Blood Moon Extract

The sun shining almost directly down on me woke me mid-afternoon. I snorted awake and yawned, frowning as I felt the blanket lying on my back. I glanced at the sun and cursed, with my sleep-in.

“Great bloody guard you are,” I cursed, examining my hand.

It was almost completely healed, just some shallow cuts that still needed to close and heal. My eye, however, was still out of action, and I cursed my ex-girlfriend for her carelessness with her claws. I would probably never see clearly out of that eye ever again. If it grew back, that is.

I heard footsteps approaching. I scrambled to my feet, shedding the blanket and pulling the jeans on quickly, managing to pull the shirt down as Charlie rounded the shed.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.” He smiled, glancing at my injured eye.

I pulled my hair around to cover it, not liking the feeling of not being able to see one side of my world.

“If you feel up to it, there’s some cold roast beef inside, and something to drink.” He hesitated, and I guessed what was on his mind.

“I do eat the same food as you when human. Thanks.”

He nodded. “It’s just, I wasn’t sure, what with Andrew and Mel…”

I nodded picking up the blanket he must have brought out for me. “That’s just as wolves.”

“So will you explain it, over lunch?”

I noticed a twinge of fear in his voice. If it was not the week of the full moon, I would probably not have been able to smell the fear on him as well. As it was, I could only just smell better than a human could, and probably wouldn’t be any different to them, come tomorrow morning.

“Sure. As long as you ask questions I can answer,” I said as we set off towards the house, the wind ruffling my hair. I kept my nearly-healed hand hidden under the blanket.

Charlie opened the sliding door, and I felt my mouth water. The scent of a roasting leg of lamb was flooding the kitchen, making me very hungry.

“Is there someone else here, Charlie?” I asked, hesitating on the doorstep.

“Yeah, just my mum. It’s okay, she’s cool.” He took the blanket from me, and I quickly hid my hand in the pocket of my pants.

“She’s not one of those people who seek out the wolves in order to be changed, is she?”

He laughed, I think for the first time since I’d met him. “No, but she likes wolves in general. I think she’d be envious of you.”

“You’d be amazed,” I muttered. Louder, I explained, “Half of the wolf hunters are wolf-lovers. They hunt us so we’ll stop getting their true wolves in trouble.”

Charlie nodded, leading me to a chair in the kitchen. I sat carefully on the edge of it, watching the doorway. I could hear someone moving around in the kitchen.

“Charlie? Charlie, love, do you know when Mel’ll be home from Andrew’s? I already have dinner cooking, and I want to make sure I have enough… Oh, hello, dear. You’re not Mel.”

Charlie glanced at me, and then returned to looking in the direction of the woman. “No, mum, this is my friend Olivia. She’s going to have dinner with us tonight, not Mel.” To me he whispered, “The news about Mel and Andrew either hasn’t sunk in, or sent her off the edge. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I nodded and stood as the old woman came around the corner. I bowed slightly to her, smiling gently. “Hello, Missus Hagar. My name’s Olivia Wolfen.”

“Deary me,” she said, putting her hand to her throat. “What an unfortunate name. It’s just like that girl who went missing’s name. Almost ten years ago now, I think it was.”

I nodded and smiled at the old woman. She was clearly ‘off the edge’, as Charlie put it. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, sit down, dear, sit down! I have to feed you up before Wilhelm gets home, never could stand the sight of skinny people, my Wilhelm…” She wandered off back to the kitchen, and I heard her banging pans around, making a lot of clatter.

“Wilhelm?” I asked, raising my eyebrow at Charlie.

“My dad. He died of kidney failure a few years ago.” He looked at the table, as though embarrassed to admit it. “The kidney they transplanted failed on him, and they couldn’t find him another one in time.”

“So it’s just you and your mother now?” I asked awkwardly, unsure of what to say. Now that I knew the old woman was batty, I wasn’t so ready to share my secret with her.

“Yeah, just me and mum.” Charlie smiled sadly at me. “But she’s very sick, has been since dad died. I don’t think there’s that much left of her. Pretty soon it’s going to just be me.”

I rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Charlie.”

“Would–would turning her into a … into a werewolf, fix her?”

