by Cheree Alsop
“I don’t have anything to prove to you.”
“Oh, come on,” Virgo goaded. “If she’s real, it should be simple. Just tell us what she looks like.”
“Tell us,” James said over the phone.
I was about to snap out something immature when Ceren moved closer to me.
“Yeah, Zev, what do I look like? I want to hear it from you,” she said in a teasing tone.
Light played in her warm brown eyes and highlighted the freckles that lightly dotted her nose. When she smiled, she did so self-consciously as if my scrutiny was bolder than she had expected. The glow of her skin made me want to run my fingers over her cheek. She looked so real at that moment I wondered if I could touch her. I lifted a hand while barely realizing I did it.
“You like her!”
The statement jolted me to the present and reminded me that we weren’t alone.
I stared from Ceren to Virgo.
“Zev, you like this ghost.”
Caught off-guard, I tried to protest, but no words came out. Ceren’s eyes widened. She looked from my raised hand and back to me. Before I could speak, she moved out of my reach.
“You like me?”
“Not-not like that,” I protested. My heart twisted at the lie.
“Zev likes the ghost girl,” Virgo said into the phone.
“Yes, good for Zev! I knew he’d find someone,” James hooted on the other end.
I barely heard them. My gaze was captured by Ceren. She looked at the truck, at Virgo, at the road, anywhere but at me.
“I-I didn’t think it was a big deal,” I told her.
Her gaze found me and the look in them made me lean against the small truck for support.
“It’s just that you’re a werewolf.”
“You’re a ghost,” I pointed out, my mind racing.
“Yeah,” she replied. Her voice was quieter when she said, “But I was human once. You’re…you’re a monster.”
“A monster,” I repeated in a whisper.
The truck was all that kept me up when she vanished back into the night. The sight of her eyes with their apologetic honesty was the last to fade. I was left staring at the darkness of the trees, hoping desperately that she would return and we could pretend nothing had ever been said. But her words, ‘You’re a monster’, kept circling through my head.
Chapter Nine
Virgo was silent on our drive back toward the Willards’ house as if he guessed that he had gone too far.
“Zev,” he began once.
“Don’t,” I replied.
I couldn’t contain my frustration anymore. When he stopped at a streetlight in the middle of Township, I shoved the door open and climbed out.
“Where are you going?” the warlock asked.
“Nowhere,” I replied. “I’ll catch you later.”
I slammed the door shut and started walking. He followed me for a few blocks, but when it was obvious I didn’t want him there, the truck’s headlights eventually turned away.
Even the moon couldn’t cut through the melancholy that gripped me. I told myself I was feeling ridiculous. Her words shouldn’t have hurt so much. I had heard them before from Isley. I was the big, bad wolf. I was the creature people feared in the shadows. I was part animal, a whole monster, to the point that even my love was terrifying.
I didn’t need love. I didn’t need anyone to care about, or to care about me. Love was just another human weakness, like empathy or mercy. It had been beaten out of us at the Lair, so why was it so hard to keep it at bay in this strange, human world?
A yelp cut through the air. I ignored with the thought that someone must be disciplining their dog. I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned down the next block, determined to reach the forest and run far away for a while.
Another yelp sounded. I lifted my head and peered in that direction. If someone was scolding their pet, the tone was all wrong. Instead of embarrassment and sorrow at the misunderstanding, the yelp held fear and pain. It sounded again. There was something else underlying it, something that made me pause. I sorted through the notes the way I would as a wolf, reading each layer for the message it carried. The final, lower cord gripped me. It was accepting and full of a different kind of hurt, an emotional pain. Someone had abused this animal before.
My hands curled into fists and I took off running. The next yelp was fainter, weaker. I turned down one alley, then the next. By the time I slid around the corner to see the group of people at the dead end circled around a dog, red colored my vision.
A man in a blue hat raised a bat above his head. The wood showed blood in the dim light of the alley.
“If you hit that dog again, it will be the last thing you do.”
My voice was a menacing growl I barely recognized.
The cluster of people, eight of them, seven men and one woman, turned at the sound of my voice.
“He’s my dog,” the man in the blue hat said. “You can’t stop me.”
“From beating a defenseless animal? You bet I will,” I replied.
“Zev, what are you doing?”
I barely glanced at Ceren. She hovered at the edge of my vision, her face pale and hands raised as if she could stop me.
“I’d like to see you try,” the leader said.
Several of the others chuckled.
The impartial side of me sized them up as my training took over. A few forearms showed tattoos of a black spider. Many wore blue, either with bandanas wrapped around upper arms, necks, or ankles, or like the leader with his blue hat. The signs that I had stumbled upon a gang prickled my senses. I had no problem fighting a gang, but they tended to be more organized and with at least some combat experience. Territory wars were similar to those had by wolves in the wild. At least with a pack I would have had someone to watch my back. As it was, eight against one weren’t the best of odds.
I couldn’t help the smile that ran across my face.
“Zev, are you crazy? You can’t take them all!” Ceren protested.
