Dark Moon Brother
Part Ten
The Werewolf's Tale
Elias proved himself to be a most interesting dinner guest. His obvious refinement and upper class manners endeared him immediately to Grandmother, who conveniently forgot all about Wolf's earlier "rudeness" to her. Why, she was just delighted to have such an esteemed (and wealthy) businessman at her humble table, she announced. She fawned all over him, which made Wolf laugh and Virginia look ill. Virginia had met them at the door, the relief on her face all too apparent as she held onto Wolf tight enough to bruise ribs. He had kissed her all over her face, whispering in her ear.
"Shh, beloved. Don't ask any questions just now, please, not in front of Grandmother". She looked at him with curiosity, but held her tongue as the old lady came scurrying forward. Wolf stepped away and made an introduction of sorts.
"Dearest Grandmother, Virginia, this is my friend, Elias. We just met, by accident, and I invited him to dinner. I hope that's all right?" Wolf smiled sweetly at Grandmother, but she had already assessed Elias' rich attire and gold cufflinks as being worthy of her dinner table. Elias lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it in a gentlemanly fashion, before turning to Virginia and bowing to her.
"Ladies, it is a great pleasure to meet you. I beg your forgiveness for my late intrusion" he said smoothly. Wolf saw Virginia studying the man intently, but she smiled eventually, evidently assuming that such a cultured and well spoken fellow would present little threat at the dinner table, at least.
Now, they sat around the dining table after a substantial lamb roast (well, not quite as substantial as Wolf would have liked, he thought, tempted to gnaw on the bone). Virginia had fetched Cub from the bedroom for the meal and he had been staring non stop at the stranger for the past hour. Virginia could feel him straining to crawl over the table and sniff the man, but she held him firm for now. Wolf might appear to trust this Elias, but Virginia wasn't so sure just yet. She tried to distract Cub by offering him the bone to chew on, which brought exasperated sighs from both Wolf and her Grandmother. She studied the man unobtrusively. He was not a half-wolf that she could tell from looking at him, yet he had many of the same mannerisms that Wolf had; the darting eyes taking in every little detail, the constant fidgeting with clothing, she had even seen him sniffing at Grandmother in the way that Wolf learnt another's scent. It was intriguing to say the least. She could barely concentrate on making small talk with the man, when all she wanted to do was bail him up and find out the truth. Finally, the meal had ended and Virginia had helped her Grandmother totter off to bed. Virginia suspected that Wolf had filled up the old lady's wine glass a few too many times. Ordinarily she would have assumed that he wanted her to sleep deeply so that their boisterous lovemaking would not wake her, but tonight it seemed just as important that she not overhear a certain conversation. It had taken quite a few more glasses than Wolf had realised though, as the old woman was well reknowned for her ability to hold her wine, laughed Virginia to herself as she cleared away the empty bottles. The men had moved out onto the back terrace and she joined them there, bringing coffee, and warm milk for Cub. Wolf was singing a wolfish lullaby to Cub in the wolf tongue and Virginia was surprised to catch a glimpse of tears in the stranger's eyes as he watched. She settled herself on the divan and Wolf sat down on the ground at her feet. A wide awake Cub toddled off to dig up Grandmother's pot plants.
"Virginia love, Elias is a werewolf". She laughed before she could help it.
"A werewolf! Oh sure, right! Good one" Virginia reached down and ran her hand through his thick black hair. He turned to face her, but his own expression was so earnest that she found herself hesitating.
"It's the truth, Virginia. You can see it yourself in his mannerisms. It was he who made the wolf marks on the tree. Plus, he spoke to me in the wolf tongue. And I can tell when someone lies to me, you know I can! Remember, I once said that I thought these people must exist, and now, I find that they do!" Virginia found herself studying the man again. He was leaning back against the railing, and he smiled sadly at her.
"It is the truth, Miss Virginia. I wish now that it wasn't. I have tracked you down, not just because I wish to tell my tale, but because I need your help. I wish an ending to this, affliction. It has become as a curse to me. But, in the beginning, it was not always so". He moved slowly towards the other divan and settled himself into it. Virginia could see him mentally preparing himself. She decided to put aside her doubts for a moment and hear what he had to say.
"Twenty years ago I was a much more impulsive and reckless man than I am today. I suppose most of us could say that about ourselves. I was a student at the time, living a life well supported by my parents, in Paris of all places. It was a family tradition to attend a boarding school there. I was in my final year when it happened. It was summer break and two friends and myself decided we would take on the countryside, so we packed up our sleeping bags and bottles of wine and the like and hitchhiked our way to the far north of France, not far from the border. It was our plan at the time to hike a little known trail that lead through the mountain passes, coming out at a small alpine village which was filled with, we were assured, beautiful young maidens. It was the thought of the untapped wealth of female company that perhaps lead us to disregard the cautions we received at the start of the trek.
