RED

By

 Tracey H. Kitts

© copyright March, 2007, Tracey H. Kitts

Cover art by © Alex DeShanks

ISBN Number 978-1-60394-049-8

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction.  All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact.  Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Dedication:

To my mom who always knew I had talent, and to my dad who always knew it came from him.
 

Prologue

                        Lycanthropy is often referred to as a mental condition in which an individual believes himself to be a werewolf, but it’s much more than that.  According to Greek mythology, a king named Lycaon was visited by Zeus, King of the gods, in disguise.  Thinking his visitor to be nothing but a beggar, the king served Zeus human flesh.  As punishment for serving human flesh to a god, Lycaon was cursed for his animalistic ways.  If you believe that sort of thing, that’s what happened.

            In reality, Lycaon was visited by a werewolf whom he owed a great deal of money.  Knowing what he was Lycaon served his guest the flesh in an effort to appease him.  He was contaminated with lycanthropy as punishment for not paying his debt.  Apparently, werewolves don’t like to be stiffed.

            This is how the disease got its name.  What has this story got to do with me? I’m getting there. 

Chapter One

            I was looking forward to the end of another hot, miserable summer night as I drove home that evening.  Hopefully the local police would be able to cover up the night’s work without too much difficulty.  God forbid they should be inconvenienced.  I was called out at eleven thirty at night to hunt down a rouge werewolf, but hey, why should anyone else lose sleep?

            Hearing the gravel of the driveway crunching underneath my tires was a relief.  It was my signal that I was almost home.  Oh, what I would have given to just crawl into bed and sleep for a couple of days.  If I didn’t hate to stain my sheets with blood, I might have done just that. 

            I drove around to the back of the house, got out of the car, began unfastening my many weapons and depositing them in the trunk.  I had just removed my long silver blade and closed the lid when I realized I had also locked up my keys.  Before I could make an attempt at breaking into my own house, a noise caught my attention.  It sounded like something was crunching through the underbrush in the nearby woods.

            Since I was locked out anyway, I decided to investigate.  I should have used more caution.  But, I had stopped being afraid of the dark a long time ago.  There was nothing in the dark worse than me, not that night.

            I looked up, admiring the beautiful night sky.  The next thing I knew, I was face down in the grass with something heavy on my back.  I should have seen it coming.  Perhaps I was more tired than I had thought.  The werewolf growled, pressing me further into the ground.   I could taste dirt between my teeth, feel its claws digging into my shoulders, and its hot breath on the back of my neck.

            I dug my knees further into the grass, pushing back with my hips.   By the time I rolled over and jumped to my feet, the werewolf had run back into the woods.   I tore off after it, listening to the sound of its frantic footfalls ahead of me.   Ducking limbs, jumping roots, and dashing around branches, I stopped at last and listened to the night around me.  It was quiet.  When I say quiet, I don’t mean the normal sounds of a hot summer night.  There were no birds, no crickets chirping, nothing.

            I closed my eyes and sensed the woods around me, reaching out for any trace of human emotion—a thought, a feeling, a heartbeat.  I felt something moving back toward the house.  I started back more slowly, more quietly than before.  I was in the woods hunting a werewolf with all my weapons locked in the trunk.  It was not my night.  I could only imagine what my father would say.  Here was Lilith Mercury, a.k.a. Quicksilver, a.k.a. The Silver Bullet, out hunting werewolves without so much as a silver nail file. 

            As I approached the house, I found the werewolf looking through the glass walls of my sunroom at the open back door to the kitchen.  All he had to do was break the latch on the sunroom door and he would be inside.  Nope.  I did not want to have to kill a werewolf in my clean house.  Without further thought to stealth, I sprang on him.  My arm wrapped tightly around his massive throat.  He flung his head back hard, knocking me into the flower bed where I hit my head on a large shepherd’s hook.  The shepherd’s hook!  Why didn’t I think of it before? The hook was plated with silver!

            I jumped up and snatched on the hook.  Whack.  I was back on the ground again, enjoying the flavor of an azalea branch.  Spitting out the flower, I stood up and pulled on the hook again.  This time I managed to get it out of the ground.  I was immediately knocked off my feet again, but I held on to the hook.  It was positioned at the perfect angle when, a split second later, the beast leapt upon me, impaling himself on the silver. 

            He howled with fury and began pulling the hook through his body, pulling himself closer to me.  I put my boot against his chest and shoved him backward, removing the hook from his body with a sickening slicing noise.  He staggered back against the house.  I slammed the hook across the side of his head, knocking him to his knees before I stabbed the hook through the back of his neck, and watched as his body slumped to the ground. 

            After washing the bloody smears off the vinyl siding, I decided to break in the back door and call it a night.  This time, I locked the kitchen door.

* * * *

            I heard footsteps coming from the staircase leading into the research lab beneath the house.  Alfred came rushing up, looking completely disheveled. 

            “Good night, Alfred,” I said, continuing toward the stairs. 

            “What’s going on?”

            “I handled it,” I answered simply. 

            He stomped barefoot across the foyer into the kitchen.  “Holy shit,” he said, as he stomped back toward me.  “You can’t just leave that monster in the back yard,” he insisted. 

            Being something other than human myself, I took offense at the word monster.  It must have shown in my expression as his next words were not spoken so harshly. 

            “What were you thinking?” he asked. 

            “That you could handle something, for once.” 

            “Fine.” And with that, he turned back toward the lab and I ascended the stairs. 

            Dr. Alfred Moody isn’t exactly what you’d call normal either, but he’s human.  I knew him through his work with my father before he became my partner.  He’s about six foot five with dark hair and skin the color of an exotic caramel.  He’s in decent shape, but not overly muscular.  However, I didn’t doubt he could handle disposing of a werewolf carcass.  He’s a brilliant scientist, twenty six years my senior.  I believed he had spent every one of those years with his nose in a book. 

            “Wait,” he called. 

            “What?” I asked, walking back toward where Alfred stood at the foot of the stairs. 

            “What about the report? You know the commander will be expecting a report on the incident tonight.”

            I looked at him blankly for a moment.  I had honestly forgotten about giving a report.  “Alfred, there are advantages to him being my father.  I’ll make the report in the morning.”

            “I’ll make the report,” he said with a sigh.  “Come on; give me the gist of it.”

            I walked back down the stairs and into the sitting room to the left.  Alfred clicked on a lamp and I winced. 

            “What? I can’t write in the dark,” he said, taking a note pad out of his lab coat.  He had a point.  I normally didn’t turn on the lamp.  Why bother with the light, when you can see in the dark?

            I gave Alfred the rundown.  Just as he rose to leave, I happened to glance out the window.  Storm clouds had appeared over what was once a clear sky.  The faint rumble of thunder in the distance told me I would sleep well, if I could ever get to bed.  I’ve always loved a good storm, and living in Florida, I got plenty of them. 

            Gazing out underneath the gathering storm clouds, I caught sight of Marco Barak watching my house through the first sprinkles of rain.  I’d left something out of the rundown I’d given Alfred.  I’d recognized the werewolf I had killed earlier.  He was a friend of Marco’s.  There was a true monster, though at first glance one might be mistaken.  Marco was attractive in that rough Harley Davidson, Marlboro man sort of way.  Sexy and rugged, with a natural tan and dusty brown hair.  I’d spoken to him only once before.  He was being trained as a Hunter years ago, when he’d been contaminated.  That had been at least eight years ago, making him around thirty four now. 

            He hadn’t changed.  Even through the rain growing steadily harder, I could see his tall frame clearly, looking exactly as I remembered him.  Marco is around six feet tall, though he has always appeared larger to me.  But, everyone seems tall when you’re five foot four. 

            I was on the way to my father’s office when we’d bumped into each other all those years ago.  It was the first time I’d worn my now customary black leather cat-suit. 

            “Why black?” he’d asked. 

            “Stealth.” 

            Marco smiled at me.  As I recalled, he had a nice smile, even white teeth, and full lips.  Like I said, the man was good looking. 

            “Why bother? That red hair of yours glows in the dark.” He ruffled my hair and walked away.  I didn’t know him well, but I’d thought he was a nice guy.  Everyone had, including my father, who beats himself up to this day for not killing him when he had the chance.  No one expected him to go crazy once he turned, let alone form a resistance group. 

            My father is the commander of The Hunters, a group originally formed on planet Terra to eliminate the threat of werewolves.  They are the most elite group of professional assassins the world has ever known ...  and yet, the world doesn’t know them.  Very few people know of the existence of The Hunters.  A few of the local police had to be informed, for obvious reasons. 

            Werewolves have turned up for centuries in legends and myths from different cultures around the world.  Every country has its own version of the werewolf, what they look like, and the powers they have.  It is not a coincidence that before people on other continents were aware of each other, they had all developed their version of the same legend. 

            Lycanthropy was created during the only world war the planet Terra has ever known.  It’s a man made disease, born of nightmares.  It was engineered as a biological weapon by Lionel Ferdinand, a scientist with radical ideas of what should be done with individuals who disagreed with his own political views.  The idea was that people contaminated with the disease would transform and annihilate everyone else.  Not everyone is capable of contracting lycanthropy, however.  Just as some people have immunity to certain diseases they have been immunized against, others have a natural resistance.  It was from these people that a vaccine was developed.  Many hoped it would be ‘the cure’ for what was at the time known as the animal virus.  Unfortunately, such was not the case.  The virus ran rampant.  The only person rumored to have developed a successful vaccine was Ferdinand himself, who had at this point had already been killed, slaughtered by a monster of his own making.  Only pieces of his research were ever found.  The complete formula, it would appear, was in his head.  And most unfortunately, that had been lopped off by a werewolf. 

