The Scions Of Fenrir (The Wolf's Heart Journals Book 1)

by C. G. Calhoun

  Pugs are fantastic little people. After a night filled with blood, claws, and near disembowelment, nothing can make you feel as loved as the snorts and excited sneezes of a pug. After a few minutes of pug snuggles I started the car and headed out. Seven hours later Lily and I climbed into bed in my apartment in Grand Rapids for a much-deserved coma.

  Chapter two

  The best part of waking up is slaughter in your cup.

  Few things piss me off like waking up. For at least an hour in the morning I need quiet and caffeine. Lily feels the same. She generally totters out of my bed room a half hour after I do looking like she was on a three-day bender. She jumps into my lap, burrows her head under a blanket and goes back to sleep while I finish my coffee. That’s a normal morning.

  So being woken by incessant pounding on my door puts me in what can only be called a murderous rage. I tried holding my pillow over my head hoping the villain at my door would go away. After what felt like five hours of nonstop pounding I was finally resigned to the fact that if I wanted peace I was going to have to murder whoever was at my front door. I rolled out of bed and promptly dropped to the floor in agony. My whole body lit up like a Christmas tree of pain. It felt like every nerve was on fire. My breath came in ragged gasps and I was instantly bathed in sweat. It was then that I realized I had gone to bed without my nightly dose of heart. I gritted my teeth and crawled across the floor to my pants. With shaking hands, I pulled out the vial of heart and dumped all of its remaining contents into my mouth. (You don’t have to snort it. I just normally do because some part of me knows I’m an addict). Within a couple seconds the pain washed away and my limbs filled with strength. I still wasn’t pleased to be up but no longer being in pain settled my mood quite a bit.

  I put on a pair of pants and shirt that were not covered in blood and hillbilly werewolf brains. Then shuffled to the door. I would have been in a foul mood even if I had opened the door and found Ed McMann standing there with a giant check. So, you can understand how my mood grew even worse when I opened the door and found myself looking at a face that related to a rather unfortunate incident from my past. It was the stern looking face of a forty something woman with a pronounced facial scar (the scar was new) and a badge standing there. I just about slammed the door. My general relationship with the police can best be described as strained. Most cops know and acknowledge the truth about werewolves when it’s in their face. But as I said I try to get the furry bastards before they wolf out. This occasionally puts me in an awkward position. Cops know that wolves need put down but killing a wolf before it turns does generally look like murder. I normally avoid such awkwardness by skulking about at night and using arson to cover my tracks. When said out loud that does sound rather villainous.

  The officer standing on my front step was one who I had shared one of those awkward, wrist deep in a woman’s chest, moments with. Six years earlier I had been tracking a wolf just north of the tiny town of McMillan in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It was a sparsely populated area so there shouldn’t have been any chance of getting caught. However, I was relatively new to the hunting game and had fucked up big time. I had not come into possession of the colt yet so I was using a riffled shot gun with silver slugs. This was what one might call a learning experience. I learned that pure silver rounds suck. My first couple shots had only winged her and she took off. She was smart and headed right toward town. Town being a relative term considering that McMillan is basically a bar, a closed restaurant and a blinking light. She changed back to human about a hundred yards from the bar. I think her plan had been to get near people and play the scared hurt female card. It was a really good idea. I got scared she would get away and started blasting away with the 12 gauge. I got lucky and blew out her knee. I rushed up and finished her off, then got to work harvesting her heart as fast as I could. It wasn’t fast enough. She wasn’t fully turned back yet and her bones were still hard as hell. It took eons to pop her chest open. I thought I was going to be okay right up until the sheriff’s patrol car skidded to a stop in front of me catching me in its lights with my arms in her chest.

  Out of the car stepped Sheriff Carol Anders. Her gun was drawn and she was not in any mood to listen to my explanation. I was juiced up with wolf heart but I figured that shit was already bad enough and I did not need to add assaulting a police officer into the mix. Ok the truth is she handled her weapon like a pro and I didn’t relish the idea of her putting two into my chest. That shit hurts like hell.

