Dreams of Gray

by Maurice Lawless

  “You remember,” she said.

  “No, I don’t. I’ve tried. It’s a blank. The first thing I remember is waking up in the woods.”

  She shook her head and inched closer to me on the couch. She brushed my arm, and I shrank back a bit.

  “I can help you remember,” Slate said. “This will seem strange to you, but you must do as I say.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  She held her right hand just in front of my face. “Smell me.”

  Okay, weirdness radar maxed out at ten. I don’t know what made me do it, but I brought my nose close to her wrist. It did smell interesting. Like leaves and damp earth.

  Before I knew it, I was nuzzling her wrist, and her hand was on my cheek. She brought her other hand to my face and held me there. “Look at me, Dree. Sister. Look at me and remember.”

  I looked into her eyes and saw they were amber again. My breathing sped up. They looked hungry. She held me tight. “Remember.”

  My eyes rolled back into my head and a rush of events flew into my brain. I was in a club. Not Thermal, somewhere else. A comedy club? The stage was a red brick wall with a small platform in front.

  A man was there. His face was fuzzy. It was strange, because everything else was crystal clear. I could count the dings in the brick and the tiny holes in the microphone. The scene flashed, and I was outside. It was dark, and I was walking somewhere. Was I alone? No, someone else was there. A man. He clung to me like he knew me. Like a lover.

  Flash. A park under the freeway. An old footbridge made out of rusted steel and covered with vines. Remnants of old clothes and sleeping bags in corners where the homeless slept.

  Flash. A clearing in the woods. A blanket. Warmth. A fire? No, the warmth was him. He was burning up. He hugged me, and I felt warm too.

  Flash. The moon was so bright! Night breeze blew on my skin. I was sweating. I rolled onto my back and felt him enter me. My ankles locked behind him. I wanted him.

  Flash. Running through the woods. Scared. Naked. Cold. Wet. A new array of smells around me. I heard a growl. I was pinned to the ground. I screamed.

  Flash. He just stood there, staring as I bled. He tried to run, but I was tearing at his back, nails in flesh. Blood.

  Grabbing an outstretched arm, I pulled. Crack! He screamed. His hair in my fingers. Smack. Skin to pavement. Smack. Gurgled moans, then he ran away. I howled.

  I came back down to Earth in a ball on the floor with Slate’s hands still firmly gripped on either side of my head. I thrashed and kicked, but she held on until I calmed down. Finally, she let go.

  I scrambled back until I could lean against the couch, and I hugged my knees. My mouth worked open and closed, but all I could manage was “Oh god.”

  16

  Slate sat cross-legged on the floor, watching me intently. Her eyes were brown again.

  “He blocks it out of our minds,” she said, softly. “I don’t know why. Only among others of our kind can we see through his veils.”

  My breath came in violent hitches, like I'd been bawling. “Who is he? I couldn’t see his face.”

  She nodded. “Neither can I. I can tell you what I do know, however.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Slate proceeded to weave a tale straight out of an Anne Rice novel. It had everything: illicit sex, a pregnancy scandal with the mayor’s daughter, public torture that turned into a curse. Decades of wandering and feeding, unable to stop.

  “How does he spread it? Sex?”

  “That’s part of it. Blood, too. He bites.”

  A terrible thought came to me. “Alan!”

  She tilted her head again, and I realized what she reminded me of. My mother’s Australian shepherd tilted his head just like that when he considered something.

  “Is Alan the man you’ve had over recently?”

  I didn’t think I still had the capacity to blush. I was wrong. “Just how closely were you watching me?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Yes, that’s Alan. Have I…marked him?”

  Slate shook her head. “No. The mark only affects women. Spiteful irony by the one who created it.”

  I sighed in relief. Small victories. “If we find this man, what do you plan to do with him?”

  Her eyes flashed amber. It made me shiver. “Kill him, of course.”

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “You’d prefer he continue to do this? Make more of us?”

  Well, when she put it that way.

  She stood. “It’s the only way. He’s compelled to do it. Only in recent years has he started to enjoy it.”

  I thought about last night with Alan. The pain, the wormy feeling of bones and flesh reshaping themselves. The fear of losing what little humanity I had while in that form. The thought of losing Alan, PJ, and the other normal people in my life. I could hide it, couldn’t I? But for how long?

  Slate let out a growl. It wasn’t menacing so much as annoyed. “You’re thinking too much. Perhaps I should show you what we’re capable of.”

  She was on me in a blink. This was no gentle cheek caress. She straddled me and plunged her thumbed over my eyelids. I thought she was going to claw my eyes out. I fought, but she had all the leverage.

