by W. J. May
To start, the place was almost completely empty. A rickety table stood at the far end, and what looked to be a pull-out sofa had been shoved against the far wall. But that was it as far as furniture went. The kitchen was similarly barren, save for a few water bottles and a bottle of whiskey peeking through an open cupboard. There was a mattress lying on the floor in the next room, but aside from that the place was a tomb.
“Make yourself at home.” Jason spread out his arms as he headed to the bedroom. “I just need to grab something.”
Home. An ironic word for it. I’ve seen nicer crack houses than this.
Simon perched obediently on the couch, before resettling himself down on the floor. It may have seemed counter-intuitive, but as an animal he didn’t feel right about sitting on the furniture.
When Jason returned a moment later, he scanned around a second before his eyes rested on Simon with a little smile. “There you are. Finally learned your place, I see.”
Simon growled dangerously, and Jason rolled his eyes.
“Geez! You’re even more sensitive as a dog. Well, come on, get over here. Much as I’ve enjoyed this little White Fang recreation, we don’t have all day.”
Simon padded over cautiously, tilting his head to the side as Jason pulled a tiny bottle and a syringe out of his pocket. The needle was at least three times longer than anything Simon had ever seen before, and he danced a few steps backwards before Jason caught him by the collar and dragged him back.
“Quit it. It’s not as bad as it looks.” He held Simon there with one hand as the other expertly unscrewed the lid on the bottle and stuck the plunger inside. “I should really just take this to the office,” he muttered as they watched the syringe fill up to the brim. “You’re not the first of these little accidents to come my way.”
When he was finished, he let go of the collar and knelt down so that he and Simon were on the same level. The needle was in one hand, as the other reached out to gently stroke his fur. “Alright, Simon. This is a mixture of clonazepam and bromide, as well as a combination of a couple other things. It’s perfectly safe. It’s just going to slow down your heart a little and put you into kind of a euphoric trance. Kind of like ecstasy. But like…ecstasy mixed with a mild roofie. You know what I mean? You ever take X?”
Simon blinked in terror, and Jason back-pedaled quickly.
“No, me neither,” he said, clearly lying. “But this is perfectly safe, I swear. I’ve had it a million times myself. What we need to do is calm down your system, so that you can let go of the shifter tatù long enough to pick up another.”
Simon shook his head questioningly. Another?
Jason rolled his eyes. “Mine, genius. Shit, your brain has gone wolf already.” He ignored Simon’s defiant growl, and swatted him gently on the nose for silence. “So, once you’ve taken it, we’ll just wait for your body to relax, and then you’ll copy my ink from me.”
Without having the benefit of skin to skin contact, Simon didn’t exactly know how they were going to do that last part. But he nodded his head up and down and stood perfectly still as Jason uncapped the needle.
Three times as long as normal? Try four. Or maybe, like, nine.
A nervous yelp tore through Simon’s body and he shook his head, digging his claws into the wood as he tried to pull away from Jason’s iron grip.
“Hey—hey! Easy on the floors!” He tugged Simon back with a resentful glare. “At this rate, I’m never going to get my security deposit back.”
Security deposit? Really? Did he think that was even an option at this point?
As Jason held him in place, Simon braced himself and tried to imagine he was somewhere else entirely. His eyes snapped shut as the face of a lovely girl flitted automatically through his mind.
It never failed to take his breath away—how beautiful she was.
Beth was the kind of girl who could stop traffic. The kind of girl who could make a guy do something crazy, like standing up to her deranged ex-army father just to try to get a few more days lingering by her side. She was completely unaware of this herself, of course. Girlish fancies and cosmetics were about as low down on Beth’s list of priorities as was possible. She cared about other things. More important things. Things that Simon cared about himself.
Books. Self-identity. And above all…freedom.
It was the same lust for freedom that they had bonded over from the very beginning. The same irritation at antiquated dogmas, the same chafing against people in positions of authority.
He had vowed to himself over winter break that he was going to marry her one day. And to that he held. Neither distance, nor time, nor even this new wolfish brain of his could stop his love.
It was as if—
DAMN THAT HURTS!
He howled in pain and leapt a good five feet into the air before Jason was able to bring him back down again. They struggled for a moment, his raw animalistic power challenging even the impossible strength of his teacher, before Jason was finally able to get the upper hand.
“Just stay still!” he commanded, straining with the effort of keeping Simon there. “You’re about to feel euphoric!”
It took everything Simon had in him not to bite Jason on the face right then and there.
Euphoric?! Really?! There was no way in HELL this devil’s solution Jason had illegally pumped into his veins was ever going to make him feel…
…Hey now. That’s not half bad.
His legs melted beneath him as he sank gracefully to the floor. A feeling of complete and utter bliss was washing over him, and suddenly, even though he was facing the prospect of living forever on a diet of nothing but birds and rats, he felt as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
With surprisingly gentle hands, Jason picked up his head and lay it across his lap. His fingers ran back and forth, smoothing down the fur on Simon’s forehead in a wonderfully hypnotic gesture, until Simon finally closed his eyes.
