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  I heard a noise and turned my head to see where it had come from while still running, lest it was the hunters, whoever they were, and that's when I bumped into the young woman. She was obviously annoyed because she picked me up and threw me, sending me flailing through the air until I hit a wall. I slumped to the ground, stunned slightly, and lay there panting. She killed the people hunting me effortlessly, her movements too fast for me to follow, but when she'd finished they lay in a heap, some with broken necks, others with gaping wounds in their chest or stomach, blood seeping out onto the ground. The girl glanced at me, then she turned her back and walked away.

  Chapter Three

  New Friend in all the Madness

  There was a graveyard not too far from the school field, which was where the woman was headed. After recognising her for what she was, I picked myself up from the ground and followed, head down in submission, feeling I owed her for saving my life and that she was my leader then. I was still adamant I would not be anyone’s slave, but at least her kind were worthy of being called alpha and forming an alliance with.

  While I walked behind her, I remembered the lone wolf I had been searching for and paused, trying to decide where my loyalties lay. I decided to at least howl to her again and see if she replied. I called for her, but when I paused to listen for a reply I was surprised to find the woman had stopped. She approached me with all the confidence of an alpha female and she was growling. I lowered my body in submission, showing her the respect her position deserved. She stood before me, still growling in displeasure.

  "Idiot!” she snarled in the wolven tongue, known to all canines. “Those who hunted you found you because of your howling. It was me who returned your howls in the hope you would find me before they found you, but I hoped in vain. You were lucky to escape with your life tonight."

  Understanding dawned and I growled an apology. Things were beginning to make sense. The reason I had found not even a hint of my pack was that they had all been wiped out by the same group of humans who had tracked me to the field. The one who bit me must have been the only survivor, attempting to strengthen his pack in numbers again before they died out. I was disappointed to learn none of my kind were in the area, but grateful to my leader for coming to my aid. She watched as I began to put the pieces together and then started walking again, satisfied I would be more careful from then on.

  Upon reaching the graveyard she lay down on a grave to rest. Still angry at her for throwing me, and wanting to test my superior as all lower ranking wolves will do, I was about to attack her again while she was off-guard, though I knew I could never beat her in a fair fight.

  I crouched down like a coiled spring, ready to pounce. I didn't get much further before the fur on my head was yanked upwards and I was suddenly eye to eye with the woman.

  "Try that again and you'll be cat meat!" she hissed.

  Growling, I looked up at the sky. It was becoming lighter as dawn approached and I could feel the human growing stronger again. It would not be long before I changed back.

  The woman followed my gaze and made a run for shelter in the mausoleum. I turned to go in with her but at that point the transformation took hold.

  I froze while it took place, and grunted as the pain washed over me once more.

  As the fur shrank back into my skin the itching returned. I watched as my paws elongated to become fingers while my pads disappeared, and the claws became blunt and shortened to form fingernails once again. The bones in my hand were shortening, my dew claws sliding back down as a result and forming opposable thumbs. I was forced to transfer my weight to the flat of each hand, the digits now too delicate to support it, and the bones no longer able to bend in the same way.

  I felt my tail disappear and the bones in my upper limbs lengthened, particularly my femurs, so that I could no longer stand comfortably on all fours and had to shift to my hands and knees. I felt my ears slide back down the side of my head and though I could not watch that time, I knew they were no longer pointed since my hearing was suddenly not so sharp. I felt my fangs become blunt and shrink back to human teeth, making my gums itch, while some disappeared entirely, having no place in the shorter, human jaw. My sense of smell dimmed and I knew my eyes were human once again. The human mind was pushing its way up through our consciousness, and I was forced to retreat, awaiting the call of the moon once more.

  I opened my eyes and found myself on my hands and knees. The first thing I was aware of was the hunger, all consuming and so powerful I could have eaten anything, even another human. I felt a craving for raw meat, and my mouth watered as I thought longingly of the beef joint in the fridge back home.

  The last thing I remembered clearly was staring up at the moon. Everything became confused after that, but the few snatches of memory I could make sense of were memories of the impossible. Other than the pain I had endured, I couldn’t remember the details – my memory had recorded the fact that I was changing into a wolf, rather than the actual change itself; the transforming bones, changing limbs, shifting muscles. After that everything was blank. Much as I wanted to believe it were true, my head was swimming as if I had hangover and I decided I had probably been drunk again. Bile was threatening to rise from the depths of my stomach, sickness replacing the hunger, and I swallowed hard in an attempt to keep it down.

  I realised there was blood in my mouth, and stringy pieces of flesh caught in my teeth, like a rabbit in a trap. My brain had barely had chance to register that fact before I finally became aware of what my eyes were showing me. The first thing I noticed was my vision was much clearer than before – perfect in fact. Where the world should have been completely blurred from a few inches away from my face, it was as clear as it had been before I had become short sighted and in need of glasses, maybe even clearer. I didn’t question this miracle since I hated glasses anyway. I looked around and finally took in my surroundings, becoming more confused by the minute.

