The Accords Triptych (Book 1): Wolves Without Teeth

by Thomas, Ian

  Inside he heard quiet noises. The scuffling of feet. A struggle. One of them was still alive.

  The thought spurred him forward. He took a step…

  The movement jerked him awake. He’d been taking that step. Actually moving in reality as he had in the dream.

  Annah stirred beside him.

  He could wake her. Dismiss her. But he had resolved to treat her better. Not hurt her because he couldn’t deal with his problems. A voice in his head – one part Rowan, one part McLachlan – argued that if he could be that self-aware why couldn’t he fix himself.

  Getting up, he padded around to the side of the bed and bent to kiss Annah. She stirred again, a smile dancing across her sleeping features. Her dreams would be better than his. He smelled no troubles on her, save her involvement with him.

  He relieved himself in the bathroom and then headed down the stairs. To avoid upsetting her again, he had taken to sleeping on the couch. It felt very suburban middle class to Matteo and he almost liked it for that reason. If only what had sent him there was that mundane.

  Matteo // 01:01

  I need you

  I’m sorry

  This night, like the others, he didn’t settle on the sofa immediately. He poured himself a tumbler of whisky, sat in the armchair and waited.

  Sitting in the dark, he wondered if she would come. He needed to feel something. He needed to experience something other than these nightmares.

  These memories.

  XXIX

  Mouth // 21:49

  Hey! Gonna start checking hospitals soon.

  Hope I don’t find your cold lifeless body.

  Matt // 22:07

  Hey man, can you text/call Mouth?

  He’s starting to annoy us.

  Landry // 22:09

  Jason, we all get some shit went down,

  but Mouth is close to filing

  a missing person’s report.

  And he’s being annoying.

  Danny // 22:23

  Sorry for earlier.

  Can we start over?

  Mitch is real sorry.

  Hayley // 22:36

  So Bex said you kissed a boy and took off.

  Are you not gay anymore?

  Can you wait to see if this Eddie thing

  doesn’t pan out?

  Get in touch.

  Rebecca // 22:51

  Hey. You okay?

  Couldn’t find you. Mouth’s really worried.

  We all are.

  Just a text so we know you’re okay.

  Mitch // 23:03

  I’m sorry if U thought I’m into U.

  I’m sorry! There its even in writing.

  Now call off yr goons!!

  Rowan // 23:06

  Hey, kiddo. Heard you’re in the weeds.

  Remember the tarot spread.

  Your strength comes from your friends.

  Please don’t shut us out.

  Kara // 00:53

  Hi, what’s going on?

  Apparently you wigged out after class?

  Anything you need?

  Mouth // 2:02

  Sorry about last text.

  Just fucking call me!!!

  To say Jason hadn’t been replying to messages was incorrect. He’d been avoiding them altogether.

  “It’s really chucking it down out there.” Jason looked up from his essay. Malcolm the Night Guy was standing next to him, looking through the windows to the rain-soaked street.

  “Yeah, guess we’ll be quiet for a while.” There were a few students still working in the coffee shop, but for the most part they’d hit the stretch between two and four where the flow of customers slowed. With it raining so heavily they were unlikely to see anyone.

  “Sweet,” Malcolm smiled, his man-bun bobbing slightly. “Time to chillax.” He dropped into one of the armchairs and opened his book.

  Jason didn’t often work with Malcolm. Dubbed ‘the Night Guy’ by the daywalkers as he called them, Malcolm worked five or six shifts a week from twelve to seven in the morning, and lived above the coffee shop. When Jason learned the supernatural was real, he had wondered if Malcolm was a vampire. Hence the overnight hours. Mouth dispelled the theory saying that he worked overnights and wasn’t a vampire. However, when the body was discovered in the alley, Malcolm came down the backstairs, saw the body, and promptly vomited. That and the fact he didn’t burst into flames in sunlight also undid Jason’s theory.

  With Malcolm absorbed in his book, Jason got up and turned WNYU off the radio, putting on another station. He had been surprised Rebecca and Mouth hadn’t issued a PSA for any Jason-sightings. Which meant they knew he was at the coffee shop and would try to catch him before he finished.

