"No, I'm fine. I just need some more rest. Good evening," I replied.
I scuttled into the cabin and nearly shut the door on her face. I heard a huff of indignation at my rudeness and her quick steps as she hurried away. In a moment there was silence and the encroaching darkness of night. I stepped out the back door, mindful of the line of sight from Olivia's cabin, and slunk my way along the wall of my cabin and around the corner. There was clear sailing to Will's cabin and I was soon knocking on the door. Vuk answered it and bowed his head. I looked past him and the cabin appeared devoid of everyone but him.
"Where's Will?" I asked him.
"Out. Would you like to leave a message for him?" he suggested.
"No, I'd like to see him to tell him to stop this foolishness about being a werewolf. The ranchers are setting traps in the woods and hunting tonight, and if he's smart he'll stay inside instead of traipsing about the woods pretending to howl at the moon," I told him.
Vuk's pale face grew paler and he opened the door wide. "Please step inside," he requested.
I frowned. "Why? What's wrong?" I wondered.
"My Master is not here because he has already set off for the woods," he informed me.
My eyes widened and all the terrible possibilities flitted through my mind. "Then what are we going to wait around inside the cabin for? We need to go find him and warn him!" I argued.
"He will not be found easily. His familiarity with these woods in unmatched," Vuk countered.
"But we still have to try!" I insisted.
Vuk glanced down at my injured leg on which I put tentative pressure. "You are in no condition to help him," he pointed out.
"I don't care. I have to warn him. Which way did he go?" I questioned the servant.
Vuk pursed his lips together, but stepped out into the chilling night air and locked the door behind himself. "He climbed the hill a half hour ago, but informed me he would travel no further than the logging road," he told me.
"So he headed left or right at the road?" I guessed.
"That is correct," Vuk replied.
We strode across the road and dove into the myriad of paths that led up the hill. "Then when we reach the top you head left and I'll take the right," I offered.
The corner's of Vuk's mouth twitched as though he wanted to protest, but something flashed through his eyes that changed his mind. "Very well, but I must warn you to be extremely cautious. He may not recognize you in his wolf form," Vuk commented.
I rolled my eyes and hobbled over the uneven path. "I'll be careful not to let him scratch me," I quipped.
"It is the venom in his mouth that is the transmitter of the curse," he corrected me.
"Listen, I know you believe Will about all this werewolf stuff, but I'm going to drag his naked body back to the cabin and get him some mental help," I told him.
He ignored my snark and glanced down at the locket around my neck. In the fuss I'd forgotten to take it off. "While we are separated I must insist that you keep the locket close to your person," he requested.
"I'm not planning on throwing it away," I quipped, but his serious expression killed any humor in my remark.
We reached the logging road a few minutes later. By that time the sun was setting over the lake and there was a chill in the air. I wished I'd worn a coat and that my damn ankle didn't throb so much. Vuk glanced toward the left while I looked to the right.
"I will search higher. He may have wished for a greater distance than beyond the lake property," Vuk suggested.
"And I'll go around the lake and see if I can find him," I offered.
"God willing, we shall meet on the other side," Vuk replied.
With that uplifting statement Vuk took off at a quick jog up the logging road. I took the lower end that wound down the hill to where I knew not.
Chapter 17
Night replaced day and I regretted not bringing a flashlight when the shadows hid the holes and rocks along the road. I tripped and tumbled my way around the hill above the lake and its cabins. Fortunately, I noticed that each step I took brought me closer to the lights and open water.
The logging road grew thinner as wild bushes and trees sprouted from its open ground. After a few miles it was more like a wide path. On my right and fifty yards through a thicket of trees and brush lay the lake road. From the look of the cabins I guessed I was nearly at the park and gate.
I froze when a gunshot echoed through the air. It came from in front of me. My physical heart told me to run the other way, but my emotional heart told me to run forward. I listened to my emotions and ignored the beating in my chest. Will might need me. In this dark of woods the ranchers could have mistaken anyone for a wolf and fired on them.
