by H. T. Night
“Hey there,” I said. “Can I come in?”
Sasha stared blankly at me. “The room isn’t exactly the same as you remember it.”
“Just let me in,” I persisted.
Sasha opened the door, and I could tell right away something wasn’t right in the room. It looked like a tornado of wild animals had come through it. There were claw marks everywhere. The door looked like a million cats had scratched at it. Cats with huge paws and claws.
“What the hell happened in here?” I asked, surprised beyond words. Sasha didn’t say anything. I continued to look around the room; the bed was turned over and shredded, the TV was on the floor, both lamps were busted in the middle of the floor. It even looked like something had gnawed on all of the cords.
I repeated my question and this time I wasn’t playing around. “What the fuck happened, Sasha? I used my fucking credit card! They are going to make me pay for all this. There’s at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of damage in here.”
Finally, Sasha whispered softly, “I told you, Tommy. You didn’t believe me.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I sat on the shredded mattress and just stared at the room in absolute horror. I think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was now finally about to have a nervous breakdown.
I just closed my eyes and calmly said, “So, you’re really a werewolf.”
“I told you, look at this place. Do you think in my wildest dreams I could have done this? Look at the door. It would take me years to do that to a door as a woman.”
“But you did do it,” I said, even calmer. “You did it as a werewolf.”
“What else would explain it?”
I truly had no clue what could explain this sight. When I came over here to talk about the vampire asleep in my bed, the last thing I could’ve imagined was that I’d be sitting in the middle of downtown Nightmare Alley. I continued to look around the room and I thought about all the crazy shit that had been happening. Now everything was coming together. In a bizarre, crazy-ass way, this was all starting to make sense.
“We need to get you out of here. We need to tell management that we left, and when we came back, the room looked like this. There is no way in hell they have ever seen anything like this. They will have to believe some kind of coyote broke in here—a whole gang of them.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Sasha grabbed her purse that, ironically, had nothing wrong with it.
We left the room; I peeked my head in the room one more time and just sighed.
We began to walk down the stairs to get to the front desk.
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
“I’m taking you to my place, and I have a visitor.”
“A visitor? Who?” Sasha asked
“A vampire,” I said. “And he thinks my name is Kyro.”
Chapter Nine
The Radisson staff didn’t quite know what to make of the room. They were more worried that we’d be the ones suing them because a wild animal had broken into the room so they just made sure we were okay and left it at that. Thank God.
We arrived back at my apartment. I checked up on Patrick. He was in the exact same position I had left him. Sasha had some nurse training. I thought when he woke up that she could check on him. I felt like a turd for not taking him to the hospital. I still considered it, but first I needed to process this and as far as I could tell, he was breathing fine. If he was suffering some internal life-threatening injuries, that remained to be seen.
I walked out into my living room and Sasha was sitting on my couch.
“Thanks, Tommy.”
I just stared at her, perplexed.
I didn’t even know how to respond to that statement. Thanks? I wanted to say, You’re not welcome. Since meeting you my entire life has spun out of control. But I held my tongue.
“We need to get you a cage,” I said.
“A cage?”
“Yeah, I’m putting this werewolf thing to the test, and sticking your rabid ass in a cage tonight is the only thing I can come up with.”
“I don’t have rabies. Where will you find a cage to hold a werewolf?”
“Where you find everything you need, Craigslist.” I went on my computer that was on a desk in my living room.
I logged onto the site and went on Orange County and its surrounding areas.
I typed in: “Large animal cage.”
“Wow,” I said out loud. “There’s a page full of cages here. What kind of cage do you want?”
“You’re seriously going to put me in a cage?”
“I saw what you did to that room. I just recently bought new furniture.
Look here,” I read out loud. “It says, ‘large cage—used to hold a gorilla—strong bars—nothing gets in or out.’ Damn! $2,500!”
“$2,500?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s way too much.”
“It is,” I said. “But I’m looking at these other cages and I do not trust how small they are. The expensive cage is gigantic!”
“Do you have $2,500?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. I knew she was a con artist. So, she didn’t have to know anything about my income. I just recently had $80,000 given to me when my grandfather died and there was no way in hell she was going to find out that information.
I called the number and the guy said I could have it for two thousand if I picked it up in San Diego. How in the world was I going to get to San Diego and haul a two-ton cage 100 miles before tonight? I had to do it but I needed to go down there and rent a U-Haul.
“We’re taking a trip to San Diego, girly girl,” I announced.
“Can we stop by the store?” Sasha asked. “I need some girl items.”
I looked at her with zero expression and said, “All right, I don’t need to know any more.”
We stopped in at Walgreen’s and then we headed down to San Diego and bought ourselves a cage big enough to hold a mountain lion. I drove the U-Haul back to O.C. while Sasha drove my Mustang. I called ahead and hired some movers to meet me at the apartment to get the thing inside my apartment.
