***
Gray water lapped at the edge of the high rocky divide that separated sea from shore. It was an industrial pier and not much to look at, but the wide stretch of harbor before them was glassy and serene, and the irregular spires of the downtown skyscrapers across the way glinted orange in the light of the breaking morning.
Days with cloudless blue skies were few and far between this time of year, but today was one of them. The corporate superstructures stood clumped together in the middle of downtown like blue and gray suited businessmen sharing a whispered conversation about the latest high-powered merger and how it would affect the quarterlies. The rest of the city sprawled out around them in a haphazard grid: the industrial sector, the historic district, Chinatown. They were all parts of a whole that had been interwoven this way, in one form or another, for more than a century.
When the sun shined as it did today and the high-rises shimmered with an intangible fire, it was enough to make some people forget about the parts of the city that the sun never reached: the alleyways and bus stops and train yards, the graffiti-covered walls of the abandoned auto-body shops, the leafless trees planted outside crumbling tenements.
Ryan had always loved the city: from its cloud-touching heights to its dank, forgotten lows. He had lived here his entire life and there was no place he’d have rather grown up. He had always felt a connection, a camaraderie, to its other citizens, from the investment bankers to the indigent. Now however, all that had changed. The city looked the same, the streets were still familiar, but Ryan felt as though he had been cast out, as though he was no longer a member of the teeming masses, that he was exiled from the rest of humankind.
It was a chilly morning, despite the sun. Mist hung unmoving in the air like flapping curtains suddenly frozen in time. Ryan’s borrowed sweatshirt was warmer than it had looked, and for that he was thankful. He had also managed to find his shoes on the way out; flung to opposite ends of the building when he had transformed. They were mostly intact, but his socks had not fared so well. Feeling was quickly leaving his toes.
There was nowhere to sit in the space behind the warehouse, just asphalt, gravel, and a few untended patches of scruffy grass, but Ryan wouldn’t have been able to sit even if he could. He was too anxious, too nervous, too intent on hearing absolutely everything the psychic doctor had to say.
“What do you think?” The man asked. “Of the place, I mean. The people, the operation…”
“I think I don’t know what to think.”
Webster stared out into the harbor. “That’s probably fair. Are you at least ready to hazard a guess?”
“A guess at what?”
“At why there’s a warehouse on the waterfront filled with people and things that are living, breathing exceptions to all the rules of science.”
“I have no idea.”
“Survival, Ryan. And not because of what’s out there, but because of what’s in here.” He put a hand to his chest. “Banding together like this, it’s the only way we stand a chance of remaining true to our…better selves. This is the only way we can suppress our destructive appetites, our true natures.”
“I don’t follow.”
Dr. Webster turned his gaze from the ocean and looked at him. “Ryan, do you know why people like us; psychics, werewolves, sorcerers, vampires, why history has always painted us as villains? As murderers and kidnappers and tricksters? As evil men?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Because we are. We may not all be human anymore, but we are still subject to the confines of human nature. Power, Ryan, even in the slightest degree, can twist the human mind into something terrible, unrecognizable. People that are born with such incredible power, or come upon it later in life, we almost inevitably become corrupted. You of all people can understand that. The wolf is a manifestation of that corruption: the darkest corners of bestial savagery and human lusts brought out in monstrous physical form. For some of us the distinction between good and evil is much less obvious.
“The people in that warehouse are the ones who are determined to keep their power from corrupting them, from using their power to steal or hurt or kill or to gain more power. We do that by supporting each other. Even so, we’re all each of us on the razor’s edge: we’re alcoholics that wake up every morning with a fresh bottle on the nightstand. We carry around the keys to our own damnation and we have to fight those urges every day. It’d be the easiest thing in the world to reach out and give in, but we’ve made the decision not to.”
“You mean none of you use your powers?”
Webster shook his head. “That’s not an option. You’ll soon find Ryan, that your powers become a part of you like an arm or a leg. You can’t just not use them. What we do is try to redirect our human urges and use our powers in the least selfish ways possible. The moment we use our powers for personal gain, the moment we allow ourselves just one exception, that’s the moment we step over the precipice. The deck is always stacked against us, that’s why none of us can do it alone.”
“So why do what you do? If all you’re worried about is some kind of salvation, why bother to fight people like Renart at all? Why not just sit in the warehouse and sing ‘Kumbaya’? Fewer knives in the chest that way, I’d imagine…”
The doctor smiled. “They may not have a box for us on the census, but this is still our city. I don’t want it in the hands of Renart or Hess, do you? I know, we know, better than anyone, what men like that are capable of. We fight because if we don’t, there is absolutely nothing to stop them. The police can’t fight what they don’t even know about. These people grow bolder and more ambitious every day, and it is only a matter of time before they decide to come out of the shadows. And when that happens, I am not going to leave this city and its people defenseless. We fight because someone has to, and against an enemy like this, we are the only ones who can.”
