The Beasts: A Winter Tale

[ChrisGibson]

E I G H T

NIGHT
WORK


Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

-Friedrich Nietzsche


Seth Moore woke up from the strangest dream he’d had in a long time. It was not about Nathan. Indeed, Nathan had stopped appearing to him since Christmas. It wasn’t an unpleasant dream at all, not like the monstrous fantasies he’d had before. He was in a great house with high walls and high ceilings, and he was walking through it with a man with golden hair and a scruffy face. Seth knew he loved him, and when the man turned to him, he kissed him on the mouth.
“You’re like me,” he said. “You have secrets.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” Seth told him. “Not anymore, and not from you.”
He knew he and the man had made love, and calling him the man didn’t seem right because in that dream he had known him, that man had been part of him. They had been lovers from long ago, and in the dream this was not their first time. They had spent a life together, He remembered them laying together and the man, the boy, his lover’s chest almost like something cut from marble, with lovely golden brown hair up the center of his stomach and on his breast, and his deep blue eyes, his crimson lips, his mouth red.
“You know I will always take care of you,” he said.
“But that’s perfect,” Seth smiled at him, “Because you know I’ll take care of you too.”
Nothing supernatural had taken place in that dream, certainly nothing like the strangeness that had taken place all through December up until Christmas, but it gave the early morning a sense of sweetness, and then, after that, a bit of sadness as he moved through his breakfast with Owen, and Lewis, with Christopher Ashby who looked half asleep, and with his cousin Loreal, whose cinnamon colored poofs of hair were touched by red as she sat before the sun filled window.
“Where did Uri go?” Loreal asked.
“He went back home,” Owen.
“But it’s still Christmas.” And Loreal added, “and I have no intentions of going home.”
“He went back largely for Kris Strauss,” Lewis said. “Eve gave him some letter.”
“Did you look at it?’
“No,” Lewis said.
“Why not?”
Lewis furrowed his brow because Loreal had furrowed her eyebrows and he said, “It really wasn’t my business.”
“Pardon me for saying it,” his cousin told him, “but these days everything is your business. Especially whatever Eve is up to.”
“Fine,” Lewis said, while Chris, who had still not spoken looked from him to Loreal, “since we are a family, since we are all in the know, I’ll be frank.”
“You should be,” the pretty girl said.
“You accept that there are wonders in this world.”
“I know there are wonders in this world,” Loreal said. “Us for one thing. And Christopher is a vampire.”
“And Laurie,” Seth added.
“Why did you bring him up?” Loreal asked.
Seth shrugged.
“Just because.”
Loreal opened her mouth, then closed it.
“There are all sorts of things in this world,” Lewis said. “Kris Strauss is a werewolf from a family of werewolves. And Eve’s letter is to the head of that family, for the werewolf clans are headed by women. Apparently Eve was the last person to see Kris’s father. Kris talked to Uri on Christmas Night, and it turns out that his father is dead. If what I know is right, he visited Augustus and Eve before he died.”
“Do you think Grandfather killed him?” Loreal demanded.
“I don’t know why he would,” Lewis said. “He’s certainly not above killing, but he always has a reason.”
“Well, being a werewolf would be a reason,” Chris said.
“Did you know there were werewolves?” Lewis asked him.
“No,” Chris shook his head. “I assumed they were made up, and they probably thought we were made up too.”
“Then you don’t know… how they work? What’s true about them, what’s from the movies and fiction and folktales?”
Chris shook his head.
“Here’s the thing,” Lewis said, “I’m not sure they do either. They aren’t like us. Or like you either, like the Drinkers. This family, it seems, lives like ordinary human beings.”
“Well, but they’d have to know,” Owen said. “I mean, if you turned into a wolf once a month, you would know.”
“Unless,” Chris said, “that’s not the way it works. I mean, I can walk in the daylight. I don’t have to constantly feed on blood. I don’t sleep in a coffin. Who knows how it really works? And apparently, if they are a family of werewolves then it’s not just being bitten that makes you one. You can inherit it. So… who knows?”
“If they don’t know who they are, and we don’t,” Loreal said, “then how in the world are we going to find out?”
“Who says it’s for us to find out?” Owen said. “We can’t assume that we are the ones who are supposed to figure out everything.”
“Only, Uncle,” Lewis said, “I have a feeling that we are.
“I have a feeling that everything that took place before Christmas, at Yule, was all about that. That this was why Kris Strauss was here, and Eve, and the vampires. It is the beginning of something. I don’t know how long that something will last or what that something is, but I know that in some way or another we are connected to them.”
Owen nodded slowly.
“Your reign has begun, Lewis. During mine I sought to keep the clan out of strange matters and let people seek us out rather than interfere in their affairs. Would you go to them, or wait till they come to you?”
Lewis shook his head.
“Vasilisa came to Baba Yaga, not the other way around. Always the witch’s place was in the wood and the quest was to find her. It was ever the way of the witch to maintain council and be found by the seeker, not to seek being heard. But maybe things have changed.”


