Neophyte

  “Ow!”

  I heard someone cursing. Ballard stepped out, sucking on his thumb.

  “Tired of being everyone’s biotch,” he said. Apparently, he hadn’t heard me approach, because he went on in that fashion, mumbling to himself, until, randomly, he cracked a smile and started chuckling. It was a moment before I realized he had a pair of earbuds in his ears and was listening to rap music.

  The familiar grease rag dangled out of his back pocket of his jeans which were frayed at the bottom, and he was holding a bloody crescent wrench.

  I played a little game, sitting on my Gambalunga, with how long it would take him to see me, flipping the visor of my helmet up. Something which I really liked about Ballard was how committed, emotionally, he got in things. Whatever he did, he did it all of the way. So I was not surprised when he didn’t notice me. Whatever he was thinking about, it seemed to consume him.

  Speaking of Ballard, it was like he had gone through a growth spurt of sorts. Ballard, the sixteen-year-old, didn’t look like Ballard, the sixteen-year-old, anymore. He had always been on the scrawny side; I don’t mean runt of the litter, but he had never exactly challenged the rest of the members of the werewolves, as far as size was concerned. They were all six nine. He was not. Now, however, it looked as though he had somehow managed to split the difference. Ballard was six three at least; he had put on half a foot. And he had also filled out in the shoulder area. Which didn’t seem possible. I hadn’t been gone that long.

  I guessed he was growing up, literally before my very eyes.

  I watched him for another minute or two. It looked like something was puzzling him. The smile became a grimace and he turned to go inside.

  Our eyes met.

  Something incredible happened. Caught as he was unawares, I saw the look of the werewolf behind his eyes. It was only a flash but it was there. Even when he saw me staring, he didn’t bother turning away. Instead, it was like the animal inside of him was standing on the edge of a great forest––and then it turned to go inside. Ballard, however, stood his ground.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said, but only because it was witty and suggested supernatural things were afoot. “How are you, Halls?”

  I shrugged, still on my motorcycle. He smiled at me, and then I broke down completely. The whole Lennox thing had subconsciously rearranged me. I realized now that it was a thing. That I was missing Lennox hard. Where was he, and what was he doing? I guess it was lucky Ballard was good at fixing things, because that fit me to a T. What the H? I had come for general repairs and maybe a grattachecca.

  Ballard shuffled his feet momentarily, uncertain how to proceed. I sniffed unselfconsciously, scrunching up my eyes, and flipped down my visor. My diary was strapped below my seat.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said. It echoed in my helmet-top. He was over to me in a second.

  “You never told me this motorcycle was so expensive,” I said. “I mean ridiculously expensive, Ballard.”

  “Well, if you are who those Ravenseal wackjobs say you are––and my Uncle Risky...” he said, but cut it short.

  That last one had some clout. Ballard believed in Risky. They all did. I had never heard Risky’s name mentioned without some kind of awe in the voice of the speaker. It was Gaven who gave Risky his biggest credentials, calling him the greatest werewolf to have ever lived. Somehow, just then, I thought Ballard could take the prize. He held me and nuzzled my helmet-top. “Something happen?” he asked me, sincerely.

  I just held him. Implied was the beatdown he’d put on whoever had hurt me.

  “No.” I shrugged and wiggled some more. He liked to rock me when he hugged and I didn’t mind. It kind’ve meant something more, but I didn’t mind that either. I was beginning to realize I was free.

  I sniffed again and gulped down my runny nose, saying, loudly enough so that he could hear: “I want to be I Gatti or well affiliated with you at least.”

  Ballard wiggled some more.

  I popped up my visor, better now.

  “Jeez, your eyes are sore,” said Ballard.

  “Did you hear me?” I asked.

  “Check. You want to be a werewolf. What’s bothering you, anyway?” he said.

  “Nothing. I need a grattachecca,” I said.

  “You got it,” said Ballard.

  I waited in his shop while he went to make us some––and there I encountered the salt-and-pepper countenance of the sly, elusive, Risky Rosen, Ballard’s uncle.

