Of Man and Monster

by Saje Williams

Cory was stunned by this. He'd been so wracked with guilt over taking Gina against her will he hadn't stopped to consider how Jason would really feel. Stupid, Cory. Really stupid. He gave a shuddering sigh and half-fell against the doorframe. “This isn't easy, Jason. I ... drank a cop last night. I was driving your mom's car and he pulled me over. I didn't mean to, but it just happened. The Thirst can come on at any time, and it's almost impossible to resist."

  "So where's the cop's body?” Jason asked, looking around as if Cory had stashed it somewhere in the hallway.

  "I didn't drain him completely. I stopped myself. He might have survived. At least that's what she said. She ... snapped his neck, Jason. She just took him from me and killed him like a chicken for the stewpot."

  Jason didn't have to ask who Cory meant. “Bitch. So are we going after her or what?"

  "We're going to wait until your mom rises and then, yeah, we're going after her."

  "Tomorrow night, then?” Jason looked as though he was actually looking forward to it.

  "Yeah. Tomorrow night."

  "So what do you want to do tonight?” He flashed another cheesy grin. “I want to try out this new and improved me."

  "I hadn't really thought about it,” Cory told him honestly. Something about Jason's demeanor was starting to wear on him—it was like he thought this was merely an extension of the game, that there weren't real lives at stake.

  It frightened him a little, but he sure as hell wasn't going to admit it. “We might as well go into town, I guess."

  "Great. I'll drive."

  * * * *

  Now that was a mistake. Cory climbed out of the passenger side of the car, a little unsteady. Jason knew how to drive a stick, but he drove it with such reckless abandon it was a wonder they hadn't ended up wrapped around a tree, or sitting out in the middle of some farmer's field with a bunch of cows staring stupidly at them.

  Twenty minutes of time spent with this Jason was like a year in purgatory. It was like there was something wrong with him, like being made into a vampire had stolen a piece of what he was. Or maybe it was never there in the first place and I just didn't see it.

  He didn't like that thought at all. Then again, he realized, didn't Dave say that drinking the blood of an animal first thing would transfer some of that animal's traits? Cory had chosen a dog, a pack animal with established traits of loyalty and sociability.

  He'd fed Jason the blood of a solitary hunter. Was it possible that his personality had been adapted by that alone?

  He resolved to have one of the dogs available when Gina woke up. Just in case.

  Jason had pulled into the bowling alley parking lot, he realized, once he'd cleared his head of the fog these thoughts had generated. “I don't want to be here,” he said. “I don't want to be seen."

  Jason gave him an incredulous glance in response. “What do you care? I want to shake things up a little.” He climbed out of the car and waited for Cory to do the same. “Stick around. I've got a few scores to settle."

  "No!” Cory vaulted the car and slammed Jason into the front fender, bending him halfway over the hood. “I don't care what you think you're entitled to now, damn you ... I didn't make you a vampire so you could play petty revenge games on everyone who ever picked on you."

  With a feral snarl Jason shoved him away and pushed himself off the car. “Christ, Cory, what the hell's your problem? If we can't enjoy this a little, what's the goddam point?” He brushed imaginary lint or dust off his shirt and regarded Cory with a frigid stare. “You might have made me, but you're not my master.” He chuckled and turned back toward the door.

  Cory stared after his retreating back, jaw slack. What had he done? Had he raised a monster to fight a monster? He blended into the shadows as he saw a couple climb out of a nearby car and walk toward Jason.

  "Hey, if it isn't that little punk Keening. What are you doing here, wimp? Trying to pretend you're part of the crowd?"

  Oh, that's imaginative, Cory thought with a silent sneer. He didn't take his eyes off of Jason, though. The pissy attitude of some jock moron wasn't any of his concern. How Jason reacted, however, definitely was.

  "Go to hell, Weaver,” Jason snapped, still walking.

  Cory winced. This wasn't going to be pretty.

  Marc Weaver put a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder as if to hold her in place and stalked after Jason. Mindy Masson, the pert brunette cheerleader Weaver was currently banging, made some noises as if to stop him, but Cory could tell her heart wasn't in it. She certainly wasn't going to jeopardize her standing as the football hero's current plaything for Jason's benefit.

