DISCLAIMER: I don’t own “Moonlight”, or any of its wonderful original characters. I’m just taking them out for a run!
SUMMARY: A multi-chapter action-adventure, featuring Mick, Beth, Josef, Logan, Talbot, Simone, and a few really big werewolves, among others!
SPOILERS: Follows on from all 16 episodes of “Moonlight” as aired on CBS. Follows on from Allegrita’s very steaming FanFic, “Presto Agitato”, Ch 1 & 2. Also follows on from Desdemona’s awesome FanFic, “Silver”, Ch 1 thru 7, only. And, I borrow from the tremendously talented Eris, with her kind permission, her fantastic original character of ‘Karl’.
Ready? On we go!
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Beth came awake in gradual stages, slowly, reluctantly returning to the world she had temporarily escaped in her deep slumber. She felt the soft silk sheets against her bare legs. She felt her oversized cotton tee shirt warm against her torso. Before she was even close to fully awake, she inhaled, instinctively scenting the room around her…….taking the measure of it……..
Claudia, the Lead Cleaner, was gone now. Her scent lingered in an after image of her presence, but the vampress was no longer in the room, as she had been when Beth fell asleep.
Someone had taken Claudia’s place……Beth’s nose informed her groggy mind that it was the Irish werewolf, Phelan, in his human form. He was in the room now, sitting quietly nearby. His distinctive scent was familiar. She could hear his heart beating at a relaxed pace, hear his soft respirations. The page of a book was turned……. the hiss of paper sliding across paper. Phelan was reading. Had he been someone Beth did not recognize.…..especially an unknown wolf…..she would have snapped awake in an instant, probably Shifting to defend herself in the process. But Phelan presented no threat…..so Beth’s mind and body continued taking their time in rousing from slumber.
Beth stirred as she awakened further, and drew in another soft sniff of the room around her…….Mick was here too, but still asleep in his ice box in the adjoining alcove. Disappointment and relief washed through her simultaneously…… At least she would not have to face him….. yet…… to have him know what she had done…… That would come soon enough. But he was okay, and he was with her……. That alone soothed her troubled spirit.
As she made the final leg of her journey to wakefulness, Beth listened to the vast house around her……Josef’s sprawling estate. She could hear songbirds singing outside, even though the Newbie Suite was subterranean. Its ceiling was the concrete and steel reinforced floor of the mansion’s first story. Beth could hear bustling in the Main Kitchen upstairs…..Chefs at work to feed Josef’s Harem of freshies, as well as the other human members of his numerous Staff. So…..it must be daylight outside, either lunch or dinner. That would explain why Mick still slept.
Sighing, as she gave up the last vestiges of sleep, Beth’s sky-blue eyes slid open. She was facing Mick’s freezer alcove, and could see him sleeping peacefully inside. A pleasant sight to awaken to……her mate was magnificent, beautiful….. so peaceful as he slept. She smiled softly at the sight of her lover……. before the horrific memories assaulted her waking mind……and the crushing guilt she endured…..the things she had done last night…….
She winced, a whimpered moan escaping her lips, and squeezed her eyes shut again.
Mick had told her once that he had done “terrible things” during his early years as a vampire. He said he carried “tremendous guilt” for these “things” that he never wanted to discuss.
As she lay still, her eyes screwed shut, Beth found herself wondering how he managed to bear it…… If his feelings of guilt were even close to what she felt now…… how did Mick manage to keep going? How did he stand it? Waking up to those memories every day……like she was doing right now? It was unbearable.
Beth sat up in bed slowly, and turned to face the only other conscious person in the room. Phelan sat there watching her, once again looking for all the world like a lumberjack…..a green plaid flannel shirt that brought out his eyes……April must have picked that one out for him, Beth decided…… Blue jeans, and work boots. His tousled, coppery red hair, and his neatly trimmed, deeper red, mustache and beard completed the look. Brilliant green eyes regarded her calmly.
“Mornin’ dearheart!”, Phelan said brightly, beaming a smile at her from the overstuffed leather recliner where Claudia had been sitting when Beth fell asleep hours earlier. “Did yae sleep well?” He set down the book he’d been reading on the little butler table beside the chair. Beth caught a glimpse of the cover as he did so….. ‘Remembrance Of Things Past’, by Proust. Huh…. That surprised her. It was such a……cerebral……book. Phelan didn’t seem the type to enjoy anything like that……..
She had read it once, in College, and had found it to be as depressing as hell. One man’s sad, life long, struggle to cope with, and understand, the ravages of time itself…..an inexorable force that slowly steals everything from us, even ourselves. Can anything resist the forces of time? Or is everything, including ourselves, just crushed under the wheels of time’s unstoppable advance.
But, on the other hand, Beth speculated, time must be experienced quite differently by those who don’t age…… like vamps and weres….. who essentially live outside of time. Time still steals things, and people, away from immortals, but not their own health, or their lives, as it does with mortal men.
So, she decided, Proust’s dour lamentation about the thief of time might mean something else entirely to an immortal. They lose human friends and family, homes, Countries, ways of life, perhaps even entire Civilizations, if an immortal lives long enough. But, unlike humans, the immortal them self goes on……and on……and on.
As she remembered the book from College, the central character eventually concludes that only the past is safe from the destruction that time brings, that which has already past. What is past always endures, in memory and in history. Time cannot destroy history. And, Proust decides by the end of the book, the persons we have been in the past…..the child, the young adult, etc…., always remain in us, past selves sealed up within us, as a tree carries the rings of years past within it always. An immortal would have a lot of these proverbial ‘rings’……. many memories, and a lot of history, to recall.
All of these ruminations on Phelan’s choice of reading material skipped through Beth’s mind in a few seconds, as she blinked at the big Irishman sitting in the overstuffed chair near the foot of her bed.
Phelan’s thick Irish accent was lilting, as always….. as though nothing untoward had happened so recently. He had, of course, been aware that Beth was waking……he had heard her breathing change…..heard her scenting the room. But he had politely waited until she was ready to open her eyes and face the world again.
“Good morning.” Beth replied evenly, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, “Where’s Claudia?”
Phelan chuckled softly, “Ah….. Out cold by now, I would think. If you’ll pardon the vamp pun.”, He smiled rakishly at Beth. When the little blonde only blinked at him, Phelan cleared his throat nervously and went on. It was going to be a long afternoon, he could tell…… “What I mean ta say, dearheart, is that I relieved Claudia once I had finished me elk breakfast. I took over settin’ with yae, and she went upstairs ta one o’ Josef’s guest iceboxes.”
Beth nodded, dropping her eyes to the bedspread, “Oh. That’s good. She was tired.”
“Indeed.”, Phelan replied. His bright green eyes watched the little blond she-wolf. The girl would have many questions…..he just needed to wait til she was ready to ask them……..and ready to hear the answers.
Beth reached over the side of the bed and reacquired the sweat pants she had shucked off early that morning. Dragging them under the covers, she slipped them back on as discretely as she could. Ever the gentleman, Phelan turned his head and contemplated the ornate wall clock while Beth made herself socially presentable.
Once her sweat pants were in place, Beth finger-combed her long blonde hair, and crawled out from under the covers. Still on the bed, she scooted down to the left hand corner of the king-size bed, closest to Phelan. Once there, she perched cross-legged and sat facing the big Irish werewolf.
Neither spoke for several seconds. Phelan offered what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
Finally, Beth drew in a deep breath, and began. “So…… What happens now?”
“Now, lass, ye must heal again, and move on from this battle.”
“Move on?”
“Move past it…..emotionally, I mean.”
“I…… don’t think I can.” Suddenly overcome by a wave of regret, and self-loathing, tears began to well in Beth’s eyes. She hung her head and let them fall, silently splashing onto the hands folded in her lap. “I’m…..a maneater now…….a monster.”
Phelan cocked his head slightly and regarded the young woman. Then he slowly leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Really? So then, ye plan on continuing ta eat humans?”
Beth jerked her head up and starred at Phelan, wide eyed, “What!? No! Of course not! Why would you even say a thing like that?!”
Phelan smiled. Now he had her full attention. Enough with the sulking, already. “Well, dearheart……ye referred to yerself as a maneater in the present tense, not the past tense……so I just assumed…..” He shrugged casually.
“No!” A low snarl crept into Beth’s voice, “My gosh! How could you think that I would…… Would I be this upset if I was happy with what I did?! If planned to continue?!” Her volume was rising, and her eyes tipped from sky blue to sapphire blue.
“Easy lass…..take a deep breath and dial it down a bit.” Dealing with a new Turn like Beth was always a dicey situation. Their emotions are so raw, and Beth was particularly vulnerable, given the traumas she had just survived. Phelan knew he needed to keep her focused, lest he find himself in yet another dogfight with his pupil. “So then……ye meant to say that ye WERE a maneater, in the past…..and not currently?”
Beth allowed a snarling peel to escape her lips, baring teeth as she did so….. “Of course!”, she snapped, glowering at the Irish werewolf seated across from her. Her eyes slowly faded back to their human shade of sky blue. “But….. I DID eat three men last night, and THAT makes me a maneater……by anyone’s terminology, I think!” She paused, blinking at him, “Right?”
“Aye, dearheart,…….it does, but it is not all black and white. There are always shades of grey,” he paused to nod toward Mick’s sleeping form in the case on the other side of the room, “as I’m sure yer vampire can attest to. There were……circumstances…..that effected yer behavior. Ye were deep in Territorial Rage, defending yer Pack and the ones ye love, for one thing. Plus, yer still just a pup, still learning to control your impulses. Then, while in battle, ye were shot in the head. That injury destroyed all conscious control. Any Pack Authorities would see those things as justification for yer actions. Mitigating factors, as your lawyer friends would say.”
“Pack Authorities? You mean I could be in some kind of …….legal……trouble? With a Pack?”
Phelan straightened and sat back in the overstuffed recliner, steepling his fingertips in front of his face in a way that reminded Beth of Josef. After a moment’s thought, he spoke, “It’s complicated, dearheart…..but aye, if we were to run into a few visiting werewolves upstairs, they would undoubtedly try to kill yae. And if they didn’t think they could take the two o’ us…..which they couldn’t…..they would run, trying to get to their cellphones as fast as they could.”
“Why?”
“Because of yer scent right now, dearheart. Ye are what ye eat, as they say……and yer scent shrieks ‘maneater’ right now. Any unfamiliar wolf would act on yer scent alone and report yae, and yer location, to the National Pack Council. That’s providing they didn’t want to try to kill yae themselves first, and phone it in later.”
Beth rested her face in her hands, covering her eyes, “Great…..I smell like a maneater…….that’s just great. How long will that last?”
“Only a few days, dearheart. Just a few hearty…..non-biped…..meals, and a few days. Yer body will burn up the last of….. that fuel….. and ye’ll go back to smelling like a proper venison eater, or elk eater, as the case may be.” Phelan shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile as Beth lifted her face to look at him.
She blinked slowly at him, “I’m sorry…..this is just….. so much to process.” She shook her head, and rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger.
“Not a problem, dearheart.”
“So…....maneating is…..illegal…..among werewolves?”, she asked.
“Very. Vamp-eating too. Both are punishable by death…….unless there are mitigating circumstances that led to an isolated incident…… such as yer situation.”
“Well that’s good…...”, Beth responded absently, looking slightly dazed for a couple seconds. Then her eyes snapped back to Phelan’s face. “But……I remember Josef telling us that the Pack Council wouldn’t help us when…..my Sire…..was running around LA eating vampires right and left. Why wouldn’t they come kill my Sire?”, her eyes wobbled towards deep sapphire again as anger returned to her tone, “That would have been awfully decent of them. Especially if they had managed to get the job done BEFORE that monster had the chance to tear me up, and Turn me into a wolf, just like him!”
Phelan sighed. “First of all, lass, yae are nothing like yer Sire. But, regarding yer main question, as I understand it,” he replied, “the National Pack Council was afraid of pissing off The Legion. They had heard that a culling action had already begun in LA. That bunch o’ chicken shit mutts wanted to stay out of the Legion’s way.” He snorted derisively and shook his head. “Pardon me crude language, lass.”
Beth nodded, her eyes fading back toward sky blue, as she reigned in her anger. She let out a deep cleansing sigh, “Okay….it’s starting to make sense now, I think. So, man or vamp eating is illegal, and punishable by death……if the Pack Council finds out about it…… and as long as it’s politically expedient…..and safe…..for them to intervene?”
