“’Who are you?’ they asked. I didn’t know what to tell them. I thought of lying, but was afraid to lie and be found out and have them released their anger on me. I told them I was just a boy. I told them I had been turned a few months ago. I was nervous and scared and they knew it and in my panic, I began to lose control. My fangs grew, my claws did as well. The two werewolves laughed at my lack of control and I welcomed my weakness. I’d rather they believe I was weak and new and inexperienced than have them think I was a threat.” William chuckled, “and I was weak and inexperienced.
“’Who’s your alpha?’ they asked. I had never heard that word as it related to the werewolves. I had seen the film The Wolf Man and had read some books on werewolves and knew it was not meant to real. Those werewolves from fiction were not real. These ones were. ‘Where’s your pack?’ Their question had no real meaning to me. Not back then. They didn’t care. One of them punched me in the face. For the first time in years, I transformed. I ripped my clothes to shreds as I became a wolf right there, in front of them and everyone to see. And then-” William stopped at this memory now. He was reliving what he hadn’t thought about for decades. Yet, he knew he had to continue.
He had been staring at his hands in front of him, on the table; when he finally raised his head to look at the rest he said, “They laughed at me.” No one at the table said a word. They didn’t ask him what the reason for their laughter was. No one dared to ask him. William finished, “I was a pup. I am a pup. I am seventeen years old and that reflects on my beast, as well. You’ve seen it,” he turned to Rebecca and Dylan. “You’ve seen how helpless I really am.”
For the first time since he had met him, Dylan looked to finally be understanding his position. Was that finally sympathy in his eyes? Turning to Lucius, Dylan was deadly serious when he said, “He’s right. He is weak. His wolf is as old as he is.” Then he added, “He doesn’t gain a mass like the others. He looks almost like a regular wolf.”
Lucius listened and said, “It’s a miracle you are still alive, Mr. Woods.”
“Well, you know what they say, right?” Will forced a smile, “Brain before brawn?”
“What did you do?” Alyssa asked, she looked sincerely worried, “Did you escape?”
No.
“They began to kick me. They were still in human form and they didn’t care. They kicked me like a cruel man would kick a dog. I whimpered and pleaded, but they both kept hurting me, saying I shouldn’t be there, saying I needed a pack, saying there wasn’t anyone to protect me.”
“Oh no,” the women gasped.
“Someone saw what was happening and called to them to stop,” William revealed. “That’s how I escaped them. A human saved me. The werewolves ran, but not before telling me they would come back to finish the job. That day I decided I couldn’t do what I had been doing anymore. Before, I had been lucky, but if I meant to survive I needed to do what they said, I needed to find a pack. I needed protection.
“I had never thought of myself as a pup, not until then. Even when I remember the beasts that killed my family I never really thought my size would really matter. Not until that day. Before, I had been free; that day I became a prisoner to my werewolf nature for the first time.”
“So, you abandoned your studies?” It was Grant who asked. It wasn’t surprising - he, being a scholar himself. He probably understood this pain better than anyone.
Will nodded, “Yes, that night I went to my room to pack. I was on the morning train to New York the next day.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Helm expressed, “It must’ve been hard.”
William offered half a smile, “What good was it to be in a university knowing any day a werewolf would come end my life? I decided then that I had been escaping my fate for too long. I was a werewolf and I needed to be with my own kind. There was no avoiding that.”
“Why New York?” Alyssa asked.
“Because I knew the city had a reputation. I knew about the crime and could read between the lines. It was a growing city in the fifties, filled with buildings and cars and people. It was a city like nothing I had ever seen. It was, and still is, a city filled with werewolves… and vampires.”
William’s story was the most extraordinary thing Rebecca had ever heard.
It was time for a break. Lucius had stopped William’s story for lunch because with humans present it was imperative the vampires were well fed. He had turned to the witch Rebecca knew only as Jasmine. The young woman first turned to the older one asking for permission to follow the director’s instructions. Once granted, Jasmine gave a quick turn of the hand, and she disappeared.
“She’s a teleport,” Grant said next to her; perhaps the quickening of her heart after watching the impossible caught his attention. “They are witches.”
Rebecca listened, yet she could not take her eyes off the other one. Victoria, who dressed in black and was adorned with jewelry, remained seated as if a person had not just vanished next to her. Rebecca wondered if she, too, could teleport.
Grant then asked, “You’ve not met witches before?”
Not only had she never met one, but she had never even heard of their existence until they had been introduced to the werewolf earlier that day. She wondered why no one had bothered to tell her about them before. It would have been nice to have known before she was invited to watch a display of their power.
“And… her?” she whispered, not wanting to be heard by the woman in black.
“Victoria?” Fortunately, Grant replied with the same soft tone. “She’s like Lucius. She leads the North American coven.”
“Is she a teleport?”
“No.” Grant dismissed her immediately, “She can tell if you are lying.”
The very idea of someone like Victoria or Jasmine existing in the world made Rebecca feel uneasy. A witch who could travel wherever she wanted and one who could tell if you weren’t being truthful? At least she could understand how these women could be real assets to the agency and to Lucius.