I reached a wide spot in the road where it met a natural clearing. Something crashed through the woods on my left. I turned and my eyes widened when a creature stumbled from the brush. It was the same wolf thing from last night, but the glimmer was gone from its eyes. There was only pain. I scurried backwards into the brush and watched it walk on two legs to the center of the clearing. It clutched at its chest and panted loud enough for me to hear every gasp for air.
One of its feet hit one of the annoying rocks and it fell forward onto its knees. It caught itself with one pawed hand and leaned forward facing the ground. Drool dripped from its long, sharp fangs and splashed the ground. I noticed something oozed between its fingers that lay against the chest and dropped to the earth to mix with the drool. The liquid glistened in the faint moonlight and I gasped when I realized it was blood.
The creature heard my gasp and snapped its neck toward me. It narrowed its eyes and growled at me. That friendly greeting was enough to make me turn around, but the moment I did the creature whined. I glanced over my shoulder in time to watch the thing slump forward face-first onto the ground. Those terrifying yellow eyes closed and its body seemed to melt into the earth. No, that wasn't quite it. The thing's body shrank. It grew smaller and lost its fur coat. Pink skin appeared beneath the fuzz. The fangs receded into the face with the rest of the snout. The claws morphed into blunt human hands. The change took only ten seconds, and then Will lay naked on the ground.
My first thought was that this was some elaborate magic trick. My second thought was that Will and Vuk wouldn't be playing this elaborate a magic trick on someone as plain and unimportant as me. I rushed to Will's side and grasped his back. He still breathed. I rolled him over and nearly lost every meal of the day when I saw the bullet hole in his chest. Blood poured from the wound and spilled onto his chest, staining his pale skin. I pressed my hand against it to stop the bleeding and looked around for something to stuff into the hole. Just my luck that the only plant I could identify in the dark was poison ivy.
Shouts rang through the forest. "Where'd it go?" one of the voices yelled. A dog barked and another howled, and there was a terrific crash not more than thirty yards away.
"The dogs say this way!" another called. People crashed through the brush toward us.
My brain told me that in a normal situation it would be great to have help hurrying my way. Unfortunately, with a former-wolf-and-now-naked-man laying in front of me with a bullet wound in the chest in the middle of the night in the middle of the forest, something told me this wasn't a normal situation and I needed to get Will out of here before the voices reached us. I wrapped my arms around Will and tried to lift him. By my accurate judgment he weighed slightly less than a ton so my effort to lift him resembled a child trying to lift a small truck loaded with cement blocks. I winced when my sweating hands slipped and dropped Will back to the ground.
"Sorry!" I whispered to his unconscious form. The crashing and voices in the woods grew closer. In a minute they would be in the clearing and asking some uncomfortable questions that I wouldn't be able to answer. The footsteps grew louder and louder until they barreled down on us from behind me.
Wait, the ranchers were coming from my left. I looked up at this new intruder and was relieved and confuse
d to see Vuk. He slid down beside me, tossed Will over his shoulder as though he weighed as much as a feather pillow minus the itchy feathers and stood.
"Follow me," he ordered me. With that thorough explanation he rushed back up the logging trail.
I would have refused and demanded an explanation for how he came up behind me when he was supposed to be the other way, but a howl of a hound buried that option. I rushed after Vuk and had a hard time keeping up with his quick jog. Vuk kept one hand on Will's back and the other hand kept diving inside his pocket and emerging with his fist full of something. He dropped the something on the ground behind us and a small cloud floated onto the trail. The process was repeated a half dozen times until I couldn't take it anymore.
"What are. . .you doing?" I huffed.
"Pepper," he explained. From behind us came the sounds of dogs sneezing followed by angry voices. The dogs had tried to follow our scent and their sniffers were sabotaged by the pepper.
