The Golem of Solomon's Way

by Jon Messenger

  Mattie had grown up in a tribe, concealed within the foothills of the frozen north and west of the continent. Her entire family had lived together in a fur-lined hut, eating, sleeping, changing, and bathing in front of one another out of necessity. It had been far more unusual for her to go a day without seeing someone naked than not. Furthermore, she was a werewolf, as was all her tribe. During their transformation, they were required to be naked. It was a brutal process during which bones knitted and reformed and their flesh—her flesh—was ripped from her body like sheets of paper, fluttering aside to reveal the wintery pelt beneath. She had stood beside her brethren for nearly two decades, rows of naked men and women preparing for the change. It hadn’t been sexual, at least not during those times of being naked. She hadn’t always associated the naked form with pure sexuality but more of a natural progression of her transformation. Never would she have believed that the naked form could embarrass her so.

  After four hours at the Ace of Spades, Mattie had been thoroughly proven wrong. Naked burlesque dancers had taken the stage one after another, retiring only after reaching a certain level of undress. Ladies—and she used that term loosely—twisted and contorted their bodies into positions she wouldn’t have believed possible. More than once, she blushed and was forced to look away. She had been in the Ace of Spades before and had seen Veronica perform, never believing that her performance was one of the tamest of the night.

  The men drank in the dancers’ sexuality like wine. They cheered and jeered from their seats. Men of wealth lined the stages like dogs begging for table scraps. They salivated and clutched tightly to the edges of tables, watching immutably as the women gyrated and swayed. It was primal, and the air stank of sex and musk.

  To Mattie’s delicate senses, the scent was overwhelming. It radiated from the crowd in waves of unrequited passion. Their yells and cheers became a seamless drone where individual voices were lost to the call of the masses. After hours of being exposed to what she considered the worst of mankind, Mattie was left feeling nauseated.

  When Veronica appeared, once again dressed with no lingering reminder of the naked woman who had recently taken the stage, the redhead was more than ready to leave. A few men tried to address Veronica as they walked toward the door, but Mattie’s guttural growl silenced their voices before they could speak. The werewolf within her yearned to be released, despite the fact that she had no true target. If she could have ripped out their collective throats, she would have.

  Exiting the burlesque house, they were struck by the cool night’s air. As effective as ice water against warm skin, the cool air returned Mattie’s sense of control. She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes, blocking out even the glow of nearby establishments.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Veronica asked.

  “Better,” Mattie replied.

  “Thank you for being with me tonight,” she said. “I needed an escape from reality.”

  Mattie arched an eyebrow. “That was your idea of an escape?”

  Veronica glanced over her shoulder toward the burlesque house. “Everything about that place is an escape. It doesn’t lessen the pain of Gloria’s… of her not being there, but while I’m on stage, I can be somewhere else, anywhere else.” She shook her head. “It’s not as though I imagine she’s still alive when I’m dancing, but rather that this world, the one in which she’s gone, doesn’t even exist. For three minutes, I’m a different person.”

  Mattie glanced over her shoulder toward the blockish building. Her experiences within had been far different, a cruel reminder of everything she found wrong with the kingdom.

  “Is something the matter?” Veronica asked.

  “I don’t understand how you can work in a place like that.”

  Veronica slipped an arm through Mattie’s and pulled her away from the Ace of Spades. “You get used to it after a while, though I’d be lying if I didn’t say it scared me something awful when I first started.”

  “But all those men,” Mattie said, with obvious disdain for the gender as a whole.

  Veronica laughed. “They’re not men; they’re boys playing dress up. The men work in the Upper Reaches all day, but when night comes, the men go to sleep and release their inner child. It’s the children who come to see me dance. It’s the children, who no longer think with their uppermost heads and instead let their lower ones think for them, who lose sight of the value of a coin. We love the boys, since they’re the ones who spend so lavishly.”

