Cry Wolf

by Aurelia T. Evans

  “You’re a busy man,” Kelly said. “We understand.”

  Abraham set a hand on Kelly’s shoulder, but he addressed both her and Malcolm. “Thank you for agreeing to see me. I know you’ve already eaten, but I have not. Would you care to join me for a drink? And knowing your kind, you might like some food as well. I’ll inform the chef if you do.”

  “Just the drinks, thank you,” Kelly replied.

  “Yes, please,” Malcolm said.

  Something approaching awe resonated in Malcolm’s voice, and Kelly shivered again. Although Abraham recognised that both of them were werewolves and she was a witch, his manner with them was as charming and easy as if they were humans.

  As if they posed no threat at all.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He led them through the hall, past the kitchen and living room, to the master bedroom in the back. The bedroom itself was the size of a decent apartment, bigger than Kelly’s apartment before she’d transformed. A folding screen partially obscured the bed, but the main part of the room consisted of a makeshift living room and dining area, a place for private sessions.

  As she entered, a vision came. Abraham speaking with a boy dressed all in black, with black lipstick and a piercing through his nose. They sat at the small table to the right near the side tables that had been draped to cover their contents. The boy was a vampire, and he was begging with Abraham, who reassured him with compassion etched in the lines of his face.

  Kelly blinked the vision away and continued into the room. The table where she had seen Abraham and the boy from the past had been set with Abraham’s dinner, considerately warmed. A bottle of red wine stood next to three glasses.

  “Is this your home?” Kelly asked.

  “No,” Abraham said, settling at the table and bidding the two of them to sit on the settee across from him. “I am merely a guest. The owner was kind enough to offer me the use of his front yard and his master suite. Completely unsolicited, I assure you.”

  “I believe you,” Kelly said. People had given islands to con men for less than what Abraham offered.

  “Would you care for some wine?” Abraham asked. He nodded to the bottle. “I apologise for not serving everyone myself, but I’m famished. Please don’t feel you have to be polite on account of me. You were invited as guests, not students or subjects. Help yourselves.”

  Kelly asked Malcolm with an arch of her eyebrow whether he wanted any wine. He nodded. He seemed struck dumb, his large hands graceless in his lap. She stood from the settee and, using the corkscrew next to the glasses, she uncorked the bottle.

  “Do I need to let it breathe?” she asked, glancing briefly at Abraham.

  “I confess I am far from a wine connoisseur,” Abraham replied with a self-deprecating smile. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Kelly poured equal amounts of the Merlot in all three glasses and put Abraham’s in front of his plate before bringing hers and Malcolm’s to the settee. She was about to quietly warn Malcolm not to drink yet, but he took more than just a sip as soon as it was in his hand. Kelly winced but said nothing, just sat down and brought the glass up to her nose to detect any potion in the wine. The bottle was unlabelled, and there were ways to spike a closed bottle.

  Abraham noted that she wasn’t drinking from her glass, merely staring at him over the rim. His self-deprecating smile deepened. He put down his knife to lift his glass, salute her and take a drink. She couldn’t smell anything other than the bouquet of the wine, and with Abraham’s willingness to drink—the wine level in his glass was lower now to show that he had indeed swallowed the wine—Kelly took a sip of her own. She was relieved to discover that in spite of a heady bouquet, the alcohol was relatively weak. She would have no more than just the one glass, though.

  Abraham ate some of his meal then asked, “Am I right to assume that the two of you are here for a cleansing?”

  “I’m the one here for the cleansing,” Malcolm replied. “She agreed to bring me.”

  “Why come if you don’t subscribe to my philosophy? If you do not believe yourself to be sick, why look for a cure?” Abraham asked her, not unkindly.

  “I’m here for him and him alone,” Kelly said, cradling the wine glass around its delicate stem. “He’s new.”

  “You aren’t new, then,” Abraham said.

  “In werewolf terms, I’m an adolescent. Four years,” Kelly said. “I have a pack waiting.” Her body language was closed off, dismissive, deliberately so.

