Renegade

by Donna Boyd

  “By the height of the Greek civilization, the symbiosis between human beings and the species we’ll call, for the time being, lupinotuum was well established. Art, architecture, sculpture, poetry, theater, the diatonic scale—only the truly naive would believe they sprang into being with nothing more than the beneficence of a sunny island and a strong fleet of trading ships. Our dual-formed predators—often called gods by historians of this era—had long since mastered and forgotten the skills that form the cornerstone of what is now called the birthplace of modern civilization. They brought these gifts to the human race much in the way a pet owner will indulge his beloved companion, for something much more interesting than Greek civilization had developed over the anonymous centuries: vanity. Species lupinotuum, with its supercharged senses, its enhanced brain and lightning-fast synapses, had fallen in love with its own reflection in the water, and that reflection was the human race.”

  He caressed the page with his finger in the way a true sensualist might luxuriate in the touch of silk, and the expression upon his face was that of a connoisseur who was in the throes of deep appreciation. “Words,” he murmured. “I do love them.” He closed the volume and returned it to the shelf with great care.

  Emory set the glass on the table and noted with interest that it took a moment to command his fingers to release it. Yet his response time was improving from the last attempt he had made. He said, “Odd. All my life I wanted to see Castle Devoncroix. But I never expected to come here like this.”

  Rolfe said, with only the slightest touch of impatience, “You are growing tiresome on that subject. What difference does it make where you are when you have very little hope of ever leaving?”

  After a slow moment, Emory inclined his head in agreement. “Point taken.”

  Rolfe straightened his cuffs in two curt gestures and returned to his seat, his expression now only pleasantly curious. “So tell me, these creatures of yours, these … what is it you call them?”

  “Lupinotuum,” supplied Emory politely. “It’s from Latin. It means ‘part man, part wolf.’”

  He nodded. “So you would have us believe that they roam the world quite freely, and have done so for centuries.”

  Emory played the game. He had nothing to lose. Nothing at all. “Evidence suggests they are at least as old a species as Homo sapiens. I think they may be older.”

  Rolfe laid a finger aside his lips, tapping thoughtfully. “And they walk about among humans unimpeded and undiscovered, even in today’s world of sophisticated information technology—the Internet, spy satellites—and no one has ever learned of their existence but you?”

  Emory laughed softly. He couldn’t help it. “First of all, they control the Internet. They invented satellite technology. They could take down the entire human communications network with one keystroke if they wanted to. And I didn’t say no one has ever known about them but me. Human history is filled with references to them—the wolf gods of the Mayas and the Egyptians, the myths of Greece and Rome. I know for a fact that other humans have lived within their households, and have known them for who they are. But I think I may be the only human who has studied them, and written their history down.”

  “Which of course is what makes you of such great interest to me,” agreed Rolfe. “I want to hear the story from the source. How long were you with them?”

  Emory glanced down at his nearly empty glass. “All my life,” he said softly.

  Rolfe reached across the table to refill Emory’s glass, and after a moment Emory began to speak again.

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  Chapter Four

  Venice in the nineteen seventies was rife with their species. I think there were at that time more of them than of humans, but that might simply be my perception. Geof and Ilsa Fasburg were, for appearances’ sake, virtually indistinguishable from any of the numerous wealthy Europeans who made Venice their home in the seventies. They were attractive, elegantly groomed and exquisitely mannered. They played tennis and squash and swam laps in the Olympic-sized pool whenever the notion struck them; in the winter they skied the Alps and in the summer they cruised the Mediterranean in their yacht. In the evenings they donned their couture attire, complete with evening gloves and fur-lined cloaks, and went to the opera, or the theater, or to an Embassy party or the home of a friend for dinner. They looked to be in their late thirties, early forties at most. They were, in fact, over ninety years old.

  I mention this here for two reasons. The first is to remark on the strength and longevity of their species. The average lifespan is around one hundred fifty years. They are resistant to most of the diseases that threaten humans, and their recuperative powers, in the case of injury, are noticeably superior to those of humans. Their ability to heal from sudden trauma is greatly dependent on the ability to Change, but the very act of changing from one form to the other, while it floods the body with healing hormones, uses up enormous amounts of energy. So it is not a foolproof system.

  Of course that nonsense about silver bullets is just that: nonsense. They are living creatures, and they can be mortally wounded just like any other living being. They die of accidents, injury, or simple old age. But because of their generally robust health, they reproduce well into their later years.

  And that is the second reason I mention the Fasburgs’ age. They had four children, widely varied in age, scattered across the globe. The oldest, Freda, was in her sixties, a research scientist of some renown and, as I later learned, a close companion of the oldest Devoncroix offspring. The youngest was five years old, the delight of her parents’ waning reproductive years. Her name was Lara, and she was the reason for my good fortune.