"Do not cut corners! No short cuts! Stay on the trail! Keep to your plan and don't travel by night" the village elders shouted at us as we shouldered our packs. It was just the most typical of horror story warnings that made the whole situation seem absurd to us, but then, we were young men, unassailible in our confidence in ourselves. So, off we went, and the trail lead deeper and higher into the mountains than any of us had gone before. The days were warm and dry and the nights cool, the moon progressively lighting up the forests more and more each night. One morning, as I went to fetch water for tea, I saw a man staring out at me from the trees. A small statured man, wiry and thin he seemed, with a pale face and wild unkempt hair. I thought him a beggar, or at worst, a thief come to plunder our camp site, so I tossed a river stone in his direction, not forcefully, but as a warning that I had seen him. He laughed at me, and I grew angry.
"Begone, thief!" I shouted at him in French.
"Oh no, it is you who should begone, spoiled cubling!" he shouted back at me, in perfect English. I stooped then to fetch another stone, but when I had looked to see him again, he was gone, vanished. I went quickly to the spot where he had been, but there was no sign, no footprint. I almost thought that I had imagined the whole thing. We had after all been drinking quite a lot every night around the campfire. I returned to our site and roused my friends, but I did not tell them about our little visitor, thinking to avoid their doubt and ridicule. We had gone on only a few miles that day when one of my companions, Joel, went down heavily after tripping on a fallen log, causing much bruising and soreness, and much cursing on his part. It was decided that we would camp the rest of that day and night to give him time to recover. Afternoon passed to night and the moon rose full in the sky as we lit our campfire and told tall tales about how many conquests each of us would make with the village maidens. As the evening wore on, I began to feel an unusual sensation, like many eyes stared at me from the darkness of the trees. It made my skin crawl. My friends had by this stage passed out drunkenly near the fire and I supposed I felt much the same way. I wanted to clear my head of smoke and wine, so I don't know whether I was stupid or brave, but I got up and walked away from the fire. Almost straight away I heard stealthy sounds, like some animal creeping about nearby. I heard heavy breathing, panting almost, like a dog. I strained my eyes to see through the gloom, but even though the moon shone full, I percieved only shadows. Then, one of the shadows moved, swiftly, silently it slid to the side, as if to circle me. It was behind me now, and I turned to see it pass in front of the campfire, it's monstrous sillouette visible for a split second only. It was a wolf like shape, only three times the size of any wolf I had ever seen in the zoo. It's limbs were oddly put together, it seemed to me and it moved awkwardly, as if unused to walking on all fours. I was stricken with fear at the sight of the thing. I was frozen to the spot, unable to move or even shout a warning, as the creature turned back now to my sleeping friends. Straddling them both, it worried at their jackets until Joel awoke and seeing the huge creature bent over him, screamed in terror and began to beat futilely at the thing. But he never had a chance. It savaged him, right there in front of me, ripping out his throat and cutting off his screams with a sickening crunch of bone. My other companion, Pierre, didn't even wake as the monster rolled him over and tore into the back of his head"
Virginia shivered as Elias paused in his tale, covering his face with his hands. She looked for Cub, seeing that he had made himself a nest out of pot plant soil and was curled up in it contentedly. She craned her neck to see Wolf's face in front of her. He seemed rapt, and strangely, he looked almost aroused. She wondered if hearing the stories of other gruesome kills was stimulating to him in the way that people gathered around car wrecks. Or maybe he could just visualise the whole scene better than she could. Had he ever killed someone like that? Would he tell her if she asked? She settled back again, shivering once more as Elias cleared his throat to continue.
"I ran. My feet finally released me, and I ran. No thoughts entered my mind, not of cowardice, not of my dead friends, nothing, only, run run run. I didn't look back, but then I didn't need to to know it was following me. It bounded along easily, just at my heels, and I heard it laughing in a gurgling, growling manner. How I knew it was laughing I can't say, but I knew instinctively that this was no ordinary unthinking beast pursuing me. For miles I crashed unheeding through the mountain forest, till my legs and lungs began to burn, my muscles cramping up in agony. Finally, I could go no futher. I stumbled heavily, crashing into a tree, skinning my face and knees and breaking my collar bone in the impact. I managed to twist myself around, pressing my back to the tree as I sat slumped on the ground. The monster stood but two feet away and it towered over me now, standing easily on it's hind legs. It's eyes glittered in the moonlight as it stared down at me. Then, it threw back it's head and howled, but it was no wolf howl that I had ever heard, beacuse mixed in with it, I was sure that I heard a man's voice, a scream almost. It hurt my ears, it was so loud and I closed my eyes, sure that I would not want to see whatever it planned to do to me. A silence fell. Nothing happened, so after a minute I peeked. The thing was still there, only back on all fours now. It's breath was foul on my face. It's eyes were wild, and yet, I caught in them some inkling, some measure of awareness, an intelligence. The teeth of the thing were huge, the major ones being several inches long and blood still dripped from them. I think I found some last reserve of courage then, I don't know where from, and I glared at the monster and spat upon it. I turned my face away in contempt, and I heard it laugh one more time. I never saw the strike, only felt it. The teeth sank deep into my shoulder, crushing it, and the claws scored my chest. Then, just as I took what I believed would be my last breath, it was gone. The weight left my legs and I scrambled upright, staring wildly in all directions. Gone, disappeared. I bent over, vomiting, gagging. I felt of my ruined shoulder, my fingers probing the deep puncture marks. I stumbled away through the trees, fully expecting to be set upon once more. I was in shock, I didn't understand why it had let me go, but I didn't really care then, as my eyes beheld the far off twinkling off lights, shining out from the village. I was incoherent, babbling nonsense by the time I collapsed on the first doorway. The next thing I remember, I was lying in a bed in a strange room somewhere, and it was morning. A woman bent over me, speaking soft French and I passed out when she touched my wounds.