Ryan had become uneasy, as grotesque images of Frank Spalding swam through his head. “But using violence to stop violence, isn’t that…I don’t know…counterproductive? Doesn’t that put you in danger of going over the edge? All the fighting?”
The doctor’s eyes darkened and his countenance took on a completely different hue. His mouth formed into the thin line of a scowl, and Ryan saw none of the movie-star handsomeness that had been there only seconds before.
“Do you know of a better way?” He asked sharply. “There are things out there right now that are trying to carve up every bit of this city for their own. Of course violence is a last resort, but sometimes it’s the only way. Every one of us has done things…made sacrifices…all for the good of this city. Ask Ruby what happened to her last husband. Ask Miles who it is that’s buried in an unmarked plot in the corner of Greenhaven. Ask Mrs. White how many people she’s seen come through that door on their own two feet only to leave in a bag on a four-wheeled stretcher. Ask Tom how many of our brothers-in-arms, our friends, have fallen off the wagon and now work for Hess or Renart. Today there are six of us, tomorrow there could be three, or none. I can’t tell you how many we’ve lost because I myself have lost count.” His eyes had slipped out of focus and his voice had dropped to just above a whisper. “Too many sacrifices for us to just lie down and call it quits.”
Ryan watched him for a moment, hesitant to respond.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” but then Ryan’s voice trailed off as he watched the color return to Webster’s face, the light return to his eyes. In another instant, the movie-star smile had returned.
“Of course not.” The doctor said warmly. “And you’ll have to forgive me. We’ve all been through a great deal. Things like that…it’s exactly what I’ve been saying: we have to stick together.”
Ryan had been holding out hope that there was some cure or fix or solution for the werewolf, but he wondered now: what if there wasn’t? What if he was expected to live the rest of his life with bars on his windows and chains in his basement? If college, a family, a normal life was o
nce again completely out of the question, could he handle it? Ryan wasn’t sure he’d have the strength and, if he did, how long that strength would last. He wondered if there would come a time when he got fed up with fighting it and allowed the wolf to roam freely every month, hunting and killing as it pleased. Ryan shuddered at the thought, but he knew it was always a possibility: he could still feel the wolf in his head, even now. If these people could help him, if they could stand by him and make sure he never got apathetic, maybe he could manage.
Even so, Ryan knew that getting involved in something as massive and dangerous as this wasn’t a perfect solution either. He knew that he too would have to deal with his human, power-hungry nature, but he certainly wasn’t convinced this was the way to do it. A support network of other people made sense to Ryan. Using that network to fight business tycoon vampires made less sense.
The more Ryan thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that this wasn’t his fight. He didn’t want a vampire running the city or psychics on the loose committing crimes, but he and his family and friends had lived for years without knowing or worrying about vampires or werewolves or ghosts. Apart from the target Grayle had painted on his back, Ryan wasn’t sure why he would involve himself now. He wasn’t thrilled by the idea of jumping headlong into a war and even then, he wasn’t sure how much it would help him.
To Ryan, it didn’t seem like they needed him either. They had muscle and firepower and finesse, and it would all run much more smoothly without the milk-toast suburban werewolf bumbling around trying to learn the ropes. Ryan was just as likely to get someone else killed as he was himself.
And just that quickly, it was settled. Ryan had made up his mind: thanks but no thanks. He was having a hard enough time surviving high school, he’d knew he’d never make it through a war.
“Look, I’m glad that there are people out there, looking out for the rest of us like this, but that’s not me. I can’t shoot a gun, I don’t have any skills or experience, even my power is just one big liability.”
Webster gave Ryan an appraising look. “I’m not trying to enlist you, Ryan, I’m trying to help you. You can do whatever you want, we’re not going to twist your arm one way or the other. Fact is, we needed to bring you in regardless. Once a person discovers or obtains their powers, we only have so much time to contact them before their abilities take over. Once we do talk to them and explain things, people become much less dangerous. If we don’t, however…”
“What do you mean?”
Dr. Webster’s gaze fell to the ground, then back out to the sea. “What I’m saying is-” He paused, unsure of his words. “Maybe this is a better way to explain it: a few years ago, we caught wind of a girl, a little older than you. From what we’ve learned since, we know that she had some latent psychic ability, mind reading, like Miles. School or life or something started to get difficult, so she started to become more introverted, to spend more time indoors, alone. The isolation, it made her subconscious mind more eager to reach out to the people around her. Soon, hearing people’s thoughts became as easy for Melody Richman as hearing them speak.”