“Pretty much…..yeah.”, Phelan nodded, “In most cases, however, ordinary werewolves will take out any maneater or vamp-eater they encounter, if they can. It’s become almost a reflex in us over the past few hundred years. This is because rogues pose a threat to our secrecy, and to the fragile peace between Pack and Tribe. Sires now drill it into all their Turns from day one…..kill maneaters on sight, etc….. But, there weren’t any werewolves in LA…….until ye came along, dearheart.” Phelan paused, smiling gently at Beth, “Ordinarily, if the National Council gets wind of anything that sounds like a maneater…..in the News, for instance….. or if they get a complaint about a maneater, or vamp-eater, from a local Tribe, they send a team to hunt down and kill the offender. In your Sire’s case, they received both wind in the News, AND a formal complaint from the LA Tribe…… but the Legion’s presence spooked them.” Phelan snarled softly under his breath, “Cowardly hounds. I knew there was a good reason I avoid Pack life.”
“So…..”, Beth asked, “If any werewolf reflexively wants to eliminate any maneater, then why aren’t you trying to kill me now? Or running to the phone to call in some furry strike team?”
Phelan grinned and snorted, “Because, lass, I’m old enough to remember the days when it was not so, and I understand the circumstances……the very mitigating circumstances. I know the situation yae were in…… why you did what ye did. If a Council kill team were to show up now…… and, if we could get them to stop and listen to what really happened…… they would have no choice but to absolve ye of any wrong-doing. Yae were sorely provoked. Yae were defending yer Pack and yer territory. Yae aren’t even a month old yet. And, yae were shot in the head. The hard part would be in getting them to stop and listen, to hear us out, and not rush to judgment. Our kind can be very……single minded……when our blood is up.”
“But I still ate three guys!”
“Aye…..ye did that….. but remember what I said about those shades of gray?”
Beth nodded slowly.
Phelan leaned forward, met her gaze, and held it, his green eyes suddenly fierce, “Now ya listen to me, dearheart. Those three guys weren’t some innocent lads who had done nothing to ye! Don’t forget that…..who they were, and what they had done. They tried to kill Josef and Mick! They nearly succeeded. They played with fire…..and they got burned. Do not pity them…..and do not regret their deaths, for it was richly deserved by them all!”
Beth blinked at him in surprise.
Phelan let out a long tired sigh, and slouched back in his chair, before continuing, “Lass…..there are different kinds of…… knowledge. There is the knowledge in yer lovely head, the things ye learn from the people and things around ye. And then there’s a different kind of knowledge……one ye don’t have to learn. It boils in yer blood and sings through yer bones. It tells ye when to run, and when to fight. It whispers through yer deepest thoughts, and tells ye what ye must do to survive.”
“Instinct.”
“Aye, dearheart. Instincts. Humans don’t think they have ‘em, but they do. They don’t think their behavior is ever impacted by deep, primal, instincts. But it is…..frequently. Humans even respond, unconsciously, to pheromones put out by other humans…… feeling either repelled or attracted by those pheromones. They just don’t realize it. They say they have a feeling about something, or they’re just not comfortable with some situation…..never understanding that they are unconsciously responding to the pheromones of the other humans around them. Their instincts effect their behaviors in other ways too…..for instance….. Young human females who are ovulating tend to choose clothing that shows….. more skin….. that day, advertizing for a mate, while having no clue that is what they are doing, or why. When they are not fertile, not ovulating, they choose clothing that shows off less skin….. no need for a mate today. They have no idea they are doing any of this…..but instinct and biology drives them, as surely as it drives the bull elk to bugle at his rivals in the forest, and piss all over himself. The cow elk think he smells wonderful, by the way.” He grinned playfully, as Beth wrinkled up her nose at the mental picture Phelan had painted. Bull elk piss on themselves? Why? Better yet…..how??? Never mind…..she decided she didn’t want to know.
“Now,” Phelan continued, “vampires know they have instincts, but they like to think they are the master of those instincts, that they can control them. Sometimes they can……sometimes they can’t. Only we werewolves really embrace and accept our instincts…..perhaps because we are so close to the natural world….to the wild. We see the geese flying south in Fall, we see the salmon swimming upstream, and we know that instinct is as powerful a force in us as it is in those simple creatures. We let instinct guide us, because it is our strength…..our gift.”
Phelan paused, and glanced over at the little blonde, who still sat Indian-style on the corner of the huge King Sized bed. She was watching him closely.
“Last night, once ye were shot in the head, yer instincts took over to keep ye alive. While yer conscious mind was unavailable, yer instincts took a message…..so to speak…… and did whatever needed to be done so that yae could survive. That included…….procuring the nourishment necessary to heal yer many terrible wounds.”
At the mention of the…..nourishment……Beth hung her head again and contemplated the small hands folded in her lap. How could those now dainty, feminine hands have torn a dozen people to shreds last night?
Phelan waited in silence, until she was ready to continue.
“Am I going to have more trouble now?”, Beth asked softly, barely above a whisper, “I mean…..with…….wanting……something other than venison?”
Phelan nodded solemnly, “Aye…..I’m afraid so, dearheart.” He hesitated a moment, “While ye slept, because this is an unusual situation, I took the liberty of reading yer scent.”
He paused, expecting Beth to protest, or express outrage at such an intrusion, but when she remained silent, he continued, “Even though ye don’t consciously remember the maneating, yer body does…… and yer body liked it……a lot. It will be harder for ye to resist that temptation now, because ye have tasted it, and yer body remembers. It will be easier for ye to cross that line in the future. Ye’ll always have to keep a tighter rein on yerself around humans from now on, most humans, that it…….. I doubt you’ll have much increased desire around humans you consider part of your Pack, but other humans, yeah…….undoubtedly. The drive will be stronger.”
Beth nodded, sighing. She had suspected as much. “Has it been done before? I mean……have other werewolves…. eaten people……. and then found a way to not be a maneater anymore? Is it even possible? Or should I just wake Claudia up and ask her to whack my head off right now?”
Phelan chuckled softly, and ran a hand through his coppery-red hair. “Aye, lass. It’s very possible. Hunting both humans, and vampires, for food has only been illegal among werewolves for about three hundred years. Prior to that, it was a free for all, as ye Americans say. Where do ye think all the legends of maneating monsters come from, eh? Those stories were real. Back in those days, only a wolf’s conscience stood between him, or her, and a steady diet of bipeds. The vampires, too, placed little restraint on themselves back then……with the exception of vamps like Josef and Mick…..the ones with a conscience.”
Phelan sighed again, and absently scratched at his short beard, pondering how to phrase what he needed to tell his student. He glanced up at Beth, who was watching him intently, her mouth hanging open slightly in surprise at these revelations.
Clearing his throat, Phelan continued, “Humans were highly prized, but vampires were the brass ring, on a werewolf’s menu hundreds of years ago. And, just as vampires can live on animal blood, or corpse blood, if they have to, but crave fresh human blood to be at their physical peak, so too do werewolves crave human flesh, and even better, vamp flesh. I’ve always thought of it as nature’s answer to humanity…..filling a vacuum, if ye will.”
Beth’s brow furrowed in confusion, so Phelan explained, “In nature, everything has a natural enemy…..a predator for every prey. The predators keep the prey healthy by weeding out the weak and sick. In turn, the prey’s healthy abundance allows the predator to survive. They need each other. The deer have the Timber wolf. The seals have the Great White shark in some areas, and the Polar Bear in others. The penguins have the Leopard seal. The mice have cats and owls. The rabbit has the hawk. But, humanity is an intelligent, and abundant, prey with no natural enemy….. save one another. Nothing else preys on ‘em, and nature abhors a vacuum, as they say. I’ve always thought that both vampires and werewolves were intended, by nature, to be the intelligent predator meant to hunt this intelligent prey…..to keep humanity’s numbers in check, just as the Great White shark keeps the numbers of seals in check. It’s why we crave them, I think. And because we, vamps and weres, are the top of food chain…..it’s why we crave each other too. We kept each others’ numbers in check as well.”
Beth was staring at Phelan now in jaw-dropped horror. He glanced at her and smiled sadly. “I know, dearheart, I know. Me theory is a terrible one, but it makes sense, I think, and it explains much. I didn’t say I agreed with it, mind ye now. I only said I think it is why we, vamps and weres, seem to be hardwired the way we are. But, fer us to carry through with this law ‘o the jungle, we would have to put our conscience on the shelf. I could never do that….. neither could Josef…… and neither can ye, or yer Mick. People shouldn’t kill people.”
Beth winced and nodded in solemn agreement.
“But, lass, sometimes we have no choice.” Phelan looked down at his work boots on Josef’s expensive carpet, and continued, “Eventually, with the advancement of human weaponry and technology, as well as the increasingly combative relationship between Pack and Tribe, it was decided that a change had to be made. Just as vampires stopped randomly killing, or abusing, their human prey, the werewolves outlawed maneating. The risk of discovery by humans, and retaliation with their increasingly deadly weaponry, became too great. It is far safer to be a myth, a legend. Weres melted into the forests, hunting only that which ran on four legs. The vamps no longer kept blood-slaves, who were terrified, abused, and eventually killed. The pampered human harem of willing donors, as Josef has today, was born. Worked out better for everyone. And, in a much-needed Treaty with the vampires, it also became illegal for weres to hunt vamps for food…… and visa versa.”
Phelan paused again, collecting his thoughts, choosing his words carefully. “After that…..the term ‘rogue’ was born. Prior to this change in both our societies, there was no such thing as a rogue. There was only werewolves and vampires being werewolves and vampires, which included preying on each other at every opportunity. They loved our blood, and we loved their flesh. Just as many vamps were eaten by the likes of me, so too was many a werewolf slain and hung up like a hog to drain their blood into containers. Our kind was a prized centerpiece at any vampire gathering feast long ago……much like a thanksgiving turkey is to humans today.” He chuckled softly, “But…..unlike a Thanksgiving turkey, the vamps ‘o old took their lives into their own hands in order to obtain a werewolf for one of their feasts. Those prized ‘turkeys’ fought back…....hard. For every wolf who was captured, and later slain, for a vamp feast, dozens of vamps paid with their own lives in the effort. Our kind doesn’t go down easy. And often, the dead wolf’s Pack would track their missing pack-mate, and descend on the vampires’ feast, slaughtering everyone there in retaliation.
This only made us more valuable to the vamps…..because we were so costly to obtain. The risk….the danger……made our blood even sweeter to them. Vamps have always been thrill-seekers, to a certain extent. To successfully capture, contain, and then slay a wolf for a gathering celebration meant that the founder of the feast was a very powerful, influential, vampire indeed, someone of great resources……. someone to be feared. And, they preferred us on all fours…..more blood in the carcass that way.”
Phelan paused, “I heard stories of some wolves who deliberately returned to their human forms just before the death blow was struck…....cheating the vamps out of the majority of the blood they sought, as well as the trophy of a lupine body. That sounds like the obvious thing to do…… if ye know ye are doomed…..but it’s harder than ye might think, when yer blood is up, and ye are struggling to take just one more of yer tormentors with ye afore ye die. To surrender…..and Shift back to human form in that instant……”, Phelan shook his head slowly, “it would be very hard to do.”
“But……”, Beth interrupted, her voice breathy with veiled horror, “I thought vamps couldn’t drain a wolf! Josef said wolves can make it faster than any vamps could take it! Why kill us at all? And…..if vamps can turn us into a …….holiday roast……why do they fear us……if we’re so easy to kill?”
Phelan glanced at her with a grim smile, “I never said we’re easy to kill, dearheart. Quite the opposite. As I said, for each wolf that fell, dozens ‘o vamps were killed in the battle. And, sometimes….. if the unfortunate wolf had a Pack to avenge him….. entire Tribes were later wiped out in an act of retribution. We were a very costly feast, indeed we were! But, just as a group of motivated, and properly armed, humans can pull it off……so could vamps, back in the days when we hunted each other.
Vamps have their tremendous speed, and they are very strong. When they attacked a wolf in large numbers…..well, it often ended badly for the wolf. We have great endurance, and can run a vamp into the ground….. but vamps are so fast……in numbers, they move like a swarm of bees around a lone wolf. Their speed is their real strength….. It’s the one thing a wolf cannot match. A wolf unlucky enough to be caught alone by a band of hunting vamps could find himself trussed up like a calf afore he knew what hit him.
And, as far as vamps not being able to drain a wolf……that’s true. Provided the wolf is alive at the time, we can make new blood at an astonishing rate. But…..it is impossible to make new blood while ye are swinging by yer hind legs above a bathtub with yer head cut off. Then, yer life drains into the tub beneath ye, and ye are just dead. Killing the wolf made more sense to the vamps back then….we’re natural enemies, after all……and a live wolf would have kept fighting, possibly escaping to kill them all. The vamps wouldn’t take that chance.
Afterwards, the vamps had their feast, as well as a trophy for their wall. And, if they were lucky, and careful, no Pack would track them down to retaliate. They had to avoid using silver to kill us…..lest they taint our blood for their own use. But with vampire strength, speed, and sheer numbers, it could be done. It was done…..many times. They would just bind us with stout chains, lop off our heads, and collect the blood.”