  Looking at the roster, he saw that Mitch was working the morning shift with Blake, Keiko, and Jeremy.

  Great, he thought, his mood suggesting quite the opposite.

  Since the weekend, Jason had been dodging everyone. Blake included. While she was an easy ally given her usual anti-Mitch perspective, Mitch wasn’t entirely at fault. Which left Jason too embarrassed to talk to anyone about it. Hence the dodging.

  And he suspected Mitch hadn’t exactly been forthcoming. Other than with Danny. Another disastrous blunder. Helluva month he was having.

  Three major mistakes with guys. First, John. Then Mitch. And now Danny. He really was the worst homosexual ever, he decided. Maybe they would revoke his penis.

  The one measure Jason took was that he was more well-liked than Mitch. However, that put him in the pity column. Which he shouldn’t be in since he was the one who made the pass. Mitch was entirely justified to re-buff him. Possibly not the way he had, but it was new territory for both of them.

  Fed up with the essay he was working on, Jason decided the bins needed emptying. He could possibly have waited for the rain to stop, but since Malcolm hadn’t complained while he worked on his essay, Jason needed to do something. Gathering up the garbage he saw Malcolm smile his approval.

  That smile’s not gonna keep the rain off.

  Ever since the dead body, he’d been anxious every time he went through the door into the alley. And now that vampires and werewolves and Anne-Rice-knows-what-else were real, putting the trash out had become even less appealing.

  By the time Jason got to the dumpster he was soaked. Heaving the bags in added an ounce of water to his shoes. Wondering if Malcolm would loan him a towel or sweater, Jason turned and saw a figure standing between him and the back door of the coffee shop.

  “Hey,” the man said.

  “Ben?” Jason asked.

  “Yeah.” he tilted his head back into the light. He’d been crying? Whether it was rain or tears on Ben’s cheeks, his eyes were red.

  “You okay?”

  Ben didn’t reply. He just shook his head.

  “What do you want?” Jason asked firmly. The shock of seeing Ben – and seeing him upset no less – had worn off. He may have had a hand in John’s death. And without the Cult there to answer for it, Ben was the next best option.

  “They think I killed him,” Ben said. “The man they found here. But I didn’t. And I wanted evidence, but the rain. It’s washing everything away. I’m not the killer.”

  Jason wanted to bring up John but he felt that would be cruel. Especially given how upset Ben was.

  “You could try Vinaio?” Jason said. “There was–”

  “Another body, I know,” Ben replied. “I didn’t kill h-her either.”

  Jason went up to Ben, shocked even more to see Ben’s despair up close. “Hey, come inside. You’re soaked.”

  “So are you,” Ben said. “Do you think I killed them?”

  Jason didn’t answer at first. “No.” But he had nothing to base his judgment on, thus it came out more like a question. “Come on.”

  He pulled at Ben but the man didn’t budge. When Jason tried again, he slipped and crashed into Ben.

  “I’m not a killer,” Ben said and his mouth was on Jason’s. The kiss w
as wild, passionate, and a complete mistake. Jason felt Ben’s warm arms wrap around him, cradling him gently. Letting the kiss happen, Jason knew he would regret it eventually. But for right then, little else existed.

  Except death.

  Pulling free of Ben, Jason stood a few feet away, eyes on his soaked shoes. “I have to get back to work.”

  “Feels dangerous kissing a killer, huh?” Ben asked, trying to keep it light.

  “I don’t think you’re a killer” Jason finally looked at him. “I don’t know what you are?”

  “That makes two of us,” Ben replied. As Jason started to head back inside Ben called to him, “I’m staying at The Plaza. Room nineteen-twelve.”

  “And?” Jason asked, unsure what he was supposed to make of the information.

  “Can I see you again?”

  “I guess.” He hadn’t meant the remark as a flirtation, Jason just didn’t have an answer for him right then. Leaving the man in the rain, Jason stumbled into the coffee shop, soaked to the bone.

