Werewolf Phenomenon: N.A.V.S.A. Series Book Two (The North American Vampire Secret Agency)

by Claudia Silva

  The sound of his laughter filled the entire forest. William laughed like she had never heard anyone laugh in a long time, so free and innocent. When he didn’t stop, she began to feel uncomfortable. To change the subject, she began walking faster in an effort to leave him behind.

  “Wait!” Will said between chuckles. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” He finally caught up to her. “It’s just…”

  “It doesn’t make any sense? I know.” Her arms were crossed, her head not turning to look at him. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Then, why did he do it?” Will asked, “Why did you do it?”

  After a moment, she said, “Like I said, I thought it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.”

  At last, whatever fun Will had been having finally disappeared. He asked, “You don’t want to be a vampire?”

  “It’s not that, it’s-“ Only Rebecca stopped herself. Here she was, about to open her heart to a complete stranger. Not just a stranger – a werewolf! “Whatever the reason,” she said instead, “it has worked for the best. For everyone.”

  William was quiet. He had to understand she wouldn’t just answer all of his questions. She watched him clear his throat as he kept walking, his expression stoic, suddenly. “Well, as long as it’s what you want, agent Sawyer.”

  It is, she wanted to say.

  “And what about you?” It was Rebecca’s turn to ask her questions.

  “What about me? You just heard my story,” William replied. “That’s it, I don’t think there’s anything more to say.”

  Rebecca was thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t understand why you want to come live with us. We’re vampires. You’re a werewolf. You will not be accepted even if they decide to take you in.”

  It took William a few minutes to decide what to say. So much Rebecca began to think he wasn’t going to answer at all. “Imagine,” he began, “that you love life.” Rebecca didn’t understand, but did as she was told. “Imagine, that you live in a place where you are forced to do and be something you are not.”

  “Okay,” she was still confused.

  “Imagine you can’t just leave and start a life where you want. Not work where you want and not do what you like to do.”

  Rebecca thought of her life before becoming a vampire. It was just like what William was asking her to imagine, wasn’t it? She loved life, or at least she thought she did. She had been denied the life she had wanted and had been forced to do something she didn’t really want to do in a place she didn’t really want to be in.

  She said, “A lot of people live like that. They work a job they hate and marry a person they don’t really love.”

  “Perhaps,” William agreed, “but they don’t have to do it for eternity. They at least have a choice.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t.” William suddenly looked so sad. “I pretend I’m weak and a fool and naive every single day of my life. I take beatings, insults, and are ordered around like a pet every single day. Do you understand?”

  Rebecca frowned, “But, you said they treated you like their young?”

  “They do,” he smiled. “They treat me like a child and I get consequences for any little thing whenever they need a scapegoat to cope with whatever hormone imbalance they just happen to have at the moment. They would never kill me. I can like a thousand years and they would let me live, but I don’t want that life.”

  “And we are different?”

  His eyes opened wide, “Yes! You will treat me like a human being.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I know.”

  It did make sense to Rebecca. She had questions, but overall she understood. “Why not leave and go hide someplace where they can’t find you?”

  “And be afraid for the rest of my life thinking the next time I go to the store or the movies I will meet one of them. They are everywhere. They found me once, they will do it again.”

  “So, your solution is to hide in an underground bunker with vampires.”

  William smiled, “I happen to think it’s a good plan.”

  “If you say so,” she said.

  In reality, she understood more than she dared to admit. She had followed Dylan to an underground bunker, turned into a vampire, and left the rest of society behind because she didn’t like what she had. Was she that different than this werewolf?

  For the first time in her life, she was discovering her true purpose. She felt whole; like the last piece of a puzzle was no longer missing. She owed it all to Dylan and maybe William will owe his happiness to the director of the vampire agency.

  Part of her wanted to share her thoughts with Will. For some reason, she didn’t think she was ready. It was too personal and perhaps one day she would have time to get to know William enough to trust him with her past and her motivation. That time wasn’t now. At least not yet. Instead, she walked beside him in silence, a small smile on her face, until she finally saw a glimpse of artificial light.

  “You hear that?” Will asked. It was music. Wherever they were going, where the bright lights illuminated the forest, was some kind of a restaurant or bar. The music was loud enough to escape the walls and reach their ears even if they had been just human.

  “What is this place?” Rebecca wondered; although she had a very good idea where they had stumbled upon.

  They had stopped on the other side of the road. Across from them, a large wooden building stood surrounded by cars parked in a sea of gravel. A lot of cars. The place looked more like a huge barn than anything else, and at the very top, painted with red paint, the words Hugo’s Canteen could barely be read in the darkness. There were not enough lamps to light the parking lot. Besides, apart from the music coming out of the building, it might as well have been abandoned.

  “Do you know this road?” Will asked her.

  “I don’t recognize it,” she said. “Perhaps there’s a sign near here we can find.”

  Will nodded, “Or we can go inside and ask to borrow the phone.”

  “And who would we call?”

  “I don’t know,” Will frowned, “Friends of yours at your agency? Someone who could come pick us up?”

