“Your scars,” Rosa said, holding his hand across the center console.

Levi glanced at her, then back at the road, giving her an inquisitive grunt.

“When we left the cabin, you were pretty torn up. Your back was... Well, there aren’t any marks anymore,” she began, not looking at him. “When Derrick showed up to take you into custody, you picked me up and jumped off a balcony. Then you kept running.”

“... That I did,” Levi said hesitantly. Another conversation he was dreading. Oh boy, the punches just kept coming, didn’t they?

“You call yourself a monster.”

“I do.”

“You fought off a werewolf. Your hands were broken. By the time we got outside they weren’t broken anymore.”

Levi nodded.

“So, what are you?”

“I’m sick, Rosa.” He said it with a dark note in his voice, bitter, regretful, angry. Not at her. “I’ve got something called Blood Sickness. It’s the first step in becoming... one of them.”

“A werewolf?”

“Lycan. Werewolf. Wolf-man. Beast-man. Red-eye. But yeah, a werewolf. I don’t know how it all works, not exactly. I’ve always had one foot in, one foot out of this stuff.”

His grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled. He forced himself to relax his grip. If Rosa thought he was a freak now, it would be even worse if he snapped the steering wheel in half.

Rosa was quiet for a few moments. Levi just couldn’t muster the nerve to speak.

“Blood Sickness. Why is it called that?”

Levi turned left at the intersection, just about avoiding a homeless man wandering into the street.

“Because,” he began, scratching his chin, “it spreads through contact with or ingestion of an infected person’s blood. It starts making changes immediately to a person’s body, to their mind...”

“You’re perfect,” whispered Levi’s mother in his ear. “Perfect, just the way you are.”

“Arthur was how I got infected,” he continued. “He was a wolf, though it took me a long time to find out. Longer than I want to admit.” Levi managed to chuckle. “Kinda obvious once I found out. I mean, how many guys do you know that refuse to hang out after 9pm? He was... A diplomat, I guess. An envoy up to Redding, trying to bring the local pack into the fold.”

“Close enough,” Arthur commented. “And I still can’t believe it took you two years to figure out what I was.”

“So...” she was quiet for a few moments, “you’re a werewolf?”

Levi shrugged.

“Kinda? I’m stuck in between, halfway into a shift. There’s something you have to do to take the step from sick human to healthy wolf, and I’ve never taken that step. A ceremony. I don’t know the specifics.”

Rosa pondered that, not saying anything, just thinking.

They pulled to a stop in front of the garage and Levi leaned forward to put his chin against the top of the steering wheel. Levi looked blankly ahead, staring off into the distance, down that long grey street. A few cars buzzed about on the side street, paint faded, windshields cracked or chipped. There was very little new in this part of town.

“You don’t seem sick,” she commented after a time.

Levi gave out a laugh that was less bitter than he felt. He pressed his forehead to the cool leather of the steering wheel and shivered. It felt nice on his skin.

“When you have the Blood Sickness you suffer with something known in these circles as ‘The Call.’ It’s, more or less, what it sounds like. Something in your head that pulls the beast towards the surface, pulls you towards the wolf. Makes you see things, hear things, smell things.”

“Arthur died because of one of my fits. We knew what was happening to me, but I wasn’t willing to... to let go. Arthur wasn’t willing to make me, even though he admitted he probably should have. I had a fit, I pushed him because I saw him as something he wasn’t. I can't take that back now. He’s gone because I wouldn’t do what I needed to. I was so afraid to take the next step...”

Rosa’s hand came to rest on the nape of his neck.

“If I had given in, if I had done what I was supposed to and taken that step, I would have been stable. I wouldn’t have...”

“So,” Rosa said quietly. “Why didn’t you?”

Because that would mean letting go of his humanity. Because taking that step, giving in to the Call, would mean losing his normal life. It would mean spending every night in hiding, or as an animal, a monster.