After the movers helped me get the gigantic cage into my living room, they gave me a look like, ‘Why do you have a ten-foot cage in your apartment?’ I told them Sasha was kinky and I tipped them well. I also told them to keep it on the down-low that I had a cage.
So, now it was just time to wait for the full moon to come out.
I checked on Patrick. He was still sleeping and looked awful. I asked Sasha to check him out. She actually didn’t want to look at him because he was a vampire. I pointed out to her that she didn’t have a choice. She saw it my way.
My bites from the night before were killing me. My shoulder ached. I was pretty jacked up. I was sitting in my living room, staring at the cage, wondering how strong Sasha was when she turned. Could she knock over that cage? I couldn’t even believe that I was having these kinds of thoughts. I kept reminding myself, ‘Go with it, gain control of it, and then all of this might make sense.’
Sasha came back out of the room after looking at Patrick. “He’s pretty messed up.”
“Did he wake up?” I asked.
“Not really. He definitely didn’t know a werewolf was checking on him. He needs a doctor but if he is a vampire, a lot of red flags will go off.”
“Like what?”
“There is a reason why the Triat has our bodies disappear when we die.”
“The Triat?” I asked. “What the hell is a Triat?”
“The Triat is everything.”
“You mean God?”
“No. More like the heart of God.”
“Look, spare me this tale. If you truly turn into a werewolf, you can give me all the paranormal history you want. But as of right now, let’s take care of tonight. I’m thinking I also need to chain you.”
“Chain me?” Sasha did not like that.
“Yeah, you might be incredibly strong. Also, where will you go to the bath
room? I’m going to put some cardboard in there.”
So, we left again and went to Home Depot and I bought the strongest chains they had. When we arrived back, I locked the chains from inside the cage, I had no idea what I was doing and the more I was taking this seriously, the more I was convinced that I was in some alternate universe where truth and love have been replaced by werewolves and vampires.
I stepped out of the cage and realized this damn thing took up my entire living room. It took almost the entire open floor that separated the TV from the couch.
I looked outside and said to Sasha, “Well, how does it usually happen? The whole turning from human to werewolf thing.”
“I honestly don’t know. I have almost no recollection when I become a werewolf.”
“Of course you don’t,” I said sarcastically. “Seriously, that would be too easy. What I don’t understand is, if there are werewolves running around, why aren’t there more instances of attacks?”
“There’s a strict code the Carni live by. We drive off to remote areas that are far away from the Tandra.”
“And Tandra is what you call humans?”
“Yes.”
“Then, why are you here and not in some remote area?”
“I don’t have anywhere to go. I’m pretty much an ostracized werewolf. A lone wolf, you might say.”
I looked at her and just thought, of course she is.
“And what about my little vampire friend in the bedroom? He referred to himself as a Mani.”
“Mani are vampires,” Sasha said plainly, as if she was saying something you hear every day.
“Okay.” I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around all of this crazy information. “He didn’t become a bat either,” I said. “He actually became a black bird.”
“A raven,” Sasha corrected me. “Mani transition into black ravens and red hawks.”
“Red hawks?” I asked.
“Yeah, men become black ravens and women become red hawks.”
“What do Carni become?”
She laughed. “We become werewolves.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot that part. But you can’t control it, but vampires can?”
“Yeah. It’s not fair, but that’s the hand we were dealt.”
“How does someone become a werewolf?”
“They get bitten by a Carni when it’s a werewolf and survive the bite.”
I thought about the other night. “Hey, those three guys I fought on the street. Were they Carni?”
Sasha was quiet. “Um.”
“Were they?” I persisted.
“Yes.”
“Were you ever going to tell me that?”
“How could I? You didn’t even know I was one until today.”
“So, the one that bit my shoulder was a full-blown werewolf?” I asked.
“He wasn’t when he bit you.”
“So, what happens when one of these freaks bite you and he or she isn’t a werewolf?”
“I don’t know. I never heard of that happening before, especially the kind of bite you got.”
“Great, I’m a trailblazer,” I said, sarcastically. I sat down on my couch and had to put my feet up so they wouldn’t smack the cage. “Sasha, some weird crap has been happening to me the last couple of days.”
“Like what?”
“Like at times, my hearing is off the charts.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I could hear car alarms that are—”
“—blocks away.” Sasha finished what I said.
“Holy shit!” I continued. “I also had an extreme amount of facial hair last night and then it went away in the morning.”
“What about your eyes? Did you notice they were yellow?”
“I didn’t even look at my eyes.” I sat there, dumbfounded. “What do you make of it?”
Sasha shook her head and said, “It’s like you’re in some weird werewolf purgatory. It’s like you’re not fully a werewolf, but you have the potential to become one.”
“You’re fucking kidding me. I don’t want to be a freaking werewolf. How do you reverse it?”
“You can’t reverse it, Tommy.”
