The man laughed. "No, not a date. You'll have more control if you feed the beast. Hungry and scared, there will be no talking to you."
"Who the hell are you? How do you know about werewolves? No one believes in werewolves. And how do you know that I am one? It's not like I'm wolfing out on you. And how is it your 'civic duty' to scare the shit out of me?"
The man laughed again. "I'm Decker, Silas Decker. I have a gift and need for tracking down magical creatures. I was out looking for---" He paused as if he had forgotten what he had been really looking for. "---something when I spotted you."
"And?"
"And?" Decker echoed, confused by Joshua's question.
"How do you know I'm a werewolf?"
"Really? Chasing rabbits in the dark?"
"Okay, that's suspect but why did 'werewolf' leap to mind instead of just---I don't know---desperate for a pet? Crazy?"
"Kicking down a tree?" Decker gave him a look that said "just accept it." And then, sighing, he glanced away. "There are two types of werewolves. Feral werewolves are deadly uncontrollable monsters that kill everything in their path. Anyone that survives their attack---which are fortunately few in number---becomes a feral werewolf too. The other type is a pack wolf. And they're very dangerous, but law abiding. They could be your next-door neighbors and you'd never know. The thing is, pack wolves are the world's best parents. They live for their kids. Any little baby pack werewolves come with a set of big, ugly parents that will rip the throat out of anyone that says 'boo' to their kid. So I see you and you're acting like a feral werewolf, but if you're a pack wolf, and I kill you, I'd be calling down a world of hurt on my head."
"Wait! What? There are good werewolves and bad werewolves? Which am I?"
"That is the question I've been trying to figure out for nearly an hour now. The thing is, if you were feral, there wouldn't be anyone still alive in this restaurant. But if you were a pack wolf, you'd know it."
Joshua opened his mouth but all the dots finally connected and the light went on. Decker wanted to know if he'd get in trouble if he killed Joshua. Telling Decker that he didn't have protective monster parents would be a bad idea. "I---I might. You said that pack wolves could be my next-door neighbors and I wouldn't know. Who knows, maybe my parents are---wolves. Or---or I could be adopted. I always suspected that. Family reunions are like living in the land of the giants."
"You're starving. You're broke. And you've got a backpack stashed under the nearest bridge. Maybe. If that homeless guy didn't take it yet."
Joshua leapt to his feet. "What homeless guy?"
"The one I made up." Decker tapped the table. "Sit."
Joshua wavered. It really didn't feel safe to stay with the man but he'd come to Boston looking for answers. He wasn't going to find anything if he bolted from the only person so far that knew about werewolves. He sat down. "Is there a cure?"
"Pardon?"
"A cure! You get bit by a werewolf and you become one. It's some kind of disease. There has to be a cure."
Decker slapped a hand over his eyes. He sat that way for several minutes. He kept taking a breath as if he was going to say something but then would sigh it out without speaking. "That's---" he finally said. "That's not how it works."
"Are you sure? How do you know it's not?" It occurred to Joshua what he should have asked Decker first. He leaned over the table and whispered. "Are you a werewolf?"
Decker's body started to quake. It took Joshua a minute to realize that the man was silently laughing at him.
"This is not funny!" Joshua felt the other inside him stir with his anger and focused back on shoving food into his mouth. Feed the beast. Feed the beast. "I want to be able to go back home. I got kicked out of the hospital for breaking things. I tore the door off my dad's pickup, flooded the bathroom, and nearly electrocuted my neighbor to death. Our cat is scared of me. He won't come near me and he peed in my bed! I just want to go back to how I was."
Decker continued to laugh silently without taking his hand from his eyes. He finally canted up his hand to look at Joshua in confusion. "How did you electrocute your neighbor?"
Joshua blushed with embarrassment. "Does it matter?"
"I'm just curious."
