Kneeling in front of a single flickering flame, Alex bent his head in silent prayer, clutching the bear-claw necklace in his fingers. Great Mother, I am as Your cub. Give me the patience and strength to see through to the end what You have set before me, and the spirit to accept what I must.
Alex dropped the claw threaded on his necklace, letting it bounce against his chest, and leaned forward to blew out the single votive burning on his coffee table, returning his living room to darkness. Heavy blankets, once on his bed, now hung over the windows to block out the outside world. The pile of bedding jumbled against the base of the disused entertainment center had become his sleeping place. The bedroom went unoccupied, aside from a place to throw on clothing in the morning, hastily cast aside every evening as he returned home from work. Only his necklace remained a constant.
As the old wolf had promised, his visions had eased, and sleep had finally become a reasonable expectation. He’d gone through the leaves left behind for him in a week, a patient following doctor’s orders, but his thoughts had been clear since he’d awoken from that near-drugged sleep that Watcher had given him.
Questions came to him at work, in the car, in his dreams, and yet he could find little reason to look for answers. The wolf had come, the problem had been solved, and now the wolf was gone again. It felt a bit like some part of his mind, stunned into mute acceptance of the reality of Watcher’s presence, the traces of fur left in his carpet, the leaves on his dresser when he awoke, had simply given up on the idea of making sense of the details. What mattered was fulfilling his half of the agreement and finding out the identity of the mystery toxin the Child of Wolf had mentioned.
The wolf’s description of the wreck was spotty, but sufficient. Landrick Petroleum shipped oil, natural gas, and other such products, and a tanker full of gasoline would be more than enough to set off a blaze of the sort Watcher had described. A quick glance through AllChem’s website and investor prospectus had at first proven useless; the company simply handled too many products, and Alex was no chemical engineer. It had, however, pointed the finger at a more promising location. AllChem proudly proclaimed in its literature that it obeyed all local laws, including hazardous materials and waste handling, which suggested an investigation into the files of the state of Colorado’s Department of Public Safety, in search of public-interest documents such as what sorts of dangerous and poisonous chemicals had been on the move, where and when. AllChem’s name featured prominently on several days, but the time and place that Watcher had pinpointed narrowed down the field of searching to a single load.
A quick search on the contents of the permits for that truck had revealed a wealth of data, most of it gibberish to Alex’s eyes, but all of it dutifully captured and recorded, sorted by reference in a small stack of printed paper by his computer, untouched since. Part of his mind wondered each night when Watcher would arrive to collect his information, but the rest of him, the bear-mind within, knew he would come when he could and reminded his restless curiosity to be patient. Watcher, he told himself with gentle finality, would come when he came, and nothing would be gained until then.
The first few days after his unexpected visit, Alex had felt confusion, not at his lack of understanding, but at the growing sense that comprehension was less important than acceptance. He had never heard of werewolves, never believed in their reality despite his desires. Confronted with the truth, though, his reaction after the initial shock had been the quiet rediscovery of something always known. After waking from twelve hours of dreamless sleep, the memories of Watcher—sitting in his recliner and poring over one of his prized literary anthologies—brought only a quiet chuckle to his lips at his own unnecessary panic.
Sitting in the shadowless darkness of his living room, the smoke curling in lazy patterns, Alex felt comfortably at peace. The words of his prayer, the scent of wax strong in his nose, the feel of the blankets beneath his bent knees, carried a weight in his mind that the daily routine of his job had always lacked. More than simply existing, he felt alive. Every sense seemed alert, in tune with its surroundings and sending him back a wealth of information.
It was then that the spiders began again to crawl beneath his temples.
Alex caught his breath, disrupting the trails of faintly luminous smoke drifting up from the snuffed votive. The sensation had only come to him once before in conscious memory, when Watcher had first come to his apartment. He forced himself to exhale, to expel the bitter air in his lungs and breathe again, tensing and relaxing his muscles. The image of a wolf came to his mind, amber eyes darting about madly, tail hung low, slightly curled. It whined once, licking its nose nervously. One forepaw lifted from the ground, pawing at the air. In that moment, like an auditory echo, Alex heard a knock at the door.
Rising leisurely from the floor, Alex walked, nude, to the door and twisted the knob, unsurprised to see the tan-furred wolfman standing beyond its threshold. What did startle him, though, was Watcher’s appearance. The wolf’s ears were flat against his skull, and the fur of his tail stood bristled out from its core, which thrashed back and forth in obvious agitation. In fact, his whole pelt seemed unkempt. Watcher’s eyes rose briefly, meeting his own, then darted past to look over Alex’s shoulder into the darkened cave of his apartment.
“Mr. Demont, there is little time.” Even his voice sounded strained. “Did you find anything of interest?”
Alex blinked, taken aback at the sudden question. “Uh—yeah. Yes, I did. I’ve got stacks of paper for you. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but—”
Watcher cut off his speech with a sharp flick of his wrist and a nod. “Good. Do you have a car? We must make haste from this place.”
“A car?” Alex blinked again, retreating within the apartment to find his keys, and some clothes to go with them. “Yeah. Why, what’s going on? Watcher?”
The wolf had not moved from his position at the door, whining as Alex moved within the darkened apartment with agonizing slowness. “Hurry, Mr. Demont,” Watcher chided pleadingly. “Every second is critical!”
