“We watched the humans always, watched as they grew stronger, but we didn’t know what to do when they chose to follow the Weaver rather than their mother, Gaia. Finally, we decided to cull them like the cattle they were then to us. This was the beginning of the Impergium. The horror the early mortals witnessed left them with an instinctual fear of us, and so to protect itself, their mind wouldn’t let them remember seeing a Garou in its war form, Crinos. We call this the Delirium, and though it does give us some protection, it is also harmful to humanity.
“Soon, and a bit through the actions of our tribe, the Impergium was ended, and the Garou split up to guard their own tribe’s kin in all corners of the world. There were originally sixteen tribes, but now there are only thirteen. One bravely sacrificed themselves to defeat a major creature of the Wyrm, one fell at the claws of other Garou, and the third one fell from grace and became corrupted. You’ll learn about the others later, but for now, know that you’re a member of the Children of Gaia, and we’re the peacemakers and diplomats of the Garou Nation.
“Just as Gaia created us, her sister, Luna blessed us with her touch. We call that an ‘Auspice’, and it’s the moon phase one was born under that defines their roll in Garou society. I’ll explain all that later, but Rose tells me that you were born under the half-moon, which makes you a Philodox, the judges of disputes and such. In exchange for this, we can be hurt by Luna’s element, silver. All the superstitions about werewolves being vulnerable to silver are absolutely true, never forget that.”
I nodded as we turned into the parking lot of what looked like the kind of lodge you’d see at a summercamp or something. It was made in the look that I like to call ‘pretend Indian’. The building was pretty big, and was right up against a line of trees that, once the headlights shone through them, were really the beginning of a thick patch of woods. A few other cars were in the lot, and it looked like inside the lodge, lights were on and people there.
Rick and I got out of the car and headed in. The inside was just as I expected it would be; a few doors that probably led to small rooms off to the side at the front and back of a large hall, and an enormous moose’s head mounted on the wall at the other end. The whole interior was done in wood, and a couple mammoth logs were roaring in the fireplace. Actually, it felt really warm and friendly once you got past the intimidating size of everything. Man, the decorator must have had real bad self-esteem problems.
“Where are we?” I whispered to Rick.
“Moon Bayou Caern.”
There was a group of what looked like about fifteen people standing over by the fireplace where an older, very dignified seeming man was sitting in a large leather chair. Rick started to walk over and motioned for me to follow. As we reached them, the quasi-crowd parted, and we were left staring at the old man. I kind of felt like I was in audience with a king or something.
“Ah, Rick, so this is the pup you were telling us about?” the man said. His long hair was shockingly white and pulled back in a ponytail, and the lines on his face creased into a scowl when he spoke. Whoever this guy was, I didn’t get a very positive feeling from him.
Rick went down on one knee. “Yes, my lord. This is Jean Rawlings, newly Changed Homid, Philodox, Child of Gaia.” I gave a little nervous hi-hello wave. “Jean, this is Lord Pytor Surtekov, Homid Theurge of the Silver Fangs, leader of the Sept of the Burning Dawn, Ritemaster and Regent of Moon Bayou Caern.”
Lord Pytor nodded as Rick ran through each of his titles, then held up his hand for silence.
“When did you Change?” His deep voice bore a trace of a European accent, and from his name, I was guessing that it was Russian.
“Um, about two days ago,” I replied, suddenly afraid that I was standing or acting the wrong way or wasn’t dressed right.
“Hmm, I see. Rick, you’ve got three days to instruct her before the Rite of Passage.”
My friend rose from his knee. “My lord, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Jean has been contracted into the employment of Rose Archer,” Lord Pytor snorted, irritated, but said nothing, “who asks that the girl not undergo the Rite.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that the Regent growled lowly. Some of the other people, fellow Garou, I presume, were mumbling under their breath and whispering to each other.
“Such arrogance!” he finally roared, pounding one of the armrests with his fist. A lot of the crowd started, and most flinched or backed a step or two away. Call me crazy, but something told me that I was in trouble.
“But sir, Dr. Archer says to tell you that after Jean is trained, some of the tasks she will be required to aid in will be quite dangerous, surely an equivalent to the Rite of Passage.” Wow, Rick really was good at this diplomat stuff. His manner, tone, and even grammar had changed a great deal from how he was in the car, and Lord Pytor seemed to be buying it.
“Is that so?” Or then again, maybe he wasn’t. The massive man stood, towering well over six feet, and, hands clasped behind his back, slowly paced back and forth in front of the fire. After a few minutes of this, he turned and addressed us.
“For as long as this caern has stood, it has been a haven for us, a bastion of hope against the Wyrm. We Garou have been here since time immemorial. Mages have not. Yet, more and more, I see those foul, pompous followers of dead totems doing as they please in every city on every part of Gaia. Here, in New Orleans, I must sit and fetch like a dog so as not to incur the ‘wrath’ of Dr. Archer and her ilk. Idle hands are the Wyrm’s tools, and the sorcerers force us to states of inaction.