  Things got extremely tense. It seems that the she wolf I had gunned down, in full view of all the local bar patrons, was a teacher at the local school. And the wife of the pastor at the United Methodist church over in Newberry. Because of course she fucking was. I mean if I was going to gun down a local woman and perform post mortem butchery in front of a group of locals why wouldn’t it be on a well-respected pastor’s wife?

  As you could easily guess my assertion that the former Mrs. Nora McAllister was a blood thirsty shapeshifter and I was doing the local population a favor was met with a good bit of skepticism. It was also met with a good bit of nightstick justice. I can see things from the Sheriff’s perspective. In her mind, I was some sick fuck who butchered a friend of hers and here I was trying to victim blame after ripping the poor woman’s heart out of her chest. So, I let her work me over with the night stick a bit. When she was through venting her rage I politely requested my one phone call.

  An hour after my call a tall dapper looking man in a pin stripe suit walked into the sheriff’s office. Alexander Jackson is the man who had set me on this path. He gave me my first taste of wolf heart. I’m still not sure if that makes him my savior or the fucking devil himself. I am however sure of one thing. Alex is a scary man. Not in any overt way. He doesn’t radiate menace, quite the opposite in fact. Alex moves and speaks with old world grace and manners. He looks to be in his early forties but I am sure he is far older. He radiates power. When he walks into a room or situation it is just unconsciously known by everyone that he is in control. Alexander is my buyer. He introduced me to hunting and in turn gave me my life back. He is also the one I call when shit gets really out of hand. When shit goes pear shaped, no matter where I am, he arrives within an hour. Most of the time he just talks me out of the issue but there have been times when things were truly fucked and my exit was made past bodies.

  On that night Alexander talked to the good sheriff for less than fifteen minutes before he left. Soon after Sheriff Anders was unlocking my cell and setting me free. I don’t know what was said to her but I could see she was rattled. However, she did have enough composure to let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not welcome in her county again. I believe the term “shoot on sight” was used. I collected my gear and beat feet the fuck out of there.

  I heard through contacts that a month later Sheriff Anders put down a full-on werewolf outbreak in her county. She was seriously hurt but by all accounts, she dropped four or five young wolves by herself…which is impressive as fuck.

  I stood there for a moment debating slamming the door in Sheriff Ander’s face. She just stood there looking at me. Six years had passed and by the scar that ran diagonally across her face it was obvious that her perspective on what I do had shifted a bit. But her stern green eyes still held at least a bit of the revulsion she had displayed as she beat the stuffing out of me with her night stick. Knowing that I killed bad things would never change the fact that the first time she saw me I was covered in the blood of a woman she considered a friend.

  We just stood there staring at each other for a few more seconds. Her inner feelings about me being a “low life murdering psychopath” at war with whatever duty had brought her to my door. For my part I was just trying to decide whether I would just slam the door in her face or if I would say something snarky and then slam the door in her face. My major hang up being that my sleepy brain was having trouble finding something properly witty to say.

  It was at that moment that my trusty houn
d made her snorting, sneezing tottery way to the door to see what all the fuss was about. The scowl melted off Sheriff Anders face and a huge grin replaced it. That, my friends, is one of the powers of a pug. No normal human can be grumpy in the presence of such cuteness. In fact, if you find someone who hates pugs do yourself a favor and either run or better yet do the rest of humanity a favor and put a bullet in them. No good can come from allowing such monsters to roam free.

  Sheriff Anders began laughing. Lily sat at my feet staring up at her, turning her head from side to side as if trying to figure out what was so funny. “A pug? You have a pug. “She said, finally containing her laughter. “I would not have been surprised if you had a pit bull or a hell hound but I was not expecting this.”

  “They’re a noble and ancient breed” I muttered. “Would you like to come in Sheriff?” I had decided to find out why she was at my door. If she liked Lily I figured she couldn’t be that bad.