I shook my head. “The thing with being a werewolf, is that you only freeze in time after your first transformation. There is plenty of time between the sharing of blood and the first transformation. I waited ten years. I know a woman who waited fifty. Anything could happen in a week, let alone in years. Something could change, and you wouldn’t want her around forever. Would you want her living forever as she is now?”

Charlie sighed. “No, I’d want her living forever as her happy self, before my dad died.”

“Charlie,” I said, watching him, “I don’t think you realise what immortality means. Your mother would live forever, hypothetically, if I were to mix her blood with mine in her veins. But there is greater trouble in immortality than just becoming immortal.”

“Like what?”

“Your friends, family, acquaintances, everyone around you dies, and you’re stuck here, as you are, forever, unable to die, unwilling to live. You can’t be suicidal because you can’t succeed. You’re stuck forever, and, unless you can find someone you truly, truly want to share eternity with, you will always, always be alone.”

Charlie stood there and stared at the tabletop as his mother returned.

“I’m too old to become immortal,” she said, smiling at me, and I got the strangest impression that she was suddenly completely sane. “My body would never cope for that.”

I looked at her, tilting my head. “I am a werewolf,” I said, watching her.

“I know, you’re the dog that helped my Charlie last night against the Ontario Wolf.” The woman sat down and poured me a cup of tea. “I’ve always wanted to meet a werewolf. The missing link between the humans and the wolves.”

I smiled at the woman, though I was still a little wary of her. “Humans didn’t evolve from wolves, Missus Hagar.”

“Well, have you ever heard of were-apes?” she asked, smiling slightly. “Everyone believes differently about the evolution of humans, so let’s not get into that.”

I nodded, sniffing slightly at the cup of tea in front of me. It smelt all right, so I took a sip, spluttering as the liquid burnt my tongue.

“Careful,” Mrs. Hagar said with a smile as she placed a couple of cakes in front of Charlie and me. “It is hot for a reason. Cold tea can make you sick.”

I glanced at Charlie. That sounded like she had let go of sanity again. Charlie shrugged at me, taking a bite of the cake.

“Missus Hagar—”

“Call me Angela, please.” The woman smiled at me. It was the smile of a grandmother, and I realised that the woman thought I could be twice her age, or more, and was trying to treat me as an equal.

Damned if I was going to let her realise I was just a child.

“Why do you want to meet a werewolf? Every other human I’ve ever come across — aside from Charlie here — wanted to kill me because of what I was.”

“Really? And I suppose that medal they want to give you is just a trick,” Charlie replied, adding milk to his tea and sipping gently.

“They think I’m a dog, remember?” I looked him over. “Which reminds me, why’re you so calm about this?”

“One of the kids who used to go to my school was bitten by a werewolf a few years ago,” he explained, “so it’s not the first time I’ve heard that the werewolves are a real race of humans living to the north.”

“Not just in the north,” I corrected. “I was attacked in southern Ontario.”

“You are that girl, aren’t you?” Angela suddenly asked, sounding excited. “The one who was attacked ten years ago by the Ontario Wolf?”

“I don’t —”

“The one who was handed to a brown-haired woman in Montreal Station!” She was almost yelling, laughing slightly. “I knew there was a reason she killed Marie!”

I frowned at the woman. “What are you talking about? My mother walked backwards off a platform in front of a moving train. Lucia didn’t do anything.”

I couldn’t believe I was defending the woman who had made my life a living hell for a decade.

“So it is true.” The old woman smiled at me. “Tell me, child, where have you been hiding? Lucia’s house?”

“Her manor.” I frowned at the woman. “Why?”

“Just curious, that was all.” She smiled at me. “Tell me, do the wolves have their own religion, or are they Christians, like us?”

“We have our own goddess, as well as the gods of our original faiths. Her name’s Alsvinth, she’s the goddess of the Darkness, the Moon and Chaos–”

Something shattered behind me, and I instinctively ducked, wheeling around. A knife plunged into the wall as Angela and Charlie ran, crouching, for the doorway.

“Well, hello Olivia,” Kyda said, stepping into the house as I backed against the wall. “I would have thought I’d trained you better than to live with the humans.”

“Kyda, please, you have to listen to me,” I said, trying to stop her with my gaze. “It’s not what you think–”

“MY NAME IS KYDASING!” she screamed, pulling out another knife and charging at me.

Something flew from the doorway beside me and hit Kyda in the chest, axe in hand.

Charlie.