  Beams of sunlight pierced the clouds in the sky above, shooting down from the heavens like arrows and falling on great grey stone slabs, some rounded, others shaped like crosses, almost as if the light were a holy connection between Heaven and Earth. It didn’t take my confused brain long to realise what they were. Tombstones, rows upon rows of them, marking the graves where the dead lay in peace, oblivious to my presence. Or perhaps their spirits were rising up on those beams of light, climbing them to God’s Kingdom. I wouldn’t know until it was my turn, but if some form of afterlife existed, which I believed it did, I doubted it involved God.

  The grass beneath my fingers was cold and damp with morning dew, and as I looked at my hands I saw they were covered in dirt and what was unmistakeably blood.

  My stomach heaved and I couldn’t prevent the foul eruption that time. I retched so hard I thought the muscle lining of my stomach would rip, spilling blood and guts onto the ground until the life drained from my body and I joined the dead. Thankfully it ended before it came to that. My stomach settled to an angry gurgling and minutes later I was able to stand.

  The hunger returned with a vengeance, so powerful that I had to fight hard against the urge to dig down into the dirt in search of the rotting flesh lying in the graves. I was slave to that hunger, and it had me back on my knees before I realised what I was doing. I quickly stood again, sickened by my actions.

  Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I shivered in the cool morning air and only then realised I was naked. Embarrassment flushed through me and I quickly moved my hands to cover my groin. Fortunately, the final resting place of the dead was silent, except for birdsong, seemingly beautiful and sacred in one of the few places in the world to know peace. Peaceful as it was, I knew I couldn’t stay there. My parents were sure to notice I was missing before long, and I had to go to school, even if I didn’t want to. I’d already missed one day; there was no way Mum would let me miss another.

  Movement caught my eye, coming from inside the mausoleum. There was a young woman there, a vision right out of a
history book. She looked to be in her early twenties but her black dress was from a bygone era. There was no modern touch to the style of her shoulder length brown hair, and those brown eyes glinted with the cold and calculative mind of an ancient predator. Very pale and slim, she wore no make up or jewellery, yet there was an unnatural beauty about her, as if she wasn’t human. Her features and her body were too perfect to be human: a form that was almost godly. But there was nothing holy about this creature. She lay on a coffin almost hidden in shadows but strangely didn’t seem out of place there.

  Aware of my presence, she beckoned to me and, despite my nakedness, I was drawn towards her, my legs moving forward before my brain had time to intervene. However, she didn't seem to mind the fact I was naked and handed me some trousers and a t-shirt without question, as if this was something she saw everyday. I didn't ask where she'd got the clothes from. I probably didn’t want to know.

  Turning away, I quickly dressed, too dazed under the influence of her spell to ask any questions. I was barely aware that almost every inch of my skin was as dirty and bloody as my hands.

  When I turned back to her my mind had cleared of the hazy shroud she had placed on it, and though she was still beautiful, I was ready for it that time and it didn’t hold me entranced. I could see that she wanted to sleep, and given our current surroundings, the fact that she had chosen a coffin in shadow, protected from the light, and the effect she had upon me when I first laid eyes on her, I could guess what she was. And if I was right, that meant I had to accept the fact that my memories were true, and not some kind of hallucination brought on by alcohol. The possibility of that excited me, but I felt cheated that I couldn’t remember what it was like to experience the world with a wolf’s superior senses. It would explain why my vision had improved overnight and the blood in my mouth, which, young and naïve as I was, I assumed to be the blood of animals I had hunted under the full moon. After all, most wolves avoid humans, let alone hunt them.

  As you probably guessed already, I knew a lot about werewolves, having researched all the different myths and legends way beyond the point of obsession, but how many of those myths were true and how would this change my life? I knew that there would be changes – the hunger and craving for meat were testament to that – but exactly what would change I couldn’t be sure, for not all the myths agreed on the same thing. For example, some myths seemed to agree silver was the way to kill a werewolf, while others said any mortal wound made by any weapon would do it. I wanted to know what to expect.

  I felt slightly resentful towards this strange woman for placing me under her spell: I didn’t want to be used, but if she could control me so easily there was no telling what she could force me to do if she really wanted to. But if she was really what I suspected her to be, I felt sure she would have all the answers, so I pushed those feelings aside. And besides, whatever she’d done to me was temporarily keeping the hunger at bay, which could only be a good thing after it had almost had me digging up graves.

  The woman seemed to sense I was burning with questions and began by introducing herself.

  “My name is Lady Sarah of Wilton," she said.

  "Nick James Stead.” I replied. Somehow it just seemed right to give her my full name, even if I didn’t have a grand title like she did. “You can call me Nick.”

  “You are newly turned,” she observed.

  “So it’s real then? I am a werewolf?” I asked, eager for her to confirm it for me.

  “Indeed,” she answered. “And there is much you need to understand, for these are dangerous times to walk among the undead. I will tell you the tale of your origins, for there is much truth in it, and also the origins of those who hunted you this night. Listen well, young wolf, and if you still have questions afterwards you may ask them of me, and I will answer as best I can.”

