Powerless

by Catherine Johnson

  I know Rob’s not convinced because his grip on me tightens momentarily. I’m not convinced either. Anything with a pulse and an orifice is Bryn’s type.

  Daniel gives Rob a pointed look. Rob relaxes, but only a fraction, and gives Bryn a quick nod of his head. The usual post-run chatter has cut off. Everyone else is pretending not to watch, and failing miserably.

  I put my palm against Rob’s cheek to get his attention. At five foot six I don’t have to crane my head to look up at him, but in flat walking boots I’m still several inches shorter than he is.

  “Let’s go home babe.” I want to remove us from this situation that obviously isn’t over yet, and yes, I do want to make the point that I’m with Rob and that I’m going home with him as well. He obviously has a similar idea because he leans down to give me a brief, but poignant kiss.

  “Great plan.” He says quietly to me, then “See you guys soon,” much more loudly in the general direction of everyone else, with a quick nod to acknowledge Daniel before he turns.

  “See you.” I call, with a similar acknowledgement to our Alpha, as we start the short hike back to Rob’s car. We’re parked on one side of the hill above the village of Greenfield; we live further around, almost on the opposite side in the village of Mossley.

  We don’t speak about what just happened, or the fact that it was my efforts during the run that sparked it, as we make our way back to the car, climb in and set off into the last of the night.

  I flick the heater on. It may be the tail end of summer, but it’s the small hours of the morning in northern Britain; it’s cold.

  “Did you notice anything off about Daniel tonight?”

  “No. Why’d you ask?”

  I look across at him, He’s concentrating on the road, but something in his tone isn’t quite as innocent as he wants me to believe. Not a good thing.

  “No reason.” Rob glances over, unsatisfied with my answer.

  “Just seemed like he was trying to run something off is all.” I shrug.

  “Nope, didn’t seem like there was anything up to me.” Rob’s tone is just a shade to bright as he parks the car in front of our little terraced house.

  “Guess I’m just being overly paranoid as usual.” I smile.

  Rob just raises a sardonic eyebrow. We both climb out of the car. He unlocks the door since he has a house key on the same ring as the car key. The dawn is beginning to lighten the eastern sky, throwing Alphin Pike into almost completely black relief. Our house faces the Pike, and since we’re near the top of a slope with houses on one side of the road and a clough on the other, there’s nothing to interrupt our view of the moor we’ve just thoroughly claimed for our own. Something about actually seeing the dawn break makes it impossible not to yawn. It’s a good job we’ve both booked the following day, today, off work. Rob just chuckles as he locks the front door behind us. My eyes are already closing as we climb the stairs to our room, and it’s as much as I can do not to fall asleep standing up as I shed my clothes before sliding under the duvet. I curl up on my side and feel the bed dip before I feel Rob curve his body around mine. The combination of a full day at work and a long, strenuous run in the fresh night air takes hold, and I fall into a deep sleep to the sound of rain hammering against the windows as the storm finally breaks.

  Chapter Two

  After a day spent mostly in bed or vegetating on the sofa watching movies, eating junk food and drinking tea, it’s back to the grindstone. We’ve both reached the point of clean and dressed and we’re doing the usual dance around the kitchen trying not to get in each other’s way as we grab breakfast before we head out to work. Outwardly we’re two young professionals who both work in the centre of Manchester. Rob is an accountant for national auditing firm, and I work as legal secretary in the commercial property department of a reasonably large law firm.

  We’ve got about twenty minutes before we need to leave, so it’s either toast or cereal and maybe the chance to swallow some coffee before it’s really cooled enough to be drinkable. It beats most days when we’re still dashing out the door juggling a slice of toast and a travel mug which our brew has been hastily tipped into. Rob likes to drive to work, but even so, five minutes can make a hell of a difference to the amount of traffic when you’re edging up on rush-hour for a fifty minute drive that should take twenty-five. I actually think he’s a little in love with his car, a Honda Civic R-Type, a typical boys-with-toys vehicle.

