The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

  But Joshua had no money. Surely, an airplane ticket was more than a subway token. (Not that they used tokens anymore, it was getting harder and harder to keep up with the newest way to pay for things.) Joshua was penniless.

  Unless he'd pinched Decker's wallet.

  His wallet was still on the foyer table. Decker leafed through the bills, trying to remember how much cash he had the night before. There didn't seem to be any missing.

  "Oh Joshua, if you were going to run, you should have taken money. A hungry wolf is a dangerous wolf." If one of the Grigori besides Elise---and perhaps including Elise---ran across him losing his temper in public, they'd kill him.

  If the boy didn't want to stay with him, so be it. But if Decker honestly liked the boy, then he should protect Joshua by getting him to someone else to care for him. The wolves or the Grigori.

  The wolves, he decided. He'd call the Wolf King's castle and let them know that one of their newborns had gone astray.

  Decker reached for his phone and discovered it gone. "What? You leave the money but take the phone? That doesn't make sense."

  He realized then that the urn full of coins was missing and his house keys.

  "You only take keys when you need to get back into a locked house! He went out but he's coming back! Yes! Yes! Yes! He was probably hungry. He probably went out to get food! He's coming back!"

  The happiness only lasted a minute until he realized that the boy should be back already. He'd told Joshua he'd take him out for a big steak dinner. If Joshua had gone out for food, he would have left hours ago, not shortly before sunset.

  "Something's happened to him! I need to find him. Quickly. Elise can help me!" Decker reached for his phone again and then remembered that it was gone. No matter, he could use... No, the house no longer had a phone. Since no one called him, it seemed like an unnecessary expense. Besides, he hadn't memorized Elise's number since he only had to tap on her name. "Oh good God, why did they ever give up operators? You pick up the receiver and talk to a real, honest-to-God human being and she'd figure out what you needed. It was so simple, even I could do it!"

  Someone started up the front steps. Keys jingled and he realized that his puppy had made it home. He shouldn't let Joshua know how worried he was. Decker headed for his chair. He'd act like he was patiently waiting. No, wait, what if something bad had really happened? Wouldn't it be better to show him how concerned he really was?

  He was doing this frantic side-to-side step when the door opened.

  His puppy looked scared to death. He walked into the foyer and thumped against Decker's chest with a whimper. Decker put his arms around the boy, who was shaking like a leaf.

  "What's wrong?" Decker said.

  Joshua whimpered something about possessed Vespa, universal law of probability, tissue boxes, Barbie dolls, giant ghost wolves and wrong-way streets. He ended quite clearly with "Red lights mean stop!"

  "Yes, they do." Decker knew that much from simple observation. He didn't actually drive, but traffic lights hadn't changed for a hundred years. Even he had caught on to the regulations. What he didn't understand was: what was so upsetting about traffic signals?

  Motion beyond the open door caught his eye. A purple-haired woman stood on the top step, eyes wide in surprise. Behind her was a willowy spirit guide.

  He didn't know what they'd done to scare his puppy so badly. He wasn't about to let them continue. He hissed, showing his fangs.

  The woman squeaked and ran. She mounted a purple motorized bike and sped away.

  Interlopers taken care of, Decker focused on calming down his puppy. "There, there, have you eaten?"

  Joshua pulled away to turn in circles. He seemed to be looking for a clear spot to put his plastic bags down. "Organic apple chicken sausage!"

  Those four words did not go together.

  "I promised you a steak dinner," Decker reminded the boy. "Are you hungry?"

  Joshua dropped his bags. "Meat!"

  Decker was going to take that as a "yes."

  * * *

  One steak dinner later, Decker had only a slightly better grasp on what was upsetting his puppy. It had been a traumatic day. As Joshua inhaled grilled meat, he leapfrogged through the events, looping back again and again to "the Vespa." Things got a little clearer when Decker realized that the said Vespa was the purple motorized bicycle, and not a giant Italian wasp.