“What’s so important that it can’t wait for clothes?” Alex returned from the bedroom, a button-down shirt thrown hastily around his shoulders. Keys jingled in one hand, a bundle of papers clutched in the other. “Give me a few min—wait…” He lifted his head and breathed in, deeply. Through the smoke from the candles that still lingered in the main room, something unpleasant curled the hairs in his nose, something sharp and burning. “Do you smell something?”
The whites of Watcher’s eyes all but vanished. “Run!” Without waiting for a response, the wolfman seemed to twist in space, dropping suddenly to a four-footed stance as he loped away from the door, along the hall and out into the parking lot.
Ignoring his state of half-dress, Alex struggled to follow the seemingly crazed wolf, sprinting out of his apartment and pulling the door closed behind him. As the latch met the metal lock, the air around him infused with the tang of ozone, and the bottom fell out of the pit of his stomach. His eyes went wide and he spun, counting, making a mad dash for the front door, not stopping to wonder about the source of his panic, only aware of the need for escape.
His left foot hit the ground on one. Right hand on the apartment building’s door on two. Left foot again on the concrete outside on three. Right foot at the base of the stairs on four. Halfway to five, his ears shattered in sound and he flew, launched by the force of the explosion behind him. By seven he was on the ground outside, face down and gasping for breath, and then the rough, sueded touch of Watcher’s paw was on his arm, trying to pull him back to his feet. He felt the warm, wet flick of the wolf’s tongue on his face, and then tugging again as he tried to breathe, the ringing in his ears drowning out Watcher’s pleas.
Alex staggered to his feet, still trying to suck enough air into his lungs to form a coherent sentence, but the wolf urging him away from the building and the sudden and growing rays of light coming from the windows of disturbed and shocked neighbors kept him from focusing. His eyes dashed across the pavement, and then he stumbled towards his car, the screech of the fire alarm cutting through his tinnitus. His fingers fumbled with the keys in the door, and then he dragged himself within, Watcher slinking into the back, his head low, tail curled between his legs.
“Drive, Mr. Demont! Drive!” The wolf growled harshly, unable to hide his own near-panic.
The car spun its tires in place for a moment, and then it jerked back from its parking space, curving to one side and then lurching to a sudden stop before peeling out as Alex slammed his foot onto the accelerator, right hand snapping madly through gears as his left clung to the wheel in a death grip. “What the holy mother of fuck just happened? What the hell is going on?” Rage and fear fought for control of his body, and he swallowed, his throat burning, to keep from hyperventilating.
Watcher was silent, for all of ten seconds, Alex counting them off in the slamming of his heart against his breastbone. “I am sorry, Mr. Demont,” the wolf said quietly, his own breathing easing much faster than his human companion’s. “I fear I have gotten you involved.”
“Involved in what?” Alex snapped his head to the side, trying to look back at the wolf without losing his focus on the paired sets of lights that were the other cars on the road. The hood of the car faded in and out of shadow as they passed into and out of the reach of the streetlights overhead. “What the hell is happening, Watcher? We’re fleeing a crime scene, you know. That’s bad.” He tried to keep the panic out of his voice, but it cracked despite his efforts.
Only a glimpse of tan fur gave away the wolf’s presence; his voice came from the back seat like a ghost’s rough whisper in Alex’s ears. “I doubt we will be pursued; those who set that explosive will have left no evidence. The police will assume it was accidental. Your car’s absence will be noticed, but they will ensure you are not pursued as a criminal.”
Alex’s hands still shook as they gripped the steering wheel, and his eyes kept glancing past the wolf, to the cars beyond. A police car pulled up behind him, and he forgot how to breathe in that moment. Then it passed, as if unaware of his presence, and Alex slumped visibly against his seat, wiping cold sweat from his hands on his jeans. “What the hell is going on, Watcher? Who is this ‘they’? What have you gotten me involved in? Why did they blow up my apartment?” Every question, and the wolf’s failure or refusal to answer, added a fresh layer of fear into his voice.
Watcher lifted his head, glancing out the window before resuming his previous repose, his muzzle resting on his forepaws as he stretched out across the back seat of Alex’s car. “Surely you must have realized that this incident and the disaster for which I asked your assistance are related? We are being hunted, Mr. Demont.”
“Hunted?” The word caught Alex off-guard, and he turned again to try to look back at the tan-furred wolf. “Why?”
“We are Children of Nature, Mr. Demont,” the wolf explained quietly, his voice weary. “In ages past, we were the shaman, the healers, the mystics and visionaries for the Children of Man, intermediaries between them and the forces of the wilderness. Now, our age is past, but there are those among your kind who have not forgotten, who fear us for what we represent. We are a threat to their world, and they will stop at nothing to see us undone.”
“Who are they? And what do they want with me?”
“They call themselves the Shepherds, Mr. Demont, protecting their flock from wolves.” Though invisible to Alex’s eyes in the deepening twilight, Watcher’s smirk of irony was plainly evident in his choice of words. “They probably learned that I contacted you through some carelessness on my part, for which I am truly sorry. However, now that they know of your ties to our kind, your only safety lies with us.”
Oooh, the plot thickens, and now we know what the title means!
Very interesting stuff!
Yow. That beats my bad days. :)