“You okay?” he asked softly, keeping a close eye on Simon’s shallow breathing. When Simon gave a half-hearted yip in reply, he smiled. “Alright, I think you’re ready.”
In one fluid motion, he stood up and simultaneously pulled Simon to his feet. As Simon stood there, wavering a bit unsteadily, he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.
“Now…bite me.”
Despite the drugs, Simon’s eyes snapped open in alarm.
Did he say…to bite him?
“Not too hard,” Jason warned, eyeing him carefully. “You’re still a wolf, remember. But hard enough to draw blood. In lieu of skin-to-skin contact, it’s the best we’re going to be able to do.”
Simon stood there for a moment, his mind slipping in and out of consciousness, before he shook his head and took a decided step back.
No. He wasn’t going to bite Jason. Jason was his friend, wasn’t he? Jason was the one trying to make him not a wolf anymore. Not that he really minded. In fact, he wondered how fast it was exactly that he could run…
“Earth to Simon!”
There was a sharp crack as Jason snapped his fingers in front of Simon’s face.
“I know it’s distracting, buddy, but you’ve got to focus here. Now bite me. It’s the entire reason we did all this.”
Simon just stood there.
“Bite me, or look forward to a life of eating pigeon.”
Still nothing.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Bite me, or you’re never going to see that girl again that I know you space out and think about during training.”
Turns out, Simon could move pretty fast after all…
“SON of a BITCH!”
Jason jerked away and kicked Simon halfway across the room. At the same time, his body shed its layer of fur and slowly elongated to become human again. When he straightened up, he was completely, embarrassingly, naked. But Jason was far too agitated to bring himself to care.
“Not too hard, I said!” He cradled his arm delicately across his chest, flinching as a river of red po
ured from the four deep puncture holes. “Shit—Simon! And on the arm you just tore out?!”
“Sorry,” Simon murmured, crossing his arms self-consciously in front of him. “It was kind of hard to control.”
“You do a guy a favor, and this is what you get in return.”
“Uh…Jason?”
“Probably have some latent form of rabies; they’ll have to amputate.”
“I’m really sorry about your arm, again, but…Jason?”
“The PC will fit me with some weighted prosthetic and send me back to work. No letter of apology. No hazard pay—”
“Jason?”
“WHAT, SIMON?!”
“Do you think I could get some freakin’ pants?”
Chapter 11
Jason and Simon rode back to London in a car so quiet, Simon might as well have stayed a wolf. They had come to a silent understanding, where both of them had agreed to never speak of the events of the evening again. Jason wasn’t going to mention the fact that Simon had left a trail of wolfish slobber leading up the stairs, and Simon wasn’t going to ask why the only pair of pants Jason had to offer him bore the insignia ‘Lucky’s Fishing Extravaganza’ and were three sizes too large.
But as the ancient iron-work gate of Guilder rolled into view, Simon felt the sudden need to break their quiet truce. A list of questions had been bubbling up inside him, creating a pressure so strong he thought he would burst if he had to sit through it even a second longer.
“Jason?” he asked tentatively.
“Call me ‘Mr. Archer’.”
“Pardon?”
“Or maybe even ‘Sir’.” Jason kept his eyes on the road as he pulled them off the freeway and onto the narrow drive. “I’m afraid we’ve spent too much time together. Bonded too closely. Best to create a little distance at this point.”
Simon couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking, but at this point, he didn’t really care. “Yeah, uh…Jason?”
His mentor shot him a sideways glance. “What?”
“I have a few questions…if you don’t mind.”
“Let’s assume I do.”
“You do what?”
“Mind. Let’s assume I mind and leave it at that.”
“Jason, I—”
“No, Simon! You’re the one who showed up at my office as a dog! You’re not the one who gets to ask questions today.”
When he phrased it like that, it actually made a lot of sense. But the fact still remained…
“Yeah, but, Jason?”
There was a chilling pause.
“What, Simon?”
“I still have some questions.”
Jason’s shoulders fell ever-so-slightly as they sped underneath the mighty oaks. “Tell you what: you have until I get out of this car to ask me however many questions you want. After that, you take them to the grave. Agreed?”
Simon’s face lit up. That was loyalty. “Agreed!”
So many, with so little time to ask them. Where did he even start?!
“About these pants—”
“Not that question.”
“Got it.” Simon’s face screwed up as he tried to think of another. “Mrs. Mahdavi—”
“—is my landlady. And yeah, I think she’s about eight hundred years old.”
“She seems to like you an awful lot.”
“Yeah well, she doesn’t know me that well.” It was a brusque dismissal, but a tender smile lit Jason’s face as he rolled in to the faculty parking lot.
Simon cast him a sideways glance. “She said she hadn’t seen you in a while…”
“I haven’t been there in a while. I’ve stayed at the school.”
“In the Oratory?”
Jason shot him a look. “I have a room, thanks. The least the Privy Council could do.”
Simon mulled his over for a second. “So why do you still keep a flat in the city?”
Jason hesitated. “Sometimes…you need to get a little space, you know? Work here, eat here, sleep here day after day. It can drive you crazy after a while.”