“The Strausses are going to go down and talk to Augustus,” Chris said while they were sitting on the bed in Lewis’s apartment.
“Yes,” Lewis said. “They probably are.”
“But think of all the things Augustus could really know,” Chris said, “and not about them, but possibly about me?”
“You?”
“Augustus is old,” Chris said, “Very old, and apparently someone who hung out with werewolves. Someone who is not surprised by vampires. He knows my sister.”
“You think we should travel down there and see him.”
“At least get out of this shitty winter weather.”
Lewis laughed.
“Besides, you’ve become the Master of your clan, and some people weren’t there. Some people haven’t paid you honor.”
“Paid me honor?”
“I know how it goes. I am in a clan too, don’t forget,” Chris said. “And even though Augustus isn’t technically in your clan, he should have been there. The fact that he wasn’t—”
“Could be meant to irk, meant to make me pay a visit.”
“Or he doesn’t think you will,” Chris said. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“I was…” Lewis rolled his tongue in his mouth. “I might have actually been a teenager.”
“Well, there’s the thing,” Chris said. “Maybe he thinks that’s still what you are. Maybe he thinks Owen is still the real head of things and he simply doesn’t respect you.”
“Are you just saying these things to make me go down and see him?”
“I am saying them because I’ve been around a long time and I know how power works.”
“But, Christopher, you’re forgetting, I’ve been around a long time too,”
And when Lewis said it, there was a look in his eyes and Chris instantly saw the Malachy he had been separated from for so long, whom he had longed for.
“And yet, knowing all that, I have fallen in love with you as Lewis.”
Lewis nodded.
“I longed for you to come back to me for so long, and when you did, you were Lewis for so long that Lewis is what I know. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Well, not that funny,” Lewis shrugged. “After all, Lewis is who I am. That’s not untrue. I’m just a lot of other people too.”
Lewis stirred his coffee and then he said, “I think we should pay a visit down south.”
Chris looked at him.
“After all, as you said, the weather in Chicago is awfully shitty.”



