My grandma and I ate our meals in relatively calm silence, Arthur
poking at his food with a scrunched face while occasionally shifting
in place. Our sandwiches long gone before Arthur had taken more than
a few bites of his burrito, the man only then breaking down to ask,
“how are you so calm about this?”
Cynthia answering before I could even try, the woman sipping her
coffee as she brushed it off, “I’ll tell you some stories when
Mary’s not here,” before nodding to me and adding on, “she was
in the Purists.”
Arthur and I choked on our drinks at the same time, my grandma
passing each of us a napkin as I sputtered, “how did you-”
“Tattoos on your arms when I first saw you, when you were wearing
the Percy boy’s shirt,” the woman explained, my uncle raising one
finger only a moment before lowering it while she continued, “as
well, I’d heard about your trial a couple years ago, it was a big
portion of why people spoke about you. Purist, strong resemblance to
Eva, The Lady pardoned them and made her an apprentice to her right
hand.”
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised she knew that much,
and maybe it was more a wonder my dad wasn’t more aware of the
details of my past. As far as he knew I’d barely
been in the Purists before leaving, and probably thought I’d done
less than half the horrors I actually had.
Arthur at least didn’t look surprised long while he admitted, “too
many good werewolves pulled into those folds early.”
Not much to argue there, I rose to my feet, stretching my shoulders
best I could and holding my good hand out asked, “can I have your
keys?”
My grandma raised a brow at that, not even moving to grab them while
she scolded me, “I’m not letting you run off and die on your own,
Mary, that’s not how this works.”
“Not planning to die, but not trying to put you two in danger.”
She laughed at me.
A low cackle as she rose to her feet and started towards the door,
not even responding to me while she glanced back to Arthur and asked,
“can you handle the tab today, Arthur? I’ll make it up with
dinner, before I head back to Norfolk.”
“As long as you make sure I have a way to contact her,” the man
replied, almost sounding a little defeated at the question,
“actually, um… Mary, wasn’t it?”
I looked at him, probably taking too long to answer before finally
admitting, “you’re right.”
“Right, Mary, good name,” Arthur muttered with a hollow laugh,
“you should um… when things calm down again, or you just have an
afternoon. I would love to have you for dinner, just get to um…”
“Better circumstances,” I agreed, looking the man over again for
a long time trying to consider the fact he was actually my uncle.
Dad was an only kid, I didn’t fucking have uncles. The
closest was a few older hunters that would tell me to call them uncle
whatever, and I hardly ever saw any of them more than once in a blue
moon. This was…
Fuck he kind of looked like me before I turned, didn’t he? That
wasn’t the best realization, but at least there was enough
difference it didn’t feel weird.
“Better circumstances,” I repeated, quickly leaving the room and
going after my grandma already halfway down the stairs. The two of us
already out the door before I caught up to ask, “what’s the
actual plan? I’m a werewolf, I can do better in a fight if-”
“I’ve gotten in my fair bit of fights, and frankly I do like the
idea of putting a bullet in whoever is threatening my family,” my
grandma admitted, a proud smile crossing her lips as we jogged the
final distance, doing my best to ignore the pain in my ribs. Both of
us climbing in our seats, not bothering with seat belts as she
started the engine and told me, “I’ll try and leave one alive,
you have fun with yours. I prefer what happens after anyways.”
I was trying to process what exactly that was supposed to mean when
the car lurched forward with screaming wheels. My body nearly sliding
out of my seat, a bolt of pain shooting through me as I jerked my
body back into its place, and she followed the directions we’d been
given.
Our car bolting down the street, swerving between a few cars trying
to navigate an intersection, the sound of another car peeling off
behind us. My grandma barely one block down before I heard a crash of
metal against metal, a moment later a dull crack of a distant
gunshot. An older looking van behind us crashed into a light pole and
another car coming out of the parking lot behind them.