Later, when I woke again, I was alone in the room. My thoughts were jumbled still, my memory foggy. The door creaked open, and I half expected to see Joel and Pierre come bumbling in, but it was a small, disheveled man. I stared at him, my mind taking several seconds to tell me just when and where I had seen that face before. The strangest thing was, that although he stood clear across the room, I could hear his heart beating. I knew it was his because my own was pounding along in alarm and his was calm, measured, as unconcerned as he looked, in fact. I lay there thinking about this extraordinary thing and he smiled secretly as if he understood.
"Those who cannot hear will never understand" he said cryptically, though I knew what he was referring to. He stirred and came closer. He peered closely at the wounds and I did not draw away.
"You should come with me now, boy. They have sent for your family. You do not want them to find you yet. I have much to teach you. We should go, now" he said simply, as if getting up out of a sick bed and walking off with a complete stranger was an everyday occurance. He tugged at the bedclothes impatiently. Even though I had no intention of going anywhere with anyone, for some reason I found myself on my feet, swaying only slightly. I was not even half as weak as I would have been expected to be given the obvious blood loss I had endured. My torn shirt was soaked in it. Someone had bandaged the bite and scratch marks, and I drew my shirt on over my head with little difficulty. The small man looked me up and down with something akin to pride in my accomplishments.
"Good! Come along now, boy" he said coaxingly, and once more I found myself following his soft directions without any concious decision on my part to do so. I felt hypnotised, and in hindsight I realise that that is exactly what I was. He led me out of the house and we went immediately to the rear of the place, jumping the small fence and crossing a small meadow to reach the treeline. I tramped along uncaring as he took me deeper and deeper into the forested mountains, coming at last to a tiny cave where he had set up a rough camp, with fireplace and some old blankets and the like scattered around. He boiled water whilst I sat nearby on a log, staring listlessly at the ground. I was not really paying much attention, so it was several minutes before I saw the pad marks in the dirt at my feet. They were huge, like dinner plates, unmistakeable as belonging to the creature that had attacked me the night before. I felt my body contort in terror as the memories flooded back with a vengence. I found my voice at last.
"You, you, it's you, the thing, the monster, it's you. Oh dear God help me, someone help me!" I screamed, raving on and on. He came towards me, but the spell was broken and I recoiled in horror, scrabbling backwards in the dirt, trying to escape. He looked both heartbroken and angry at the same time and he caught up with me, placing a foot down over my throat, firmly enough to hold me and not so firm as to choke.
"Oh yes, boy. I am the one. Not for many years have I had the misfortune as to cross the path of humans under the full moon. It was me, but it was not me. Do you understand, boy? Your friends are dead, they will never be found. You are changed now, boy. I have marked you so. You feel it already, don't you? Now, mourn your human brothers, but do not mourn for yourself! You are now part of a very exclusive club. You cannot go back, but, there are compensations, you will see!"
"Let me go, let me go" I whimpered.
"Soon enough, boy. But first, to survive, and to have others survive you, you must learn your new nature, your new limitations. Then, you may go, take whatever place in society you choose. You will be powerful, gifted, none will deny you what you want" He released me, and I lay there, defeated, yet knowing even then, the truth of his words. I was different. I could feel it in my veins. And, over the coming weeks and months as I dwelt with him in the mountains, I began to rejoice and revel in these changes. I was far stronger physically, faster, more agile. I could hear the heartbeats of birds high in the trees above. I could smell out and identify the scents of deer, sheep, human. I possessed a far greater capacity to focus and concentrate and an almost sixth sense of impending danger or windfall. It was an intoxicating feeling and it grew more so as the full moon came round once more, and my mentor, whose name I never learned, guided me through the painful process of the Change, taking me far far away from any human habitation. Together we ran through the night, two huge beasts, hunting, stalking, bringing down the prey that would feed us. I lost myself in those full moon nights, no memory nor awareness filtered through. It was something that would develop over time, this awareness, he assured me, but at the very beginning, my wildness seemed a small price to pay for the gifts I received. I have to laugh now when I think of how innocent I was then, how trusting that all would be well with my life.