  Personally I prefer to catch the train in. Rob hates the train, it’s always rammed full of people heading to the office and students heading to the university based in the city and more often than not it’s late, but I’d rather be standing room only than contend with rush hour traffic any day of the week. I’d rather be packed like a mistreated sardine than put up with Rob’s road rage, so I only get a lift from him in exceptional circumstances. Plus parking in the city is a nightmare; it’s a brutal fight that should have referees and a league table of some sort. You pay through the nose and still have to walk a mile to the office, so no thanks. I do have a car, a little second-hand Suzuki Swift. It doesn’t get exercised much, but since Rob says I have issues multi-tasking when driving, as in steering and indicating at the same time, he won’t let me behind the wheel of his precious.

  The rain seems to be holding off after the torrential downpour of the other night, so I’m braving heels rather than boots. It’s a good twenty minute walk, mostly downhill, to the station, but Rob usually gives me a lift that far, which saves my feet. It’s all suffering for fashion, but flats just don’t cut it in the office and I can’t bring myself to do the sensible thing and wear trainers for the commute; I feel too scruffy.

  We’re both rocking conservative office chic. I’m wearing a belted purple dress with a jacket, black opaque thigh highs and heels the same colour as the dress. The shoes came first; I bought the dress to match them. My shoe collection is somewhat extensive. The stockings thing isn’t for an anniversary or anything, I cannot stand tights, and I always feel that I walk a little taller with stockings on. Rob’s got a classic cut, dark navy suit on, with a light blue shirt and a more vibrantly blue tie that brings out the blue in his eyes. No, I didn’t have to buy the tie for him; he got it all by himself. Yes, he is a little vain sometimes, aren’t we all? His black hair is in a choppy style but a little long, so that it just touches the collar of his shirt. Last time he mentioned cutting it into a shorter style I threatened that if he did I would shave all my hair off. He actually got out the clippers to see if I was bluffing! I’ve pulled my long, dark brown hair into a loose ponytail; I’ll have let it down and retied it a hundred times before the day is out. Oh, and my eyes are dark brown, just so you know.

  As usual, we’re scrambling out of the door feeling like we’re slightly late. Rob drops me off at the station. The train is on time for once and the fifty or so of us on the platform squeeze on. Using elbows and heels to make sure you make it is totally permissible. If I miss a place on this one, catching the next one only leaves me ten minutes to run to the office, not good in heels. I’ve already plugged my headphones into my phone so I can listen to something other than inane chatter for the duration of the twenty minute journey. I have time to let my mind wander. We’re heading west, away from the moors. The scenery changes drastically between Mossley and the next station. Stalybridge is home to a couple of small chemical plants, so in the span of one tunnel you leave a rural village and end up in a semi-industrialised town. Mossley isn’t quite as quaint as some little Pennine villages are. The Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the River Tame run through it; add in the rail line and it was the perfect spot to build several mills close together during the cotton boom of the early 1800’s. The majority of the housing is two and three bed terraces, originally built to house the mill workers. It’s a theme that continues throughout the region, but Mossley has grown more new houses than new industry, which gives it a slightly different feel to the other towns on the route into the city.

  I’ve li
ved in and around the area I do now for my entire life. I don’t think I could live any closer to the city. Even before I became a Were I valued the ability to step out of my front door walk straight into the countryside. I’ve always loved the space, the feeling of freedom that comes from being able to stand on top of a hill and see the world laid out before you, just waiting for you to make of it what you will.

  Of course, all those grand plans were interrupted somewhat rudely almost six years ago when I was attacked during a night out drinking in the city. In a bit of an alcohol-shrouded haze I’d managed to lose my friends and was stumbling down one of the less agreeable streets looking for a taxi. One minute I was singing to myself and trying not to trip off the pavement; the next, someone was dragging me into an alley that was pitch black thanks to the multi-storey buildings on either side. Screaming didn’t do me any good at all; there wasn’t anyone around to hear. I knew that I was about to be raped and very possibly killed. My memories of that night are hazy, sometimes I get flashbacks in nightmares and they’re vivid whilst I’m in them, but they fade so quickly when I wake up that I can barely remember them. The only thing I do remember is that someone saved me. I don’t remember faces, or smells, or anything other than the fact that someone dragged my attacker off me, but not before he’d chewed on me like I was sirloin. The scars are better than they were, but they’re not pretty. Fortunately they can be easily hidden under most clothing, and I never had any aspirations to be a glamour model anyway.