  It was a portrait which hung on the wall.

  “Actually,” said Ballard, returning with our grattacheccas––which really should have been grattachecci, “Rosen is my father’s name. Risky and my mother were siblings, remember? But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?” I said, eating the ice and syrup concoction.

  “Well, because we don’t have the hangups you guys do––you know, about family names and all that. Excuse me, House names. That’s silly. And it’s going to breed nothing but contempt.”

  “Where is Ballard and what have you done with him?” I asked, only half serious, but it seemed to have a big effect on him.

  “I just don’t get why Wiccans have to reject where they come from, is all. I don’t understand why they have to lose their names,” said Ballard.

  “How does Lia feel about having to take Gaven’s name?” I asked. “Or is she going to hyphenate?”

  “Meh,” said Ballard. “Oh no!”

  “What? What is it?” I said. I looked around, wondering what was going on.

  Ballard was alarmed. He raced to his old PC. “No! My part! Now I’ll never get it.” He slapped the keyboard. “I’ve just been outbid,” he said, turning the computer monitor, so that I could see.

  I looked: intake manifold and gasket kit.

  “Is it too late?” I asked.

  Apparently he had just lost out on the only one. “Now my motorcycle will never run,” he said. He sucked his thumb again, and then ate his grattachecca, looking like he had come to the end of his existence.

  “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” I said.

  He gave me a withering look.

  “Can’t you use one of these?” I said. I pointed to the other bikes around the shop.

  There were literally twenty of them, all on racks––each of which was undergoing some kind of minor operation. “They suck,” said Ballard, dismissively, and reverting again to his woe-is-me attitude. “That’s it, then,” he said, defeated. I felt like I could relate. Given––I thought––the whole Lennox thing.

  I looked at my Gambalunga––and then reconsidered; I loved it too much to give it away, even if it did cost a hundred thousand dollars, and could solve all of Ballard’s problems. “I guess I won’t be Il Gatto, after all,” he said, reminding me. Ballard shrugged.

  The race! How could I have forgotten?

  “We do three laps to see who will be the head cyanthrope, remember?” he said, looking as dejected as I had ever seen him in my life. Cyanthrope was someone who turned into a dog (a werewolf).

  “But I thought it was for a year––” I said. “I thought the race was for a year.”

  Gaven had won it just last summer. He still had six months to go, didn’t he?

  “It only lasts as long as you have a tail, and can shift, and as Gaven can no longer transform, it’s time to elect a new leader: by racing,” said Ballard. He looked like he was going to be sick.

  Gaven. I wondered how he was doing?

  “Oh, he’s all right,” said Ballard. “After all, he’s got Lia. It’s sickening the way he makes puppy-dog eyes at her. Like he has no self-respect. Always chasing after her. And the sounds she makes. It should be outlawed. I can’t wait until they’re no longer under my roof, you know what I mean?” He made a retching face.

  “I think it sounds romantic,” I said.

  He just rolled his eyes at me.

  “She says fetch and he fetches. It’s like, I don’t know, she’s emascu––what is it? E
masculated him. Or something,” said Ballard.

  “Good use of ‘Or something’,” I said. “Maybe he just knows what’s important.”

  But thinking about it made me hurt inside, so I stopped.

  “Besides,” I said. “You’re too young to be Head Wolf. They’re all twentysomethings, remember? And you, you’re a kid.”

  “Not you too,” said Ballard. “I would have taken it last year, won the race,” he said, “if fate hadn’t intervened. Or did you forget?”

  “There’s just the small matter of you falling off your racing bike,” I said.

  I didn’t tell him that what I really wanted was for him to be with me: free. I couldn’t have him settling down here. Not if we were going to Prague together.

  “Sorry. It’s just,” I said, “last time you nearly died. And I care about you too much. Besides, you have all kinds of time, I mean, don’t you?”

  “What d’you mean?” said Ballard.

  “Well, I mean, you’re, you know, and most of them are, well, you know. You’ll be it longer than they will, won’t you? A werewolf, I mean.”

  “I guess,” said Ballard, who looked like he hadn’t been listening.

