A Prowling Horror
#18 of The Moonrise Chronicles
Verona
frowned. "I don't get it. If he was really a werewolf, why didn't he go down in
history? I would think that being given those titles would have ensured him a place
in history!"
Her
mother hushed her. "We don't talk about him. He was truly evil if there is ever
a person to use that word on. If he were still alive today, it would be too
horrible to mention. But he is known, and I'm sure it has just been by chance
that you have never heard of him."
Maggie
was unimpressed. "Stuff it sister. This guy is for real. I guess it's nice to
know that getting struck by lightning will never be enough to kill me, but if
this guy is a werewolf, why did I never see him change?"
I had a
lame answer. "Maybe he didn't feel like it."
"No,
it's more than that I think. He smells like a feral to me, and he acts like a feral,
but he doesn't look like one. Could the electricity have done that?"
Reynaud
shrugged. "Who can say? As far as we know he was the only one who was executed
in this manner. By all rights it should not have killed him, but it isn't like
we have volunteers to test it out. So if this is really him, then obviously it
didn't."
Maggie
made a face. "Fine. What else do you know about him?"
Lupenia
tapped her fingers. "Nothing good. He was sick, twisted and evil. He was found
with weapons, but it was believed that those were either planted by the police
or else used by him to hide his nature."
"So no
one ever saw him change?"
"Not
that was ever documented. But think about it. If you saw him change, way back a
hundred years ago, and you had no proof, would you tell anyone? They would
think you were as crazy as he was. Today, with your little hand held telephones, you could back up your claim with live footage."
"You've
got a point. Anything else?"
The
elderly couple looked at one another. "There is much to tell, but so much of it
is just history now. I'm sure if you look online on your internet thing you can
find more information."
Maggie
was on it. She was soon silently reading to herself, whistling low from time to
time. Then her attention was drawn to something. She looked up over the top of
her computer. "This guy is good!"
I had
no idea what it was she was reading. But her use of the present tense made me
start. "What do you mean?"
She
pointed to an image of an old x-ray. "See here. This guy stuck himself full of
needles. It says here, twenty nine altogether."
Looking
at the image made me hurt. "So?"
"So?
What if those were acupuncture needles? There were Chinese around back then,
weren't there?"
"Acupuncture.
I don't get it."
She
clicked a few links on the computer. "You see. The Chinese make their needles
out of silver. It's supposedly calming or some such nonsense."
"So
you're saying that by stuffing himself with these needles, he was able to keep
from transforming? I would think that all that silver would have killed him."
Reynaud
was shaking his head. "The girl may be right. If he stuck just one in at a time
in his human form, over a span of days or weeks, then it might have
accomplished a halt in the transformation process, even though he was already a
fully fledged werewolf."
This was just too weird for me. "So this guy
sticks himself full of silver needles to what end? I would think that if he
were a werewolf, he could have broken out of prison and gotten away."
"Yes,
if he were thinking logically. But his mind was obviously tainted. So thinking
clearly was not his strong suit. But it would go far to explain a lot about
him. And if he had silver in him, it would have slowed the healing process from
the damage caused by the electric chair. It could have taken days to return to
life."
This
was just too freakish. Each passing day my life was going to hell in a hand
basket. I didn't like thinking of this guy as a zombie, because while I could
deal with werewolves, the idea of an undead body walking around Manhattan to be
too much for my poor brain to handle. So I thought of him as a mutant werewolf.
It wasn't much better.
"Ok. So
maybe this guy is the same one who was executed way back when..."
"Nineteen
thirty six." It was Maggie, being all smart.
"Yes,
then. Why has no one caught on to him since?"
Verona
was sitting there still looking pale. "Because who would look for him? He was
dead and buried. They probably never noticed his body was gone."
Maggie
was shaking her head. "I don't know about that. According to this, he was
buried at Sing Sing. I would think someone would have noticed."
It was
my turn. "Maybe. What would you say to your boss? Uh, yeah, ya see, this grave is empty. What should I do? They
probably shoveled the dirt back over it and hoped no one found out."
She
stuck her tongue out at me. "You're probably right."
The old
folks didn't find any humor in the situation. "If it is him, he needs to be
eliminated. What he did those many years ago was terrible. I can only imagine
what he has gotten away with now, after so many decades. "
I
sobered back up. "I don't disagree. Couldn't someone just tip his existence off
to the police?"
"Son,
as logical as that sounds, I don't think the world would be ready for that kind
of scandal. Can you imagine the outrage and disbelief that would occur if it
was known this man was still alive? Add to that his age, and his mental
condition, it would spark riots. We have gone through the mania that comes from
people knowing of our existence."