            Something had to be done.  It was at this point that The Hunters were formed under the supervision of the acting President of the United Continental Terran Federation, Josiah Roark.  Roark, formally vice President, had been forced into action by the contamination of the President himself.  Not exactly the way he wanted to take office, I’m sure.  It had been the first mission of The Hunters to assassinate their own President.  Once the disease began to come under some sort of control on planet Terra, people who were contaminated began escaping to our sister planet, Earth.  The environments are virtually the same, though at this time, Earth was in its primitive stages.  That was the beginning, thousands of years ago, of the organization my father now commands.  He’s the reason I am still alive, but that’s another story. 

            My reverie was broken by a loud crash in the basement, followed by a thunderous curse from Alfred.  I blinked.  In the seconds it took me to look back through the window, Marco was gone.  I remembered my idea of just crawling between the sheets, and seriously considered it for a moment.  I looked down at my blood stained hands, attempted to run my fingers through my blood crusted hair and decided against it.  I definitely needed a bath first. 

            I was tired in a way that makes your very bones ache for sleep.  I trudged wearily to the upstairs bathroom and closed the door behind me, desperately needing to relax.  I kicked off my boots beside the chair near the door.  There was blood underneath my fingernails and dry scaly places on my cat-suit that was probably more blood.  I peeled the suit off and let it stay where it fell. 

            I was tough when I had to be.  I didn’t back down from a fight or a challenge.  I wore leather instead of lace, and silver blades had long since replaced my jewelry.  But, I’m still a woman, and sometimes nothing is more appealing to me than a bubble bath.  Normally, I just took a quick shower.  But that night I filled the tub with water as hot as I could stand and bubbles up to my throat.  A few minutes later, I was listening to my favorite R & B CD and lighting some vanilla scented candles.

            Lowering myself into the water, I winced.  The water was so hot it made my skin tingle.  After the night I’d had, I welcomed the slight pain.  I had finished washing the blood from my hair and scrubbing under my nails when the door opened.  Alfred came in, clipboard in hand. 

            “I’ve just finished my report.  Tell me if this makes sense.”

            He walked over to the closed toilet seat and sat down on top of my towel.  He just walked in and started talking like there wasn’t a naked woman in the tub, like Barry’s deep velvet voice wasn’t playing on the radio.  I must have really been losing my touch when men could walk into my naked presence and not even notice me.  Not flattering. 

            “What do you think?” Alfred finally stopped talking. 

            Sighing with a weariness which seemed beyond physical fatigue, I realized I hadn’t heard a word he’d said.  “Can we talk about this tomorrow?” I asked. 

            Alfred checked his watch.  “It is tomorrow.”

            I just blinked at him, too tired to do anything else.  He seemed to study me more closely, as if I were something interesting under one of his microscopes. 

            “Maybe you should get some sleep.  You look like shit.” Oh, the flattery never stops! I stood up suddenly, letting the bubbles slide down my body. 

            “Fine, but you’re sitting on my towel.”

            Alfred stood up, handing me the towel like it was nothing. 

            Was he that into his work, or was he just not impressed? Either way, it was insulting.  I stepped out of the tub, snatched the towel, and began to dry off in an indignant huff.  Alfred walked toward the door.  He turned and looked back at me before he left. 

            “Nice ass.”

            I covered it before he had finished turning back around.  He laughed softly, closed the door behind him, and left me to brood once again.  That jackass, he’d been looking all along. 

            I sat down at the vanity and began drying my hair with another towel.  I keep my hair in a short spiky cut that requires little maintenance.  It’s sort of a cross between a pixie and one of those flippy little bobs.  It gives me a wild look that, being what I am, I could appreciate.  I didn’t have to like it, but no point not having a sense of humor about things.  Occasionally, laughter is the only thing that stands between us and a nervous breakdown. 

            I thought about seeing Marco outside the house that night.  What was he doing there? I didn’t have the strength or the brain cells left to think about it at the moment.  My mind kept wandering back to the way he looked standing there in the rain.  I could still see the way his wet jeans clung to his every curve.  His shirt open and clinging to his body.  Whatever color his clothes had been, they were so wet that they appeared black, making the contrast of his skin seem pale. 

            I remembered water running down his hair and beading in his long eye lashes.  In my minds eye, I traced a drop of rain as it slid down his forehead, down his face, his collarbone, around one nipple, and down the ridged curves of his abs, only to disappear in the line of soft hair at the top of his jeans.  I wanted to follow that drop with my tongue.  I wasn’t necessarily meaning to be kinky.  Part of me just wanted to know what Marco tasted like.  Even as I thought it, I could imagine the faint salty taste of his skin on my tongue, mixed with the overpowering scent of a man. 

            I shook my head.  I was coming undone from watching a man standing in the rain and Alfred had barely noticed a naked woman right in front of him.  I would never know how he managed it.  Maybe his work was more interesting to him than sex.  I opened my towel and gazed down at my body. 

            “Or,” I thought out loud, closing the towel, “Maybe I’m just too horny to be a scientist.”

            Letting my towel fall to the floor, I walked over to where my robe hung on a hook by the door.  As I passed by the full length mirror, I paused.  I had always loved this mirror.  It was old, framed by dark elaborately carved wood.  It had a sort of medieval appeal to it.  Yes, I loved the mirror, even if I was not as fond of what I saw reflected in it.  My bright red hair stood out at haphazard angles, sharply contrasting with my skin.  I have a fair creamy complexion, almost like alabaster.  My muscle tone though not overly ‘cut’ was plainly evident in my curves.  For the most part I liked my body.  I was attractive, even sexy.  The image was only ruined by the scars, slashing their way across my lower abdomen.  But, I can hear you thinking, werewolves don’t scar.  That’s right, they don’t.  But, I’m not a werewolf. 

            The scars are a remnant of my attack.  There are several vicious slashes across the right side of my stomach, beginning level with my belly button, and extending to the front of my upper hip bone.  Three diagonal cuts above my navel, and three cuts at an angle on the left side.  That’s right, no bikinis for me. 

            I was fifteen when I was attacked.  First I should explain I have lived here, on Earth, all of my life.  My father was stationed in the Deep South, where I was born and raised.  He had only recently been promoted to commander.  My mother was out of town, visiting a friend.  We were watching television when I heard the glass breaking.  Werewolves stormed the house.  The halls echoed with frightening blood thirsty howls.  Apparently we were not the only ones to learn of my father’s new appointment to commander.  The werewolf resistance thought it would be a great show of power to cut down the new commander his first week in office.  Having a chance to kill his only child, that was just a bonus. 

            “The closet,” he yelled as more glass broke, signaling the fact that we were being surrounded.  The ‘closet’ was more of a mini arsenal, and it was located at the back of that very room.  He took out an AK-47 loaded with silver bullets and handed me the same.  Before further plans could be made, we began firing at the werewolves charging through the living room door.  We mowed them down like tall grass.  He went for the heads, I went for the kneecaps. 

            I’d just emptied a clip and turned back for more ammunition when I was slammed to the floor.  Not possessing the strength I now have, I was in trouble.  Upon hitting the floor, I took a blow to the head and was nearly knocked unconscious.  I was only vaguely aware of tearing pains in my lower abdomen.  I looked down in time to see my father slaughter the monster tearing its way through my stomach with a large silver machete. 

            The world spun.  One look at my savaged stomach told me I was on the verge of passing out from blood loss.  I felt strong arms lifting me and heard for the first time, the sound of my father crying.  The werewolves were dead, but at what price? I drifted in and out of consciousness.  The next moment I was aware, voices were arguing over me. 

            “My daughter is not your guinea pig!” my father roared.  

             “This may be her only chance,” it was Alfred’s voice, pleading with my father.  “Do you want to take a chance and maybe see your daughter turn? Or do you want to watch her die right now? Because that’s what is going to happen if we don’t act now!”

            I felt a sharp pain in my arm.  I was being given what I would later find out was supposed to be a cure for lycanthropy.  Alfred had been one of a group of scientists given the task of creating a working vaccine, as well as an eventual cure.  I was injected with the prototype.  My memories of the next few days are blurred.  I remember pain, terrible pain, and my father’s voice, though I’ve no idea what he was saying.  When I opened my eyes days later, my dad was standing over my bed, looking like he hadn’t slept. 

            “What happened to me?” I asked. 

            He explained about the injection.  “To be honest, we don’t know what will happen.  You may or may not transform with the next full moon.” His hands shook as he reached for a glass of water on the nearby table.  Apparently thinking he couldn’t hold the glass steady enough to drink, he sat it back down.  “There was no choice,” he began desperately.  “I couldn’t lose you,” his voice broke.  “It was either take a chance, or watch you die.  Either way, it’s a decision I’ll have to live with the rest of my life ...  I just couldn’t live with watching you die.” His eyes seemed to glaze over with tears.  “Forgive me.”

            I wasn’t sure what to say, or if I should say anything at all.  Watching my father cry was not easy for me.  Here was the strongest person I knew, and he was weeping for me, as if I were already dead.  “It’s alright,” I began, feeling like an idiot.  Of course it wasn’t alright.  He’d just made a decision that for better or worse, had altered both our lives.  I tried again, “You did what you had to do.  Either way, I’ll live.”

            His expression became determined, the last of the tears falling away as he looked back at me.  “Yes, you will,” he said vehemently.  “If you turn, those bastards won’t come near you.  Any of them! If anyone, I don’t care from which side of this war comes for my daughter, they’ll have to kill me first.” I cried then.  I knew my father loved me, but knowing he would turn traitor if he had to in order to save my life ...  it moved me in a way three words could not. 

            I awaited the first full moon three days later in a holding cell in Alfred’s lab, then located underneath my parents’ house.  My wounds had not yet healed.  Alfred took this as a sign that perhaps I was not going to turn.  Werewolves heal at an accelerated rate, due to their dramatically faster metabolism.  I didn’t bother to tell him I had lost five pounds in the past few days.  I thought it might discourage him. 

