Decadence .:. Part Two
I know I screamed, long and high and loud. I know I frightened all the small forest dwellers that had the temerity to sleep during this abuse. But no one came; no hero to rescue me. I wasn't all that surprised, I reflected in that small part of me that was detached from the carnage that Sean was wreaking upon my body. The park was a dangerous place to be by night, frequented only by hoodlums and the homeless, so they said. And why should they come to my aid? They wouldn't want to become part of the mess.
I kept thinking, letting that tiny part of myself float away from what Sean was doing to it. I looked up, up at the great white shining mass of the moon, losing sight of everything but its glow. Did I not mention the fact that it was a full moon? It was, full and round, more captivating than I'd ever seen it. Distantly I felt pain in my body but it could not compare with the pull the moon had on my senses. I barely felt it when Sean bent over my neck to bite through to the large artery, and I can only remember it now because he partly blocked my view of the moon. I could feel my body go cool as my blood was sucked into him and drained onto the earth, and that seemed right, to match the feeling of the moon. I don't know how I managed it, but I lifted my right arm towards the light, even though my fingers felt like they were weighted with lead.
I reached for the moonlight like you'd reach for a lover. I wanted it, I needed it, and I would do anything to have it. And in that moment of acceptance, I felt it. Such power as you could never imagine, human, for I certainly could not have when I was among your ranks. It filled me, such rightness that I believed in fate for that span of moments. My body bucked against Sean's, despite blood loss and the large hole in my chest, and I had a taste for what humans call orgasm. For I had been a virgin, by virtue of several relationship failures and simple old-fashionedness. It is different among the loucarai.
In that moment when it seemed I would indeed reach the moon, Sean jerked away from me. Maybe he was finished, maybe he decided he didn't want to get clocked by my flailing fists. I felt stronger than I ever had before, and somehow I knew I was healing. I sat up and spread what was left of my shirt from my stomach. It wasn't whole, but neither were my intestines showing through the gash that was closing even as I watched. I laughed, smiling, turning to look at Sean as he gazed back at me with something approaching confusion.
"See something you don't like, Sean?" The voice coming out of my mouth didn't sound like me. I couldn't place it, but it didn't bother me when I had all this power to explore.
"Your eyes...I--" His vision took over mine for a moment and I saw as he did, saw my normally brown eyes glowing a pale green, saw something hovering over me like a great cape. I felt his heartbeat, thundering along, pulling mine with it, and I broke away. I pushed at him and his hold broke. I didn't know what I did but I used the power unthinkingly, and laughed with the joy of it.
His voice brought me back to myself. "I've never seen it take someone so fast. And you are already so strong. I cannot be here. You will tear us both apart." He spoke with the odd conviction of the mad, and just like that, he was gone.
I could feel his heartbeat fading, the pull dimming as he ran away. He ran away, and I laughed again. I'd chased him off, with just these first stirrings of power. But suddenly it ceased merely stirring and bowed my back with such force I feared Sean had been right, that I was tearing myself apart. A hunger began to grow inside me, something that somehow I knew would become insatiable. Just as quickly the spasm faded, while that dark shape that I had seen with Sean's vision was sucked into me. I looked at my hands, seeing nothing, but feeling all the same a prickling, a sensation of something moving underneath my skin. I stared at my fingers, then a wrenching shudder shook my body. I clenched my hands and howled with pain. Not a human howl, you understand. It always begins from the inside, the change.
It hurt. I remember that so well. Yes, breaking every human bone to reform in the shape of a wolf. That is what happened that night, my body remade itself in pain. I tore my clothing in distress. From the tiny needlepricks of fur to the aching of my jaw as my teeth became fangs, I remember everything in excruciating detail. It's true, this agony only persists for the first few changes. Once your body realizes the mutation, your metabolism speeds up and all your systems become more efficient. Healing becomes instantaneous, and the change happens quickly.
Quicker, perhaps, is the better word. The first change could not have taken more than a minute. But when you feel agony everywhere, a minute is forever. But with the completion of change comes the cessation of pain. It is almost overwhelming, at first, as is the acuteness of the senses. Coping with the feeling of a new body coupled with the increase in perceptions is difficult. Perhaps that is why, after a few moments of disorientation, a new loucarai will always run. Movement is instinctual, and I gave myself up to it. The darkness underneath the trees was nothing to my eyes, grey shadows holding no danger. I could smell the path Sean took, and avoided it. There was power in every step, but only one need: I had to hunt.
There are few deer in the park, really. It is a suburban park, not far from downtown. But the acres around it are among the last to fall to civilization, so I was lucky. Some of the new ones are not so fortunate, and take one of you. We always know, and take pains to keep our secret. Perhaps it was fate that guided my paws to the tracks of a deer.
I confess I remember little about my first hunt, and indeed, most of us do not. I found the scent and ran. Apparently I tracked the deer close to the clearing where I lost my humanity, for I awoke, in human form, among the bushes about the edge. I learned later that it is difficult to hold the wolf shape at the beginning, as well as remembering the actions. The brain does not accept, at first, that its body is no longer human, and cannot keep the shape. Later it is the reverse, as staying human becomes a burden.
It was near dawn, the first streaks of red coloring the sky. I was nude, covered in blood, and I couldn't care less. I was so tired, I don't think I would have moved even if Sean came back. I was sated, gorged on the carcass I could smell behind me, and I relished the taste of the blood still in my mouth, which I promptly spit out. Following that was a rather messy but totally involuntary purging as my brain persisted in thinking it controlled a human body. When that was over, I curled up in a fetal position, too exhausted to do anything else. It was then, with my new senses, that I heard footsteps.
