Arooo….2

Chapter 2

I’m so not used to this; it’s so unreal running on all fours in wolf state and having part of my conscious mind trying to process that. Then there’s the smells too and then there’s the fact that well…I’m a wolf running through the streets of London.

I love the speed that I can go though and I have the advantage of being able to run through and around things that are slowing the Vicar and his three biker goons down. Honestly the traffic in this city is the shits.

And the place smells funny.

Too much time living the good life home in Maine I guess. I never really was one for the cities even back on my side of the Atlantic.

Pond…fftt!

It’s not a Pond, I swear these people have the weirdest sayings, ring me on my mobile, beer and skittles…okay that might be alright, it wasn’t too bad with a mars bar. Oh and Yank…I keep getting that as soon as they figure out I’m an American, so I’ve been call everyone that calls me a Yank a Wanker… but that’s fine I guess. I mean really I’m the foreigner here.

Besides it could be worse, I could’ve been sent to France. If there ever was a people determined to be rude to the rest of the planet it’s France. I took the wife there on our honeymoon. Oh they were nice to her… they’re actually pretty nice to women there. Huh, maybe we should go again, I might get treated totally differently.

I dodge some cabs and cut through a few alleyways and keep them in sight until I see them stop at this large warehouse just a few blocks from Heathrow there’s a gate and a large chain link fence there but that doesn’t really stop me. I’m not sure that I can jump the fence; it’s pretty high and while some dog breeds can jump pretty high this is a twelve foot fence with a barbed-wire fringe or overlay.

But I can dig.

It takes me a few minutes of running around the property before I find a spot that’s grass and dirt instead of blacktop or concrete and I start digging.

Just like back in the services, dig my hole and belly scoot under the fence. I’m sort of pant grinning as I go from bit of cover to bit of cover to get closer and closer to the place all the while my tail’s wagging to the theme of Mission Impossible.

The place is busy too and for the most part it looks legit. Actually the place has a bunch of semi official looking stuff here and there that seems to say this is a warehouse for the HMRC? Oh…okay I get what that stands for.

They’re there talking to a few guys in sort of office clothes and clip boards and they’re keeping and eye out for people watching and I see a rather money shaped envelope get passed from one of the bikers to the warehouse guy who sort of looks like he’s in charge and he guides then to a large crate with markings on it from Iran?

Okay my mind goes through all these sort of terrorist things and agendas trying to figure out just what was going on and what they were doing when they get a pry bar and start to open the crate right there.

I move to get a better look and I sneak my wolfie butt up a set of stairs to where I can look down at them and I see a bunch of stolenish looking Middle Eastern art. I’ve seen this kind of stuff before and it’s all kind of a big wuppteedo until I see the Vicar pull out what looks like a really old looking statuette of what looks like a man with a sword in both hands pointing down but with wings carved into the back of it.

He raises it and gets this smile and look like I’ve seen in the Middle East with some of the really rabid nutjobs there that I had to deal with but this Vicar is a white as white gets around here and that pretty white. Actually he’s got a bit of that funky way too related to other members of his family look, not like a freak but like someone with the family lines a tad to close together.

The statue give me the heebie-jeebies and he kisses it reverently and raises it over his head to the sky and he’s mumbling and talking in a language that I don’t know but he’s looking as out there as a southern church revivalist back home. Y’know the speaking in tongue and snake handling types.

He’s like that for a few minutes then he smashes the statue on the concrete of the warehouse floor and there’s a good sized hunk of green gemstone in there that’s oddly calling and attractive and makes me feel slimy, and not in a good way…not like that fucking rock wants me in a way a bunch of prisoners want to get a hold of some pretty young thing and do all kinds of evil to her.

I swear It’s not a movie, this is real and there’s a second or two that I swear I can hear this thing…the stone talking to me.

I couldn’t help the whine that came out of me.

The Vicar was picking up the stone when it slid out of me and his head snapped up and he looked at me and his eyes flared with light and It was green for a second and then it was gone.

“It be a Were lads, kill the bitch.”

The three bikers pull guns and start shooting at me and I’m so not sure what to do as I’m getting shot at. Do I get out of here? Do I go for the rock that’s creeping me the fuck out or what? I get hit by a few rounds and they hurt like getting hit by well a bullet but they’re regular rounds so while they don’t hurt me they still hurt me…

Think my majik wolfie skin’s like Kevlar against mortal attacks. So while they don’t really hurt me they still hurt.

The Vicar pulls a revolver and shoots at me and I jump off the catwalk I was on and let out a yelp as the bullet grazes me and it burns painful like getting someone to put napalm in the graze and lighting it up.

I smash through some boxes and crates on my way down and I run. It’s hard the graze was too my right thigh and it’s slowing me down a lot and the three bikers are chasing me not firing because we’re outside but they’re yelling to anyone who’s close to “Oi tackle it!” “Stop the bloody beast!” and other stuff the turn to get into some cars from the parking lot.