  "Hey, you skinny little punk! You think you can talk to me like that and just walk away?"

  Jason whirled, that same cocky grin Cory had been looking at all night spreading across his face. “No, I figured I couldn't, you big ugly bag of stupid. But I figured I'd give you the chance to let it go anyway."

  That's when Cory remembered that Jason had a specific grudge against Redburn High's star Running Back that went back over a year. He'd gotten close with a girl named Sara Vines until she'd been accepted into the in-crowd by way of Marc Weaver's festering dick. Literally festering at the time, from what Cory recalled. He'd given the girl gonorrhea and then dumped her. Then knocked Jason around when he'd had the balls to confront him about it a couple weeks later.

  Yeah, he had a good reason for the grudge. What Cory wanted to know is what he planned to do about it.

  Weaver wasn't exactly Mr. Toleration. He threw the first punch as Jason finished speaking. It did immense damage to the empty air as Jason simply leaned out of the way. Cory smothered a smile of his own, knowing that, to a vampire, the fastest punch Weaver could throw would look like a slo-mo edit on a bad martial arts flick.

  And Jason didn't react with a punch of his own. He let Weaver expend all his energy in a flurry of wild blows hitting absolutely nothing but wind, keeping up a running commentary the whole time. “Sheesh—you call that a punch? What're you trying to do, pick my nose? You couldn't fight your way out of a Star Trek convention."

  And more along a similar vein. The more Jason taunted him, the angrier Weaver got and the more frenzied his attacks became. Though he had plenty of stamina there simply was no way he could possibly keep going as long as Jason could. Eventually he simply deflated and stood there, puffing like an asthmatic dragon.

  Jason swept in, picked him up, and hurled him through the front windshield of a nearby pickup. He dusted his hands off and turned to the girl, who was staring in wide-eyed astonishment. “I'd think about getting checked out by a doctor,” he told her simply. “Marc's not the cleanest guy around, if you know what I mean."

  He walked casually back to the car. “Coming?” he asked Cory, climbing back into the driver's seat. “My work here is done."

  * * * *

  One of the things Cory had wondered almost from the beginning is how he hadn't suffered any disorientation or other effects from the sudden and dramatic increase in his strength and agility. It amazed him that the vampiric powers seemed to come with inherent knowledge of how to use them. He supposed it should have bothered him—nothing he'd ever read, certainly not the game Nosferatu—had ever indicated that would be the case.

  Jason seemed to be affected in much the same way. If anything, he'd been more comfortable with the enhanced abilities than even Cory had, but, in a very real way, he'd come into it with his eyes completely open. Someone he knew and ostensibly trusted had offered it to him. Cory had faced the option of existence as a vampire, or death at the hand of his maker with no chance of rebirth.

  Jason could only be more comfortable with his situation. He had, after all, chosen it willingly.

  Sitting there in the passenger seat with these morose thoughts running through his head, Cory barely paid any attention to the absolutely insane manner in which his friend was driving. Much the same as he had on their way into town.

  Cory just wasn't sure he cared at this point.

&nbs
p; The car careened around a corner, headlights stabbing into the dark, when suddenly a figure in white stepped into the road in front of them. Faster than thought Jason plunged his foot down on the brake and sent the car into a sideways skid. By the time the Neon had ground to a stop, the figure had disappeared.

  "Vampire,” Cory hissed, throwing open his door and stepping out into the cool night. Jason killed the engine and followed suit. “It might have been her,” he added. “I couldn't tell."

  "It was, and I see you've disobeyed me already,” she said, emerging from a stand of juniper just off the road a few yards. She had her hand wrapped around the neck of a struggling human shape with familiar blond hair. “I told you not to make more."

  "I didn't!” he objected. “At least not after I saw you."

  "True. But that doesn't change the fact that I didn't want you to create others in your own image. This town is mine. I will tolerate no competition.” She shook her captive jarringly. “I have decided that you might need a little reminder to keep your teeth to yourself. Feed upon animals—it is, after all, becoming your best known feature amongst us."