  On that first day, the day I came to live with them, the princess led me by the hand to the nursery, a long, sun-washed room with shelves of books and colorful games and a little girl in a pink-flowered dress earnestly occupied with modeling clay at a work table in its center. A tall man all dressed in black, who I would later come to know as Teacher, watched her from behind a big carved desk across the room. He stood as the princess entered, and so did the little girl.

  “Mama, Mama!” she cried happily, holding up a very precise rendering of a bird she had fashioned from clay. “Look what I made!”

  “How fine it is, my precious,” exclaimed the princess, beaming as she held both my shoulders, pushing me a little in front of her. “Now come see what I have brought you. His name is Emory, and he is going to be your new friend.”

  Lara was dark haired and green eyed, like her mother, with porcelain skin, a deceptively cherubic face, and an impish bent for mischief. She came around the table and stood before me, sizing me up curiously, seeming to sniff the air as she turned her head this way and that, regarding me. Then, without any warning whatsoever, she lunged at me and bit me hard on the cheek.

  I howled in pain and immediately bit her back, catching her just under the eyebrow and pinching hard enough to draw blood. Her scream pierced my ears and I stumbled back with blood and tears streaming down my face and the frankly not-very-satisfying taste of her blood in my mouth. The princess drew back her arm quite calmly and cuffed Lara across the face, hard enough to send her tumbling backward across the schoolroom floor.

  This in itself was enough to make me gasp and stare, since I had never before seen a child struck in that way. But then the most astonishing thing happened. The little girl hit the floor with a kind of shimmer of light, a little explosion no more dramatic than the dark/bright blink of an eye, and then there was no longer a little girl at all but a small black-furred wolf cub with green eyes, all tangled up in a child’s pink dress and underwear. My tears dried up. I forgot all about my bleeding, throbbing face. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud in delight. I stared in open-mouthed wonder and absolute approval.

  Even at that age, the power of their Change can enrapture a human. The little cub huddled in the corner, regarding the princess with mewling sounds and big, reproachful eyes, and the pr
incess stepped forward and scooped her up, disentangling her from the clothing almost absently as she embraced her and stroked her fur. I wanted to stroke the fur too, but was transfixed.

  “Really, madame.” The man in black was wiping the blood from my face with a cloth, his grip tight and a little painful on my chin. “I wish you had consulted me first. There could have been a serious accident. ”

  “Don’t be absurd, Artemis, they are children,” replied the princess. “Besides, how else is she going to learn about humans? The world is filled with them you know.” Her eyes had a merry twinkle to them, and she nuzzled the little wolf’s neck. The cub licked the princess’s face, and then began to pant happily.

  The man in black smeared a green goo on my wound but I struggled away; not because it was unpleasant, but because he was blocking my view of the little wolf, who now began to squirm in the princess’s arms until she set her on her feet.

  “Very well, belissima,” said the princess. “Enough.”

  And with a little pouf of light and a smell like vanilla and roses, where once there was a furry wolf cub there was now a naked little girl with tangled black curls. I gasped in wonder.

  “Lara,” said the princess sternly, “what do we know about humans?”

  The girl child stuck her finger in her mouth and mumbled, “They are not to be eaten.”

  “Or?”

  “Bitten,” acknowledged the girl, gazing at me.

  The princess nodded approvingly and held out the little girl’s underpants, which she obligingly stepped into. “And what else do we know?” she prompted.

  The little girl smiled easily, revealing a sunny disposition that was not so much different from my own, and a missing front tooth. “To be mindful of our clothes,” she replied. She held up her arms and her mother draped the pink dress over them.

  “Correct,” said the princess. “Monsieur Baptiste spent hours and hours sewing your pretty little frock, and he would be heartbroken to see how carelessly you’ve treated it. We must be respectful of our possessions, yes?” She turned the child around and deftly tied the sash into a big bow at the waist. “There, now. Go and apologize to your friend Emory.”

  I was aware of the smell of the green goo, and of the man in black standing over us with arms crossed and a scowl on his face. But mostly I was aware of Lara. The place where I had bitten her was nothing more than a pink scar bisecting her eyebrow now, and her eyes were wary and unsure.

  “That,” I said on a breath, “was super. Can you show me how to do it?”

  Lara grinned at me, and from the relief that flooded her face, her shoulders, her whole body, I suddenly knew that she had been far more afraid of me than I ever had been of her. “Don’t be silly. You’re a human. But I can teach you how to run fast and swim underwater.”

  I was intrigued. “In the big pool?”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “Lara,” prompted her mother.

  “I’m sorry I bit you.” She flashed me another one of her quick ebullient grins, and she shot out her finger to lightly brush the still-weeping wound on my face. “But now you have my mark. You are my friend forever.”

  Not to be outdone, I touched the faint pink scar on her eyebrow. “You have my mark too.”

  And we grinned at each other.

  “There now Artemis,” said the princess, smiling contentedly as she gave us each a brief, affectionate stroke on the head. “Didn’t I tell you all would be well?”

  The dour-faced teacher made a grunting sound in his throat, but didn’t reply.

