Bitten/Drained: The Lauren Westlake Chronicles Volume 1

by Dan O'Brien

  Montgomery shook his head. “You really are batting a thousand for weird shit, aren’t you? Werewolves. Crazy woman in a shack. And now you want to follow a schizophrenic into the deep woods on a wild goose chase. Unbelievable. For a federal agent, you sure act green.”

  “Fortune favors the bold, sheriff.” She stood and looked around the sparse room. “Where are the keys to the cell?”

  Montgomery laughed.

  Pushing a dull gray button on the wall farthest from the cell doors, a hollow sound announced the unlocking of the vagrant’s cell. The man did not move at first. Instead, he simply sat on the cold bed; legs tucked beneath him and blanket wrapped around himself.

  “Any word on bite victims?” she asked, watching the transient as he slowly rose from the creaking bed and used the blanket as a coat of sorts.

  Montgomery raised an arm as if to reprimand him, but Lauren shook her head. Begrudgingly, he held his tongue about misuse of police property.

  “We checked with the local clinics and there hasn’t been anything that would have been sustained by what we saw the other night. A farmer just this side of the border saw something that looked like a bear walking on two legs near the lake though.”

  “Walking bear? Interesting. Could be promising.”

  The vagrant took a few tentative steps toward the open part of the detention area. His shoes were worn nearly through. The socks that covered his feet had once been white, but now were a crude kind of brown, as if they had been sunk in mud for millennia. “The ground is cold. The moon is full,” he muttered, bending down to touch the simple floor.

  Montgomery looked at him with slight disgust.

  “You sure we should do this?”

  “Not we, sheriff. I need you to get on the phone and get those deputies from the other counties that you were certain you could muster. We are going to need them. Tonight is going to be a hell of a night.”

  He did not seemed convinced as he watched the vagrant sit down once more like a wounded puppy. “I am not sure I should let you go off alone with this whack-job.”

  “I appreciate your concern for my well-being, sheriff. But I can assure you I have been entrusted with much more frightening men than our little vagrant friend here.”

  Montgomery pulled on his wool cap, his furrowed brow hidden partially beneath it. “If you say so, I don’t like this though. Could be a big delusion; maybe lure you out there to kill you.”

  “Elaborate as that may be, it is highly unlikely. Whatever has been killing your fellow Locke residents did so very much alone last night. If our little transient is indeed in collusion with our killer, then I’ll sort it out.”

  Montgomery snorted. “Well don’t be entering any strange buildings that look like they were left over from a Grimm tale. You need back up, you call it in. I should have those men here by sunup. Anywhere we should be looking?”

  Lauren touched the vagrant’s arm and smiled warmly. He rose and allowed himself to be guided along. “The area just outside of the Joyce and Leftwich places. I have a feeling that we will find our scumbag there. The lake is the center-point of the murders, placing the victims in damn near a straight line. Have your deputies spread out, door to door.”

  Montgomery followed Lauren and the vagrant as they moved very slowly into the waiting area of the station. Matthews was already gone and Meadows had her nose in a romance novel, eyes darting over the word pornography. “You take the jeep. We barely use it. You might end up in some back country, might prove useful,” offered the sheriff.

  The air had grown colder already.

  The door to the jeep was unlocked.

  Pulling hard on the handle, the metal gave way with a screeching, wounded sound. The vagrant scrambled around the other side of the jeep, mumbling and muttering like a mad scientist’s assistant.

  The dashboard was cracked and beige.

  A long, jagged line crawled across the windshield where something large had collided with it in the past. With a click, the vagrant strapped himself into the uncomfortable, cold seat. There was something childish and small about him as he sat there with his hands on lap.

  “I used to enjoy car rides.”

  Lauren smiled wryly and turned the jeep over with a sputtering, hoarse sound. Coughing and shaking, the jeep warmed up. The hiss of the heat expelling from the vents sounded like a nest of snakes.

