Mutant Enemy Television, Inc. owns pretty much everything within the Angel/Buffy universe. My use is in no way meant to challenge any established copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned or any other copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.
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V – Not All Fun and Games
The increasingly familiar jangle of the bells above the Magic Box's door announced Janna's arrival, and she fought to suppress a smirk as she glanced around the showroom. At least a dozen teenagers, just released from the institutionalization of the first day back at school, were looking around, marveling at the unique wares that had already become so familiar to the Slayer.
"Hey Janna, did I hear you work here?" Danny Boyd called out from all the way across the room. Janna nodded and laughed as Danny held up an intricately carved elephant's tusk. "Is this a sex toy, or what?"
"Sort of," Janna lied, deciding to ham it up in front of her peers, "but unless there's something you've been holding back from your girlfriend, I don't think it's right for you."
"Oh yeah? Why's that?"
"It was meant to be used on guys," Janna joked. Danny looked down at the phallic horn in his hand and visibly paled as his friends started to laugh at him.
"Seriously?" he asked, though Janna wouldn't have been able to hear him if she hadn't already been walking over.
"No, it's for warding off evil spirits," she told him. "It's from Sri Lanka, actually."
"Janna, can you work the register?" Graham asked as he joined the small group. She nodded and walked away, not bothering to listen to her boss suggest that maybe Danny not be so casual with a two hundred dollar piece of merchandise.
The next three and a half hours passed quickly, and before Janna knew it closing time had come. The last two shoppers – both single women looking for love potions – finally checked out, and Janna started to go through the day's receipts.
"I can get those," a familiar voice said cheerfully behind her.
"Thanks, Clem," she muttered as she turned to face the loose-skinned demon. She'd almost killed Clem the first time she saw him, but after assurances from Xander and a distrusting nod from Graham indicating he didn't like Clem but was willing to let him live, Janna decided not to drive her shiny new stake into the demon's chest. She had been happy with her decision ever since. Not only was Clem one of the most friendly people (or whatever he was) Janna had ever met, he also had a taste for chicken wings, which just happened to be one of Janna's favorite indulgences. Now if I could only get him to sit through Moulin Rouge!…
"Don't thank me," Clem responded. "Xander's orders – you gotta go into the back and do some research with him."
"I'd rather do the register," Janna grumbled.
"So would I," Clem answered with a devilish grin. He immediately set to work counting out the money, having to restart several times as the folds of skin on his hands caused him to lose count.
Janna trudged gloomily towards the back, dreading the sight of musty old tomes that Xander thought might be useful. She knew the cause for the latest study session – she'd told Graham all about her encounter in the woods the previous night. Now it was time for stodgy old Xander to have her read until her eyes were crossed.
"How long is this gonna take?" she asked as soon as her gaze settled on the stack of at least a dozen books sitting on the weathered, English oak table in Xander's private library.
"Better call your mom," Xander advised. "If you saw what I think you saw, this'll take some time if we're gonna get it right." Janna was halfway back out the doorway when Xander added ominously, "And we have to get it right."
The phone call was quick and easy, just as it always was. Janna told her dad that she was going to bone up on the books so that she had a better idea of what all the merchandise was. Just to be safe, she also added that Xander had stopped in again and would keep an eye on her. Mentioning Xander was almost like a cure-all for any suspicions her parents ever had. About a week after Janna had started working at the Magic Box, Xander had gone in to "inspect" her workplace, ostensibly to make certain that she was in an environment that would be conducive to her gaining responsibility and maturity. He'd delivered his supposedly professional opinion that The Magic Box was the ideal environment for her. Not only did it offer her the opportunity to socialize with her peers in a setting where she was expected to behave as an adult, but the demands of learning about the store's wares would require hours of quiet study. Her parents had seen the logic in it, and were only made that much comfortable by Janna's job when Xander started stopping in after-hours to make sure that she was being challenged without being overworked.
Once the comparatively pleasurable task of calling her parents was finished, Janna trudged back to join her Watcher and find out what hellish threat she had to destroy that week. Xander's nose was buried in a book that Janna guessed weighed almost as much as she did. A thin cloud of dust seemed to rise every time the young Watcher turned a page, and Janna found herself searching for the smallest, lightest book in the stack that Xander had assembled.
"How long you have?" he asked absently, looking quickly from the sketch Janna had drawn to the intricate illustration on the yellowing pages. That was one thing Xander had said almost immediately – he was grateful for Janna's far better than average artistic ability. He claimed it made research much easier than it had been with Buffy, whose drawing skills seemed to go no further than stick figures and the occasional smiling sun.
"I have to be home by midnight," she told him. "I guess I could sneak back out later, though, if you need me to."
"Not until we're sure what that was. There's usually no surer way to get killed than to rush into battle with an unknown foe."
Unable to debate the wisdom of Xander's statement – and reluctant to argue for a position that would cause her to lose precious beauty sleep – Janna went to work leafing through one of the books, pretty much limiting herself to looking at the pictures. It didn't take her long to deduce the topic du jour – werewolves. Makes sense, she decided. If there are really vampires, then there just have to be werewolves, too.
Silence reigned for almost half an hour before Xander knocked Janna out of a daydream about using her Slayer skills to win a tennis scholarship in college. "This look about right?" he asked. Janna's eyes settled on a sketch of an immense, pony-sized wolf that had cornered a man holding a particularly nasty looking spear.