  Mattie forced a smile but felt rather filthy at the whole conversation. She shivered, a gesture that had nothing to do with the cold. “That room, though, was like a den of sex. You could practically see it in the air.”

  “You’re absolutely right, and the more the other ladies and I cater to it, the more money we make.” Veronica stopped and, with a hold on Mattie’s arm, turned her toward her. “Listen, I know you don’t approve. You seem much more grounded than Simon or Luthor—especially Luthor—but nothing I do sacrifices my morality. I would never touch a patron, and they understand that rule. There is more than their fair share of brothels sprinkled throughout Solomon’s Way. If they want to put their grubby hands on a beautiful woman, they can have their pick. They come to us because we provide an escape from reality. We turn a simple dance,” Veronica shimmied as though a physical demonstration was necessary, “into a fantasy world, where women grow wings.”

  “Even as they lose their clothing,” Mattie dryly said. “It seems like a poor exchange to me.”

  Veronica laughed again. “You have much to learn about the civilized world.”

  They walked down the road, arm in arm, passing the drunkards who staggered out into the street. “Calling this civilized starts a whole new conversation for which I’m not entirely convinced you’re ready to begin.”

  Veronica stepped over a man passed out in the street. A paddy wagon rolled slowly down the road as constables lifted unconscious men into the back. They’d sleep the night away in a cell at the police station only to be released in the morning with a headache and, more often than not, an empty purse, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

  “Simon warned me that you were set in your ways,” Veronica said.

  “Me?” Mattie incredulously replied. “That man’s a Royal Inquisitor. It doesn’t get much more ‘set in your ways’ than that.”

  “I hardly think hunting down the monsters in Ocker makes him inflexible.”

  Mattie opened her mouth to reply but realized Veronica was oblivious to the truth. She could no more defend herself against the baseless accusations than she could transform in the middle of the city. Veronica, along with all the citizens of Ocker, had spent the past ten years fearing all manners of beasts from the Rift. It was unconscionable that the monsters might not be as evil as they had purported.

  “Of course,” Mattie finally replied. “He’s a good man. You’re lucky to have found someone like him.”

  They turned down a side street, one that led directly toward their now-shared apartment. The crowds thinned considerably, though it was hard to tell on the narrow road. There were a few glowing streetlamps, but most were dark despite the late hour. Mattie glanced upward and saw clouds rolling across the moon, blotting out the feeble light it offered. She had no fear of the dark; her lupine eyes saw considerably well in the gloom. She had to remind herself, however, to stumble on occasion from unseen and uneven cobblestones. Veronica was blind on the dark street, as were most normal humans, which Mattie tried to remember she was to emulate.

  “Forgive my intrusion, but from what Simon tells me, I’m not the only lucky one,” Veronica said, breaking the silence of the street.

  Mattie glanced at the woman inquisitively, seeing her mischievous expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You and Luthor live together, do you not?”

  The darkness provided the perfect cover for Mattie’s suppressed smile. “Mister Strong and I live together out of necessity. As you wel
l know, I come from a tribe where money wasn’t much of an issue. I had no funds with which to procure my own living arrangements. Luthor has been a perfect gentleman.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Veronica replied, not aware that Mattie could damn well see her sly smile. “Are you telling me that he offered you his townhouse out of the goodness of his heart and not because of some… shall we say mutual attraction?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

  Veronica paused beneath one of the unlit streetlamps and turned toward Mattie. “Are you saying that you and he haven’t…?” She made gestures of two cupped hands being pressed together.

  “Copulated?”

  “Done it,” Veronica said. “Had sex. Made love. You can take your pick.”

  Mattie blushed furiously. “There are extenuating circumstances.”

  Mattie’s experience with sex had been with other werewolves, where the act was animalistic and often involved biting and clawing. Despite Luthor’s secret magical nature, she wasn’t sure she was ready to put him through the ordeal. None of which she could properly explain to the inquisitive woman before her.

  Veronica stifled a laugh as she took Mattie’s arm once more. “Consider me the devil on your shoulder, doing my best to corrupt you.”