  “They only started turning when they were how old, whereas you, I mean you’re really young. According to Gaven, it’s unprecedented, a werewolf being so young.”

  “I’ll have no more ‘according to Gaven’––or Gaven’s orders––thank you very much,” said Ballard.

  “You know what I mean, Ballard,” I said. “You’re special.”

  “I am not!” he said. I had finally gotten under his skin. He looked angry about something.

  It hit me that maybe he had been living with obligations of one type or another himself––to be a werewolf or something.

  “Are,” I said. “And I won’t hear differently.” I slurped my grattachecca.

  He apologized for his outburst.

  “I’ve just been stressed out, is all. Sándor and Septimus––my twin older brothers––well, they’re coming to the wedding, and my parents will be there. You know, the people who raised Lia and me––and never told us about––about any of it,” said Ballard. The bitterness had crept back into his voice. I assumed he meant his condition of having lycanthropy. Being, in Italian, lupo mannaro. A wolf-man. But it should really be lupo boy-o; I didn’t want him growing up too fast. I decided to steer us in a new direction.

  “I bet it’s gotta be tough,” I said; he stumbled with the translation of gotta, but then nodded his head, clearly an understatement on my part. I bit my lip. Something in me wanted to ask him to show me a werewolf transformation immediately. I think I was thinking about the monster I had seen. I wanted to know that there was some difference between it and Ballard. And between Rome and the outside.

  Ballard looked like Atlas. The weight of the Werewolf World on his shoulders. Plus, he was really buff.

  “There’s a statue of Rhea Silvia,” he said, “called the Capitoline Wolf, an Etruscan bronze in the form of a she-wolf. Romulus and Remus get to suckle Rhea Silvia, you know, they get to grow up with it, lycanthropy. Be mothered. Whereas I. It’s like it got thrust upon me. I was weened of lycanthropy from infancy. And now it’s back. And, like you say, the gift is showing itself early. Gaven is convinced it is a sign, but the others are skeptical. And something else is going on,” said Ballard. “You remember Locke?”

  It took me a second, but I nodded my head. He was a taciturn, unpleasant sort of werewolf, Locke––one of the old Team Leaders from when we had the Gathering; Locke gave me the creeps, which I knew I shouldn’t have said, so I kept my mouth shut. It was almost like Locke, though an impressive specimen, physically, was aloof, outside of the Pack, while being paradoxically esteemed within its group. (It wasn’t a fraternity because there were female members in I Gatti. All except for Lia, who had lost her Gift, while acquiring Wicca. Something else she shared with her soon-to-be hubby, was the absence of their animals. Gaven was no longer a transformer, being that he was over thirty and old.) “Anyway,” Ballard said, “Yeah. Locke’s been making trouble.”

  By troublemaking, Ballard said, “Locke’s been angling to be in charge, you know, politicking.”

  “You mean he wants to be Head Wolf?” I said.

  I asked Ballard why this was so bad, but he just scowled.

  “So Locke’s been campaigning, so what?” I said. In fact, I was glad Locke did anything so normal as speak. He had certainly never opened his mouth in front of me before, except once.

  But Ballard insisted it was not how it was done.

  “How what’s done?” I asked.

  He looked at me. And again, I saw that menacing, prowling something, behind his eyes. The shade of the werewolf.

  “Il Gatto is a distinction earned through daring,” said Ballard. “It’s like riding the biggest wave, or k-killing the most dangerous bear. You don’t just talk your way into the Headship and are elected Il Gatto. Everyone knows it’s a motorcycle competition. In I Gatti, we race for it!” His fist was in the air. It was important I understand how macho and badass werewolves were.

  “So when is the race?” I asked.

  This was the wrong question.

  “Never, if Locke gets his way. He keeps saying the next Il Gatto will be the most important in our history, and whoever is elected, it should be because they’ll be the best fit for ‘the particular problems we will face.’ Or some such. I’m not good at all that talking. I prefer the actual doing. You know? Something Locke fails at completely. He’s all talk. No. Don’t start. I know what I’m talking about. If he gets elected,” said Ballard, “you’ll see what I mean. Rome will fall to pieces. Again. Gaven picked the wrong time to get old.”

