Life With A Werewolf

The Nobility Part 8 - The Business of Being Bait

          Now, Sean is an easy guy to paint as an idiot surfer dude. The type of guy who just has endless sandy beaches and eternal waves running through his mind, who never has a worry or care other than getting back out on the water one more time. In truth however, a laid-back attitude does not necessarily mean a blithering idiot. He does care about things. His attitude is, however, that things just don’t get better with rage.

          Sean had been driving, to quote him “with blind panic, dude”. The gas pedal to the floor, white knuckles on the steering wheel, with fervent prayers going up to whatever deity maybe listening at the time. His car wasn’t a sports car, or even a sedan. Still, the small cross-over, that wouldn’t be amiss with a pair of surf boards on it if I’m being honest, was doing speeds around corners and down straight aways that Sean had never done in that vehicle before or since.

          The address given was an old grain store house on the edge of the county that looked like it hadn’t been in operation since the nineties. A simple, rusty metal building with a metal silo sitting outside of it designed to feed into semi-trailers that have long since abandoned its use. Sean didn’t see much he said. “I didn’t exactly examine it’s architecture,” he told me later. Which, I understand. Although I didn’t go inside it, I have seen it from the exterior as I drove past it later, granny slow, in my granny mobile. And I can confirm, it did look like the set of a cheap nineties action flick on the outside. All that was missing was Billy Zane running around in purple spandex.

          He parked his car in front, jumped out, and sprinted inside as quick as he could. A single body lay on the cracked and dirty concrete floor beneath a single light. Sean raced towards it. Rolled it over and…

          It wasn’t Kris. It looked to be just some older guy that Sean had never seen before. To quote him, “grey hair and everything, dude”. And that was when he was hit from behind and knocked unconscious.

***

          Eleanor tried calling everyone directly and got nothing. She tried the trackers on their vehicles, and it revealed nothing. Through the magic of, well, some techno wizardry that I didn’t understand but Eleanor tried to explain to me later, everyone appeared to be sitting in mainland China. “Donte,” she said, “they’re gone. I mean, literally gone.”

          “Where were they last,” he said, stepping towards the door.

          “I’ll drop you a pin. But what will you do if you get in trouble,” Eleanor asked.

          He looked at her face, at the nervous way she rubbed her hands together, and gave her the biggest smile he could. “It’s me,” he said. “I can talk my way out of anything.”

          “Don’t,” Eleanor replied. “Just do it with silver.”

          Donte nodded and grinned wider, “I got this. Don’t worry!” Then left.

***

          Plain stone walls and chipped paint greeted me when I woke up. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn it was our basement with how similar everything looked. Dusty old shelves, grungy corners, same sad steps leading down into it. There wasn’t much on the shelves and I doubted that whatever house we were in had been used for much in a long while. Zack sat over next to the stairs; Kris next to him. We were all tied to some old chairs that looked to have been taken from an old dining room table.

          “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,” Kris said, with a half-grin.

          I, of course, mis-interpreted it. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Just…sorry. For well…everything.”

          “Will you stop it,” he said. “This is not your fault. They’re the assholes who attacked us. We did nothing to them. We lived our lives and they invaded our homes. They kidnapped us for existing. This is NOT your fault!”

          “But,” I said, “I thought you were mad at me. And the blog?”

          “I’m mad at everyone, that’s my nature. Product of my lovely upbringing. And your blog? Who cares! If they’re attacking people because they wrote bad words on the internet then these idiots are just crazy anyway.”

          What can I say? It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it got the job done. It did make me smile. After a while the door upstairs opened up, and Helena and Christopher Dylan came down, dragging Sean in, kicking and screaming the whole way. The photos I saw didn’t do them much justice. Helena’s brown hair looked mussed up as if she’d been wrestling with a child. She had a scowl on her face. Behind her was her husband Chris, looking less like a sleaze bag presidential candidate and more like the sleaze bag reporter covering for the candidate. They barely said a word to us, and I was uncharacteristically quiet at that moment. Sean was struggling and fighting, well as much as a guy being lifted a foot and a half off the ground could, anyway. When he spotted Kris, he shouted his name, pain in his voice.

          “Sean,” Kris asked, more surprised than anything. “What the fuck happened?!”

          “Quiet,” Helena said, glaring at him. “Or We’ll rip off his limbs in front of you.”

          As they tied Sean to a chair near us, Sean and Kris looked at each other. Kris with hurt, Sean with tempered relief. Eventually they left, and Sean and Kris stared at each other for a long time before Kris finally said, “What the hell happened?”

