The Blood: A Denouement

Marabeth brought the books down to her brother, her cousin and Seth.

“Jason arrives tomorrow, and I need my rest. I deserve my rest.”

“You’re going to tell him everything?” Kris said.

“What if I told you I already have?”

She waited for Kris to be angry, but he showed no emotion, and so she continued while he and Jim looked at her.

“He helped me…. When I dreamed. He… For some reason he was able to speak to Hagano.”

Kris’s eyes lit up.

“We… saw Hagano being made. He was a soldier. In a village…”

Marabeth began to describe seeing through the other woman’s eyes, seeing the sorcerer who had come from Byzantium it seemed, who was going to make him into a wolf, and then Jim continued. He told of his dream with Seth, of how Hagano’s sister had been a wolf, how she had killed all of their family, and the Sorcerer had said, plainly, that the only way for Hagano to become the Wolf was not only to wear the skin she had worn, but to kill her.

“But we didn’t kill anyone for the skins to work,” Marabeth said.

“Maybe because it’s…” Kris guessed, “a family spell. Done once and for all. And we’re covered by it? Maybe?”

Kristian Strauss, who had prided himself on his sense of logic, could not believe he was talking about family spells. But then, he reasoned, at this point it would be illogical not to talk about them.

“Hagano looked like he didn’t want to kill her, so who knows if he did?” Jim said.

“Last night,” Kris said to Jim, “after I saw, when I was feeling…. I had been feeling frustrated, truthfully, I was swimming. I was feeling better about things, and in the middle of it I knew I was being looked at. I thought it was you, Mara. But when I looked up, I knew it was Hagano. He had the descriptions you’ve given.”

Jim and Marabeth were looking at Kris is surprise and he continued.

“But he was not alone. He was with a woman, with gold hair, a wolf fur cloak, only it was red and I thought, is this her, the Red Rose. The Rose of the World.”

“Rosamunde,” Jim said.

“Like that bitch that Loreal said her friends were going to see. I wonder if there is a connect—but nevermind.”

She turned her full attention on Kris.

“Naturally,” he continued, “I wondered what you are wondering now? Is poor Kris Strauss jealous of getting no dreams and no wolf cloaks and no resolution? Is he making this shit up?”

“No!” Jim protested.

“You thought it,” Kris said. “You both thought it. And that’s fine. The two of them appeared to me when I was on my back and half conscious. As soon as I spun around to see them they were gone. I was more happy than afraid. When I got out of the pool and got dressed I saw something glimmering where they had been.”

Kris reached into his jacket pocket.

It was heavy and gold, old, and neither Jim nor Marabeth dared to touch it, a heavy arm ring of gold,

“I have only seen it on his arm,” Marabeth breathed. “Never up close.”

The shapes were geometric, fluid and almost Norse, wolves chasing each other, tails wrapping about, mouths open, the arm ring of Hagano.

All this time Seth had said nothing and now he said, “Have you tried it on?”

“No,” Kris said.

“Maybe you should.”

After they had looked on it for some time, and Kris took up the heavy ring in his hands, turning it over again and again he finally spoke.

“I’m tired of being afraid. You’re right, I will.”

.Marabeth kissed him on the cheek, and then she kissed Jim, and also Seth for good measure, and turned from the study to head up the stairs.

“She still has Uncle Nate’s journal, though,” Jim noted.

“She’s probably screening it and seeing if we can take what she finds,” Kris said running his hands over the heavy arm ring while he opened the big binder with the list of names.

As he took out a cigarette, Kris said, “I have to admit, I’m okay with her doing that.”

They looked down the list and read the names.

• Leinghelde 496
• Stedefelde 515
• Rosamunda 537
• Wulffaxa 563
• Wulfstan598
• Chlodomar620
• Lodovicis647
• Karloman 667
• Tentaman698
• Ettomar 721
• Theodaran757
• Ereleuva785
• Hadrian805
• Clovis 832
• Wensis860
• Audofleda890
• Amalasunta 913
• Athalaric940

*Athalaric married Wodolfa in 971 and became the Earl of Chlotane on the border of the Kingdom of the East Franks, that is Germany. Here be the Earls of Chlotane who were called also, Wulfmann or Kinderwulfe.