  I thought about that. In fact, I had a theory: that the Head didn’t matter so much. It was the body politic and all its processes which gave the Head its power. Without the worker bees there could be no queen bees.

  It was impossible that Wicca not intrude on my dream scenario. In Wicca, females ruled. The werewolves seemed to be patriarchal; now Locke wanted to change all that. Maybe Lia could be Head. I asked Ballard.

  But he cut me off. “Please. The Head should be a dude. Pure and simple.”

  “Why can’t women participate?” I asked, indignantly.

  “Lia only mattered when she was Gaven’s thang,” said Ballard, not without smiling. “When he was the Head. Now that he’s not... the crown, or whathaveyou, is being held in interreges, waiting for the new one to be––yuck––figured out. Gaven’s a puppet Head only. A figurehead. A lame duck. That’s it. Gaven is a lame duck. Those are the words.” Ballard smiled.

  “I’ve always considered Gaven to be a cool cat,” I said, “despite his being a werewolf.... Meanwhile, Lia is an Alpha cyanthrope...”

  “Alpha, beta, beta, alpha,” said Ballard. “And she’s not a cyanthrope, she’s a witchanthrope.”

  “Don’t be such a misanthrope. You know what I mean, she’s got a good head on her shoulders,” I said.

  “There’s just the fact that she can’t transform any longer,” said Ballard.

  “Has it not come back?” I asked, wondering about Lia’s transformation, and if possible, if she could somehow become the first Shifter Witch in a century––since the great Rhea Silva, who I didn’t know anything about, but kept thinking of. I didn’t know why, but it felt like Rhea Silva was our mother. Like she was Lia’s and my mother. Our Wiccan mother. Our precursor, maybe. That we had been brought into a great tradition. Which was like my Mark. I had my mother’s Mark. The hoodie was keeping it under wraps. Good thing about winter––it hides your Marks.

  Ballard just sighed.

  “It’s hard being the one who’s never chosen,” he said. And then: “Gaven–– he’s like one of those dogs running around with its hindquarters strapped in a two-wheeler; you know, gimped?”

  “Ballard...” I said.

  “They treat him like a dead man walking, or worse, like a leper. He’s wandering
aimlessly. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s sticking around for her. Lia. Before I met you, when Lia was first shifting, she used to be in and out,” said Ballard. “My parents were really worried. They didn’t know what was going on––which I’ve just learned was a complete and utter lie. They did know what was going on. They just wouldn’t tell me. Anyway––they wondered why she kept running around with that dratted boy. Now, apparently, they’re going to rewrite the past and say they knew Gaven was the Pack Leader, and an alright dude. Apparently the old Leader whom Gaven replaced, Lorenzo, had run off. I forget what happened. Actually, I think he was banished. I’ve been thinking about the cats. They say a new cat will have to get thrown out of his home range and wander to find a mate. That’s sort of the same with wolves. You realize that there’s only one, quote-unquote, mating pair within a pack of wolves, right? In the wild, they form packs of between six and eight. But we’re werewolves, so it’s a little different. And the pack sizes are larger. Our pack’s never been this large before. And there have been squabbles,” said Ballard, his mind all over the place. “They say the sin of large families is backbiting. Whatevs.”

  I didn’t know if I was a bad influence on him or what. But I waited for Ballard to talk again.

  “Anyway. What I was saying is Lia and Gaven are like this,” he said. He entwined his fingertips. “They don’t want him coming back. Gaven,” said Ballard, making sure I understood.

  “Wait... What?” I said.

  He sighed.

  “It’s a hard life being a wolf. Moreso when your own pack turns on you.”

  “I Gatti has turned its pack––I mean its back––on Gaven?”

  “Not to his face,” said Ballard, unhelpfully, “but you get the gist.”

  “No. I really don’t,” I said. “Explain.”

  “Gaven is old,” said Ballard. It seemed obvious to him. Then why did I feel like I was missing something?