I had a hard time keeping up with Vuk and by the time we had reached the top of the logging road, crashed our way down the hill, and arrived at the cabins I was exhausted. I dragged my tongue and myself through the open door of Will's cabin with Vuk in the lead and would have collapsed on the couch if Vuk hadn't occupied it with Will. Vuk covered his body with a blanket at the end of the couch. I shuffled over to the couch and knelt beside it while Vuk rushed into the bathroom. Will's face was horribly pale and his body trembled as though with fever. It was just like earlier that day and the previous night.
Vuk returned with a tray of bottles of sanitizer, cotton swabs, and other torture devices. The worst of the devices were a pair of tongs and a scalpel. I nodded at those two items. "What are those for?" I asked him.
"The wound has not healed because the bullet is still inside his body," Vuk replied.
My eyes widened and flickered between Vuk and the wound. "And you're going to-?"
"Remove it," he finished.
I gulped. "Did you need any help?" I wondered.
"It will not be pleasant. If you prefer you may prepare a rare steak that is in the refrigerator," he told me.
"That sounds like a good idea," I agreed, and eagerly hurried into the kitchen. I was removing the plate of steak from the fridge when I heard a terrible cry. It came from the couch. I raced into the living room and saw Vuk struggle to pin Will against the cushions. The instruments on the tray were covered with blood, but I didn't see a bullet.
"I must ask that you hold him for me," Vuk pleaded with me.
I rushed around the side of the couch and saw that the wound in Will's chest was reddened with Vuk's attempts to remove the bullet. The blood had slowed, but not stopped. I grasped his arms and pinned them to the couch. Will's eyes fluttered opened and I saw they were more golden than his usual blue.
"Will, do you recognize me?" I asked him. He didn't reply, but his thrashing stopped and he lay still on the couch. It was unnerving having him stare at me so intently, but less unnerving than him changing into a werewolf and turning me into dog chow. I turned to Vuk who knelt by my side and held the long surgical pliers in one hand. "He won't transform on us, will he?" I wondered.
"No, his body is too weakened by the blood loss and in a state of shock," Vuk replied.
To skip the grisly details, Vuk removed the bullet from the wound and the heavy bit of metal clattered onto the tray on the other side of Vuk. Will lay still upon the couch while Vuk cleaned the wound and covered his chest with bandages. I stood and stumbled over to the mantel of the fireplace. It'd been a long night, and my mind was stretched to its limit.
I turned to stare at Will, ran a hand through my disheveled hair, and shook my head. "He really is a werewolf, isn't he?" I asked Vuk.
Vuk picked up the tray with the grisly prize and bloodied tools, and stood to face me. "Yes," was his blunt reply.
"And everything he said about that wolf biting him was omitting the important fact that the wolf was really a werewolf?" I guessed.
"Yes." Vuk was a wealth of vocabulary tonight.
"So now what?" I wondered, and gestured to Will. His eyes were finally closed and he breathed evenly.
"I don't believe I understand your question," Vuk replied.
I threw up my arms, stalked over to the front of the couch, and waved my hands at Will. "He's a werewolf, and he's injured. Is there some sort of wolf hospital we can take him to get checked out before gangrene sets in or do we let him die a slow, terrible death?"
Vuk chuckled. It was the first time I'd heard him make any noise of amusement, and it was creepy. "There is no need to worry for the injury. It will heal by tomorrow as all the others have and Master Will will be well again."
"Like all the others?" I repeated.
"Yes. He has been shot on other occasions, but fortunately none of the bullets were silver," he explained.
"So that-that hole in his chest is going to go away by tomorrow?" I wondered.
"Yes."
"And no side effects?"
"None whatsoever."
"So we just wait?"
"Precisely."
"Um, maybe I'll wait at my cabin for that to happen, and you can call me when it's done," I suggested. I was hoping I'd open the door to my current home and find sanity waiting there for me.
"Wait," a voice croaked. Vuk and my attention turned to the figure on the couch beside me. Will opened his eyes and turned the blue orbs up at me. He managed a small smile. "I believe I owe you further explanation."