“What’s that you’re writing in?”
“You know you could have scared the shit out of me?” Loreal demanded.
“Not you,” Laurie said.
“You can’t just come flying in through windows,” Loreal reprimanded, not turning from her desk where she was still writing.
“I didn’t exactly—”
“You flew, at an incredibly high speed, and you came in through the window like a bat. Not as a bat, but like a bat. I’ve seen you do it before.”
Loreal turned around, thumping her pen on the desk.
“Or rather, I’ve failed to see since my seeing isn’t as quick as your moving.”
“You are full of sharp words and little charm for your Laurie.”
“This is a grimoire,” Loreal said, gesturing to the ledger. “A grammary.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Of course it’s a thing. You see it’s a thing.”
“I thought that was just like… you know, me sleeping in a coffin.”
“No, grammaries are real, and I’m updating mine before I go with Lewis.”
“Oh,” Laurie frowned. “Lewis didn’t tell me you were going.”
“No,” Loreal nodded, “That’s because I didn’t tell him I was going either.”
“What about college?”
“We don’t start back for a while and anyway, this is more important. By the way, why did you come?”
Laurie started to speak, and Loreal said, “I know the question sounds rude, but it is a serious one. You have business with Lewis?”
“I thought that, possibly, I might have business with you.”
“Oh,” Loreal said.
“May I sit?”
Loreal gestured to her bed.
Smoothing his dark trousers, Laurie sat down and Loreal swiveled in her chair to sit across from him.
“Was I wrong in thinking we were becoming friends?”
“If in becoming friends you mean we made out and almost had sex at my grandmother’s funeral, then… yes.”
Laurie took a breath and stroked his chin.
“Um… yes.”
“I thought vampires were more eloquent.”
“I thought witches were more silent.”
Loreal raised an eyebrow.
Then she said, “Look, I just don’t really know what’s going on. Where we are. Or if we are a we. Or why I’m kind of ticked off about that question. I mean, I was pretty sure you were into me, which I hate to use that term. Only you’ve got this Lynn, and she’s having your baby and—”
“I don’t think I’m going to be staying with Lynn.”
“Don’t think?” Loreal said.
“I will not be staying with Lynn.”
“Oh,” Loreal said.
“She does not like the idea of what I am. To her.”
“Being her great-great grandfather?”
Laurie nodded.
“And that twice over,” he said.
“And she did not sign on to being with a vampire. Believe it or not, some people find it offputting.”
Loreal sat back in the chair as far as she could, nodding.
“Let me ask you this?” she said.
“Alright?”
“If she was okay with it—?”
“She isn’t.”
“So you said, but if she was? Would you still want to be with her?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
Laurie did not answer her, and Loreal waited for him to say something, but nothing came. So, she simply swung around in her chair and picked up her pen.
“When you have something to say, I’ll be here.”
“It couldn’t have worked out,” Laurie said.
Loreal turned to look at him.
“You know me for exactly what I am, and that is how you… if you are keen on me at all, it’s because you know who I am. And I think you are keen. On me. A little.”
“Is this when we go to the malt shop?”
“What?”
“The last time I heard the word keen was on The Donna Reed Show.”
“Well,” Laurie shrugged, looking a little embarrassed, “It’s hard to keep up with the lingo.”
“Just stop using slang.”
Laurie nodded, looking strangely shy.
“And I feel like no matter what century you’re in, telling a girl that she wants you and not at least admitting you want her a little is…. Tacky. Tacky. You can use that bit of slang. It’s not going anywhere.”
“I am keen—” Laurie began. Then he said, “I love you.”
Loreal blinked at him, her eyes wide.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean—”
“No,” Loreal waved him away. “I love you too. That’s the main bit we have to sort out. Now…. You should go back to work.”
“Go back to work?”
“Go back to work and I’ll finish keeping my grammary.”
“May I… come calling tonight?”
“Come call…. Uh, sure,” Loreal said. “But for now, I need to sort out my head. So go to work.”
Laurie stood more uncertain than she had ever seen him, and then suddenly he kissed her on he cheek.
She turned to speak to him, but there was a streak of color, and then he was gone.
As Loreal sat looking at the blank space in the room before her, and the open door to the hallway she murmured, “We’re gonna have to have a talk about that.”


MORE SATURDAY NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent portion! Nice to hear about some of the other characters and the story is going along well. Lots happening and I am enjoying it! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

AS WE RETURN TO THE BEASTS, CHRIS AND LEWIS MEET A CHILD IN NEED OF HELP AND MARABETH AND HER FAMILY DEAL WITH THEIR COMPLICATD LEGACY


“Even though it’s cold as hell outside, at least it’s warm in here,” Lewis said.
Chris, lying nude while Lewis ran his fingers over his back, laughed into his pillow and said, “It is more than warm in here. This is the hottest apartment in the world.”
“Well, we’re always naked in it,” Lewis turned over on his side contentedly, and looked out of the sunlit window. “So does it matter?”
“We need to get our sleep,” Chris pressed his face into Lewis’ back. “You and me. Tonight we meet with Kruinh. Tonight you meet the Family.”
“More than I’ve already met?”
“Yes. And Kruinh wants to discuss things with you.”
“It has been a long while.”
“Then you remember?”
“I do. It came back to me little by little, and maybe he wishes to discuss old things. It has been centuries since I spoke with him last. In fact, it was before I died the first time you knew me as Melek. Before he made you. I have not seen him since then.”
“Something is going on in our world too,” Chris said, “the vampire world. Something is going on with us the way it is going on with Kris Strauss and his werewolves.”
“Well,” Lewis rolled over on his back, “not that I want to discuss this when we could be sleeping or having sex, but we’ve said already that things are happening, things we do not completely understand.”
“Only,” Christopher said, turning to him and touching his cheek, “I feel that now that you are who you are, there will be many questions from many people, and the one who will be expected to have the answers will be you.”



