I had the absurd thought that all hospital ceilings looked the same. Maybe not visually, but on a deeper level, they all represented the same thing.
Marie got out of the room where Natasha was sleeping. My girlfriend was still dressed in pajamas. She had quickly added a dark leather vest and my white scarf on top to keep warm.
After bringing Natasha to the ER, I had answered the nurse’s questions in a rush, finally cutting her by saying I had already contacted the cops and would be back. She didn’t believe me, and tried to stop me as I left, but I didn’t want Marie to be left alone. We came back to the hospital together. King was already there.
We had few words, the lieutenant was in a terrible mood, and so were we.
She had taken my statement in a very professional way, swore three or four times, then went back to the police district.
For us, there was nothing else to do than to wait.
It was barely the middle of the night when I had arrived at the hospital. Now, as my girlfriend left Natasha’s room, it was almost morning.
Marie was sobbing uncontrollably. I got up from the uncomfortable plastic seat to gently hug her.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“She…they don’t know if she’ll wake up. They can’t do an MRI because she wasn’t insured, but the doctor told me she…” She cried silently in my arms for a few seconds before continuing weakly: “Her spine is broken. Even if she gets out of coma, she’ll most likely never walk again.”
I didn’t say anything, but something very dark rose from within me.
CALM DOWN. CHAOS WILL COME FOR THEM.
You? You tell me to calm down?
I DO NOT CARE ABOUT OUR MATE’S PLAYMATE. ONLY MY MISTRESS AND THE HUNT.
Fuck y…
“Gray?”
Marie’s voice broke my internal conversation.
“Yes?”
“You’re holding me too tight.”
I released my grip.
“Sorry.”
“You didn’t fight them, did you?”
“No.”
“That’s…” She grabbed the golden necklace in the shape of a cross that never left her neck. “That’s good.” She forced herself to say.
“I could have killed all of them.” I noted flatly.
“It wouldn’t be the right thing to do. And would you have been able to do it while still protecting Nat? While still bringing her to the ER in time?”
The question took me by surprise. I thought about it before answering.
“No. I’m no savior. The Beast’s knowledge doesn’t include protecting or saving.”
Marie stopped sobbing and swiped her tears and dripping mascara off her face, leaving an ugly smudge of dark under her hazel eyes.
“Do you think they could still go for Natasha? Or my mother? Stan? Your mom and dad?” She had a certain look, a burgeoning resolve.
“I don’t know. But looking at your expression, you have the answer to that question already.”
Determination had replaced her sadness.
“You told me how Alik acted. He’s a fanatic. Fanatic of laws and order. He won’t kill someone who’s being closely watched by humans. He won’t break the First Law to attack or kidnap humans who know nothing of the U.”
I thought about what she said. “Yes, that’s how I see it too. Why go for Natasha and not also your mother or mine? They would have been good informants, absolutely incapable of resisting compulsion.”
“Exactly. Which means…he will follow the three laws.”
A sudden realization shook my brain. “Wait doesn’t that meant that…Marie, did Illy answer you?”
“No, she didn’t. Hospital tried to call her as well, she’s Nat’s emergency contact. Wait. You don’t think…?”
“Shit. We need to move.” I began walking, but Marie lagged behind.
“I’m sorry Gray, I’ve cried too much, I’m dead tired, I can’t even put a foot in front of the other without…”
“No worries.” I picked her off the ground with ease.
“Princess carry, really?” She protested while blushing heavily.
“This or the potato bag carry.”
She sighed. “I’m tired of being Cinderella.”
As I carried my girlfriend out of the hospital in hasty steps, she got out her phone.
“Calling Illy?”
“No, a taxi, we need to…”
“No time. Sorry about that, but we’ll be running.”
I began trotting towards a dark part of the hospital parking.
“It’s outside the city!” She said way too loudly, mere inches away from my ears.
“Exactly why I need to run.”
“Are you…”
I was in the covert darkness of the shadows, no cameras around. I gently deposited Marie on the ground.
“You’ll go on my back. Keep my clothes safe.” I began undressing.
“Are you serious?” She protested, while picking up the clothes I threw at her.