  The back seat was full of thick, coarse blankets. “Where did you hear the creature whisper?” she asked as sweetly as she could muster.

  The sky had begun to darken. Smoke from wood stoves and increasing cloud cover joined forces with the night, bringing about a curtain of shadow. Flicking on the lights, the world seemed that much darker.

  “Near the lake. Deep in the trees. I saw smoke and then a cabin.” He stopped, looking scared at that moment. “I was curious, cold.”

  Lauren put the jeep into gear.

  Backing up slowly, she looked out at the empty streets of Locke. Most of the business were closed, darkened windows and drawn shades. Some were simply empty buildings, artifacts of a different time. “We will just drive for a while. You tell me when you recognize something.”

  He did not reply.

  THE WEREWOLF STARED AT THE SHACK for a long time before the strange door opened. Hecate stood looking, unafraid and with a crooked grin. The coat around her shoulders looked like several burlap bags sewn together with conflicting patterns of horizontal and vertical lines. Her hair was adorned with aged feathers and rusted bangles.

  “I see that you have returned,” she spoke.

  Moving closer, it rose onto two legs, stalking forward. The hair receded slowly, ears flattening. And soon what had been a powerfully built myth became a naked man. Thick legs and a perfect rear end flexed as he walked. A generous endowment swung as he walked toward Hecate. His face was sweaty, hair pressed back and standing up in other places.

  He was Dominic.

  “I have more questions,” he replied.

  Hecate motioned for him to enter.

  “By all means, son of Manus, enter my home.”

  Dominic moved through the door, ignoring the lewd stare of the guide. Once inside, she shut the door, her magicks sealing them from the world once more. Reaching down, he grasped a long, woolen coat hanging against the wall and wrapped it around himself.

  “You have lied to me, minor goddess,” he spoke venomously. His voice was quietly powerful.

  Hecate smiled again, apparently unperturbed by his insult. “Son of Manus, last of the werewolves. I have not lied. What troubles you? What can I, Hecate, guide of both realms, assist you with?”

  Dominic looked at the strange painting on the wall that had caught Lauren’s eye. He remembered quite vividly the place it depicted; it was his home. “You said that I could find another of my kind here. That I could resurrect my people. You have lied.”

  “I have not lied. There is one here who can help you rebuild the fiefdom of Manus.”

  He looked at her coldly.

  The cerulean seas that Lauren had glimpsed were a torrent of crashing waves and typhoons as he looked at the cackling guide. “There are no werewolves here. And I have endangered humans. One of their kind attacked me and I bit him. He has killed. He kills still.”

  Hecate sat into her chair and touched the teapot.

  “Would you care for some tea, Son of Manus?”

  “I remember your tea, guide. I will have none this night. This form will not last much longer I fear. What do you know of the one bitten? Of my minor brethren?”

  Hecate poured the sweet-smelling tea into her cup and sipped it noiselessly. “The one who has been bitten seeks to complete his madness. He believes that he is becoming a werewolf. Scarring and mutilating the bodies of his victims and his own, he seeks completion. His masterpiece shall be this very night.”

  Dominic did not take kindly to the guide’s words. Snarling, he barred his teeth. “If you know such things, why not help? Why not warn Lauren? I saw that she came here l
ast night. What madness did you fill her mind with?”

  Hecate placed her tea cup down and grasped a long weave of fabric. Vibrant colors in strange, runic patterns were stitched within.

  She thumbed one of the runes, closing her eyes as she did so. “I told her of the present, though not her future. I warned her of the being desirous of becoming a monster and of you, the werewolf that dwelled sleepily in their midst.”

  He did not find her prophecy amusing. “Why would you inform her of the presence of a supernatural being? That is dangerous information. It could cause her great harm.”

  Hecate laughed.

  “She is a powerful woman, Son of Manus. Brave and bold. Her presence here was foretold, just as I knew you would come to the cold swells of the western continent. She needed to know of the supernatural if she is to destroy the maggot spawn of one.”