  “Better people than you have tried,” Mattie replied, “including actual demons.”

  As Mattie stepped down, something crunched loudly beneath her heeled shoes. She pulled back her foot and glanced at the cobblestone. In the shades of gray through which she saw the darkness, Mattie could see twinkling shards of glass littering the street. She furrowed her brow as she stooped forward, examining the glass.

  “What is it?” Veronica asked, practically blind on the dark street.

  “Nothing, I’m sure.”

  Mattie touched the glass and was surprised that it was warm. She could feel the gentle curve, as though the individual shards had once composed a much greater globe of sorts. Craning her neck upward, she looked at the dark streetlamp overhead. The glass that once housed the electric bulbs had been smashed. Jagged slivers of glass protruded from its base.

  She felt her heart give a lurch. If the glass was still warm, it meant that the globe had been whole and illuminated not long before their arrival. Someone had smashed the globe recently, practically just before they had made their turn onto the street. She glanced down the road and could see the dim light reflecting on similarly broken bulbs as far as she could see.

  “Matilda, I can’t see,” Veronica complained. “What’s happening?”

  Mattie sniffed the air and smelled it. Faint, underneath the wafting smell of liquor and vomit, the scent of metal filled her nose, as though she tasted blood at the back of her throat. The metallic smell was intermixed with another, baser aroma—that of death and decay. The rot was dull, but ever present; the same sort of smell that had clung to Simon’s clothing when he had returned from the morgue.

  “I think we should go,” Mattie softly said.

  “We were going, until you stopped to examine something in the street.”

  Mattie shook her head. “No, not toward your apartment; back the way we came. Go now, slowly.”

  Mattie could practically feel Veronica shivering behind her. She was frightened and, as far as Mattie was concerned, rightfully so. Gloria had so recently died under mysterious circumstances, while traveling home late at night, much like they were doing now.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” the Veronica demanded, even as she stepped away from the broken glass.

  “I don’t know—” Mattie began before she caught sight of something in an alleyway nearby.

  She had mistaken it for a part of the building, it had stood so tall and unmoving, like a chimney jutting from the brickwork. As it moved, however, she realized her mistake at once. The shadowy figure towered over her, standing nearly nine feet tall. As it turned, the smell of oil, iron, and rotted flesh washed over her. She suppressed an urge to vomit as bile rose in her throat.

  Mattie thought of fleeing. She was quick and, if need be, could transform. Her hulking werewolf form would easily outrun even a towering figure like the one before her. Veronica, however, was her antithesis. The woman was an able dancer but lacked any true athletic skills. She’d never make it away in time.

  Pulling Veronica behind her, so that the werewolf blocked the path between the monster and its target, Mattie snarled, baring her teeth. “Do you trust me, Veronica?”

  “Tell me what you see,” Veronica demanded, her voice quivering.

  “Do you trust me?” Mattie asked again.

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  Mattie let go of the woman and started unfastening the bone clasps of her corset. Even in the dim light, Veronica’s eyes had adjusted enough to recognize the motions.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You said you trusted me, so I’ll have to ask you to forgive me for what’s about to happen.”

  Mattie slid free of the corset and dropped her skirt past her ankles, stepping easily out of both the dress and her unwieldy shoes. She growled, not a faint warning like she had done in the club, but a truly beastly snarl that startled Veronica.

  “Matilda?” Veronica asked, but Mattie didn’t hear her.

  Mattie reached up and tore at her naked chest, ripping bloody strips of flesh from her body. They drifted to the ground in a quickly growing pile of discarded waste. Behind her, Veronica couldn’t see the white fur protruding from the horizontal and vertical tears on her skin, only that the sound coming from Mattie was no longer human.

  She crouched and her knees bent the wrong direction. With a final burst of her transformation, the werewolf inside was released. Snow-white fur coated her body. A long tail swished behind her as she crouched, ready to pounce on the massive beast before her. She clenched her hands into fists, wrapping her thumbs over the top until she could feel the bite of her claws in the bottom of her paw.

