Neophyte

by T. D. McMichael

  I wondered what she would think of a werewolf, when I slipped on my helmet, and then it was like the voices were all shut out. I followed behind Ballard on my Gambalunga; his motorcycle charged recklessly through the Trasteverean chambers, metallic black, to match his helmet. We were soon cruising through an open square. I noticed people stop and wave, and Ballard return the gesture. He motioned and I pulled alongside him. “Follow me!” he said.

  We left through an opening with a lion over the archway and accelerated south, until we reached countryside, when Ballard really opened her up.

  My Gambalunga had no difficulty keeping up with him through the twists and turns. We made a long circuit through the hills. My stuck throttle undone, I put the motorcycle through a quick series of paces. It answered every challenge.

  While that was happening, I couldn’t help feeling like I had mastered, in a way, at least one aspect of my dreams; it was I who was chasing Ballard, this time, not the other way around. He came to my rescue, when it was dark and I was all alone, and there was no one else to help me. Here on this motorcycle, I was keeping up with him; two pack members, running for no other reason than to feel the wind on our backs, and the miles pass beneath our feet. I felt alive with the joy of it.

  “You should come riding when we’re all together,” he said. We had stopped on the side of a hill.

  In the distance, the campagna, as it was called, rolled out in fields of grass, and mounds of exposed rock. It had that sweet smell I attributed with cypress trees, which rose over the terrain, in interesting shapes.

  If anything Ballard sounded like he was running to catch up, instead of running from his responsibilities. I got the sense that he was plagued by demons not unlike my own. That he had chosen to meet them. And that he had come here to show me more than just how excellently awesome my new motorcycle could be. Already I felt the shackles of having no ride fall to the wayside completely.

  The campagna, which was simply the countryside surrounding Rome, was where the Gathering was going to be taking place––out there somewhere.

  “Remember,” said Ballard, “when I took you to Via Appia Antica, and the burial grounds?

  “There are catacombs littering the countryside––some so old that no one even knows they exist,” he said. “But we do. They’re being built, hidden away from prying eyes, with Magic.” He raised his eyebrows to me. We were clearly on my turf... but wherever these magic catacombs were being built, I certainly didn’t know––all I saw was wildlife.

  He seemed depressed by that. “Oh well,” he said. “I thought for sure you’d be able to see them, or else feel them or, I don’t know, use your magic powers...”

  “I’ve never crafted, Ballard. Sorry. Shouldn’t you try Lia? She sounds like the magic one...”

  “I already did.”

  “And?”

  “We’ve all been invited. I’ll see them anyway,” he said.

  “You mean you’re coming too? I thought it was just her.”

  “Oh, she got a letter all right, but as a member of the Pack––or the Pride or whatever––I have certain inalienable rights. Among them, that I’m invited along with everybody else. At least, that’s what they said. I wasn’t invited. It’s going to be one big harmonious group freakfest. Witch, Immortal, and Shifter kind. Which reminds me.”

  I didn’t like the bitterness in his voice.

  “We’re having a get-together tomorrow night. It’s White Night. Everybody stays up late. La Notte Bianca,” he said in his flawless fluid tongue. “You can be my plus one.” He didn’t say anything more, and I followed behind him, on his way back to Rome, the temporary reprieve from loneliness punctuated by the thought that there was something troubling Ballard, to which I could provide no assistance. If he was busy with his own problems, how could he ever help me with mine?

  * * *

  When I got home, I got on the Internet. I had a lot of studying to do. But the only Wicca I could find was the stuff Becca and I had been so sure was hocus-pocus. Year and a day, and telltown marriages. They were mostly fraudulent covens, presided over by unscrupulous individuals. We were leaving the cross-quarter days, and entering Mabon, one of the Lesser Sabbats, the time of the Ingathering was upon us. You could tell by the moon. It was a Harvest Moon, and it fell, strangely enough, upon the time of the Gathering. I stayed up late into the night, researching Wiccan esbats––for any gathering that was not a Sabbat, was an esbat. They were mostly sexual in nature. At other times, they were used to train in Wicca. I remembered what Becca had told me about fight training. They were doing it in New England right this minute.