  XXX

  Seeing the two men kiss, Henry smirked.

  Just when he’d pegged Ben for boring, he rose in his estimation.

  One thing to throw the vessel off a building, leaving him broken in the street, but now to seek solace in the arms of a boy.

  Well, the plot thickened.

  Same-sex attraction didn’t appeal to Henry, not that it upset him either. Sex was an outlet, a dalliance at best. Affection a weakness, love a folly. When he saw it play out with others it became an opportunity, an exploit waiting to happen.

  With Ben it would prove the same.

  Though the wolf seemed to be playing the role of the man his sire expected him to be. Controlled by wild emotion, lurching from anger to lust to shame to petulance. When all was told, Henry saw the potential for a virulence he could engage with.

  And were that a show, then there was this boy as surety for Ben’s compliance.

  Cold to their intimacy, Henry allowed the rain and shadows to swallow him. He’d learned a great deal from his evening roam. Which left him to decide how and when to use this new information.

  He so enjoyed his life.

  XXXI

  “Is everything okay?” Rowan asked cautiously, opening her door.

  “Yeah, sure,” Rebecca replied, walking into the apartment. “I bought bagels.”

  “Nice.” Rowan shut the door and moved to the kitchen counter. “But really is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Oh me here?” She sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. “I woke up, Mac was gone, there was a pile of marking to do, and I just wanted to be elsewhere.”

  “Well then, welcome to my humble abode.”

  “Easily twice the size of our place.”

  “So by ‘Mac was gone’, I’m guessing there was no early morning fun?”

  “Correct, his back’s still sore. I think he broke it but he’s doing the whole brave face thing and says he’s fine.”

  “Men,” Rowan said. “They’re either dying over a hang nail, or bleeding out and saying it’s just a scratch.”

  “Yeah, so we had a, uh, conversation about it.”

  “A fight.”

  “Difference of opinion. He’s still trying to protect me from all of the supernatural…which is also why I’m here.”

  Rowan stepped back, her hands up. “I’m not taking sides. Though for the record, I’d totally be on yours.”

  “No,” Rebecca laughed, “but good to know. I’m here to learn more about the supernatural. Ya know, protect myself by knowing stuff.”

  “I like it. Good call.”

  “Besides I figure I’ll never be a fighter. My co-ordination isn’t great. And not being magically inclined – as well as sucking massively at chemistry – I figure trainee witch is out.”

  “It’s more like cooking than chemistry. Comes from the heart. Well at least my stuff does.”

  “And I’m a very average cook. But I am a helluva reader.”

  “You know if you want Michael could do some self-defense work with you. He’s good like that. Taught me some stuff.”

  “Not a terrible idea though reading is easier.”

  Rowan left the kitchen for the alcove on the opposite side of the apartment. “Then do I have some books for you. Ooh, we should totally take a ride to the chapter house up at Saranac Lake. It’s beautiful this time of year.”

  “Chapter house?”

  “Clan Delphae? Surely McLachlan told you about them?” She barely looked up while fussing in the bookshelves. Disturbed by the sounds of books being thrown on the floor, a black cat cracked an eye open and surveyed the room. Seeing a new person, the cat rose, stretched, and in a quick few movements was sitting on the counter before Rebecca.

  “Hey beautiful,” she said the cat, stroking its fur. Remembering the question, she replied. “They the people who don’t really do anything but watch and take notes.”

  “That sounds like McLachlan. No love lost there, but that’s another story. We should totally go. Haven’t seen Somerset in ages. He’s kinda the Morgan Freeman of our world.”

  Rowan returned with a stack of books and set them next to the cat, who proceeded to rub its nose against their edges. A couple of them were very old, others more recent.

  “This one’s handwritten?”

  “I know,” Rowan said, her eyes gleaming. “About ten years ago, I persuaded Matteo into writing down his experiences with the supernatural. He’ll say I bullied him. Either way, such a good read.”

  “It’s not just twelve hundred pages of sprouting fur and howling at the moon, is it?”