Jim had left his door open and was raising himself up to stand on his head when Marabeth entered.
“You and that Jason guy have a good time last night?” he asked offhandedly.
“Yeah,” Marabeth said with equal carelessness. “We had a decent night.
“Morning yoga?” she said as he lowered himself to his shoulders and then lay on his back and curled into a sitting position.
“It stops me from being crazy,” Jim said.
It also makes you fit as fuck, Marabeth observed, but thought this would embarrass her shirtless cousin cousin.
“And,” Jim said, going into a downward facing dog, and then drawing his feet to his hands, “reading that woman’s book definitely made me need to do yoga.”
“Are you going to read more of it now?”
“I don’t think so,” Jim said. “I got to when they’re in America and—”
“I only got to her leaving Germany,” Marabeth said. “I was going to give it a go again. I think I can stand it. I think I actually … want to know what happens. I feel stronger now.’
“Well, you are strong. You’re always strong,” Jim told her.
Stretching himself up on his toes he said, as he reached for the sky, “You’re the strongest Strauss I know.”
Marabeth made for the book on the bed and said, “I don’t know that that’s true.”
Jim settled onto the bed in his Lycra shorts, his chest wet with sweat, and moved the back of his hand over his forehead.
“If I went to meet this woman named Eve Moreland, a woman who I think knows a lot about our family, would you go with me?”
“Sure.”
“I didn’t even tell you where.”
Jim shrugged.
“Does it matter?”


She went down the hall. Marabeth didn’t really wish to think about anything else that had happened the night before. She would have to deal with it all, obviously, but for the moment the most important thing was to press on, and she was sure that there would be no real pressing on until she read the book. Or at least read more. She placed the book on the bed and then went downstairs. She thought about going upstairs, but then imagined that Kris probably wasn’t there anyway..
She could hear the house waking up, and she wished she’d kept a coffee maker in her room like she used to. Before she had been afraid to go back to her lonely apartment, and now she wished she was there, didn’t really wish to be with her family at the moment. Joyce had brought her here, and right now Joyce was probably in bed with Peter, something Marabeth refused to think about.
But… Jason.
Not that Jason wasn’t worth it, but this wasn’t like her, and she suspected it wasn’t like him. Still, thinking about him and last night was a distraction from thinking about the book which, as she sat, not on her bed, but in the old chair in the corner, she resolved to read now.


“I wished we’d flown,” Lewis commented.
“That wouldn’t even be practical,” Chris noted as they walked down Ogden Avenue.
“But it’s so exhilarating. I have to say,” Lewis told him, “out of all the boyfriends I’ve ever had, and all the rides I’ve ever taken, riding on your back over the city of Chicago at the speed of… well, not light, I guess you’d call it the speed of vampire, is the greatest.”
“It’s a cold snap. You would be cold as fuck if we did that tonight.”
“I’m cold as fuck now,” Lewis noted, and then Christopher stopped.
Lewis did not ask what the matter was, because now Chris walked differently, quicker, his senses obviously turned on, and Lewis thought, “He is on the hunt,” and then Lewis knew that the reason they had not flown was because, in one way, Chris knew he would be on the hunt.
“Did you hear that?” Chris asked unnecessarily, Lewis thought, because of course he hadn’t. He followed Chris for a moment, but then Chris raised a finger, and he went down the street and through an alley.