“Young pup, you have been born into a world that will startle and amaze you, but it is also one that can kill you. We, here, are your blood, breed, and family. We are Garou, mighty, proud warriors, and Gaia’s chosen favored children. How could you think to forsake your kin and kind to run with twisted alchemists who sneak magic in the night?”
Lord Pytor looked at me with such a noble, inspiring stare that for a moment, I was left wondering at my stupidity in following Rose. In truth, I didn’t know what to say. Yeah, the leader was right in that I was the same as them, but it had also been Rose who found me, and went to all the trouble of getting me out of Swell Hill and bringing me here. For that, at least, I owed her more than she could ever imagine.
“B-but sir, Rose’s done a lot for me and she doesn’t seem to be evil or anything,” I stammered.
“Do you presume to tell me that you, a pup not even a week old, knows more of the world than I, a Silver Fang elder?” thundered Lord Pytor.
I cringed, and some kind primitive instinct took over, leaving me kneeling before the man. The disapproving stares of the crowd forced my eyes to the floor in front of me, and I didn’t dare say another word.
“My lord, if you would just consider…” Rick stepped in, but was cut short.
“Silence!”
I swear, his one word shook the building, and in an instant, everyone else was down on their knees, heads bowed. All of this was really strange and scary, and I was beginning to not like being a Garou very much if this is what you had to go through all the time. Next time I’ll have to just keep my big mouth shut.
“It seems that you, like the rest of your pitiful tribe, won’t stop whining until you get your way. Fine, do as you wish, I cannot stop you. However, understand that until you complete your Rite of Passage, you will never be thought of as a full and proper member of this caern, sept, or any pack that you might join. I give you leave to continue your course of employment with Dr. Archer, but you will report weekly to me on your actions there. Is that clear?”
It took all my will just to summon an answer, and even that was just a whisper. “Yes sir.”
“Rick, it’s up to you to make sure she doesn’t cause any problems for us, do you think that you can handle that?”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Good. Out of my sight, both of you.”
Looking up, I noticed that most of the others were standing, so Rick and I did likewise. He put his hand on my shoulder and guided me away from Lord Pytor, but I couldn’t resist one last look back as we walked out the door into the New Orleans night. The whole night had really gone badly, and I didn’t know what to think or even say. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be a werewolf.
“Look, Jean, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea or anything,” Rick finally said, “Lord Pytor is a bit, well, I want to say insane-out-of-his-head, but that would be disrespectful, you know?”
“That was just weird, Rick. There’s nothing else I can call it.”
He unlocked the car and we both got in. “Remember, that was just one elder at one caern. Not every Garou is like him, and there’s a lot more that I haven’t told you about yet. I know that your life has been literally turned upside-down, but please give all this a chance.”
I sighed. “It’s not like I have a choice, but I promise that I’ll try. Here’s what I want to know, why was Lord Pytor so uptight about mages?”
“I’m not sure, I think he’s just paranoid like that. Don’t let him scare you though, I once worked for Rose myself, but I don’t think he knows.”
There was silence in the car as we turned back onto the highway headed, as far as I could figure, back towards the city. Actually, I kind of liked driving around at night. Back in Swell Hill, Vespa would always insist on me being in early, but sometimes I was tempted to sneak out and go voyaging around at 1:00 in the morning.
“So, now what?”
“Well, for tonight, I’m taking you home, but in the long run, now the fun starts,” he replied.
Rick was right; the next month was what I’d call ‘Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About the Garou But Were Afraid They’d Rip You To Bits If You Asked’. He started right where he said he would with teaching me the five forms and how to control my shifting.
I’d already discovered the three main Garou forms; Homid, which was my regular human seeming, Lupus, which was me as a wolf, and Crinos, the war-form, or as I’d called it, ‘the big n’ hairy combo’. In Crinos I was a nine-foot, all muscle, man-wolf fighting machine, and for some reason, that really made me feel great. There were also two ‘half-forms’ that Rick told me about; a huge wolf, and a huge man, Hispo and Glabro.
Rick also taught me about the Litany, a kind of Ten Commandments/Code of Honor that the Garou followed, although he cautioned me that certain parts had become lax since antiquity, and that not all the tribes followed them in the same way. I made it a point to write them all down and memorize them, as I figured a good diplomat should, but some of them I didn’t think made sense, though I didn’t say that to Rick, who discussed each in intricate detail.
Next came a lesson on the Garou Nation and society. Rick ran through the tribes, but it was confusing, and there was a lot to remember. Finally, he told me not to worry about all them now; I’d get to know about the tribes as I gradually met them. What he did explain greatly was the right of the Silver Fangs, the ‘elite nobles’ of us, to rule. If they were all like Lord Pytor then I was ready to defect right then and there.