Maggie
pounced on that. "Yeah! Like how old would he be now anyway? Like almost one
hundred and forty years old!"
That
put it in perspective for me. The guy was old, and maybe not as old as
werewolves might get, but an incredibly long life, or half life, for anyone. It
scared me to think about such longevity in myself. I wasn't prepared to live
that long. Especially not if I had to become a killer to survive."
Verona
spoke her mind. "That's not as old as the oldest living werewolf, but there are
so many factors that get in the way of living out a full life. Just like
regular humans, we can succumb to disease and poison as well as silver."
That
got me thinking. Poison. "What would poison a werewolf besides silver?"
Reynaud
replied in hushed tones. "This is no conversation to be taken lightly son. We
have a hard enough time surviving without bantering about ways of killing us
off."
Maggie
snorted. "Don't be so dramatic. One of the poisons is Wolfsbane, am I right?"
Lupenia
nodded silently.
"I
looked it up online once. It's poisonous to humans too. Why is that so?"
"Dear, it's
the one effective measure against us in our human form. We can tolerate silver
as we are now, but not as a werewolf. So we stay away from that plant; very
very far away."
My head
was swimming again. Silver. Wolf's bane. Ancient, decrepit werewolf murderers. Heck,
just plain old werewolves were a little much to handle. It was more than any
man should be expected to take in...as being real.
I
sucked in a breath before opening my mouth again. "OK. I think I'm grasping
this as best I can. We need to kill this guy, but seeing as he's already been
killed once, I don't see where that will be easy. Are you suggesting that we
just poison him?"
"No. It
might work, but it seems that he is a little like you. If he can survive the
silver in his body, he might be able to survive the poison."
"So
what can we do?"
Reynaud
snapped out his answer in his irritation. "Son, I really don't know. This trip
went from being interesting to very dire. I originally thought you were going to
be my biggest problem, but now I find that you are nothing in comparison to Mr.
Fish. You'll just have to trust me when I say that with no exception can he be
allowed to live another year."
And so
the discussion went on and on. In the end, it came back the same thing. We
might be able to rend him from limb to limb, but if he retained his strength,
then that might not be possible. It was difficult to say how he might react to
the presence of a group of his own kind. He had obviously led a long and secluded
life. He was used to humans, and so he might have gotten complacent and sloppy.
But we didn't need any surprises.
After a
long day, Molly and I went back to the hotel.
I have to say I was in the mood for something less vile and loathsome as
our day's conversation, and so was Maggie. Despite the need to change our ways,
I wasn't ready to give up on our nice, comfortable relationship. We showered
together, dried off and hit the bed.
She
snuggled up close, sticking to her human self. "Father?"
"Yes?"
"Are
you scared right now?"
"Out of
my wits!"
"Me
too. I don't like that feeling. I thought that I was better than everyone else,
and badder. Now I find that I'm nothing nearly as special as I thought. Who
would have thought that you were just like me?"
"But
I'm not just like you Maggie. Don't put yourself down. If it weren't for you,
we wouldn't be here right now."
"That's
sort of what I mean. Maybe I should have kept my nose out of things and lived
life in ana; anam..."
"Anonymity?"
"Yes!
Then we'd be back home having sex, and you'd fit, and I'd prowl around cleaning
up the city, and then we would have more sex. It was fun and it was simple. Now
everything is complicated. I hate it."
"But
you were the one who suggested..."
"Shush!
I know what I said and did. And I am happy. But in the long run, I did it to
save you. I would give you up as a bed partner to make sure you were still
alive for me."
I gave
her a kiss on the top of the head. "You're an overly sweet girl sometimes
Maggie. I appreciate everything you've done, even if you haven't done it all
for me. But I think you know it's a little late to back out now."
"Are
you saying that you intend to stick with your commitments and once in them, not
to back out?"
"Of
course!"
"Good.
Because I need you to stick it in me and not back out until your commitment has
been fulfilled!"
I
groaned. The girl was incorrigible. But I was in the mood, even after having
Verona so recently. I don't know if it was the need to release a buildup of tension,
or if the changes to my body were driving my libido into overdrive, but her
offer was tantalizing.
Then I
remembered. "I can't. I just about tore up Verona last night. It would be like
raping you if I even attempted to stick it inside you."
She had
the look of a long suffering wife. "Smell me." She said it dead pan. So I did.
"Well?"
she asked.
"Well
what?"
"Am I
making you all horny and crazy?"
"Honestly,
no. Horny maybe, but not in an out-of-control way."
"Verona's
in heat. She doesn't want to admit it, but she's in her breeding mode. It
drives your senses wild. I'm not. So I
doubt you'll have the same reaction to me as you do to her. And before you say something
stupid, the last time we tried this she was here with us, wasn't she?"
