The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

She wasn’t entirely herself, and she thought that the more she wondered about that, the more she would be distracted from who she was and what she was. Marabeth understood that Pamela’s journal had sucked her in so that she was more than reading, was becoming. And yet what was happening now was more than that. She would let go. She would lose herself, not think of how dirty she was and how dirty this place was. She would forget how none of this village was up to her standards.

“Who am I?” she wondered.

In her ear came a woman’s voice, her own voice.

“No one in particular. You are just the eye that needs to see.”

“What?”

“You are in a woman, just a woman, no special woman, to see what you need to see. It is your gift. It is part of the Change. This is how the Change awakens.”

“I do not understand,” Marabeth said, looking around the village with its thatch huts, with its geese freely squawking, its strange mixture of men and women dressed like barbarians and some looking quite fine and civilized. There was a walled city not far off. There were green hills and trees.

“If you keep asking, the voice said, “You’ll never understand.”

Now came a great wheelhouse down the road, large and rich and drawn by powerful but beautiful horses, and Marabeth wondered if such a thing could come from here. She took her own advice, for the voice was hers. And she listened to the voices around her.

“Must we call on such a one to restore the Wolf Gift?”

“The Burgunds have the Wolf Gift. They have the Change Gift. We have lost it. It must be restored.”

“It must be.”

“We must possess the Wolf again.”

“Mother,” a little girl took her hand, “is the Wolf Gift true?’

Marabeth prepared to answer, but suddenly she realized she was just a rider in this woman’s body, and the woman was saying, “Long ago, men could change into bears and wolves and foxes and even fish and otters. That’s what the tales say, and the beasts spoke to us and the gods walked the earth. For everything was everything. It changes now.”

“I think I would be scared to see a man turn to a wolf,” the little girl said.

“Yes,” the mother admitted, it is for fear that the gift was lost. What we fear becomes a monster and then the monster is put a way.”

A regular Freud this one. But then, we are in Germany. Of a sort.

The great wheel house stopped, and the carriage doors opened.

“Is that why he is here?” the girl asked her mother.

“Oh, yes!” He is Südländischehexe, the sorcerer from over the sea. He has the old magic. In his lands the wolf becomes the man and the man becomes the god. He shall bring that magic to us again. He will bring it now.”

As the doors opened, a tall figure enveloped in black, black gloved and hooded emerged, but Marabeth could only see him from the corner of her eye, because the woman refused to turn her head. Instead, her eyes were raised to a powerful, well muscled, man with thick golden hair. It was cut short, and he was in the garb of a Roman solider. But, Marabeth remembered hearing something about Germans being Roman soldiers.

“Mommy, is Hagano here to tell him… Südlända… Südländis… The Wizard to go away?”

Hagano!”

“No, love,” her mother said. “Only one of the Tribe will take the Wolf Gift. If he wishes he shall pass it. And Hagano will be that one.”

Marabeth awoke, blinking into the semi dark. She was not on the bed, but on the living room floor, on the carpet before the sofa. Clothes were scattered and half across her, his open mouth below her breasts in sleep, was splayed Jason, his pants just below the hill of his buttocks.”

She couldn’t enjoy him though she could still feel him inside her. She wanted to make love or even have hot sex, but right now she was in the aftermath of what had gone on in the restaurant, the rush home when Jason had been possessed by Hagano, and she had been possessed by something too. She should have known she was possessed, it wasn’t like her to leave food behind. In the apartment, they had not been entirely themselves, and now she pulled her dress down and thought of looking for her panties. All she could remember was that it was Hagano who was clearly fucking her, and he was consuming her deliciously. And then, when it was over, she had passed immediately into that vision and now she lay, still on her back, looking upside down at the painting of the storm colored wolf consuming the girl in red.

“Jason,” she shook him awake. “Jason get up.”

He grunted and blinked and murmured, “What the….God… what the fuck happened?”

While he turned over and pulled up his trousers drowsily he said, “Well, I know what happened, sort of, but…”

“I’m going to have to tell you a few things,” Marabeth said, pushing her hair back and getting up, her foot slipping on something which she now realized was her underwear, “because you’re part of it, like it or not. But you have to keep an open mind.”

“My mind,” Jason grumbled, clutching his head, getting up slowly, “my head hurts.”

“I’ll make coffee if you share your cigarettes,” Marabeth said.

“Deal, Miss Strauss.”

Jason looked back at the painting of the wolf.

“Werewolves?”

“I know it sounds—well, what the fuck am I saying? Of course its crazy.”

“Except I was there,” Jason said.

“Whaddo you mean?”

“Both times,” Jason said.

“I was there. That first night, when you said he came to you. When we…” He held the cup of coffee lose in his hands, and his knees were wide apart.

“That’s not me, Mara. I’m not like that. I like to date. To… I’m not like that, but I was the other night. And I’m not like what I did, what we did. But.. I remember it. I remember it and I don’t.”

“Do you remember speaking German. Do you remember—”

“Putting your hand on my dick,” Jason shook his head rapidly.

“I remember all of that shit. It wasn’t like I got thrown out of my body. It’s just. Something else was part of me, and I didn’t mind it.”

He said, “I liked it. I felt more confident. I felt stronger. I felt passionate. Sure. Like I often don’t. So I welcomed it.”