There was also a radical, feminist, all-woman tribe called the Black Furies, and they maintained a shelter for battered women in New Orleans. Rick promised me that he’d take me by there to meet a few. He warned me about the Black Spiral Dancers, the remains of a once-proud tribe who had fallen to the Wyrm and become one of our strongest enemies, as well as our greatest failure. From the way he described these twisted aberrations, I prayed I’d never have to see one, let alone kill it, the ‘singular duty of any Gaia-loving Garou’ according to Rick.
Looking back, I really liked learning about the tribes and such. It was like a whole world-within-a-world, populated by different peoples from different places, all with their own culture and view. But then, it took my tribe to force them to work together. Even more, it made me feel accepted here, like I was a part of something, a member of a nation, the Garou Nation. Rick told me that Lord Pytor would probably be putting me through the ringer over all of the stuff I didn’t know, and so to be prepared to take the brunt of his anger over my education.
We got back into the cosmology of the Garou, and I got a better explanation of what Rick meant when he told me that I was a ‘Philodox’. Depending on the phase of the moon at the time of your birth, you were ‘cast’ in a role secondary to your job as a Garou. The Ragabash, the trickster, was the new moon, the Theurge, the mystic, was the crescent moon, the Philodox, the law-keepers, were the half-moon, the Gilliard, the singers/poets/storyteller, was the gibbous moon, and the Ahroun, the warrior, was the full moon.
All of this sounded like something out of a Dungeons & Dragons game, and joking around, I asked Rick if we got wizard spells as we went up in level. He winced and told me that was a pathetic way to refer to what he called ‘gifts’, magical abilities that werewolves are taught by spirits. How much they teach you depends on how respected you are, or how much renown you’ve earned. Man, all of this sounded like one of those dice games that some of my friends were always playing, but I had to make it sink in that it was real life.
Every night, Rick and I would sit in the library of the Archer Estate until near dawn, and as the time went by, the whole of the world seemed to unfold before me. The existence of spirits was easy to take, but when my mentor explained to me that there was a separate plain of reality that they lived on, I thought he was lying, or at least exaggerating a bit. This place, the Umbra as he called it, he didn’t talk that much about, promising that once my tactical training was done, we’d go there.
For the most part, the next month went smoothly, and began to feel that I made the right decision in coming to New Orleans. Rose was usually busy, but when I did see her, she asked how everything was going and to tell her if there was ever anything wrong. Thus far, I’d managed to avoid having to spy at any serious degree on the magely goings-on of the chantry, but each time I reported to him, Lord Pytor was less patient, quicker to anger, and it took more from Rick to calm him down.
I mostly spent my free time in my room reading or surfing the Internet. At first I’d hung out a lot with Remy, but Candy put a stop to that, and by that time, they were officially a couple. I’m not quite sure what Rose thought of it, but whenever she wanted to watch the news and they were in there ‘charting the human genome’ I heard her mutter to herself.
One night, before I was to come before Lord Pytor, Rick picked me up early, and we drove to the woods near the caern. Curious as to what we were doing, I got out of the car and stood looking at the wonderful, old growth trees that surrounded us. Rick opened the trunk of his car and lifted out something wrapped in black cloth.
“Here, I want you to have this, Jean.” The cloth came off and a large shining sword, covered with carved runes, shone in the beam of the headlights. Seeing it like that, it made me think of midnight in a Middle Eastern Market; the elegant blade was extraordinary. “It belonged to my mentor, and became mine after he died. I have a klaive that I earned through my Rite of Passage, so I give this one to you.”
Gingerly, I picked the sword up and swung it a few times. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like this before. What did you call it?”
“A klaive. It’s a sacred sword forged of silver; that means you must be careful not to cut yourself. There’s a powerful spirit of bravery bound to it, so be sure that you honor the spirit by using the klaive honorably in battle.”
“Wow. Thank you, Rick. N-no one’s really given me anything like this before.”
He grinned and shrugged. “Ever since my mentor was killed, I’d been waiting until I had a cub to teach, and I could pass it on. Besides, we’re supposed to go before Lord Pytor tonight, and I’ve been hearing that he’s been off-the-wall lately. Even if he won’t acknowledge you as a full Garou, he has to honor the fact that you have a klaive.”
“All this, all you’ve been telling me, what if I can’t remember it all? Some of it’s running together and blurring, and I just know he’s going to ask something I don’t know, there’s just so much!”
Rick folded the black cloth and tossed it back into the trunk. As he walked around to the car, he put his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. Remember that no matter what happens, no matter how much shit you have to take because of it, Rose’s protection will prevent Lord Pytor from doing anything to hurt you. Besides, you’ve got Rick the Great on your side.”
I got into the car as he started up the engine. “Is that your title?”
Again, he laughed. “Naw, I made it up. I’m pretty much the only Garou who thinks I’m great with a capital G.”
“Rick, what do you think about Rose and the mages? I mean, they obviously don’t work for the Wyrm, so why can’t I associate with them?”