  Abraham considered her over the rest of his meal. He dabbed his mouth and the trimmed facial hair around it then set the napkin over his cleared plate. He stood, bringing his wine with him as he sat across from them on an armchair.

  “Why not?” Abraham said. “You’re here and I’m offering you a chance to reach your true potential without the chains of the werewolf holding back your not inconsiderable magical ability. I saw it the minute our eyes met, my dear.”

  Kelly steeled her gaze. “I’m here for him,” she repeated. “He’s here to get the lycanthropy removed. Only him.”

  “It’s a reasonable question,” Abraham said. “I mean no disrespect.”

  “Bullshit. Of course you do. That’s what this operation is, isn’t it? Some kind of magical plastic surgery, meant to remove anything that’s too big or too small until it fits your idea of what magic should be, because your idea of what magic should be is the only good kind. Anything else, anything wild, that’s bad. Right?”

  “It’s unbalanced,” Abraham said. “Surely you can understand why I might believe so. After all, the witches, fae, vampires and werewolves come to me. They’re the ones who tell me how out of control they feel, that they are driven by desires they despise, ruled by their appetites rather than reason. I determine my message according to my research, not the other way around.”

  “Did you just ignore those of us who are perfectly fine with what we are? As perfectly fine as anyone is with what they are,” Kelly amended.

  “Then you are discontent,” Abraham said, leaning forward.

  “Everyone is a little discontent,” she said. “You can’t honestly tell me that you are perfectly content with how you are.”

  “This is true,” Abraham replied. “I would not be a true academic if I did not seek to increase my understanding. Discontentment breeds desire, ambition, the quest for the truth.”

  “I didn’t ask for my magic or my lycanthropy,” Kelly said. “I was born with one and the other was done to me. I wasn’t happy with either, but with both I’m far happier than I would have been with one or the other separately.”

  “Explain,” Abraham said, putting his glass on the side table. He loosened his tie and the top button of his shirt, unwinding although he still wore his full suit and robes. “All I see in you is magic bound in the chains of a wolf. How much more would you be capable of if that didn’t impede you?”

  “That’s the point,” Kelly replied. “As the wolf, I am strong. It’s big enough and strong enough that the magic doesn’t overtake me. I don’t have to constantly hold it inside of me like I did as a human, with varying degrees of failure. Are you telling me you want that? Magic leaking out of me like a pilot light until someone sparks an explosion?”

  “Is that how you see yourself?” Abraham asked. “And your magic?”

  “I’ve read the stories about spontaneous combustion,” Kelly said. “Many of those people had our kind of magic in them. That was what I feared would happen to me, or a variation thereof.”

  “Yet here I am,” Abraham said, spreading his arms. “I haven’t died yet.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I could teach you. The lesser witches, those witches with their covens and their dusty books and little chants, they don’t understand the breadth and depth of elemental magic that we possess. You are not alone. I have the ability you have and the control you were never able to master. I can teach you.”

  “You may have my kind of magic, but you have none of my fear,” K
elly replied. “And that makes me nervous.”

  “Let me teach you, and I can take your fear away,” Abraham said, his eyes smouldering beneath his bushy eyebrows.

  “Not to interrupt,” Malcolm said, clearly interrupting.

  For a moment, Abraham could not conceal his annoyance.

  “But Father Abraham seems to be offering you the very same thing you were offering me as a werewolf.”

  “Yeah, and look at how well that turned out,” Kelly snapped.

  Malcolm winced at her venom. “But you’re mad at me for that. Is there a reason why he shouldn’t be mad if you tell him that you won’t even consider learning?” Malcolm said.

  “I know my magic. You don’t,” Kelly said to Malcolm, but she was looking at Abraham. “Don’t presume to tell me what I should do with it.”

  “I can help you,” Abraham said. His gentle voice went harsh with feeling.

  Kelly leant forward and rested her forearms over the length of her thighs. “You might be able to help me, but what about the thousands of people that die while you try?”