  Donna was the first pack member that I remember meeting, since technically Michael was the first member I met. She was working at the hospital I was taken to; she’s a nurse in the Accident and Emergency department. She recognised what had happened straight away. As did Michael, he’s a policeman. He must have been on a routine patrol or something; either way, it was Michael that found me bleeding in the street. They did find the person that they said was responsible for my attack. I was no help, I couldn’t remember enough to be any sort of witness, and thankfully that wasn’t needed. My would-be-killer apparently suffered an attack of conscience and turned himself in; but more of that in a moment.

  Donna and Michael introduced me to the rest of the pack. It took a lot of persuading on their part for me to take the fairy story they were spinning about me changing form once a month seriously. I didn’t even realise it was the night of the full moon when they invited me round to their house for a meal. If I’m honest, I thought they were trying to groom me for a threesome, until I found myself on four paws in their living room. It is possible not to change, but you only gain that skill through natural ability and experience. Just as some people are born to be artistic and some are born to be good at maths, some Weres are born with the potential to resist the change. Having that strength and control means they’re nearly always higher in the pack structure. It takes time to develop, though; when you’re new the change is inevitable. The younger you are, the earlier in the night you change. As you gain more control it’s possible to hold the change at bay until the moon is at its highest point, but only the strongest can resist that pull and even then they need to stay away from direct moonlight. Donna didn’t introduce me to the rest of the pack until my second full moon. In the meantime she and Michael taught me as much as they could, gave me the tools to deal with the pack politics so I wasn’t walking in blind. I owe them a lot for that, there was a lot of politics to deal with. Apparently my attacker was the previous Alpha, Callum Lennox. By the time I was introduced to everyone else, it was a subject that was no longer to be discussed, but there was the inevitable fallout to deal with from the shift of Daniel moving to Alpha.

  Callum was sentenced to six years. Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent carries a tariff of anything up to sixteen years, he was originally sentenced to nine, but you get an automatic discount if you plead guilty, so he’s due out soon. He’s obviously been strong enough to resist changing for more than sixty full moons since he was locked away, I’m sure we’d have heard about it if a crazy wolf had gone on the rampage through Strangeways; and therein lies the problem. Strong Weres, Alphas, can resist the change for months, even years, at a time, but it’s not good for their mental health.

  Let’s take a moment to discuss the longevity of your average werewolf. We age more slowly than humans, but we do die, and we can be killed. There is the perk of fast healing; unfortunately that only happens if you change into your wolf form. We can change at will, but it’s much harder and requires a lot more effort than changing under the moon. When the moon is full, you only need to let go of your human self; to change at any other time, you must consciously will yourself to take the form of a wolf. If you end up in a car accident in the middle of the day and find you have a broken leg, you’re going to have a few problems healing yourself by turning into a wolf without anyone noticing. It would be a good idea to make sure one of your packmates knows how to remove a cast before the full moon, too. Silver itself has no effect on us; in fact it’s my favourite metal for jewellery. I wear several silver pieces on a daily basis. Since we’re susceptible to bullets, a silver bullet will do as well as any other if you want to hurt us, except that silver is not a great metal to make bullets out of. If you’re planning to shoot, stab, beat or otherwise harm one of us, I recommend that you don’t do it with our packmates around and that you do it where it’s too public for us to change. Of course, then you’ll be running a high risk of being arrested, que sera sera. The only injuries we can’t heal by changing are damage to the brain, heart, or massive blood loss. Go on, make a note.