  The other recurrent comment was the lack of basic items in Decker's house. Toilet paper was cited three times before Joshua explained that he'd lost one of his grocery bags on Massachusetts Avenue. The packaging burst when it hit the pavement at high speed, toilet papering a block and a half of Cambridge.

  That led to the mysterious outburst of "But I'm not doing that creepy funeral urn again! I'm done with that!"

  Decker was sure that sooner or later, he'd know everything that had happened during the day. He wanted to focus on mending fences; the better to keep his puppy from roaming.

  "As soon as you finish your pie, we'll go to a store and get everything a home needs." Anything to keep Joshua from disappearing again.

  * * *

  Decker wondered how Joshua had moved before he became a werewolf, because taking the boy to the store was like walking a puppy. A full tummy and the promise of toilet paper returned Joshua to high spirits. He led the way to a store by the name of Target. Joshua bounced with excitement. He cocked his head in confusion. He pounced on things that interested him. He did a little shift-shift-shift of the hips that would have been a tail wag if he had one. Decker struggled not to laugh out loud at times because he wasn't sure how the boy would feel once he was made aware of it. If it wasn't how he used to move, the boy might try to act more human.

  And it was far too cute to put an end to it.

  So he followed Joshua through the store, secretly grinning ear to ear.

  Decker hadn't been in a large store for a very long time. He couldn't remember when he last ventured into a department store. Much had changed in the world since that time. It was like walking onto the surface of another planet. One with an artificial sun blazing with stark bright light. The new world stretched on and on under a metal sky with row upon row of shelving. It seemed to Decker marvelously bright and cheerful, but it could be just be the company he was keeping.

  "I got garbage bags," Joshua was saying. "I had no idea how expensive they were. I got like seventy of them. I think that might only be enough to do like one or two rooms." He paused, head tilted, with a slightly worried look. "You're okay with me throwing things out?"

  "Much of it is dross I should have thrown away long ago." At least everything they'd taken out of Joshua's bedroom had been.

  Tail wag. "Good! Some hoarders don't want to let go of anything."

  "I'm not a hoarder." Decker felt the need to clarify things for his puppy. "I had grown used to having people who would shift through my belongings, put away things that obviously needed to be kept, and do---something---with the rest. At one time, 'something' was to simply carry it outside and fling it into the midden or set it on fire. I know people now have rubber barrels and large square metal bins full of garbage, but I have no idea of how they become empty."

  "Oh! Well, that makes sense." A bounce and tail wag. "Oh, wait, I'm not sure how that's done either." Unhappy puppy pout followed as Joshua realized that life wasn't as simple as he thought. "Back home, Thursday was trash day. I had to move the cans to the curb in the morning; because of the coyotes and raccoons and such, we couldn't put them out the night before. The truck came while I was at school. First thing I had to do when I got home was move the cans back to the garage."

  "That seems fairly straightforward."

  "Well, I don't know where my parents got the cans. They're special cans that the truck can lift with hydraulics and the name of the company is printed on the sides."

  "See. This is the same kind of problem I had. The person who provides the can most likely only works daylight hours."

  Tail wag.
"You really do need my help."

  Decker grinned. "Yes. I need to be saved from drowning in darkness."

  Bounce. "I can use your phone to research it. On TV shows they always get a dumpster. You start at the front door and just work to the right, separating things as you go into keep, donate, recycle and toss. The tossed stuff goes straight out the door and into the dumpster."

  Joshua was sounding Decker out for permission to get a dumpster---if he could figure out how that was done. Decker wanted to be as encouraging as possible. "Sounds like a good plan."

  A total body wriggle. If he had a tail, it would be a blur right now. Decker wondered what size of wolf Joshua was going to be when he transformed. While Decker would love it if the boy turned out to be a small bundle of fur, chances were his wolf-form wouldn't be as puppylike as Decker would hope.

  "Oh!" Bounce. Joshua pointed to a banner beyond the shoe department. It read: Home. "We need towels!"

  Decker smiled happily at the sign. Home. "Fetch some then!"