  The moon stood like molten fire in the night sky, stained by the dark maria. My dreams that night were fitful and full of meaning. The Venice clock beat like the wheel of time, and metamorphosed into a beautiful red moon. I was speeding under it on my Gambalunga, with a pair of werewolves chasing after me.

  It was only then that I realized I was not alone, that they were with me, not against me, and that we were chasing something together. When I went to flick the throttle, I felt my paws hit the ground; the countryside passed powerfully underfoot.

  Chapter 6 – Munchies

  Ballard came to pick me up the next night. Instead of revving his engine in the street, as I would have done, my landlady buzzed him up, and let him pass unscathed.

  “How? What?” I was completely baffled by this.

  He looked all metrosexual and hot for his age. His smile broadened in that irresistible Ballard way. “So what are we doing tonight, hotshot?” he said, stepping into my apartment and taking a look around. He was in a grey V-neck and matching jeans, still bronze from the Mediterranean summer.

  “You tell me. For starters, how you got past my landlady?” I said. I motioned to the dingbat down the hallway. Ballard crossed his fingers like the two of them were simpatico, and got his wolf grin again.

  Was that stubble on his chin? Clearly, he was over being all sullen guy.

  I still had a little freshening up to do, I said, if we were going to be staying out all night. So he stood and waited, by the French doors, and when I came back out, he was holding on to the iron roses, an ornate candlestick that reminded me very much of Lennoxlove Lenoir––for so Dallace had told me that anyone with connections to the Paris Coven took on the surname of Lenoir. Except Dallace had called it a sirename.

  I grabbed the candlestick from Ballard. I had been burning the iron roses throughout the night as I had done research into European wizards, witches and vampires, and what could have been responsible for these wars, as Dallace called them....

  The room smelled of lavender. Ballard apologized profusely but I said it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all, it was nothing, absolutely nothing. “I’m ready to go,” I said.

  “I thought first, we would grab a bite to eat,” he said, “and then we could talk, if that’s all right, if you’re still hungry.”

  My room was filled with junk food wrappers. “I could use a decent meal,” I said.

  “I have someplace to show you afterwards,” he said. “We’re both invited... this time.” My ears perked up. “You’ll see,” he said.

  We went downstairs, past what’s-her-face, who wore a look of death upon her wizened old mug, and soon Ballard and I were both on our motorcycles, heading out to eat. I made a mental note to buy more jeans. I wore some now and a pair of boots.

  * * *

  The place we ate at was a trattoria, a small mom-and-pop outfit on the banks of the Tiber. It was a quaint picturesque picture-postcard hole in the wall. I had not had a real meal since Venice, and the food did not disappoint. It was served with a particular fondness for Ballard. I looked inside the restaurant from our table out on the walk, and saw the mom and pop responsible for the delicious food waving at both Ballard and I.

  There seemed to be some kind of transcendent affection that went into the food itself. There was spaghetti alla carbonara, a fresh wheel of pecorino cheese, and a scrumptious salad m
ade of fresh produce from the local market. For desert we had cheesecake.

  I saw as twilight passed into deep, rich night, and the sparkling waters of the Tiber came alive with streetlights and the passing lamps of automobiles, and we talked, in our small alcove, amid the creeping ivy of il ristorante, and the potted plants that rose as summer faded and Fall began.

  His words filled me with pictures of things, of wizards dueling, and witches confronting one another, vampires breaking their bonds and heading into the light, to be met by werewolves and other, fiercer things, that had no name. As we spoke, I had an image of things as they may have been long, long ago––too long ago––in a faraway Past, too deliberately shrouded in mnemnosy, the things we forget. The air a scintilla of scents of shared memories, and things gone by, Time meaningless, all the while Ballard chewed and chose his words with care and confidence, and I wanted to know more. More.