"I snapped the faucet off the sink in the upstairs bathroom." The entire disaster had been a lesson in plumbing. "Our house is old. There aren't any shutoff valves for those pipes. You need to turn off the water main for the whole house. I didn't know how to do that and my parents weren't home. I ran to my neighbor's to get help and put my hand through their door when I went to knock. By the time we found the main and got the water turned off, it was raining in the kitchen. It turns out that the two-twenty line for our old electric stove isn't properly grounded. Mr. Buckley went into the kitchen to mop up the water and it nearly killed him." Up to that moment, Joshua believed that nothing could be more frightening that being attacked by a werewolf. The universe seemed determined to prove him wrong. "I had this weird vision---or something---while I was having an MRI that I should go to Boston. After the ambulance took Mr. Buckley to the hospital, I packed some clothes and left home."
"Your poor parents," Decker murmured. "To leave, thinking their child was snug in their safe nest, and to return---bough broke, nest in ruin, and the chick is lost."
"I don't think 'chick' is the correct metaphor here."
"It is a little forced."
They fell silent as a tiny Asian woman came to clear the table of plates. She left a little tray with the bill upside down, pinned by two fortune cookies. Decker flicked the plastic-wrapped cookies toward Joshua and took the bill. His eyebrows rose in surprise as he read the total.
"Did they charge you for two?" Joshua asked.
"It's just I have not bought food at a restaurant for a very long time. I'd forgotten how expensive it is."
"Do you have enough?"
"Yes. Don't worry about it." He took out a wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. "Eat your cookies."
The first fortune read, "Accept something that you cannot change and you will feel better." He dropped the slip of paper on the table and opened the second cookie. The fortune said, "Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned."
Decker's cocked an eyebrow at Joshua's face and picked up the discarded fortunes. "See. No going back."
"I don't take advice from baked goods," Joshua growled. "They're just random nonsense."
"They used to be random nonsense for you, but not anymore. Men live by logic; a flipped coin always has equal chance of landing heads or tails. Monsters live by magic; the universe is no longer random for you. You are now ruled by fate."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Decker held up the slip of paper as if it was proof. "It means that you becoming a werewolf is part of something much bigger than your own personal tragedy."
Joshua considered the possibility that he should amend his father's advice of "just because they're nice doesn't mean they're necessarily good." Maybe he should add, "just because they recognize that you are a werewolf doesn't mean they aren't crazy." Who knows, maybe Decker thought everyone was a werewolf. The man just happened to finally run into someone that was.
Decker's phone played "Für Elise" in dubstep. He took it out of his coat's breast pocket and eyed it. "It keeps doing that."
Shades of Joshua's mother.
"Someone texting you," Joshua said.
"Texting?" Decker looked dubious. "It's a phone."
So like his mother.
Joshua took the phone from Decker. At least he could be fairly sure it would be just a text and not someone sexting Decker since the man seemed clueless. There had been a missed call at 6:43, 6:47 and 6:51, all from someone named Elise. At 6:52, the first text was received.
"Are you awake yet? I didn't think you could sleep in. Call me." And then. "Freaking hell, I need help." And then. "Damn you, you better not let the battery die on that thing after I bought it for you." And then, "I need backhoe. Backhoe. Back
hoe. Damn autocorrect! BACKUP!" This was followed by a string symbols and numbers that looked like someone had pounded randomly on the screen. "Help! Now!"
"I need to go." Decker stood up and then froze in place, looking confused.
"You don't know where you're going?" Joshua guessed.
"Not quickly; I'd have to slowly divine her location. Does she not say?"
They peered together at the screen.
"She gave you the phone?" Joshua said. "Okay, hold on, let's see if she has loaded any kind of friend finder app. Bingo. There she is."
Judging by the pins on the map, they were not far from Elise.
Decker strode purposely for the door, his long black coat tails flowing behind him. Joshua realized that he was letting the one person who might be able to help him get away. He dashed after Decker.
"Elise is Grigori Virtue," Decker said as they ran down the street. "Which you know nothing about. How to put this? Long, long story which we do not have time for, yadayadayada."
"That is so not useful."