“Are there… many of them?” Rebecca asked another question while studying Victoria and making sure she still had no idea what they were talking about.
“I’m not sure of their numbers, actually,” Grant replied. “I believe they don’t reach the hundreds. But I have been out of touch with agency business for some time now. I couldn’t really tell you.”
This last answer made Rebecca want to know more about Grant. She could tell he was much different than Dylan in many ways. For someone who apparently was supposed to be so important and smart, Grant seemed relaxed and easy-going. Perhaps even a little detached from the problems of the world and the agency. He looked and sounded like a regular human being, not at all like a member of the vampire tribe. In fact, she couldn’t imagine him ever being a part of it.
When Rebecca turned to William, she found him staring at her intently; almost studying her. It made her feel uncomfortable. She could tell he wanted to tell her something, wanted to know something. But the director was right across from him, speaking to the human F.B.I. agent quietly. Dylan, who was beside her, was checking something on his device, if she didn’t know any better, she would think he was avoiding her.
Rebecca then changed her attention to Alyssa. The vampire’s attention was also on her device; those wonderful telephones that were so ahead of their time. She typed messages and smiled quietly at the replies of whomever she was communicating with. She didn’t look worried at all about being in a room with a werewolf. No one did. After having heard what William had to say so far, Rebecca had a feeling he was winning the hearts of everyone who listened.
She could understand why he had come; why he had risked so much in being exposed. His tale wasn’t over, but Rebecca had heard enough. She now wanted to protect him, to accept him as one of them. In part, she couldn’t understand why vampires and werewolves were so different when in fact they shared many things in common.
Jacob Anders reentered the room, interrupting her thoughts an
d breaking William’s fixation with her. This time, the lawyer finally had a stack of papers that he had just printed in the room next door. This had made William take a deep breath as he turned to give his attention to the lawyer.
“Well, Mr. Woods,” Jake told him, “Here’s your life.”
The werewolf raised both eyebrows as he surveyed the tower of white paper before him. “Impressive, I should say.”
“Indeed.” With that, Jake began to go through each document, perhaps trying to ascertain the truth in Will’s story so far.
It was a strange room to be in, Rebecca concluded. They were all supposed to be on the same side, except she felt most a strange tension between these beings that had fantastical lives. A scientist who had invented blood, a lawyer who had hunted werewolves; all there to hear what a fish out of water had to say.
As she watched Jake reading what he had produced intently, she heard Grant begin to speak with Scott beside her. It seemed he was asking him about the well-being of his partner. Rebecca wished she knew more about them, curious as to whom the werewolf hunter had left behind to be present in this room.
The witch, Jasmine, did not simply reappear in the room. She must have traveled back to a different location because she opened the door to the conference room announcing there was Chinese food in the room next door.
Rebecca couldn’t cease to be amazed.
“There were many things I didn’t know that I found out when I got to New York.” William continued with his story after everyone had had lunch. “I might as well have died if it hadn’t been for Eduardo.”
Alyssa stopped him for clarification; “You arrived in New York City, then? What year was it?”
“Perhaps 1955. I rented a cheap room in East Harlem. It was very small, but affordable. I still had quite a bit saved from the war and my time as a farm owner. I left half my savings in a bank in Maryland and took the rest with me.
“I really had no expectations about what would happen in New York once I got there. I only hoped they wouldn’t kill me on sight. My neighborhood was filled with Latinos and Puerto Ricans, who turned out to be very friendly - during the day, at least. I had no problem finding a job as a mover for a truck company. It was easy and it paid well; it also allowed me to start meeting more people who could direct me to the werewolves in town.”
“Weren’t you afraid they would hurt you like the others did?” asked Alyssa.
William smiled, “Oh, I was terrified. Whenever I was attacked in Maryland, I feared for the pain, and for the first time, I also feared for my life. Before Maryland I thought it was impossible for me to die. I was young and naïve, as I’ve said. I hadn’t had anyone tell me how my body really worked. I never talked to anyone about it, nor did I have anyone else to compare to.
“This all changed in New York.”
“I hadn’t been there a week when Eduardo, Eddy, found me. He was of Italian heritage but he couldn’t really speak Italian to save his life,” he remembered that fondly, “He still had an accent and had some Italian expressions mixed with his English, but nothing more. He was in his early thirties, at least physically. When I met him, he had been a werewolf less than five years, which meant I had been roaming the Earth much longer than he had.
“I never told him my real age. I didn’t want to come out as a threat to anyone. My plan before departing for New York was to pretend I had just found out I was a werewolf and I needed help. I wanted to act as a victim who needed more experienced werewolves to survive so they would accept me into a pack out of pity. I was willing to do anything to be protected.
“Because of my physical age and my weak wolf persona, I knew I would always be at the bottom of their ranks and vulnerable to any other werewolf who felt threatened by me for any reason. I needed to be careful.”
“Where is Eduardo now?” It was Lucius who asked this question.
William turned to look at him somberly. He stared at him for a while. “I think I’d rather answer that question as I tell my story, sir.”
Lucius didn’t look very pleased, but still signaled him to continue.