  Joshua bounded into the section and pounced on sage green towels. He only selected one of the largest to put in the cart. That was a boy for you. Decker picked up enough to make two full sets: bath, hand, and washcloth.

  "I don't need..." Joshua stopped cold to stare at a mirror in the shoe section beside them. It showed him standing alone beside the cart. His head cocked in confusion as he realized that Decker wasn't reflected in the mirror. Joshua looked at Decker and then at his own reflection. He waved his hand in front of Decker, and then walked back and forth between Decker and the mirror. "That---that---that's seriously, seriously creepy."

  Decker sighed. "Yes, that is a little hard to deal with at first. Thank god I don't need to shave anymore, or I'd look like I'd been in cat fights daily." He picked up a bath mat. "Which of these shower curtains do you want?"

  * * *

  His puppy was oddly hesitant about picking up items that even Decker knew he needed to lead a normal life. Decker plucked up items that Joshua bypassed, like a matched bathroom set of trashcan, soap dish, toothbrush holder, and some kind of odd brush on a long stick that could be stored hidden inside a plastic container. Decker wasn't sure what it was for but obviously every bathroom needed one.

  The next section was bedding. Pillows, sheets, blankets, and something called "Aerobed" went into the cart. Around the corner they hit the kitchen items. Decker stopped beside the display of dish sets.

  "These cost a lot of money," Joshua protested. "I can use paper plates."

  Decker wanted as much stuff as possible cementing the boy into his life. He was going to build walls around Joshua using towels and sheets and dishes. It would be a gilded cage of things that belonged in the house and yet only Joshua would use. Decker wanted everything possible to keep Joshua from disappearing again. "A set of dishes would be cheaper in the long run."

  "They're sixty dollars."

  Which didn't seem like a lot of money compared to the Wedgewood china that Decker used to have.

  "I want a home and a home has real plates," Decker pressed. The boy would be less likely to leave a house that felt like a home. His home.

  "There are these!" Joshua picked up a cheap plastic dish sold individually. "I just need one."

  Decker sighed. "If I hired anyone else to work for me, I still would have to buy things for them to use. In the houses I had before this one, I had a large household of servants. I supplied uniforms, dishes, bedding, food---everything."

  "So you have dishes?"

  Decker tried to condense a very long story. "I lost them."

  "Well, I could use paper plates until we find them."

  He had condensed too much. "Lost them as in my house was burned down."

  "Oh, I'm sorry." Joshua paused and tilted his head in puppy confusion. "Was burned down? You mean---someone set fire to it?"

  "Yes. Villagers don't come with pitchforks anymore, but the end result in terms of real estate has stayed the same. Saul---Elise's grandfather---helped me find this house after my last one burned. He felt responsible. Saul was young and felt that my employees should be warned of certain dangers. He didn't realize how badly that could go."

  Joshua looked horrified. "One of your servants set fire to your house?"

  "It's a long, long story---" Decker sighed as the puppy looked hurt. The boy had spent the day getting mere glimpses of larger pictures. Even though Decker would rather not explain in detail, he decided to make Joshua happy.

  "It wasn't me that Saul was worried about---in terms of attacking my servants---but all the other monsters that I deal with on a regular basis. I help the Grigori track evil, which occasionally makes me a target. It is why my house is warded. Saul thought it was only fair that my servants should know what they might have to face. I had a beautiful young woman who worked for me. She had a very insane boyfriend---or better to say, a suitor who wanted to be more than just an acquaintance. My servant let slip the truth about my nature and he decided that the reason he was getting nowhere with his courtship was because I was obviously using my vampire powers to hold her in thrall. The truth was that she simply knew her worth and his lack of it but she was afraid of him, so she tried to scare him off by hiding behind me."

  Joshua pretended to look at dishes. He was actually having an internal debate---accompanied by cute faces. The boy wanted to ask something but wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. After several minutes, he asked tentatively, "Did you kill her suitor for burning down your house?"

  "No." At the time, Decker had been disappointed that he didn't have the chance to do so, but now he was glad. Joshua obviously didn't want him to be a killer; relief flashed across his puppy's face. "Saul did."