He was getting used to this. He told himself that every time after it happened. Being beaten was getting to be commonplace. But Willis must have known that, because he wouldn’t let it be boring. He wouldn’t let it be the same. He always changed it up with some variation of torture. Lately he’d figured out that the cold was a good place for a beating, the cold and the threat that you just might not be allowed to come back in, so here he was, out by the trash cans throwing his hands up as a shield, with no coat, in tee shirt and jeans, almost burning with the cold. He didn’t pray anymore. He had been prayed out.
“Don’t you goddamn put your hands up. Don’t put your hands up . You gon feel this, little niggah! You gon”—hit—“fuckin’”—hit—“feel this. You little worthless motherfucker. Who do you think you are? You ain’t shit. You black, you ugly, you ain’t got shit to piss in or lay down on but what I give your ungrateful—”
And then it was gone. It seemed like absolute silence, being sucked into soundlessness for a moment, and so it took a bit to realize that there were sounds, the sounds of the street, cars passing, the wind blowing, the sound of feet coming down the street and down the alley, but it was the sound of Willis that had stopped.
And then the boy looked up, Willis was pressed against the wall, the studded belt hanging from his hand, and most certainly there was a white man, with pale blond spiked hair in a leather coat who was, by all indications a vampire, quietly sucking the life out of Willis’s throat.
As he released Willis, and the dead man slumped to the ground, Chris turned to the boy, his mouth red.
“I hope you weren’t too attached to him.”
Now Lewis had come down the street, and his eyes went from the boy to his boyfriend to the dead body.
“He won’t kill you,” Lewis said, “though he probably shouldn’t have killed your… whatever he was… in front of you.”
“He was my mom’s boyfriend,” the boy said. “He was a motherfucker.”
“Kids shouldn’t swear,” Chris said in genuine disapproval as he wiped his mouth.
“Dude,” the boy said, “you just killed somebody.”
“Do you want to go back to your mother?” Lewis said.
“She’ll just beat me too. And then find someone else like Willis.”
“Well,” Chris murmured.
“I guess you’re coming with us,” Lewis said.
“For real?”
Chris looked to Lewis.
“Are you sure?”
“You just killed his mother’s meal ticket right in front of him.”
Chris said, “Lewis, you’re not exactly… into children.”
“I’m not a child.”
“You are,” Lewis said. “Do you have a name?”
“L’varion.”
“Is that one of those names with the apostrophe where it shouldn’t be?” Lewis asked. “Never mind. I’ll call you Levy. Come with us.”
L’varion, now called Levy, nodded, and then Lewis said, “You need a coat. Should we go back to your house?”
Then Chris Ashby said, “If we’re doing this, we’re doing this.”
He bent over Willis’s dead body, and without much care, wrested his coat, his gloves and his hat from him and then handed them to the boy who was a little too small for them.
“Now, let’s go.”
Chris headed up the alley first, and the boy walked beside Lewis.
“Are you going to turn me into a vampire?”
“Not tonight,” Chris shouted as they headed back onto Ogden.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion and great to get back to this story. A lot is happening and I am enjoying it a lot! I am glad Chris and Lewis were there for that kid. I am also glad that Marabeth is so close to her family given what all she is dealing with at the moment. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, the closeness is strange because I don't know if she wants it, but they need it because they're all dealing with a common.... issue. Like their issue is the family, so they have to band together. As for Chris and Lewis... just happy they're back.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Tonight, we return to the book of Pamela Strauss, and learn more about our old friends the vampires...


THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS

It was in Dusseldorf that I finally understood Germany. Far away from even Wurzburg, I never knew we were part of a large country, a country which had, in all fairness, simply been an idea until very recently. But in the great cities I understood what people meant by a nation that was separate from the land of mountains, hills and trees, of fresh and frozen lakes for wolf feet to run upon.
In Berlin I learned something even more important. It was there, first in my dreams, and then in the flesh, I met walking, and walking in the form of any other man in a suit, Hagano.
“Did you follow me?” I asked him.
“I am you,” he said. “I am part of you. “Wherever you go, wherever your blood goes, I go.”
Friederich and I traveled in wagons and spent nights in crowded hostels, saving all of our money for the trip from Hamburg. And from Hamburg we sailed around Denmark and through the North Sea, around England to Liverpool, the city of the two cathedrals, a wondrous port I shall never forget. There, all the nations of the earth seemed to be passing through this city, the main artery of the earth, and from that town, with a letter sent ahead to Frau Inga’s daughter, we set sail on the Mary Jane, a word so strange and sharp and British in my mouth, for America. By now I was in a state of constantly being dazzled, for I had thought Wurzburg the end of the world only to come across the great empire of Germany which itself had seemed unending. The sea had taken us further, to England, and now the ship left Liverpool and, in time was on an expanse of blue far greater than any journey I had yet known.
“We are going to a new country,” Friederich said, “Where no one knows anything of us.”
“Yes.”
“In America,” he said, “you could be my wife, and we could have children.”
And now I will explain, and you will probably know, that there was nothing in me that found this morally repulsive. Friederich was my lover, and though I enjoyed Hagano, I enjoyed Friederich’s touch, thrilled to run my hands over the hair of his chest, and be enfolded in his arms, to have him inside of me. But I realized I would have that no matter what.
“You need a well off wife,” I decided. “We will do better if we are as we are.”
I still believe this was the most practical decision. We would be coming to America poor, and Friederich was still an attractive man. He would do better single and perhaps so would I, a young woman with opportunities.
Or maybe I simply did not wish to be married to my father.