He paused with a wry grin, “Of course…..I heard stories of a couple cases that turned out differently. In one, a she-wolf was captured and chained by a mob of vamps. She told me later that she could feel weakness in the chains, and knew they would not hold her……those vamps had really been sloppy!” Phelan chuckled softly and shook his head, “But she made a show of struggling, snarling at her captors, as they wheeled their prize back to their master. Once inside the fortress of the Lead vamp, she snapped her chains and was free among them.” Phelan’s smile widened, “The vamps were not able to regain control of her, or kill her, in time. Most of that Tribe, including its stunned Leader, died that night…….but the clever she-wolf trotted away….. with a very full belly…… to tell the tale. She sported only a couple battle scars, from silver weapons.
Phelan chuckled again and glanced at Beth to be sure his charge was still paying attention. She was…..Beth watched him breathlessly, her eyes round, her delicate mouth hanging ajar. He continued, “Another fellow I talked to had a similar story of survival…..his being an example of the tremendous self-control, under duress, that I spoke of earlier. He was mobbed, and trussed up with chains too thick to break without a running start. He too, made a show of continuing to fight, struggling against the bonds, snarling as the vamps hooked his bound hind legs to a pulley in the ceiling and hoisted him upward, hanging head down. Beneath him was the large vat that his blood would pour into once his head was lopped off. Of course, the over-confident Leader of that Tribe could not resist standing up to triumphantly address his guests at the feast……. with his snarling, snapping, soon to be slaughtered, prize hanging upside down from the rafters behind him…….a show of his wealth, courage, and resources. His guests cheered and applauded that Leader’s greatness. There were apparently Leaders from neighboring Tribes present also.”
That grim smile again….. “The vamps didn’t cheer for long. As the Lead vamp enjoyed his accolades, the wolf hanging behind him grew still and quiet. None of the vamps noticed, so focused were they on their celebrations….. In an instant, the wolf Shifted back to human form. The loops o’ chain binding him were now much too big, and his human form dropped right through them, landing in the vat below. The second he hit the vat, he Shifted again…..and that impudent vamp Leader turned just in time to see his intended feast coming straight at him, jaws agape, once again a huge wolf, leaping from the lip of the heavy vat. Once the Leader was cut in half on the spot, pandemonium erupted, and that cunning wolf was then like a fox in a hen house. As always, a few of the vamps used the chaos to scatter and escape, but the majority of that Tribe, and its visiting dignitaries, didn’t survive the night.”
Beth starred at Phelan in horrified shock, her sky blue eyes wide. “When did these stories happen?”, she breathed, “And where?”
The big Irishman smiled gently at her, “Don’t worry, lass. The vamps outlawed those “feasts” three hundred years ago. They haven’t hunted us since. But, those two stories both happened when I was still a young wolf, back in Ireland, nearly 500 years ago.”
He sighed and continued, “After the Treaty, and new laws, any vamps or wolves who could not adapt to the change where hunted down and killed, each by their own kind. The vamps were always better organized, so they managed their Rogues as easily as a duck manages water. It took us…..werewolves, I mean…..alittle longer, since we’re basically wild at heart. But, with modern communications, our ability to police ourselves improved steadily. To survive now, a Rogue werewolf must live off the grid, and isolate himself from other wolves. If another wolf catches the scent of a maneater or a vamp-eater……the offending wolf is killed on the spot, if possible. And if stories of mauled victims hit the News……the wolf responsible is hunted down and killed by other wolves.”
He snorted and shook his head. “Unless, of course, the Pack Council is scared to death of The Legion! Spineless curs. ” A growl rumbled in his broad chest.
“But…..”, Beth ventured tentatively, “You were a lone wolf…..weren’t you? How did you avoid ending up as some Tribe’s……holiday roast?”
The big Irishman chuckled. “Aye, lass. I spent most of my long life as a loner. But the first couple decades of my lupine existence were spent in a large Irish Pack in my homeland. I was chosen, and Turned, because of my sheer size. I was muscle, brute force, pure and simple. I was a formidable Beta Male…..standing at the shoulder of my Alpha. I always had his back. He was a wise wolf……and he taught me much……including the ways and tricks of vampires that might be seeking a centerpiece for their feasts.”
Phelan sighed, and his expression turned sad. “But, as time went on, my Alpha grew suspicious of me…..because of my size and strength. He worried that I would eventually take the Leadership of the Pack away for him. I was bigger than him, bigger than anyone……so I could have. But, what my Alpha never understood was that I didn’t want the job.
Eventually, I grew tired of the suspicion and bickering of Pack politics, and I struck out on my own. I left Ireland and wandered through Europe until I found meself in Romania. I liked it there, and decided to settle down and stake out a territory. I became friendly with the closest villagers, and eventually met Josef. The rest you know.”
“Were you ever hunted by vampires?”, Beth asked quietly, “I mean, spending so much time alone…..did that make you a target?”
The burley Irishman smiled. “Aye, it did, and I was…..more than once.”
“How did you get away?”
“I’m bigger and stronger than the average werewolf…… obviously. But, surprisingly, I’m also pretty smart.” He quirked a smile at her.
Beth grinned and snorted. Phelan took that as a good sign…..alittle humor from her. She must be doing somewhat better.
“I had to dodge several vamp hunting parties over the decades of my wandering, mostly prior to when I settled in Romania, and long before Josef was born to his human parents. Alertness was the key to surviving, as was the use of our greatest strength, our endurance. Run and dodge, run and dodge. That’s how ye survive. Yer anger, yer pride, will tell ye to stand and fight…..but that will get ye killed. Ye must follow yer instinct and flee, when facing a mob o’ vamps. Wear ‘em out in the chasing o’ ye. Never let more than one of them get ahold of ye at same time. Never allow yerself to be surrounded, or cornered. When I heard, and smelled, a vamp hunting party closing on my position, I would simply bolt. They would pursue, with their superior speed, but as soon as one tried to get ahold o’ me to throw a loop of chain, I would whip my head around, kill him, and keep running without missing a beat. I did the same each time, again and again, until the survivors were too exhausted to keep up the chase. Then, of course…… what’s good for the goose is good for the gander!”
Phelan winked, “By the time the survivors had worn themselves out in their fruitless pursuit of me, I was just getting warmed up……. and I was always hungry. I would swing around and come back for them. Fair’s fair, I told meself. They wanted a hunt……and I gave ‘em one…..only, they found themselves on the receiving end of it by then. Those were the only occasions when I allowed myself a little vamp flesh. They had started the fight…..I finished it, I was hungry, and my blood was up. While I enjoyed their intoxicating, energy-rich flesh at the time…..I would feel tremendously guilty afterwards, and would beg God’s forgiveness for the consumption of a fellow sentient being. Even though they had meant to do the same to me. I would always tell meself, afterwards, never again. But, of course, the next time I was hunted by vamps, I almost always gave into that temptation again. Me self-control in battle was usually pretty terrible.
Continued Below........
FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
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lionsonleashes
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FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Last edited by lionsonleashes on Wed Jun 01, 2011 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
LIONS (Beautiful Banner by MoonlitRose)
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lionsonleashes
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Continued From Above............
I always left one battered, and terrified, survivor to carry his tale of horror back to his Tribe’s Leader. I was one wolf that should not be messed with!”, he paused to smirk at that, “It worked well. My reputation spread rapidly among Europe’s vampire Tribes. To all ‘o them, I became known as the ‘Fire Wolf ’, a huge red, green eyed, Celtic monstrosity that was universally feared by all….. I was the bringer of defeat and death.
By the time I met Josef, no Tribe Leader would send any hunting parties after me. They had lost dozens of their lackeys in each attempt, and gained nothing for the loss. Any hunting party that spotted me from a distance would make great haste in the opposite direction!” Phelan chuckled at the memory of his own infamy.
Beth blinked at him in astonishment, “Wow……Okay then…...’Fire Wolf’…..” She grinned faintly, “Back to my original question……Do you actually know anyone who has beaten it…..recovered from maneating successfully?”
“Aye…..I do, lass.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Beth gasped again and brought her dainty hand back to her mouth….her eyes widening disbelief. “You’re a maneater too?!”
“Was, dearheart…..was……and only briefly, a very long time ago…..in a situation not unlike the one you found yourself in last night.” He paused, his eyes sliding over to Mick’s freezer case for a moment, and then back again, “Plus…..as I mentioned earlier, I had indulged in the occasional vamp, too, prior to sliding into maneating.”
Beth slowly lowered her hand back to rest on her knee, as she continued to sit cross-legged on the corner of the bed facing the big Irishman. A determined calm settled over her lovely features as she regarded him. “Tell me.”, she said quietly.
Phelan leaned back in the overstuffed leather recliner and rested his forearms on its arms. He sighed resolutely and simply returned Beth’s gaze for several seconds. Then, “How much did Josef tell ye about how we met in his homeland of old…… and how we were eventually parted?”
“He told us all he knew……that you disappeared after your Village was destroyed…..that you left him a note……” Beth abruptly gasped, and her eyes rounded at the sudden epiphany. “Your Village! The Turks!”
Phelan nodded sadly, and his gaze wandered past her, seeming to look back through the centuries to a time long, long ago. “Aye…..the Turks, and their Greek lackeys. It was getting close to 1800 AD, I believe……. the Russians and the Austrians were beginning to challenge the Turkish and Greek rule over Josef’s embattled homeland. The lot of them were like a pack o’ scrawny dogs, fighting over what little meat remained on a single bone between them. There was so little left of Romania by then……so worn down by constant battle, it was. Its people struggled to hang on to what little was left to them. My Village….my human friends, whom I had watched over for so many generations……they did not have much either. But what little they had was theirs. It was their homes….their families…….” Phelan’s voice caught…..
The big Irishman paused, and Beth saw him rapidly blink back tears that had begun to shimmer in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “But…… I suppose that the Turks and Greeks were scrambling for every scrap they could wring from the people, and their land…..with the gathering threat of the Austrians and the Russians advancing on them…… challenging their control.”
Phelan lifted his emerald eyes to meet Beth’s gaze again. His features were tight, strained with the emotion roiling beneath them, “I heard the sounds of battle coming from the Village. I was in my cabin, afar off in the woods, when it began. I shifted right out of my clothes, and smashed down my own front door, in my haste to run to my Village’s aid. I got there quickly…..but not quick enough.” He paused again, and rubbed one of his enormous hands tiredly across his eyes.
“My Village was being looted..…..sacked. The men folk….. they had fought bravely..…..but most…..men I had watched grow up from babes in arms….. were already dead, at the hands of the Turkish Army, and their Greek thugs……….. by the time I got there. The surviving men folk were trying desperately to cover the retreat of the women, children, and the very old. The anguished screams of the widows…. and the terrified wails of their children…… filled the air.”
Beth listened is silence, holding her breath, her bright blue eyes wide in growing horror, intent on Phelan’s anguished face.
“Something…… snapped inside me……the Territorial Rage, like what you experienced last night. It was as though a red curtain descended across my vision….. and my mind…….I felt only blinding fury, and a desire to kill as many of those murders as I could. They would pay for what they had done. I leapt between my retreating villagers and the advancing soldiers….. and attacked.” Phelan drew in a deep breath, steadying himself before continuing, his eyes focused on the thick carpet under his feet.
“After that…….. I knew only blood, the tearing of flesh, the screams of the dying soldiers, and the snapping of their bones between my teeth. I was dimly aware of the many stabs of the sword or lance or arrow……..the many blows of the mace…..but it didn’t slow me. Then ……..more blood, more screams of dying soldiers, and more bones shattering in my jaws. I had become like a terrier in a pit of rats.
I lost track of how many soldiers I killed…..but I bought time enough for the surviving villagers to gather what little they could and flee to the forest beyond the Village.
The rest of that day, and the following night, was a blur to me. I had to keep the Army from pursuing my villagers…... my friends. I fought, I killed, I was wounded over and over again…..I recovered fast……and I fought, and I killed…… still more. At some point during the night…..some of the soldiers set the Village ablaze, seeming to believe that if they destroyed my Village, they would somehow destroy me as well.” He shook his head at the memory, his brow knitting in distress, “It only fueled my rage, and drove me on. I turned back towards my Village and killed them all for it…..but I could not stop the flames that spread…… so, so rapidly.
My Village burned……the home of the little boy I saved from the river……the home Mariska was born in……the home where her children were born…..and their children…….. All gone.