  “You’re a monster,” Veronica whispered in utter disbelief.

  “Run,” Mattie said, her voice coarse but still her own.

  Veronica was transfixed, unable to move as a much-larger shadow detached itself from the alleyway before them. The darkness had been too great without the lit streetlamps. She had been painfully unaware that such an abomination had been standing only a dozen feet from them throughout Mattie’s transformation.

  “Run, damn you!” Mattie yelled as she leapt into the air.

  Her claws extended toward the behemoth and her maw opened, ready to bite. She was fast, a blur of white fur launching across the space between them as she prepared to rend the monster limb from limb. The monster, however, was far faster than she was. It lashed out with one of its oversized arms. The air was filled with a screeching of metal gears as the closed fist connected with Mattie’s ribs. She was knocked far off course. Instead of sinking her claws deep into the monster’s chest, one clawed hand only managed to rake the shoulder of the beast before the werewolf was tossed handily into the alleyway.

  Ichor from the abomination splashed against the wall and clung to Mattie’s paw; a viscous, gelatinous filth that stunk of dead meat. Mattie crashed into the bricks and crumbled to the ground in a heap, offering only the faintest yelp of protest. The monster turned and stomped toward her, the ground shaking with its steps. She started to rise but the monster punched downward, slamming its fist into the side of her head. Pain exploded across her cheek and top of her snout. It wasn’t bony knuckles she felt beneath the skin of its hand but steel rods, capable of shattering bone on impact. The beast grabbed her by the fur on her chest and lifted her limp form slightly from the cobblestones of the alley. She looked up through one ruined eye and saw the creature drawing back for another strike. It punched down, connecting with the side of her head again.

  Feeling her consciousness flooding away from her, Mattie quickly transformed. The fur in the monster’s hand sloughed away from her human form before dissolving into a smoky mist. Mattie could feel anguish through he
r ruined face but tried to stay focused, not on the giant before her but on Veronica, still affixed to the same spot in the road.

  “Run, you idiot,” Mattie mouthed, though she doubted it came out as little more than a mumbled mess.

  Veronica couldn’t see the alleyway, other than to know that the werewolf—the monster she had so recently been calling a friend and with whom she had linked arms—had cried out in pain. The fear had kept her in place, but absolute terror begged her to move as the gigantic figure turned back toward her. She started to step away as a hand closed over her mouth and something sharp and narrow pierced her neck.

  Her body went slack but was caught and supported by the person behind her. She willed her legs to move, to run from her unseen adversary, but her body refused to respond. Her eyes remained open even as she was laid gently on the stones. The gigantic abomination stomped toward her. Veronica’s heart raced and tears streamed from her eyes, but only the faintest whimper escaped her lips.

  Enormous hands closed over her wrists and dragged her unceremoniously toward the alley. She was dropped onto the stones. She stared at Mattie, once more in human form. Half her face was ruined; blood seeped from dozens of gashes and pooled on the ground. She didn’t feel as horrified by Mattie at the moment. Within her mind, she screamed for Mattie to get up, to become the werewolf once more, to save them both, but Mattie’s good eye fluttered slowly closed.

  “Don’t worry about your friend,” a voice whispered from behind her. Hands grabbed Veronica and rolled her onto her back, where she could stare into the face of a cloaked figure. “It’s not her I’m after.”

  The moon emerged from behind the clouds, reflecting off the long knife in the man’s hand.

  Simon leaned against the lamppost as Luthor approached another group of Solomon’s Way locals. The apothecary held up the hastily drawn sketch, that of an eight- or nine-foot giant of a man who may or may not make his home in the Way. As had occurred a dozen other times throughout the night, the men gave Luthor an odd stare before shaking their heads emphatically. Frowning, Luthor thanked them for their time before walking back toward the Inquisitor.