  She wore a white dress this time, looking for all the world like some lost little girl in search of a weekend picnic. Even including the figure of a very unhappy Ben dangling like a stuffed doll from one hand.

  "Let him go!” Cory insisted, taking a hesitant step toward her. “He's done nothing to you."

  "And that should mean something to me why?” she asked, in a voice as sweet as the image she portrayed.

  "She's nucking futz,” Jason growled.

  "True as that observation may be,” Cory hissed back, “I don't think it's going to help matters that you pointed it out."

  She ignored them, turning Ben around in her grasp and eying him as if wondering where to take the first bite.

  "You want to rush her?"

  "While she's holding Ben? Are you nucking futz? Absolutely not."

  "There's two of us—one of her."

  "And she'll kill Ben before we can reach her. Not to mention we don't have any idea if she has Get hiding in the bushes somewhere."

  "Get?"

  "Vampires she made—like I made you."

  "Oh. So what do you want to do?"

  "I'm thinking standing here whispering back and forth doesn't seem to be causing anything bad to happen."

  She spun Ben one more time and sank her teeth into his neck. She had time for one long swallow before thrusting him away, sputtering angrily. “He tastes like a fucking dog!” She snatched him back up and sniffed at him, her pixie face distended into an ugly scowl.

  Ben threw back his head and screamed, but at the end it sounded almost more like a howl than a human scream. Something intangible, something he couldn't identify, reached between Ben and Cory like a web of force. Without thinking Cory grasped at it, pulling at it with his will alone.

  Ben howled again. His skin seemed to ripple, his image wavering like something seen through several feet of water. The howl bubbled into something else, a vicious snarl, as his body seemed to lengthen. His shoulders hunched and his feet struck the ground. Cory watched in shock as his arms elongated and his face contorted.

  Then suddenly the bitch was trying to hold onto something that looked an awfully lot like a pissed off werewolf. This thing that was Ben only seconds before smashed her aside, claws like garden rakes tearing through clothing and flesh with equal ease.

  She gave a horrified squeal as the angry werewolf lunged at her, fangs gnashing in the moonlight. She dodged out of the way and flitted away, a mere blur in even the eyes of the other two vampires. Ben—or the thing that had been Ben, sniffed at the ground and started after her at a lope.

  "Fuck! Jason, you get the car off the road and follow us. I'm going to track Ben."

  Jason turned his wide eyes on Cory and then nodded abruptly. “Uh-huh. But first why don't you tell me what just happened."

  "Ben turned into a werewolf. What do you think?"

  "Okay. I saw that. But how?"

  "What, suddenly I look like Alex Trebec? How the hell should I know? Just do it."

  * * * *

  It didn't take long to track him down. He found the Ben-wolf wandering in a circle, sniffing the ground and snarling deep in his throat. He'd lost her trail, obviously. Cory stopped at the top of a small hill overlooking the glade where the werewolf rambled, noting with a sort of detached curiosity that Ben looked more like a real wolf now than he had when he'd first changed.

  He couldn't restrain a low chuckle when he thought of the look on the bitch's face. She'd literally been terrified by the sight of the great hairy beast bearing down on her. Talk about an unpleasant surprise. “Ben!"

  Something moved up beside him, soft as snowfall, and he recognized it as Jason just as he started to react. “Damn, you're quiet."

  "Uh-huh."

  The Ben-wolf stood on all fours, looking in their direction. He let out a low growl and started trotting toward them.

  "You think he's hungry?"

  "Even if he is, I doubt we're on the menu,” Cory replied. “We need to get him someplace safe."

  "The local humane society?"

  "Very funny. We sure as hell can't let him go wandering around like that."

  Jason sighed. “I know. Think it's permanent?"

  "God, I hope not."

  Concentrating on it, Cory discovered he could still sense whatever had stretched between him and Ben the moment before the transformation. It was dimmer, if that made any sense at all. Less powerful somehow.

