by D. Levesque
“Shit, no, that’s them. Their goons are magically enhanced, and if you are saying they are that big, and they had black fatigues, that’s them all right. Give me a second,” she says, taking her phone out again.
“It’s Silvana. Pass me to my father. Code Alpha One One,” she says into the phone.
After about five minutes of just sitting there, trying to think of more details on the thugs, I guess Silvana’s dad comes on the line.
“Hi dad, yes, we have an issue. The Organization is after the MacDermott’s kid. They already tried to kill him last night. And they even shot a Werewolf who tried to save him with silver. No, it’s alive. Somehow the kid was able to save it by removing the silver bullet. It’s hmm, here, but away from me. But dad? The kid can hold it in his hands, without detrimental effect. That’s not even the most interesting part. My magic fireball affected him. He touched it, and it burned him badly to the point I had to I had to heal his hand.”
She looks at me when she says the next thing. “I got permission from the Council to do a Mal Da Ja test on him.” Again, I hear yelling in the background, but I can’t make it out. And Silvana is wincing at what is being said on the other end. After a good two minutes of screaming, it finally ends.
“Dad, who is the agent on the ground right now? And by birthright, I can do the test,” Silvana says testily. “Are you saying I am unfit to run it as your Eldest daughter?” The answer is low enough that I don’t hear it, but then she says, “That’s what I thought. I will call you if anything changes, but I would suggest you get our agents out there, checking why the Organization is moving again. They have been quiet for over thirty years. Goodbye, Dad, I love you.” That last part, she says affectionately. She puts her phone away again in her robes.
“Sorry about that. Now, as you heard, I wish to do a test on you. It’s called the Mal Da Ja. There isn’t a translation in English or any human tongue, really, but it’s a test to see if you are Elvish. No, not even Elvish, but what we would call A Silver Elf. White and Red Elves are only distant cousins of the Silver Elves. They are extinct. But as I have a stronger connection with them because of my family heritage being so close to them, I can test you for it. Would you allow me?” she asks me slowly.
“Sure, I am not sure what that means, or what the test involves. But if it will help clear this shit up, I am all for it. And who were you calling kid? I look older than you. Not that I am asking you your age,” I tell Silvana, holding up both my hands.
“To me, you are a kid. How old do you think I am, Brandon?” she asks me with a smile.
Oh, come on! I always sucked at this. I would always guess their ages wrong, and they would get upset with me. Well, I was the one who brought it up, I should just have let her call me kid. Looking at Silvana, I would peg her to be in her early 20s. Seeing as she is an Elf, and probably aged differently, I would estimate higher. So I figured I would play it safe.
“I would say you’re in your fifties for an Elf?” I say slowly.
“Oh kid, if only. I am over 400 years old,” she says, laughing. “I was around when George Washington became president,” she finishes with a grin.
I just stare at Silvana in shock. This gorgeous Elf is older than both my parents combined were, before they passed away. I guess it’s true about Elves being ageless. Damn. For a 400-year-old, she looks good. Something in the way I look at her must give my thoughts away somewhat, since her next sentence shatters my train of thought.
“Down boy,” she says with a musical laugh. “I don’t put out on the first date,” she finishes with a wink.
“Sorry,” I mumble, embarrassed that I thought of someone like that. My father always taught me respect. And if my Uncle John knew I was thinking like this, he would kick my ass.
Walking up to me, she puts her hand on my chest and looks up at me. “It’s all right to think those thoughts, Brandon. You are still very young. Now. I need to know. Will you formally allow me to do the Mal Da Ja? It will allow me to move your inner energy to call forth your true self. I will not see your thoughts or read your thoughts. All I will do is allow what you are meant to be to come forth. Do you, Brandon MacDermott, consent for me, Silvana Miramenor, to connect to your soul, your essence, to create that bond? This will allow us to bring forth your true self. I shall not harm you, on my honor,” Silvana intones in a way that has a ceremony behind it.