  Dylan, Grant, and Jake were all missing as far as Rebecca knew. They had probably jumped out of the airplane or had died in the crash, although she doubted the latter. For the last time, Rebecca took out her broken phone out of her pants’ pocket. Nothing. It was completely dead.

  “I don’t know any numbers,” she confessed. “They are all on my phone.”

  Will chuckled, “You’re kidding.”

  “I don’t know them,” she confessed. “But we could call a cab and a cab can take us wherever we want, right?”

  “You got any money?” asked Will.

  “No, but the driver doesn’t need to know that.”

  Will liked the plan. At least they had found civilization. “Wonderful, let’s go.”

  “Wait!” Rebecca stopped him, grabbing him by the arm. For a moment she felt the burning from his hot skin against her much colder touch, a reminder they were more than met the eye. “Look at me, I can’t go in there.”

  She was right; from head to toe she was covered in dried blood - for the second time that day, she might add - and out in the wilderness there wasn’t a reliable FBI agent ready to give her a bag with a change of clothes.

  “You’re right,” Will agreed as he took another look at her. “You better stay here.”

  Rebecca nodded watching her new friend walk barefoot over to the road to cross it. He was nervous, she could tell. Not only could she hear the beating of his heart over the music playing in the background, but she could also smell his sweat making the werewolf’s aroma slightly more pungent.

  It didn’t take Will long to disappear quickly once he had found a way in. Rebecca sighed, hopeful; there was nothing left to do but wait.

  Will entered the bar feeling out of place immediately. The music didn’t stop, but it might as well have. T
he moment he put one foot inside the building, all eyes turned to look at him. There was something different about the crowd, something that took him a while to figure out. Staring at him, were a bunch of men. If anything, this bar was missing all the female patrons. Left and right, all he could see were men, young and old, rich and poor; it didn’t matter. There wasn’t a woman in sight.

  There was a full moon up in the sky, which meant that all of Will’s senses were naturally heightened, all of his powers enhanced. For a werewolf, the hormone that attracted the opposite sex was at its peak during a full moon. After many full moons, Will was used to feeling an unnatural attraction to women. Now that he thought about it, he realized this phenomenon didn’t seem to apply to the vampire, Rebecca. Just the same, he was used to strange women throwing themselves at him just because of what he was.

  This time, however, it was different; all of the men in the bar not only turned to look at him, they were also finding him irresistibly attractive.

  “Oh, no,” Will gulped as the full meaning of what was happening struck him.

  The music abruptly stopped and the last beer mugs found their way back to the tables. If this wasn’t the only place where he could have found a phone for miles, he would have turned around and run.

  It was too late; whatever he had started by entering that room had already been set in motion.

  “Hello, sugar,” he heard a deep male voice say besides him. Cautiously, Will turned to look at the man who had spoken. The smile broke through a thick mustache, a curved nose, brown eyes and a small earring on his right earlobe. The short, thin man looked threatening, but his expression showed the complete opposite. This was a man in love, attracted by a force he couldn’t possibly begin to understand.

  “Hi,” Will’s voice broke weakly.

  His anxiety was interrupted by another voice; not as deep this time, but just as filled with infatuation. “I saw this one first.” The second man was taller and muscular, “Didn’t I, handsome?”

  Will didn’t care to respond; instead, he excused himself from the two gentlemen, saying, “My friend and I are lost.” Clearly, no one had heard what he’d said, so he started moving away as far as he could from his two new suitors, instead. Not that it did any good; it seemed all eyes were glued to his every movement. “So, I was wondering,” he continued, “if I could make a phone call.”

  He was blocked by the chest of a big, heavy man. “You can use my phone, handsome,” he said. Will wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.

  “Thank you, but I think the landline will work just fine,” he began while evading the big body and moving towards the bar. To the bartender, a slim man in a polo shirt who seemed to be cleaning a glass all too well, he said, “Listen, do you have a phone I could use?”

  The bartender simply stared at him.

  Then he felt a heavy hand rested on his shoulder. All Will could do was close his eyes, take a deep breath, and wish he had never set foot in the bar.

  “I’ll buy you a drink, honey,” the big, fat man he had just avoided, said.

  “Excuse me,” said the first man, the one with the heavy mustache, “but I believe that drink is coming out of my pocket.”

  Oh, no.

  “Know your place, little man,” the fat man told him, his voice too feminine for his appearance.

  “Little man?” scoffed mustache man, “Who are you calling little?”

  “Gentlemen!” Will interfered, although there was no stopping whatever was going to happen.

  “I’m calling you a little man, because that’s what I see, little man,” the fat man smirked.

  Without warning, mustache man’s fist was ready to take a punch. The big, fat man didn’t expect it and almost fell on top of Will when he received it. Angered by the action, the big man was quick to regain his footing and hit his attacker back.

  “Nobody hits Louie like that!” yelled someone.

  “Oh yeah?” said someone else.

  With great agility, Will climbed the bar until he was safe on the other side, next to the bartender.

  “Where’s your phone?” he asked him.