  As they watched the Ben-wolf collapsed in a heap and gave a shuddering gasp as fur retreated back into his body and the great mass of the werewolf collapsed in on itself. The fully human, and gruesomely naked, Ben gave a mewling cry and tried to climb to his feet.

  An instant later Cory was at his side, helping to support him. “Ben. Are you okay?"

  "No,” was the simple reply. “I'm not sure I'll ever be okay again. What just happened?"

  "Near as we can tell,” Jason spoke up, “you just turned into a werewolf and did a claw-claw-bite maneuver on that vampire bitch."

  "How nice,” Ben said softly. He collapsed, unconscious.

  "Well, crap. Wasn't he just a font of information."

  "Uh-huh. C'mon, let's get him back to the car. He's going to have to come back with us."

  "Yeah? And what's going to stop him from waking up and trying to stake you, or me, or my mom?"

  "The fact that I don't plan to be there in the morning. We're going to go find someplace else to hide out for the night."

  "Oh. Where?"

  "Now is not the time to talk about it. Let's get back to your house and make our plans in relative safety."

  "Oh. Yeah. Good point."

  "Glad you think so."

  * * * *

  "I'm feeling a little thirsty,” Jason observed from the living room chair, looking over at Ben with an expression Cory really didn't care much for. “Think he'd mind if I had a little nibble?"

  "Does the pope shit in the woods? Is a bear Catholic? Of course he'd mind. Don't be a dork. And I don't want to hear you whine. I haven't had a drink all night."

  The Thirst had plagued the edge of his consciousness, but he seemed to be getting better at restraining it. This was a good thing. A very good thing.

  * * * *

  Rachel woke out of a sound sleep, a distant howl, like that of a wolf, echoing in the back of her head. What was that? Had she really heard it, or had it been part of a dream? She couldn't be sure.

  There weren't any wolves around here, but she'd heard reports of a wolf-dog or two. One of them from Cory's friend Ben, who'd apparently been attacked by one just the other night.

  Something about that bothered her, but she couldn't put a finger on it. Sighing, she climbed out of bed and padded to the kitchen, flicking on the light in passing. The house felt so empty without Cory or Mira. She missed both of them, but knew she couldn't afford to bring Mira back until she herself f
elt safe again. And with Cory gone, his fate suspected but not known, she couldn't possibly feel safe.

  She'd tried to call Ben's parents earlier this evening, to talk to them about the dog attack, but hadn't gotten an answer. They'd been markedly absent lately, she realized suddenly. When he'd been hurt when Cory'd been snatched, they hadn't bothered even showing up at the hospital. Though they'd grumbled a little about it, they'd had to release him into her custody.

  It didn't hurt that Gavin Chase had been the physician of record, and he'd had his own motives for agreeing to what she wanted. It still bothered her that she'd trusted him as much as she had, far more than it had turned out he deserved.

  How much trust had he deserved? Had he openly lied to her?

  Yes. He'd said he'd been operating as a DHS agent, under the authority of the Paranormal Affairs Commission. As it turned out, that was a complete fabrication. Or, rather, a statement of something that had been true but no longer was.

  A lie as a factor of time.

  She shook off her urge to split hairs about it. A lie was a lie. Her attraction to the man notwithstanding, he had played her like a fiddle. The question remained, however ... what had he gained from it? What is he really after?

  She almost regretted asking Bigby to make the calls for her. She would have asked more questions. But, then again, she might not have gotten any more information than he had. The Feds could be notoriously tight-lipped when they wanted to be.

  Didn't she know that to be the truth? She allowed herself a dry chuckle, though the thought that leaped into her mind wasn't in the least bit funny. It made her think of Cory's father, which wasn't a pleasant memory at all.

  She'd met Dirk one day in line at the grocery store, thought he was an amusing, intelligent, good-looking fellow with a normal career as an insurance salesman. At the time, he was. But little did she know that he was a mob informant placed here as a part of the witness relocation program. The “witless” protection program, as she started calling it later.

  Problem was he wasn't at all reformed. He was a thief, a fence, and an all-around scumbag who saw Redburn as his own personal playground. And she—before she even realized what was happening—as his playmate.