Simon bit his lip as one of his prime questions floated to the top of the list. “How many flats do you have?”
This time, Jason turned to him in genuine surprise. “Why do you ask that?” He slid into a parking space and turned off the car.
“Because of that giant key ring you have.”
Simon waited expectantly, pleased and a little nervous to have caught his teacher off guard.
“I have three flats,” Jason finally admitted. “One in Paris, one in London, and one in Milan.”
There were a lot more keys than that on the ring, but Simon let the question go. They were already here, and he didn’t know how much time he had before Jason jumped out of the car. Sure enough, the door locks went up—right on cue.
Simon snapped them down again before Jason could reach for the handle. “Why did you have a bottle of that stuff in your apartment? Do you take it to get high?”
“No. You don’t take a sedative to get high.” Jason chuckled at the notion. He reached for the locks again, but Simon beat him to it—using his own tatù against him. “Simon, come on—”
“But you said you’d had it a million times.”
There was a giant pause.
“What?”
“The sedative.” Simon stared at him intently, trying to find the truth. “You said you’d had the sedative a million times.”
For a split second, Jason froze. A strange shadow flitted across his face, making him look years older than he was. But the next second, he flashed Simon an easy smile. “You know, you ask a lot of questions for a kid who was recently a dog.”
“It was a wolf.” Simon flushed, but held steady. “That’s not an answer—”
“Oh, for shit’s sake.” With an exasperated sigh, Jason rolled back the sunroof and climbed out the top. “Time’s up.”
Simon sat there, unblinking, in the car. “I…did not see that coming.”
Jason grinned at him from the sidewalk. “Come on, Simon. Get out of my car.”
Simon did as he was told, and the two of them made the walk back into campus in thoughtful contemplation. They were almost all the way back to the dorms, before Jason pulled him to a sudden stop.
“Simon…you can’t have another slip-up like you did today.”
Simon glanced around him at the quiet campus, before hanging his head in shame. “I know, I’m sorry about the whole wolf thing. Then showing up at your office—”
“This isn’t about the wolf thing,” Jason interrupted. “It’s about taking someone else’s tatù by accident. Not being able to control it.”
Simon stomach dropped down to the floor. Jason didn’t speak seriously very often, so when he did it burned like the sting of a whip.
“You were lucky this time, you got a shifter. What if it had been something else? An active power? What if you had gotten something like electricity, or fire? Something you couldn’t control?”
A wide range of horrific images spread through Simon’s mind and he stifled a shudder.
“I know that Wardell forced you into this, and I know it wasn’t technically your fault,” Jason said in a gentler tone. “But learning to control your own gift, your own ability—that is something you can control. It’s not a recommendation, it’s a responsibility. Your responsibility. To yourself and to those around you.” He ran his fingers back through his messy hair. “Today was you and me in a London flat. Tomorrow, it could be you and some kid you don’t know in a Turkish hospital. I’m just saying, be careful, alright?” He clapped Simon protectively on the shoulder before flashing him a quick smile. “We don’t want to lose you.”
Before Simon could say a word, he spun around on his heel and headed back to the Oratory, presumably to finish all the paperwork Simon and Argyle had interrupted earlier that day. Simon stared after him for a long time, until he disappeared through the giant double doors. And then for a long time after.
No matter how many questions h
e asked, no matter how much time they spent together, he didn’t think he would ever quite figure out Jason Archer. The mystery was too tangled. The façade was too hard to breach. But about one thing, he was certain.
Jason was a good man.
What was more, he was a great guy for Simon to have on his side.
* * *
Tristan Wardell wasn’t in school the next morning. Even though no one had borne witness firsthand, everyone seemed to know what had happened. He had received a late-night summons to the Oratory for a training session with Jason. The next morning, he couldn’t get out of bed.
Simon listened to the whispered gossip while keeping his eyes trained to the front of the classroom. The longer they talked, the bigger a grin crept up the side of his face.
Seems like Tristan hadn’t escaped scot-free after all. Not even the Guilder golden boy could escape the wrath of Jason Archer.
He walked around on cloud nine for the rest of the day. As Tristan’s lunch table was missing its key member, there was no need to invade it. Which meant that he and Argyle could disappear up into the dorms and have a wild recounting of the adventures of ‘Simon the Wolf.’ By the time they had finished, the entire thing had exaggerated to the point where it would have made an excellent children’s series.
They were just discussing the possibility of illustration, when a letter arrived for Simon.
“What’s this?” he asked the man who had delivered it. The guy just shrugged and took off down the stairs, leaving Simon standing with it in his hand.
It was written on the same old parchment as the invitation he’d received before, so he was unsurprised to see the Privy Council seal the second it was open.
“What is it?” Argyle asked, peeking over his shoulder to see.
Simon scanned through it quickly. It didn’t take long, as there were only two or three lines.
“It’s a summons telling me to come down to the Oratory for training.”
With a wide smile, he crumpled it up and tossed it in the trashcan behind him. After his little excursion to London, he was looking forward to this session even more than the others.
