Wolverton - Julie Steimle (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📗

wolves feared leaving the protection of the group.

Blinking at him, Kurt shrugged. “I don’t know much about hunters. Are they really a problem? You never know with what the elders say. Are they just using scare tactics to keep us in the pack? Or are they telling the truth?”

Again, Rick was impressed. Kurt was asking all the right questions.

Unfortunately, Rick had to show that the elders of Kurt’s pack were not completely lying. He lifted out his leg and displayed a scar in his calf. “See that. Rifle wound. It got from a hunter when I was fourteen. I had to hide it from my friends at school, pretending I had sprained my ankle playing basketball because I didn’t want to freak them out.”

“You went to school with people who didn’t know you were a werewolf?” Kurt looked terrified and impressed at the same time.

“Oh, they knew,” Rick said. “But it was a special school. And they were unique in their own way.” He then pulled up his shorts and pointed out the wound in his thigh. It went in and out, the bullet having gone straight through. “That one I got one summer in California. A bunch of hunters snuck onto our wildlife reserve to get after Dad and me, and would have killed me if I hadn’t found shelter in a tent with a bunch of sympathetic campers.”

Kurt stared. “No way.”

Nodding, Rick grinned painfully. “The trick to avoiding hunters is for them to not know you are a werewolf. And also not to hunt near civilization.”

Kurt nodded. “That makes total sense…” He continued to lead them on. After a while, though, he halted and said, “But wait? Who knows that you are a werewolf?”

Glad Kurt caught that last bit, Rick said, “The Supernatural Regulator’s Association. My family is kind of famous.”

“You mean besides being rich?” Kurt asked with a smirk.

Nodding, Rick smiled. “Exactly. The SRA knows my family are werewolves and have been tracking us for a while. Us having money is what keeps them from getting at us for certain.”

“Ugh.” Kurt shook his head. “Those hunters sound nasty.”

“They are.” Rick nodded.

Kurt took him to a largish building. It looked like it had been an old church with a steeple and everything. The planking and paneling on the outside was peeling, paint chips were like dandruff on the grass underneath. And from inside, Rick could hear an intense discussion or debate going on considering how the sounds of voices rose and fell in intervals. As they walked into the stifling room, though all the windows were open for a cross breeze, Rick saw there were men and women alike, all adults in what appeared to be a town meeting. At the head of the congregation stood a hoary haired elderly man, wrinkled and stooped, with a gravelly voice. He was speaking into a microphone, but even then he was hard to hear. The people strained to listen.

Another person shouted out, rising, not from the congregation but from the side where Rick assumed was once a choir box. He was a burly sort of man, and his words were like bricks being thrown. “…come here. Is he dead? Has someone broken the law and killed him? There’ll be hunters here next!”

Another man rose from the other side out of a front pew. “The clothes were only a little bloody. More like a slit throat than a biting. Are you so sure one of us killed the punk?”

Punk? Rick raised his eyebrows. Were they calling him a punk? Or did he just step into a courtroom discussing a murder completely unrelated to his missing clothes? They were talking about clothes after all, and he had gone hunting in his shirt and pants rather than taking them off like he would have usually. He could easily have gotten jackrabbit blood on them.

“The fact is,” the elderly man at the podium wheezed out, “There is no body. Not even bones.”

“There were rabbit bones and blood near the pond,” protested one man. “I am telling you it was a wolf, not of our pack, who mugged him.”

“I think that is our cue to introduce you,” Kurt whispered to Rick.

Chuckling, Rick nodded.

They both stepped further into the room, going up the center aisle.

The burly wolf rose to counter. “But we will be held responsible if…” the voice of the burly wolf died when his eyes set on Kurt and bare-chested Rick.

The room burst into whispers.

“What is he doing here?” “Why did he bring that here?” “Thank goodness that one is alive, but what is he in here for?” And so much more of that ilk “He isn’t wearing a shirt….” “See that scar?”

“Pardon the intrusion, Elder Varu. But, this wolf wandered into our… yard this morning and is seeking, uh, a missing wallet along with pants and shirt,” Kurt said. His face shoulders were squared, but Rick noticed he was shaking. Not so much with terror, but ordinary public-speaking fright.

Rick raised a hand. “Sorry for intruding into your territory. I… it was an emergency. I was, uh, scheduled for day shift at the factory, and uh, I was supposed to hunt somewhere else at night. But the manager switched shifts on me and…” He saw one of the burly workers who had shoved him into the office rise up from the crowd, staring right at him. Rick took a step back. “Oh, crap. Look. I can’t work night shift this week for a very good reason.”

The worker burst into a laugh.

The others in the hall stared, Kurt included.

“Explain the meaning of this,” the elder said to the one laughing.

“My apologies,” the laughing giant replied. He then gestured back to Rick. “The manager’s office reeks. I had an inkling that he might be a wolf last night when he protested the change in shifts, but I could not smell him out to make sure.” He then turned to face Rick. “I am so sorry. I should have known and followed my instincts. I would have argued for the shift to change back had I known.”