  “It’s Lieutenant now” she said as she stepped inside.

  I led Carol up the stairs to my small apartment. I threw a mug in the coffee maker so that I could begin the belated morning process of pumping caffeine into my body and getting my neurons to start firing. The good Lieutenant declined a cup for herself. Probably figuring that after our last encounter I might be prone to spiking it with bleach. (The thought had quickly crossed my mind) Or, more likely, she didn’t want to debase herself by imbibing anything a degenerate like me had touched. With the coffee in hand I shuffled into my living room and took up residence in my favorite recliner. Normally as soon as my ass hits the seat Lily jumps up and assumes her place on my lap. However, the little turn coat was occupied by vigorous belly rubs from Lieutenant Anders.

  “So, what brings you here Lieutenant? I would have figured after the last time I saw you that nothing short of a kill order with my name on it would bring you in contact with me.” I decided to poke the bear right out of the gate.

  All the pug joy fled from Anders face as she looked up at me. Her face filled with a bit of old pain and, to her credit, a bit of chagrin. “To be completely honest I wouldn’t choose to stop in for coffee with you of my own accord.” She paused for a second and a deep sadness came into her eyes. “Nora was a friend of mine. We went to high school together. I was her maid of honor when she got married.” She stopped again to compose herself. “That’s why I went as nuts on you as I did. I’m not proud of my reaction but even now knowing what she was I have a hard time looking at you and not seeing the man who murdered my friend”

  I was at a bit of a loss as to what to say. I’m excellent at talking shit or being snarky but dealing with people in a real way is not my strong suit. The fact is that I have very little experience with it. My memories only go back eight years (I’ll explain later) and most of those years have been spent traveling the country alone or with Lily killing things. In short, I have the social skills of a heavily armed preteen.

  So, I just sat there sipping my coffee while the awkward silence lingered and Lieutenant Anders took a second to visibly get a hold of herself. Then she got to business. “Like I said. I would rather not be here, however, my boss has instructed me to come here and see if you can help out with a situation that occurred this morning.”

  “Your boss?” I asked.

  “Chief Mercer” She replied

  Interesting, I thought. Ian Mercer is the Chief of the Grand Rapids police department. A man with his head about as far from his ass as any cop I had ever known. Mercer did not let any taboo or edict from the American Reform Catholic church get in the way of him protecting his people. He was actually proactive. He had a unit dedicated to watching out for and handling things that go bump in the night. It made sense that he would hire someone like Anders. An officer that had faced nightmares and killed the fuck out of them.

  “Ah” I said. “Ian asked you to bring me in on something.”

  “Chief Mercer thinks you could be helpful.”

  “But you don’t” I said. Looking her in the eye.

  Anders looked like she was going to say something biting but then I saw the ire retreat a bit. She looked tired. “Frankly I don’t know.” She leaned back and sank a bit into my sofa as she spoke. “I know what you do. In fact, you are rather widely known among the members of the law enforcement community who choose to buck tradition by actually discussing and preparing for the supernatural.” Bravo for me. “You are known to be quite good at dispatching werewolves and it seems that your methods have become quite a bit more efficient and quiet than when I met you. But I’m not sure your skill set is of much use in what we are dealing with and it’s not like I haven’t dealt with the supernatural myself. I am betting you heard about what happened but in my county.”

  “Just rumors. I heard that you guys got hit with a full court press of wolves. A group of young ones. Probably infected by the pastor’s wife….”

  “Nora. Her name was Nora.” Anders interjected.

  I made a capitulating gesture with my hands and continued. “Young wolves, probably turned by Nora. I heard it got really bad but you took out four or five of them by yourself despite getting beat up pretty bad.” I gestured at the scar bisecting her face. “Which is pretty damn impressive by the way.”