I fought on…..as much for vengeance, by that time, as anything else. A bloodlust had settled over me like a dripping shroud. I could feel nothing else. At some point during that long, terrible, night…….I began to feed from the soldiers I was killing. It was what ye would call ‘on the fly’ now. I would take a soldier down and kill him in one hard shake. But, before launching meself at the next group of soldiers, I would tear off…. and swallow…. a chunk of meat. Back then, werewolves called it ‘battle meat’. I grazed on the bodies of those I killed, ripping off a chunk here, a chunk there…… chewing and swallowing as I charged the next Battalion.
I remember not giving it a second thought at the time……I was wounded and hungry…..and I could not leave the field of battle to hunt normal game. If I did that, the soldiers might have given chase to my poor surviving villagers. I wouldn’t let that happen. I had to stop them where they were. So….. some of the soldiers I killed ended up sustaining me, allowing me to heal, and fight on. A double defeat for the bastards…..I remember enjoying that idea at the time. Giving into that ancient drive to hunt humans felt so good…….I became almost giddy in the….. rush….. of it……..the high……..”
Phelan paused and slowly leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees. He interlaced his fingers and just starred at his own large folded hands for several seconds before continuing. Beth waited in silence, watching him carefully.
“After several hours, the Turkish and Greek forces began to realize that they could not kill me…… or even slow me down. I was killing their soldiers by the score with each passing moment. I had become an engine of destruction……their destruction. My fury was unquenched, and my strength was continually renewed by the very flesh of the enemies I was killing, and trampling underfoot. My roars echoed up and down the valley. I grew drunk on them…..and all I wanted was more…….more battle…..more meat….. I no longer even recognized meself.
Their Commanders sounded a retreat. The Armies of both forces turned and fled. Drunk with battle, and human flesh, I gave chase for a short distance…….but then I remembered my Village. I turned and walked back to it…… slowly. Nothing but smoldering ashes remained. I remember sitting down at the edge of what had once been my Village………. and just watching the smoke rise into the dark sky above it.
Then…… I started howling. I howled and howled and howled……a funeral dirge for the Village I had protected for so long….. and for those villagers who had not escaped.
After a bit, I turned and went back among the dead soldiers of the Turks and Greeks. I selected a couple of them…..one of each, I think…..and I settled down and ate my fill of them.” Phelan saw Beth’s eyes round, just a bit, at this….. He continued, “At that point, I figured, what the hell? Right?” Phelan snorted humorlessly and glanced up at Beth, who was listening intently, her expression one of deep sadness…… and sympathy.
“Once my belly was full, and all my injuries healed, I went and washed myself in the river, which ran close to town. I stood in the rushing flow and looked to the Northwest, the direction my villagers had fled. Their best option was to try to reach Hungary. Hungary had had its own share of trouble with the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. About 50 years before Josef was born to his human parents, most of Hungary came under Turkish control, but the Ottoman Empire was something of an absentee landlord. Hungary was farther West than Romania, and therefore a greater effort to control. The Hungarians retained a lot of independence, as well as claiming Transylvania, which is, of course, part of Romania. The supply lines of the Ottoman Empire were being stretched too thin, and they were starting to lose battles, and territories. By the mid 1500’s, they had given part of Hungary to the Austrians…..trying to appease that growing threat. It didn’t work, and by 1700, the Austrians had taken all of Hungary, ceded to them without much of a fight by the Turks. Now, at the dawn of the 1800’s, the Austrians and the Russians were both coming into Romania and challenging Ottoman control of Josef’s homeland. The Ottoman Empire was slowly being pushed back. They were no longer the biggest dog on the block.
Actually, by that time, the Ottoman Empire was beginning its long, slow decline unto death. Like the Roman Empire before them……they were stumbling towards collapse. The Turks just didn’t know it yet. Meanwhile…..Josef’s people were being ground up under the boots of many different armies. There was little left of them, or their once thriving society.” Phelan paused, an expression deep sadness on his kind face.
“Hungary was not at peace, but there was little fighting there. The Austrians were in solid control of Hungary…..no Turks, no Greeks. That alone made it attractive. Perhaps, in Hungary, my poor villagers would have a chance to find refuge? My heart ached for them, and I yearned to help them…… to be certain they would find safety somewhere…… but I was afraid. Afraid that I could not trust meself around them anymore, or around any humans. And I was ashamed……so ashamed…… of what I had become in the span of a single night.”
Phelan looked Beth in the eye, “Just as ye are ashamed….. and afraid….. now.”
Beth blinked, and swallowed hard. Then, she nodded, and wiped a stray tear from the corner of one shining blue eye.
Phelan dropped his gaze to the floor, and continued, “As a gray dawn broke across that bloody, burned out, landscape….. which had once been a lovely little Village where children played….. I began the grisly work of burying my dead. Still in my lupine form, I dug a separate grave for each of my friends, who had died trying to defend their homes…… and I laid them each to rest beneath the very soil they had once tilled. I wept over them……prayed for their souls…. told them I was sorry, so sorry….. that I had failed to protect them…… I begged them to forgive me. And I begged God to forgive me, too.”
“But you didn’t fail!”, Beth protested, interrupting, “You did everything you could to stop those soldiers! Everything!”
Phelan smiled grimly, “But it wasn’t enough, was it? Most of my friends were murdered, their Village destroyed………. their families left as homeless refugees.” He shook his head slowly, and returned his gaze to the floor in front of his own feet. “I….. thank ye for your kindness, lass, but I most certainly did fail, I failed miserably…….and, I became a monster in the process…….a maneater. And, like you, I feared I would lose meself to that drive, now that I had fallen so easily into it……. And….. wallowed…… in it the way I had done. I hated meself for that…..”
“So…….what did you do then?”, Beth asked breathlessly.
“Once I had buried the bodies of my fallen friends, I dug several large pits outside the charred remains of the Village…… out on the battlefield. I was still in my lupine form, so the digging of these large pits went quickly. I had no regard for the soldiers who had killed my friends and driven the survivors from their homes…..but I was so ashamed of what I had done……the maneating……that I wanted to hide the evidence. The evidence of my crime was the bodies of the soldiers. I carried each corpse to one of the pits and tossed it in. Once the pits were all filled with the Turkish and Greek dead, I buried them in these mass graves.”
Phelan hesitated, staring off into the middle distance for several moments. “After that….once all the digging and burying was finally done…..I returned to the river and washed again. But…..the stench of my sin would not come out of my fur, no matter how many times I rolled, dunked, and shook. I felt filthy still.”
He glanced up at Beth. She reached out, spanning the short distance between them, and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.
Phelan continued, “I ended up sitting on the river bank for quite a while…..just staring off towards the Northwest. I couldn’t bring myself to face Josef again, at least not then. I knew he would know what I had done. I knew he would smell it on me. But…..my villagers had not stayed around long enough to witness my descent into maneating. And humans have no sense of smell, to speak of, at all. Perhaps they would not know what I had done, I decided. I convinced meself that I could control my recently unchained urges around my villagers…..I had to…..I owed them. With my Village gone, there was nothing left for me in Romania…… other than my friendship with Josef. I knew he would be alright…..he was well heeled, and experienced as a vampire, by that time…..but as I said, I just couldn’t face him then. So, I went back to my cabin one last time. I returned to human form only long enough to write Josef a note, which I left in the cellar for him. I knew he would check the cellar, if he came, but others probably wouldn’t. I took nothing with me for the journey. I shifted back to my lupine form and left my little cabin for the last time. I didn’t look back.
I picked up the scent trail of my surviving villagers and followed them. It did not take me long to find them. They trudged wearily through the forest, carrying or dragging what meager possessions they still had. Leading or driving what few livestock they managed to hang on to. ”
Beth watched Phelan’s handsome face as he told her these painful memories. It became very easy for her to put herself in his shoes, as she listened quietly. She knew how horrible those days must have been for the gentle giant…… she could feel it in his tone, see it in the tightness around his eyes…….and she realized that he truly did understand what she was going through now. He had been there……he had done that…… He knew what it was to see yourself as a monster……
Phelan’s eyes fixed on the wall behind Beth as he spoke, looking past its plaster and beams, to a time long, long ago…….. “Their faces. I’ll never forget their faces from that day, when I first caught up with them in the forest.” He glanced briefly at Beth, and then away again, “I see them in nightmares sometimes……as though their ghosts haunt me still.” The big red-headed man paused for a moment, closing his eyes and slowly scrubbing his bearded face with the heels of both hands.
Then he continued, “There were so few of them left……. only a couple dozen………..women and children mostly, a few elderly men and women, and a couple younger men who had covered the group’s retreat while I had gotten between them and the Turks. Their faces, as they walked through the forest, trying to be quiet, were all the same…….pasty white, their eyes glassy, their feet shuffling…….they stumbled often. There was no weeping…..only the glassy staring eyes and deathly pale skin.”
He stopped again, his deep green eyes riveted on the wall behind Beth.
Beth waited for several heartbeats……watching him closely……but Phelan seemed to have retreated to somewhere inside his own head, lost in a memory he could barely stand to face.
“What happened then?”, she prompted gently.
The big Irishman blinked and focused on Beth’s large blue eyes. She offered a tentative smile of encouragement.
Phelan sighed and dropped his eyes to the floor, “I paced them for hours……staying in the trees out of their sight…..but still escorting them, ready to fight for them again, if I had to.” Eventually, his shining green eyes drifted back to that spot on the wall behind Beth. “I didn’t know how they would react to me……how much they might have seen……or feel about the fact that I hadn’t been able to protect the Village…..to stop the soldiers. So, feeling deep shame, I stayed out of their sight for the rest of that day……but they were never out of my sight. It didn’t take me long to realize that the tug of desire for human flesh was almost non-existent around my villagers. They had never been food to me……and they never would be. They were my family…..my Pack. The…..pull of hunger…..was not there, not like it had been on the battlefield, when my blood was up. I had hungered for the soldiers……but not for my villagers.”
Phelan paused, and shifted his position slightly in the chair. He dropped his gaze to the large folded hands resting in front of his knees. “When it got dark, I watched from the shadows as my villagers made camp for the night. They were afraid to light a fire……afraid the Turkish Army might see, and come after them……even then. I watched, my heart breaking, as the widows and orphans ate their meager rations, cold and raw, before curling up under what bedding they had managed to bring with them. The night was cold, and they shivered. I heard a couple of muffled sobs, here and there….. and each one was a knife in me heart. I sat out there in the trees….listening, watching..……hating meself. Gradually, all the villagers drifted into an exhausted sleep.”
He glanced up a Beth briefly, and then returned his gaze to a contemplation of his own folded hands. “I couldn’t help meself……once they were all asleep……I crept into the makeshift camp, weaving me way gingerly between their sleeping forms. I don’t even really know why I did it……maybe I just wanted to be rejected and punished by them……as I felt I deserved. But, mostly, I think I just wanted to be with them…..come what may. They were my Pack. I curled up in a ball, nose to tail, in the midst of them. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was too, until that moment. I think I was sound asleep in only moments.”
Phelan mopped his eyes with the back of one large hand, and looked up a Beth, offering her a lopsided grin. “When I woke up, it was nearly dawn, and I hadn’t moved……but every child in the camp was snuggled up tight against me, from the youngest, to the oldest…..the oldest, being only about eleven. They had each found a section of me to nestle into……and somehow…..I had slept on, undisturbed by their invasion of me fur.” He smiled and snorted at the memory.
“I can’t begin to explain what that felt like……what that meant to me. I wasn’t a monster to them. I was still just good ol’ Phelan. I was still their friend, their protector. They still trusted me…….and they still loved me.”
Beth smiled and blinked back a tear.
Phelan returned her smile and continued. “The adults, when they woke, where equally welcoming of me. I was hugged many times……and they thanked me for fighting for them…..and for following them into the wilderness. Not a single widow asked why I hadn’t saved her husband. None of the fatherless children asked why I hadn’t saved their Pa. All any of them would say about the Village battle, and the horrific losses, was that they knew I had tried. That was enough for them, and they would discuss it no further.” Phelan’s thousand-yard gaze was back…..fixed on the wall behind Beth.
“They had decided to make for Hungary, as I suspected they would. In soft conversations, during which they often sought me advice, they decided that the best chance for all of them would be the City of Budapest. There, they could blend in and find employment, housing, and so forth. They would no longer be a Village…..but they would be, hopefully, safe and warm. And they would still be near each other.
But…..Budapest was a long journey, and the troops of both the Greek and Turkish Armies were everywhere in Romania. Russian and Austrian troops were also flowing in to what was left of Romania, confronting the Turks and the Greeks. The Romanian people were caught between different Armies, all fighting to own their embattled land. ”
Phelan sighed, “But, the decision was made, as it was really the only viable course of action. Budapest it would be…… I accompanied them. I remained in my lupine form while we had the cover of the forest. I hunted for them, bringing down deer, and grabbing the occasional hare. I was careful not to so much as scratch these kills. I broke the animals’ necks, and carried the carcass to my villagers, as carefully as a Retriever carries a fallen duck to his master. They would butcher each kill, feast until they could hold no more, and then the women would cure and dry the abundant leftovers for the long journey ahead. They also tanned the hides for warm clothing. Now that I was among them, they no longer feared to build a campfire for cooking and warmth.