            The transformation of a werewolf is brought on by the pull of gravity from the moon, not the moonlight shining on them, in spite of popular belief.  As the moon began to rise that evening, I was in increasingly more pain.  It was as if something were trying to rip its way through my skin.  I felt a warming sensation behind my eyes, similar to the feeling you get when running a high fever.  Muscle spasms began to shake my body and I grabbed the bars of the cell.  Alfred ran toward me, but kept his distance by a few feet.  Someone was screaming, a high, angry sound.  It was the most rage filled scream I’d ever heard.  It belonged on a battlefield in a long ago place. 

            I collapsed several minutes later as the muscle spasms subsided.  I looked up at the mangled bars in amazement.  I was no longer in pain, but felt a sudden rush of weakness at seeing what I had done to the reinforced steel bars. 

            “How do you feel?”

            I jumped.  Alfred was sitting on the floor on the other side of the bars.  He crawled tentatively toward me, as if afraid to come too near.  The fear on his face hurt me worse than I could express.  Who else would see me the same way? The one thing I was certain of was I did not want people looking at me like I was some kind of monster, or worse with pity. 

            “I’m fine,” I croaked, my voice barely audible.  It was then I realized I was the one who’d been screaming.  I felt like crying, but I would not let someone who looked at me like that see me cry. 

            “My eyes burn,” I said, looking to Alfred for an explanation. 

            He moved closer.  His fear seemed to be replaced by curiosity.  Alfred’s eyes widened.  He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, as if he were going to speak, but thought better of it.  “Here,” he said, finally giving up on an explanation and handing me a mirror.  I took the mirror from Alfred with trembling hands, determined not to scream at whatever I saw.  I turned the mirror slowly to face me, my heart hammering in my chest.  Looking back at me was a pair of amber wolf eyes.  They looked wild and out of place with the rest of me.  Under normal circumstances, my eyes are hazel.  I looked at Alfred and he jumped back from the bars, cursing under his breath. 

            “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding embarrassed. 

            I chose to ignore his reaction.  I supposed I was being too hard on him.  I cannot begin to imagine my reaction if I saw someone I had known for the past five years looking at me with wolf eyes. 

            “Is this permanent?”

            “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. 

            The next morning, once he was fairly certain any real danger had passed, Alfred released me from the cell and gave me a thorough examination.  The wounds on my stomach had healed over night.  All that remained were faint pink scars. 

            “These may finish healing,” he’d said.  He was wrong.  The eyes were not permanent, but the scars were.  However, they were the last scars I would ever receive.  The only thing that can permanently scar a werewolf is silver, to which I appear to be immune.  I’m technically not a werewolf.  I don’t transform with the full moon, and after that night, it hasn’t caused me any more pain.  My eyes only seemed to change when I got angry, but with years of practice, it’s something I can control.  I occasionally use them to make my point in arguments with Alfred.  Wicked, but effective. 

Chapter Two           

            I pulled my black velvet robe from the nearby hook.  Staring at my scars would not erase them.  I didn’t bother closing the robe as I opened the door which connects to my bedroom.  I closed the sheer drapes covering the French doors to the right of my bed, blocking out the view of the rose covered balcony.  The window on the opposite side of the room reaches from floor to the ceiling, gracefully arching near the top.  Sheer red drapes hung from above this window as well, and fell in silken folds down either side.  They managed to block a surprising amount of sun.  But right then I think I could have slept under any amount of light.  I just wanted sleep, period.

            I let the robe slide to the floor as I slipped between the red silk sheets.  I remember taking a deep breath and must have fallen asleep before I could exhale.  The next thing I remember was someone pounding on my door. 

            “Huh?” I grunted.  I’m not sure what sort of response I expected, but the beating continued. 

            “What?” I tried again. 

            Alfred’s voice answered, “Elijah’s downstairs.”

            “So?”

            “He’s got some questions.”

            “Good for him.”

            “Get up, Lilith.”

            I didn’t respond for a few minutes, hoping he would just go away if I stayed quiet. 

            “You’ve been asleep for twelve hours, for God’s sake.”

            That got my attention.  I rolled toward the clock.  He was right.  Not that I thought a scientist couldn’t count, I just didn’t feel like I’d slept for twelve hours.  I sat up slowly, afraid the room might spin if I moved faster.  I collected my robe from the floor and tied the red silk sash as I crossed to the door.  When I stepped into the hall, I found Alfred waiting patiently, arms crossed.  I sighed, straightening my resolve along with my robe. 

            “Why the long face? I thought you liked the little cop.”

            I glared at Alfred and he smiled.  I had said once that Elijah was cute, and I’d been trying ever since to live it down.  As I descended the stairs, I saw him waiting in the sitting room by the bay window, reading the paper.  Elijah was cute.  It was merely an observation, although I thought Alfred’s description of him being ‘little’ was a bit harsh.  Elijah is five foot six, but that is hardly an abnormality.  He has dark blond hair, so dark it’s nearly brown, a ready smile, and big blue eyes.  Elijah is only two years younger than me, but sometimes, it felt like centuries.  There was a naivety in his smile that I envied, and a sparkle in his eyes no amount of bullshit ever seemed to diminish.  For lack of a better word, he was innocent.  I often wondered what he was doing in my house. 

            He was the only one of the local cops I could tolerate.  Everyone else seemed fascinated by me, but it was in one of those, look at the lion in the cage sort of ways.  I didn’t like feeling that I was an interesting ‘thing’ on display.  I’ve always found other’s reactions to me difficult to deal with. 

            Elijah smiled as I walked into the room.  He reached to shake my hand.  I hesitated, not out of rudeness, just surprise that anyone in town would shake my hand.  I don’t like to touch people, but in some cases, I’ll make an exception.  In addition to being half animal, I am also strongly empathic.  When I touch someone, I have the ability to feel what they feel, sometimes even see what they see.  I get bits and pieces of imagery from their feelings.  Of course, I normally take measures to avoid this.  There is much about the lives of others I simply don’t care to know.  I’m sure there are nosy people out there who would be thrilled with this ‘talent’, but I had never been one of them.  Most of the time, I was able to block it out.  It’s something I can control.  However, I often wear gloves when I hunt, or shake hands with new people, just to avoid the eventuality of seeing something I really don’t want to know.

            I would have a harder time doing what I do if I read the mind of every werewolf I touched.  I have enough on my mind without seeing other people’s lives flashing before me.  I thought it was safe to shake Elijah’s hand.  Like I said, he was innocent.  I doubted whether there was anything behind those blue eyes disturbing enough to faze me.  I took his hand, and to my surprise was able to offer him a genuine smile.  I almost said good morning, but remembered it was afternoon. 

            “Have a seat.” I indicated the chair he had risen from. 

            “Thank you.”

            He smiled nervously.  Alfred stood propped against the stairs, his arms crossed in front of him, looking every bit like a bodyguard.  

            “I assume you didn’t stop by just because you enjoy my company.”

            “Ah, no ...  I was hoping you would be willing to share with me exactly what happened last night.”

            “Where would you like me to start?”

            “The beginning, I guess.” I would have thought anyone else was being a smartass, but he seemed too sincere.  I recounted for him the story of the night before.  I had received a call at eleven thirty, informing me there was ‘a disturbance that required my attention’ at one of the clubs in a nearby city. 

            “The Firestarter?”

            “That’s right.”

            When I arrived, I found a tall, dark woman standing in the parking lot in what I loosely described as red lingerie.  Most of her outfit had been torn from her body and hung in shreds.  Even from a distance, I could see the beginnings of the change taking place.  The moon was not yet full.  If a lycanthrope changes, in the absence of the full moon, there is normally severe trauma involved.  From the gang of frightened men standing around, I was betting on an attempted rape. 

            I jumped from the car, checking my blades as I approached them.  The parking lot was empty, except for five men standing frozen to the spot.  They watched in horror as the beautiful dancer began to shed her skin.  The bones of her face lengthened as her hands turned to claws.  She threw back her head and howled in what could only be described as rage.  I came to a stop between her and the gawking men, uncertain which I should be protecting. 

            I rounded on the men, “What happened here?”

            “Monster ...,” one of them stuttered. 

            “ME, a monster!” an enraged deep voice growled.  “They tried to rape me.” I turned to see her half transformation.  She was unmistakably a werewolf, though not fully changed.  In her half wolf form, she was even taller.  My guess would be close to seven feet, large, even for a female werewolf. 

            The men seemed to be recovering a bit.  “What makes you think we’d want to touch her?” one of them spat.  “We don’t do monsters.”

            I didn’t have time to ask why it was they were not surprised to see a full fledged werewolf standing in a parking lot. 

            “And we don’t need no goddamned monster hunter to handle our business.”

            The man who’d insulted me went for a gun.  Before he could straighten his arm to fire, I’d removed my silver machete from its sheath, slicing through his wrist.  It was the same weapon my father had used to save me years ago.  It only seemed right that it should still protect me. 

            The man writhed on the ground, holding his bloody wrist and cursing me for all he was worth.  The werewolf behind me let out a roar as the group surged toward us.  My father had taught me a long time ago that to hesitate is to die.  “You must react without question, fight without mercy.  Your attack should flow over your enemy, like water, drowning the mind, crushing the body.”

            I took my father’s advice.  I dropped to the ground and with one fluid motion cut the feet from beneath three of my would-be attackers.  The one who’d tried to shoot me grabbed a stick in his remaining hand and charged.  I kicked him in the face, skidding him across the gravel of the parking lot.  Before he could attempt to use the stick again, I kicked it aside.  With me standing over him, a machete aimed at his throat, he didn’t seem so tough. 

            “P-p-please,” he stuttered.  “Don’t kill me.”