  She shrugged. ‘That’s pretty much the size of it. After my encounter with you I took the idea of werewolves more seriously. Especially after the coroner showed me Nora’s body. She hadn’t fully turned back to human before she died. Luckily I was well armed when the attack happened.” Her eyes glazed over a bit for a moment. I could tell that some part of her was back there. A part of her would always be back there. Fighting for her life against nightmares and watching people die.

  One of the reasons people pretend everything is hunky dory is because it’s just too much. Life is shitty and complicated enough. Bills, work, personal relationships and family take up so much of people’s lives. All of that can seem over whelming in and of itself. Then you add monsters into it and it’s enough to drive a person mad. Plus, there’s the church. From the time we are little the church tells us to trust in it and everything will be ok. Believe and you will be delivered from evil. And yes, I have seen faith magic in action, it’s crazy strong. Unfortunately, belief like that borders on the insane. Few people can harness that. And the church is in the hands of humans.

  Too often the leaders of the church seem to think that believing in magic and in the truth about evil creatures takes away from belief in their god. They act like facing the truth is spitting in the face of god’s might. It’s a very black and white philosophy that unfortunately has gotten a lot of people eaten.

  I bring all this up because it has a lot to do with why I gained a lot of respect for Carol Anders in that moment. I looked in her eyes and I saw that she had faced the darkness we are all told to deny and she had survived. She faced a nightmare. I hunt werewolves. But I face them on mostly even terms. Or I bushwhack and assassinate them. She faced them head on. No enhanced abilities. Just her courage and a gun. Well probably lots of guns and big ones to boot but still. Those memories will never fade. And she decided to continue not only facing that reality but to face it for others over and over again. That takes either guts or insanity. Probably both.

  “Anyway” she said, stepping back from those awful memories. “I have seen strange and terrible things but what I saw this morning was both and more. Ian said that you’ve helped before and that you’ve tracked and killed more werewolves than anyone else he knows.”

  It’s true that I’ve killed a lot of lycans. I do know of someone better than me but he’s retired so that would make me the best bet for reigning champ. “Well I appreciate his vote of confidence. Now you’ve been pretty good about not saying exactly what is going on. So why don’t you give me the details.”

  She quickly stood up from the couch. “It’s probably better if you see for yourself” She said. “I don’t think I could do it justice.”

  “Well that’s not foreboding at all.” I said as sh
e started toward the door.

  Five minutes later I opened the back door of her unmarked charger to put Lily and her travel supplies into the back seat. With my little black pugger secure and comfy I slid into the passenger side of Anders unmarked modern muscle car and ran directly into her incredulous stare. The white line of her scar was scrunched up as she looked at me like I had grown a second head. “You’re bringing a pug to a crime scene?”

  It’s not the first time I’ve been questioned about Lily’s presence. So, I gave my normal response. “Lily and I prefer the term Dutch Mastiff.” I stared straight ahead so that I could keep a straight face. Anders stared at me for another couple seconds, obviously expecting more in the way of explanation. She didn’t get any. Finally, she turned her eyes to the road and pulled out.

  Bringing Lily serves several purposes. First off, pugs hate being alone. They have been bred as companion dogs for thousands of years. They love their people and being away from them stresses them out. Secondly, with Anders attention on Lily it was less likely she would question my hoody on this 70-degree spring day. The hoody nicely hides the 1911. It also hides the machete and the extra magazines. Right then it was also hiding a couple other surprises. Anders’ reticence to give details had me a bit spooked. And there is a reason I have a pug. They have a very specific skill set that makes them valuable in what I do.

  Lieutenant Anders had us headed west on Fulton and took a left onto Fuller then west again on Lake. She kept her eyes forward and didn’t speak. About a block down Lake I caught the unmistakable scent combination of blood, feces, vomit and anxiety. I had taken a healthy dose of heart powder before leaving the house so my senses were on point. That combo of smells unmistakably meant slaughter. My stomach churned a bit. This was only a few blocks from my place. I knew the area well. One of my favorite restaurants was over this way. Within a couple seconds of smelling the blood I saw the strobing lights of police cars and the barricades across the road.