"I'm trying to figure out how to condense several thousand years of history into a few short sentences as we're running toward certain mayhem. The Grigori are religious lunatics. Heavily armed religious lunatics---with magical powers---who will kill you if they think you're feral. Okay, that covers it."
"Wait---these lunatics---are these the good guys or the bad guys?"
"That's a fluid condition, changeable by day, if not minute by minute. I worked with her grandfather Saul and her mother Lauretta, which is the only reason Elise trusts me as far as she does. I will warn you that if you anger her, she knows that she can shoot you with no fear of actually killing you. It will hurt really, really bad, but it will not kill you. Make no mistake, though, she can also shoot you to kill you. That's the heavily armed part of religious lunatics; she's loaded for werewolf."
"And this is your friend?"
"Elise would shoot me if I called her my friend. Stick to ally. Better yet, how about 'associate.' Yes, I think associate would be safest thing to call her."
"Well, you must like her if we're running to save her."
Decker glanced at him sharply and then laughed. "We, hm? Yes, I'm very fond of Elise. More importantly, she trusts me---somewhat---which means we can work together. Most would not give me the benefit of doubt. If Elise were killed, some other Virtue would take over this area. That person would have good reason not to trust me---Elise had been killed in my territory---and would hunt me down. For my own safety, I have to keep Elise alive."
"So who are the bad guys?"
"Huh?"
"Who is trying to kill Elise?" Joshua assumed that the label of "Virtue" made her the good guy in this scenario.
"Elise? Who knows? Knowing Elise, the question is probably 'what' not 'who.' Especially if she's asking for help."
Joshua hadn't realized from the map that they were going back to the park until they crossed the street and plunged into the wooded darkness. The winding paths, arched stone bridges, tranquil ponds, and lush green had not been what he'd expected of Boston when he left home. He had expectations of big city and skyscrapers fringed by nothing but pavement and row houses.
Once into the wooded darkness, though, they stopped, unsure which way to head. The map indicated that they were nearly on top of Elise. A storm wind tossed the trees, promising incoming violence. Dried leaves skittered across the cement path like hordes of dark mice.
"She's close by." Joshua tried to hear if anyone was calling for help. It was impossible to hear over the thrashing leaves that all whispered like a thousand voices. "Here, give me your phone again."
Joshua switched to the phone app. Elise was the only contact entered into Decker's list. Oh, that was so sad---even Joshua had two-dozen contacts on his list. It explained, however, why the man didn't understand his phone. Joshua tapped Elise's cell phone number. A dozen feet away, the Toadies "Possum Kingdom" started to play.
"I can promise you," the lyrics sang out of the darkness. "You'll stay as beautiful, with dark hair and soft skin...forever. Forever."
"That isn't good," Decker walked in a circle as Joshua retrieved the phone from the bushes. "Not good at all. We need to find her. Quickly. My way is too slow. Can you track her?"
"Me?"
"You can do that now." Decker tapped his nose. "Just follow her scent."
"Me?" Joshua repeated, feeling something that could have been horror. Did Decker fully expect him to embrace his werewolf-ness and do something he'd never tried before with a woman's life on the line? Joshua struggled to keep in control with cold logic. "I have no idea what she smells like."
Decker pointed at the phone in Joshua's hand. "Her scent should be on that."
Joshua sniffed cautiously at the phone, not expecting to be able to smell anything. There was, however, a rich "other" on the slick surface. Baby powder. Rose-scented soap. Sweat. A murky oily smell he couldn't identify. Okay, assuming that was Elise, could he actually track her? He shoved the phone into his back pocket so it wouldn't distract him and then walked in a circle, sniffing.
Decker stayed quiet and impossibly still while Joshua hunted for the scent.
The night smelled rich and complex. The cinnamonlike death of the autumn leaves tossed by the storm wind. Green of bruised grass. He could smell the damn rabbits. And then, unexpectedly, Elise and blood. He started forward, afraid of what he'd find.
Down the path, over an arched bridge, they came to a small playground with swings. A woman sprawled in a pool of blood.