Levi didn’t answer her. He didn’t answer her because, truth was, that was where he was heading. He was going to have to take that step, give in to the wolf, and let go of the last bit of his humanity. He was out of options, out of time.

He was out of excuses.

Everything had been taken away from him already. His normal life was gone the moment the Redding pack had found him. The only thing he had left of it now was...

Rosa tilted his head gently to press their lips together. A small, chaste thing, quick and comforting. It still made Levi’s heart hammer in his chest, the scent of her lingering in the air.

Rosa opened her door, stepping out of the SUV.

“Let’s head inside Levi,” she said.

Levi was helpless but to obey.

Derrick jolted awake as the door opened. He gave a groggy glare their way, then climbed off the couch he’d been lounging on as he waited for them to come back. He didn’t exactly look rested, but something was better than nothing.

They had a long day ahead of them, and an even longer night. Once night fell, Redding was ruled by wolves, red eyes glittering by starlight.

Sometime later, they were sat in the little garage and eating a pizza while they went over their final preparations for the big dash south. Levi was shoving a third slice into his mouth and poking around in the Mustang, following Arthur’s instructions. Behind him, Derrick and Rosa were chatting. Levi pretended not to listen.

“So, you cast spells on them or something?” Rosa asked, crossing her arms. They were going over the events of the cabin, mainly how Derrick had managed to subdue two Lycans if they were both as strong as Levi was.

“Mm, Cantrips. Cantrips follow rules,” Derrick explained. “They’re a lesser form of magic compared to something like a sorcery or a proper spell. Sorceries normally draw their power from a powerful external entity or force. Spells draw their power from a combination of insight and powerful magical artifacts, called a catalyst or a foci, depending on whether it’s an Eastern or Western magi.” Derrick laid out three coins on the sticker-clad coffee table: a quarter, a golden dollar, and a penny.

“Cantrips,” he continued, “ultimately draw the power from the user. That’s both good and bad. It makes them simple, and they don’t require too much training to use. The Bureau trains their field agents with cantrips as a way to… even the playing field with some of the less conventional individuals we’re likely to run into. Trouble is, the human body is fragile. Cantrips feed on the energy of the user, and so they’re necessarily limited in strength and in complexity.”

“I think this is the most I’ve ever heard you speak,” Rosa mused over the lip of her beer.

Derrick’s lip quirked, just a tiny bit.

“Cantrips also can only act on the user, or on things the user can physically touch. There are three kinds.” The man tapped the three coins in turn. “Physical, mental, and sensory.” Derrick picked up the quarter, letting the moonlight play on its silvery surface. “Physical cantrips are dangerous but effective, and simple to learn. They’re what I’m best with, and how I’m able to hold my own with someone like Levi.”

Rosa pursed her lip and glanced Levi’s way. Levi averted his gaze, making a show of pretending he wasn’t eavesdropping. “So,” Rosa said, “Levi’s got, what, super-strength? Because he’s half a werewolf?”

Derrick’s reply was a shrug.

“Lycans are stronger, faster, and more sensitive to their environment than a standard human. Cantrips help me keep up with them, let me restrain them, and fight them when I have to. Doing anything long-term with a cantrip requires a bit of outside help, at least for a bog-standard human.”

Derrick dug in his pocket for a moment and produced a thin strip of paper etched with red lines. Levi shifted where he was to get a better look at the glyphs, but they seemed to shift, slithering like snakes on the paper.

“Bureau calls them boosters. I don’t think that’s their proper name, but that’s the one we use at work. We make them ourselves. They’re just flash paper with a few drops of our blood on them. But, make them in the right way, snap your fingers while you run-up a cantrip, and you can extend the duration of them by quite a while by burning them up.”

“So,” Rosa mused, “you got your hands on those two in the cabin and locked them down? Could you show me how to do that?”

“Those were mental cantrips. I’m not as good with those, but I manage. I essentially paralyzed them by overpowering their wills. They weren’t too pleased about it, but it was better than Levi getting his hands on them. I could probably show you a couple of them sometime, when things aren’t so hectic.”