I did not love New York.
I did not love Ellis Island, which seemed less like the gateway to the Land of Opportunity and more like an humiliating rite of passage to get to the place we were headed. The less I say about delousings and check ups on things I was not at all sure about, the better. We were entered into the books as Pamela and Friederich Strauss, a father and daughter from Wurzburg, and from there we journeyed by train, through New York and Pennsylvania into Columbus, which had a large German population. We stayed there in an inn, waiting for word from Frau Inga’s daughter. While there, Father went to work in the tannery. I thought he might work in the beer factory, but Friederich said the tanner’s was the closest he could get to the honest work he had done before. Meanwhile, I went to work in the inn as a maid, awaiting a letter from the daughter of Frau Inga. I thought that, at least for a time, we could make a home. Everyone spoke German. There were good schools, prosperous people, and we were respected. Everywhere you could see the homes of those who had come here more humble than ourselves and, in the end, done well.
But then one morning a letter came.





My dear Pamela, the child I held to my breast, can it be true you are a woman grown? Mama has sent me word that you are coming with your father. The house has been readied, and if you would like, I have room for an assistant, for I am a midwife and a healer as was Mama. Gregory my good husband is a woodsman, and would love to have your father at his side. All is in readiness. Enclosed are two tickets and a train from Columbus to Lassador. I eagerly await your arrival.
Yours sincerely,
Ada Keller

AND SO IT WAS THAT WE LEFT Columbus. We took the train, and at last we arrived in Lassador. We came to Williams Street, as it is called now, which was then called Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, and arrived at the largest house I had ever seen. Painted in many colors, it was a many roofed and turreted old Queen Anne, that place which came to be called Keller House, but at the time was stilled called Nueberghaus, and a servant let us into the parlor. There a woman dressed severely, but kind in face, received us.
“Pamela, Friederich, welcome.”
And so Ada Keller brought us into her home, and out new life as the Strausses of Germantown began.


Meine liebe Pamela, das Kind, das ich an meiner Brust hielt, kann es wahr sein, dass Sie eine erwachsene Frau sind? Mama hat mir eine Nachricht geschickt, dass du mit deinem Vater kommst. Das Haus ist hergerichtet, und wenn Sie möchten, habe ich Platz für eine Assistentin, denn ich bin Hebamme und Heilerin wie Mama. Gregory, mein guter Ehemann ist ein Waldarbeiter und würde gerne Ihren Vater an seiner Seite haben. Alles ist in Bereitschaft. Anbei zwei Fahrkarten und ein Zug von Columbus nach Lassador. Ich freue mich sehr auf Ihre Ankunft.
Dein,
Ada Keller