  “No, he doesn’t really talk about the wolves much. He focuses on other supernaturals. Much like what you’re doing now. So that would be my first pick.”

  “Wow, thank you. That’s great.” She flicked through the rest of the books. The cat batted at the pages as they turned. “I kinda want to know more about the wolves. McLachlan told me some but said he’d leave that to Matteo, but well, he’s still M-I-A.”

  “Yeah,” Rowan said slowly, pouring Rebecca a coffee and herself a tea. Hoping for food, the cat jumped down and corralled her ankles.

  “So you’re worried too?”

  “Very much.” Sitting at the counter next to Rebecca, Rowan focused on her tea more than anything else. Eventually she looked up. “I get it. I really do. But he wasn’t the only one Ben betrayed.”

  Rebecca put a hand on her friend’s arm. “So glad you said that. Everyone’s been egg-shelling it around Matteo and Eddie, and I’ve been like, uh, other people involved.”

  “I know, right. Sadly that’s not as much a supernatural thing as a male thing. All the pain is theirs. All the trauma, anger, hurt – exclusively theirs.”

  Hugging Rowan seemed long overdue. There had been times in the past weeks where this conversation could have been had. It just never took place. Always someone around, something happening, some new episode unfolding.

  “Before we got to the iron works, back at Matteo’s, you thought Ben was lying.”

  “Yeah but not to this extent. Not to sell out his friend and sire.”

  “What did he hope to gain?”

  “More of Matteo’s attention I guess. I mean us mortals won’t really ever know what it’s like to be that old but it must be pretty hard when you get to their age and start to drift apart or lose someone.”

  “But surely they get used to it?” Rebecca asked. “Okay that came out way harsher than I meant.”

  “No, I hear you. It probably is when it’s death, but Ben and Matteo lived in the same city, interacted on a regular, and yet about twenty years ago, Matteo was ready to take a somnus.”

  “A what now?”

  “Somnus. A really long nap. Immortals are almost forced to hibernate during their long lives. It eases the passage of time, refreshes relationships, and pretty much keeps them sane. Can last anything from five up to fifty years.”

  “Yes, please.” Rebecca raised her hand. “Sign me up.”<
br />
  “That reminds me.” Rowan got up and went to the alcove again, rummaging through a chest of tiny drawers. “This might help with your sleeping patterns.”

  “Thanks,” Rebecca replied, accepting the small brown envelope. Rowan’s cat was back on the counter before them, sniffing. Deciding no food was on offer, the cat promptly settled itself on the books. “So Matteo was about to go to ground?”

  “Yeah. It was a time of peace, the wolves were scattered, and things were good. Problem was that the twentieth century was intense.”

  “Understatement.”

  “Exactly. So those who had taken their somnus in the nineteenth century, when they woke some fifty years later, the world was a very different place.”

  “And they didn’t cope?”

  “Not at all. The head of the vampire court, Gracchus, his companion, Sabine, was pretty bad. Became quite unhinged. First there was the bloodbath, then she tried killing herself. Apparently she took another somnus in the hope of settling her mind. No one’s seen her for a few decades. Maybe she did kill herself. Who knows.”

  “There were others?”

  “A few, yeah. Either went mad, killed themselves, or were just…broken. The worst was Colton.”

  “Worse than Sabine.”

  “Much. He was to werewolves what Darth Vader was to the Jedi. Vicious, powerful, poisonous. Rumor has it he had learned the Dark Doctrine from a mage – that’s what you learn to do black magic. Very bad.”

  “But he was a werewolf?”

  “Yes,” Rowan said emphatically. “But he’d started to practice magic. Which is forbidden…for supernaturals to cross the streams like that. Not to mention considered impossible. One affiliation circumvents the other. Or so people thought. Colton was a nasty piece of work. It was his bloodline that started the Pack War.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “No.” Rowan was quiet. The cat sat up and moved to sit in front of Rowan as Rebecca touched her arm. “Sorry. My husband. Daniel. Colton killed him before they could put the asshole down.”