“Well, can’t get much plainer than that,” Kris Strauss murmured, almost smiling.

• Otto 973
• Alvin1001
• Otto1028
• Myre1052
• Myron 1080
• Peter1106
• Kristoffer1137
• Alvis1170
• James1198
• Frederick1220
• Ingrid1250
• Marabeth 1272
• Swinda1295

“But look, there are all of our names,” Jim said. “Do you think that the family saved them, remembered them through all these years?”

“Not intentionally,” Kris said. “Maybe Pamela. But it seems like even she didn’t really know that much about where we came from.”

• Calfredo*1315

It is a great misfortune that Calfredo, born to the Italian branch of the family suffered as many of our line did, for in having two female generations, the Wolf Gift died in most of his line. His daughter, however wed the grandson of Marabeth, thus restoring the wolf Gift to the Great House.

“Italian branch?” Jim said.

“During the Holy Roman Empire much of Italy was controlled by Germany. It was one huge place and people came and went between borders. Or what we call borders.”

“Then… does this mean that there were lots of us, and after a while we just became… normal?”

“Seems so,” Kris said. “And what’s more, it seems like our ancestors wanted us to be what we are. They were sad when the trait died. They called it—”

“The Gift,” Jim said. “And look here,” he said, “all the way back here.”

He scrolled up and read off:

“Leinghelde 496, Stedefelde 515, Rosamunda 537.”

“Yeah?” Kris looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

“But don’t you understand?” Jim said. “the story. Little Red Riding Hood, who was called Rosamunde in the other story, who went to Grandmother’s house. Look.”

“Rosamunda. And she is Leinghelde’s granddaughter. Then, you think Leinghelde is the original grandmother.”

“Yes,” Jim said, “the Grandmother who made the wolf cloak and who was eaten by the wolf and then who was eaten by Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Who was also eaten by the Wolf.”

“Yes,” Kris said. “I still don’t get what it means, but…”

“Another question,” Seth said. “Who wrote the book? Did your Aunt Pamela write this, or someone else?”

“Let’s just keep reading,” Jim said. “Keep reading.”

• Claire 1345
• Ignito 1362
• Louis 1390
• Charles 1413
• Maximillian1455
• Sigismund 1478
• Frederick 1501
• Charlotte1525

During Charlotte’s time, because of the Wars of Religion, her children fled into France and into Bavaria. Both under much reduced circumstances. We are descended from her Bavarian line which settled first in Wurzburg and then later, to the south. This line begins with:

“Well, if we’re descended from the Bavarian line,” Jim said, “then there’s another line.”

“There must be several lines,” Kris said. “We’ve already seen that.”

“But,” Jim said, “we can’t be the only line that…”

“Say it,” Kris said.

“Some people lost the Gift. The records say that clearly. But not all of them, and not this other group. We can’t be the only descendants of Hagano who are like him. We can’t be the only werewolves.”

With Jim’s words in his head, Kris read on.

• Ursula 1542
• Maria 1568
• Rudolph 1595
• Ferdinand1619
• Leopold 1649
• Russell 1675
• Geneva 1698
• Russell 1720
• Frederick1747
• *Under Frederick we entered into compact with Der Blutsauger
• Setentho 1773
• Shastino 1800
• Marie 1830
• Nicholas Wilhelm Strauss 1851
• Friederich Wilhelm Strauss, June 19th,1880, Studlitz Bavaria,
• James Nicholas Friederich Strauss, September 25th, 1928.
• Nathan Freiderich James Strauss, January 18th, 1956

“Der Blutsauger,” Jim said.

“This is what Marabeth told us about, the league of our ancestors with the vampires.”

“Der Blutsauger. The Bloodsuckers,” Jim realized.

“Yes,” Kris said. “Whatever went wrong, Evangeline and her bunch killed Friederich’s family. Only he survived. I wonder if that’s why Friederich was settled so far from where he came from. It certainly tells us why Pamela didn’t know anything.”

“We know some things,” Kris said. “But not all things.”

“But we’ve seen so much of the story,” Jim said. “In the visions.”

“I haven’t, though,” Kris said.

“I’ve been so hung up on the wolf business, on wanting to get rid of that, I forgot about Frau Eva, and that blood. Maybe, if I can’t learn to make sense of being the wolf, I can do something by being the witch.”