I don’t fuck around I run as fast as my four paddy-paws will go and run right out through the main gate and down the street and they’re not too far behind me not once their in cars and their chasing me down determined to run me over…now an impact will hurt like a bitch but not kill me but getting run over just might. I’m Were tough but the laws of the universe only bend so far under majik.

The weight of the car will push my internal stuff together so in essentially the same way as anyone else it’ll severely fuck me up. If they don’t kill me with that I’ll be so messed up and trying to regenerate they’ll be able to finish me off fairly easily.

I get a little desperate and take a turn down a street and run headlong into traffic. I even run up and over a few cars…

I’m limping and whining and whinging as I made my way finally to where I left Justin with his car and I thing I might have been a bit girl vulnerable and cried if he hadn’t been there but he was and he was pacing outside of it behind the thing actually on his phone and there was a styrofoam take out container there on the hood of the trunk.

I wuffle at him before stopping and he turns and spins really fast, too fast and his legs don’t quite keep up with his torso and he goes down in a heap.

I pant, grin and smile if you can call it that then lick his face…oh…I don’t feel so good. My vision gets all blurry weird like when The Littlest Hobo ate some of the food poisoned ham and …I fall over sideways and things get dark and cold…

***

I wake up and I’m lying under a blanket on a leather couch and there’s this wrinkled old man with his hand on my thigh and I can see wisps of energy sort of snaking off of his hand and into the skin of my leg.

I stare at it and I can see it clearing away these ugly green lines in my veins radiating from the graze on my leg.

Justin’s there in a chair watching but he’s frowning and he’s staring at my leg then me.

“Oh you’re awake.”

“Yeah…uhm where are we?”

“My father’s house, I took you here when you passed out. Are you really alright?”

“I think so thanks to this gentleman.” I nod at the old man.

“Good, I would have though normally this whole thing would be barmy, but after seeing uhm what you can do…I asked my father to see if Great Uncle Thom could come and help. You were pretty bad.”

The old man smiles and looks at me. “T’ain’t no gentleman gell, Jus old Thom, jus ole Thom but ye. Ye are aways from distant shores now. I’ll be thinking that you never came a calling here to the powers thet be now ‘ave ya.”

“No sir, I’m on orders from my queen to try and keep a low profile, but I think I might have….”

Justin smirks and says. “Screwed the pooch on that one now didn’t you?”

I give him the finger.

The old man Thom chuckles at me and Justin and I feel a wave of refreshing coolness run through me. He removes his hand. Justin leans over and stares at the bandage on my leg, then at Thom. “Are you sure you did anything it doesn’t look any different than when you bandaged it.”

“Aye, I know wot ahm doin lad. I’m the one with the gift now ain’t I?”

“Well we all though you were raving but considering.” He looks at me. Then he kind of “Looks” at me and I blush because I’m seriously naked under the blanket and there a little bit of Joey from Friends… (Hey how you doin?) there.

Old Thom comes to my rescue by slapping him in back of the head. “Git yer eyes somewhere respectful now. I reckon the gell’d like a spot of something as she be starting ta heal up.”

“Oh, alright like what?”

“I had some things in my bags, could you find my things please?” oh it’s got to be pheromones or something because I dimpled him and hit him with a shyish eyeflutter and I didn’t mean to do it.

“Oh…uhm…right then.” He leaves and his crotch on his dress pants had been tenting….oh boy…I noticed too.

I close my eyes for a minute and Old Thom’s gotten up and he’s made his way to a pretty nice bar. Actually the whole house is pretty nice. He pours himself a drink from a bottle and another for me and I take it gratefully. He clinks his glass to mine. “slainte.” He says and I nod and take a sip of some really expensive scotch. I close my eyes and revel in the taste but more than that I just open my mouth a bit and inhale a bit through my nose the scents of the liquor as it was spread over my tongue before I let it slide down my throat.

My own grandfather said the very first time I ever had whisky. “If it’s really good stuff boy you don’t drink it you sip it, savour it. You don’t so much as swallow as invite it in.”

With my enhanced senses, that’s so true. I’m pretty sure he carried the gene or he just liked to drink. Or had to…a lot of those veterans from WW2 came home like that. I’ve see combat but that was toe to toe down and dirty stuff.

Nam was hell too…

No conflict is a good thing, it’s all really shitty stuff and I’m back in the thick of it in a whole new way.

Old Thom and I are quiet in our own thoughts like us older fellows…oops…guess I don’t fit that anymore….well we’re quiet and just sharing in the quiet until Justin comes back with my purse and he’s got a stack of women’s clothes.

“These are my sisters she uhm…she won’t mind.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite she’s been gone from us a few years now.”

“Oh, they look nice I’ll be careful with them.” I’ve got them on my lap as I’m checking my tablet for messages from my Kelly girl and The Queen.

I…I…

I don’t want to believe it…

“No…….!” It comes out as this choked cry of denial and a heart being broken sob…

“Noooooo……” I fall back onto the couch sort of sideways letting things fall to the floor and It just sinks in this feeling…this feeling deep in my soul…she’s gone.

“Kelly….Noooooo…..” I drop my tablet and start to bawl as this pain, hurt, loss and….

I feel half of everything that’s me die too…