I smiled, I loved this about her. She would always protest when she didn’t agree with one of my decisions but would never try to undermine it if she didn’t have a better option. As I removed my bra, she gave me a lecherous stare.
“Really? Now?” I complained.
She grinned weakly at me, as if the previous expression had been exhausting to her. But then, she very seriously continued: “I’ll always look at you like that.”
I looked at her for an instant. Then threw her my panties and began transforming.
“My god I thought I was going to die.”
I snorted mockingly. If I had wanted to kill her, she would be dead.
“Don’t snort at me.” She threatened the giant grey wolf almost twice her size.
She had grasped on my fur for dear life, as I dashed through the vanishing night, replaced by the beautiful tint of the red and orange glow of the eastern sun. In the city, I couldn’t move as fast, I needed to avoid the lights, the cameras and the gaze of early joggers.
But once outside the city, only faced with never-ending corn fields, my muscles could push to their limit, pushing me further beyond what any car could.
I needed to be careful with my mate on my back as to not accelerate too fast. The mixture of fear and excitement I could smell on her was much better than the one of sadness and anger from before.
She was setting her trembling legs on the cobbled road of Illy’s old traditional American home.
Even with the rising sun, it was still dark enough to be certain there was no light coming from inside the house.
I thought about transforming back into my human form.
“Don’t.” Marie stopped me. “Something is wrong.”
I didn’t know how my mate could know that, as I neither smelled nor heard anything, but she had instincts even my wolf-self respected immensely. She had noticed I was going to transform back into human with no signals, for example.
I began stalking around the house.
No signs of forced entry.
Marie stepped on the house’s porch. “Illy? Henry? Rose?” She shouted.
My ears perked up as I heard a grunt.
Marie entered the house in a hurry.
“Oh my god, Henry? Are you okay?”
I didn’t see what was happening, but I was picturing Henry fall over in the living room.
“Marie? Yes. I’m fine…though…Mr. Marak took away Illy and Rose. We just let him in. He broke coven rules, I didn’t think…”
Marak? As I suspected, the Elder and the witch were colluding.
“It’s okay. Can you stand?” I heard Marie continue inside.
“Stand? Yes. Though, you have to leave, I’m safe, don’t worry about me. Belfor never saw me as a threat, he’s already forgotten about me. You though… they sent a Yür to get you.”
“A what?”
“Take the book. A Yür. Remember that. It’s a curse that takes the shape of a monster. You need to leave, right now.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The Beast experience did not inform me of what a Yür was. It had heard the term before, but only knew it was an extremely unpractical curse, and never faced it in the past. Seems that things had changed.
NEVER HUNT BLIND.
For once, I agreed wholeheartedly with IT.
“We can’t just leave you like this!” Marie retorted.
“I’ll be fine! I’ll call you. I’ve got Illy’s phone. You need to run away.”
I looked towards the forest.
Something had moved.
I growled.
“What if this Yür thing goes for you!?”
“That’s not how it works, the book will tell you enough. You’re honestly putting me in more danger by stating there, Marie. Is Gray here with you?”
“Yes.”
“Good, don’t separate. Don’t use magic on it, it’ll just become stronger. Take my car if you…”
“No need. The Encyclopedia, right?” Henry didn’t respond audibly, but I heard Marie pick up something from the living room, then run towards the front entrance.
“Gray? Where are you?”
I was behind the house but couldn’t exactly warn her other than by growling again.
The thing in the forest wasn’t big, but it moved abnormally, I felt the need to keep my eyes on it.
“Here you are! We need to…what’s happening?”
I turned around. She was looking at me with scared, puppy eyes, firmly holding the monster encyclopedia we had skimmed through before in her arms.
I heard the thing move in the forest.
“What’s that?” Marie was seeing it directly, and her eyes grew in fear, her instincts reacting before her brain could distinguish what she had perceived.
I did not have time. I picked her up in my mouth and began running away.
“AAAAAAAH! IT’S ME! DON’T EAT ME!” She shouted inside my maw.
Silly one. I did not want to eat her.
I wanted to run.
I did not look at the Yür, and just flew towards the city, Marie’s shouts reverberating in my throat.
After running for three long minutes, I stopped and let Marie go.
“What was that for!?” She shouted. “Eww, I’ve got wolf saliva everywhere.”