“They’re hurting the dog,” I said in an undertone without looking at her.
“They’ll kill you!” Her voice was high with worry.
I didn’t bother to reply that it was a risk I was willing to take.
The smell of blood from the dog drove me forward. I could hear the quiet whimpers that it let out with every breath. I hoped I could get it to help in time.
The gang members moved toward me. I backed closer to the wall on my left in order to keep them from surrounding me entirely. I spoke as I sized them up to distract them.
“What did the dog do to you?”
“He lost me a grand tonight,” the leader said. “So I’m taking it out of his hide.”
I glanced at the dog. Bite marks were evident along the animal’s ears, muzzle, and shoulder. Red stained his white neck.
“He’s been fighting?”
“Yeah,” a man with a straggly goatee said from the leader’s right. “If you could call it that. He’s worthless now.” He spat on the ground at my feet. “A fighter that can’t fight isn’t worth the food to feed him.”
The flash of a knife caught my eye. The woman held it low. Her eyes never left my chest. Her knees were bent and when she moved, it was with a fluid, deadly motion. Instincts told me that out of all of the brawlers around me, she would be the most dangerous.
Other knives were drawn. The leader passed his club to the man at his side and then opened a butterfly knife with quick, precise movements.
“I’ll gut you and leave you with the mutt,” he said. His eyes shone in anticipation. “Two curs in one night.”
I fought back the urge to growl at the insult I had heard all growing up. I could have phased and taught them exactly what it meant to insult a werewolf, but my emotions were so tangled from my conversation with Ceren that I needed the cleansing rush of adrenaline to help me feel like myself again. Like the monster again.
I dove into the fray.
Usually, I didn�
�t make the first move. But with eight assailants, my focus needed to be to eliminate as many of the lesser threats as possible so I could keep my attention on the real ones.
I ducked under a knife slash, drove my elbow into one knee and felt it crack, then spun on the gravel and slammed a fist into the knee of the next man. I caught the second man on his way down and drove a punch into his chin that sent his head rebounding off the pavement.
Catching the blade of a knife aimed for my head, I spun under the man’s arm, flipped him over my back, and threw him into two others. I followed with double knees to his chest and silenced the two he knocked over with a haymaker to each jaw.
I rolled over the pile before another knife could embed in my back and rose with the dog behind me. A quick check showed that it was still breathing.
The leader swiped at me with his blade. I dodged back and then kicked it out of his hand before he could regain his balance. When he looked up to follow its flight, I punched him once in the throat, swung a haymaker that connected with his head, and then drove an elbow into his back to drop him to the ground.
I held out a hand and caught the knife on its way back down.
The woman and two men remained.
The one whose knee I had destroyed in my first attack was struggling to his feet.
“Who are you?” the man closest to me demanded.
I passed the knife to my left hand.
“Someone who doesn’t like gang violence,” I replied.
His eyes narrowed. “And what do you call this?”
I glanced around the alley. “Violence toward a gang, and I’m alright with that.”
He gritted his teeth and charged with the bat held above his head.
I blocked the bat with my forearms, slammed one fist into his stomach, tore the bat free when he hunched over, and landed it with a resounding crack on his back. He fell to the pavement with a thud.
I now had a knife and a bat. I twirled the bat experimentally. It was weighted well. The knife, on the other hand, was poor quality. The hinges for the butterfly opening were heavy and it was balanced wrong. I had never liked butterfly knives for that reason.
I unclipped the hasp with one hand, spun it around to close it, and then shoved it in my pocket without taking my eyes off my assailants.
The woman and man advanced. The man held his knife so tight in his right hand that the cords of his arm stood out taut against his skin. The woman’s blade was in her left, held casually by the point and low as if she hoped I wouldn’t notice it. Limpy, the first man I had attacked, leaned against the closest wall as if wondering the right course of action for his survival.
The man attacked first, as I had guessed he would. I blocked one swipe and then another with the bat. His swings were wild, but the strength behind them said that if he did reach me, I was going to pay for it.
As I fought him, I kept one half of my focus on the woman. Sure enough, her left hand drew back just enough to warn me.
The man made a swipe for my eyes. I stepped back just far enough to feel the slight breeze the blade made as it passed my face. I followed his arc and landed a punch to his ear. He spun all the way around with his momentum before dropping to the ground.
I raised the bat just as a cry sounded from Ceren. The blade the woman threw sunk deep into the wood where I held it in front of my face. If I hadn’t lifted the club, the knife would have stabbed deep into my left eye.
I yanked the knife free and dropped the bat. As I advanced on the woman, I wasn’t surprised to see her pull two more blades from the back of her pants.
I passed the knife to my right hand. Her eyes barely flickered. She kept her attention on the place just below my neck; it was the same way I had been taught to avoid being drawn out by a fake. My muscles tightened and my body fell into the stance of a knife fighter.
When she lunged, I parried with the blade and attempted to catch her knife, but she pulled it back to leave a line of red fire down my forearm.
A squeak of fear escaped Ceren.