“This was a long walk,” the boy now called Levy said,
“Well, the moment you showed up, flying ceased to be an option.”
“You can fly?” Levy said.
“He can,” Lewis pointed to Chris, who was walking ahead of them, touching the security door to the apartment building Laurie lived in, and then pushing it open and holding it for them.
“Why is that?”
“He’s a vampire. I’m not.”
“Really? How did he meet you?”
“I’m actually right here, guys,” Chris said.
The lobby was covered by black flagstones and shining under modern chandeliers. There was someone at the front desk who ignored them as they went to the elevators.
“Yeah,” Levy said, turning to Lewis, “but how did you guys meet?”
“At a club,” Lewis said.
“A vampire club.”
Chris touched the elevator button and, hands folded behind him, watched the lights play up and down each floor.
“A regular club.”
“Well, a gay night club,” Lewis said. “But as gay night clubs go, a pretty tame one.”
“You all are…” Levy put a hand over his mouth.
“I thought it might be a bit much for him,” Chris noted, still observing the light descending down the numbers above the polished doors.
As the elevator doors opened, Lewis shrugged. “He just saw you kill someone and knows you’re a vampire, but us being a couple be too much?”
“It’s cool,” the boy assured him. “I’ve just never seen that.”
“No one was asking your permission,” Lewis told him as they entered the lift. “And I’m sure you have seen it, even if you didn’t know it.”
The elevator raced up quickly. Chris turned to Levy and, nodding at Lewis said, “He’s a witch.”
“What?” Levy’s eyes popped put.
“Really?” Lewis looked at Chris.
“Well,” Chris shrugged, “I’m tired of him just staring at me. Now he can stare at you too.”
“So you can fly?” Levy said.
“It doesn’t even work like that.”
“He did ride the back of a giant wolf, though,” Chris said.
“You’re not helping.”
“Wasn’t trying to,” Chris gave him a sickening smile as the elevator slowed and the doors began to open.
“I thought a male witch was called a warlock. Or a wizard,” Levy asked.
“I’m a witch,” Lewis said.
“Is that because you’re gay?”
“No,” Lewis said, patiently as they traveled down the short hallway. “It’s because all witches are called witches. Warlocks are nonsense and bullshit and a wizard is… well… not real. Well, sort of real, but it’s a long story.”
Chris rapped on the plain door, but didn’t wait for an answer before entering Laurie’s apartment and, as the boy said, “Wow!” Lewis murmured, “Why were we always having him over to our place if his place looks like this?”
But his place was full of people, all men and a sleepy eyed woman with hair down her back, and they looked from Chris to Lewis to the boy and finally the one at the front of them with chocolate colored hair and wide brown eyes said, “Guys, what’s up with the kid?”
Lewis shrugged. “Christopher killed his stepfather, so he’s sort of ours now.”
“What the fuck?”
Levy stepped forward, grinning and extended his hand.
“I used to be L’varion, but now I’m Levy Matthews.”
Dan stared at him, and then shook his hand.
“Hey, kid.”
“This is Dan Rawlinson,” Lewis said, placing his hand on Levy’s shoulder,” and as an older man came behind Dan, he added, “and this is the Lord Kruinh, head of the House of Kertesz.”
“Pleased,” the boy held out his hand.
Kruinh seemed unfazed and shook it, nodding, “Pleased to meet you Levy. Levy, you seem to have not eaten or rested. Daniel is my lieutenant,” which Lewis noted Kruinh pronounced leftenant, “he can escort you to more comfortable places while our meeting is underway.”
“Oh,” Levy observed, nodding, “Grown folks business. I get it.”
“I gotta watch him?” Dan said.
“You have to watch him,” Kruinh insisted, mildly.
“Are you all witches too?” Levy asked.
“You don’t believe in keeping secrets do you?” Kruinh looked from Chris to Lewis.
“Under the circumstances it was sort of impossible,” Chris said.
“What were the circumstances?”
“He killed the boy’s stepfather in front of him,” Lewis said.
Kruinh looked sharply at Chris, but Lewis said, “In all fairness, the man was about to murder the boy. He saved his life.”
“Well, that’s different,” Kruinh noted. “Inconvenient. But different.”
Kruinh told Levy, “We are nosferatu.”
“What’s that?”
“Vampires,” Lewis said.
Even Kruinh looked taken aback by Lewis’s baldness, and the boy looked at Dan Rawlinson.
“You’re a vampire?”
“Yeah,” Dan said. “How’d you liked that?”
“I dunno,” Levy shrugged. “You seem too goofy looking to be a vampire.”
Dan frowned and said, “Com’on, kid.”
The rest of them came into the living room, and Laurie walked forward and embraced them. There were others Lewis had never met, Sunny, and Kirk, which seemed awfully ordinary names, and then Rommel and Lemuel and, among them a woman called Alexandra, and Laurie said, “Now we can finally begin.”
But just then there was a knock at the door.
“Who could this be?” Chris frowned.
Laurie frowned and looked around the room, and the one called Stanley said, “I’ll get it.”
He moved to the door and opened it, and a moment later a new figure came in and it was Lewis and Laurie who said at the same time, “Loreal!”
“What are you doing here?” Laurie demanded.
“I’m here to be part of this,” Loreal said. “From now on,” gesturing to a chair which, to Lewis’s surprise, one of the vampires brought her, “I’m here to be part of everything.”
Laurie kept staring at her.
“It’s alright for you to fly across the city into my room, but I can’t come here? It’s alright for you be part of my family meetings, but I’m not part of yours? Either I’m part of you or I’m not. Make the decision. Now.”
Laurie kept looking at her, and then he turned to look at Kruinh who was still seated in a high wing backed chair. The Drinker lord nodded regally and said, “Lady Loreal, be welcome into our number. Long have we been absent of witchly council, and now we have two.”
He gestured to Loreal and then to Lewis before saying, “Let the council begin.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Interesting to get back to Pamela's story once again. I missed Chris and Lewis so I am enjoying hearing from them. I enjoy all of this story but it is refreshing to have their perspective agin. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, now that Chris and Lewis are back, they will be in more frequently along with everyone else, so it is good to see the whole crew gradually assembling, and there will certainly be more tomorrow.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION OF OUR CHAPTER