I needed to talk to her so I transformed back.
She looked at me painfully as my bones and flesh screamed agony.
I gasped for air as I fell on my knees. I then raised my head to look at her. “You shouldn’t watch me change.” I reprimanded.
“I shall not turn a blind eye to the suffering of my lover.” She refused.
I grinned.
“Fine.” She got out my clothes, some of them more spared from saliva than others. “Don’t, I’ll need to transform back.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s not as fast as I am, but it is still following us. We need to rest and prepare.”
“Was that what I saw? I’m not sure what… Shouldn’t we go to the city then? In full view of everyone?”
“Alik, or Marak subordinated by Alik, wouldn’t have sent us something that would so easily break the first law. We need calm and quiet to read the book.”
She was already reading through its pages.
“We already read like half of it last time, and I don’t remember anything called a… Ah dang, it’s in alphabetical order.”
“Explains why we did not see it then. In any case, I’ll transform back, you’ll mount me again, and we’ll go somewhere relatively safe.”
“And where would that be?”
“I have a dumb idea.”
“Great, very reassuring. Care to share this time?”
“Miran…Jeanne’s old coastal house. I think it is up for sale at the moment.”
“You want to hide from the vampires, by going to an old vampire lair?”
“Exactly.”
Marie sighed, then nodded. “This is brilliant. It could go two ways you know that don’t you?”
“Either horribly well or horribly bad. A bit dichotomic don’t you think?” I commented.
I heard some sort of slushing noise in the distance, like a mixture of liquid and solid rasping and crushing the corn in its wake.
Marie was going to retort something, but I cut her before she could begin talking.
“No time for discussion, we need to move.”
And I transformed again.
When I was done, the sound had gotten much closer. Less than a mile away.
I laid down and lifted up my chin.
“I’ll mount you with pleasure.” Marie joked nervously.
Once more or less saddled, I began running to the west.
I had a general idea as to where Jeanne’s house was, but I would rely on my nose to find it. I remembered the forest surrounding it.
I ran again.
“Oh my god, it's even scarier when I can see around me.” Marie said out loud.
“This shitty place.”
I finished putting my clothes back on. I didn’t want to be as Ray here, which was good because the feminine clothing forced me to be Igris.
“It is rather beautiful, to be honest.” I answered Marie.
“You look nervous.” She noted.
I had never seen the house under daylight. It was modern and grand. The steps leading to the entrance were magnificent, and even though the garden had been left in a rather self-sustained way, it was still a perfect expression of money and fame.
The front door felt new and repaired and was clearly cheap compared to everything else.
Marie climbed the stairs with no doubts, and I followed her, feeling weird.
She turned around. “Gray? You okay?”
“Yes?”
“No, you’re not. That’s normal. Take my hand.”
I did as I was instructed and felt slightly better.
“This is an ugly front door.” Marie noted.
“Yeah, it’s new. I think she broke it when she killed the…” I had a brief flashback.
WE ATE HER.
The Beast’s sentence removed some of my fear.
Don’t. Don’t do that.
MAKES YOU WEAK.
Makes me human.
WHICH YOU ARE NOT.
“The Beast is making me feel less scared.” I informed Marie.
“Oh?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Your emotions are your own, no one should tamper with them.” She agreed.
“IT says I’m not human.”
“Well, IT may be right, but that doesn’t mean you lost your humanity. Tell the Beast that.”
“It can hear you.”
“And?”
“It’s not answering.” The Beast had receded in my depths.
“Pffrr. Can’t handle being wrong. Can you open the door?”
I inspected the wooden frame.
“I could, but I can hear the beeping sound of an alarm system. Let me sneak in.”
“No! Not this time!” Marie exclaimed. “I’ve got the perfect thing for this.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Henry taught me a cool spell.”
“Is it going to explode?”
“Of course not. Watch!” As usual when someone used magic, I felt the energy surge out of the witch, in this case witch in training, but then it took a shape I had never seen before. It felt extremely complex, but I didn’t learn it this time.
“Dang, it feels cool.”
“Didn’t learn it?”
“Nope. It's been too long.” I gave her a heavy stare.
She laughed.
“So. You failed? Nothing happened.” I observed.