“Yes,” Marabeth murmured, sipping from her coffee. “That’s exactly it.

“Normally I’d be shy. I’d be a lot shyer, but when this… Hagano… is part of me, I feel… Well, You know how I feel.”

“Jason, if I read the book I can find a way to get rid of him. Or if I… there’s someone we’re supposed to talk to. A guy.. A… witch… named Lewis Dunharrow. Maybe he can get rid of this for us so we can be normal.”

“Or maybe you can find out more, if this guy can come through me.”

“What?’

“Like you found out tonight,” Jason said, his face tired, but also excited.

“Maybe you can find out more about him, and maybe I can find out more about me.”

“Are you saying you want this to go on?”

“I’m a detective,” Jason said. “I want to find out that the fuck is up. And is it just because I’m with you, or is it something about me that has this… spirit showing up?” I want to know that too. I’m not ready to give him up. Not just yet.”

Marabeth folded her legs under her and drank her coffee.

“I’m also not ready to give you up,” Jason said.

She looked to him.

“Poltergeist sponsored or not, I like what we have, and I like you. More than like you, and if you’d have me, I’d like to continue our night.”

Jason took a drag on his almost forgotten cigarette that had burned to a virtual tower of ash.

“Perhaps we could even continue it in a real bed.”

“Did I even make the bed today?” Marabeth wondered.

Jason smiled at her sheepishly.

“After coffee we should find out.”

She agreed.

When Dan returned he came through the doorlike a normal person, and he saw that everyone was still in Myron’s apartment, and Myron was sitting on the sofa.

“Are you okay?” Dan sat down beside him.

“I think so,” Myron said. “My oldest friend tells me he’s a vampire oh, and guess what? I’m a werewolf, who’s also a witch. I don’t know to howl or buy a broomstick.”

“Well, a broomstick would help with clean up better,” Dan said.

“Yeah,” Myron almost laughed.

“Sunny sent a glazier over her in the middle of the night to fix my windows. He keeps on saying this is his fault. I don’t see how it is.”

Dan looked over where Sunny was working with the glazier and said, “Alexander Kominsky is the most efficient motherfucker I’ve ever known, and that’s a fact.

“The two of us were waiting for you,” Myron said. Everyone else headed back to that house. I’m supposed to go too.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I would like to,” Myron said. “I don’t want to hang here by myself tonight. Really.”

When they got to the house, Dan said, “I’ll show you a spare room. There’s lots of ‘em. And then we’ll have a good talk tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Myron said. “I get the feeling that we need to have lots of talks real soon.”

Dan showed him the room and Myron said, “This is pretty nice.”

“Only the best for one of my oldest friends.”

“I’m so tired,” Myron said. “But you know, I feel good. It’s funny. I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.”

They embraced hard for a moment, clapping each other on the backs and it seemed like neither would let the other go, and then Dan headed upstairs. He wound his way to Laurie’s room and thought of tapping on the door, then didn’t. He went right in and closed it shut behind him.

“I thought you might have gone back to Chicago,” Dan said.

Laurie sat up. He had changed into pajama bottoms and a snug sleeveless tee.

“No, Lynn is fine, and doesn’t want me and everything important is happening right here. By the way, Evangeline’s plans were fucked because she had an abortion.”

Dan blinked.

“What? No, I mean…I don’t want to be stupid. I’m sorry, Laurie.”

“Her body her choice. The twenty first century. You know.”

“But still…”

“It might be for the best.”

Dan wanted to say that this did not sound like Laurie. He didn’t believe him. A few days before, He had seen Lawrence Malone toss the head of a man he had decapitated and eviscerated at the feet of Eve Moreland.

“I am telling myself,” Laurie amended, “that it was her choice and might be for the best. Still, she might have consulted—never mind. It’s done.”

Suddenly Laurie touched Dan on the cheek and said, “Don’t do that to me again.”

“Do what? Do—oh! It wasn’t like I intended to almost be killed.”

“I think if you hadn’t have fed from Kruinh you would have died.”

“I know I would have,” Dan said. “But now I feel so strong, You wouldn’t believe it. It’s almost too much. I almost want you to feed from me. I do. I think. A little.”

“You’re almost rambling,” Laurie said, and he sounded solemn, but not gruff.

“I… You know it’s an act, Daniel The roughness. I thought I lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me,” Dan said. “I’m right here.

They sat side by side and Laurie, his mouth still a little open, his eyes shining, just continued to stroke Dan’s cheek.

“And I know,” Dan said. “I know you don’t mean the stuff you say. You think I don’t get that. It’s just that… sometimes you care for someone so much it would be too much to say it. You know?”

Laurie nodded, and they were still looking at each other seriously.

“I think that I would have died if you hadn’t been holding me,” Dan said, “if you hadn’t… Your love held me. Kruinh saved me, yes, but your love saved me.”

They kissed now and Laurie held Dan’s face in his hands. Embracing, tight, carefully they sat down side by side, and then lay down on the bed and began to undress, Dan, lifting up Laurie shirt, and Laurie unbuckling the belt to Dan’s jeans.

“Do you mind?” Laurie asked while he undressed him, but Dan didn’t answer. They just came out of clothes quickly until they were naked together, until nothing separated them, and then their bodies joined, arms linking, holding each other as closely as possible, moving together like matchsticks, kindling their own fire in the dark.