Levi flinched as the socket-wrench slipped from his hand and clattered against the battery. The garage was silent for a few moments as he fumbled to pick it back up.

“Levi, come on over. You can stop pretending to check the battery,” Derrick called. Levi huffed as he walked over, avoiding Rosa’s gaze. “Let’s go over what we can expect tonight.”

Derrick tapped the street map on the coffee table, already marked with red marker along their planned route. “The Redding pack,” he explained, “is led by Alpha Reinhart. He has blond hair and is known to be rather durable.”

Alpha was a bureaucratic title, of course, something the Bureau of Conservation and Investigation had imposed on the packs for organizational reasons. In wild wolf packs, while there was usually a leader of some description, it rarely much resembled the “alpha, beta, omega” structure popularized by a handful of studies and a great many movies. It was much the same with a group of werewolves; the internal organization varied wildly across packs and rarely looked anything like the neat roles the bureau sorted individuals into in their paperwork.

“If we get caught,” Derrick continued, “run. Do not attempt to fight. If you must fight, make sure it isn’t Reinhart. He’s large and, like I said, known to be rather durable. All wolves are, Levi’s proof of that. That said, they can and do experience pain just as acutely as anyone else. Rosa, that shotgun of yours won’t likely kill a wolf, not unless you can wedge it in their eye or their muzzle, but blowing off a large chunk of flesh will certainly slow one down in a pinch.”

“Jesus,” Rosa whispered.

“Get somewhere public as quickly as possible. Busy roads, public squares, something of that nature. Even a pack like Redding knows there are limits to how much the public can stuff in their repressed memories. Levi, you know how to handle wolves well enough, but the same applies to you. Avoid fighting if at all possible.”

Levi gave a small nod, even though the beast boiled with bloodlust in some hidden part of his mind.

“Okay. Now, let’s go over the route one more time.”

Levi’s fingertips trailed across the supple leather of the steering wheel. It was clean, meticulously so, clean and cool and smooth in his hands. The thin white scars crisscrossed his hands like train tracks. He rolled his neck, letting out a soft sigh. The yipping grew louder and louder outside of the garage. Excited. Anxious. Thrilled.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Derrick stood outside the vehicle on his right, holding the chain that allowed the garage’s shuttered door to be raised and lowered in a firm grip. Behind him, Rosa jittered, and Levi could smell the tang of fear and sweat and adrenaline in the air.

He could smell other things too.

The world of scent was so much deeper than a human, a real human, could ever know. He could smell the rust on that shotgun in her hands. The oils on her skin mixed with it, creating a wonderful cocktail that smelled of skin and red cheeks and old tractors. It had been so carefully polished and shined by its prior owner, then left to rot in a cabin in the woods.

That cabin had burned in a haze of supernaturally aggressive flame. He could still smell the pine resin as it crackled, tingling the back of his nose. By now it was nothing but cinders. Levi doubted the stuff even smoldered.

Levi turned the key in the ignition.

The car did not rumble, did not growl, did not purr. It roared. It roared the roar of a starved animal hungry, eager to eat up mile after mile of road, hungry for gasoline and speed and air in its intake. Something in Levi, or perhaps in Arthur, buzzed with anticipation. The passenger-side door was open about halfway so that Derrick could climb in.

Levi’s hand fell to the shift knob. He revved the engine once. Twice. His pulse was roaring in his ears.

They were here to take what Levi had left. To take Rosa, and to take his life, and to take Arthur’s car.

Derrick yanked down on the chain, hand over hand and fist over fist as he pulled the shutter open. He locked it in place and dashed for the car door. Levi flicked on the headlights, splashing brilliant light over the dark driveway.

The small collection of vehicles out front waited patiently for them. In the shadows of their interiors, red eyes flashed, bright and hungry.

Levi could see the Ferris Wheel, twinkling dully in the distance. The one from his dreams, from his head. The one they’d taken down. Its bright blue and red lights shone like stars in the murky sky.