“You can break the door now.” Marie refuted me.
“Erm?”
“No alarm system anymore.”
“If you say so.” I didn’t hear anything anymore except the sound of her breath and the rumbling of her heart. I pushed the frame. It broke instantly, even a normal person could have broken in easily.
“Welcome to the devil’s house.” I said out loud.
“Psh, that’s my room’s name, don’t steal it.” Marie stepped inside.
“Marie! Let me go first!”
“Too late!”
As I entered in turn, I had a shiver run up my spine, and waited for an alarm to blare…but nothing happened.
“What exactly did you do?”
“I fried the electrical system.” Marie explained.
“The whole system? Just like that? Don’t you need massive amounts of energy to do that?”
“Nope, not at all. Henry taught it to me, he has to be able to use them too.”
“I’m beginning to understand why Illy told me he would have been scary if he had more magic.”
As I talked about the nature witch, a somber expression passed on Marie’s face.
“I hope she’s all right.”
“I’m sure Marak wouldn’t hurt her. They seemed to know each other well, he even called her by her first name.”
“I’m not sure if that’s good or not…” Marie stepped inside the room on her left. “Ew, what’s that?”
I didn’t want to enter there, but I couldn’t let Marie out of my sight either.
The place had…changed. It was almost empty now. No more giant tv, beautiful glass table, and most of the pelts had gone. A few were still there and had shocked Marie.
“Pelts. Deer, bear, and a…coyote?” I recognized.
Marie had a disgusted look. “I know your wolf self likes to hunt, but please, if we ever have a house together, don’t decorate it with dead animals. It is creepy.”
The three pelts that remained whispered to me, in no discernable way.
They screamed silently.
They begged with hushed voice.
“Gray?”
“Sorry. I…”
“Is this where…?” Marie asked.
“Yes. But right now, it is just the pelts…I can hear them.”
Marie clearly shivered at those words. “Oh my god this is more than creepy now. Did we really have to come here?”
“I’m gonna burn them.”
“The pelts?”
“Yes, they need…release.”
“Sure, if it is important to you, do it. I’ll be reading the book about our deadly killer coming to murder us while you burn dead animals, is that all right?”
“Yup.”
“It was sarcasm.”
“It is important to me.”
“Fine. It’s freezing here, I’ll go upstairs, want to check first?”
“No, nothing alive or half dead lives here, I would have smelled or heard it.”
“So if it’s dead, you don’t know?”
“If it’s already finished decomposing then no, I would not know.” I concentrated on my task, I began pulling the pelts out of the wall, and put them in the large empty fireplace.
“Reassuring. Skeletons are not out of the question then. Well, if you hear me scream, tell my mom I was assassinated by a skeleton king or something epic like that.”
“Of course.” I answered with a deadpan voice.
It took me ten minutes to find a lighter for the fire, then I set the pelts ablaze. The fire spread extremely quickly, and as the souls trapped within the since long deceased leather left, I almost felt gratitude.
I climbed up beautiful marble and metallic stairs, to find my girlfriend in an empty room, except for a couch and a bookshelf without any books. It had only one window, facing the garden, which was quite little, and the walls were soundproof.
“Seems like Jeanne liked to have some privacy to read.” I noted.
“Everyone has some qualities, even the worst of monsters.” Marie answered me without raising her nose out of the book.
“What does it say?”
“What? Oh, the Yür? It’s pretty bad. It wasn’t hefty in details, so I was checking up the Yürmungrand, much more interesting.”
“Uh, uh.” I sat next to her. If she had to avoid the subject and joke around, it had to be pretty bad.
“You can look for yourself.” She sighed as she gave me the book.
The page I was reading was about a gargantuan sea serpent the size of a continent, who was, according to native Americans and African tribes, responsible for spitting out the continents.
“That’s Yürmungrand.” Marie explained to my confused gaze.
I flipped to the previous page. As my girlfriend had said, the Yür entry wasn’t exactly prolific in information.
It was barely two pages, with multiple illustrations taking half of it.
Those were already bad news.
“I didn’t see well, but I saw its shape. It’s definitely the human-based one. It looked like that at Illy and Henry’s house. I hope it left him alone.”
I began reading the description, not focusing on the images too much.