No second gunshot saving us, my grandma swerving to avoid a shit
parking job half on the street and then pulling down our road. Even
me unable to really process where we were going until she
slammed the brake, nearly throwing me out of my seat again, and
tossing my grandma a foot into the air with her barely reacting.
With an experienced movement Cynthia pulled hard on the gear shift
and popped it out, a metal blade attached to the makeshift handle
with the smell of silver attached to it, and stepped from the car. My
grandma reaching under the driver’s seat and removing a sawed-off
double barrel from some compartment there.
The fact I’d failed to move not kicking in until she scolded me,
“get up, no sense fighting on their terms.”
My body moved before my brain, climbing from the car and following my
grandma into the open barn style door of the building. Whatever
wasn’t clicking in my brain suddenly hitting a cold focus, the
smell of blood, oil, and rot hitting me as we crossed the threshold.
My eye scanning the dark garage, a relatively sparse drive in like at
a lower budget mechanic’s shop, with most the equipment stripped
out. A bit of tiling and a car lift’s frame to denote my guess was
probably right, as well as an old wooden chair in the center
surrounded by tables of tools and brownish red stains.
A door on either side of us, one a solid wood slab of rot that looked
almost placed in the door frame and the other going to another open
area. My grandma the first to make us a decision as she announced,
“take the door. How long does it take you to turn?”
I was already on my way, pulling off my jacket as best I could with
one hand and more pushing into the room than opening the door
as I called back, “about thirty seconds tops once I start!”
The door nearly falling on the floor, I caught it as well as I could
and pushed it back against the frame while my ribs continued burning.
Not perfect, though well as I could do as the smell of rot and
chemicals feeling like they were coating my throat.
The source easy to find as I turned around and was greeted by a sight
I weirdly hadn’t been expecting for all the bullshit I’d been put
through recently.
Dozens of air fresheners hanging from the ceiling, two fridges on
their back on the ground with large wood sheets over each. A table
nearby covered in blood with saws and axes in buckets next to bleach
bottles, a few metal drums covered in warning labels in one corner.
The sight stopping me in my tracks just long enough to take a deeper
look around, drawn to a stack of white squares on the table nearby.
Five miniature Polaroids, stacked on top of each other with a photo
of a different dead body on each. Hendricks on the first one, in his
own apartment like I’d found him, and the rest taken from inside
the warehouse. People beaten, burnt, tortured to death and with
almost theatrically deep cuts across the throat as though to just
confirm it all.
Whatever emotion I was feeling looking at them broken by the sound of
the door to the garage being slammed shut. A woman laughing as she
asked, “the Gallaghers in town? I thought those bastards retired.”
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Someone else laughed a little at that while I went about stripping
fast as I could. A bloodless spot on the ground good enough as I
dropped my jacket and slid my eyepatch off. My one good hand
struggling with the buttons on my skirt while the other woman
responded, “thought I saw them in that van, which means someone’s
not playing fair. Way that shot went down, I’m guessing Red.”
“Report her to the guild later, right now let’s find them.”
My skirt was on the ground, shirt barely over my head when the door
beside me burst open and I went with first instinct.
I threw my entire weight into the woman, a blast ringing out and ears
ringing only a few seconds as we fell to the ground in a heap of
limbs. My ribs already screaming in pain turning to a blinding white
agony as a knee started slamming into them while I allowed the wolf
to come out.
A hard blow driving me off her, something snapping with a final kick
even as my body started the process of turning.
My bones broke, snapped, twisted and pulled themselves out of place
and creaked slowly into hundreds of agonizing new positions as I
hunched over on the ground. Muscles melted, a sloshing mass under
thickening flesh that poured into new forms and reformed into shapes
and tendons no natural creature had ever known, one eye turning to
see the world as a wolf while the other burnt with a desire to do the
same it couldn’t fulfill.