The name sounded familiar to Ryan, but he couldn’t place it. It was a name his mind had filed away at some point for future reference, but the knowledge had never been needed again so it had lost all context in Ryan’s brain. The doctor continued.
“Of course, she began to hone it, to concentrate. After a while, Melody got to the point where she could not only hear and sense another person’s present thoughts, but even delve into their memories. When she began exploring that path, it was never...she never had a chance. Melody Richman became privy to every skeleton in every closet: every secret, every lie, every by-the-hour motel, every exchange of goods or services beneath every freeway overpass. All the desperation and depravity of the human experience was open to her, and when you see those things, those unspeakable acts written all over the faces of your politicians, your grocers, your mechanics...your parents...the line between right and wrong isn't blurred, it's obliterated.
“Melody Richman saw the mortal sins of every person she passed on the street, and she saw so much evil that she no longer noticed any of the good. Human beings weren't designed for omniscience, and Melody had to watch as every moral truth she had ever learned in Sunday School was desecrated. Truth, Chastity, Kindness, Justice: they were the rules that had shaped her world, and her faith in them was shattered."
“Where were you guys during all of this?” Ryan demanded.
Doc sighed. “We just…we didn’t know. Usually when powers first come into play, it makes some kind of a splash. The psychics feel it or somebody gets hurt so I see them at the hospital or we hear about it on the news. Melody though, she just seethed. She saw everything, but she never did anything. Just seethed.
“Eventually of course, something had to give. In Melody’s mind, all the rules of human morality had been exposed as lies. Eventually all that information, all those terrible things she had seen, it came to a head. To this day, we don’t know if Melody knew of something sinister going on at the church’s youth center or if it was just madness, but the bombing was the culmination of all that.”
There had been an explosion, years ago, at an after-school center in one of the lower-income parts of town. Ryan remembered the media frenzy that had surrounded it: three killed, dozens of children left with severe burns, no suspects. The police had never officially called it a bombing, but that was the popular theory at the time. It was a black mark on the city’s history, and the kind of thing that people wished they could forget.
“That was her? I thought they never made any arrests.”
Webster shook his head then looked at Ryan with darkened eyes. “They didn’t. They didn’t have time. The youth center was sponsored by the neighborhood church, and the church’s congregation included every high-ranking member of the O’Dwyer crime syndicate. They don't take lightly to people leaving their children with third degree burns, even if the guilty party was an unstable teenage girl. We still don’t know how they found out who had done it, but we do know that Melody was at the bottom of the lake before the police were even done taking witness statements. Nobody linked the bombing with the body of a girl in a lake because nobody knew. Nobody but the people who had put her there…and us.”
The final piece clicked into place. That was where Ryan remembered hearing the name before. Around the same time as the bombing, the body of a young girl named Melody Richman had been pulled out of a nearby lake. The murder was overshadowed by the press coverage of the youth center incident, but it got more attention than most of the city’s other murders simply because the two events happened so close together. The media had called it a “crime spree”, although they’d had no idea that the two crimes were related. Until now, neither had Ryan.
“Why tell me this?” Ryan asked.
Doc shrugged. “It’s the best way to illustrate what I’m talking about. And I think you deserve to know what can happen when people like us try to go out on our own, what we’re up against when we go toe-to-toe with our human natures. Melody Richman is a dramatic example to be sure, but I want you to understand the razor’s edge that we walk every day.”
“But Melody didn’t go crazy with power, she just went…crazy.”
“Even crazy, she killed three people. Imagine what she might have done if she had liked the terrible memories and thoughts she could see. It’s a cautionary tale, Ryan, about the edge. These powers can do wonderful, incredible things, or they can destroy you and everyone around you.”
“Daniel said I could try to deal with it on my own. He said I could chain myself up and live a normal life”
The doctor nodded. “It is possible. I’m just trying to explain your options…and the stakes you’re facing.”
“So this is still a pitch to get me to join the A-Team.”
Doc smiled. “Let’s see where you’re at after you talk to Ben. He’s got a little different view of things, maybe he
can convince you.”
The doctor’s words were starting to hit their mark. For Ryan, the thought of being able to do some actual good, to strike back in a very real sense for Truth, Justice, and the American Way against people who were using their powers for evil…it was an attractive, exciting concept. Staying alive long enough to see his eighteenth birthday however, was also appealing.
Ryan was torn, but he decided to take Webster’s advice and hear what Ben had to say. He was almost certain of what he wanted to do, but if he had to talk to Ben about being a werewolf anyway, Ryan figured it couldn’t hurt to hear one last pitch.