A large Lycan sat in the back of an old Chevy Silverado, the paint peeling and chipped. His fur was pale blond, glossy with moonlight. His eyes burned a brilliant icy blue as he stared at Levi. They did not blink.

There were a few moments of tense silence.

Levi saw the twisted body on the floor of the Bullseye, the body that had never been there, and its garish blue eyes.

Levi slammed on the gas with a snarl. The engine revved under him.

The car didn’t move.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Arthur groaned.

Levi looked down at the dash, frowning in puzzlement.

“Levi you lovable idiot!” barked Rosa from the backseat. She grabbed the back of his seat and reached forward, grabbing his hand and, by extension, the shift. “Hit the clutch!”

“Clutch?”

Derrick groaned.

“The third pedal!” Rosa cried.

Levi hit the clutch. Rosa’s hand worked the shift knob down and to the side and the car suddenly kicked forward.

“You can’t drive stick?” Derrick snarled as the car rocketed forward. Wolves leapt out of the way as the tires skidded on the pavement. They peeled out into the street and then kicked forward.

“Clutch!” Rosa shouted. The vehicle lurched as she worked the shift-knob in their hands, her off-hand gripping tight to the headrest as she struggled to stay in place.

All Levi could think about was how damned soft her hand was.

The engine stalled, and Levi had to start it again as they rolled. It kicked back to life and shot them forward.

“You can’t drive fucking stick!?” Derrick roared again. “You fuckwit!”

“I didn’t think it would be this complicated!” Levi wailed.

“Levi,” Arthur sighed, shaking his head. He was seated on the hood, looking disapprovingly at the car’s occupants as wind blasted through his hair.

“Clutch!”

Another lurch as the car kicked to the next gear. Levi grunted and yanked the wheel, hard, causing them to take a turn far too hard. The three of them slid to one side as the car skidded into oncoming traffic. Car horns blared, sharp and piercing in their ears, while Levi recovered control of the vehicle.

Levi glanced into the rearview mirror, seeing headlights hurrying to follow. The small fleet of vehicles threw their headlights at the road in front of themselves, and Levi

“They can drive?” Rosa lamented.

“Of course they can drive,” Derrick said, pulling a thin paper tab from his belt. He lit it, and it flashed into smoke in an instant.

“How?” Rosa cried.

“The same way everyone else does it,” Derrick snapped, “with their hands and feet. Focus on working the stick!”

“That sounds dirty,” Levi muttered dumbly. He was concentrating. Trying to, anyways.

He panted, focusing intensely on the road. Follow the route, follow the route. They had planned every turn, every twist, every back road and freeway excursion. So why was it all escaping him now? Draining out of his head like water from a tub.

The vehicle stalled under him again. Rosa let out a string of curse words Levi had never heard before, which may or may not have turned him on a little, and they fought to get the engine back to life. The engine kicked back into gear, snarling unhappily with the improper handling.

Arthur gave a chuckle that made Levi scowl at him.

The unknown sprawled out before Levi as he fought to remember the route he was meant to be taking. Had he missed a turn in that stall? He felt turned around, lost, confused. The terror of not knowing filled him.

Oh, but wasn’t it fun? Wasn’t it exhilarating to the nth degree? His pulse hammered in his head, the train slamming down the tracks, a collision course with the moon, with freedom, with escape from the specters that haunted him at every turn. Terrifying and thrilling in equal measure, the leap he’d been avoiding for months now and he’d finally been shoved off that cliff into the unknown.

He tilted over the precipice.

They shifted down as Levi slammed them down a narrow side-street, one that went behind a Walmart. He swerved to avoid a dumpster that wasn’t properly against the wall and heard the screech of tires behind him as the pack of wolves that was chasing them struggled to keep up. Another sharp turn onto a main street and then they were back to accelerating, pushing the engine.

It seemed plenty happy to be pushed.

