The Stray Human: A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves, werewolf community center book 1

by Abigail Smith

  “No, it’ll be fine. Two livers got this,” she croaked out.

  “Alright, let’s get you up to the cots and under some warm covers,” I said, slowly turning her and getting one arm under her legs.

  Now, I’d carried her quite a bit, but I was either being a hero or high on adrenaline from literally being part of a building assault. So, that had done most of the lifting for me. This was the first time I was calm and lifting her.

  She, most likely not understanding what I was doing, watched as I groaned and grabbed my shoulder.

  “God, the boys make this look so easy,” I said, huffing.

  “Oh, uh, I could walk,” Silvia offered.

  I put her arm around my neck and helped her up, and we both hobbled over to the stairs.

  “So, what happened to your arm?” she asked.

  “I believe the term is recoil, something I bet having two right shoulders would definitely help with,” I joked.

  “Wait, you fired the sniper rifle?” she asked, apparently a little worried.

  “Tch, not only did I fire it, I killed something with it!” I said.

  Silvia’s eyes went wide, and I realized I needed to backpedal. “It was a demon! I didn’t kill a human!”

  “Wait, someone summoned a demon?” Silvia gasped.

  I just don’t know when to keep my mouth shut.

  Chapter 36

  We shuffled towards the cots. I opened the door to the room, and another door was behind it. I stepped back this time, waiting for Miriam to step out of it. The last meeting with another administrative member of the community centre left me battered and bruised. I suspected that if Leonardo wanted to, I’d have been left scarred, too.

  “What do you want, Miriam?” I asked, looking at the depiction of the door.

  The illusion faded and revealed the darkroom where some werewolves had gone to recover. The mature-looking lady reached up to her face, trying to push up glasses that weren’t there.

  “I just thought you’d like some painkillers. They’re often found in ambulances, going to human hospitals. A simple lie telling them that a man, let’s go with your boyfriend to add extra sympathy, had beaten you senseless and you need somewhere safe from him tonight…” Her voice was so saccharine, but all I tasted was bitter.

  Silvia held me a bit tighter, trying her best to glare at the witch in front of us. It was clear one had the advantage over the other.

  “If you did that, they’d ask who he was, and last I checked, demons and book gas aren’t things they’ll accept, and I’d have to default on the one thing that bruised me today that wasn’t that.”

  “W-what was that?” Silvia asked, the worry in her voice so total I lost my adversarial composure against Miriam.

  I held her close and rubbed her back. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, Silvia.”

  “You really think you could implicate Leonardo in an assault charge? You and what army of lawyers?”

  “Mmm, not too sure it wouldn’t be difficult. Boys who get off on those charges are often publicized. Would Daddy want that for his little mage?”

  “You’re deluding yourself if you think the media cares about one man getting off one criminal charge,” Miriam said.

  I could tell her composure was cracking, though, so I started to walk past her. “Might also have to mention to the cops about someone who’s managed to stalk me and find out my full name without me knowing. That’s in league with the one who beat me if I went there. No, best to stay here, don’t you think?”

  I felt my own smug smile, despite the pain it caused. When had I been hit in the jaw? Miriam sighed and reached for those very same phantom glasses and found nothing.

  “The trial shall be held shortly, within a week’s time. Don’t get cocky, young lady,” Miriam threatened.

  I sat down on a bed with Silvia, who was quite shook. “W-what is going on? Leonardo beat you up? Miriam hates you? And what trial?”

  I flopped over onto the cot and yawned. “Nighty night.”

  Chapter 37

  The next Monday was quite the shock to the system. After night fights, day fights, and fire flasks, and shooting a demon, everything was just plain old university. The slow-moving, caffeine-deprived zombies slowly moving through a bureaucratic induced nightmare to have a chance at a job. Oh, and a few cops were still there…

  I’d arived alone. I knew the risks, but since David, Gavin, and Lorenz needed to help reconstruct the community centre and figure out what was going on with the media, I had to go alone. Number one, to keep it looking like I wasn’t involved in whatever they told the media. Two, I needed to learn this stuff for finals. At least, that’s what the professor said.

  I stood in the hallway for a while contemplating that reality. Each of them looked like they didn’t have hope in life. I felt like I was walking through the land of the dead.

  “Elizabeth?” I blinked and looked around.

  “What?” I muttered.

  My roommate snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I got back to reality. “Oh, hey there,” I said.

  I rubbed the back of my head and looked off to the side. She must have been worried about me, but instead of calling her and telling her some good lie to get out of explaining things, I’d just not shown up for a few days, and then boom, right there in the middle of the hall, looking like someone high as a kite.

  “Hey, Amelia, how’s it going?” I asked with a large, forced smile.

  “How’s it going? You’re gone for an entire weekend, not to mention the days before, and all you can say is how’s it going?”

  The girl had righteous indignation written all over her face, and my lying ability was failing me. “I wasn’t gone that long,” I said, throwing my hands up.

  She grabbed me into a hug and quickly moved back so we were face to face. “Don’t ever do that again. I thought you’d been kidnapped or something! It was bad enough seeing you bruised that one time you came home early from your shift! Then people start talking about the girl a cult’s after and you’re not answering your phone!”