  The bartender was completely oblivious to his presence at this point, a clear sign of his sexual orientation, but also the fact he was currently distracted by a bar that had broken into the greatest fistfight in its history. From the other side, Will heard chairs and glass breaking here and there. As the young werewolf peeked from under the bar he could see punches flying and landing in the most unexpected places.

  He had to get out of there.

  But, not before finding a phone.

  Amongst the bodies moving around the bar, he finally spotted a pay phone. It was across the room, which meant he would need to walk through the turmoil.

  If only there had been another route, he would have taken it, but knowing he couldn’t let Rebecca down coming out empty handed, he jumped the bar and, avoiding blows, mugs, and chairs, he made it to the phone.

  Quickly, his fingers moved to the only three numbers he could think off.

  911.

  Rebecca heard the commotion and wondered. Something had most certainly gone wrong. Did she need to go rescue Will? Had something happened to him? No. It was more like, had he hurt anyone? He was a werewolf, after all. Anything could set him off into a raving streak. Without giving it much thought and feeling responsible, she decided she needed to find out what was going on. Making sure there wasn’t anyone around to see her, she quickly looked both ways before crossing the road. She found refuge between the parked cars before entering the bar.

  It was not easy to focus on what was happening inside. To start, it was overwhelming to smell so many human beings near her, which made it difficult to focus on what she was hearing. Were men fighting Will in there? It was all very confusing to her.

  It hadn’t taken Will long to start a fight, it seemed. Rebecca debated whether she should interfere. What could she do? Feeling in her other pocket, she felt her “fake” FBI badge, still in there. At least she hadn’t lost it in the fall. Maybe she could flash it, make the men stop their brawl. Although, would it really work? There were dozens of men inside that building and they sounded crazed, she could hear glass breaking and wood smashing. No one would listen to her. Besides, she looked like she had just come out from a killing spree all covered in blood; it would only make things worse. Yet, she had to do something.

  Still trying to make up her mind, she began to walk towards the establishment’s door knowing she had to act.

  It was then that she heard the phone call. It was Will. He was calling-

  “No!” she suddenly cried out loud. Why would Will call 911? She thought of this some more… although, whom else could he call to stop a brawl? Even if he hadn’t, some was going to eventually. Even so, they had agreed he would be calling a cab, not the police! If only her phone worked; too bad all the names and numbers of those who could help them were trapped in the stupid broken phone. What use was the agency’s over the top technology if she wasn’t able to use it?

  It didn’t matter, she had to get Will out of there, and fast. They had to go back to the woods. They had to hide and wait for a better time and place to look for the others.

  The siren blared loudly at the same time the bright lights surrounded her. How had the cops gotten to the middle of nowhere so fast? She didn’t know 911 to be so efficient. Unless…

  The police car had been parked there all along. It was almost as if it was ready to be called into action. The scent of the human inside it was mixed with the rest of the men inside the bar and she hadn’t paid much attention to it. Perhaps if she had been more focused she would have realized there was someone in the parking lot with her. Too bad she had too many other things on her mind.

  Instinctively, she reached behind her back to fetch a gun that was no longer there. The cop got out of the car with a bright flashlight, his gun in front of his face. He was only a few cars away, but close enough to aim his weapon at her when he yelled, “Freeze!”r />
  “I’m unarmed!” was all Rebecca could think of saying.

  “Put your hands in the air!” the policeman added.

  “I’m not armed, officer,” Rebecca repeated. “Really, all I need is to call someone to pick me up.”

  It was a moot point trying to reason with the man. Without taking his hand off the trigger, the police officer began walking towards her. “See that blue car?” Rebecca glanced at an old Ford next to her knowing what he was going to say next, “Put your hands on the hood and spread your legs.”

  Rebecca could think on a million things to say, but none that would get her out of the mess.

  The cop looked to be in his mid-forties, he had a well-trimmed beard and high cheekbones. He was a little over-weight, but not enough to be a handicap in a pursuit. One thing he also looked like, was someone who meant business.

  It didn’t take long for the cop to end the distance between them. Rebecca felt his hands on her as he quickly and efficiently handcuffed her behind her back. All the time she knew there had to be something she could say to get out of her situation, something she obviously didn’t have time to figure out. Even mentioning she was a Federal Agent felt like the wrong thing to say because how do you explain to someone why you are covered in blood in a way that would make sense.

  Several courses of action sprang to mind, but the one about breaking the cuffs, incapacitating the officer and running away was the worst possible scenario because even if she ran away… What about Will?

  It was useless. Calmly, Rebecca decided it was best to cooperate and let the officer take her to the station. From there, everything would be cleared up. They would find her badge, call the F.B.I. and her identity would be revealed. Her biggest problem then would be having to hear Dylan laugh at her for letting herself be arrested in the first place.

  Dylan. If he was still alive. He had to be alive, he was a survivor, after all. She refused to think otherwise.

  As she heard the rest of the police cars approach, she knew the brawl inside the bar would soon be over; meaning she would have plenty of company at the station.