My bones grew larger in my body, my spine extended into a tail, and
the flesh twisted and reformed and grew with it as I forced myself
into my hybrid form. By the time I was close to finishing my body a
few feet taller, hundreds of pounds heavier, and so much deadlier. My
already thick body hair growing into a matting of red fur, nails
extending and digging into the concrete, teeth extending in a mouth
that grew to fit them. The bones of my jaw stretching, dislocating,
snapping, coming back together again and again until they formed a
muzzle that let out a cruel noise of triumph.
The woman hadn’t moved.
Stuck half sat up on the concrete floor, eyes like a doe, mouth open
with a trembling lip while she watched me stare her down. Only as I
took the first step towards her, a twisting limp with my right hand
still not working properly in this form, she screamed, “what are
you!”
My body screamed, the transformation not properly healing the
injuries already there, the extra weight put on my right arm feeling
like it was doing something to the bones. My hybrid form
already unnatural, like holding your muscles to deadlift a car, my
body was screaming to either return to human or go to wolf.
I didn’t let it do either, continuing on as the woman started
desperately crawling away from me. More screams escaping her throat,
the fear in her eyes growing worse and worse as she grabbed for a
shotgun on the ground.
She had no idea what she was dealing with.
The first blast rang out, wolf ears ringing and healing as I ignored
the slug that drove into my shoulder. Another joining it, one going
through my bad eye, my body starting the process of slowly forcing
them out as I healed the wounds. The woman throwing her whole gun as
me as she stumbled to her feet and fumbled with the revolver on her
hip.
A quick sniff of the air, the subtle hints of silver realized in the
moment before she screamed and unloaded the gun with a wildly
flailing aim.
The majority hitting my torso, one bullet aimed for my face scraping
the edge of my muzzle, concrete flying into the air from a couple
hitting the ground. The wolf not even bothering to feel which were
silver and which weren’t as it took its attack.
A lunge faster than she could react, right arm near giving out with
an audible crack, and a wolf’s teeth wrapped around an arm
that snapped like a chicken bone. Blood splattered across my tongue,
teeth found their purchase, and the wolf ripped the woman down. Her
body letting out a sickening pop from its shoulder while I let her
go, watched her not even hesitate to try crawling away with one arm.
She would have killed us.
Another lunge and her ankle snapped with another scream, claws of my
left hand gripping into flesh and dragging her close. Blood and flesh
coming to me in bite after bite, clawing and slamming driven on by
scream after scream, fading to whimpers and gurgling. The wolf not
stopping until she could no longer attack, not stopping until she
couldn’t get away, not stopping until-
“Mary!” the voice cut through me like a haze, my entire body
stopped above the woman as I stumbled back as I looked up to Barbie
nearby. The girl herself wide-eyed, trembling as she almost begged,
“you don’t want to do this. You know exactly what you’re doing
right now, and you know you shouldn’t, right? You’re… please,
don’t.”
The platitude sounding fake to my ears, I wanted to do it, I wanted
to keep attacking her and rip her apart and eat her heart. I just
wanted her to-
The body on the floor whimpered, jerked weakly barely able to do more
than a soft rolling of a few inches in the same spot. A face that was
barely a face looking at me with one eye through a sheen of blood, a
hand that was barely a hand trying to reach up. Even the wolf
stopping at the sight, the Hybrid form starting to slip from me
before I could recover enough to stop the transformation from
escaping me.
Agonizingly slow until I forced it along, ignoring the pain it
brought, ignoring the growing burning sensation in my body. Only as I
was back to human I realized how bad breathing felt. Each one
a bolt of pain, the burning inside me growing worse.
Silver was in my body, melting and burning whatever it touched, and I
couldn’t bring myself stop it. My legs stumbling across the ground
and bending over to pick up the woman’s shotgun, something feeling
loose about my right arm and my ribs feeling like they were all
floating in my chest as the flesh there turned a deep purple.
The stock to my shoulder all the same with a muscle memory I didn’t
know I had, a curse escaping my lips as I switched hands, let my good
eye look down the sights.
One shell, the shotgun falling to the ground once more, the human
weapon feeling dirty in my hands and the thought of it as a human
weapon feeling wrong in my head as I stumbled to the room’s chair.