            I hesitated. 

            In a rush of flying gravel, I landed flat of my back with the one handed man, trying his best to strangle me.  Without further hesitation, I placed the blade against his throat, jerking swiftly to the right.  Arterial blood sprayed across my face, covering my hair.  One good thing about lycanthropy, it protected you from contracting any other blood born diseases.  I spat out the blood across my lips and got to my feet.  The other men were dead.  Parts of them littered the parking lot in disgusting chunks. 

            The woman, human once more, sat in the midst of the gore, her hands covering her face, rocking back and forth.  I walked over to her and she jumped at the sound of my boots crunching on the gravel. 

            “Are you alright?” I asked. 

            She began to moan softly, rocking faster and faster.  I knelt in front of her, placing one hand on her shoulder.  Before I could ask again, she looked up at me, her face streaked with tears, dark eyes glistening in the neon glow from the sign in the parking lot. 

            “Are you here to kill me?”

            I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.  Yes, I had been sent there to kill her.  But, could I kill an unarmed woman who had only been defending herself? Technically, I was equipped for the job, but I didn’t have the heart.  This was the part of the job I could do without.  You come across some occasionally who will beg for their lives.  Of course, they were just trying to kill you moments ago, but you’re not supposed to remember that.  Do I still kill them? Yes.  But, I don’t like it.  There are some things you just don’t want to have to remember. 

            “No.” I finally answered.  “I’m not going to kill you.”

            She looked surprised.  “But you’re Lilith Mercury.  They say to see you ...  is to see Death.”

            I felt like shit.  Here was a woman who had been fighting for her life and was fully expecting me to kill her for it. 

            “What will happen to me?” she asked.

            “Are you hurt?”

            “No, I’m just ...  shaken.”

            “Then I suggest you go home.”

            She looked around wide eyed at the bodies littering the ground. 

            “I’ll take care of this.”

            Seeming somewhat reassured, she gave me a shaky smile and walked to one of the nearby cars.  “Thank you,” she whispered before getting in the car and driving away. 

            I sat there for a minute and cried. 

            Of course, this was not the version of events I told Elijah.  Fortunately, it turned out one of the men was a werewolf, the friend of Marco’s I had recognized.  He was the one who’d turned up at my house that night, and the only one missing from the pile of gore in the parking lot.  I told Elijah he had instigated the attack on the woman and I defended her when they chose to attack.

            “They were torn apart,” he said, disbelieving.

            I had left out the part about the woman finishing them off.

            “Fine,” he said, when I offered no further explanation.  “Fine,” he repeated. “I just don’t know how much longer we can cover this up.  We’re writing it up as an animal attack.” He ran his fingers through his hair in irritation.  “Do you know how many ‘animal attacks’ this county has?”

            “What do you suggest, Officer Jasper? Tell the public there are werewolves among them? We’d have a riot on our hands.” Alfred couldn’t be quiet any longer. 

            Elijah seemed to consider this for a moment, as if it had been a real suggestion.  “No,” he said finally.  He laughed half heartedly.  “The south is full of enough prejudice without the general public knowing there’s werewolves on the loose.  That’s an entirely knew species they could set on fire.”

            I couldn’t help but laugh.  He was right.  Never underestimate the stupidity of other people.  Alfred looked at me like I’d lost my mind.  After Elijah left, not satisfied, but not getting any more answers, Alfred turned to me.

            “What are you not telling me?”

            “What do you want to hear? That I wasn’t going to kill an innocent woman for defending herself? She wasn’t part of a resistance group.  She was being attacked!”

            “How do you know?  Did you ask her?”

            My patience had reached its limit.  “No, Alfred, I didn’t ask her.  But I can tell you this, if someone tried to rape me, they damn sure better kill me, or I’m gonna kill them.  I would rip them limb from limb, just like she did, for daring to touch me!”

            He put his hand on my shoulder and I snatched away as I said, “And I’d enjoy it.”

* * * *

            I walked down to the kitchen that evening, after I’d cooled off a bit, wondering what sort of mood Alfred would be in.  I’d made a second report to my father just after talking, alright, after screaming, at Alfred.  Considering my father comes from a planet that believes in eye for eye justice, he had no problem with my actions.  Elijah was a different story, but I liked him.  He had never looked at me like I was a monster. 

            The systems of government on planet Terra are vastly different from that of Earth.  There has been only one world war, even though they are far more technologically advanced.  This might be due in part to the fact that remnants of the war have remained in play for thousands of years.  There are no courts or juries on Terra.  They have what are known as judges.  These individuals have the ability to touch someone and tell whether or not they have committed a crime.  They are clairvoyant to the extent that if the person is guilty, they may even see images of the crime upon touching them.

            The judges are never told what the person has been accused of.  They merely tell what they see.  If you are innocent, they will know.  Most people confess.  After all, there is no lying to a judge, and there’s no telling what else they might see.  The judges are periodically brought before the Wizard Council to see if for any reason they have been lying about what they’ve seen.  Punishments are fairly stiff on planet Terra.  To lie about the guilt of another is a crime punishable by death.  It’s easier to carry out the sentence if you know for certain the accused is guilty.  At least, that’s the theory.   

            The smell of coffee greeted me as I crossed the foyer.  When I entered the kitchen, I found Alfred standing at the counter.  Without asking he took out my favorite mug and poured me some coffee.  He turned around, handed me the deep purple mug, and sat down.  Feeling awkward after the way I had spoken to him, I sat down, not knowing what to say.

            “Alfred--”

            “Don’t,” he interrupted.  “Just don’t.  You can’t kill someone for self defense.  Let’s not argue over this.  There are bigger issues.”

            “Such as?”

            “Such as, Elijah’s right.  These so called animal attacks are getting harder to pass off as truth.  People have seen things they can’t explain ...  they’re just not buying it anymore.”

            “You were serious today when you suggested making ...  what, some sort of public statement?”

            “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but something needs to be done.  It’s not just political extremists we’re dealing with.  There are innocent people at stake.” He waved his hand absently toward me.  “You saw that yourself ...  people are being infected at a growing rate and the fact is ...  they’re not the bad guys, just because they’re lycanthropes.”

            “You’re right.  I’ve thought so for years now.” I took a sip of my coffee, relieved he wasn’t going to yell at me, but I wasn’t entirely sure I preferred this conversation to being yelled at.  “A lot of the people that escaped to this planet in the first place were innocent.  It wasn’t their fault the city they lived in was a target area.”

            “To the first Hunter, that didn’t matter, though.”

            “So I’ve heard, but we’re all over now.  Why did they send just one? In the beginning, I mean.  That just doesn’t make much sense to me.”

            He sighed. “It wasn’t supposed to be this big of a problem ...  they thought he could handle it.”

            “What made them think one man could handle a viral outbreak that turns people into wolves? Who did he think he was, God?”

            Alfred laughed, but he didn’t really sound amused.  “No, but the guy who messed with his DNA did.”

            “What do you mean, ‘messed’ with?” 

            Alfred told me what he knew about the first Hunter sent to Earth.  His name has long since been erased from the record books, but his story is legend.  He was part of the original group of Hunters formed to control the virus on planet Terra.  Shortly after the first year of infection, his family was killed by werewolves.  All of them.  This was around the time people were escaping to Earth in order to avoid execution.  He volunteered to be part of an experiment to become the ‘ultimate hunter’, a weapon against the werewolves. 

            He was injected with a synthetic twenty fourth pair of chromosomes.  These chromosomes would, in theory, make him super human.  He would have superior night vision in order to hunt more effectively at night, when most of the werewolves were active.  His strength would rival that of the monsters themselves.  This individual was also rumored to have been blessed with many psychic abilities, as well as descended from wizards. 

            The Terran people naturally age slower than people on Earth.  Telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, are known as the ‘molecular clock’ of the cell.  Cell division is directly affected by telomere length.  After each cell division, telomeres get shorter.  To explain the significance of this as quickly as possible, the Terran people have exceptionally long telomeres.  This slows the aging process significantly.  As an unexpected side effect of the introduction of the twenty fourth chromosome pair into his system, this ‘super hunter’, had his aging process slowed even further, with the potential to even outlive wizards, whose life spans are close to one thousand years. 

            “You never know how much to believe,” Alfred finished.

            “Whatever happened to him? Was he killed?”

            “Killed? No.  He just disappeared ...  somewhere around the middle ages, I believe.  Heard he lost his mind.”

            “Was that a side effect also? Insanity?”

            Alfred laughed. “Honey, insanity is a side effect of life.  If you live long enough, something is bound to drive you crazy.”

            I couldn’t argue there.  I sighed, absently stirring my coffee with the tip of my finger. 

            “In spite of the obvious reasons to not look happy, I’m going to ask the stupid question.  What’s wrong?” Alfred said. 

            I didn’t know where to begin.  My thoughts had drifted to a subject that had nothing to do with anything we had been talking about.  I was thinking about my most recent failed relationship.  Yes, I did have a life outside of being a Hunter.  I’d just put it on hold for the past couple of months. 

            I’d been dating a Hunter working in a neighboring state who happened to fit my ideal: tall, dark, and handsome.  Alfred joked with me that my ideal comes closer to tall, dark, and creepy.  He’s right.  The point is I dated this man for three and a half years, thinking I knew him.  Turns out, the bastard was married all along.  I had suspected as much.  But, somewhere along the way ...  I realized I loved him, despite my better judgment.  I wanted desperately to believe the lies he told me.  Sometimes, we think we’ve found something.  We want so desperately to believe it’s true, despite what our eyes might see.  I longed for somewhere in someone’s embrace that felt like home.  It wasn’t the first time I’d been hurt, and if I lived longer, it would not be the last.  But that didn’t make his betrayal any less devastating. 