  I was determined that whatever came, I was going to be ready for it. Everyone had given me pieces of things. It was time to put the whole jigsaw together. Didn’t he think?

  “That’s what I’m excited about,” said Ballard. “When they came, with the letter, and whatnot, about a month ago, and a plan, and that it must be done, done, done, and here are some people who can help you... I mean, Gaven got Lia and the others and they had a Wolves’ Council, which is where we’re headed tonight... to a second one... I’m finally invited.” He ate while I chewed on more than my food. “The whole thing was a misunderstanding, just a total misunderstanding. Anyway, since I started changing.... The letter is for girls only. Sorry. Women.” He twirled his spaghetti, and thought some more.

  His confidence was faltering with whatever was eating him up.

  “Ballard... Slow down! You’re like a runaway Gambalunga,” I said. “Who’s they?”

  “You know... the what-d’you-call-’ems––vampire emissaries... the Renoir...”

  “Renoir was a painter,” I said.

  “Oh sorry. The Lenoir.”

  My fork clattered onto my plate. “They were here?” I said. “When?” I held on to every word, as Ballard explained how they had come, and that Rome was to re-enter what he called a Golden Era of prosperity––

  “‘...Where werewolves and other shapeshifters could be welcomed back, into a community of like-minded blah blah blah...’ At least that’s how Lia put it. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of getting everything secondhand,” he said.

  I listened as he railed against his sister (“She has it out for me. If she wasn’t going out with Gaven, she wouldn’t even be on the Wolves’ Council. It’s what we call a gathering of I Gatti,” he said, when he saw I wasn’t keeping up. “They don’t exactly trust these blood-gulping bozos. Who would? Apparently they’re all smiles. I can’t say that I blame her. I just want to know if there’s going to be a fight. I want in, that’s all.”)

  Ballard explained to me about shape changing (“It’s like this tingling in your nether bits,” he said) and how it’s really painful. “It sounds like you’re doing it wrong,” I told him.

  “That’s the thing. I have so much to learn. I want to learn,” he said. “I want to know. Finally I understand what it’s like being you!”

  He laughed and finished his spaghetti. It was like watching the bloodied muzzle of a carnivore tear its way through a carcass.

  A bunch more questions popped into my head, now that we were being honest with each other.

  I reasoned that any knowledge was good knowledge, and that it would improve my magical education, would it not, knowing as much as I could about he and his family? I did not tell him that I had dreamed I was a wolf. There was no need to freak him out too badly.

  I noticed that he had seemed to take on a bit of the werewolf in his everyday life. His table manners were not of the best.

  “Even when I’m on two legs, I’m still a werewolf,” he said, “if you follow me?” He grinned. I could tell what he meant. It sounded like a license to kill.

  “Don’t get carried away too much by it, Ballard,” I told him. He told me not to worry about it.

  “What about when a werewolf bites someone, is that person placed under the Curse?” I asked him. I wanted to know if he was dangerous, and if I should worry about him.

  “Curse?” That seemed to astonish him greatly. “No, no. It’s like we’re super powerful. You’re either born with the gift or you aren’t. There is no curse.”

  “And the whole full moon thing?” I asked.

  “I love the full moon,” he said.

  “You know what I mean, Ballard.”

  “I can only tell you this. We’re sitting under a full moon now. The remnants of last night’s full moon, and if I didn’t kill anybody then.... Werewolves get better with age, more powerful, and we also learn self-control. But this is more to do with controlling the gift, not wielding it.”

  “Actually, you seem rather composed. If we’re going off stories, I mean.”

  “The werewolf roaming the countryside myth? Hogwash,” said Ballard. “We’ve been used to explain away criminal behavior in human beings.”

  I listened as Ballard explained about murderers and other sickos stalking the night.