Fingers dripping in my own blood, drawing the proper runes on the two
burning wounds of my torso. My hand clenched somewhere between them
as I prayed, “Silver moon, paramour of the first hunter who struck
us in your anger, relieve me of your of cursed agony and let me hunt
another day under your eye.”
The words correct, said genuinely a dozen times, and feeling hollow
in my throat even as the blood receded into the wounds and I felt the
silver within stir. Burning metallic droplets exiting the wounds,
falling onto the ground and sizzling on the concrete while I waited
hoping to pass out.
My consciousness not leaving me even as I sat there panting, unsure
of how I was supposed to feel. The wounds on my body still burning,
still trickling blood as my body slowly healed the worst of it, face
burning, each panting breath burning my chest further, my eye unable
to leave the body of the woman I’d just killed.
Her blood still on my tongue, the thought of how delicious it tasted
mixed with the urge to throw it all up. Every part of me screaming to
run away and some part of me feeling…
I didn’t want to say.
Barbie silently watching me while I asked, “why did you stop me?”
“You were being a Purist.”
I wanted to argue, wanted to say anything against that idea,
and couldn’t while I sat there. The brief thought of grandma
broken by the woman’s laughter, a sense of dread creeping into me
as I looked over to her walking back in with her shirt covered in its
share of blood.
“Fuck, I forgot how the Purists fight. Glad I never deal with them
on my own,” she muttered, only stopping as she caught sight of me.
Her laugh this time a little more mischievous as she just said, “you
enjoyed yourself.”
I couldn’t look her in the eyes, my own down at the ground as I
started, “I didn’t, I just-”
“You get that from me,” she sounded almost proud about the fact,
walking over to the corpse of the woman with a thoughtful look,
“trust me, record some screaming and get a wand and you’ll- well,
no, not the company for that sort of conversation. Apologies, I’m a
bit giggly myself.”
“I don’t really um…”
“You wouldn’t, never had much girl talk growing up did you? Well,
make one your friends explain those sort of things: Percy said you
introduced him to that Sigyn girl, I’m sure she’ll give you all
those sordid details of self care,” Cynthia said, almost too calm
while she shrugged and walked back to me. Her calm air turning to a
sudden tinge of fear, “silver. I’ll call Elizabeth and-”
“Already removed it, trained in the wolf runes,” I interrupted,
regretting as I did and a new wave of pain burnt my lungs. A wheezing
hiss escaping me while I stumbled to my feet, my vision blurry only a
moment while I tried to continue, “I just need to get home and-”
“One the bullets went through a lung,” my grandma interrupted
with crossed arms, “and one seems to have nicked your muzzle
something awful, so we’ll stitch that up before you leave. I
imagine the two on your torso I can just bandage up and let you heal,
but I’ll let you make that call.” The woman finished, fear
snapping back to pride, “Now, I just got our girl tied up with
minimal injury and Red’s on her way to pick her up, so how about
you let me help you get cleaned up and treated and I’ll drop you
off at home?”
“I should help get her-”
“Mary,” my grandma interrupted with a raised finger, already
leading me to a sink in the room, “trust me, I’ve made worse than
her talk before, I can handle that at least. Now, we just need to
come up with an excuse for that face of yours. If you haven’t told
anyone about your ribs and arm yet, I’m thinking car accident’s a
safe claim for anyone who doesn’t know what you are.”
I frowned, unsure of what she meant until I looked up into the sink
mirror in front of me and let out a choking laugh.
My left cheek was torn, an inch and a half tear pulled through,
completely severing the corner of the lip there and then quickly
moving to almost a flesh wound. Twisted a little from the
difference in forms, but noticeably there while I continued laughing
until I felt the tears on my cheeks.
All I could ask, “why would I rather be fighting werewolves right
now?”
My grandma patting my shoulder as she admitted, “they have their
problems too, though I do admit they don’t usually bring silver.”