Rosa and Levi drove together, the red dart of the car pressing its way through half-empty streets. They swerved around the smattering of other vehicles, avoiding collisions by a series of narrow margins. Arthur sat on the hood, looking forward now, a hood ornament. He was stable and unmoving, despite the speed. His face was a curious mixture of happiness and sadness, a kind of mourning grin for the life he could no longer live.

Derrick cursed from the passenger seat as sirens kicked to life behind them, red and blue and red and blue. It had only been a matter of time, of course, before the police noticed their high-speed chase through the streets, adding themselves to the pursuit. They’d planned for that.

Levi honked the horn, swerving aggressively around a Smart Car, then taking a sharp left. He heard someone skid out behind them, then a metallic crunch. He could only hope it was some of the wolves. The engine roared, and it felt familiar, felt like something he knew.

And it was something he knew, because he was behind the wheel.

He was behind the wheel many, many years ago.

The paint was old and rusted. His grandfather had the hood popped, bent over the side of the vehicle as he leaned into it. He was a wiry man; his blond hair had gone stark white years ago but he still kept it combed back like he had when he was a young man. A greaser ‘till the day he died, he always said. He had this crooked little smile, like he was laughing at a joke no one else could hear, and he wore it constantly in challenge to a world that had never given him much to smile about.

“Alright Arthur, start her up,” his grandfather called.

He turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered once. Twice. A third time. It didn’t turn over.

His grandfather cursed lengthily, kicked the tire, then limped away, cursing even more intensely. The old man leaned back over the side of the body, hands reaching down into the car’s mechanical innards. After about ten minutes, he nodded and pulled his hands back.

“Hit it again Arthur!”

Arthur turned the key again.

It sputtered once. Twice.

Then, the vehicle snarled, jumping underneath him as the engine kicked to life. His grandfather laughed, almost manically, arms in the air in his triumph.

The old man yelled something, drowned out by the sound of the engine. He tried again.

“Give her some gas!”

Arthur revved the engine. He revved the engine and oh, oh how he liked the sound, the feeling, all that power under his fingertips and his feet.

Levi stepped on the gas pedal hard enough that the vehicle seemed to leap forward for a moment. His fingernails dug into the leather of the steering wheel, feeling far too sharp.

“Give her some gas!” the man that was not his grandfather said.

“Easy Levi,” Arthur said. He was sat on the hood, but his voice filtered through to Levi’s ears as if there was nothing at all in the way. “Easy. It’s just an echo. Keep calm.”

“So are you,” Levi breathed.

He nodded anyways, frantic, trying to focus on the road and watching the red and blue lights flash from behind them. That light bounced off every sign, every car, every building, painting the world in warped, harsh colors. He decided focusing on the road wasn’t working for him, that it was only disorienting him. He focused on Rosa’s hand over his instead.

She was like a needle in a butterfly’s wing, keeping him mercifully pinned to reality.

The pickup truck, that old Silverado, was close. The blond wolf was standing in the back, teeth barred, holding onto the light bar mounted on the top of the thing. Levi could see the truck in the rearview mirror, the red eyes of the pair inside the cab flashing, burning like coals.

“Bad dog!” Derrick shouted out the window. He threw something out of their car. A moment later there was a sharp crack and a terse scream. Levi’s nose itched.

“What the hell was that?” Rosa questioned.

“Silver powder,” Derrick called back. “With luck it’ll lay that bunch up for a few days, but I don’t think my aim was that good. Still, must burn like hell. It gets in their lungs, their eyes, burns the whole way through.”

Rosa looked a little ill.

“Yeah,” she winced. “That doesn’t sound like fun.”

“Better than killing ‘em,” he grunted.

When Levi looked in the mirror again the truck emerged from the powder with a great puff. The silver dust shimmered in the moonlight like stars twinkling across the roadway, but the blond wolf still stood. He howled, blue flames puffing to life across his body as the silver kissed flesh and burned away. As he howled the blue flames seemed to billow from his mouth, the airborne silver powder riding his hot breath and igniting on contact with his cursed saliva.