“What does that mean?” I shouted.
“It means that you are becoming immortal and there is no secret antidote!”
I began sweating. I could feel my heart rate go up. The room began spinning. Holy shit! I’m having a heart attack! My chest felt tight. I fell to the floor and blacked out.
The next thing I remember was that Sasha was sitting me up on the couch and giving me some water.
“Tommy? Tommy?” she asked. “You all right?”
I put my hand on my chest. “I don’t know. I think I had a heart attack.”
“I doubt that. You wouldn’t be able to breathe. You had a panic attack.”
“A panic attack?” Who was I? Tony Soprano? I don’t have panic attacks.
“It’s to be expected. I just told you that there’s a good chance that you’re in some kind of werewolf limbo phase.”
I looked at Sasha and just wanted to scream at her at the top of my lungs. Why did I go to Shiners that night? And why did I go outside to talk to her? This was crazy. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe none of this is true.
I sighed and stood up. “I better get you in the cage,” I said. “I’m not going to put chains on you, but if you get out of hand, I might.”
“You think you can put chains on me once I become a werewolf? Good luck!”
“What are you? A buck-ten?”
“When I become a werewolf, I’m bigger, my clothes become a part of me and I become heavier and larger.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
“It might not make sense, but that’s what happens.”
“Get in the cage,” I said, with as much authority I could muster. This woman walked into my life and screwed it up in so many ways. Look at me. I was completely fucked up. I had insane bites all over my body. I had a vampire sleeping in my bedroom and now an almost-werewolf in my living room; in fact, she was moments away from the transition to a werewolf. All I could do was continue to play this out. “How you doing in there?” I asked.
“I’m all right. You better lock the door.”
“Oh yeah, what was I thinking?” I stood up and locked the door and I sat on the couch facing the cage. The sun was setting and I looked on, staring at Sasha. And even though I was pissed, she was damn sexy. She looked good in her little white shorts. It’s been a while since I fired one off, so to say I was horny was an understatement.
Sasha caught me looking at her with my big, bad intentions.
“What?” she said, in a sexy way only a woman as hot as her could pull off.
“I’m hoping you don’t turn! And you’re full of shit.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to go in there and rip your clothes off and make passionate, animal cage love to you.”
Sasha stepped up to the cage bars. I stood up and reached in. I grabbed her waist and pressed her body up against mine with the cage bars separating us.
We both tilted our heads just right and were able to kiss through the bars. Her breath smelled amazing. She was oozing with estrogen. I wanted her so badly that I nearly stripped off my clothes. I had no idea why I was turned on at this moment but I was.
I kissed her passionately and cupped her buttocks with my left hand. I pressed her hard against me. I looked her in the eyes. “You know,” I said. “This whole thing is foolish. You and I both know there is no way you’re a—”
Suddenly, Sasha’s blue eyes turned bright yellow. She looked like a damn demon. I jumped back onto the couch and let go of her. I hopped onto the floor and scurried away from the cage. There were at least ten feet separating me from the cage.
Sasha dropped to the ground and began to roll. She looked like she was having a seizure. Hair began protruding out of her body everywhere. It was like watching a fast-motion film where you watch a flower grow in at hyper speed. But this
was actually happening. Within seconds, she had enlarged a foot in height, had black hair, and her head went from a gorgeous brunette to a sleek wolf.
She stared at the window where she could see the full moon and howled.
“Shhh,” I yelled. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I was shushing a damn wolf.
She must not have known I was in the room. Because her head turned to me and she growled and barked at me as if I was a hundred miles away. She began scratching the carpet and ramming her body into the cage. Thank God, the cage was holding up. But damn, she was louder than hell. The neighbors weren’t too far away. How the hell was I going to calm her down?
I thought about grabbing some meat from the fridge but I didn’t know if it would help. Plus, all I had were twenty-dollar steaks.
She looked in the direction of my room and went absolutely berserk. She didn’t like something in my bedroom. She must have smelled Patrick. What was I going to do? I couldn’t calm her down. She wasn’t having any part of me. As a matter of fact, my presence in the room seemed to be making matters worse. It wasn’t like she and I had developed any kind of rapport, so she could even consider listening to me.
I looked in the cage at this beautiful black wolf. She was a sight to behold. Absolutely spectacular in her perfect wolf form. I had to admit, she was scary looking, but I wasn’t intimidated. She still had a level of femininity that made her seem more delicate than I imagined.
I put my hand to my chin and scratched and when I did I scratched a hand full of beard. Crap. I ran to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, fully expecting to have a Michael J. Fox Teen Wolf moment, but to my surprise, it just looked like I hadn’t shaved in a couple of weeks. There were scattered patches of hair that looked more like a teenager’s sad attempt to grow his first beard than the makings of a werewolf. I looked at my eyes and there was a hint of yellow. Something was wrong. I was caught in between what I used to be and what Sasha had become.