  “Amelia, I’m fine, and the reason I’ve been absent is the new workplace has some weird hours and—”

  I’d been talking with my right arm and wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt. Needless to say, the bruise I’d developed from demon hunting showed just slightly on the side. Amelia, already concerned about my safety, pulled the sleeve to the side and gasped.

  “What the hell happened to your shoulder?”

  “I, uh, the owner’s… cousin, Cassy, invited me to a… firing range.”

  “What did you shoot? Shotguns?” Amelia said, drawing the attention of everyone in the hall.

  So much for them being zombies. “Shotguns, sniper rifles, a few handguns. She really likes guns. Even fired a few shots using her teeth.” Shit, why did I include that?

  “With her teeth?” Amelia said, raising an eyebrow. Several others raised theirs, as well.

  “I guess they were… custom dentures?” I said, smiling that smile you get when you’ve been caught in a bad lie and what you just said was bullshit.

  “How the hell would that work?” Amelia asked, tilting her head. “Listen, just tell me next time when you’re going to be heading home. Also, how long is your new job going to take? Where even is it, anyway?”

  “Oh, just a few blocks south of the dorm room.” That was something I should have consulted with the guys before telling her.

  “Look, I gotta get to class, but this conversation isn’t over Elizabeth, roommates gotta look out for each other, and it’s hard to do that when you’re not helping…”

  She waved trying to keep her composure, and I waved back, before heading to my class.

  “You know, I’d rather like to take a nice weekend off and shoot a military-style gun like a sniper rifle. Where is this firing range you went to?” came the voice of the detective.

  I jumped and recoiled. I hadn’t noticed him, and he seemed to have written a few things from our conversati
on down.

  “I, uh, well, they drove me down so I don’t know the exact address, but I’m sure if I asked her for you she’d let you—”

  “See her licence for that style of weapon?” the detective asked, looking smug.

  “Uh, well, obviously. And she’d take you to that range.”

  “And show me how she fired a gun with her teeth?”

  “That, no. I don’t think she’s going to be doing much of that anymore,” I smiled weakly.

  “Miss Brown, do you know what happened this Saturday?”

  “Did you arrest the culprits of the attacks and stalking?”

  “No, but it appears those same people attacked and bombed several buildings just down that way.” The detective pointed. “The same place you described your new place of employment to be. Employment that seems to be paying a lot for a, and I truly mean no offence, mediocre to bad waitress who was recently fired for arguing with a customer and insubordination.”

  “Okay, hold up. Can you trace who the customer was? Because he legit tried to steal food from the restaurant. Also, how’d you know what I’m getting paid?”

  “Focus. There was a massive terrorist-style attack on or near the building you were working at. Those captured say you’re up to no good. You claimed this was a gang war, and I need some answers.”

  I gasped and sputtered a few times, trying to think of what to say.

  “If it was my building, I didn’t see because I was at that firing range, but I assure you, there’s no gang activity. There are no shady dealings, they just needed… an actor and bartender… Which is why I was paid more, and the bad attitude was a justified occupational requirement,” I said, using terminology from a business class.

  I used it wrong, but you know, an actor?

  “So, it’s like a LARP den. Everyone’s like super-rich and stuff, but other than the person they got to be the safety inspector, aka, in character doctor, they couldn’t get anyone to be the bartender because who wants to roleplay a bartender, right? So, they found someone they liked from saving someone who might have taken the RP a bit too far. Who recently got fired for totally bullshit reasons.”

  I couldn’t help but smile as the totality of this lie came together. It made a beautiful masterpiece that if they went and investigated would bear total truth with what I was told of their protocols.

  “That still doesn’t explain why people are after you.”

  I shrugged. “You know D and D was once seen as Satanic, so maybe they have a similar idea.”

  The detective closed his flipbook, but I could tell he wasn’t quite done with me. I assumed that once he got a look at the coloured sugars and all the people LARPing, we’d be fine. At least, we would if he wasn’t on it instantly since we were still in a crisis.

  Chapter 38

  Class today was the fundamentals of marketing in the digital age. Why this wasn’t one of the first marketing courses, I have no idea since we were actually learning how to market something in this class.

  I sat down, and even though the teacher was young and knew how to present well, I found my mind wandering. I took out a photocopy of the note and tried a few more passwords.

  Ye-ho was first on my list, though since I’d only heard it and hadn’t seen it spelt, I didn’t quite know what I was doing.

  I started with Je-ho, though it felt like it was wrong, I got as far as its before I got garbage again. I stopped at that. It would be a straightforward and to the point way to start a quick, military-style cyphered message. If that was the case, the real password would have to start with jeh, and not many words jumped out at me.

  A new presenter walked into the front of the class to talk about their platform and how they market things,

  “My name’s Kelly Arnough,” she said in a saccharine tone, “and I help with the online exploits of the local Jehovah’s Witnesses church.”