Rick stared at him. He then looked around at the entire room. So many eyes were staring at him.

“He told the manager that he had a condition that made it impossible for him to work the next three nights,” the man explained.

The elder nodded, then gestured Rick to come forward.

Rick did, trying not to be cowed by the sheer number of werewolves in the room. Approaching the podium, Rick gazed up at this aged and trembling man-wolf. The elder’s eyes had cataracts, but they were definitely a wolf blue. And he was hairy with longer canines. Rick had never seen an elderly werewolf before. He had always assumed hunters got to them before they could reach old age. Even the Loup Garou didn’t seem to have any elderly in their pack that he knew. And thinking about it, it felt rather sinister that they didn’t. Of course a decent wolf pack would take care of the elderly. His opinion of this pack rose considerably.

“Boy, what is your name?”

Nodding, Rick said, “Howard Richard Deacon the Third. But I go by Rick.”

“The third?” the elderly wolf squinted, examining Rick’s coloring and eyes.

“Yes sir,” Rick said, drawing a breath for courage. “My grandfather, Howard the First named himself after Richard Howard Gannon who was deacon in the Catholic Church. My grandfather was born a wolf.”

He said all this as a message to the elders so they understood what kind of werewolf he was without being explicit. It also signaled that he was not interested in any lunar worship, not matter how devout they were.

But the elder wolf’s eyes smiled, almost chastening him for making such a statement. “Ah. An alpha wolf then.”

Rick blinked at him, not familiar with the term. At least not used like this.

Recognizing his confusion, the elderly wolf explained, “An alpha is a wolf who is close to the origins. More wild than the later generation. But very much needed in packs, especially to rejuvenate life within the pack.”

Groaning, Rick shook his head. “Sorry… but I am going to have to nip that one in the bud. I am not here to help rejuvenate the pack,” knowing exactly what that meant. “I am here on accident. I just want my shirt and pants and my wallet. I can find my way to my proper lodging and to the area that I had originally intended to hunt this full moon, if you please.”

“Well that’s not possible,” interjected the large worker from his father’s factory.

“And why not?” Rick asked, glaring up at him. “It was the original plan, and the hunting grounds can’t be far.”

Waving him down, nearly backing from Rick, the giant from the factory said, “Because the boss is on a rampage looking for you. He called the cops when he found out you had climbed out the window last night. Besides, you left your shoes.”

A murmur of laughter passed through the crowd.

“I’m glad this is so amusing for everyone else.” Rick pressed a hand to his forehead, thinking.

“You have to stay with us,” Kurt cut in. “A least until after the third moon.”

Rick gazed wanly at him. “But—”

“We hold a big celebration on the full moon,” Kurt explained.

Celebration? They thought it was a thing to celebrate? But then he remembered most werewolf packs were also a dangerous group which protected each other from being hunted. They didn’t know fear during the full moon.

“A pack hunt,” Kurt said, nodding eagerly. “Don’t tell me a lone wolf such as yourself has ever been on a real Alabama pack hunt, because I don’t believe it.”

“I’ve…” Rick stared at him. He had visited real wolves. Hunted in their territory. But he had never joined a pack hunt. Staring into space, he wondered what it was like.

“Then it’s settled,” the giant man-wolf said, grinning. “You will join us at the bonfire and hunt with us tonight and the next night.”

“But I haven’t—”

“Don’t say no,” Kurt cut in, grabbing Rick by his arms. “You have never lived until you have hunted with the pack. And you can tell your father all about it later.”

Truth was, Rick craved a pack hunt. He had never felt like he had belonged anywhere before. And though he had friends he care about dearly and who included him despite their differences, he was always the freak among comrades. The closest he ever felt to belonging was when he played basketball. It was one of the reasons he loved the sport so much. And with his buddy Andrew Cartwright, it was the closest to being connected like family.

“I…” Rick looked to Kurt. “I guess when Henry calls back, I’ll tell him I am staying here.”

“Yes!” Kurt pumped his arm.

Rick lifted his eyebrows at him.

“Very well,” the elderly man-wolf said. “Meeting adjourned.”

“Oh, but can I really get my shirt and pants back?” Rick raised a hand. “And my wallet.”

Nodding, the elderly man-wolf gestured for Rick to go to a side room. Kurt led him along with the giant.

“I am sorry I pushed you back into that room, really,” the giant said.

Shaking his head, Rick did not think it wise to respond. But then he asked, “Do you know what happened to my phone?”

The giant shook his head. “Sorry. I think Mr. Pettit took it and put it in his office.”

Rick looked at him sideways. “How come you are not at work?”

Grinning, the man replied, “Sick day. I am usually the worst on the day of the full moon. I don’t have much self-control. Waxing and waning moons I am not so bad. But I lose control at pitchy noises.”

“No earplugs in the factory?” Rick wryly inquired.

Laughing, the man shook his head, patting Rick heavily on the shoulder. “Not for my ears. My ear canal widens also.”

Rick nodded. He noticed that the same happened to him, actually. He got more sensitive to sound around the full moon.

They took him to the side room where his pants and shirt were resting on the table along