          “They sent a heart in a box. Thought it was yours,” Sean muttered.

          “That’s fucked up,” Zack said from his corner.

          “Well, to be fair, we never said who’s heart it was.” The sound of footsteps echoed through the basement as a figure walked down. He had blonde hair and the winning smile of a well-paid underwear model.

          “Verner Behring I presume,” I said.

          “Ah, my reputation proceeds me,” he replied. “And you’re Jason Forte. Your reputation proceeds you. Although you’re not as short as they claim.”

          A weak attempt at an insult. I shrugged and smiled in response.

          “Who?” Kris asked.

          “Leader of the American division for The Nobility, a werewolf extremist group who believes in the purity of the blood line or some such crap. Also the guys who hate my blog.”

          A dark look crossed Behring’s face for a moment. “First off, we’re the Werewolf Confederation, not ‘The Nobility’. That name is a mongrel insult. Second, what blog?”

          We looked at each other, confused. “Isn’t this because I drew attention to our group through my blog?”

          He laughed at that. Not a huge guffaw like the super villains do in the movies, but more of a ‘heh’. “No, we wouldn’t waste our time on such things. No, this is about the war.”

          “What war,” I asked, looking up at him.

          “You see, us werewolves are always at war. We’re the only things protecting you humans. We’re the creatures in the night that keep the other creatures at bay. You give us food and shelter; we give you security. That was the original deal made with my ancestors thousands of years ago. But you see, in the late nineteenth century there was a group of werewolves who grew tired of this conflict. They wanted to live peacefully, not kill the vermin like the trolls and vampires. To actually breed with you humans.” He made a face when he said that.

          I rolled my eyes. “You don’t like us. You’re above us. We get it.”

          “No, I don’t think you do,” he said, walking over towards me. “What your friend, the one you call ‘Crash’ is doing is unnatural. But we let it slide. His existence is an abomination. We let that slide. His family though owes a debt to the confederation. They owe a debt of blood. He is to be punished and replaced, so we can continue doing what we always do,” he held his head high for a moment, smiling wide, “protecting you from the real monsters. And from each other.”

          “Oh, come on, please for the love of God, stop already,” I said.

          “I’m sorry if the truth offends you,” Behring grinned.

          “Truth is, you’re going to lose.”

          “Why,” he asked, leaning closer to me. “We have all of you. Crash came once already and sacrificed himself at the merest hint of your danger. Do you not think he will come again?”

          I rolled my eyes. “You lack conviction.”

          “How,” he asked.

          “I once had an officer above me. He went to Afghanistan like the rest of us at the time. He thought he was God’s gift to the army. You know the type. Well, you should, you see him in the mirror every day.”

          Behring rolled his eyes at that. I continued. “He was determined to get a combat patch. So, we were to run a simple supply run. There were a few different routes to go, but he insisted we take the most dangerous route. And wouldn’t you know it, our convoy was attacked. So, with him crying in the back of the truck, the rest of us had to literally save his ass. When the convoy was over, and he reported it, he looked, well,” I nodded at him, “much like you. You see, you’re like him. That lieutenant who thought he was Captain America. When shit hits the fan, and it will, you’ll be cowering in the corner. You don’t have it in you to do the dirty work. You let ma and pa clem back there do everything because you can’t stand to get your little claws dirty you pathetic…”

          I think I remember telling you it’s a bad job to rant on a werewolf? Cause it is. Behring couldn’t roar as loud as Crash, especially in his human form, but he certainly screamed loud enough to hurt my ears. “What is wrong with you,” he asked. “Are you always like this?”

          Kris, Zack, and Sean all nodded at the same time. “Yeah, uh-huh,” they said.

          “Dude never shuts up,” Sean replied.

          “Aww, I love you guys too,” I said. Then grinned. “But really, I’m just stalling. I figure someone will be here in about,”

          Four small devices landed in my lap. The trackers that Eleanor had painstakingly installed on me. “Are you talking about that,” he asked, grinning.

          I looked down at them and sighed, “well shit.”

          Right there in that moment, I thought we were done. Of course, if you think you’re beaten grin wider. That’s something I’ve learned. If your opponent has hit you with everything they have, don’t sit down between rounds. So, I didn’t. I just smiled, and tried to think of any way I could make things as bad or worse for them through this.

          As for Donte, he’s is a clever guy. One of the cleverest guys I’ve ever ran into. And If it wasn’t for him, then most of this would probably have had a much different outcome. So, Donte, if you’re reading this, thank you. Though, we’ll still argue about your taste in movies sometime.