Howling Bonds

16

Could I ask God to spare the life of a werewolf? No time for that now. I put my foot down, and the car flew down the Washington State highway.

Litter, dirt, and blood stained the streets, and the manic scent of torrential rain, amphetamines, and the night before the revolution filled the clouds. The shadows melted away in the wash of lights from passing cars, spilling out across the windows. After what felt like forever, there it was, the Werewolf Motel. Its neon sign flashed, its facade lit up, people coming in and out, and 80s music playing in the background.

We creaked open the car door, and a wall of misty fog flooded into the chilly night. I grabbed ahold of Nell’s arm and pulled him out of the car—he felt hot to the touch. An elderly woman staggered out of the motel entrance and onto the pavement. I could barely see her frazzled gray hair through the murky air. We were here.

“Let’s move it, guys.” Rem was standing in the shadows of the motel bar, her hair a dark brown, curled and cut short like. Her eyes radiated a deep intensity, so much so that it was hard to tell her true age. In one moment she looked like a centenarian and in another, just an ill-fated thirty. Upon seeing Nell’s wounds, her gaze grew serious. “Wolves! Help me find whatever I need from my room on the second floor. I need totems, prayer stones, herbs, candles… anything you can get your hands on.”

Anne and Leighton hustled along after stuffing a few crumpled hundred dollars into Rem’s hand. Then Rem spun toward me, her eyes filled with a neon radiance. She cracked open the cabin door behind her. “Come with me, human.”

CHAPTER 8

FAE

I

opened the floor-to-ceiling windows of my room and walked to the balcony. The cool Seattle night seeped in. The hotel had the best view of the space needle, China Town, and Capitol Hill. Fireworks spread their wings and crashed into the massive city of steel, spilling a fine dusting of blood and fire. The wide leaves of the trees crackled, and the sirens hissed long and hard. People die in this city every day. It was enormous fun for everyone.

The nerve spasms searing through my head made me ache, but blessed me with heightened senses. The smell of Seattle was sharp and vibrant: the mingled scents of small bars, immigrants, sushi restaurants, cloying orange perfume, and pungent vomit from an overdose. Crowds chopped through the streets like hot caramel spilling over a boiling pot.

The moon was full and the dark clouds flew away. Rows of Elixir lined the street corner shelves—that must have been what caused this strange state I found myself in. Mean-faced, bloody-eyed Fae prowled the streets looking for trouble, never off duty.

Poor, dirty werewolf friends were mine to deal with. Including Nell, Leighton, Anne, and the so-called Girl of Destiny. Faye owed it all to Nell. Nell exiled him from the werewolf pack, but it ultimately benefited us. Now Faye was the CEO of Bellevue’s top tech company and we were young! I was eating high on the hog—cars, mansions and all that stuff—thanks to this whippersnapper who gave us the world!

But nobody cared about them now. They were like a bunch of liberals marching, with nothing but anger. Just like the f*****g Merchant King trying to pray for rain with their primitive chants, like no one ever invented modernity. In the end, they looked like museum ghosts, protesting while college kids snapped selfies in the background.

Despite taking the wolf pack by force, they still tried to persuade them to ‘walk in the sun’. They looked so weak and alien that it was obvious why they were taken for animal testing. Remaining true to their old-fashioned libertarian views, they took the entire wolf pack through it. But they should know that liberalism is full of embarrassment, exile, and flight.

Nell and his filthy pack, that hollowed paradise of teenage years, made my old gut churn. So I picked up my phone and dialed Andrew, the head of SC, but I got no response. I shifted to someone else and tried Kleon’s number. The phone hung up after two rings. This guy had always shied away from modern technology, adhering to traditional werewolf beliefs. Faye once said that Elixir forced him to deal with these hippies, and he wished he could have just sold them candles and incense, which would have been a more fitting exchange for his intelligence. I agreed with that.

Now I’m in business with him too, selling the best quality Nell heads. I faced a tough decision that I had to make. There was no other option.

The familiar city noise welcomed me as I stepped out of the elevator. I followed the street until I found a lively sushi restaurant that was still open. The place reminded me of my regular bug removal routine. Truth be told, I helped Andrew Fox make a comeback and become a superstar in the hunter community again, and he should have shown me more gratitude than to let his stinky men come to me and get killed.

But it was a great way to spend the evening before the full moon illuminated us. I kept on devouring the strawberry ice cream, which tasted like nectar from heaven, with its smooth cream and crunchy strawberry pieces exploding in my mouth. This joint had the best ice cream—not some artificial factory kind made with stabilizers and preservatives, nor those fancy scoops served on oversized trays with lemon juice sprinkled over them.

The two crafty, cross-eyed boys were self-evident. I had left an obvious trail that led to their whereabouts. They had golden tousled hair and rosy flushed cheeks, straight out of a popular detective novel, where the culprit was always a well-off white man in his twenties.

One of the kids opened t****k and glanced around while shooting short clips. I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Patsy!” I waved at him like a cherished friend. “Come over here. This will be your first interview.”

Patsy and his companion scowled, drawing their knives with frenzied haste. I bolted for the sushi table as they lunged. The cameras crackled on the floor below me, flashing, trying to capture the event in a live stream. But I would not let that happen. With a mighty flick of my wrists, a jet of viscous black ink splashed onto the lenses, blanketing it in darkness.

I wasn’t crazy enough to think this scene was appropriate for the live stream.

Then I showed them my mini robots, which looked like a couple of tiny flying bugs that could stand sentry near stores and warehouses every night to keep burglars out. The mini robots mistook the boys for burglars and bit them a few times. That must have made the boys dizzy, and they tried to step up from their attack. I moved like a viper, dodging their blows, laughing and taunting them. I had learned the art of street-fighting from my days in Los Angeles, and these two kids had no chance against me. In an instant, I spun around like a top and delivered powerful blows to both their chests. They shrieked in pain, but I didn’t stop there.