Only silence met my question. I watched the road-signs as they became bright from the headlights, then faded away into the night. Sometimes I’d wonder about darkness and light. Darkness was a lack of light, but could it be said that light was only an absence of dark? No, because light must come from somewhere, and darkness has no source.
“It’s difficult.”
“Huh?”
“Our tribe believes that all the supernaturals should work together to survive the Apocalypse, but that isn’t the opinion of the Garou nation as a whole. It’s not a good idea to ask me where I stand, because…well…there’s a lot involved.”
“Oh.”
I let the matter drop. That was one thing that I definitely didn’t like about my new life in New Orleans; everyone seemed to have secrets that everyone else knew, but no one talked about. At that point, I would have given anything for Rick to have just driven the car into the swamps and let that have been that, because I really didn’t want to go head-to-head with Lord Pytor again. He loved to feed off a crowd, and I knew that tonight he’d be sure to have all of his yes-wolves by his side. Damnit, didn’t he have better things to do than making life miserable for a cub?
“What do you mean you can’t name all the totems associated with the noble Silver Fangs?!?”
“Please, Lord Pytor, you didn’t tell me that I needed to know that! If you just give me another week…”
“Another week, another week, you sniveling little weasel! You refuse to learn the ways of our kind and consort with the enemy. Now you dare to wear a klaive?”
I felt the tears rising. So now he was going to take away what my mentor had given me; why couldn’t I be back in Pennsylvania doing my homework?
“It’s Grim-Fang’s klaive.” Rick had stepped in front of me.
“Oh, is it? Why don’t you tell your little cub just how Grim Fang died? I’m sure she’d love to hear it, right everyone?”
All the others sneered and started talking. Rick looked at Lord Pytor desperately, then stared hard at the floor. He swallowed, rubbed the back of his neck, and finally faced me.
“Grim-Fang, my mentor, was killed by a mage.”
“W-what?”
Lord Pytor rushed in while the crowd around us fell to snickering and gossip. “So, you want to ally with the very enemies who brutally slaughtered your friend’s mentor? That makes you a traitor!”
Everyone was looking at me, and a buzz started in the back of my head then overtook me. It was all I could do to stay standing. “No! You’re wrong! Just because one mage killed one Garou a long time ago doesn’t mean that Rose or Remy or any of them are evil!”
Before I knew what had happened, the massive Silver Fang leapt and hit me savagely in the face. I fell back against Rick, nearly senseless. Through the tears, I saw Lord Pytor coming. He pushed Rick aside, and threw me to the floor. Now everyone was laughing, and no one would do anything to help as he hit me again.
“Now, you little shit, you’re going to go on your Rite of Passage tonight! What do you have to say about that?”
The blood tasted sour through my teeth. “You…can’t…make me.”
“Don’t play games with me!” he roared, and swung to nail me again, but gave up mid-swing. “I could kill your precious mages, and you know I could. In fact, I could kill you any time I see fit.”
“R-rick…?”
“Do it, Jean. Do what he says. He’s right, the mages are not our friends, they just use the Garou. I…I was wrong to let you stay with Rose all this time, and now I realize that you’ll never really be one of us.”
Lord Pytor let me stand, and I was shaking with rage. “You ungrateful asshole! You talk big, but what do I even know about you? First you stuck by Rose, but now that this guy seems powerful, you back him. I think you’re just a coward!”
Rick growled and glared at me, but then looked away. The Silver Fang proudly returned to his chair and began to outline what exactly I was to do.
I hugged my jacket closer, zipping it quickly and keeping one hand on the hilt of my klaive. The night was cold and obsidian dark, though here in the swamps it seemed twenty times worse. What did Lord Pytor mean by a ‘random strike’? I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in this stinking hellhole. Damnit, how could Rick agree with that bitter old Silver Fang? I’d thought that my mentor would be on my side, I mean, he’d once worked with Rose too.
My watch had one of those light-up faces, and it said 10:07pm. Another hour, then I’d call it quits. I’d done what he wanted me too, and now that I thought about it, he could go right ahead and challenge Rose; she’d wipe the floor with him. All of this was kind of useless. To me, the mission read, ‘Go out in the woods and look for trouble.’
Now that I thought about it, if all the tribes united among themselves, then the Garou Nation allied with the mages, we could probably destroy the Wyrm for good. The vampires would have to go with it, no matter what Rose always said about not all of them being evil. I sighed and kicked a loose clod of mud. They had no right to be displeased with me; I was doing my job against the Wyrm, so what if I hung out around mages while I was working? Besides, I owed a lot to Rose for getting me out of Swell Hill and away from Vespa. Still, I reflected, I should probably apologize to Rick for what I’d said.
A sound from deeper in the mire caught my attention, the snap of a twig and an animal-like squeak. I stopped. It was probably just an owl hunting, but I knew I’d be a fool not to check it out. Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have to save the world personally. Breaking through a tangle of stunted trees and bramble, I came upon a small pond. Well, more like an area of the swamps where water had gathered in one place instead of making greasy, gray mud. A baby possum was near the middle, chattering desperately. The poor thing was drowning.