  When it comes to natural causes, we’re far less likely to suffer from many disorders than ordinary folk. Werewolves almost never have heart attacks, lung problems or get cancers. The one thing we do seem pre-disposed to, though, is dementia. Maybe it’s a side effect of the change and splitting between two forms, two mindsets every month, but it affects a high percentage of Weres that make it to “old age”. The number one cause of death for werewolves is other werewolves; either in pack disputes, or euthanasia. Can you imagine walking into a care home with an old dear sat in the corner muttering about the moon and turning furry once a month in front of everyone? Yeah, the pack makes sure that doesn’t happen.

  And this is where it things get particularly relevant for any Were strong enough to resist the change. The more times you resist, the greater your chances of your mental capacity diminishing. So there you go, it’s possible to not change, but it’s a really bad idea to resist your nature. There’s a good chance that when Callum gets out of jail, if he gets out of jail, that he’s going to be a little psychotic. I am not looking forward to that day, and that day is closer now than it’s ever been.

  I guess I was lucky - or unlucky, depending on your point of view. The werewolf population of the United Kingdom is not increasing at a drastic rate. The most common way to be made into a werewolf is the fairly traditional method of being bitten, severely. A little nip won’t do it. There’s a fine balance between not enough, virus, magic, curse, whatever-you-want-to-call-it being transmitted, and so much damage that you bleed out and die. Most human victims of werewolf attacks simply die. The young of a mated pair can change, but it doesn’t usually take effect until puberty. You don’t randomly find that your kid has shed their nappy and changed into a puppy in their cot.

  None of our pack are born Weres, not yet anyway. Michael and Donna have twin boys, but they’re only almost five years old, still all human so far. Everyone else survived a bite; but you’re talking about a long timeline. Daniel, our oldest member, has been a Were for forty years. Phillip and Claire, our youngest members, have been Weres for two. Everyone else falls somewhere in between, and no, they were not all bitten by members of our pack. Our pack has members from all over the UK. When someone is bitten and survives, the pack in that area have to make a choice: can they support another member, or do they have to suggest that the survivor move to an area where a pack has space to accept them? We’re a popular choice; we have the moors nearby for run
ning, and the city and surrounding area as a source of employment. Glasgow and Edinburgh take a lot of newbies too, but then they have the Grampian Mountains within driving distance.

  We’re close to the city centre now. There’s housing, factories and warehouses to be seen but hardly any green space visible from the train. The urban landscape changes from the low-rent social housing estates and tower blocks of flats to shiny office blocks and re-claimed and regenerated mill buildings. All too soon it’s time to join the scrum getting off the train and make my way with the rest of the heard to our respective offices. For an apex predator, the daily commute definitely makes me feel like a sheep.

  Chapter Three

  Sixty eight full moons. Five and a half years o’ ma life. Was it worth it? I’m no’ sure I can say that it was. It was worth it tae protect the pack. It was worth it tae protect our secret from the light o’ day. It wasnae worth it tae protect that idiotic fucker. The thought that keeps me goin’ through each full moon is that he’s no’ longer walkin’ on this earth. His worthless bones should be rottin’ somewhere on the moors that I cannae see from this cell.

  I’m glad I cannae see those rollin’ hills. Bleak as they are most o’ the time, shrouded in drizzle and mist, I miss ‘em down tae the marrow o’ ma bones. I think it’s knowin’ that I’ll be free soon that makes it worse. At first it was just gettin’ through one month at a time, now I’m countin’ down ‘till I get out. I’m no’ sure when it changed, was it two months ago, four, six? Somewhere along the way it altered, got worse. For five years I gritted ma teeth, avoided the dickheads lookin’ tae cause trouble and stayed the fuck away from anythin’ resemblin’ a fucking window durin’ the full moon. Physical exertion takes the edge off; been hittin’ the gym in this place like I’m trainin’ for Mr feckin’ Universe or some shite. I’m an Alpha, I’m no’ beholden tae the moon every month if I doona want tae be, but six years is a big ask o’ any werewolf, no’ matter how strong. I know that stupid cocksucker couldnae’ve done it, he wouldnae’ve lasted one moon, let alone more than sixty. We both knew that, and that’s why I’m here and he isn’t.