Once we reached the rather informal Border between Romania and Hungary, we had to leave the sheltering forest behind. Fortunately, the women had sewn me up some breeches and a tunic, big enough to fit me human form. They had no way to make shoes for me, but then, I didn’t need shoes. I went barefoot.
We slipped across the Border, under cover of darkness, and entered the vast Hungarian Plains.” He paused and snorted, “ I say ‘vast’ by European standards, ye understand. In truth, all of Hungary and Austria put together would occupy only a corner of California.”
Beth grinned at this, and Phelan continued, “Never the less, it was still a formidable journey for humans to undertake on foot, especially with the elderly and young children among them. Unlike Romania, which is very mountainous, Hungary is largely flat lands. That made it easier, but progress was still slow, so that everyone could keep up. The oldest and the youngest took turns riding on my shoulders.
To reach Budapest, on the shores of the Danube River further West, we had to cross the entire open expanse of the Great Hungarian Plains. It took many days and nights. Because we were out in the open, I remained in my human form most of the time. No one challenged us. In fact, a couple farmers along the way took pity on our group of obvious refugees, giving the women folk some staples, like flour, to use in cooking along the way.
The only real barrier we encountered in Hungary on our way to Budapest was the Tisza River. It is not as large as the Danube, but it’s still pretty big. Fortunately, because of the flat Hungarian Plains, it flowed slowly, meandering its way South across Hungary. It took some extra time, but we finally found a place shallow enough for me to ford while carrying cargo and passengers.” Phelan snorted and grinned, “I’ll bet I still hold the record to this day! The World’s only werewolf ferry!” He shook his head, smiling at the memory, “Anyway…..once we found the spot, I stripped and Shifted. Then, back and forth, back and forth, through the water I went. Carrying the elderly, the children, the adults, the struggling, braying livestock, and finally, all the gear and supplies. Then we were on our way again.
Budapest was a large and shining City, even in those days. Once we reached it, I, and the two surviving younger men, went in to get the lay of the land. All was fairly peaceful, and we inquired about employment and lodging. We found both were available, and in numbers sufficient to provide for all of our little group and their children. I think that was the first time I was able to breathe again, without my chest hurting. My friends, what was left of them, would be safe……….. They could start over.
The next few days were spent in obtaining lodging with what few coins each villager had managed to bring with them, and in securing employment. The young men signed on to work the Shipping Docks along the Danube. All of the younger widows easily landed jobs as Bar Maids, or cooks. The elderly among the survivors were given charge of the children while their mothers’ worked. Now, instead of sharing a Village, most of them lived in proximity to one another in the same neighborhood. It was not what they had had……..but it was enough.”
Phelan sighed, a long, sad sound, “I remained in, or near, Budapest for several weeks after they were all settled into their new ways of life. Watching over them was a hard habit to break. At night, I prowled and watched in my lupine form. This was difficult for me because, while…..the hunger……did not pull at me around my villagers, it certainly did around strangers. I kept meself full o’ venison, and that helped some, but not as much as I’d hoped. The wildness in me longed for what I had tasted on that battlefield.”
Beth blinked at him and swallowed hard. Was that what it was going to be like for her? “Did those……cravings…….ever go away?”, she asked softly.
Phelan smiled sadly, “Ah…..ye know better than that, lass, don’t ye now? We are hardwired from our very first moments in this life to crave both humans and vamps. You discovered that for yerself on the night of yer first Shift, didn’t yae?”
Beth nodded. She remembered. It had been so difficult to go for the offered venison, with three vampires in the room……but she had done it…..she had conquered, and resisted, that….. drive…… to do something terrible. “Yes…..”, she answered in a barely audible voice, “I remember.”
“But it got easier, didn’t it, lass? Once ye had started on venison? It got easier to resist those other urges?”
Beth nodded again, “Yes…..alot easier.”
“And so it will again, dearheart. I promise.” Phelan smiled gently at her. “All ye have to do is make it through the next few weeks, and the drive will begin to fade again. But, it will never go away completely. It can’t, anymore than our very nature can vanish. It will become easier to manage over time, but it will always be there, and it will be stronger now…….now that ye have tasted that forbidden fruit.”
Beth nodded and looked down at her own dainty hands folded in her lap. She wanted to change the subject. “So…..what happened next……in Budapest?”
“Well, I knew that Budapest was the right place for my surviving villagers, but the wrong place for me. I couldn’t stay. Big Cities and werewolves just don’t mix.”, Phelan threw Beth a pointed look, and then continued, “But, Budapest, like every big City on the Planet, had a Tribe of resident vampires. I wasn’t about to leave my villagers in their Territory without having a little chat with them first.” Phelan grinned at this particular memory.
“They weren’t hard to find, even without my nose.”, he grinned. “The biggest, grandest estate in all of Budapest, rivaled only by the Royal Palace itself. I strolled right up their front walk and knocked on their door. A human servant girl, of about 16 years, answered my knock, opening the door cautiously and looking up at me with wide, brown eyes. She was healthy, and well fed. I took that to be a very good sign.
I told the girl I needed to see the master of the estate. Her eyes widened and she told me he was resting, not to be disturbed. The sun was down, so I knew he wasn’t resting. I stepped past the girl and into the vestibule of the huge mansion. I told her I must speak with her employer immediately, on a matter that could not wait. She curtsied and hurried off.
While I waited, a few vamps began to filter into the great room beyond the vestibule, trying hard to look casual. They were eyeing me nervously, each trying to catch a glimpse of my face without being obvious, or getting too close, in the process. Their noses were telling them what I was…..but they were looking for something else, and I was pretty sure what it was. I decided to make it easy for them. I turned and looked right at them, allowing me canines to lengthen, and me eyes to flare towards bright emerald, as I smiled at them. Well, that appeared to answer their questions!”, Phelan chuckled softly, “They had obviously suspected that I was the legendary ‘Fire Wolf’, based on me size and me red hair, but once they saw me green eyes, they knew fer sure. They scattered like a covey of quail! I could hear frantic, whispered, arguments in other rooms about what to do, or not do, next. I heard someone with authority shush them and tell them to be still. They obeyed. The mansion became very quiet. I waited.
After a couple more minutes, a tall, dark-hair male vampire, elegantly dressed, entered the great room beyond the vestibule where I stood. Clean shaven, olive skinned, and with a faint almond shape to his dark eyes. He carried himself like a Prince. He was alone, which impressed me, and unarmed, also impressive. His scent told me that he was many, many hundreds of years old, and that he was the Alpha Male, the Leader, of Budapest’s Tribe.
He calmly addressed me as ‘Fire Wolf’, and asked what I wanted of him. He introduced himself as being called Ajbars. He did not seem hostile…..just worried. I told him my name, and as I explained the situation of my villagers, he politely motioned me forward to take a seat with him in his great room. The servant girl returned with a tray of ice waters, and…..my favorite……Ale. I enjoyed both, the ice water and the Ale that is, as did my host. He didn’t really like Ale, being a vampire, of course, but he was being social, and I thought it a very nice gesture.
He turned out to be a reasonable and gracious fellow, with a deep sense of duty and honor. And, it turned out he had, indeed, been a Prince long ago, a Hunnic Prince, to be precise. I had come expecting to have to threaten the Budapest Tribe into just leaving my villagers alone. Ajbars went me one better. He said he knew of the Romanian refugees who had recently come to town in the company of a very large red wolf. Nothing in Budapest escaped his notice, he said. I was sure of that! In exchange for me friendship, a non-aggression pact, if ye will, he promised to watch over me villagers always. To make certain they were all safe, and wanted for nothing. Any enemies of theirs, he promised, would become an enemy of his as well……and he guaranteed no enemies of his lived for very long.
My nose told me that he was telling the truth. He would look after my friends. That was all I could have ever hoped for……we shook on it, a bargain struck.
I went back to my villagers and explained that I could not remain in such a big City any longer, that it was contrary to my nature, but that I wanted them to remain there, build new lives, and be happy. They were, of course, not at all happy to hear this…..the children cried, the women hugged me an held on for dear life. Only the elderly seemed to understand, nodding at me knowingly. Fish got ta swim and birds got ta fly. A wolf needs the wilderness.
I explained my arrangement with Budapest’s vampire Tribe, that they should regard vampires in the City as friends and protectors in my absence. In particular, I stressed that Ajbars, Budpest’s Lead Vampire, had promised me he would look out for their well being from now on. I told them to drop his name if they needed to. They weren’t thrilled with any ‘o that either……but they trusted me, nodding agreement. I was asking them to trade in their werewolf guardian for a vampire guardian……no less bizarre…..just different.
I left Budapest, and my villagers, trusting Ajbars to look after them. He was true to his word. I became a wanderer, never staying in one place for very long, but, over the years that followed, I occasionally returned to Budapest to visit. The elderly passed away, the adults were growing old, and the children grew up fast. And, Ajbars watched over them, just as he promised. He even saw to it that the children received a good education.
When the youngest child of my surviving villagers went to his rest after a long full life, I thanked Ajbars and took my leave of Europe, eventually ending up in the Canada.
I kept in touch with Ajbars, occasionally exchanging letters during times when I had an address. He is always so formal, and driven by such a deep sense of duty. He has continued watching over the descendents of my villagers to this day. Far, far more than I ever asked of him.” Phelan smiled faintly, “That’s one vampire to whom I owe a really big favor.”
The big Irishman sighed and met Beth’s eyes. “Come on, lass. Let’s us both go upstairs and get an early supper. Yer young man will wake soon. It would be best if ye spoke with him on a full stomach.”
Beth glanced nervously to where Mick slept inside his freezer case.
“He’s fine, dearheart. And you will be too, I promise. Let him sleep for a couple more hours. He’ll wake when the sun sets, I’m sure. And in the meantime, ye can fill yer belly with a nice, non-bipedal, supper, something that ornery French Chef whips up for us. The more you eat, the faster that tell-tale maneater scent will go away.”
Phelan stood and extended a large hand towards Beth. With one last lingering glance at Mick’s sleeping form, Beth took Phelan’s outstretched hand and stood up, following him out of the Newbie Suite’s large Master Bedroom.
As she climbed the stairs behind Phelan, toward the ground floor of Josef’s mansion, Beth wondered again how she could face Mick when he woke. What was she going to say to him about what she had done last night? He would be able to smell it on her! Would he hate her for it…..turn away from her in disgust? She wouldn’t blame him if he did…… not one bit. She had become a monster.
I always left one battered, and terrified, survivor to carry his tale of horror back to his Tribe’s Leader. I was one wolf that should not be messed with!”, he paused to smirk at that, “It worked well. My reputation spread rapidly among Europe’s vampire Tribes. To all ‘o them, I became known as the ‘Fire Wolf ’, a huge red, green eyed, Celtic monstrosity that was universally feared by all….. I was the bringer of defeat and death.
By the time I met Josef, no Tribe Leader would send any hunting parties after me. They had lost dozens of their lackeys in each attempt, and gained nothing for the loss. Any hunting party that spotted me from a distance would make great haste in the opposite direction!” Phelan chuckled at the memory of his own infamy.
Beth blinked at him in astonishment, “Wow……Okay then…...’Fire Wolf’…..” She grinned faintly, “Back to my original question……Do you actually know anyone who has beaten it…..recovered from maneating successfully?”
“Aye…..I do, lass.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Beth gasped again and brought her dainty hand back to her mouth….her eyes widening disbelief. “You’re a maneater too?!”
“Was, dearheart…..was……and only briefly, a very long time ago…..in a situation not unlike the one you found yourself in last night.” He paused, his eyes sliding over to Mick’s freezer case for a moment, and then back again, “Plus…..as I mentioned earlier, I had indulged in the occasional vamp, too, prior to sliding into maneating.”
Beth slowly lowered her hand back to rest on her knee, as she continued to sit cross-legged on the corner of the bed facing the big Irishman. A determined calm settled over her lovely features as she regarded him. “Tell me.”, she said quietly.
Phelan leaned back in the overstuffed leather recliner and rested his forearms on its arms. He sighed resolutely and simply returned Beth’s gaze for several seconds. Then, “How much did Josef tell ye about how we met in his homeland of old…… and how we were eventually parted?”
“He told us all he knew……that you disappeared after your Village was destroyed…..that you left him a note……” Beth abruptly gasped, and her eyes rounded at the sudden epiphany. “Your Village! The Turks!”