Taking it in the manner it’s meant, since I have a feeling it is a ceremony of sorts, I also intone, “I, Brandon MacDermott, consent for you Silvana Miramenor to do a Mal Da Ja test, and I leave myself in your hands.”
All of a sudden, there is a whirlwind of lights that start on the floor. Then it swirls around us both until it’s concentrated in the middle of Silvana’s palm on my chest. Unexpectedly, there is a concussion of sound that leaves both our bodies, going out in waves. I can see it disturbed the dust in my living room, since it’s now hanging in the air.
“Now, I want you to close your eyes and focus on my voice. I want you to imagine a place inside you that is filled with light. Imagine it’s in the center of your chest, where my hand is. Slowly, I want you to focus your mind there. Don’t grasp anything,” Silvana says in a low steady voice.
Doing exactly what she says, I focus my thoughts inside me. I slowly try to find what she is talking about. I was never good at these metaphysical things. Mom used to say I could never shut my mind off. So I try to do what I do when I run. I think of nothing. I pretend I am running because I am stressed. Slowly, I can feel my heartbeat change. It slows down. I can feel myself float, not my body, but my mind. Everything around me fades, even Silvana’s voice, and her hand on my chest.
In my mind’s eye, I can feel myself moving around an enormous space. It seems to be neither dark nor light. It just exists. Within that vast space, I see a silver spark, but yet that silver spark has threads of black going through it, almost like a pulse. I feel myself drawn towards it, faster and faster. Just before I ram into it I will myself to slow down, and I do. Looking at the silver light with the black threads, I can see as I look closer that they are not threads, but are actually part of the silver flow; they move and interconnect with each other in a mesmerizing way. But it feels primal. There is chaos here. But not uncontrolled chaos. This is a chaos that is asking to be freed, to be controlled. Slowly I reach out, not with my hand, but with my soul, to touch it.
Once I touch it, it reaches out to me faster than I thought possible and wraps itself around my soul. Then, I start to feel the power it’s giving me. It’s truly primal, and this is the power of death, the power of hunger. Without thought, without control. Before I can think to control it, it takes over. Suddenly, without knowing how, I am back in my body. But I’m in major pain, worse than when I burned my hand. So much pain that I howl up into the sky. I can feel my bones breaking and stretching. But that is not the worst part. The worst is that I can feel myself losing control of my senses. I can feel hunger, unlike anything I have ever felt. I can feel myself wanting to hunt, to kill. To feed! Looking around, I see Silvana. She has a slash mark across her face, and she is huddling in a corner in fear. I start to lose control of myself.
All I can think about is the Elf in front of me, and how I want to tear her apart and eat her, to grow stronger. I can feel my teeth grow into canines. I can feel claws in my hands and on my feet. The pain is now gone, and all I have is hunger. Hunger to kill, to devour. I can tell my mind is not my own, but I cannot control it. Slowly, I get up and get ready to pounce on the helpless Elf. I try to control it, but the beast I have become won’t let me. I can see that I have silver fur all over. I can see my claws are long. What the fuck is going on! Why the fuck can’t I control my body! With all my willpower, I try to take control again, and I can feel it fight me. Fuck you, fucking shit. This. Is. My. Body! Not yours! It’s like I am having a battle of wills with myself. But it’s with my darker self.
I feel myself growling, not at Silvana, but at myself. At my dark nature that I someh
ow found inside me. I dig myself in mentally, and I force that fucking hunger down. I push that want to devour down. And slowly, it recedes. It’s still there, but now I am controlling it. I refuse to let it control me. With a final growl that shakes the walls of my house, it’s done. I am left panting, but now I am the one in control. Not the fucking primal need. I look over at Silvana, and she is staring at me in shock.
“Are you all right, Silvana?” I ask her. But it comes out in a guttural growl. It can be understood, but it sounds deep. Also, forming the words seems odd, like I have too many teeth.
Slowly, she nods at me with wide-open eyes. I walk towards her, but it feels odd, since I am on all fours. And without thinking about it, I remember the spell she used to heal me. I somehow know it was me that caused that claw mark on her neck and face. I place my hand that I notice is now a rather large silver wolf paw, in front of her face, inches away, and I recite what I remember her saying.