  “The magic is a part of you—” Abraham began.

  “Like a malignant tumour. I don’t turn my back on it for a second, but I don’t have to be quite so vigilant with it anymore as the wolf. Do you have any idea how nice it is that I can have a bad dream without conjuring a storm? And by the way, magic was a part of those people who burnt themselves to a crisp, too.”

  “I won’t let it do that to you,” Abraham said. “You aren’t an explosion.”

  “I was an explosion four years ago. I’m closer to a nuclear strike these days.”

  Abraham’s eyes sparkled. “And you think the werewolf helps you control that?” he said.

  “I know it does.”

  “You don’t give a beast keys to the kingdom, Kelly.”

  She had never told him her name. Two people could play that game.

  “I’m not asking for a kingdom, Abraham Kinkaid. I’m just asking for some peace,” Kelly said.

  “Werewolves give you no peace.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she replied.

  “Would I? Human killers, the lot of them,” Abraham said.

  “Not me.”

  “Never?”

  “Once,” Kelly said. “Never again.”

  “Strange. I managed to make it my whole human life without killing another human being,” Abraham said.

  “I was new. I didn’t want to,” Kelly replied. “Being new, I had little control. I’ve since learned to handle the scent of a human being.”

  “Like me.”

  “You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Kelly said.

  “I don’t begrudge a wolf for being a wolf, Kelly, or a cat for being a cat or a lion for being a lion. A lion will tear a human limb from limb if he so chooses,” Abraham said. He stood and began to pace, the way he did on the stage. “But beasts were meant to be beasts, and man was meant to be man. Ne’er the twain shall meet. When they do, the unique brilliance of the human is diminished.”

  “You make an incorrect assumption,” Kelly said.

  “Enlighten me,” he replied.

  “That men aren’t beasts.”

  Abraham clasped his hands behind him. A showman, he would be conscious of the profile he displayed, but his posture was also as effortless and natural to him as the soothing quality of his speech.

  “Is that so?” he asked, amused. “I remove the beast for those that ask it of me. If the beast can be removed, how can it be a true part of us?”

  “I don’t know how you remove it, whether it’s like a growth, a kidney or a hangnail. I don’t even know if you even remove it at all,” Kelly said.

  “Kelly,” Malcolm said, almost in warning.

  “No, don’t defend him,” Kelly snapped. “I saw humans out there, humans who have always been human. I smelt vampires and werewolves and maybe a faerie,” Kelly said. “But I didn’t smell anyone who had been cleansed, who still had the scent of their old selves on them like an echo. Even your bodyguard is still werewolf.”

  “Yet very loyal,” Abraham said. “No need to defend me, Malcolm, she makes an excellent point. I can offer her no evidence to convince her. Many of the magical creatures who come for me to cleanse their impurities, they leave immediately after to their human lives. Others live in the Salvation compound. They don’t need my Saturday services anymore, nor do they wish to be confronted with what they have been. Do you begrudge them that?”

  “It does seem strange that they aren’t here singing your praises with the rest of the humans you keep around,” Kelly said. “What is a church without converts to flaunt?”

  “I’m no preacher,” Abraham said.

  “Could have fooled me,” Kelly replied. “You’re a shepherd to your flock, a Father to your impressionable children.”

  “Kelly,” Malcolm said, putting a conciliatory hand on her back. “Are you even arguing with Abraham anymore or are you fighting something else?”

  “You want to put your life and soul in the hands of this charlatan?” Kelly accused.

  “I have already proved I’m no charlatan,” Abraham said.

  “No, you proved you’re a witch. But Malcolm and I already knew that magic was real, and I already knew that you had it. That’s not what you have to prove.”

  Kelly suddenly reeled back against the settee, the vision hitting her like an oven blast. Abraham got to his feet in mild alarm. The tableau before her wavered as though magic had rippled the waters of reality. Another vision came.

  Abraham was in the middle of the room, tenderly cradling the face of a female werewolf.