If there was ever an award for understatement of the year Will would have been awarded it.
Chapter 18
I crossed my arms and glared at him. "Further explanation? I'd say you owe me a life-time supply of dinners and a movies. Why didn't you try to prove to me that you were a werewolf and not just go hiding in the woods trying to get yourself killed?" I growled.
"I have limited ability to change myself at will, and the wolf is getting stronger," Will defended himself. He tried to raise himself to a seated position, but I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down.
"Werewolf or no werewolf, that wound in your chest isn't going to heal overnight," I scolded him.
Will chuckled. "Not entirely, but you are correct, I need rest, but not before I apologize for not proving to you what I am. We may have avoided this night and your concern, but it has at least proven that I chose wisely in gifting you the locket."
I blinked. "What's the locket got to do with anything?" I asked him.
"It is a special amulet created for me by a learned man in Hungary. He claimed it would assist those I trust in helping me overcome, or at least contain, the beast inside of me," he explained.
I knelt down beside him and grasped the locket. The beautiful outer covering hid the silver inside. "I don't think mine works or you wouldn't have been hurt tonight," I argued.
"It worked the previous night, otherwise I would have killed you, and the same holds true for tonight when my injured self saw you. If the beast had truly been in command it would have considered you a treat or a threat and killed you," he told me.
"Wait a second, last night you were going to eat me?" I questioned him.
Will smiled. "Not me necessarily, but the beast had those intentions. That is, until it noticed the locket and I was able to take control. The same holds true if Vuk had been in your place," he added. I glanced at Vuk who pulled out a shining locket from beneath his shirt. It was exactly like mine, or as near-exact as a hand-made object could be.
I glanced between them while my mind tried to grasp this added dimension to the insanity. "Let me see if I have this straight," I pleaded with them. "You became a werewolf a few years ago, and Vuk saved you because you were nice to him, correct?"
"Correct," Will agreed.
"So you two traveled the world in search of a cure?" I guessed.
"Also correct," he replied.
"And you picked up these lockets that do what again?" I asked him.
"They are objects forged from
silver and gold, two sacred metals, and blessed by the wise-man," he explained. "When someone who is emotionally close to the werewolf wears one of the lockets they psychically and emotionally help to contain the wolf so that even if a transformation occurs I am still myself inside the werewolf body."
"If that's true then why were you prowling around last night like you wanted to invite someone to dinner with them as the main course?" I pointed out.
A shadow darkened Will's expression and his eyes flickered over to Vuk. "It seems that while Vuk is as loyal a servant as anyone could ever ask for the connection between us isn't strong enough to contain the beast, at least not anymore. For the first few years the wolf was weak, but over time it's become stronger. With each full moon I've felt myself swallowed by its will and feared I would one day murder someone. That is why I returned to the lake at the time of the picnic in order to find another person to help carry the burden."
My face fell. "So you decided to come to a heavily populated area knowing your werewolf self was getting stronger and had a taste for hors de human?" I questioned him.
"Yes, but we weren't entirely unprepared for the change. This cabin is very old, and beneath the floor is a small root cellar that was used during Prohibition to hide alcohol. Every night I would place myself inside and Vuk would place furniture atop the trap door to keep me inside," Will told me.
I frowned. "So how does that explain the last three nights? I heard howling the first night, and then you try to take a bite out of Steuben, and now tonight I find you wandering around with a bullseye on your back," I wondered.
"I'm afraid you're partially to blame for all the trouble," Will replied.
My mouth dropped open. "Me? You're the one who's dragged me into this trouble!" I argued.
"Your affect on my emotions has brought out the most basic desires inside me, and those desires are felt and amplified by the beast inside of me. It has struggled to free itself and visit you at your cabin to consecrate my affections for you," he explained.
"So what you're saying is you're physically attracted to me and the wolf wants to have sex with me?" I rephrased.