"Yeah."
"So she
was rubbing off on you. So get over it. If you think it's not going to work, we'll
call it a night and go to sleep."
She had
a point. I did seem to need stimulation of a wolfish kind to get the feral in
me going. I had never had a problem with Maggie before we came to New York, and
she might very well be correct. It was worth a try.
She was
so pleased when I agreed that she nearly jumped for joy. For her, the need
seemed to be ingrained, though why I could not say. She was so very young, and
even more so now that I knew that Verona was older than I was. But we had
started something, and it was no bad thing. She was my little sweetheart, and
until that changed, she could have whatever I could give.
Sure
enough, I was back to normal with her. It was such a relief that I plugged in
and ended up just wrapping my arms around her and hugging her for an hour.
Trust me, she wiggled a lot until I finally let her free to do her thing. She rather
surprisingly played nicely the whole time.
I must
admit, after all of the variety and strangeness, a little normality, even if it
bordered on pedophilia, was nice. She didn't even get crazy on me, just stroked
my cock with her body until I was relaxed and feeling relatively normal. After
a while she laid on top of me, literally purring, moving her hips in a
mesmerizing, delightfully measured pace. I could almost forget her real nature
at a time like this, but I had seen too much to dismiss it. Still, I lived in
the moment, for I had no idea how many more such moments I might get.
I drifted
off into a bit of a daydream, caught up in the ability to simply relax. I put
my hands on her back and buttocks, caressing her and massaging her skin, happy
to be having a little quiet time. She might not have all the curves that Verona
had, but she was plenty of female for me. Maybe that sounds sick, but I had
grown to have a lot of feelings for her, and that more than compensated for her
immaturity. So you can imagine how difficult moving on was going to be.
I was
tempted just to pack up and leave New York. What had started as a game had
turned ugly very fast. I'm not afraid to say that I was frightened out of my
head. I could remember so many things now, things about my past and things
about the present. I could hide from them if I tried, but so many things began
to make sense. I'll try to talk about them later, for now is not the time.
Maggie
and I made love for a couple of satisfying hours. There were no knots, no
increased size that made the act difficult, just the same old sensations I had
grown to love. She too seemed to be
quite happy, though after a while I think the old habits kicked back in. She wasn't
much of one for quiet, consensual sex. Eventually she couldn't help herself,
and she morphed into that have way transformation I did so love. She was my little
cub-girl once more.
She was
soon letting out little growls, and doing that thing where she tightened up and
squeezed me tight. Yeah, it was times like this that made me want to go back
home and ignore the rest of the world. I liked Verona, and her parents seemed
like nice folks, but I was in over my head and I knew it.
"Hey!"
I was
startled out of my thoughts. "What?"
"Quit
thinking so much. It's not good for you."
"Sorry!"
She
stopped her movements and looked me in the eyes. "What were you thinking about?"
I sighed.
"I was thinking that maybe we should call this whole thing off and go back
home."
She
kissed me on the nose. "I like that idea. But I don't think we can. That's the
problems with opening a can of worms. It's nearly impossible to put them back."
"I've
only got one worm..."
She bit
my nose playfully and wiggled herself over my "bait." "Father dear, you're not nearly as humorous
as you think you are. We can't go back, not now. This man has to go, and I
doubt there will be this many people together again who are capable of doing
it."
I could
feel her shudder. I gave her a warm embrace. "I know. It's just so strange for me. I don't even know how I'll be able to help."
"Time
will tell. Even if you can't, there will be four of us against one. That should
be sufficient numbers to take him down. Now shut up and quit worrying!"
She was
right, and I allowed myself the joy of having a fantasy girl in a way that was
both improper and incredibly sexy. Maybe it was because it was so improper that
I enjoyed it so much. We fell asleep happy.
I was
awakened in the middle of the night by claws in my side. I mean sharp, skin
puncturing claws. I gasped in pain, only to have a hand over my mouth. Well, a
paw. "Shhhhhh!"
It was
Maggie. She sounded completely spooked.
"What is
it?" I mumbled from behind her paw.
"Him..."
My mind
was not running on all cylinders right them. "Him?"
Then I
could smell it. The air was tainted with an odor of, well... It was hard to say
what that smell was. It hit my nose, and seemed to diffuse throughout my entire
body. It stunk. It made me nauseous. I could even feel the hairs on my arms and
neck standing tall.
Maggie
sniffed and dug in deeper under the covers. "I think he must have noticed me after
all."
I was
left sitting up, wondering what I could possibly do. Maggie was the one who
could change, and if she was too frightened to do anything, what the hell was I
going to do?