Waking up early is always bad. Waking up early in a forest with no idea how you got there with blood on your lips and in the body of a wolf, is worse. We're talking not even on the same scale here. Right, deal with the situation. First, look sternly at the wolf and stop him trying anything else. Good. Second find out whose blood it is. Deer, could be worse. Finally find out where the hell I am and how to get home. Now that could be difficult.
I shifted back to human and the darkness leapt in at me, I couldn't hear, I couldn't smell, the full moon shining above did nothing to illuminate the forest, only define the shadows. I panicked, leapt to my feat and banged my head on an unseen branch.
"Ow!" The cry echoed through the forest, reverberating through the night. Then came a howl from far off to my left but too close for comfort. Then another came from my right, seemingly in answer. In the howls I heard words.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes, between us. Meet there."
I started running, desperate to get away from the voices in the night, crashing through the undergrowth and stumbling into trees in my haste. The wolf berated me for making all the noise, for leaving such an easy trail. Eventually when I heard footfalls behind me I surrendered, and let him in.
I shifted back into a wolf, dropping on to all four as my hair and teeth grew. My head span as all my senses quadrupled. There were two wolves were following me, but by some miracle I had run downwind of them so I could smell them, but they couldn't smell me. The wolf started running whilst I was marvelling at the wolf's nasal abilities, padding softly as the thick fall of autumn of leaves would allow.
From behind me came the sound of two human voices echoing through the trees.
"Look here sister, he has run in Hisau until now and has only just changed to Urhan."
These were human voices not wolves, I paused, ignoring the wolf's cries to continue.
'No,' I whispered to it, 'I need to see them'. I swapped back to human and climbed a nearby tree. I waited in the lofty branches hoping to catch a glimpse of my pursuers who both howled and talked. In case you hadn't guessed I had a hunch what was following me.
Two people, a man and a woman walked under my tree, both looked strange in the half-light of the moon; their faces were too sharp, more primal than you would expect. The man looked down sniffed the air then looked straight at me; I saw his teeth bared, sharp and most importantly with fangs.
Werewolves.
A great feeling of relief washed over me; I no longer had to face this alone. The wolf reacted differently. Seeing them as a potential threat it barged its way in adding teeth, claws and about thirty pounds of muscle. No one ever said wolves were smart. The branch creaked ominously, and then snapped, flinging me down onto the two werewolves; I thought 'at least they'll break my fall' as I plummeted through the tree, branches whipping my face. They didn't, I missed them by about three feet and hit the ground hard, cracking a rib; I mentioned before that we are hyper regenerative, 'fast healing', so cracking a rib is not too bad, but that doesn't stop it hurting, a lot.
My pressing medical problem wasn't helped when the man put his foot on my back.
"Lad, we don't want to hurt you. Just change to Hisau and we can talk about this like men." For some reason he found this joke funny and let out a little snigger that looked very much like a snarl.
"Change to what?" I replied raising my head out of the leaf mulch.
"Turn into a human dear boy," he said, looking disappointed that no one had got his joke. I changed back slowly losing first my claws, then hair; de-pointing my teeth and loosing the extra muscle.
"Thank you," said the man after taking his foot off my back.
"Who are you?" I asked as I got up from the dirt, brushing dead leaves from my clothes.
"First things first, take a seat," he gestured at two logs set opposite each other. We sat down facing each other, the woman sat down next to him.
"Right, now we are seated we can get on with the introductions. We know your name Matt so no need to tell us that. I am Eldalo the balancer, and this is my sister, Lucy the spirit stalker."
"Okay Ed, Loo, I just have one question. What the hell is happening to me!"
"Please, Matt relax," he replied. "You are a warrior and we understand, but first and this is important how long is it since your first change?"
"About five months," there was a sharp intake of breath from Lucy. "Why?"
"It's unusual to say the least," Lucy chimed in. "Most werewolves go mad with rage in two weeks." He voice had a musical quality which somehow reminded me of a wind chime.
"I credit all success to my punching bag." I snapped back with a click from my growing teeth.
"Indeed," Ed said patiently. "Anyway I have a proposition for you, we would like you to join our pack."
"Gang?"
"Pack. We are The Lost Mysteries, made up of mostly Ithaeurs, or at least we were, but recently we have fallen on hard times." A tear fell out of the corner of his eye.
"Ithaeur who are they? What is this gang 'The Lost Mysteries'? Why have I never heard of it?"
"Matt please, come with us to the next meet and all your questions will be answered. If you do want to come we'll take you, or you could stay and try and figure it out on your own." He rose to go.
"Ok," I said. "I'll come. Maybe someone there can help me deal with the wolf."
"Who?"