  “I can help you,” he promised the girl. “I can purge the abomination from your flesh.”

  When she returned to the present, gasping, Abraham had knelt at her feet, cradling her face much as he had the other female werewolf.

  “What is it?” Abraham asked eagerly. “What did you see?”

  “Your magic is powerful,” Kelly said faintly. “It leaves an imprint. I just saw a tableau of the past. It was nothing.”

  “It is a shame that something so extraordinary should be so fettered by your decision to make yourself meat for the beast,” Abraham said, caressing the corners of her mouth.

  Kelly pulled her face away from his hands.

  “And all for a little control,” Abraham murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “You call this control?” Abraham said. As he stood, he curled his fingers around a ceremonial steel knife that had floated to him from one of the covered tables edging the room.

  “I find that many accoutrements of my trade are alarming to those unaccustomed to it,” Abraham whispered in her head in response to her curiosity about what was on those tables under the blankets.

  He loosened and removed his tie, backing up to discard it on the armchair. He undid two more buttons on his starched ivory shirt to expose one side of his collarbone and part of his chest.

  Kelly saw what he was going to do before he did it. She rose to flee, but he anticipated her anticipation. Before she could leave, he sliced through the flesh underneath the collarbone with the edge of his knife.

  This was not a shapeshifter with a tiny, closed cut. This was a human man shedding fresh blood. She stumbled back, clutching the arm of the settee.

  When her previous pack had hunted humans, she would try to keep a fair distance until the leftovers had congealed and the flies had laid their eggs. But these were close quarters where the scent could not diffuse and where there were few easy exits. The blood dripped down Abraham’s chest beneath the pure fabric of his shirt, staining it dark red.

  Malcolm lunged. In spite of her own staggering reaction, she snatched him out of the air, yanking him back by his shirt. He fell onto the settee. It buckled and snapped under his weight.

  Malcolm snarled, fur rippling over his body to a stuttering beat of the crunch of bone and the groan of sinew. Kelly put herself between Malcolm and Abraham. She let her teeth and
claws grow, snarling back at Malcolm.

  “Smell it. Let yourself experience it,” Kelly said. Her voice had dropped an octave and rolled with a growl. “The harder you fight it, the more you’ll want it.” Even so, she drooled over her fangs and down her chin, which didn’t make her case very well. Abraham’s smell was so strong that she could practically taste his blood in her mouth.

  “I thought I was ready,” Malcolm said. It was hard to understand him. His transformation was further along than hers. “I put everyone in danger. I can’t imagine wanting anything more than this.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Kelly said. “Remember what I taught you. And blame him, not you.” She glared at Abraham over her shoulder. He held his shirt away from the wound, his expression placid, but his gaze was hungry in an entirely different way than the hunger in Malcolm’s eyes.

  “Just making a point,” Abraham said.

  “Of course Malcolm would have trouble,” Kelly said angrily. “He’s new, I told you.”

  “Yes, and your own salivation is highly attractive,” Abraham replied. “Let the wolf go. I can handle him.”

  He brought the knife up and sliced another line under the one he’d already made, grimacing but continuing through the pain. Malcolm howled as though Abraham were attacking him instead. The scent of blood and flesh mingled with wine, cornsilk and incense. Kelly’s knees went weak.

  “Malcolm,” Kelly gasped.

  The sound of rent cotton ripped through the room. In full wolf skin, Malcolm leapt at Abraham. In spite of Malcolm’s much greater size and his open mouth, Abraham showed no fear. He dropped the knife to the wooden floor with a clatter and faced his palm at the attacking werewolf.

  It was as though Abraham had disrobed Malcolm of his wolf with a push of his hand, the fur and any remaining shreds of his clothing peeling back from Malcolm’s head down to his toes, disappearing as though they’d never been there. Malcolm plummeted like a stone at Abraham’s feet, naked but a man.

  “Please,” Malcolm begged him, rasping as if parched, shivering with need and shame and confusion. “Please, help me.”