Phelan nodded sadly, and his gaze wandered past her, seeming to look back through the centuries to a time long, long ago. “Aye…..the Turks, and their Greek lackeys. It was getting close to 1800 AD, I believe……. the Russians and the Austrians were beginning to challenge the Turkish and Greek rule over Josef’s embattled homeland. The lot of them were like a pack o’ scrawny dogs, fighting over what little meat remained on a single bone between them. There was so little left of Romania by then……so worn down by constant battle, it was. Its people struggled to hang on to what little was left to them. My Village….my human friends, whom I had watched over for so many generations……they did not have much either. But what little they had was theirs. It was their homes….their families…….” Phelan’s voice caught…..
The big Irishman paused, and Beth saw him rapidly blink back tears that had begun to shimmer in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “But…… I suppose that the Turks and Greeks were scrambling for every scrap they could wring from the people, and their land…..with the gathering threat of the Austrians and the Russians advancing on them…… challenging their control.”
Phelan lifted his emerald eyes to meet Beth’s gaze again. His features were tight, strained with the emotion roiling beneath them, “I heard the sounds of battle coming from the Village. I was in my cabin, afar off in the woods, when it began. I shifted right out of my clothes, and smashed down my own front door, in my haste to run to my Village’s aid. I got there quickly…..but not quick enough.” He paused again, and rubbed one of his enormous hands tiredly across his eyes.
“My Village was being looted..…..sacked. The men folk….. they had fought bravely..…..but most…..men I had watched grow up from babes in arms….. were already dead, at the hands of the Turkish Army, and their Greek thugs……….. by the time I got there. The surviving men folk were trying desperately to cover the retreat of the women, children, and the very old. The anguished screams of the widows…. and the terrified wails of their children…… filled the air.”
Beth listened is silence, holding her breath, her bright blue eyes wide in growing horror, intent on Phelan’s anguished face.
“Something…… snapped inside me……the Territorial Rage, like what you experienced last night. It was as though a red curtain descended across my vision….. and my mind…….I felt only blinding fury, and a desire to kill as many of those murders as I could. They would pay for what they had done. I leapt between my retreating villagers and the advancing soldiers….. and attacked.” Phelan drew in a deep breath, steadying himself before continuing, his eyes focused on the thick carpet under his feet.
“After that…….. I knew only blood, the tearing of flesh, the screams of the dying soldiers, and the snapping of their bones between my teeth. I was dimly aware of the many stabs of the sword or lance or arrow……..the many blows of the mace…..but it didn’t slow me. Then ……..more blood, more screams of dying soldiers, and more bones shattering in my jaws. I had become like a terrier in a pit of rats.
I lost track of how many soldiers I killed…..but I bought time enough for the surviving villagers to gather what little they could and flee to the forest beyond the Village.
The rest of that day, and the following night, was a blur to me. I had to keep the Army from pursuing my villagers…... my friends. I fought, I killed, I was wounded over and over again…..I recovered fast……and I fought, and I killed…… still more. At some point during the night…..some of the soldiers set the Village ablaze, seeming to believe that if they destroyed my Village, they would somehow destroy me as well.” He shook his head at the memory, his brow knitting in distress, “It only fueled my rage, and drove me on. I turned back towards my Village and killed them all for it…..but I could not stop the flames that spread…… so, so rapidly.
My Village burned……the home of the little boy I saved from the river……the home Mariska was born in……the home where her children were born…..and their children…….. All gone.
I fought on…..as much for vengeance, by that time, as anything else. A bloodlust had settled over me like a dripping shroud. I could feel nothing else. At some point during that long, terrible, night…….I began to feed from the soldiers I was killing. It was what ye would call ‘on the fly’ now. I would take a soldier down and kill him in one hard shake. But, before launching meself at the next group of soldiers, I would tear off…. and swallow…. a chunk of meat. Back then, werewolves called it ‘battle meat’. I grazed on the bodies of those I killed, ripping off a chunk here, a chunk there…… chewing and swallowing as I charged the next Battalion.
I remember not giving it a second thought at the time……I was wounded and hungry…..and I could not leave the field of battle to hunt normal game. If I did that, the soldiers might have given chase to my poor surviving villagers. I wouldn’t let that happen. I had to stop them where they were. So….. some of the soldiers I killed ended up sustaining me, allowing me to heal, and fight on. A double defeat for the bastards…..I remember enjoying that idea at the time. Giving into that ancient drive to hunt humans felt so good…….I became almost giddy in the….. rush….. of it……..the high……..”
Phelan paused and slowly leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees. He interlaced his fingers and just starred at his own large folded hands for several seconds before continuing. Beth waited in silence, watching him carefully.
“After several hours, the Turkish and Greek forces began to realize that they could not kill me…… or even slow me down. I was killing their soldiers by the score with each passing moment. I had become an engine of destruction……their destruction. My fury was unquenched, and my strength was continually renewed by the very flesh of the enemies I was killing, and trampling underfoot. My roars echoed up and down the valley. I grew drunk on them…..and all I wanted was more…….more battle…..more meat….. I no longer even recognized meself.
Their Commanders sounded a retreat. The Armies of both forces turned and fled. Drunk with battle, and human flesh, I gave chase for a short distance…….but then I remembered my Village. I turned and walked back to it…… slowly. Nothing but smoldering ashes remained. I remember sitting down at the edge of what had once been my Village………. and just watching the smoke rise into the dark sky above it.
Then…… I started howling. I howled and howled and howled……a funeral dirge for the Village I had protected for so long….. and for those villagers who had not escaped.
After a bit, I turned and went back among the dead soldiers of the Turks and Greeks. I selected a couple of them…..one of each, I think…..and I settled down and ate my fill of them.” Phelan saw Beth’s eyes round, just a bit, at this….. He continued, “At that point, I figured, what the hell? Right?” Phelan snorted humorlessly and glanced up at Beth, who was listening intently, her expression one of deep sadness…… and sympathy.
“Once my belly was full, and all my injuries healed, I went and washed myself in the river, which ran close to town. I stood in the rushing flow and looked to the Northwest, the direction my villagers had fled. Their best option was to try to reach Hungary. Hungary had had its own share of trouble with the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. About 50 years before Josef was born to his human parents, most of Hungary came under Turkish control, but the Ottoman Empire was something of an absentee landlord. Hungary was farther West than Romania, and therefore a greater effort to control. The Hungarians retained a lot of independence, as well as claiming Transylvania, which is, of course, part of Romania. The supply lines of the Ottoman Empire were being stretched too thin, and they were starting to lose battles, and territories. By the mid 1500’s, they had given part of Hungary to the Austrians…..trying to appease that growing threat. It didn’t work, and by 1700, the Austrians had taken all of Hungary, ceded to them without much of a fight by the Turks. Now, at the dawn of the 1800’s, the Austrians and the Russians were both coming into Romania and challenging Ottoman control of Josef’s homeland. The Ottoman Empire was slowly being pushed back. They were no longer the biggest dog on the block.
Actually, by that time, the Ottoman Empire was beginning its long, slow decline unto death. Like the Roman Empire before them……they were stumbling towards collapse. The Turks just didn’t know it yet. Meanwhile…..Josef’s people were being ground up under the boots of many different armies. There was little left of them, or their once thriving society.” Phelan paused, an expression deep sadness on his kind face.
“Hungary was not at peace, but there was little fighting there. The Austrians were in solid control of Hungary…..no Turks, no Greeks. That alone made it attractive. Perhaps, in Hungary, my poor villagers would have a chance to find refuge? My heart ached for them, and I yearned to help them…… to be certain they would find safety somewhere…… but I was afraid. Afraid that I could not trust meself around them anymore, or around any humans. And I was ashamed……so ashamed…… of what I had become in the span of a single night.”
Phelan looked Beth in the eye, “Just as ye are ashamed….. and afraid….. now.”
Beth blinked, and swallowed hard. Then, she nodded, and wiped a stray tear from the corner of one shining blue eye.
Phelan dropped his gaze to the floor, and continued, “As a gray dawn broke across that bloody, burned out, landscape….. which had once been a lovely little Village where children played….. I began the grisly work of burying my dead. Still in my lupine form, I dug a separate grave for each of my friends, who had died trying to defend their homes…… and I laid them each to rest beneath the very soil they had once tilled. I wept over them……prayed for their souls…. told them I was sorry, so sorry….. that I had failed to protect them…… I begged them to forgive me. And I begged God to forgive me, too.”
“But you didn’t fail!”, Beth protested, interrupting, “You did everything you could to stop those soldiers! Everything!”
Phelan smiled grimly, “But it wasn’t enough, was it? Most of my friends were murdered, their Village destroyed………. their families left as homeless refugees.” He shook his head slowly, and returned his gaze to the floor in front of his own feet. “I….. thank ye for your kindness, lass, but I most certainly did fail, I failed miserably…….and, I became a monster in the process…….a maneater. And, like you, I feared I would lose meself to that drive, now that I had fallen so easily into it……. And….. wallowed…… in it the way I had done. I hated meself for that…..”
“So…….what did you do then?”, Beth asked breathlessly.
“Once I had buried the bodies of my fallen friends, I dug several large pits outside the charred remains of the Village…… out on the battlefield. I was still in my lupine form, so the digging of these large pits went quickly. I had no regard for the soldiers who had killed my friends and driven the survivors from their homes…..but I was so ashamed of what I had done……the maneating……that I wanted to hide the evidence. The evidence of my crime was the bodies of the soldiers. I carried each corpse to one of the pits and tossed it in. Once the pits were all filled with the Turkish and Greek dead, I buried them in these mass graves.”
Phelan hesitated, staring off into the middle distance for several moments. “After that….once all the digging and burying was finally done…..I returned to the river and washed again. But…..the stench of my sin would not come out of my fur, no matter how many times I rolled, dunked, and shook. I felt filthy still.”
He glanced up at Beth. She reached out, spanning the short distance between them, and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.
Phelan continued, “I ended up sitting on the river bank for quite a while…..just staring off towards the Northwest. I couldn’t bring myself to face Josef again, at least not then. I knew he would know what I had done. I knew he would smell it on me. But…..my villagers had not stayed around long enough to witness my descent into maneating. And humans have no sense of smell, to speak of, at all. Perhaps they would not know what I had done, I decided. I convinced meself that I could control my recently unchained urges around my villagers…..I had to…..I owed them. With my Village gone, there was nothing left for me in Romania…… other than my friendship with Josef. I knew he would be alright…..he was well heeled, and experienced as a vampire, by that time…..but as I said, I just couldn’t face him then. So, I went back to my cabin one last time. I returned to human form only long enough to write Josef a note, which I left in the cellar for him. I knew he would check the cellar, if he came, but others probably wouldn’t. I took nothing with me for the journey. I shifted back to my lupine form and left my little cabin for the last time. I didn’t look back.
I picked up the scent trail of my surviving villagers and followed them. It did not take me long to find them. They trudged wearily through the forest, carrying or dragging what meager possessions they still had. Leading or driving what few livestock they managed to hang on to. ”
Beth watched Phelan’s handsome face as he told her these painful memories. It became very easy for her to put herself in his shoes, as she listened quietly. She knew how horrible those days must have been for the gentle giant…… she could feel it in his tone, see it in the tightness around his eyes…….and she realized that he truly did understand what she was going through now. He had been there……he had done that…… He knew what it was to see yourself as a monster……
Phelan’s eyes fixed on the wall behind Beth as he spoke, looking past its plaster and beams, to a time long, long ago…….. “Their faces. I’ll never forget their faces from that day, when I first caught up with them in the forest.” He glanced briefly at Beth, and then away again, “I see them in nightmares sometimes……as though their ghosts haunt me still.” The big red-headed man paused for a moment, closing his eyes and slowly scrubbing his bearded face with the heels of both hands.
Then he continued, “There were so few of them left……. only a couple dozen………..women and children mostly, a few elderly men and women, and a couple younger men who had covered the group’s retreat while I had gotten between them and the Turks. Their faces, as they walked through the forest, trying to be quiet, were all the same…….pasty white, their eyes glassy, their feet shuffling…….they stumbled often. There was no weeping…..only the glassy staring eyes and deathly pale skin.”
He stopped again, his deep green eyes riveted on the wall behind Beth.
Beth waited for several heartbeats……watching him closely……but Phelan seemed to have retreated to somewhere inside his own head, lost in a memory he could barely stand to face.
“What happened then?”, she prompted gently.
The big Irishman blinked and focused on Beth’s large blue eyes. She offered a tentative smile of encouragement.