  There was an audible groan throughout the classroom. I’d little knowledge about why they were groaning, but the presenter seemed to take it in stride. She then went on to talk about how they’ve made a new initiative to market online. How she managed to convince the people running it that it’d be a good thing for their community.

  I examined this woman for a little bit, and now and then, she’d glance at me in particular. I looked down at the page, religious group, jeh password. Apparent groans like people know they are particularly bad for some reason or another sounded like the ticket.

  I looked up the proper spelling of Jehovah and started to use it. Might as well and if it worked… well, I would know why this lady was here.

  “It’s getting more dangerous here. The new girl is fully integrated and isn’t seeing reason from any of the parties we’ve sent after her. The sick werewolf woman is recovering quickly, and all those attacks to the stomach aren’t exacerbating it as we thought.

  It’s clear to me that we need to execute the assault fairly soon, else they might manage to sniff us out, no pun intended. While the assault is going on, I’ll try to free their prisoner and, hopefully, we can cut through their defences in a flanking manoeuvre.

  As always, Jehovah’s loyal servant and yours, Tomson.”

  And there it was, fully deciphered and plain to see. Had we managed to decipher it sooner, not only would we have known not to allow Carl free rein sooner, or maybe the werewolves would have just executed the prisoner so he couldn’t be used against us. We would’ve known an assault was coming, and possibly we could’ve done something about it.

  The only solace was now we knew the password, and I’d be damned if I let them do it again.

  “What do you have there?” the presenter asked.

  “Huh?” I jolted up, suddenly being caught not paying attention.

  “Nothing,” I said, pulling the piece of paper back.

  “Well, then it should be perfect for a little demonstration!” She smiled the same smile a kindergarten teacher would smile at a little kid.

  I glared at her but used eye contact to distract her before handing her the cyphered text. Hopefully, if she reported on it, one, they wouldn’t realize it was a photocopy. Two, they wouldn’t realize I’d cracked their code.

  Since the name of her god was the cypher key, it was safe to assume that either her organization or a splinter of it was what the demon mage had gathered to act on his behalf. Just to be safe I had to assume she was part of them, knowing full well that I wasn’t someone to be left to my own devices.

  She used the paper as a visual representation of an advertisement online. I lowered the piece of paper with the proper note on it and tried to quickly shred it. I put the shredded pieces into my pocket. Not that I wanted to keep them, but any evidence that we were ahead of them was bad to let them have.

  I felt like a true to life spy doing it so, of course, I went overboard.

  The class let out right as I finished tearing a small piece into two tiny pieces and shoving them into my pocket.

  “Excuse me, miss?” the woman asked as I was leaving the classroom.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “I was wondering if I could have a word with you.”

  I needed to think fast. “Oh, sorry, English class was all about historic cyphers, and I wanted to try writing a message to the professor for some extra credit,” I said with a freakish smile.

  “Oh, no, that’s not quite why I wanted to talk to you,” she said, putting her hands together.

  I studied her body again. She had to have an alchemical silver knife on her somewhere, I just didn’t know where. I thought back to the presentation and looked at her dress.

  “Sure, just gotta tie my shoe,” I said, kneeling.

  I pretended to tie my shoe, then tackled her, reaching up her skirt. I’d have felt pretty odd if it wasn’t for the fact that I found the knife and pulled it from its sheath. I bolted out the door, feeling like a brilliant ninja, much to the professor’s confusion.

  Now, nothing gets security faster than someone bolting out of a classroom wit
h a knife, so I needed to hide it, or just drop it. I didn’t quite want to do that, so into the front pocket of my bag it went.

  It wasn’t the most convenient of pockets, but it’d keep security off my tail while I ran from these people once more. I burst through the front door. This time, I noticed David and his car out front, just like he said he’d be. We’d even avoid the rooftop assassins inside it.

  I ran over, stopped, and double-checked it was David, since I just saw the side of his head, and jumped in once I was sure. He started the engine and waited for a good time to merge into the downtown traffic. The front side of the building let out onto a road that bordered campus.

  “People on your tail?” he said.

  “Maybe. The presenter was one of them. She tried to do that thing where we talk, or maybe she was going to try to shank me, I don’t know. Stole her knife and booked it.”

  “Man, the faculty is going to have a field day with you,” David said. Meanwhile, I shuddered to think what the detective would think I was doing.

  “Hopefully, after we finish off those creeps… Oh, and I also figured out the password.”

  David, clearly torn between keeping an eye on the road and looking at me, shot me a one-eyed glare. “Seriously? What did it say?”

  I told David what I remembered of the note, and that the password was Jehovah.

  “Wait, those guys are in that cult?” David asked.

  “Cult?”

  “Yeah, you know? They are known to have cult-like indoctrination, shunning outsiders and people who leave, even if they are family. They encourage people not to go to college and go door to door trying to convert people.”

  “Well, not anymore,” I said.

  “What?” David asked, finally getting a spot, as the convertible… converted.

  “They’ve switched to online advertisements, at least around here.”

  David seemed to mull that over as he moved back into his chair. “That goes against a lot of things I know about them, but it’d explain how goddamn many there are,” he mused.