            To make matters worse, when he’d realized I’d found out the truth, he ran.  I found out through a mutual friend that he was planning to leave the country, without so much as a goodbye.  You tell your friends goodbye, you tell your family goodbye.  How could he just walk away like I was nothing? So, I dumped him before he got the chance.  I disappeared from his life, just like he had been planning to do to me.  A few months later, I heard he had moved.  That should have given him plenty of time to figure out he’d been dumped. 

            I’d never found it easy to trust people, but I’d taken a chance.  I had so much going on inside of me, so much going on outside, I hadn’t taken the time to ...  grieve.  Since he turned out to be someone entirely different than I thought he was, I hadn’t lost him.  I had lost my ideal.  I would always love the man I thought he was, and always be disappointed in who he turned out to be. 

            “I asked you a question,” Alfred softly insisted.

            Alfred was one of the few people who knew what had happened.  We lived together for crying out loud. I had to talk to somebody.  When I didn’t answer, he moved into the chair next to me.  When he went to touch me, I backed away. 

            “Don’t.  Please, don’t ...  if you touch me, I’ll cry, and I really don’t want to cry right now.  I’ve got other things that I should be thinking about, other things I should be doing ….”

            “Shh.”

            Alfred and I didn’t have much physical contact, for obvious reasons.  I didn’t think it was polite to accidentally read your friend’s emotions.  I felt that in not touching him, I was allowing him more privacy.  I was surprised when he reached over and held me.  Then, I did something I hadn’t allowed myself to do for the past two months: I cried.  I cried, like the world was ending, because to me ...  it was.  I mourned for the part of me that had been lost when I realized you really couldn’t trust people. 

            We’d known each other a long time, and I was comfortable with Alfred, but I usually didn’t let him see that side of me.  I didn’t let anyone see that side of me.  When I’d cried the day before after rescuing the woman in the parking lot, I’d been shocked.  That wasn’t like me.  I cried, just not often, and not in front of people.  I cried when I watched a really good movie, or when I went to the theater.  But now, it was like a flood gate had opened somewhere inside of me and I didn’t seem capable of shutting it off. 

            I crawled into Alfred’s lap, wrapped my arms around his neck and cried until I was most likely dehydrated.  I was too caught up in my own turmoil to read what Alfred felt.  Besides that takes direct contact with my hands, skin on skin.  He held me as if I was falling apart and he was trying to keep the pieces together.  When I finally pulled back from his shoulder, his lab coat, which he was seldom without, was soaked.  I opened my mouth to explain, or at least apologize, but he stopped me with that charming half smile of his. 

            “Why must you insist on dating assholes who make you lose faith in all mankind?”

            I laughed. “How did you know?”

            “I really didn’t think you felt that strongly about genetic engineering.”

            I laughed harder, and it felt good.  I realized awkwardly that I was sitting in Alfred’s lap.  He didn’t object to me being there, but he also didn’t object when I slid back into my chair. 

            He got up and refreshed my coffee for me.  “You want some chocolate?” 

            I smiled.  “What makes you think I need chocolate?”

            “Well, I was going to have some, and I didn’t want to be rude.”

            Since he was nice enough not to mention the fact that I’d just had a minor breakdown in his lap, I decided to have some chocolate with him, and I felt better.

Chapter Three

            Several days passed and my mind kept drifting back to my most recent pain in the ass.  Yes, he had broken my heart, but the pain seemed to be lodged a bit lower.  So, I did what I often do when I feel like shit, I gardened.  I got some tools from the shed behind the house and started with trimming my roses.  My yard overflows with roses.  There is a trellis over the gravel driveway out front, completely overgrown by a thornless climbing Queen Anne, a fragrant old English rose which hangs in clusters of tiny white blooms.  There are many other roses scattered throughout the woods, but my favorite rose grows on the balcony.  I made my way around to the side of the house, kneeling beside the roots of the climbing Don Juan.

            When I’d moved into the house seven years ago, I had the bright idea of planting the Don Juan underneath the balcony.  Not only is it a dramatically beautiful climbing rose, but it is symbolic to me for two reasons.  First, my favorite poem of all time is Robert Burns, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose.  Second, Don Juan was famous for entering his lover’s apartments through their balcony windows. 

            As I sat daydreaming of romance that had somehow passed me by, I found myself suddenly sitting in a large shade.  I looked up and found Alfred standing over me.  He sat down beside me and looked up at the rose, propping on his elbows to lean back on the grass. 

            “I see you’re still waiting for Don Juan to climb through your balcony window,” he teased.

            I shook my head, smiling.  “I should never have told you why I planted this rose.”

            He laughed, “Melodramatic, don’t you think?”

            “A little,” I admitted.  “But, great romance and great melodrama often go hand in hand.”

            “Sometimes I forget you’re a poet,” he said.

            I’ve had several poems published in different anthologies.  I thought of having them published under a different name, but decided against it.  Most of the people who know my name, do not read poetry.  There’s nothing wrong with being a romantic at heart. I’m just not fond of the idea of everyone knowing I have a heart.  It could always be used against me. 

            “If I didn’t have a creative outlet, I’d probably go crazy,” I said.  “Besides, I like to write.”

            “And paint, and sketch, and dance ….”

            “There’s nothing wrong with being well rounded,” I insisted.

            Alfred laughed.  “Yeah, but most of my family’s idea of a hobby is becoming well round.”

            Alfred is Italian.  His father was a Hunter, stationed in Italy years ago, where he met his mother.  They’re both in their seventies and as far as I know, doing well.  We sat under the roses and laughed while he talked about his fat aunt who had personal ‘issues’ too numerous to name, though he mentioned a few.  And his psychotic cousin, who was at last report doing drag shows in London. 

            “But ...  you’re cousin, Antonio, he’s not gay.  Is he?”

            “No,” he laughed.  “It was the only job he could find that didn’t require a criminal background check.” Alfred had laughed to the point of tears.  “He has the nerve to be offended when someone comes on to him.  I told him, you can’t be homophobic and work in a gay bar!”

            I giggled.  “I didn’t realize he was homophobic.”

            “And I didn’t realize how long it had been since you’d smiled ...  you should do it more often.” He made a dramatic bow, which looked funny considering he was still sitting down.  “If talking about my dysfunctional relatives helps you, then I’m more than happy to oblige.”

            “How is it you know what I needed?”

            “Questa non e la mia prema volta,” he whispered.  I knew enough Italian to interpret, “This is not my first time.”

            I smiled. “Are you coming on to me?”

            Alfred’s smile grew wider, and if possible more mischievous.  “If I were coming on to you, you wouldn’t have to ask.  I’m just trying to cheer you up.”

            I could feel my expression changing again.  I didn’t realize how miserable I’d been a few minutes ago, until he reminded me. 

            “Oh God, don’t give me that face.”

            “What face? I wasn’t giving any face.”

            “That face,” he pointed at me.  “I know that pitiful face.  Have you seen Kathryn lately?”

            “No, but what’s Kat got to do with my face?”

            “Maybe she could help keep a smile on it.  Call her, go out, do something.  You’re twenty four, for God’s sake.  You shouldn’t look this pitiful.”

            “I’m busy.”

            “Liar.  There’s nothing we can do about anything that’s going on in the world right now.  We cannot change anything politically relating to werewolves.  Someone with more authority than us has to make that decision.” He took a breath. “Furthermore, the world will not end if you take some time off.”

            “You never go out.”

            “I’m busy.” He smiled.

            “Asshole.” I got to my feet.

            “Well ….” Alfred stood up, towering over me. “Opinions are a lot like assholes, everybody has one.”

* * * *

            I called Kathryn later that day and we made plans to go clubbing and stay out of town one night that weekend, since all the decent clubs were at least two hours away.  She agreed with Alfred. “It’ll do you good.”

            I’d met Kat four years ago, shortly after rescuing her then boyfriend from a pack of werewolves.  We’d been friends ever since.  Kat is six years older than me and a few inches taller.  The first time I saw her, I knew her relationship with the man I’d saved would never last.  Kathryn’s an attractive, slender brunette, with wavy shoulder length hair, dark eyes, and fair skin.  She was way out of his league. 

            While packing my bags Friday afternoon, I kept remembering the odd dreams I’d been having.  I hadn’t mentioned them to Alfred.  I felt like I’d dumped enough of my personal baggage on him lately.  However, I planned to tell Kat as soon as she picked me up.  I’d had the same dream twice, so I thought I should pay attention to it.  There was more than one reason I’d accepted my friends’ advice.  In the dream, I was going out, and Kat was with me.  We were in a club I’d never seen before, in a place that was not familiar to me ...  and there was a man.  I knew him in my dream, though, for the life of me, I could not remember him when I woke up.  The more I concentrated on seeing his face, the cloudier the image became.  

            When Kat arrived, I threw my bag in the back of her SUV. 

            “You’re only taking one bag?” She looked like I’d just committed a crime in broad daylight.

            “Why? How many are you taking?”

            It had been a stupid question.  I looked at the many color coordinated cases beside my own simple black leather bag and gave her a questioning look.

            “Well, one is just shoes,” she said, as if that explained everything.

            “We’re only staying one night.”

            “I couldn’t make up my mind!” She laughed.

            “Let me say goodbye to Alfred.  He’s probably forgotten I won’t be here tonight.  Most likely would have called in a search party before he remembered.”

            She laughed, shaking her head as I went back in the house.  I found Alfred walking down the stairs, looking confused.  “There you are.  I was just looking for you.  I meant to tell you, Kathryn called, she’s running late.”

            I smiled. “She’s already here, Al.”

            “Oh.  Well, I guess that explains why you weren’t upstairs.”

            I laughed as I reached to hug him.  Like I said, Alfred and I didn’t have much physical contact, I just felt like hugging him.  He had been a comfort to me in the past few days, and I appreciated him.