  At first, all I saw was the back of my eyelids, but before long, I was swept up in a memory I knew wasn’t mine, running through woods in the winter. It wasn’t Texas. The skinny tree trunks stood like gravestones against a clean white carpet.

  Something flashed in front of me. A deer? I looked left and right. There were more of us. A pack. We chased, and it was exhilarating. Three of us closed in and forced it into a clearing. There were more of us on the other side. An ambush. My pack held the circle, but I jumped forward. I was Alpha; the kill was mine to make.

  I sprung, the doe’s dark eyes wide in terror. My teeth sank into fur, and then broke skin. I felt the flow of warm, wet blood down my throat. I tore from side to side, and the doe bled onto the clean white snow. I ripped a piece of its throat off completely, nearly swallowing it in one gulp. I locked my jowls and howled, signaling the rest of the pack to descend.

  Flash. I was alone, and afraid. There was no pack here. My paws hit hard, smooth ground without dirt or rocks. There were lights everywhere. I dashed left and right to avoid them as they barreled toward me. I fell into a ditch.

  A man was there. He was warm, and I was hungry. He slept. I pounced and sank my teeth into something soft that tasted bad. I spit it out. Now the man was awake. He tried to get up and run but I was too heavy. I pinned his shoulders with my paws and struck.

  “STOP IT! GOD, PLEASE STOP IT, SLATE!”

  My eyes flew open as soon as the pressure from her thumbs was gone. I was breathing hard, and my entire body was covered in sweat. My robe had fallen open when she pounced on me. I quickly cinched it shut.

  “Do you understand now?” she asked.

  My voice was breathy between huge gasps. “What? What do I need to understand?”

  “That we’re monsters. Animals. Abominations.”

  I shook my head. “We’re still human. Part of us, anyway. We have a choice!”

  Slate stood and made her way to the door. Her jaw was set. When she brushed her long hair behind one ear and looked at me, I saw a glimpse of what she might have been like, years ago, as a young woman.

  “For now. In time, you will choose differently. We all do.”

  17

  Celtic Knot Tattoos was mostly empty on a Sunday. Connor was leaning against the counter reading a magazine. He saw me approach and started shaking his head before I could say anything.

  “If you’re here for Poppa, he doesn’t want to see you. I don’t know why. He’s a stubborn old guy. .”

  “Please, Connor. I have to try.”

  He shook his head again. “I wouldn’t advise it.”

  The bells above the door rang, and a biker in leather chaps walked in with his girlfriend. Their outfits nearly matched.


  “Pablo!” Connor said. He walked out from behind the counter and met the man with a forced smile. “My man. How’s the ink we gave you last week?”

  I took the opportunity to slip behind the counter and up the narrow staircase. I didn’t know what Poppa Mackenzie might be able to tell me, but he knew something, and at this point, I needed all the help I could get.

  The door to the bedroom was closed. Probably asleep. Screw it. I was a monster, and I needed advice.

  I tried the knob. It turned, and I carefully pushed open the door. Poppa was wide awake, and seemed to be waiting for me.

  “I told ye to be gone!” he said. “Ye’er cursed. Stay clear of me and mine. You lay a hand on my Bonny and I’ll gut you meself!”

  Not exactly the reception I expected. “Sir, I’m sorry. I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

  He sat with one hand on his chest and the other under the pillow to his left. His arm twitched at my words.

  “I’ll warn ye no more. Out! Out before ye cannae help yourself!”

  “What do you mean—”

  He dropped the pillow and held out a revolver. It looked quite old, but it probably could kill me just fine. I ducked instinctively and was glad I did: the gunshot was fearsome in the small bedroom. My ears rang, and a little of the wall fell on my head.

  I ran back into the hallway and caught a glimpse of the old man sitting up, aiming for me again.

  “Out!” he screamed. “Take ye’er curse elsewhere!”

  I ran down the stairs and slammed head-on into Connor, who was on his way up.

  “What the...?” he asked.

  I slipped past him and ran as fast as I could out of the shop. I got into my car and jumped when a head appeared in my back seat.

  “You really should lock your car,” Slate said.

  My heart slowed down a bit. She climbed over the center console and sat in the front passenger seat.

  “He couldn’t help you. The only way to help yourself is to join me.”

  “You mean kill.”

  “Yes.”

  My hands gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. “There has to be another way.”

  “There isn’t. I’d have found it by now.”

  I pulled out of the parking lot and hit the freeway loop toward home. My fingers were bleeding again. I didn’t have anything to stop the flow, so I wiped them on my jeans.