Phelan sighed and dropped his eyes to the floor, “I paced them for hours……staying in the trees out of their sight…..but still escorting them, ready to fight for them again, if I had to.” Eventually, his shining green eyes drifted back to that spot on the wall behind Beth. “I didn’t know how they would react to me……how much they might have seen……or feel about the fact that I hadn’t been able to protect the Village…..to stop the soldiers. So, feeling deep shame, I stayed out of their sight for the rest of that day……but they were never out of my sight. It didn’t take me long to realize that the tug of desire for human flesh was almost non-existent around my villagers. They had never been food to me……and they never would be. They were my family…..my Pack. The…..pull of hunger…..was not there, not like it had been on the battlefield, when my blood was up. I had hungered for the soldiers……but not for my villagers.”
Phelan paused, and shifted his position slightly in the chair. He dropped his gaze to the large folded hands resting in front of his knees. “When it got dark, I watched from the shadows as my villagers made camp for the night. They were afraid to light a fire……afraid the Turkish Army might see, and come after them……even then. I watched, my heart breaking, as the widows and orphans ate their meager rations, cold and raw, before curling up under what bedding they had managed to bring with them. The night was cold, and they shivered. I heard a couple of muffled sobs, here and there….. and each one was a knife in me heart. I sat out there in the trees….listening, watching..……hating meself. Gradually, all the villagers drifted into an exhausted sleep.”
He glanced up a Beth briefly, and then returned his gaze to a contemplation of his own folded hands. “I couldn’t help meself……once they were all asleep……I crept into the makeshift camp, weaving me way gingerly between their sleeping forms. I don’t even really know why I did it……maybe I just wanted to be rejected and punished by them……as I felt I deserved. But, mostly, I think I just wanted to be with them…..come what may. They were my Pack. I curled up in a ball, nose to tail, in the midst of them. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was too, until that moment. I think I was sound asleep in only moments.”
Phelan mopped his eyes with the back of one large hand, and looked up a Beth, offering her a lopsided grin. “When I woke up, it was nearly dawn, and I hadn’t moved……but every child in the camp was snuggled up tight against me, from the youngest, to the oldest…..the oldest, being only about eleven. They had each found a section of me to nestle into……and somehow…..I had slept on, undisturbed by their invasion of me fur.” He smiled and snorted at the memory.
“I can’t begin to explain what that felt like……what that meant to me. I wasn’t a monster to them. I was still just good ol’ Phelan. I was still their friend, their protector. They still trusted me…….and they still loved me.”
Beth smiled and blinked back a tear.
Phelan returned her smile and continued. “The adults, when they woke, where equally welcoming of me. I was hugged many times……and they thanked me for fighting for them…..and for following them into the wilderness. Not a single widow asked why I hadn’t saved her husband. None of the fatherless children asked why I hadn’t saved their Pa. All any of them would say about the Village battle, and the horrific losses, was that they knew I had tried. That was enough for them, and they would discuss it no further.” Phelan’s thousand-yard gaze was back…..fixed on the wall behind Beth.
“They had decided to make for Hungary, as I suspected they would. In soft conversations, during which they often sought me advice, they decided that the best chance for all of them would be the City of Budapest. There, they could blend in and find employment, housing, and so forth. They would no longer be a Village…..but they would be, hopefully, safe and warm. And they would still be near each other.
But…..Budapest was a long journey, and the troops of both the Greek and Turkish Armies were everywhere in Romania. Russian and Austrian troops were also flowing in to what was left of Romania, confronting the Turks and the Greeks. The Romanian people were caught between different Armies, all fighting to own their embattled land. ”
Phelan sighed, “But, the decision was made, as it was really the only viable course of action. Budapest it would be…… I accompanied them. I remained in my lupine form while we had the cover of the forest. I hunted for them, bringing down deer, and grabbing the occasional hare. I was careful not to so much as scratch these kills. I broke the animals’ necks, and carried the carcass to my villagers, as carefully as a Retriever carries a fallen duck to his master. They would butcher each kill, feast until they could hold no more, and then the women would cure and dry the abundant leftovers for the long journey ahead. They also tanned the hides for warm clothing. Now that I was among them, they no longer feared to build a campfire for cooking and warmth.
Once we reached the rather informal Border between Romania and Hungary, we had to leave the sheltering forest behind. Fortunately, the women had sewn me up some breeches and a tunic, big enough to fit me human form. They had no way to make shoes for me, but then, I didn’t need shoes. I went barefoot.
We slipped across the Border, under cover of darkness, and entered the vast Hungarian Plains.” He paused and snorted, “ I say ‘vast’ by European standards, ye understand. In truth, all of Hungary and Austria put together would occupy only a corner of California.”
Beth grinned at this, and Phelan continued, “Never the less, it was still a formidable journey for humans to undertake on foot, especially with the elderly and young children among them. Unlike Romania, which is very mountainous, Hungary is largely flat lands. That made it easier, but progress was still slow, so that everyone could keep up. The oldest and the youngest took turns riding on my shoulders.
To reach Budapest, on the shores of the Danube River further West, we had to cross the entire open expanse of the Great Hungarian Plains. It took many days and nights. Because we were out in the open, I remained in my human form most of the time. No one challenged us. In fact, a couple farmers along the way took pity on our group of obvious refugees, giving the women folk some staples, like flour, to use in cooking along the way.
The only real barrier we encountered in Hungary on our way to Budapest was the Tisza River. It is not as large as the Danube, but it’s still pretty big. Fortunately, because of the flat Hungarian Plains, it flowed slowly, meandering its way South across Hungary. It took some extra time, but we finally found a place shallow enough for me to ford while carrying cargo and passengers.” Phelan snorted and grinned, “I’ll bet I still hold the record to this day! The World’s only werewolf ferry!” He shook his head, smiling at the memory, “Anyway…..once we found the spot, I stripped and Shifted. Then, back and forth, back and forth, through the water I went. Carrying the elderly, the children, the adults, the struggling, braying livestock, and finally, all the gear and supplies. Then we were on our way again.
Budapest was a large and shining City, even in those days. Once we reached it, I, and the two surviving younger men, went in to get the lay of the land. All was fairly peaceful, and we inquired about employment and lodging. We found both were available, and in numbers sufficient to provide for all of our little group and their children. I think that was the first time I was able to breathe again, without my chest hurting. My friends, what was left of them, would be safe……….. They could start over.
The next few days were spent in obtaining lodging with what few coins each villager had managed to bring with them, and in securing employment. The young men signed on to work the Shipping Docks along the Danube. All of the younger widows easily landed jobs as Bar Maids, or cooks. The elderly among the survivors were given charge of the children while their mothers’ worked. Now, instead of sharing a Village, most of them lived in proximity to one another in the same neighborhood. It was not what they had had……..but it was enough.”
Phelan sighed, a long, sad sound, “I remained in, or near, Budapest for several weeks after they were all settled into their new ways of life. Watching over them was a hard habit to break. At night, I prowled and watched in my lupine form. This was difficult for me because, while…..the hunger……did not pull at me around my villagers, it certainly did around strangers. I kept meself full o’ venison, and that helped some, but not as much as I’d hoped. The wildness in me longed for what I had tasted on that battlefield.”
Beth blinked at him and swallowed hard. Was that what it was going to be like for her? “Did those……cravings…….ever go away?”, she asked softly.
Phelan smiled sadly, “Ah…..ye know better than that, lass, don’t ye now? We are hardwired from our very first moments in this life to crave both humans and vamps. You discovered that for yerself on the night of yer first Shift, didn’t yae?”
Beth nodded. She remembered. It had been so difficult to go for the offered venison, with three vampires in the room……but she had done it…..she had conquered, and resisted, that….. drive…… to do something terrible. “Yes…..”, she answered in a barely audible voice, “I remember.”
“But it got easier, didn’t it, lass? Once ye had started on venison? It got easier to resist those other urges?”
Beth nodded again, “Yes…..alot easier.”
“And so it will again, dearheart. I promise.” Phelan smiled gently at her. “All ye have to do is make it through the next few weeks, and the drive will begin to fade again. But, it will never go away completely. It can’t, anymore than our very nature can vanish. It will become easier to manage over time, but it will always be there, and it will be stronger now…….now that ye have tasted that forbidden fruit.”
Beth nodded and looked down at her own dainty hands folded in her lap. She wanted to change the subject. “So…..what happened next……in Budapest?”
“Well, I knew that Budapest was the right place for my surviving villagers, but the wrong place for me. I couldn’t stay. Big Cities and werewolves just don’t mix.”, Phelan threw Beth a pointed look, and then continued, “But, Budapest, like every big City on the Planet, had a Tribe of resident vampires. I wasn’t about to leave my villagers in their Territory without having a little chat with them first.” Phelan grinned at this particular memory.
“They weren’t hard to find, even without my nose.”, he grinned. “The biggest, grandest estate in all of Budapest, rivaled only by the Royal Palace itself. I strolled right up their front walk and knocked on their door. A human servant girl, of about 16 years, answered my knock, opening the door cautiously and looking up at me with wide, brown eyes. She was healthy, and well fed. I took that to be a very good sign.
I told the girl I needed to see the master of the estate. Her eyes widened and she told me he was resting, not to be disturbed. The sun was down, so I knew he wasn’t resting. I stepped past the girl and into the vestibule of the huge mansion. I told her I must speak with her employer immediately, on a matter that could not wait. She curtsied and hurried off.
While I waited, a few vamps began to filter into the great room beyond the vestibule, trying hard to look casual. They were eyeing me nervously, each trying to catch a glimpse of my face without being obvious, or getting too close, in the process. Their noses were telling them what I was…..but they were looking for something else, and I was pretty sure what it was. I decided to make it easy for them. I turned and looked right at them, allowing me canines to lengthen, and me eyes to flare towards bright emerald, as I smiled at them. Well, that appeared to answer their questions!”, Phelan chuckled softly, “They had obviously suspected that I was the legendary ‘Fire Wolf’, based on me size and me red hair, but once they saw me green eyes, they knew fer sure. They scattered like a covey of quail! I could hear frantic, whispered, arguments in other rooms about what to do, or not do, next. I heard someone with authority shush them and tell them to be still. They obeyed. The mansion became very quiet. I waited.
After a couple more minutes, a tall, dark-hair male vampire, elegantly dressed, entered the great room beyond the vestibule where I stood. Clean shaven, olive skinned, and with a faint almond shape to his dark eyes. He carried himself like a Prince. He was alone, which impressed me, and unarmed, also impressive. His scent told me that he was many, many hundreds of years old, and that he was the Alpha Male, the Leader, of Budapest’s Tribe.
He calmly addressed me as ‘Fire Wolf’, and asked what I wanted of him. He introduced himself as being called Ajbars. He did not seem hostile…..just worried. I told him my name, and as I explained the situation of my villagers, he politely motioned me forward to take a seat with him in his great room. The servant girl returned with a tray of ice waters, and…..my favorite……Ale. I enjoyed both, the ice water and the Ale that is, as did my host. He didn’t really like Ale, being a vampire, of course, but he was being social, and I thought it a very nice gesture.
He turned out to be a reasonable and gracious fellow, with a deep sense of duty and honor. And, it turned out he had, indeed, been a Prince long ago, a Hunnic Prince, to be precise. I had come expecting to have to threaten the Budapest Tribe into just leaving my villagers alone. Ajbars went me one better. He said he knew of the Romanian refugees who had recently come to town in the company of a very large red wolf. Nothing in Budapest escaped his notice, he said. I was sure of that! In exchange for me friendship, a non-aggression pact, if ye will, he promised to watch over me villagers always. To make certain they were all safe, and wanted for nothing. Any enemies of theirs, he promised, would become an enemy of his as well……and he guaranteed no enemies of his lived for very long.
My nose told me that he was telling the truth. He would look after my friends. That was all I could have ever hoped for……we shook on it, a bargain struck.
I went back to my villagers and explained that I could not remain in such a big City any longer, that it was contrary to my nature, but that I wanted them to remain there, build new lives, and be happy. They were, of course, not at all happy to hear this…..the children cried, the women hugged me an held on for dear life. Only the elderly seemed to understand, nodding at me knowingly. Fish got ta swim and birds got ta fly. A wolf needs the wilderness.
I explained my arrangement with Budapest’s vampire Tribe, that they should regard vampires in the City as friends and protectors in my absence. In particular, I stressed that Ajbars, Budpest’s Lead Vampire, had promised me he would look out for their well being from now on. I told them to drop his name if they needed to. They weren’t thrilled with any ‘o that either……but they trusted me, nodding agreement. I was asking them to trade in their werewolf guardian for a vampire guardian……no less bizarre…..just different.
I left Budapest, and my villagers, trusting Ajbars to look after them. He was true to his word. I became a wanderer, never staying in one place for very long, but, over the years that followed, I occasionally returned to Budapest to visit. The elderly passed away, the adults were growing old, and the children grew up fast. And, Ajbars watched over them, just as he promised. He even saw to it that the children received a good education.