Carefully, I wrapped my hand in my sleeve, no sense in getting bitten by a panicked animal, waded into the water, and lifted the little animal out. The drenched possum clung to me until I got back to the bank where I let it go, and it scampered away into the darkness. Wow, big, brave, tough Garou, saved a baby animal from the clutches of the Wyrm. I sighed again. What I wanted now was to go home, change into clean, dry clothes, and watch TV.
As I turned to go, something caught my eye. Further in, I could almost make out the silhouette of a building or something. Hmm, now I was interested. Perhaps I could cleanse the place if it was blighted. It wasn’t my assigned job, true, but hey, it’s for the good of Gaia. Sloshing through the muck, I got closer.
The building was actually several small wooden shacks set in a circle, all heavily rotted and sinking into the quagmire. Instinctively, my hackles rose. This looked like a place where Not-Good things could happen. Cautious, I shifted to Glabro, and crept up to one of the leaning wrecks. The thing looked like if that baby possum sat on the porch, the whole thing would disintegrate. I sniffed, smelling only the moist-peat stink of the marsh.
“In nominee noctum…” a booming and harsh voice suddenly rang out. Instantly, Crinos.
Peeking around the shack, I saw a large hooded man, standing in the circle with his back to me, arms raised. This certainly couldn’t be good. The wolf in me wanted to leap to attack, but Luna’s grip held fast; better to see what he’s up to first.
“In nominee vermiis…” The mud around him started to stir and boil. Crouching, I made ready to charge.
“In nominee mortis!” Before me, vague, sodden figures rose from the bog. They were humanoid, but that was it. A dull light shone from empty sockets where eyes should be, and flesh hung off them where it wasn’t bloated and pale gray from the water. Their jaws hung slack and the total, absolute odor of decay and grave rot exploded over me. I gagged and threw up.
The man whirled around, then pointed. The automatons stared at me, oh sweet Gaia, they were looking into my soul! For an eternal moment, I was frozen as the vile things came towards me. The space beside me shimmered, and Rick, klaive in hand, in full war-form, leapt from the Umbra. Inspired, I drew my own weapon, but watched in horror as his sword cut clean through one of the things, but didn’t drop it. They had him covered even as his feet hit the ground.
As if in slow motion, he tried to bite, claw, swing; do something, anything to fight back. The Wolf whispered to attack now, try to pick off the ones that were striking the most blows, but there were just too many. Growling madly, I ran into the crowd of them, and Heaven above, what I saw there. The last parts of him left whole were twitching in spasms as his very bones became razor-sharp blades of silver, and smell of searing flesh and fur lodged in my throat. The things stopped, looked down, then all raised their heads, dead eyes trained on me. They began to walk again.
No! Terror…they were coming…had to get away…had to run. Bolting through the foul swamps, assuming Hispo, my fastest form, all that mattered was getting away, but it was like that nightmare where you’re being chased and you just can’t run fast enough. Every second counted…they were right behind me…they were after me! Almost there…almost to the house.
It broke, and amid the splinters of wood that used to be Rose’s front door, I scrabbled for traction on the polished wooden floor, lunging through the front room and diving under a table in the corner. There I crouched, shivering and whining, grateful for the long tablecloth that hung to the floor and would hide me from those…things. Slowly, nothing happened, and I stared at my claws digging into the floor.
“Gentlemen, I do believe my werewolf’s lost it this time. Would you excuse me for a moment?” The unruffled, genteel voice of Rose Archer; I guess she and others had been in the front room as I barreled through. My rationality told me to come out from under the table, but the Wolf knew better…he was gone…they were coming.
“Jean? Are you still under there?” I swear it, the table just flew aside, leaving me unprotected. Remy and another distinguished man were sitting in chairs by the fireplace, and Rose was standing in front of me. Whimpering, I covered my head with my paws; now those rotting things were going to find me!
“Come out, I won’t bite…this time,” Rose’s turn of phrase and wry grin were lost on me in my delirium. I looked up, past her to the gaping hole I’d made in the door. It’s grim maw opened to the blackness of midnight on the bayou. They were out there, they were coming. Fear began to melt, I stood, growling fiercely, bristling, and keeping my eyes on that door. Remy and the older man slowly rose from their seats. He shall not have died in vain.
“Jean, what’s out there?” I heard the mage’s voice in the back of my mind, but Jean was hidden; the Wolf was in charge now. Bad, bad foes, scent of man putrefied, old, old disease, it thought back at her.
“I’ll check it out,” Remy offered, and accompanied by the other guest, he carefully stepped though the splintered wood to look out the door. “It looks clear, we’ll run the parameter to make sure.”
Rose nodded. “Be careful. If there is anything out there, you don’t want to get caught in the border traps it might have set off.”