My human brain tried to remind my body that it was unclothed and that I should find some cover. But truly, I was unable to move, too tired and too sore to care who saw me thus. The footsteps were still rather far away, but I could smell the person with my augmented senses. I had the random thought that whoever saw me would think I was some feral child, sniffing the air like the wolf I could become. But something wasn't right about this person; I didn't know what, but it did not smell like Sean, nor like the lingering presence of humanness that I could smell on myself. I was too new in this unknown world where I was a fairy tale to know what that smell represented. Perhaps I wish I had; certainly none of what has happened since then would not have, but for this meeting.
I let the person get closer, not because I was curious (I was, very) but I was curled in a ball. Let him (I knew it was a him, somehow) think I slept. I wasn't sure what I would do to him in this new body if he tried anything untoward. He came up slowly, and I could tell he knew I wasn't asleep. I opened my eyes in startlement when his voice came from just above my shoulder; he had crouched at my back, covering the last feet between us in silence, unheard even with my greater auditory abilities.
"You must be new," he said with a chuckle. His voice sent shivers through me, made the air cold enough that my skin pebbled. I knew then he was not like what I had become, but certainly not human. What flavor of otherworldly I would not learn until later. He covered me with fabric, some sort of long trenchcoat by the feel of it. I finally gained the courage to turn my head and look at him.
My first thought was darkness. He was dark, darker than me, black hair tumbling around his shoulders, his skin tan. But the tan seemed pale, like it was translucent paint on his face. But then I saw his eyes. They were deep, deep hazel, dark pools that shifted from the color of fallen leaves to pale spring grass. In that look he asked me to do anything for him, and I would have. I sat up, wrapping the coat around me, so I could be closer to him. I could look into those eyes forever, and then he blinked. He shook his head as if ridding himself of his own enthrallment. "I'm sorry. It's too late for me to be here. I can't control it that well."
Control what? I almost asked. But his look stopped me. "This was your first night, right? It must have been, with the full moon. Did you want this?" he asked.
It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about, but then I knew. The change, had I asked for it? "No. He--no. He said I knew, but I didn't. It was nothing like that. God, what am I going to do now?" I put my head in my hands, not caring if the coat gaped. I let myself think the tiniest bit about what had happened to me. No longer human kept running through my head. How would I survive this? I'd hunted and liked it, liked the taste of blood on my tongue. The shape I took was glorious, and so dangerous. And what about school?
The last thought was so out of place that I had to give a strangled laugh. Here I was, a newly minted werewolf, and I was worried about grades. The man at my side hesitantly touched my arm, probably wondering if I was sane. Hell, I wondered.
The man forced me to look up at him with a finger to my chin. There was no pull to his eyes now, eyes that seemed so human compared to what mine had looked like in that glimpse I had from Sean. Just changeable hazel eyes that looked on me in concern, and just a bit of fear. "God, you're strong. You reek of power, and you're new. Maybe that's why 'he' ran away. But you've got no one, hmm? No one to show you the ways of the loucarai," he said, almost sad.
"Loucarai?" I asked.
"Werewolves," he supplied helpfully. And thus I knew what I had become. "But I think I know a group that can help you. It's the closest pack, anyway. All this raw talent you've got, mustn't let you go crazy with it," he said.
Like I could. I caught the unspoken thought somehow. And suddenly I could feel him, feel his power in my head. He was strong too, whatever he was, and it was like fire and gas: put them together and you get an explosion.
And then he was gone, out of my head. He was shaking his head again, like he'd done something wrong. "I'm sorry. Really. It's new to me too. And it's too early in the day for me to be around someone like you." He reached for the coat, grabbing a pencil and an old receipt from a pocket. He wrote something down, and handed the receipt to me. "Here. This is the address where they meet. They'll be there this morning, to make sure all the new ones come back. They'll be able to help you."
He stood up, bracing his hands on his knees. "Keep the coat; you'll need it to get to the house. The police have arrested a few of the wolves for indecent exposure," he said laughingly. And he took a step away, as if to leave.
"Wait," I said, voice hoarse. "What--who are you? Why'd you help me?"
He smiled back at me, his changeable eyes glittering in the early morning sunlight. "You were too pretty to leave alone. And I could feel your power long before I saw you. We may just meet again, my young wolf. But for now, I must go. Enjoy your new world." He reached out a hand and pulled me to my feet. Suddenly we were face to face, and for a moment his eyes went deep and compelling like before. He leaned in and kissed me, gently, but I could feel, no, smell the desire he held in check, and my knees went wobbly like he was touching me with body parts other than his lips. I was suddenly very conscious of being naked underneath his coat, but then he broke the kiss with a choked laugh.
"Yes, little loucarai, I should like to meet again. But some other time. I must go." He caressed my cheek once, and quickly moved back to the treeline. From the shadows, still deep under the trees even as dawn moved down their trunks, he said, "My name is Darius." And he was gone in the moment it took to blink.
Darius. I stared after him as if I could see where he went. Was I going to be able to disappear like he had, like Sean had? I shook my head. Better not think of that now. I glanced down at the slip of paper in my hand. The address wasn't far, close to where I'd been last night (last night? had the party only been last night? how much had changed since then). I began walking, but soon broke into a run. I didn't want to be walking through the forest, I wanted to run, damn it, run like I should be: on all fours. But I realized that would be a bad idea in broad daylight. So I settled for a brisk trot, not even noticing the rocks or asphalt underneath my bare feet.
It took much less time to reach the house than it should have, and I bet there were early birds who wondered where I was going in such a hurry. It was a simple brownstone with a wolfshead knocker. How appropriate. I walked up the steps and was about to use the knocker when I felt the roil of power within. Den of wolves anyone? I screwed up my courage and knocked, the hammer sounding much louder than I expected, echoing through the house.
The door opened, and I nearly tripped backwards on the steps. "Welcome home, loucarai," Sean said.
Copyright ©2003, Jennifer Shew