            He smiled at me.  “Well, I feel special.”

            “You should.  I’ll be back some time tomorrow.”

            “Try to relax, have fun.  The world won’t stop if you forget to be miserable for a few hours.”

            “Is that advice or doctor’s orders?”

            “Doctor’s orders.” He laughed. 

            As I was buckling my seat belt, Kathryn looked at me and shook her head, tut-tut ting me under her breath. 

            “What?”

            “Nothing.”

            “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

            She took a deep breath, “I don’t understand why you’re still broken up over some loser when you’re living with a hot Italian.” Kat giggled at the expression on my face.

            “Alfred?”

            “Yeah, Alfred.  You’ve know him for what, fourteen years now, and you never noticed the man is sexy?”

            I shrugged.  “I just don’t think of Alfred that way.”

            She was so busy giving me ‘the look’ that she nearly missed her turn.  Once we were safely on the right road, in the right lane, she said, “Well, maybe you should.”

            “Should what?”

            “Stop being difficult! You know damn well what I mean.  I just can’t believe that a hopeless romantic, a poet for Pete’s sake, and an Italian, who are notoriously romantic, have been living in the same house for seven years now, alone, and they’re not getting in it on.”

            My jaw dropped.  “I think I’ve been a bad influence on you,” I said. 

            “Huh? What are you talking about?”

            “When I suggested that you listen to some mellow R & B--”

            “Stop avoiding the subject.  You’ve noticed, or it wouldn’t be so difficult for you to talk about.”

            The ‘subject’ was beginning to wear thin on my nerves.  “It is not difficult for me to talk about. I just have nothing to say, that’s all.”

            Kat looked like she didn’t believe me, but figured she wouldn’t get any further.  “Whatever you say.  You know, in some cultures, sex is considered therapeutic.”

            I couldn’t help but laugh.  “It is not.”

            “Sure it is.”

            “Where?”

            She snickered. “I’ll think of somewhere.  Personally, I’d use any excuse to get into the good Doctor’s pants.”

            “Kathryn!”

            “What? It’s all your fault.  I was a normal, upstanding citizen before I met you.”

            “Liar.”

            “No, really, I was.  I would never have said something like that four years ago.  I might have thought it, but then again, you’ve influenced my thoughts, too, I think.”

            “You think I’ve influenced your thoughts? Bit redundant, don’t you think?”

            “Give me a break. I’m trying to concentrate on not running into a ditch.”

            “No.  I believe you were concentrating on getting into Alfred’s pants.”

            “Oh, not for me.  I was concentrating on getting you into Alfred’s pants.”

            I admitted to myself that Alfred was handsome, and I had noticed.  But I honestly had never thought of him ...  intimately before.  I could have slapped Kat for putting thoughts into my head that did not need to be there.  Alfred was my friend.  He’d worked with my father ...  I could not be attracted to him.  It would complicate things I didn’t need complicated.  My life was messed up enough as it was.  After a few minutes, I came up with an excuse I thought would get Kathryn off my back.

            “He’s too old for me, even if I did find him attractive.”

            “No.  What is he? Thirty six, maybe?”

            “He’s fifty.”

            I enjoyed the look of utter disbelief on her face, raising my eyebrows as if to say, See, I was right.

            “I knew you guys lived longer, but damn.  I had no idea.  He looks thirty something.” She pressed on, undeterred.  “Oh well, what’s the expression, ‘age ain’t nothin’ but a number?’”

            I laughed, “You’re sick.”

            “Possibly.”

            “This is off the subject, but I want to ask your opinion about something.”

            I told her about the strange dream I’d been having, doing my best to not leave out any detail.

            “And there was a man there?” she asked.

            “Yeah.”

            “But you didn’t know him?”

            “I knew him in my dream.  I just can’t remember his face once I wake up.”

            “You know what this sounds like?” she smirked.

            “I’m afraid to ask.”

            “You need to get laid.”

            I burst out laughing.  “Oh my God, you’ve got issues.”

            “Maybe, but I know hormones in overdrive when I see them.”

            “I know a pervert when I see one, too.”

            “Takes one to know one.”

            I decided to not argue the fact.  When it came to extracurricular thoughts, my mind wasn’t in the gutter, it was the gutter. 

* * * *

            While we were getting dressed that evening, Kat took the opportunity to pick on me further for my eccentricities.  She wore a short black dress and sensible low heels, not too dressy, not too casual.  She’d fit in most anywhere.

            My outfit on the other hand was ...  different.  If I was going to go out, I wanted to be able to be myself.  I wore tight low cut leather pants, combat boots with a heel, and a slinky black shirt that was open only enough to reveal my spine from the bra line down.  I’d been careful, as always, to cover my scars.  There were some things I just didn’t feel like explaining.  The only color I wore was my red hair and silver belt buckle.  I felt more confident in black.  The leather was just a fetish of mine.

            I suppose Alfred had thought Kat would be responsible and keep an eye on me.  Yeah, right.  We went to a few places.  Mostly, Kat drank a lot and watched me dance.  I love to dance.  It’s such an incredible stress reliever.  There are some times when stress just calls for physical activity.  I’d worked out so vigorously over the past few months that I’d lost ten pounds.  But, I was sick of making my punching bag suffer defeat, or slicing and dicing my poor steel dummy in the training room.  I needed to do something less violent to calm my nerves.  I needed to dance. 

            It was very late, or very early, depending on how you want to look at it, when we arrived at the last stop of the night.  This club was unusual, to say the least.  Three bold letters splashed above the door in massive blood colored brushstrokes said, Red.  The moment I saw it, I knew this was the place from my dream, and somewhere inside was the man I’d been dreaming about.

            The inside of the place was dark, with occasional flashes of strobe lights illuminating a path through the crowd of sweaty, gyrating bodies.  When I say the music pumped, I’m not using a figure of speech.  You could feel the rhythm in your chest, like a heartbeat.  Like really good sex, the pounding music rattled your teeth.  The whole room pulsated with an energy I couldn’t describe.  It excited me. 

            In the time we were there a variety of music was played and a variety of people were on the dance floor.  Some who could dance, others so drunk they thought they could.  Kat made her way over to what may have been a stage, but it looked more like an elevated part of the dance floor.  She sat at a table there to enjoy watching some drunk guys trying to dance. 

            “Free entertainment,” she yelled, pointing at the staggering group.

            I yelled back that I’d be at the bar for a while and made my way back through the crowd.  I sat on one of the tall leather barstools and ordered a cola and rum.  Unfortunately for me, it took a great deal of alcohol to get me drunk and right then I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in the wonderful haze of intoxication.  I metabolize alcohol at such a fast rate that I can get a buzz, sit down to watch a movie, and be completely sober halfway through.  Kat saw my high metabolism as a gift from God, until I told her how fast I burned off alcohol. 

            “No one could ever take advantage of you,” she’d teased, looking scandalized. 

            I tried explaining to her there are ways of intoxicating the senses besides alcohol.  She’d grinned and said, “Yeah, but I haven’t had sex that good in a while.” That wasn’t exactly what I’d meant, but I thought explaining would have been a waste of time.

            I stayed at the bar for at least twenty minutes, eventually downing straight shots of rum.  The whole time I was there, I sensed someone watching me.  I put down my tenth empty shot glass and focused for a moment on the eyes that I could feel on my back.  Even through the haze I’d managed to accomplish I knew a werewolf when I sensed one.  My heart fluttered, my pulse quickened, and I was suddenly short of breath.  It was almost like being aroused. 

            Someone leaned over me just as there was a brief pause in the music and whispered against my right ear, “Would you like to dance?” His scent was thrilling.  He smelled clean, like soap mingled with aftershave, and underneath it all, there was the undeniable scent of a man.  I turned enough to see Marco Barak.

            “Hello, Red,” he smiled.

            I wondered if he’d been waiting till I got drunk enough to accept his offer.  I hesitated for a moment, just looking at him.  I might have to kill this man one day.  But that night, I wanted to dance.  I took his hand and led him onto the dance floor through the crowd, and onto the raised platform in front of Kat’s table.  We danced for what felt like hours.  I suppose you could have called our dancing foreplay.  I know many women consider dancing a metaphor for sex.  If that’s true, then my God, this man danced well.

            Time stood still as we moved together.  The touch of his body against mine sent fire through my veins, like small jolts of electric sensuality.  I was vaguely aware that Kat had taken out her camera and was snapping pictures between the flashing lights.  The room seemed to freeze with each flash, giving me unforgettable mental images.  Marco wore black leather pants and a matching shirt that felt smooth to the touch.  We looked as if we’d dressed to match. 

            His hair that I remembered as a dusty brown had darkened over the years.  Through the rain a few weeks ago, I couldn’t tell.  After all, everything is darker when it’s wet.  But, his eyes were the same deep chocolate brown I remembered.  I noticed a light stubble on his chin, as if he’d forgotten to shave, and the beginnings of side burns.  Have I mentioned how fond I am of men who look like they’ve been roughed up a little?

            He pulled me close and asked, “What are you thinking?”

            “That you’re a good dancer.” I paused, looking him up and down.  “It’s difficult to find a man with such ...  rhythm.” I looked into his dark eyes and saw a passion which could only be described as hunger. 

            “I was seriously considering asking you to leave with me,” he confessed.

            “I was considering doing just that.”

            He didn’t seem as surprised as I’d expected.  “Are you here with someone?”

            “A friend.”

            “Are you attached to someone in any way?”

            “Yes,” I lied.  “Are you?”

            “Yes, but I’m beginning to regret my choices,” he answered.

            He pulled me near, as if to kiss me.  Stopping just short of contact, he breathed against my lips, “Let’s get out of here.”

            “Let me tell my friend I’m leaving.  She’s really drunk and is going to need a cab,” I explained.