“Mel al bah mae deou.”
But she had uttered it over and over. I only had to do it once. Once the last syllable leaves my mouth in a guttural sound, there is a flash of green energy that leaves my paw and strikes Silvana. But instead of blowing her over with the power of it, it washes over her and seems to engulf her in a cocoon of green. And right before my eyes, her wounds heal and disappear.
“I was right! You are a Silver Elf, but Brandon, you are much more. You’re a Silver Werewolf!” she says in wonder.
“Oh, that’s outstanding,” I say. But then the floor seems to come up and hit me in the face. Very hard. Odd, why would the floor come up and hit me, I think. But then I don’t think of anything, since I pass out.
Chapter Five
Slowly I feel myself coming to, but I am sore and stiff. What’s worse is my mouth feels dry like a desert. I open my eyes, and I see that I am on the couch in my living room. Lifting my head to look around, I see Silvana sleeping on the chair next to the sofa, and my goodness it doesn’t look comfortable. I stare at her, and even in her sleep, she looks beautiful. She is tall, slim, and her blond hair goes halfway down her back. She’s removed it from the ponytail, and it’s now loose. Her lips are cherry red. What still amazes me are her ears. They are pointy like an Elf’s, but as I thought, they don’t distract from her beauty. She is quite cute, sleeping.
Moving to get comfortable, I feel a twinge of pain in my joints, making me groan. That causes her head to jerk up in surprise. When she sees I am awake, she is over next to me, with her hand on my forehead, and her eyes are closed. I can feel a slight tingling across my body, but nothing else.
“Thank the Mother, you are fine! After you passed out, I wasn’t sure what would happen, but you reverted to your human form,” she says anxiously. Now that she’s so much closer, I notice that she even smells good, almost like lilac flowers or rose petals.
“What the fuck happened to me? I remember some of it vaguely. How the hell did I turn into a wolf?”
“I am not one hundred percent sure, well the wolf part yes. The other part I am not sure. But it might be because you are something which we thought was extinct. We have a feeling it might come from your mother’s side. Since we have known your dad, and even his dad before him. Your mother, on the other hand, is an unknown equation,” she says, not really answering my question.
“So you are saying that my dad was a Werewolf, so I turned into one? But Jesus Christ, what was that transformation shit, and why did it hurt so much? Silvana, I had to fight not to kill you and devour you,” I retort.
“Yeah, that was somewhat unexpected,” she says, blushing.
“So what does that mean for me now? I still have a job to go to, you know? I mean, I am good for two days,” I tell her, irritated at having my life turned upside down.
“Brandon, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you aren’t going back to that job. We need to leave tonight and get away from here. Your old life is gone,” she tells me in a serious tone.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not leaving my fucking house, my car, and my job I have been at for the last eleven years,” I tell her, angrily.
“By the Mother, you are as stubborn as I remember your father being. You will, or you will end up dying Brandon, at the hands of whoever is after you. Right now, I need to get you somewhere safe,” she says crossly.
“I don’t want this shit. I never asked for any of this,” I tell her morosely.
“No one does,” she whispers. She comes and sits on the couch next to me. I move over and make room for her.
“Someone wants you dead, and if it’s the Organization, we have no clue why. We are looking into that. I was told by someone to get you away from here,” she says gently, placing a hand on my leg.
Honestly, I don’t think I have much say in this. I know my life is now turned upside down. Do I really want to return to my old coding job, now knowing that Elves and Werewolves are real? I mean holy fuck, I am a Werewolf myself is seems. And something called a Silver Werewolf, whatever that means. Looking at Silvana, I can't get over how beautiful she looks. If all Elves are like this, I am surprised they have stayed hidden. Looking into her eyes, I see that the fold in her eyes is not as pronounced as I thought. They make her look even more exotic. I wonder what it would be like to kiss an Elf. Silvana’s breathing gets slightly quicker, and she leans in slowly, almost like she is going to kiss me. Then without warning, she utters words under her breath.