Decker caught his shoulder and pulled him back. "That's not her."
"But she's hurt." Joshua pointed at the woman on the ground.
"She's dead." Decker tightened his hold. "Something's wrong here."
The wind started to pick up, tugging at them with a thousand little hands. It caught up sticks and dead leaves and swirled them about the shadowed playground. The swings gave rusty cries, swinging as if used by ghosts. The hair on Joshua's neck rose and he sank down without thinking, until he crouched nearly on all fours, growling lowly.
Someone came running up the dark path. Joshua only caught the impression of a slim figure wielding two long knives before Decker pulled him back.
"No!" Decker shouted. "He's with me."
"God Almighty, Decker, you finally checked your phone? And where in Heaven's name did you find a wolf in Boston?" A stunningly beautiful girl walked out of the shadows. Her black hair spilled down over her shoulders in loose curls. She wore tight black clothes and held two long daggers that gleamed in the darkness. A pair of pistols hung low on her hips, tied down like a Western gunfighter. Heavily armed religious nutcase: check. This was Elise.
"What are you hunting?" Decker ignored her questions, still pulling Joshua backwards.
"A huntsman," Elise stuck her daggers into sheaths strapped across her kidneys.
Decker breathed out a curse. "What idiot made one of those? Who is it hunting?"
"Don't know." Elise skirted the body in a wide circle to join them at the edge of the playground. "And don't know. It's got five hounds already."
"Six!" Decker shouted as the wind howled louder. Dead leaves by the thousands whirled and danced, circling the body.
"Stop it, Decker!" Elise cried. "My blades don't work on them."
"I can't!" Decker shouted. "It's too late. The ground is tilled and wet with blood. The seed is planted. We could only stop it at this point by killing the huntsman!"
"Stop what?" Joshua growled.
Suddenly the wind roared and all the dead leaves rushed toward the body.
"That!" Decker pointed.
Sticks joined in the whirlwind of leaves, sucked from the nearby trees and undergrowth. The maelstrom collapsed inward, growing denser. The roar deepened to an animal-like growl and the bracken became a dark beast.
"Oh," Joshua whispered in shock. "Oh, shit."
His voice attracted the beast's attention. Its eyes were hollow pits with something glistening deep
within the darkness. A snarl of fear bloomed out of Joshua's chest. He dropped down to all fours, his fingernails scratching deep lines in the cement.
"Don't lose control." Decker gripped Joshua's shoulder hard.
"I can't kill the hounds," Elise whispered. "They regenerate too fast."
"Just slow it down," Decker said.
Elise unsheathed her daggers and leapt forward. Her gleaming blades left contrails on Joshua's vision as she met the beast halfway. The blades slashed through the hound's dark side. Bits of leaves and sticks sprayed from the wound that vanished instantly.
The hound dodged Elise and leapt snarling at Joshua. He reacted without thinking. He caught hold of the beast by its throat and shoulder. His fingers crunched through brittle leaves and found solid skeleton within. Turning with the creature's momentum, he flung it at the nearest tree. It shattered on impact.
"Yes!" Joshua cried.
The wind caught the leaves and sticks and whirled them up. Roaring, the hound amassed together again.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Joshua whispered.
"Get back," Decker shouted.
From someplace Decker had gotten a massive dark red sword. For some reason, it was scarier than the hound. Joshua didn't know if something could gleam with evil, but it made his hair crawl just looking at it. He scuttled backwards away from it, snarling.
"What the hell is that?" Joshua cried.
"You don't want to know," Decker stated calmly.
It was Joshua's experience that when people said that, he definitely did want to know. Not knowing lead to bad, bad things.
Decker charged the hound and rammed the sword tip into the center of the beast. The leaves collapsed into a tight ball around the sword and then fell to the ground. Decker stood panting, the sword level, his face twisted hard as if he was in pain.
"You good?" Elise backed away from Decker, daggers ready.
Decker gave a deep, husky laugh. "Oh, I'm good."