  She looked at my hands. “You need to learn to calm down, Dree.”

  I glanced at her. “Why is that?”

  “You haven’t noticed you tend to transform when you’re upset?”

  I opened my mouth, then immediately closed it. That hadn’t occurred to me.

  “I’m not sure why it’s like that,” she said, “Probably fight or flight response. It feels threatened.”

  “It?” I asked.

  “Your wolf.”

  I thought of anything that might slow down my racing heart: cool water, warm breezes, corn fields. It worked eventually. I looked at my fingers and saw nothing but dried blood.

  “What do you want, Slate?”

  “The same thing I wanted before.”

  “My help in finding and killing the guy who did this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I’m still not sure I want to go along with it?”

  I couldn’t see her eyes, but I was willing to bet they were amber. She sighed heavily, with just a hint of a growl at the end.

  “Then I wait until you are.”

  Traffic was bad downtown. People were coming home after the weekend. We slowed to a crawl, and I looked at Slate.

  “What makes you so sure I’ll change my mind?”

  “You haven’t fed yet.”

  “I don’t understand. I ate today before I left.”

  She gave me a look like I’d just asked her to explain why things fall down.

  “If you don’t feed, you change more often. It’s harder to control.”

  “Feed?”

  “Kill.”

  18

  Another Monday, another exhausting drive home. As soon as I got settled, there was a knock on my door. I sure seemed to be getting a lot of visitors lately. I checked the peephole and froze.

  Alan.

  I opened the door, but stood in the doorway so he couldn’t come in.

  “Umm, hi?” I said.

  “I haven’t heard from you in a bit,” he said. “Are you feeling better?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. Nothing to worry about really.”

  “You haven’t been home the last couple of nights. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been replaced.”

  He thought I dumped him for someone else. How cute.

  “No, not at all. I’ve just been busy. Lots of personal stuff came up I had to deal with.”

  “Anything I do to help?”

  Got any silver bullets in your service pistol?

  “Ah, no. Not really.”

  We looked at each other for an agonizing fifteen seconds. He finally broke the stare.

  “I want to see you. Talk to you. About the other night.”

  “Oh.”

  We stood looking at each other for a little while longer. I sighed.

  “You want to come in?”

  “Yeah.”

  I stepped out of the way.

  He sat on the couch, and I joined him. After I closed the door and flipped the bolt, of course.

  “You’re pretty much a wild animal in bed, huh?” he asked.

  He had no idea how wild. “Straight to the point then.”

  “I didn’t see a need to sugarcoat it. You like it rough. And it seems like you’re a little embarrassed by it.”

  That was true enough. I damn near turned great sex into bestiality. “Umm, yeah. A little.”

  He scooted over closer to me and draped an arm over my shoulders. I felt small. Well, smaller than usual.

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Dree. I had fun the other night, too. I always have fun with you.”

  “Even that first time?”

  He chuckled. “I came back, didn’t I? Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  I smiled, and he kissed me. I didn’t know how much I needed that until it happened. My mouth opened and our tongues found each other. He hugged me close but didn’t go for the goods. He was feeling me out before feeling me up. Good boy.

  I felt the heat between us rise, and my back felt it too. It wasn’t burning yet, but there was a sting. I broke from the kiss. He sat back and gave me space.

  “Too soon?” he asked, with obvious disappointment.

  “No, it’s not that. Tell you what; let me hop in the shower first. I feel yucky.”

  His grin was hopeful. “Should I wait, or come back later?”

  I gave him an impish grin on the way to the bathroom. “What the hell. Wait, and get out the massage oils.”

  That got him moving. I went into the bathroom and shut the door. The face that looked back from the mirror was nervous, but not gaunt or anything. Not like the day I sprouted claws.

  I remember how I was able to calm myself in the car with Slate. Even if I didn’t decide to go along with her murder scheme, I’d have to learn to live with this one way or another. I stripped, gave my back a glance (no red, nothing strange), and showered.

  When I came out sans towel, Alan was more than ready. He was topless, but he still wore his jeans. I liked the look. He’d lit a few of my candles and laid out an array of various massage oils. I smiled, and he motioned me to lie down.

  “Front or back first?” he asked. I had to laugh.

  “Back, horny boy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I laid down face first and stretched out on the bed. He started at my shoulders and neck and worked his hands down, applying a good amount of pressure with his palms. My tattoos were mercifully cool to his touch.

  “You’ll have to tell me what all these symbols mean one day,” he said.

  “One day, maybe.” If I ever found ou
t myself.

  He made little circles down my spine and did an extra thorough job on my ass. Apparently he’s into them too.