When the youngest child of my surviving villagers went to his rest after a long full life, I thanked Ajbars and took my leave of Europe, eventually ending up in the Canada.
I kept in touch with Ajbars, occasionally exchanging letters during times when I had an address. He is always so formal, and driven by such a deep sense of duty. He has continued watching over the descendents of my villagers to this day. Far, far more than I ever asked of him.” Phelan smiled faintly, “That’s one vampire to whom I owe a really big favor.”
The big Irishman sighed and met Beth’s eyes. “Come on, lass. Let’s us both go upstairs and get an early supper. Yer young man will wake soon. It would be best if ye spoke with him on a full stomach.”
Beth glanced nervously to where Mick slept inside his freezer case.
“He’s fine, dearheart. And you will be too, I promise. Let him sleep for a couple more hours. He’ll wake when the sun sets, I’m sure. And in the meantime, ye can fill yer belly with a nice, non-bipedal, supper, something that ornery French Chef whips up for us. The more you eat, the faster that tell-tale maneater scent will go away.”
Phelan stood and extended a large hand towards Beth. With one last lingering glance at Mick’s sleeping form, Beth took Phelan’s outstretched hand and stood up, following him out of the Newbie Suite’s large Master Bedroom.
As she climbed the stairs behind Phelan, toward the ground floor of Josef’s mansion, Beth wondered again how she could face Mick when he woke. What was she going to say to him about what she had done last night? He would be able to smell it on her! Would he hate her for it…..turn away from her in disgust? She wouldn’t blame him if he did…… not one bit. She had become a monster.
Last edited by lionsonleashes on Wed Jun 01, 2011 2:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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LadyAilith
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Yay! Thank you *so* much Lions!!
I'm so glad that Phelan was there, waiting for Beth to wake up. He's doing such a stellar job of helping her to understand her behavior. I had hoped that she'd feel better about what happened once he's done talking with her, but I guess it's going to take some time...
Stellar job as usual!
I'm so glad that Phelan was there, waiting for Beth to wake up. He's doing such a stellar job of helping her to understand her behavior. I had hoped that she'd feel better about what happened once he's done talking with her, but I guess it's going to take some time...
Stellar job as usual!
Last edited by LadyAilith on Wed Jun 01, 2011 3:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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allegrita
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
No, Beth, Mick could NEVER hate you! 
But of course she can't quite see that yet, poor thing.
Thank you, Lions, for having Phelan tell Beth his story. I was absolutely riveted! What a wonderful, tragic, adventurous narrative! It would make the most wonderful illustrated fairy tale...
And most important, it helps Beth see that there is a life beyond this catastrophe. Phelan doesn't lie to her. It's not going to be easy. But he's encouraging her to believe that she can do it, just as he did. And just as she doesn't blame Phelan for what he did in defense of his villagers, she will come to see that her own actions are excusable, and forgivable. (Probably by everyone except herself.)
But of course she can't quite see that yet, poor thing.
Thank you, Lions, for having Phelan tell Beth his story. I was absolutely riveted! What a wonderful, tragic, adventurous narrative! It would make the most wonderful illustrated fairy tale...
And most important, it helps Beth see that there is a life beyond this catastrophe. Phelan doesn't lie to her. It's not going to be easy. But he's encouraging her to believe that she can do it, just as he did. And just as she doesn't blame Phelan for what he did in defense of his villagers, she will come to see that her own actions are excusable, and forgivable. (Probably by everyone except herself.)
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lionsonleashes
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Wow! Thanks Ailith & Alle! 
You gals read fast! I wasn't even done editing it, and you already posted Feedback!
And thanks for the wonderful Feedback! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
Lions
You gals read fast! I wasn't even done editing it, and you already posted Feedback!
And thanks for the wonderful Feedback! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
Lions
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jen
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
This is totally fabulous!!!!
You have laid out a wonderful history for Phelan and it seems that Beth is already beginning to turn the corner in her own mind. Yes. what happened was a tragedy, and she knows that it will cause her additional difficulties, but she is not the monster that she supposed. She didn't initiate the battle that nearly killed Mick and Josef--she just finished it. In a very real sense, she is as much a victim here as the Legion hit squad she took out. There were definitely extenuating circumstances to what occurred.
Love Phelan's explanation of instinct--practical, logical and at times bordering on poetic.
Beth is getting some history of were's, too. She will need as much information on the structure and behavior of Packs and Phelan can provide. I really hope that they don't cause trouble for Beth. At this point, they will immediately assume that Beth is a rogue, like her sire.
Thank you for a really amazing chapter!!!
Jenna
You have laid out a wonderful history for Phelan and it seems that Beth is already beginning to turn the corner in her own mind. Yes. what happened was a tragedy, and she knows that it will cause her additional difficulties, but she is not the monster that she supposed. She didn't initiate the battle that nearly killed Mick and Josef--she just finished it. In a very real sense, she is as much a victim here as the Legion hit squad she took out. There were definitely extenuating circumstances to what occurred.
Love Phelan's explanation of instinct--practical, logical and at times bordering on poetic.
Beth is getting some history of were's, too. She will need as much information on the structure and behavior of Packs and Phelan can provide. I really hope that they don't cause trouble for Beth. At this point, they will immediately assume that Beth is a rogue, like her sire.
Thank you for a really amazing chapter!!!
Jenna
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lionsonleashes
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Thanks Jen! 
Your Feedback is so encouraging, and, as always, very inspiring!
More troubles with The Legion is coming......but at least for the next Chapter, Beth and Mick will have some 'downtime' to contemplate their unusual natures......and what REALLY makes a "monster".
Got to go.......I'm off to Alaska early in the morning!
Hugs!
Lions
Your Feedback is so encouraging, and, as always, very inspiring!
More troubles with The Legion is coming......but at least for the next Chapter, Beth and Mick will have some 'downtime' to contemplate their unusual natures......and what REALLY makes a "monster".
Got to go.......I'm off to Alaska early in the morning!
Hugs!
Lions
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redwinter101
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Oh, Lions, this is amazing. I usually have little time for OCs (my interest doesn't really extend beyond Mick, Josef, Beth and Coraline) but Phelan's story is so utterly captivating, I was gripped from the very first word.
Yes, I'm still anxiously waiting Mick and Beth's reunion, but this interlude is the most delightful way of getting us to that point.
Bravo!
Red
I usually have little time for OCs (my interest doesn't really extend beyond Mick, Josef, Beth and Coraline) but Phelan's story is so utterly captivating, I was gripped from the very first word.Yes, I'm still anxiously waiting Mick and Beth's reunion, but this interlude is the most delightful way of getting us to that point.
Bravo!
Red
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OlWolf
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Someone threw me a bone that this was here! I missed this Story! Thank you LoL!
LOVED Phalen's story! Lotsa depth and detail! Really Great! I could 'see the film' as he spoke! It's good for Beth to know she's not the only one - cause even though those she killed and fed from "Needed Killin'" in country-phrase - he own behavior shocked and shamed her! Knowing it's not just her - that Phalen has gone through this, should make her feel less guilty... his Logic is correct... those she devoured had almost killed her mate and surrogate-sire on purpose... trackin' them down and makin' them pay is just Natural Law at work. And her head-injury really needed to meat to recover! I think that while Beth worries about repulsing Mick with what she's done - I believe it'll make him open his own box of memories to tell her of those things he's done, that he tried to shelter her from.
More! More!
LOVED Phalen's story! Lotsa depth and detail! Really Great! I could 'see the film' as he spoke! It's good for Beth to know she's not the only one - cause even though those she killed and fed from "Needed Killin'" in country-phrase - he own behavior shocked and shamed her! Knowing it's not just her - that Phalen has gone through this, should make her feel less guilty... his Logic is correct... those she devoured had almost killed her mate and surrogate-sire on purpose... trackin' them down and makin' them pay is just Natural Law at work. And her head-injury really needed to meat to recover! I think that while Beth worries about repulsing Mick with what she's done - I believe it'll make him open his own box of memories to tell her of those things he's done, that he tried to shelter her from.
More! More!-
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Thanks so much Red & OlWolf!
You both honor & inspire me with your praise & feedback! 
I'm so glad you enjoyed Phelan's history......I wanted to flesh him out some more, and it just kind of exploded from there. Phelan has turned out to be a rather demanding OC. 
He "wanted" his story told.....so I did. I always follow the direction my Muse wants to go. 
Chapter 31, Define Monster, Part 2, is in the works now.
It is centering on Mick & Beth dealing, together, with the darker sides of their dual natures. They both need to have this talk 
and things that have lain hidden from each other will finally be discussed. 
Thanks again!
Lions
You both honor & inspire me with your praise & feedback!
I'm so glad you enjoyed Phelan's history......I wanted to flesh him out some more, and it just kind of exploded from there.
Phelan has turned out to be a rather demanding OC. He "wanted" his story told.....so I did. I always follow the direction my Muse wants to go. Chapter 31, Define Monster, Part 2, is in the works now.
It is centering on Mick & Beth dealing, together, with the darker sides of their dual natures. They both need to have this talk and things that have lain hidden from each other will finally be discussed. Thanks again!
Lions
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jen
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Sounds fabulous!!!
Now Mick and Josef will also be aware what an enormous asset to the Tribe Beth is! They both owe their lives to her!
Jenna
Now Mick and Josef will also be aware what an enormous asset to the Tribe Beth is! They both owe their lives to her!
Jenna
Mick and Beth--two of the lovely faces of Moonlight
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lionsonleashes
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Thanks Jen!
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allegrita
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Oooh, I am really looking forward to this!!!lionsonleashes wrote:Chapter 31, Define Monster, Part 2, is in the works now.
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lionsonleashes
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
Thanks Alle!
I've got about 5000 words written, largely when "mandated" to work a double shift at the Hospital.
There are only a few chores to do late at night, and then, because I've already worked a full 8 hours on Swing Shift, the challenge becomes just staying alert, 
while all my Patients are sleeping. So, in between rounds and Chart checks, I drag out my laptop and work on Chap 31. Not ideal.....but it's often the only free time I have to work on it. That's why Chapters are taking so long, and I sure do appreciate your patience with me!
It's coming along nicely.....if slowly. Beth and Mick will tell each other things they have previously hidden from one another. Mick's goal is to show Beth that sometimes the "inner creature" MUST be let out to "play", that it is normal, and that while it isn't something you want to do very often......sometimes it is needed.....and it doesn't make her a "monster", it makes her a werewolf.
They'll both be initially surprised by each other's revelations......but learn together that they must begin coming to terms with their darker natures.....both of them. Mick will be reminded of Josef's words....."That's your entire problem, right there. Sooner or later, you're going to have to stop hating what you are."
Yeah.....he does, and so does Beth.
Thanks again for your never ending patience and encouragement! I've felt my muse pushing at me in recent days. She has ideas, and wants to start typing.....now. This usually happens when I'm driving.
Well, got to go. It's late, and I get to actually sleep tonight!
Another grueling Evening awaits me tomorrow. I suspect I'll get "manadated" to a double shift on Friday. I always get "mandated" on weekends. But, It'll give me some time to work on Chap 31, at least! 
Nighty night!
Lions
I've got about 5000 words written, largely when "mandated" to work a double shift at the Hospital.
There are only a few chores to do late at night, and then, because I've already worked a full 8 hours on Swing Shift, the challenge becomes just staying alert, while all my Patients are sleeping. So, in between rounds and Chart checks, I drag out my laptop and work on Chap 31. Not ideal.....but it's often the only free time I have to work on it. That's why Chapters are taking so long, and I sure do appreciate your patience with me! It's coming along nicely.....if slowly. Beth and Mick will tell each other things they have previously hidden from one another. Mick's goal is to show Beth that sometimes the "inner creature" MUST be let out to "play", that it is normal, and that while it isn't something you want to do very often......sometimes it is needed.....and it doesn't make her a "monster", it makes her a werewolf.
They'll both be initially surprised by each other's revelations......but learn together that they must begin coming to terms with their darker natures.....both of them. Mick will be reminded of Josef's words....."That's your entire problem, right there. Sooner or later, you're going to have to stop hating what you are."
Yeah.....he does, and so does Beth.
Thanks again for your never ending patience and encouragement! I've felt my muse pushing at me in recent days. She has ideas, and wants to start typing.....now. This usually happens when I'm driving.
Well, got to go. It's late, and I get to actually sleep tonight!
Another grueling Evening awaits me tomorrow. I suspect I'll get "manadated" to a double shift on Friday. I always get "mandated" on weekends. But, It'll give me some time to work on Chap 31, at least! Nighty night!
Lions
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redwinter101
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Re: FULL MOONLIGHT---Ch 30---Define Monster, Part 1. (PC-13)
We'll wait as long as it takes, honey - I'm delighted you're keeping going.
Red
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