I suppose so, I fought of the curse... well at least in the end I won... a few times I became a werewolf.

"Wait, wait!" Says Kirilli loudly "are you just going to ignore me? What's going on?"
"Bec's turning into a werewolf," I say simply.
"Whoa, what!"
I think I'm just going to wait for Kirilli to get over it, and wake up.

"Yes," I say "I think so. Dervish closes the wardrobe door and then he pauses for a moment. He seems to be concentrating on something. "Yes" he says, and then his eyes widen "I can hear her!"

Dervish hurries out of the room, and I quickly follow him. He pauses at the door to Meera's room. "Ah, I see what you mean, she's fighting the curse."
"Yes." I say in agreement. Though I can't see properly because you're blocking the doorway.

"Dervish!" Exclaims Meera, as we walk into the room. "What's wrong with Bec?"
"Grubbs, shut the door," orders Dervish and then he turns to Meera "she's suffering from lycanthropy."

"Right." She says uneasily. I already told you that! I think to myself, does it only count coming from Dervish. "She, looks like she's having an epileptic fit," she notes.

Dervish walks over to Bec. "Bec?" He asks "can you hear me?" She shows no sign that she notices anything. "Bec?"
"I can hear you." She says in a quiet voice.
"Ok, now I want you to concentrate, don't give up, if you can fight it, you can beat it."
She nods.

The door opens, and we all turn, but it's only Kirilli. "Close the door behind you," orders Dervish. Kirilli closes the door rather absent mind idly and focuses on Bec. He looks fascinated and scared at the same time. "What's happening to her?"

"I've already told you!" I say impatiently.
"Well, how long does it take?"
"It's not that Kirilli," explains Dervish "she's fighting the transformation. Think of Grubbs, he has full control. Bec is fighting back."

"You can do it Bec," says Dervish quietly. Bec it still struggling, it looks like the wolf keeps momentarily taking control of her body. She takes a few deep breathes. "It's... strong," she says.

Bec stays in the same state for twenty minutes. Dervish and Meera are keeping her arms pinned down. Earlier she lashed out. For a few moments I thought that was it for her. That maybe she'd lost the battle. However she regained some more control. She's shaking uncontrollably though, that's why Dervish and Meera are trying to keep her still.

I'm reminded of my fight to keep control of my own body when the lycanthropy kicked in. At first it was a real battle, a complete struggle. However soon after; I discovered my true power, I unleashed the magic that I hid away within myself. Some of it, resurfaced when the wolf came. When my full power resurfaced, it was stronger than the wolf, and the wolf subsided. Now I have full control of my body. When I was pursuing the lambs, completely surrounded by werewolves, I unleashed the wolf, but kept my mind the same. Well, almost the same.

Bec's been the same for twenty minutes, and it doesn't look like she's going to change, in either direction. She'll probably be like this for an hour, maybe more, hopefully less. Seeming as she's not going to change at all I could go back to bed but... I'm too worried. I should stay here, it would seem wrong to go to sleep when Bec is like this. Everyone else is staying up, even Kirilli, but there's nothing much that we can do, other than sit and watch. And It's not a nice thing to watch.

Dervish has dealt with this before, when I was turning into a werewolf. He knows what to do... I think, I'm not sure what he can do. It's not something anyone has any experience in. There are two options when this opens. There' Lord Loss, which is definitely not an option, then the lambs, which is also not an option. Besides this is different, those two options are available when someone turns into a werewolf. Usually when someone suffers from the curse, it's final, 100% fatal. I'm an anomaly, and so is Bec.

"Dervish?" I ask, "is there any spell we can use?"
"Do you know any werewolf suppressing spells Grubbs?"
"Dervish!" Cries Meera "this is serious!"
"No doubt about that, I was making a point. To my knowledge there is nothing else we can do. Remember Grubbs, the roots of this curse lie with demons. The only magic that we know of, that can combat this transformation is from Lord Loss. We do not have such power ourselves."

"I think..." stammers Bec "I have it... under... control." Then she bares her teeth in a grimace and shudders again. "But... it's so strong, this is so hard."
"Just keep fighting Bec," advises Dervish "you can keep it back."

"So how does this work?" Asks Kirilli.
"What do you mean? I presume you're asking about the curse?" I ask in return.
"Yes, I mean, people don't just suddenly change?"
"No, they do. That's the way it usually happens, people just suddenly change, usually in their sleep. At first it's just a mental change, the mind goes first, and that's usually accompanied by increased strength and speed. Then, in subsequent months some physical changes start happening. In a few months, they become fully werewolf during the full moon and previous nights. After a few more months though, they don't change back."

"But Bec hasn't suddenly changed."
"Yes Kirlilli, we know. She's fighting it back with magic."
"Can all mages do that?"
"I don't think so, I'm sure a few werewolves happened to be mages as well, if anyone else had managed to fight off the curse, no doubt the lambs would know about them."

I'm hoping that Bec will win this fight. It's not just blind hope either, I'm sure she has this under control. Perhaps if she was going to change, she would have done so by now. Of course the wolf is constantly attacking her, wearing her down. But I think Bec can keep up the fight.

The moon however is... not full yet. So tomorrow will be even harder for her. The wolf will attack with more power. I wonder if she will win in the end? Hopefully she can win the warwith her curse. It'd be a bitter end for her if she doesn't. All this fighting against the demons. We have defended several cities, and just closed a window in the desert. Bec has killed several demons, enjoyed so many victories. It'd be an ironic bitter end to succumb to the curse; the demons would then have their cunning subtle victory. In the very end, they would win, their ancient curse would prevail.

That can't happen, she has to win. I won, so why can't she? Though I know the answer to that, I'm a magician, that's why I can control my form. Bec is a mage, but a powerful one, close to my power, maybe more, most likely less. She is a mage from the past, they were more powerful, is that because of the magic in the air? Was there just more magic to use? Or were the mages themselves more powerful.

After several minutes, Bec starts to recover. Her jerky movements slow down, and then come to a stop. The uncontrollable shaking subsides. The expression of concentration leaves her face, and the fear drains from her eyes. She lets out a sigh and then leans back, resting her head back against the pillows.

I think she's asleep, but then she sits up and opens her eyes, "It's gone."
"You beat it!" Says Dervish.
"I thought, I was going to lose."
"Well, you won," I say with a smile "but..."
"It'll be back." She finishes for me.

She stops and thinks for a moment. "What happens if I change?"
"You'll change back." I say.
"But what happens, to my mind. I've seen a werewolf before, just a feral creature, no more than an animal."
"You won't be conscious... when you change back, it'll be like waking up after a dream."

"OK, Grubbs," says Dervish "let's keep things light. Hopefully you'll fight off the curse completely. If not, we'll get you cage, eh?" She smiles weakly at his sense of humour, which I have never grown used to.