  Dominic sat down in the same chair Lauren had inhabited the night before. “You still have not answered for your lies. I could have you banished, returned to beyond the veil for theft of knowledge.”

  The guide bristled then, her smile disappearing. “You are mistaken, Son of Manus. For several centuries have I walked this green earth. And for a time before that, I was feared by mortals. Your testimony alone could not remove my place here.”

  Dominic stood quicker than the human eye would have been able to perceive. Hecate, however, was not human. “Enough of this, tell me about my kin. Why have you lied to me?”

  “I have not lied, son of Manus. There is one here who is capable of increasing your numbers.”

  “There are none of my kind here.”

  Hecate stood now as well.

  Moving toward the hearth, she grasped some dried branches and threw them into the rumbling fire. “I never said that it would be one of your kind that would allow you to further your people. I just said that there was one here who could aid your dwindling numbers.”

  The monster that so desired to be human looked at the guide with heavy eyes. “A human woman?” Hecate nodded. It was then that he realized why his attraction to Lauren had been so powerful. “Lauren Westlake. She can carry a were-child to birth?”

  Hecate nodded again, pulling a shawl around her chest. “I am afraid so. You see now why I had to reveal the presence of a werewolf. She did not respond poorly. Her eyes showed an understanding that you were not a monster as much as a man trapped between two worlds.”

  “I see. For a human to bear such a responsibility….”

  Hecate did not seem to care.

  “That is very true. I have paid you what is owed, Son of Manus. She is the vessel that you seek. The victim of your bite lurks still. He will claim many lives on this night. For he believes it is the night of his ascension.”

  Dominic removed the robe he had been wearing.

  Steam rose from his body.

  The guide could not help but feel the arousal of seeing not only a man as beautiful and rugged as Dominic disrobed, but also the powerful energies that were involved in a supernatural transformation. His body started to convulse, legs buckling and twisting as the muscles beneath crawled like creatures trying to escape through his flesh.

  With a long step, he was at the door.

  His arms snapped out, thick, sharp claws erupting from his hands. He was out the front door of the guide’s shack in one convoluted movement. The air was cold. Dominic seemed to be consumed by a cloud that rippled from him as he bent forward into the hard, cold compact of the ground.

  His back flexed, powerful muscles giving way to the back of a creature. The face elongated, not the pronounced proboscis of celluloid, but instead flattening the nose and drawing out the chin and cheekbones. The howl was at first very much like a human in pain. And then as the body morphed, so did the piercing cry into the night.

  The werewolf was majestic, if not incredibly frightening. Yet, Hecate looked upon it as one would a tree. Moving with grace, he was out in the open air of the night in a quick movement. Silence hung in the air as he moved out into the field, standing up on two legs and looking up at the full moon that peeked through the clouds. “He grows more bold, son of Manus. He must be ended.”

  Dominic, no longer man but beast, snorted at the guide. Werewolves were not capable of speech, but they retained their cognitive processes. Dark black eyes looked at Hecate, acknowledgement twinkling within them.

  With a snarl, he was gone.

  The forest snapped and broke around him.

  Chapter XIV

  Jack Ellison was known for two things really. The first being his ridiculous body and the other that he was about as wild and unpredictable as any person had a right to be.

  The Lavender Home was situated deep within the cold forest, near the residence of a young man who had been killed the night before and not far from a certain frozen lake that had been the tombstone of an out-of-town woman.

  The home was not called Lavender house because it smelled a particular way or produced a certain product; rather it was named after the family who built it. William Lavender had settled in Locke nearly a century before, constructing the monstrous Victorian-style home in a clearing surrounded by a ring of trees.

  The lights from the house cast a faint pall over the surrounding evergreens, adumbrating scurrying creatures covered in bristly fur. Inside, house music echoed through the full rooms of the unkempt home.

  It had once been a brilliant, radiant estate meant to entertain. Lights dimmed except for candles strewn about in peaks and valleys of melting wax. Exotic colors and smells wafted through the cold air, known only to those who stood next to them. Women half-clothed wove and danced like charmed snakes to the heavy bass that resonated in the cold night.