            “Does she know me?” he asked. 

            “Yeah, she knows who you are.”

            He paused, as if trying to figure out how to word his question.  “I mean, does she know--”

            “What you are?” I interrupted. 

            He nodded.

            “Yes.  She does,” I said simply.

            “Will she tell on you?” he asked.

            “No.”

            Stepping down from the platform, I walked to Kathryn’s table and tried to explain that I was leaving with Marco.  She was very drunk and couldn’t seem to grasp what I was saying.  I handed her some money.  “You go back to the hotel, don’t take anyone with you, and lock the door.  Understand?” She nodded, but still had a blank look on her face.

            “But ...  isn’t he ….?”

            “Yes,” I interrupted, “He is.”

            She looked around me at Marco.  It was obvious what she was thinking.  She looked him up and down like he was on a buffet and she was starving.  “Oh ... alright then.”  I gave her a look that said this was not up for discussion.  “How long will you be?” she asked.

            I glanced back to Marco waiting patiently and let my eyes roam over all of the places I’d like to put my hands.  “This might take a while,” I answered.

            We made our way back through the crowd and stepped out onto the sidewalk.  I followed him to his car.  We arrived at his hotel and wasted no time getting to his room.  There was a straight backed chair in the corner which looked perfect for what I had in mind.  I stood the chair in the middle of the room and indicated that he should have a seat.  Marco looked very pleased with the way the evening was turning out.  I pressed him back into the chair as I straddled his waist.  The sound of our leather pants creaking together turned me on. 

            “I’m not really into one night stands,” I said.

            “I was planning to keep in touch.”

            “Why bother? You’re already having me followed.”

            “You can’t pretend not to feel what I felt when we danced.” He paused. “And I’m not talking about a hard on.  Say what you will, but we’ll never be here again ...  this exact place, with this precise opportunity.”

            “So, you’d like to screw my brains out, then get to know me?”

            “Something like that.”

            I could no longer control my urge to touch him.  I ran my hands along the taut muscles of his arms as I kissed him.  His skin felt hot, almost fevered beneath my touch.  I could feel his hands on my thighs, caressing me through the leather.  I ran my hands underneath the short sleeves of his shirt so I could grip his shoulders.  Ever so gently, I ground my hips against him.  He growled in response, a deep, primitive sound.  What I felt for Marco was raw, animal. 

            “Fuck,” I whispered as I drew back.

            “I was getting to that,” he said.

            I got up and walked over to the small purse I’d carried with me that evening and took out two sets of handcuffs.  I saw the surprised smile on his face as I turned around.  One set of cuffs was connected by a long chain.  Marco sat quietly as I cuffed his legs together, and cuffed his hands through the bars on the back of the chair.  Once I’d sufficiently subdued him, I took a seat, again straddling his lap.

            “Did you try to have me killed?” I asked.

            He didn’t seem to immediately follow the change in subject.

            “Huh?” He struggled briefly.  “These cuffs are silver,” he looked angry.

            “Yes, they are, very observant of you.”

            “Do you always carry silver handcuffs in your purse?” he growled.

            Leaning into him, I decided to take a page from Alfred’s book as I whispered, “This is not my first time.” To my surprise, he laughed.  He was trying to appear calm, but I knew better.  I wasn’t sure how much he knew about me or my psychic ability.  However, there were things I could sense that had nothing to do with my mind, and everything to do with the body of the man I was sitting on.

            I brushed my face against his, like a cat, enjoying the way his stubble felt against my cheek.  “Mmmm,” I purred, “You smell good.”

            “What do you want?” he gulped.

            “I want what every woman wants, a man you can trust.”

            I wasn’t lying when I said Marco smelled good.  Oh, this was beyond good, it was down right appetizing.  Continuing to rub my cheek against him, I pressed my lips to the soft skin just beneath his earlobe, placing my nose near his hair line.  I wanted to remember his scent.  I could feel his pulse beating faster beneath my lips as I moved in a trail of kisses, down to the curve of his collar bone. 

            “If we’re going to do this, the least you can do is let me use my hands,” he struggled against the cuffs.

            “Oh, we’re not doing anything.  I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to give me what I want.”

            “Which is?”

            “Answers, Marco.  I want answers.”

            “Suppose I don’t …?”

            “Then I’ll be forced to kill you,” I said as I licked across the pulse in his throat. 

            Much to my delight, he gasped before answering.  “You’d kill me, but you touch me like this? I don’t think so.”

            I pulled back to look into his eyes and found them to be a rather unfocused werewolf amber.  It should have frightened me, I suppose, but I thought it was sexy as hell.  Moving forward, as if to kiss him, I hovered just above his lips.  “Please ...  don’t suffer delusions, Marco,” I whispered seductively.  “Just because I like to play with my food, doesn’t mean that I won’t eat it.” I sighed and watched as it made him shiver.  “Now, I believe you were about to tell me why you tried to have me killed?”

            “I didn’t.”

            “Are you trying to tell me that Simon is no longer your lap wolf?”

            “Simon?”

            “Yes, Simon.  I’m certain it was him I stabbed through the neck a few weeks ago in my back yard.  But then again, you guys all look alike to me.”

            “What did you stab him with?”

            “A shepherd’s hook,” I said, mater-of-factly.  “Now, back to the subject.  What’s going on?”

            “Your guess is as good as mine.  I followed Simon to your house.  I arrived just in time to see your big buddy dragging the body through the back door.”

            “Why did you follow him? Did you want to watch him kill me?”

            “I told you,” he panted, “It wasn’t me.”

            “Who was it then, Marco? It’s getting late and I’m too tired to play these games.” I felt him stiffen.  “What’s the matter? Have I hit a nerve? Losing control of your lackeys these days?” I toyed absently with his hair, my eyes never wavering from his.

            “Bade,” he said.

            “Bade Garren? Hmm, you’re right hand man.” I caressed the front of his tight leather pants as I said, “I assume he stays busy?”

            He made a noise closer to a bark than a laugh.  “I could answer your questions better if you didn’t ...  torture me like this.”

            “Oh, I’m sure you could answer them better, but no doubt less truthfully.  I wouldn’t want to give you time to think up a suitable lie.” I looked at him then and felt the familiar burning sensation behind my eyes, letting me know they were bleeding to amber.  “Don’t make me take what I want from you, Marco.” He looked a question at me.  I knew then he had no idea of the true extent of my abilities.

            “That’s right,” I whispered maliciously, “I can read your mind if I have to.” I didn’t bother to elaborate that it was only his emotions I could read.  Only if those emotions were strong enough could I get any images from them.  He looked terrified as I ran my hands up the sides of his neck, and through his hair, coming to rest on either side of his head. 

            “Wait.  I’ll tell you ...  if you’ll take my word.”

            I let my hands slide back down his neck and shoulders, leaning forward as I did so. 

            “I’m listening.”

            He gave me the rundown of goings on in the werewolf world.  It seems he had been trying to convince his fellow werewolves that I was not their enemy, that their enemy was a government who didn’t recognize them as people anymore.  “Our rights have been stripped away, for reasons beyond our control,” he continued.  “Bade disagrees.” A look of unmistakable disgust passed over his face when he mentioned Bade.  “He thinks we’re all animals, wants to form packs, like dogs.  I’ll admit, we’re not exactly ‘human’ anymore ...  but we are still people.”

            I was surprised.  “But, what about Simon? I’m pretty sure he had something to do with a group of men who attacked a woman at The Firestarter recently.”

            “Yes, I know.  And then you killed him.”

            “I had no choice ….”

            “I was going to offer you my congratulations.”

            “Really? What was Simon doing running with a bunch of ordinary humans? They were ordinary humans?”

            “Yeah, they were human, but I don’t know how ordinary you’d consider them.  They were a bunch of Bade’s followers. They take orders from him, in the hopes that he will turn them.”

            “Werewolf wannabes?” I couldn’t control my look of shock.

            “For lack of a better word, yeah.”

            “You’ve gotta be kidding me? Why would anyone want to do this to themselves deliberately?”

            “I wouldn’t deliberately choose what happened to me.  But you ...  I think you overlook the gift you have.”

            “Gift?”

            “Hear me out,” he interrupted.  “You have the strength and the heightened senses of the wolf, without being forced to take its form.  You’re ...  super human, even if it was by accident.  I think Garren may be trying to somehow replicate what happened to you.  You got to keep the power, the beauty, without taking on the beast.”

            I laughed bitterly as I slid from Marco’s lap, turning my back to him.  My fists clinched, nails digging painfully into my palms.  I could feel my pulse racing, rage coursed through my veins like a living thing.  I growled, a sound that was no longer human, as I snatched off my shirt. 

            “No, Marco, I don’t have to take on the beast,” I said, my back still turned.  “I am the beast,” I roared.  I turned to him and revealed not only my scars, but the way my muscles rippled beneath my skin when I flexed.  My nails grew into razors that extended from my hands, and my eyes, burned wolf amber.  “I can do this at will,” I said, flexing my horrible claws as I held them before his face.  “And you call this a gift?” I began to pace in front of his chair.

            “You know, I could never stop monster hunting, BECAUSE I FIND ONE WHEN I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING! You’re right, I don’t transform with the full moon.  This is as scary as it gets, and the only people to have ever seen this much before are dead.  This is not a gift, Marco.  It’s a curse.  I don’t fit in either world.  I’m not one of you, but I’m not one of them either.  You think I’m super human, but most of your kind thinks of me as either Death, or an abomination.  Everyone else, if they knew ...  would think of me as a monster.”

            I retracted my claws, picked up my shirt, and took the keys to the cuffs from my pocket.  He said nothing while I released him and put the cuffs back in my purse.  I turned to leave and before I could blink, he slammed me against the wall, holding me in place with his body.