She knelt down next to me, “Just settle down, if something followed you here, they’ll take care of it,” and brought her hand up near my ears. The Wolf started and snapped, growling louder in warning at getting too close, and backed up a pace from her. Rose stood up quickly.
“We’ll have none of that,” she said, and snapped her fingers. I shifted unexpectedly and was suddenly in Homid. My clothes were damp and mud-covered, and I stunk of the marsh. It took only a second for my body and mind to readjust itself to standing on two feet, and as the last of the terror within me died, I sat down wearily on the floor.
“I d-didn’t mean to bite you…I don’t know why I did that,” I murmured, my head resting in my hands.
“That’s all right dear, you were in frenzy. Besides, even if you attacked me with all your strength, I do have ways of protecting myself. Are you hurt at all?”
“No, I don’t think they caught me.”
“Who was chasing you?”
I paused, trying to think back to the last thing I could clearly remember. Rick, my mentor, the first werewolf I’d ever met, his pieces being ripped at by the decaying corpses while his klaive and disembodied head sunk into the mire. Blood and burning silver.
“H-he’s gone. Dead. They tore him to bits.” The tears began to run down my face before I even realized I was crying. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye, tell him I was sorry.
“How? Who’s dead?” Rose asked urgently.
“Rick.”
A thick silence settled upon the room, and only my sobs resounded through the suddenly empty-feeling house. “Oh Jean, I’m so sorry,” she spoke softly and pulled one of the wooden chairs over to me. I crawled up from the floor only to slump down in the seat.
He was gone. The man who taught me what it was to be Garou, how to shift, how to step sideways; that man fell in the swamps and would never rise. His face, the one that always used to grin cavalierly, had been ripped apart. His body, powerhouse of the Ahroun’s pack, had been shredded and scattered. My chest tightened as the pain of that hit home.
A person was gone. Rick would never again exist. We were still walking, time was still passing, but time had stopped for him. Only the blinding comfort of nothingness was there to claim him, and the same fate awaited the rest of us. What was it like to not have any consciousness? To not even be anywhere to know you’re gone? A candle-flame extinguished, a life ended.
“It was my fault,” I cried, “If I hadn’t been there at all, he’d be here now! If I’d only attacked…I’m a coward!”
“Jean Rawlings, you know good and well that’s not true. Just relax, I can’t help matters further if I don’t know what happened.”
“Well, the leader of the caern sent me out to find minions of the Wyrm to kill.”
“Hmm, ‘Go look for trouble’, huh?” I nodded, wiping away the tears that still fell. “And you chose the swamps?” I nodded again. As she was talking, Remy and the other man came back in, and took their seats again, the former shaking his head when she looked over, and the latter taking a sip of his drink.
“I went east of Leshner, where the bog cuts around in that arc. It seemed like a place where Wyrm-things might hang out.” I guess that’s the hardest part of being a Garou; having to try to explain or justify the vague feelings or vibes you get, and why you acted on that instinct.
“What happened?”
“Well, I was pretty deep in, and I came to this circle of old shacks that looked like they’d been there a long time, because they were all decaying and falling apart. While I was investigating, I heard shouting. A big hooded man was standing in the middle of the circle and summoning things.” I replied.
“What was he yelling?!?” The older gentleman was suddenly paying a lot of attention.
“I don’t know, it was in another language, sounded like Latin, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then these…creatures came up from the mud…” the thought of them brought the memory of the stench back to me and I started gagging again. Ruby appeared from seemingly nowhere and handed me a glass of water, which I drank most of before I could speak again.
“They looked like people, but they were all bloated, rotted, and gray. I think whatever they used to be, they died many, many years ago. Then the guy saw me, and he sent them after. That’s when things get hazy.” I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything about Rick, not yet.
“You stupid animal!” The man shouted, jumping up from his chair. “Why did you go there?”
Reflexively, I ducked my head, trying to make myself smaller, but a soft, low growl fought its way out of my throat. Who was this man to yell at me? I’d been doing my job; it’s not like I woke up this morning and thought, Hmm, should I go out to a club, rent some movies, or go bowling tonight? Nah, I’ll just find some risen dead to scrap with.
“Hey, I’m not an animal!” I shouted back, “I’m a Garou and….” Instantly, any further words froze in my mouth. Confused, I swallowed, and tried to speak or yell, but no sound came out. The man smirked as I desperately looked to Rose.
“Uncle Ryan, I’d kindly ask you to stop working magic on my student,” the mage spoke, her voice dangerously calm. She waved her hand slightly and I felt my larynx vibrate, rendering me able to speak again.
“You ought to respect your elders, girl,” Rose’s uncle spat sternly at me. “You’re getting yourself far too involved in matters which don’t concern you. Go back to your hollow tree in the woods, wolf. This is mage business.”
“C’mon Ryan, go easy on her,” Remy interjected, sipping his brandy and looking the man square in the eyes.