Some months later, he let me go. He was old, crippled almost with arthritis and growths. He wouldn't last another winter, he said, yet he refused my offers to set him up in more comfortable surroundings.
"Ah no, it is better this way, for me, maybe one day for you too. But you are young now. You are strong and resourceful. You have within you the best of two species, and, the worst also. It is up to you to manage yourself. But remember, boy, do not be fooled into thinking that love will change what you are, what you will do, who you will hurt"
And so, I returned to Paris a Changed man, an enhanced man. My family, having given me up for dead, rejoiced, and believed every word I told them about my 'amnesia' and my stay in a 'health farm'. But my brother, my Peter, who, you must know, Virginia, was one of the priests who captured your mate, he did not believe my story. He came to stay with me in my Parisian house and we grew close again, as we had been when we were young boys, before distance and illness had separated us. He knew me, and loved me, as no other had. He saw through my deception, spent hours studying my new ways and habits, until finally, in a drunken moment, I confessed to him what I have just told you now. It was a foolish mistake. He had grown as pious as any man I had ever known.
"Elias! Are you telling me that you go along with this, affliction, willingly, that you embrace such a thing? Can you not see the damnation of your soul? You, you, tell me now that you are, you have, the blood of wolves running through you? How will you answer to God for this thing? How will I, as I love you?" Peter had broken down, sobbing on the floor, yet as I went to comfort him, he drew away as if burned. "Don't touch me! Stay away! You, the one I always looked up to, how could you do this, how can you live like this?" And so he continued to rave, and no amount of my explaining, my protests, could ever sway him from the idea that I was a damned thing, destined for the pits of hell, whether I willed this thing on myself or not. It was a devastating thing for me, this loss of my brother. He left me soon afterwards to return to America, where his devotion and single mindedness no doubt led him far in the world of the Church. He wrote me many letters over the years, condemming me always, yet even in later years, when I reached out to him in sorrow and loss, he refused to see me, and we never spoke again.
And so I went on to build my fortune, using my gifts to judge, influence, focus on and strategize the businesses I founded. I built for myself a fortress deep in the Canadian mountains, for use during the moon times at first, and now, I live there almost the whole time. I gained a great love, and lost it. Over the years, I have grown more wolf like in my habits and thinking, learning even those few words of the lupine language, but I have become as a lone wolf, and I am tired of it. I long for the company of both human and lupine, yet I remain a lethal danger to both. And so I am alone. Now, the one person living who knew my story is dead, and when I learned from my wolf friends the manner of that death, almost I could not believe it. I had to seek you out, to know you. For in all these years I have never met another of my kind, not one. At first, I thought that the tales of you, Wolf, were wrong, the descriptions didn't match what I knew to be the way of myself. And the stories you told the wolf folk, of a wondrous and magical land where you were born, and would return to, ah, I could not resist taking the risk to track you down. I do not, and have never had, the beliefs of my brother, yet I cannot but think that this is meant to happen, for me. Perhaps I will be given a chance to redeem myself, to return to myself, untainted once again. I know of no cure for myself, but, my heart tells me that in a land of magic and mystery such as yours, one may be found"
Virginia wiped the unshed tears from her eyes as Elias collapsed back weakly into the cushions, clearly drained from his recountings. Wolf had crawled up at sometime to lay his head in her lap and she could see that he was as moved by Elias' plight as she was. Wolf stirred a little and cleared his throat.
"You have not told us all your sorrow, Elias" he said softly, and Virginia understood what he was referring to. A great love gained and lost. She wondered what had become of the lover.
"It is true, but I beg you, I cannot...please"
"No, don't do it to yourself, Elias. We are not that cruel to make you" Virginia answered for both of them. Wolf cleared his throat and looked to Virginia, meeting her gaze, asking the unspoken question of her. She nodded her agreement and he kissed her palm, before turning back to Elias.
"Tomorrow, when we go back to our home, you will come with us. We cannot promise that anything can be done for you, friend, but as you said, magic is strong there. Things that would be considered miracles here are everyday occurances there. It will be worth a try though" Wolf said firmly. Elias looked up, stunned at the offer.
"You mean it? You'll take me with you? Truly?" he stammered, and this time real tears fell, coursing down his cheeks. Impulsively, Wolf leapt up and hauled the other man upright, crushing him with a bearhug. Virginia smiled to see them, and a curious Cub had joined them now, wanting to know what all the fuss was about.