  “...Cannibals, mutilation, is he or isn’t he on a lunar cycle? It sickens me. But then I remember that is what we want them to think––people. That we don’t exist. That we are not real.... It’s like the best inheritance ever!”

  I watched him dip his fork into the cheesecake, with the dripping wet red cherries, and took a bite of my own. We were in our own unusual world.

  “I prefer the cave paintings,” he said. “At least there, man and animal were one.”

  How many of them were there? And was that how long it had been going on? Had human beings been metamorphosing into animals since pre-history?

  “It’s all there...” said Ballard. “At Lascaux, the pyramids––Pleistocene aurochs and cats, alligators and the like. And that’s another thing. I Gatti is comprised entirely of cyanthropes... Dogs... How we came to be called the Cats is beyond me...”

  “You’re saying people transform into all of these things?” I said.

  “No. I’m saying that I have a tail. It’s just hidden right now,” said Ballard. “The gene, or whatever it is, isn’t recessive at all. It’s dominant. Every member of I Gatti is affected. We all change.”

  As I listened to him speak, I recalled that of the 8 Virtues which affected my kind––Insight, Discretion, Virtuosity, Severeness, Humor, Goodwill, and Grace––one of them was also Malleability, which was the ability to change in its purest form.

  Had I just discovered my own Virtue? Were the dreams telling me that I was Malleable? That I was going to be a shape changer?

  He talked about what he called the transmigration of the soul, next. “A wolf can be you or your double, the soul animal, a vehicle for the spirit. I don’t really understand it myself. Gaven keeps telling me about something called metempsychosis, it takes a while. Like he would know. Everything comes so easily for him. I’m running to keep up.”

  I soon wanted to know what werewolves could do and what they couldn’t do.

  “Do you believe in the sharing of your soul?” he asked me, in a tangential line of questioning that had me searching for its roots.

  “I believe in soul mates,” I said, “that two people can be together forever...” I quickly steered us someplace else. “What you’re talking about sounds like something different.”

  The smolder in Ballard’s eyes died somewhat. “Forgive me,” he said. “There’s a reason we like to howl at the moon.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “This. All of it. Our behavior. Everything. It’s a hereditary condition. Invulnerability, speed, strength, falling from great heights is also not a problem. Of course, there is also aggressiveness,” said Ballard, “and we have certain urges... of the sexual variety.”

  “Nether regions...” I said.

  “It goes with the territory,” he s
aid. “Sad but true.”

  “So, is that a problem, with so many males and females, in the Pack?” I asked him, being somewhat facetious, but curious all the same.

  “It explains one thing,” he said. “Why they all seem to pair up. But you know.”

  “No. I don’t,” I said.

  “How can somebody like us ever be with somebody who isn’t... like us?” he said. “They don’t understand. Take what’s-his-face, that vampire guy.”

  “His name is Lennox, and I don’t want to talk about him,” I said. I glared at Ballard like a silver bullet.

  “All right. Point taken. But I’m just saying. He didn’t seem to have anything in his life, until you came along. Where is he anyway?”

  I started to tell Ballard about the Agonies––but something interesting happened. I wasn’t sure Lennox would want me speaking to a werewolf about something so private that concerned vampires, even if that werewolf happened to be my best friend. It was the first time I had ever been faced with choosing sides, and I didn’t like the feeling.

  “He’s hunting Marek,” I said.

  “The other bloodsucker, you mean?”

  “Ballard...” It was important I change the subject. Even though Lennox and Ballard had fought this summer side by side, Marek’s betrayal had put Ballard off them permanently, including the rest of the Immortals. “I wanted to talk to you about... something. These dreams I’ve been having,” I said.

  He leaned forward.

  “But first, will you wipe your face? You have spaghetti sauce all over your mouth.”

  “Oh right.” He wiped his face with a paper napkin. “What’s up?” he said.

  I had to proceed with caution.

  “I think I’ve been having dreams about you,” I said. He beamed.