“If it’s got to do with the Wyrm, then it’s Garou business and no one else’s!”
Ryan exhaled in frustration. “This is why your kind are devolving and dying. When will you all get it through your thick, hairy skulls that there is no ‘ultimate evil’? You can’t kill the force of entropy, so stop trying!”
Now this had gone too far. People can insult me, that’s fine; now he was insulting my proud race and our ideology, and that I would not stand for. “What we do is damn important! If we don’t save Gaia then what’s going to happen to all of you?”
“Well spoken,” Rose mumbled.
“Oh, come off it! You all act like you’re the saviors of existence. Well, I’ve got news for you, what you’re doing doesn’t even matter. If this realm is destroyed, then we just move on to a different one; it’s that simple. So you fight ‘big-bad scary things’, so what? Mages have to protect the very fabric of reality, and you just remember this the next time you feel uppity, young lady, you’re just a thread in that cloth, nothing more.”
His words hit me hard. Sure, I knew that Rose and Remy, hell, probably all mages, were tremendously powerful, but there was still a part of me that was glad I was a werewolf. It just felt natural, felt right. Still, I was caught between the Garou and a magic place; the elders were angry because I consorted with mages, who seemed irritated with me because I was, magically speaking, weaker then they. A small fire lit itself within me, a smoldering core of anger. For a subliminal second, I felt my jaws at his throat, my teeth tearing into…
No. I shoved the thought away. Rose was about to reply, and Remy, strangely uninterested in the conversation, was shuffling and re-shuffling a worn deck of cards. Before my friend could get any words out of her mouth, Ryan drained the last bit of brandy from his glass and rose courtly.
“My dear niece, it has been a pleasure as always to be in your company and drink your fine liquor, but I must make my exit. Please do give me a call about those papers next week.” Ryan gave a small, genteel bow and started for the door. Remy stood up as the elder mage passed him, and they shook hands.
“Nice to see you again, Ryan.”
“The feeling’s mutual, my boy. Take care,” he grimaced politely, “and do put those cards away before you end up with some fool’s money.”
Ryan merely grunted in my direction. Rose, who had been oddly silent and pensive, got up to see him to the door. “I do hope that we won’t be treated to the floor show again. Perhaps next time you have company over, you should put the dog out in the backyard.”
My sight went red. I leapt to my feet, but Ryan glared at me and mumbled something as he stepped out the door. White-hot agony exploded from my hand, and a roar of pure fury and pain shook the room. In an instant, however, it was over, and I was standing there, bleeding profusely from my right hand, and looking at one of my fingers, which was lying on the floor.
“What in the name of Creation just happened?” Remy said, staring at me in horror.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Rose, you saw all that, right? I’m not making it up?”
The senior mage, who’d never been one to betray shock, nodded. “Jean, you’re losing a lot of blood, you’d better switch to your other man-form.”
“Huh?” I looked down, and finally realized that the middle finger of my right hand was gone.
“Didn’t Rick or anyone at the caern tell you? Garou can regenerate and heal their injuries,” she said, bending down to pick my severed finger up off the floor.
I shook my head, and too disoriented to argue or question, I shifted to Glabro. The veins and tissue slowly started to close and re-grow. Remy, his usual poise shattered, looked green and paid very close attention to his feet. Rose stepped over and examined my hand.
“Hmm, good, it was above the knuckle, that would have taken much longer to knit. Hold very still.”
Before my eyes, an entire new finger grew, bones first, followed by muscles, the nerves and veins, then the skin. Within a minute, there was no trace of any injury and all the pain was gone. Gingerly, I flexed my hand, the finger moving with the others, exactly as the other one had.
“Wow. I didn’t know I could do that!”
Rose grinned slightly. “I almost hate to tell you, but you didn’t do that, dear. Given long enough, it would have healed itself, but I helped it along a bit. Now, why did you take your war-form and bite off your own finger?”
“I b-bit off my finger…?” I echoed, confused and in shock.
To Remy’s dismay, Rose held up the digit as proof. Remembering the pain, I flinched, and unconsciously clutched my hand, making sure I still had the new finger. “Was that some kind of werewolf insult or something? I mean, man, that was really messed up, Jean,” Remy gushed, sickened.
I was at a loss to explain anything. Rubbing my mouth, I felt blood. It was true, I had done that. Was I going crazy? Things had gotten so weird and frightening in the space of a few hours, and that was just too much. Speechless, I could only look at Remy and shrug.
“Aha! I thought so!” I think that Rose secretly loves to be so quiet that everyone forgets about her, then make some kind of loud, dramatic statement to make people jump. “Remy, Jean, look here,” and she offered the finger. She’d drawn back the skin, and the middle bone, now silver, glittered coldly. “I’m quite displeased with my Uncle Ryan. I feel that it will be quite a while before he’s invited back for a drink.”