“I was taking out the trash one evening when I caught the scent,” William revealed, “I had been in New York only a few weeks, really. Not long. I was happy to have found another one like me if such a short time. Well, happy and very nervous.”
“I froze when I sensed him, afraid of what could happen next. After all, the only other times I had met werewolves they had hurt me, so I could only assume Eduardo would be the same.
“I couldn’t be more wrong.
“’What’s your name, boy?’ he asked me. He probably saw me as a startled deer found in the middle of the road. My first instinct was to rejoice, but my close second to run. It was probably that same fear that urged me to run away that didn’t let me move. I’m glad I didn’t.
“’You’re the new guy, aren’t you?’ he asked, even if I still refused to talk to relax. ‘I’m Eddy’, he said, ‘I know what you are, capisce?’
“He could tell I was scared. You all know how it is; he could hear my speeding heart, smell my fear. As for me, I could not sense any danger coming from him. Not real danger. So I asked the first thing I thought of asking. ‘Do you have a pack?’ was my question,” Will chuckled at the memory. “Eddy smiled, shrugged and nodded, ‘Sure, do you?’
“I shook my head and Eddy looked surprised. He asked who had made me and I told him I didn’t know. He asked when I had been made, and I said only a few months ago. Most of what I told Eddy was a lie and yet he became my first real friend in a world where men turn into beasts.
“If it hadn’t been Eddy who I first met when I went to New York I wouldn’t be sitting in front of you today.” William knew where the story was going. He had known he would need to relive that part of his life, as well. It was inevitable; the vampires needed to know as much about him as possible to help them understand.
“Eddy was nice to me, he talked to me, and he explained what he knew. I guess he treated me like the little brother he never had. It was through him that I had access to all things I was starved for. He took me to meet his Alpha, a werewolf who went simply by Tom. Like Eddie, he looked like a regular man, nothing dangerous. At least, not to me. Not only that, all of them talked like regular men, too. My first impression was these were civilized enough men, like me.
“Unfortunately, they weren’t like that all of the time.
“Not even Eddy. Sure, he was kind to me most of the time, but with humans, he just lost it for no apparent reason and became aggressive because someone looked at him the wrong way. The worst part was when he was out with a girl. I hated when he invited me to a bar, because I knew he would go there to find girls. Most girls who went to bed with him never came back. Like most werewolves, Eddy had some sort of bipolar disorder; he could be fine and friendly one minute and a complete psycho the next.
“He even punched or kicked me if I said something that offended him and then he would apologize. Most of the time he was my protector, too, so our love-hate relationship grew. I still considered him my friend, especially when I understood it wasn’t really his fault. It was the werewolf blood in him. It was the werewolf blood in all of them.”
Dylan asked, “So your friend was a killer?”
“They were all killers,” nodded William. He knew he couldn’t deny it. He had seen it. He had seen them kill. He knew their nature – his nature. Although for some reason he wasn’t like them, not really. He couldn’t explain it but he had never been like them. He was not bipolar and he didn’t have aggression issues. Why? Why was he so different? Surely the vampires knew less than he did, so he didn’t bother to ask them.
“What happened to Eddy?” It was Rebecca who asked the question again. He imagined they all knew the answer before he told them.
William simply stated, “He was killed by Dylan Torrence.”
Even Dylan looked taken aback. Clearly, he had not expected to hear that. The entire table turned to look at him as if he h
ad done something unforgivable. The silence was ended by the werewolf hunter. “Well, it is my job,” he said as a way of defending himself.
“You were in New York in the 1960s, Dylan?” asked Lucius.
“Possibly,” he answered.
Lucius then turned to the lawyer, “Were you with him, Jake? Were you Dylan’s partner at the time?”
Jake Anders didn’t get a chance to answer. Instead, Dylan did, “No. He left in the 40s, then there was Max and then… I guess I didn’t have a partner when Will was in New York.” Will. He had called him Will, for the first time. That was a difference. That was a change. His name was becoming familiar, personal. Was William being successful in his mission? “I would think I was visiting Anton, as I often did back in the day.”
Lucius quietly agreed.
“I know you were in New York, Dylan,” the werewolf told him. “I saw you. I saw you kill Eddy.”
With a shrug, Dylan didn’t deny anything. “If I killed your friend, I would not remember,” he then said the last thing William expected to hear: “Is this why you’ve come? You have a personal vendetta to avenge your friend?”
His tone was almost taunting; William felt his anger rise. Not many people managed to successfully make him lose control and he was determined Dylan would not be one of the few. That was proving hard at the moment. “No, Mr. Torrence, that is not the case. Sorry to disappoint - again.”
For what felt like forever, the vampire and the werewolf stared at each other in contempt. It took every single grain of willpower to calm Will down; nevertheless, after a deep sigh, he blinked, releasing his eyes from the werewolf hunter’s threatening gaze.
The rest of the creatures present at the table had also tensed; the vampires ready to restrain both their comrade and their potential enemy. William felt, like they all did, relief filling the room after nothing had escalated from the insinuation made.
Werewolf Phenomenon: N.A.V.S.A. Series Book Two (The North American Vampire Secret Agency) Page 10