  She paused to gather her thoughts as I waited impatiently for the truth behind the werewolf myths I knew so well. Just as I was about to start asking my questions she began the tale. There was a weight to her words as she began to recount this piece of epic history and I listened attentively, my love of stories keeping my questions at bay.

  “From the dawn of mankind war has raged; bitter struggles for power, led by those who would seek it. So it has always been and so it will always continue to be, for the heart of man is corrupt and always longing for that which is out of reach: wealth, fame, immortality. Those men that would chase such are never satisfied, no matter how many tales are told of their deeds, no matter if they hold all the gold in the land: they always hunger for more.

  “The rise and fall of such men is remembered even to this day, but the one this tale concerns sat the throne of Arcadia in Ancient Greek times. His name was Lycaon, and it is believed it was he who was the first of your race.

  “Lycaon’s shadow already engulfed the region of Arcadia, but the sights of this tyrant were fixed ever outwards, beyond the border of those lands. Driven by the same greed that afflicts all men with a thirst for power, he sought to conquer and further extend his reach. And as is so often the case, power bred arrogance, and in his arrogance Lycaon fancied himself the equal of the gods. This mortal man took it upon himself to test the great god Zeus by serving him human flesh at a feast, to test whether Zeus was truly omnipotent. But gods are not so easily fooled and in doing so Lycaon sealed his fate.

  "Doomed to roam the Earth as a wolf with the rise and fall of every full moon, through Lycaon this new curse was unleashed upon Arcadia. For Zeus cursed him with a terrible lust for human flesh above all other prey, and the power to spread the curse to some of those he wounded, but failed to kill. Those descended from apes were safe from the hold of lycanthropy, but those born of wolf, including Lycaon’s own bloodline, of which he sired many as legend would have it, would soon join the tyrant’s great and terrible pack.

  “A curse this was intended to be, but to a man such as Lycaon it was viewed a blessing. Possessed with greater speed and strength than any mortal creature, and the equal of many beasts even in human form, none could stand against the savagery and power of these supernatural predators. Lycaon and his kind learnt to transform at will, though the transformation at full moon remained involuntary. Most men ran before them, and cowered and hid, but his prey could not escape him and the streets ran with blood. Some rebelled, as is man’s wont, but those with the courage to fight fell to the jaws of their oppressors. Savaged and mutilated, they suffered brutal, bloody deaths. That first pack alone would doom millions, either bringing death to its victims or passing on the curse to them.

  “And so the curse spread across the land like a plague as Lycaon extended his rule ever outwards, fancying himself a god now of the mortal realm. There was no cure to lycanthropy except death, and to kill a werewolf was no easy feat. Only a fatal wound to the heart or the brain could stop these beasts, the curse providing them great healing capabilities that could repair all else. Not even time could tame Lycaon, for the constant regeneration of tissue during each transformation rendered him immune to the same ravages it inflicts on mortal men.

  "So began the Age of Wolves, a dark time for those still human. Had Lycaon remained in power, man might have passed into the void, forever lost in the shadow of the new werewolf race. But as powerful as Lycaon had become, his downfall was inevitable.

  “Man’s salvation came not in the form of the blood and steel of heroes reclaiming the lands they had lost, but in tooth and claw as the werewolves turned on each other. Lycaon spent so much time looking outwards from the borders of his lands that he failed to see his once loyal pack mates turning to their own quests for power in their own names, not his. When he finally realised he’d lost his grip on Arcadia and other areas of Greece, it was too late. Werewolves turned on each other and hundreds died.

  “There the curse might have stopped and died out, for tales of the monsters terrorising the country had spread beyond the borders of Greece, and people learnt to avoid the unholy place. The werewolves might have eventually
wiped each other out in the power struggles they were now locked in amongst themselves, had some of the newly turned not tried to escape.

  "Often forgetting what they were for their minds during the full moon were those of wolves rather than men, some tried to flee the curse which only served to spread the cancer to other parts of the world.

  “But werewolves are not the only race of undead to walk this earth and vampires too suffer from the same corruption as man, since human we once were. Though other werewolves followed in Lycaon’s footsteps, attempting to use the power of the curse to claim lands for themselves, the vampires joined the struggle for power and in doing so prevented any chance of werewolves rising to dominance again. And in the midst of it all men, defeated but not broken, rose up once more and seized their chance while we undead were weakened in the war we waged on ourselves. Thus were born the group who named themselves the Demon Slayers, and they fought against us with a new determination, bent on our destruction. We were forced to ally against them and a great battle was fought, yet it was too late, we were too weak from the battles already fought among ourselves. The Age of Men was restored and our numbers swiftly fell, never again to hold such influence over the land. We were forced to flee into the wilderness and the shadows, our desire for power forgotten in the bid to simply survive. But the Slayers were not content with merely driving us out of their lands and they continued to hunt us down.

  “In power once more, men learnt to prevent our numbers ever rising again, staking the bodies of the dead so they would never rise as vampires, and burning any at the stake believed to be werewolves. Many lives were lost, including those of mortal humans and wolves mistaken for your kind. Men are ruthless, and the Slayers’ resolve to eradicate us was absolute. So it was our numbers dwindled yet further.