Something rose in the back of Levi’s mind and gripped at his skull. His mouth felt sharp, filled with so, so many teeth. The moon flickered a particularly violent scarlet in his mirrors and he slammed on the gas, earning a yelp from Rosa.

Levi snarled in time with the engine.

Derrick burned another cantrip in the passenger seat, seatbelt unbuckled as he twisted around to watch their tail. One of the Redding pack’s cars, a Mitsubishi from the 90’s with shiny chrome rims, was coming up on the right side of the car. Arthur’s hand gripped the wheel, gripped the stick shift, and slammed on the brakes for a moment, causing the tires to screech. The Mitsubishi shot past and they made a sharp right, the Silverado nearly smashing into their rear end.

“Levi, what are you doing?” Derrick protested. “This is off the route, where are you taking us?”

“I’m handling it!” was Levi’s response. When the words came, they came through a mouthful of Levi’s own blood, his teeth digging into his gums. His voice sounded like it was coming through a long tunnel, and the beast screamed in his head.

“Come home to me, Levi,” whispered his mother.

“Levi!” Derrick called again. There was fear, real fear, in his voice now. Levi couldn’t say if it was because of what he was doing or what he was becoming.

A new party joined the chase. This one was nondescript, a black Suburban with blacked-out windows. Derrick gave a dismayed groan.

“That’s a Fish and Wildlife Services SUV! I am so getting written up for this,” Derrick groaned. “Levi, are you still in there?”

Something about that SUV itched at Levi’s brain. What was the Bureau doing in town? The whole point of Arthur and Derrick being here was to bring Redding into the fold. So why was there a Bureau van chasing them through-

Levi drooled a small stream of blood from the corner of his mouth, taillights flashing by like red eyes in the moonlight. The headlights flashed out ahead, carving their path out of the shifting, shimmering shadows. Black like midnight, like Arthur’s fur, like... Like...

The stars fizzled out one by one.

The dead matter of the universe emptied him out bit by bit.

He atrophied to nothing in the void.

He felt like he was drowning.

He felt like he was finally alive again, after so much time being a dead man walking.

They darted over a bridge. Then another. A jarring left turn brought them onto 273, cars speeding by. They took the turn so hard that the car groaned under them, tilting to one side, threatening to tumble. Then its wheels slammed back to the road and it ate the pavement as hungrily as it ever had.

He slipped beneath the waves, the Ferris wheel twinkling where the stars had once sat.

He walked along a trail in the woods. The forest smelled alive, green and full of energy. He had a dog with him, the big Labrador sniffing everything he possibly could. Levi walked behind him, babbling on about something or other.

“You can borrow my copy,” Levi continued. “I’ve already got 50 hours in-game, and I’m still learning new mechanics.”

“That,” Arthur mused, “sounds like entirely too much of a learning curve.”

“It’s fun!” Levi protested behind him. Arthur chuckled.

Arthur gripped the steering wheel.

Levi panted, eyes wide as the streetlights flashed by, and by, and by.

Levi’s nails dug hard into the wheel, too long, too sharp. His skin itched fiercely. Rosa blinked away tears.

They had lost all but two. The Silverado and that Suburban. Determined predators, those. But they were on a straightaway now, and Arthur-Levi-the Beast had the advantage. He let out a crazed sort of laugh, giving the car as much gas as he could.

Rosa was shouting something. He couldn’t quite hear her.

The pair of larger vehicles fell back, and back, and back.

Derrick burned another cantrip.

They passed through the trough of a valley.

Arthur’s grandfather barked out a laugh.

“Look at her go! I knew you could do it Arthur,” he grinned.

“You’re coming home,” Levi’s mother purred.

The cross burned against his skin, a little golden icon of everything his father had forsaken. The cross his father had never taken off after his grandmother died.

They shot into the dark, alone and crowded at once.

Arthur’s hand gripped the steering wheel while Levi convulsed in the seat.