  This incident should of course go to dispel whatever Hollywood-like misconceptions might still linger about humans being turned into werewolves by their bites. I laughed the first time I saw a movie—I must have been ten or twelve—that was based on that premise. And then, to be truthful, I think I was a little wistful. How fine it would be if such a thing were possible. How unfair that it was not.

  As I grew to adulthood, the bite mark faded, but I still bear the small crescent-shaped scar of Lara’s teeth on my cheekbone. Lara’s scar could no doubt easily be disguised with makeup if she chose, but she never does. Whenever I see her, I always look carefully. And my mark is always there.

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  Excerpt from DAWN TO DUSK: A TALE OF TWO SPECIES by Emory Hilliford, PhD:

  The culture of the lupinotuum is rich with legends, for theirs is greatly an oral tradition. Though they pride themselves on keeping accurate pack records of births, deaths, and matings, and though the epistolary tradition is one that is honored among them, much of their history and their myths—for so often the two are intertwined—are recorded for the first time in this volume. For other historical references, I am indebted to various artists, chanteuse, poets and historians of their own race (see Appendix 1). The following rendition of the tale of Romulus and Remus was taken from an account by the lupinotuum historian Matise Devoncroix, about whom very little biographical information is available.

  The reader may be surprised at how often human myths have intersected with lupinotuum history. You may be sure that whenever there is a tale involving humans interacting with wolves, their race was certainly involved. Take, for example, the legends of Tu Kueh, Zoroaster, Siegfried the hero, Romulus and Remus—all great men who were purported to be suckled by wolves. And what manner of creature might suckle at the breast of a wolf but arise to walk as a human except one of their kind? Pay attention to the details, and you see their race recorded between the lines of every human history book.

  The legend of Romulus and Remus is the one to which we turn our attention now, for they are credited in both cultures with having changed civilization. Long before the birth of Rome, of course, the lupinotuum had ruled the temples of Greece and the palaces of Egypt, amused themselves in the wilderness of China and the jungles of India, and they had grown to enjoy the art and the order of what is today known as civilized society. Rome, and all it implied, was a space out of time, waiting to happen.

  Twins are not a common occurrence among their kind, and Romulus and Remus, as it happened, were born to a powerful merchant family who became delayed in the hills of Italy too long to return to their clan in time for the birth. When word got out, their clan travelled to them, bringing gifts and praise to honor the wonder of the twins and the splendor of their parents. They came with fine silks and gold-painted caravans to convey their treasures, and the poor human shepherds who inhabited those Etruscan fields must have been quite struck dumb by the sight of so much luxury, so many wonders.

  The weather was amenable, the herds were plentiful, the land arable, and the clan began to build their homes upon the seven hills. They brought with them all the best of the civilization they had built in Greece—elaborate plumbing, irrigation and waste-disposal systems, their love of art and architecture, a taste for luxury and a knack or commerce. Of course the humans who surrounded them called them gods. Of course they worshipped and adored them. How could they not?

  And it is only a fact of nature to return adoration when one is adored.

  For centuries this magnificent civilization grew and thrived, spreading out from the seven hills to tame all the world. This was, by all accounts, their finest moment, and perhaps the finest thing about it was the humans they brought into the fold to live among them. They taught their humans to read and write and to build and to think and to create, in many cases, almost as well as they did. They dressed up their human performers and amused themselves with song and drama. They wallowed in their own success. They loved too deeply, sang too loudly, played too long. They indulged themselves, they indulged their humans, and they forgot they were supposed to be gods. And thus the magnificence that was Rome began to crumble.

  So much blame has been cast, so much speculation has been put forth as to how, indeed, it all could have been lost in such a short time. Did they grow lazy, drunken, disinterested? Perhaps. Vain and careless, convinced of their ow
n infallibility? No doubt. But this above all must be remembered: the gods did not abandon their city. They did not set fire to their own holdings, they did not pull down the marble edifices or cast asunder the columns of their own palaces. They merely watched, in helpless disbelief, as the humans they adored destroyed everything they had built for them, and eventually cast out the gods from their own paradise.

  The last great civilization of the old world fell to ruin not because its creators hunted humans, warred with humans, or hated them, but because they loved humans, far too well. It is a lesson they have never completely forgotten.

  Or forgiven.

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  Chapter Five

  I grew to be an odd boy, which is hardly surprising under the circumstances, I suppose. Because intellect was so highly valued in their society, mine was cultivated by simple default, and learning came easily to me. I was a prodigy by human standards, some might even say a genius. But among their kind I was merely amusing; passably bright for a human. Yet in living among them I think sometimes I forgot I was, in fact, human, and I developed a brash confidence, a thirst for adventure, and a sublime conviction of my own infallibility that was sheer werewolf.

  What is more surprising is that Lara, who was by nature what I could never be, had none of my courage or, if the truth be told, reckless bravado. She seemed to have been born a happy introvert who, only with the encouragement of someone like me, could achieve even a fraction of her potential. She depended on me. I depended on her. Life was simple for us then.