  "What! Really?"

  "He was fond of my servant. She'd called him in a panic, and then went into the burning house to save me. She---she died. Saul made sure I was safe and then tracked down the idiot and killed him."

  If Joshua had had puppy ears, they'd be drooping with hurt and dismay.

  Decker patted him on the head. "It's okay. It was a long, long time ago."

  "But you liked her and she died."

  "Yes." She was just one of many, many people he'd lost over time. At least werewolves were long lived---if monsters didn't kill them.

  Joshua tilted his head. "Is that why you only have the one chair? You lost everything when your old house burned down?"

  "Yes."

  "But you said that was 1959. Why didn't you buy more furniture and stuff?"

  "I bought stuff. I have a house full of stuff."

  "No! I mean things like dishes instead of record players and hula hoops."

  "I thought---wrongly---that I didn't need them." Decker had believed he didn't need dishes because he didn't eat. If he didn't eat off dishes, he had no need for a dining room table and chairs. Things somehow spiraled out of control from there. "I might not use these things for myself, but I need them, because I need people in my life."

  Joshua considered the dishes on display and picked up a box of the simple but elegant white squares of china. Glasses and silverware went into the cart.

  Decker glanced about trying to remember what was in his last kitchen for his servants' use. There had been pots and pans but currently his house did not have a stove. Oddly the store seemed to have no appliances. Joshua would need something to keep meat in. What did they call those things that replaced iceboxes? "Refrigerators. We should see if they sell them."

  "Only little ones for dorms, but that's probably good enough." Joshua pointed at something no bigger than a hatbox. "Bethy has one in her dorms at college. She's supposed to give it to me when she graduates this spring."

  Decker supposed that the miniature refrigerator would work as a stopgap measure. They would need to go shopping elsewhere for appliances and furniture.

  "How are we going to get all this back to your house?" Joshua said and then with a little fear, asked, "We're not calling Winnie, are we?"

  "Hansom cab." Decker slipped and use
d the old term. It got him an adorable tilt of the head. "I mean, taxi."

  There were weird boxes around the next counter. He thought that they might be televisions until Joshua opened one up. They seemed to be breadboxes merged with a telephone. Joshua inspected them carefully.

  "You want one?" Decker was surprised at how much these odd breadboxes cost. The cheapest was sixty dollars. What were they? The sticker on the shelf stated: Emerson 900 Watt Microwave.

  "Yes," Joshua admitted guiltily. "I should have something I can cook food with. You don't have a range. I used the microwave at home---my parent's house---all the time."

  Mystified, Decker shifted items in the cart around to fit the new box into it. If "home" had a microwave, then his house should have one too. Maybe he should buy two.

  13: Joshua

  They were halfway home in the taxi when Joshua realized that he'd forgotten paint. He whimpered---something he was doing distressingly often.

  "Hm?" Decker leaned close so the driver wouldn't overhear them.

  "I wanted to paint my bedroom. I forgot to look to see if Target carried paint."

  The day had left Joshua feeling lost and confused even in the familiar surroundings of Target. All the store's departments had been in different places than the one in Utica. Tomorrow would be Monday. He wouldn't be getting up for school. He wouldn't be eating lunch with his friends. He wouldn't be going to the dojo after school. There would be no eating dinner in the living room with his parents while watching Jeopardy. As he thought of everything he'd lost, the universe seemed to open up wider and wider, and he felt even more adrift.

  The TV shows on hoarding were all about people rebuilding their lives. They'd had their lives nuked in a totally different way; they were buried under the rubble of their own addiction. It gave him a framework. All the hoarder shows had the same formula. Declutter. Strip off any wallpaper. Roll on a coat of cheery yellow or calming blue paint (never white). Voila, a new life. Cue the weeping with joy.

  The shows seemed to regard paint as some kind of magical elixir. Joshua had his doubts but he wasn't going to mess the formula. "I don't know a thing about painting a room. Do you?"