This is a curse, needing a sacrifice of blood, flesh and magic to cast. Once the ritual done, the curse takes physical form. It chases what constitutes it. If it has been summoned with murdered dogs, it will hunt the dog(s) it sees when it forms, and nothing else. Once the dead prey(s) is/are incorporated inside it, the Yür shall turn to dust. This has always been used by vampires and necromancers, but considering the difficulty of the ritual and the time it takes to create, as well as the need for the Yür to see the target as it is summoned, it has always been impractical at best. Unfortunately, since the invention of high-resolution pictures, this last hurdle has been overcome, and the Yür curse has been used more and more over the years…
I felt Marie’s head rest on my shoulder and looked at her for an instant. She had her eyes closed.
…As it is not alive, the Yür cannot be killed, nor escaped. It cannot be trapped by normal means and absorbs magic spells to become bigger. To a non-witch human, the Yür seems like a spot of darkness moving through the corner of the eye. This way of moving is similar to the Gedradon (see page 145 for more information about this way of concealment) but the Gedradon is a little spot, while the Yür can often impede a whole section of the peripherical vision.
To the trained eye, the Yür can take many forms, but is always some shape of blood and grime, mixture of liquid and solid. The shape it takes depends on the sacrificed creature (See examples above). It kills by suffocation, as it enters the respiratory system and fills it with pieces of flesh and bone. It is unknown as to how the Yür finds its prey, but it is relentless.
Human-based Yür’s are extremely dangerous, and the victims used in its summoning can often be recognized by their ripped faces dangling on the extremity of the Yür’s ‘hair’.
If you have been cursed with a Yür, seek immediate help from your coven.
“Well.” I looked at the representation of the Yür based on human sacrifices. It had the shape of a big human. But the torso was just coagulated blood, and its arms and legs were pieces of flesh and bone stitched together with red liquid strings.
Its head as well was just a mass of flesh and blood. The artist had depicted its hair as ridiculous tentacle-like appendices, with screaming faces on its ends. I was appreciative of the artistic rendition, but that was the only good thing I had to note.
“I really wish I had killed Alik now.”
“Wouldn’t… have changed…a…” Marie tried to answer me but was dozing off on my side. We hadn’t slept for almost twenty-four hours now, and even though I could have easily gone further, fatigue was getting to me too.
“Sleep. We’ll need it.” I decided.
“Mh…is it really ok…?”
“It’s necessary. You need to rest. Considering how long it took to catch up to me before, we have well over eight hours.”
“Good…”
It hadn’t been slow. Far from it. I was just fast.
Still, we were clearly out of our depth, and listening to the Encyclopedia’s advice wasn’t going to help. No coven to rescue us.
“Cannot be trapped by conventional means.” What did that mean? What would be unconventional?
My eyelids were getting heavy, and the sound of Marie sleeping on my side made me want to close them completely.
I put an alarm for six hours later on my phone, then tried to rest as well.
I was in darkness. A pitch-black mist around me. As I looked at myself, I was Gray, both Igris and Ray in one, strange form.
I felt something large move forwards.
“Beast.” I looked at the stalking figure, facing the only thing clearly visible. Red eyes the shine of death.
“SOON, MY MISTRESS SHALL COME.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I DID NOT DO SUCH A THING. YOU ARE SIMPLY GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO CHAOS.”
“What does that mean?”
“IT IS NOT MY PURPOSE TO GUIDE, I SIMPLY FOLLOW.”
“Honestly, if it's just to say a bunch of nonsense, leave me be.”
“YOU MISUNDERSTAND.” The giant wolf moved closer to me, suddenly visible in full.
But it didn’t act aggressive or threatening, it simply sat in front of me, and closed its eyes.
For a while, neither of us moved.
“Are you…sleeping?”
“DREAMING FOR THE FUTURE. I CAN SMELL HER ON YOU.”
“Who’s her? Your mistress? Chaos? How can Chaos have a smell?”
“HUSH. SOON. RIGHT NOW? YOU NEED TO GO DEEPER. SLEEP NOW, ORACLE OF CHAOS.”
“Wait...” But I sank into the blackness, and soon, I stopped thinking altogether.
I dreamt of the ocean at night.
Inside it shined the moon.