"Yeah, that looks about right," Janna assured him. "So what is it?"
"You're sure, right?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Xander stared at the picture for several moments, his lips trembling slightly as he seemed to be murmuring unspoken thoughts. Finally, he looked up at his Slayer. "Okay, here's the thing," he explained. "Doesn't take a genius to figure out that you ran into a werewolf out there."
"Already figured out that much," Janna responded. "Big, scary wolves acting like they have some semblance of intelligence. Not exactly rocket science, boss."
"I guess not," Xander agreed. "But here's the thing. See, there are actually lots of different types of werewolves. Different breeds, slightly different behavior and sometimes even different weaknesses."
"Such as?"
"Well, some breeds are violently allergic to silver," Xander explained. "Like how in the movies, you need three silver bullets to kill a werewolf."
"Yeah, I've seen that."
"With some breeds that's true," the Watcher explained. "For some other breeds, though, that would be overkill. It would actually be possible to kill some werewolves just by stabbing them with a silver pen, if it came to that."
"Really?"
"Trust me," Xander assured her. "Usually, one or two silver bullets will do the trick."
"And I'm getting the impression that you're about to use the word but," Janna commented. She knew her luck – there was always a but.
"But that may not be the case here," Xander admitted. "While there are certainly some breeds that are primarily quadrupeds… like a friend of mine from high school, actually… there's only one breed that has these dimensions."
"And that's bad, isn't it?"
"There're the loups-garou vrai," Xander said with a heavy sigh. "And from what these books say – the ones that actually mention the topic, anyway – the loups-garou vrai are supposed to be extinct."
"So what exactly are the loopy grew fry?"
"Loups-garou vrai," Xander corrected. "It's French for werewolf… some of the most basic werewolf stories come from France and parts of the American northeast and Canada."
"Because of French settlers," Janna concluded. Xander nodded and Janna mentally patted herself on the back. "So these are French werewolves or something? I thought werewolves were made when someone got bit. That's what it says in this book here. Didn't know it had to a French guy… though that would help explain An American Werewolf in Paris"
"Almost all werewolves are made when a victim is bit but survives," Xander corrected. "That's not true with the loups-garou vrai – they're born."
"Huh?"
"The word "vrai" means true," Xander explained. "The loups-garou vrai are the true werewolves, lycanthropes that were thought extinct."
"Great."
"It's probably not them," Xander quickly amended. "It's probably just a new breed of werewolf. New breeds appear every now and then, and given the fact that the ley lines just flared, it's more than likely this has nothing to do with the true werewolves. It's just that all of the current information we have points to them, and not to a new breed. Yet."
"So let's just assume that these are true werewolves," Janna suggested. "Really, what's the big deal?"
"Lycanthropy is a curse," Xander explained. "You probably know that already. Every full moon you turn into a werewolf and are consumed with a feral lust for blood. No on is safe from a werewolf's rage – friends, loved ones, and innocent bystanders are little more than a potential snack. Werewolves are cursed either to live out their lives alone, slowly going insane, or to kill everyone close to them and almost invariably go mad."
"Great…"
"Unfortunately, that's not the case with the true werewolves." That surprised Janna.
"But wouldn't that be a good thing? You know, for them not to be crazy?"
"No," Xander groaned. "Let me just start by explaining that only three of the rules that apply to cursed werewolves also apply to true werewolves – first, they're forced to transform into werewolves on the night of the full moon, as well as the nights immediately preceding and following the full moon; second, their bites curse the victim to become werewolves; and third, they're vulnerable to silver. Other than that, all bets are off. They retain their human intelligence and emotional control when they change forms; they can change anytime, at will, and are thus not limited by the moon when it comes to taking advantage of their wolf-man forms; they're nowhere near as vulnerable to silver as their cursed brethren are; they generally run in packs and are anything but solitary; and last but certainly not least, they actually have three forms they can take, rather than just two."
"Three forms?"
"They can be human, of course, and they can also take the wolf-man form that everyone's seen in the movies," Xander explained. "In addition to that bipedal form, they also take a quadrupedal form like the one you saw. It's theorized that the preferences of the werewolf – whether he prefers the quadruped or biped forms – helps determine the "breed" of the cursed werewolf that's created."
"So they're not breeds like the normal meaning of the word," Janna surmised, a part of her finding it almost hilarious that she was following along in a factual discussion about werewolves. "The word just refers to the type of curse that they're inflicted with?"
"Right. When a true werewolf bites someone, the personality and strength of the individual is expressed in the form of the curse. When that cursed werewolf bites someone else, the same exact form of the curse is passed on. Since the true loups-garou were thought extinct, the scholars all figured that all the forms of the curse that were out there could be tallied up and classified, resulting in references to breeds."
"So all we have to do is figure out if any new breeds have appeared in the area," Janna concluded. "If there are, then we found true werewolves."
"Unless, as I mentioned before, the ley lines changed some peoples' curses or something," Xander added. "I just don't know if we have all the information we need."
"I'm sure we'll figure it out," Janna assured him.
"Well, I will, anyway," Xander replied. "You get to work with Graham for the rest of the night."
"Really?"
"Really. We had the L.A. branch ship us a sword today. It's special – has silver laced into the steel. It's also specially enchanted to be especially harmful to werewolves. He's gonna teach you how to use it."
"I get to play with a sword instead of doing research? Cool."
To be continued…………………………………………