“Tahla bearifa Tua.”
“Wow, that was close,” she says breathlessly. “You can’t do that, Brandon.”
“Do what?” I ask her, confused.
“What you just did, try to make me kiss you,” she says strongly.
“Hmm. I am one hundred percent sure I didn’t ask you to kiss me,” I tell her utterly confused. I didn’t, did I?
“Seems we found one thing that is different about you as a Silver Elf and a Silver Wolf, I would assume. You seem to have the power of persuasion. Try something for me?” she says hesitantly.
“Sure?” I tell her. What the fuck is persuasion? Like mind control, I think to myself?
“I want you to look into my eyes, and think in your mind about making me stand up. And only that!” she blurts. “But when you think it, I want you to focus on my eyes, almost like you are trying to push that command somehow into my mind. But Brandon, please only do that, all right?”
“Hmm, sure,” I say to her, slightly confused.
So looking into her eyes, which are quite mesmerizing, I tell her, or try to tell her with my eyes, that I want her to stand up. Trying to feel a connection between the two of us, I imagine the words I am thinking of entering her mind like a breeze of fresh air. Then abruptly, she stands up, quicker than I expected.
“FUCK!” she says out loud.
“So, did it work?” I ask curiously.
“Brandon, you just blew through my mental defenses like they were paper. I have had no one do that to me. Ever. And I am pretty strong in mind magics. Shit, you need to promise me to never use that skill, got it?” she says, now pacing back and forth between the two ends of my couch.
“Hmm, sure?” I say, unsure of that promise. So I can control people with my mind? Fucking wow. That’s just too hocus pocus for me. Damn, wish I had this while I was young, to get out of fights, I laugh to myself. Just then, the door to the garage opens, and in comes a total stranger. She is short, about 5 feet 6 inches tall, with long black hair, and what really catches my eye is the fact that she is wearing my damn clothes that were missing. Jumping off the couch, I yell, “How did you end up with my clothes? But wait, what the fuck are you even doing in my house?”
Just then, she pulls a gun out of the belt behind her and points it at me. “I should kill you for what you did to me last night, you fucking asshole,” she tells me.
“What I did to you?” I ask, confused. Again.
“You fucking drugged me, you prick. I should kill you for that. I should fucking…” she starts, but I interrupt her. Wh
ich might not be smart when a woman has a gun pointed at you.
“I didn’t drug you! Are you that wolf?” I ask her.
“What? Of course, I am a werewolf. You fucking drugged me last night. I remember you had the nerve to try two needles on me!” she growls.
“Hmm,” I start, but then she is across the room and has the gun against my head.
“I should just pull the trigger and get rid of you. I never asked for this fucking assignment, but I am not being given a choice,” she growls at me.
What the fuck is wrong with this chick? I am pretty sure I saved her ass by removing that bullet last night, but instead, she is making it sound like I was the one who shot her and then drugged her on purpose afterward.
“First of all, I removed that damn bullet out of you, and the drugs were to make sure that you would not bite me! At the time, I didn’t know you were a damn werewolf. Fuck, I didn’t even know you existed till today. Now, will you take that gun off my head?” I tell her.
She takes the gun away from my head as I asked, but then gets a shocked look on her face. Then the gun is back on my forehead, but she is pressing it painfully harder.
“What the fuck kind of trick did you just use right there, asshole? And you better be honest,” she says in a deep growl.
Oh, for fucksakes, really? Since it seems my Jedi mind trick worked once, let’s see how far I can push it. She’s about to kill me anyhow. So thinking of my next command and willing it into my voice, but also pushing it into her eyes like I did with Silvana, I say, “Give me the gun, then you will sit on the floor with your hands over your head, and you will not move for five minutes.”
What shocks me is the tone of my voice. It’s authoritative, but it’s also a low, commanding growl that sounds like what I sounded like in my wolf form. She gets a glazed look in her eyes, and she hands me her gun, which I take and flip around and point at her. She then sits on the floor, putting her hands above her head. Within seconds, her eyes clear up, and she looks up at me in shock.