            “You think I’m going to just let you leave?”

            “Yeah, I do.”

            One long claw began to grow from the nail of his index finger as he stroked it gently across my throat.  I did not respond.  “You know, among my kind as you so colorfully put it, only the very powerful ...  the ones who’ve been wolf the longest can do what you just did.  It takes years to learn to control the change.  I can change at will now also, but on the full moon, I am forced to change.” He seemed to consider something as he held me there.  “Could you really read my mind, or were you just bluffing?”

            “I never bluff.”

            “When did that happen? I don’t know any werewolves who gained psychic powers when they turned.”

            I gave him my most blank uninterested look. “I was born with it.”

            He pressed against me enough that I could tell he was happy to be there.  When I didn’t respond, he retracted his claw and took a step back.  I slumped forward without his weight pressing against me.  “You’re no fun, Red.” 

            “I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I replied. 

            I left Marco’s hotel room without another word.  I was surprised to find no werewolf guards as I called a cab downstairs.  On the ride back to pick up Kat’s SUV, I found myself wondering how much of what Marco said could be believed.  Through what powers I had available, I believed he was telling the truth.  To have truly let down my guard in order to get the full brunt of what he was feeling would have been a mistake.  I lied when I said I never bluffed.  I did not want to be in Marco’s head.  That was something I could not handle then ...  or maybe ever. 

            When I entered the hotel room I was sharing with Kat, I was surprised to find her still awake, waiting on me. 

            “Well?” she asked immediately.

            “Well, what?”

            “How was it?”

            “It sucked.”

            “Come again?”

            “Nothing happened, but he did give me some things to think about.”

            I could tell by the look on her face she was considering what I’d just said.  “Ok.  I know who he is, and that ‘technically’ he’s the bad guy ...  but you mean to tell me you haven’t wanted to screw that man’s brains out since you first laid eyes on him? You told me when you saw him years ago he looked good enough to eat!”

            I kicked my boots off beside the bed across from Kat’s and began rummaging in my bag for something to sleep in.  “I’m not saying it wasn’t difficult to turn down ….”

            “You’re insane,” she interrupted.

            “And you’re still drunk.  Get some sleep Kat.  I’ll tell you what happened when you’re sober enough to understand it.” I expected her to argue, but she flounced back on the pillows in a huff and turned on the television instead.  I stripped down to my black lace underwear, pulled on an old t-shirt that said, ‘One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor’ and crawled into bed.

            I would like to say I slept well.  But no one could rest seeing what I saw when I closed my eyes.  Marco stood before me, smiling his come on smile, looking as appealing as original sin.  I slid his shirt up as far as I could reach, letting him pull it the rest off the way.  I ran my hands over the ridged muscles of his stomach, over his chest.  I pressed myself against him, reveling in the way the hair on his chest felt pressed against my bare breasts. 

            “Lilith,” he whispered.  Lilith? Wait a minute!  He’d never call me by my name. 

            “LILITH?” Kat was standing by my bed shaking me. 

            “Get up.  We need to get on the road.  And you need to tell me about last night.”

            I looked at the clock.  I’d had a whopping three hours sleep.  So had Kat.  “How is it you’re so damn chipper this morning?” I asked, rolling out of bed and groping absently for my bag.

            “Chipper? I’ve got a pounding headache, I’m starving, and my mouth feels like cotton.”

            “I’ve never had a hang over in my life.” I laughed.  I was tired, but at least I didn’t look as miserable as Kat did upon further inspection.  Her dark hair stood out at odd angles, some of it curling, some straight, with remnants of last nights mascara smeared under her eyes.  She had somehow managed to get herself in a sun dress which might have been cute, had she not looked so strung out.  I pulled on a pair of old jeans with the knees worn out and a tight little t-shirt that read, ‘Pour some sugar on me’.

            “How do I look?” I asked.

            “Like you have a vendetta against the fashion police.”

            “Bite me.”

            “Which brings me back to what I really wanted to know.  What happened last night?”

            I carried the bags downstairs.  Kat got dizzy trying to bend over enough to pick hers up.  Once we had checked out and were back on the road, I told her everything that had happened, right down to my dream. 

            “Holy shit.  So, maybe he’s not so bad after all?”

            “Maybe.  But, I still don’t trust him.”

            “Yeah, but wanting equal rights isn’t a crime.”

            “No, it’s not,” I said, “but killing people is, and in the past, I know he’s killed people just for disagreeing with him.”

            She gave me one of those looks that said I had no room to talk.

            “I’m not judging him.  I’m just trying to figure this mess out.  If what he says is true, then he and Bade Garren are no longer on the same side.”

            “And it was Bade who tried to kill you?”

            “Yeah.  It looks as if Marco’s pack has split right down the middle.”

            “What would that mean exactly? Giving them equal rights, I mean,” Kat asked.

            “It’s complicated.  To be honest, I’m not completely sure myself.  It’s a crime to be infected, but it is also criminal to knowingly spread the virus.  Most Hunters kill werewolves on sight, period, regardless of the situation.”

            “That’s gotta suck.”

            “You’ve no idea.”

            I told her what had happened in the parking lot a few weeks ago, and watched as the magnitude of the situation began to dawn on her. 

            “They knew who you were,” she said softly.

            “Yeah, ordinary people, and they know who I am.”

* * * *

            When we arrived at my house, I invited Kat in for some coffee, but she declined, saying she had a bottle of aspirin at home that should do the trick.  I walked into the kitchen and found Alfred waiting on me.  It was still mid morning and the smell of coffee was a welcome treat.  The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and chocolate.  Alfred does most of the cooking.  It isn’t that I’m not capable.  I’m actually a really good cook, when I have the time.  It’s just something Alfred enjoys, and I’m not about to stop an Italian from cooking. 

            “It smells good in here,” I commented, pouring myself some coffee.  I sat across from Alfred and took a deep breath. “Cinnamon and chocolate.”

            “I forget sometimes what a sense of smell you’ve got.” He slid half of a chocolate bar across the table to me.  “Use it to stir your coffee.” Well, that explained the chocolate smell.  I took a piece of the chocolate and began stirring my coffee.  I’m not sure if it was the coffee, or just being back in my own house, but I suddenly remembered I had a lot of things to tell Alfred, and I wasn’t sure where to start. 

            “You don’t look like you had a good time,” he commented.

            “Something’s happened that I need to tell you about,” I began.  I told him about seeing Marco in the club, and everything he had told me about Bade, and werewolves wanting equal rights.  Alfred sat quietly and listened as I went over the details of the evening, carefully leaving out the fact that I had actually picked Marco up.  I also left out the part where I freaked out and ripped off my shirt in his hotel room.

            By the time I’d finally finished talking, I realized my coffee was cold and I’d only drank half of it.  I was nervous.  I couldn’t figure out why I would be so afraid to tell Alfred what had really happened.  The information was the important part, at least that’s what I kept telling myself.  He didn’t need to know I’d left the club with a man known to be a werewolf, a man that my father and Alfred both regretted not killing when they had the chance.  He didn’t need to know how close I had come to accepting Marco’s offer.  I was honest enough with myself to admit I had wanted to leave with Marco for reasons that had nothing to do with interrogation.  It wasn’t until I was alone with him that I’d made up my mind what had to be done. 

            I wanted to chain Marco to the chair and do things to him that would scandalize even Kat.  But, I couldn’t.  For reasons beyond my explanation, I couldn’t do it.  I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to come back and look Alfred in the face.  It was my own damn fault.  If I didn’t always like the villain, I would probably never have gotten into a conversation with him in the first place.  I have always been attracted to the wrong kind of man.  That was one thing which helped convince me Marco couldn’t be trusted.  I could watch any movie for only a few minutes and tell you who the villain was, because he’d be the one I was most attracted to.  That had always been the case with me, and judging from what I felt when I looked at Marco, he had to be evil.

            I knew there were werewolves present when I’d walked into the club that night.  Lycanthropes were easy to hunt.  I can walk into a room and point them out.  They have an underlying current of sex and violence, barely contained sometimes beneath their human shells.  What really seals the deal, is how they taste.  Bitter sweet, warm, and full bodied, like a chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream mixed with expensive coffee.  Yeah, that’s right, wolfmen taste good if you lick them. 

            I’ve always had a thing for the ‘bad guy’. Normally, the worst case scenario is men who are great in bed end up treating you like shit.  In my case, they some times ended up being monsters underneath their skin.  Talk about being attracted to the wrong type of man.  It’s difficult to keep killing people you’d much rather have sex with.  Just once, I’d like to meet someone who turned me on and wasn’t evil.  To be honest, I’d finally had enough of bad men, even if they did taste good.  For the first time ever, I just wanted a nice guy.

            This brought me back to Alfred, still sitting quietly at the table across from me.  Alfred was a nice guy.  Was that why I’d never considered coming on to him before? Was he too nice for me? What sort of woman had I become when a man like Alfred didn’t pique my interest? After living with him platonically for so long, I really wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject.  Not that I was going to bring it up ...  but the thought had crossed my mind. 

            “So, he just volunteered this information?” Alfred looked skeptical.

            I decided to tell half of the truth to ease my conscience.  “I sort of tied him up with silver hand cuffs and asked him some questions.”

            Alfred raised one eyebrow as he looked at me over his coffee mug.  “Really? And he just let you do this?”

            I wasn’t sure what to say and it must have shown on my face.  After a minute of awkward silence Alfred said, “Is this a regular occurrence, you carrying silver handcuffs around to question werewolves?” He paused, then stood up suddenly.  “You know what? If it is, I probably don’t want to know.” His tone had changed to something I’d never heard in Alfred’s voice before.  I heard him add in an undertone that I’m sure he thought I couldn’t hear, “It would only make me jealous.”

            Jealous? Of me?

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