I kept my attention on the woman. Triumph showed in her light blue eyes. The sound of my blood dripping to the ground from my lowered hand calmed my nerves. The adrenaline that rushed through my veins slowed; my heartbeat evened out into a steady thump that rumbled in my ears. I knew what I was doing. I had been born for this.
When she attacked again, I blocked with the blade and then my left forearm to keep her second knife from reaching my cheek. She spun away to untangle our arms and lashed back with two jabs that would have opened my stomach if I hadn’t moved just in time. Her gaze tightened at my elusiveness and she lunged forward once more. I batted her blades away, sending one across the alley, and kicked at her stomach. She barely moved back in time, but kept the taunting smile on her face.
“You messed with the wrong gang,” she said, her voice sultry and deadly.
“What, his?” I asked, nodding toward the leader I had already taken down.
Her eyes narrowed. “Mine,” she replied.
I lifted a shoulder. “They definitely follow him. You guys need to have a meeting about that or something. Leader confusion can be devastating for a gang.”
She glared at me. “There is no confusion.”
“You sure?” I asked, switching my knife to my left hand. “Limpy there doesn’t know whether to come to your rescue or run.”
She glanced to the side. It was the lapse I was waiting for.
I grabbed her left hand and met the resulting attack of her right with my blade. She pulled her hand back and stabbed at my face. I blocked the knife again. Using my werewolf strength, I forced my knife handle into hers with such power her blade flew from her hands.
She clawed at my eyes. I caught her hand and threw her against the wall. She hit with a thump that knocked the air from her.
The last man took a limping step forward.
“You think that’s a good idea?” I asked.
He glanced around at the rest of the fallen gang members.
“Probably not,” he admitted.
He leaned against the wall and slid to a sitting position near the woman.
“Good decision,” I told him.
I knelt and gathered the dog in my arms. He was larger than I had first thought. Muscles rippled beneath his skin and scars showed where he had survived fights before. His short white fur was speckled in blood. Another whimper escaped from him when I stood up.
“I’ve got you,” I told the dog quietly. “You’re safe now.”
I walked past the gang, careful to keep an eye on them in case anyone decided to try something stupid.
When I reached the leader, I saw his hand twitch just enough to give him away. As soon as my foot was near, he pulled another knife from his pants and stabbed at me.
I kicked his wrist and sent the knife flying. Another well-placed kick behind the ear knocked him out.
“Consider the headache you’re going to have when you wake up as karma,” I said on my way to the mouth of the alley. I glanced over my shoulder. “And if I hear of any of you involved in dog fighting again, I’ll come back for each of you.”
The two gang members who had struggled to their knees to watch me leave nodded. The fear on their faces let me know that I had at least left an impression on them. With the injured dog in my arms needing care, that would have to be good enough for now.
I projected feelings of safety and security to the animal as I walked. Its tense, injured muscles eventually eased. With its head on my shoulder and its legs dangling between my arms, the dog gave a pained sigh. I listened to its breathing steady into the rhythmic cadence of sleep. A feeling of satisfaction rose in my chest. At the very least, he was safe. I left the city and made my way through the forest toward Brickwell.
“What was that?” Ceren demanded a few minutes later as though she couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Just letting off some steam,” I replied, keeping my tone level.
I saw her face blanche out of the co
rner of my eye. “By taking on an entire gang by yourself? That was insane! It was madness!”
When I didn’t answer, she continued with, “I’ve never seen someone take such a risk. They wanted to kill you! Did you hear that guy? He would have gutted you with this dog, and happily!”
I had heard, and the threat still festered. I wondered if I should have left him as the one gutted in the alley instead of just unconscious and probably concussed. I was trying not to kill people, but maybe I should have made an exception for a dog abuser. By the angle of his bat, he would have slain the animal if I hadn’t stepped in.
“You could have called that friend of yours, Virgo. I’ll bet he would have picked you up instead of you having to walk all the way to Brickwell like this,” Ceren continued. “You really need to start thinking about logistics, especially when you’re trailing blood this entire way.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. The rage, the adrenaline, and the frustration I felt had been bottled up to the point that I could no longer keep it inside. I whirled on Ceren.
“What would you have me do? I couldn’t walk away and let them just kill him. What kind of a monster would I be then?”
My chest heaved up and down. It was all I could do to keep from saying more.
She watched me for a moment, her gaze unreadable. When she finally lowered her eyes, something akin to sadness washed over her expression.
“I shouldn’t have called you a monster.”
“It’s what I am, Ceren. I’m a monster.”
I started walking again.
She was silent for a moment before she said, “A monster wouldn’t have risked his life to save a dog, a monster wouldn’t have conversations with an eight-year-old girl behind a cereal box, and a monster wouldn’t entertain a lost, lonely ghost when he could just as easily have pretended not to see her.”
Her words came out steadily as if she had been thinking them for a while.
“Zev, you’re not a monster,” she finally concluded quietly.
I couldn’t look her way when I replied, “I am a monster.”
“No, you’re not,” she began.