“Oh, I see how he did it,” Remy commented, the expression on his face like he was mentally solving a math problem. “And some of Jean’s instinct must have taken over, getting rid of the thing causing the pain.”
“That bastard!” I closed my eyes, fists clenched, and tried to fight the over-powering urge to shift again, find that arrogant asshole, and tear him apart.
“Jean, whatever you’re thinking of doing, I’d remind you to remember just what you’re dealing with. If you made even the slightest aggressive action towards my uncle, he wouldn’t stop until every caern in the state was wiped out,” Rose sighed, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this personally.”
“Yeah.” I sighed deeply and fwumped down on the couch. “It’s just been a long day…night…whatever.”
“Don’t take to heart what he said before. A lot of older mages see themselves as the center of everything, and I’ve learned that it’s just better to let everything roll of your back, and they’ll get theirs eventually.” The woman sat down in the chair vacated by Ryan. “You’ve been quiet, Remy.”
He looked up from his cards. “I’ve just been thinking about what you told us, Jean. Has there been a lot of activity in the voodoo circles recently?”
“Beggin’ yo’ pardon, Miz Rose, but what she said didn’t sound nothin’ like no real voodoo.” Someday I’m going to find out how Ruby just manages to appear out of thin air like that.
“Hmm, yes. Any ideas Ruby?”
“Well, dey’s zombies, no doubt ‘bout it, but ain’t no priest I ever seen just lift his arms and go shoutin’ and done raise de dead.”
I realized that everyone was looking at me. “I heard the man shouting, but he had his back to me. The mud in front of him rolled and bubbled, and after he said the last thing, those…zombies…rose out of the bog. That’s all I remember.”
“Huh. T’ain’t no voodoo den. Sounds to me like mage-ing around wit’ dead t’ings. You best be careful, Miz Jean, dey’s might be comin’ back fo’ you. I gots a friend who knows a lot ‘bout voodoo, much more den me. If y’all want, I’ll talk wit’ her.”
Rose nodded. “Thank you, Ruby, that would be very helpful.”
The woman started back towards the kitchen. “And Miz Jean, de next time you t’ink dat yo’ gonna be comin’ home real fast, you just give a wolf-yell so’s I can open de door and not have bits of it all ova’ my clean floor.”
“I’m sorry,” I called after, and an ‘Um-hmm’ answered me.
“What do you think, Rose? Could it have been one of us?” Remy asked.
I’m pretty sure that she answered him, but I was so tired that it was all I could do to keep my eyes opened and focused. The comforting haze of fatigue settled over me and I let my head sink back against the cushion.
“…should talk with his cabal about it. Hmm, I think we lost Jean.”
“Huh? What? I’m here.”
Rose chuckled, which did not happen often. “Get some rest young werewolf, we’re going to go back to the swamps tomorrow to have a look around. And you, Remy, get yourself home and out of my house. One of these days I’m going to have Ruby chase you out with a broom.” With the same wry grin, she turned and went up to her laboratory.
Remy stood up and stretched. “Jean, I don’t want to pry, but why were you crying when Ryan and I came back in?”
That was a question I didn’t know how to answer. I looked into his eyes, deep and dark; they always reminded me of the ocean at night. Lying to him would be no good, but I still didn’t want Remy to know that I’d been a coward and let my mentor die.
“Do you remember Rick?”
“The Garou? Yeah.”
“I didn’t know it, but he was following me in the Umbra. He jumped out when the zombies attacked me, but they were too much for him, and…” I trailed off, trying hard not to cry again.
“Damn, I’m sorry.” Remy sat down on the couch and put his arm around me. Every bit of grief, anger, and frustration burst its seams, and I rested my head on his shoulder and cried.
The tears kept falling, even though I never used to cry. I was strong when my mother died and silent when my father joined her after the cancer ate him away. The shame of crying in front of Rose earlier was quickly leaving me, and only the core of pain remained. Rick was gone, Alexandria and Walter Rawlings were gone; everyone I’d ever cared about had died and left me. Death wasn’t supposed to happen until old age, right?
“Remy!”
We both started. Candy was standing in the doorway to the front room, glaring at us. “Get off of him, bitch.”
“Hey now, don’t be like that, honey.” Remy stood up and met Candy as she strode angrily into the room.
“He’s mine, you hear? Keep your filthy hands to yourself!” I just stared at her, too worn out to even respond.
“Dear, you don’t understand,” Remy said, turning her to face him. “Jean lost a very close friend…”
“Yeah, I bet she did. What’s wrong, did your favorite flea die?” she cut in.
Remy flinched, probably expecting me to shift and attack, but I just stood and brushed past them, walking towards the stairs. Each step was an effort, for I felt so lifeless and drained.
“Don’t forget your collar,” Candy called after me, and as I reached the second floor, a thick leather dog-collar, complete with metal tags, formed around my neck. I struggled with it, but there was no buckle or way to get the thing off. Candy’s acid laughter drifted up from the front room as I threw myself onto my bed and slept.