  Ellison walked through the house with a strutting gait. His eyes looked the scantily clad women up and down. He wore a sleeveless shirt, thick, angry veins crawling across his skin. Despite the cold world around them, drug-enhanced youth battled the night. “That ass,” he mumbled, grabbing a beer from a seriously intoxicated bearded youth.

  Each room was fuller than the next.

  Kyle Lavender, tall and thick in the middle but looking more the part of the former football star he was, stood at the center of the room. With burnt blonde hair and lazy blue eyes, he waved to his friend. Gesturing crudely at a staggering drunk girl just in front of him, he moved toward his friend.

  “Motherfucker,” roared Ellison as they slapped hands and exchanged homophobic signs of male friendship. Lavender was quite a bit taller and wore a heavy black t-shirt and dirty blue jeans with unlaced work boots.

  Lavender gestured to the party with a lopsided grin. “Got bitches coming three deep, my man. On the hour, every hour like I’m CNN or some shit. This trim showed up that just broke up with her man. They were together for like a century, going to get married and all that, hey. Now she is here, wanting Big Kyle’s Magic Ride.”

  Ellison snickered as his much larger friend grabbed his own junk to accent his crude iteration. Looking out across the wall to the mixed company of the small town of Locke, he was indeed quite impressed. Most worked in the factories in the surrounding areas that made textiles and recreational equipment. There was also the occasional high school gaggle that worried him.

  “Did you invite high school girls?”

  Lavender thought for a moment, gathering ideas an Olympic-level sport for him. “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe if I don’t remember, then it don’t matter.” He raised his hand for a high-five, but Ellison simply looked at him. “Alright. Fine. Maybe a couple, but they are like a week away, man. Plus some of the kids who were freshmen when we graduated are here. Brothers from another mother, right?”

  Someone had left open the door and a cold wind blew through the house. Lavender was yelling and moving through the crowd before another word could be exchanged. Women licked various sticky and slimy substances off of the stomachs of other provocatively dressed women; truly the epitome of perversion. They were living out of control as society spiraled like lace about itself. E
llison slithered into the party, smiling and dancing as people collided with one another in a drunken frenzy.

  THE CREATURE WATCHED THE HOUSE with great interest. Standing on the tree line, it felt the heat from the house, the rush of sexual energy and violence that brimmed at the edges as if it were a carbonated beverage ready to explode. Voices whispered and spoke in the night. Closest to the edge of the woods, the hushed tones of a man and a woman rose above the rest.

  “Come on,” spoke the man, the subtlety lost from his voice.

  Creeping forward, the creature was crouched low to the ground and looked through the brush. The woman was pressed against a tree and the man had his hand all the way up the front of her shirt.

  Their faces were close together.

  Turning away slightly, the woman pushed away the man’s face. “Not out here, it’s too cold,” she murmured, uncomfortable.

  The man, however, would not be denied. Snaking his hand from north to south, she pushed him away with authority this time. He caught her hand as she attempted to scamper into the house.

  “Come on, baby,” he murmured.

  She struggled against him and this time he pushed her to the ground, forcefully. Looming over top her, something came over him: a disgusting primal urge. Grabbing the neck of her sweater, he lifted her by it, tearing a long gaping hole.

  Screaming, she covered her body with her hands.

  He did not relent, ripping at her clothing. Smacking, punching, and driving her deeper within herself. Planting his knees against her shoulders, he grinned disgustingly. Forcing a hand across her mouth, she squirmed and groaned against his weight.

  “I asked nicely,” he leered, looking down at her fearful eyes.

  The creature snorted.

  Its blood boiled.

  Licking its lips hungrily, its heart beat fast. It moved forward, feet finding careful ledges amongst the trees and bushes. As the man looked up, he saw the strange outline of the creature just above the brush line.

  “What the fuck is that?”