“So whaddo you do?” Levy asked, lying on his back, bouncing the glass ball up in the air as he lay on the bed in the guest room..
“Me?” Dan said.
“There’s no one else in this room,” Levy said. “Unless there are ghosts too, and I can’t see them.”
“Uh, no,” Dan said. “To my knowledge there are no ghosts.”
“Well,” the boy said, “it seems like there’s everything else.”
Dan reached out and caught the ball Levy was negligently tossing. Because Dan was clear on the other side of the room, it looked like his hand had stretched all the way out and Levy sat up and blinked at him.
“Just quick movements,” Dan explained. “And you can’t walk into someone’s house and use their expensive shit as toys. Especially when they’re vampires.”
“But you guys are like… nice vampires.”
“Did Chris seem nice when he did what he did?’
“When he offed my mom’s boyfriend? Yeah. That was pretty nice for me.
“So,” Levy said, “are you all like in the movies? Nice, friendly. Misunderstood, But… you know?”
“We have a code,” Dan said. “All Drinker clans have a code. For how and who is allowable to kill. Or else everyone would be dead, and there would be no morality.”
“There’d also be no food,” Levy said.
“Huh?”
“It’s not all just you being nice. If every vampire killed every person, then all the food would be gone. Or can you all drink other stuff, but you just like humans?”
“A drinker can only take human blood,” Dan said, straddling his chair.
“I never thought of that. What you said. About the rules.”
“Well,” the boy shrugged. “People never make up rules just to protect other people.”
And then Levy said, “So what did you say it is you do?”
“I’m Kruinh’s Lieutenant. Or, as he calls it, leftenant.”
“I still don’t know what that means.”
“I’m his right hand man.”
“Right hand vampire.”
“I’m still a man. I’m just a man who’s a vampire.”
“It’s probably wrong to ask people how they became vampires.”
“Yes, Kid, it is.”
“But you weren’t always one. Were you?”
“No, I was just a normal guy. And I met Kruinh years ago. And then, later, when it happened to me, Kruinh and his family stepped in and took care of me.”
“And now here you are,” Levy turned on his side, looking at Dan.
“Here I am,” Dan agreed.
“Babysitting me.”
“Well, I guess so.”
“What are they all talking about?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“I thought you said you were the Lieutenant.”
“I’m the Lieutenant, not the secretary.”
“I think Kruinh just calls you that cause he knows you wanted a title. You don’t seem like a Lieutenant.”
Dan raised an eyebrow.
“I’m just saying. You seem like a nice guy who happens to be a vampire.”
“I can be tough when I need to be.”
“I bet,” Levy said. “So can I. But that’s not really the same thing as being a monster.”
Levy lay on his back and said, “I’m hungry. Can the Lieutenatnt take us to get something to eat?”
“Oh, yeah. Food.”
“I guess you all don’t eat.”
“I eat, but because it’s fun. Not because… I mean, I can forget about it for a long time. I’ll take you to McDonalds.”
“Is that the only thing in Chicago that’s open now?”
“That I’m willing to go to?” Dan said. “Yeah.”
Levy got off the bed and Dan stood up.
“So,” Levy said. “What’s more powerful? A vampire or a witch?”
“Honestly, Kid? Until a few weeks ago I thought witches were just teenage girls in tight uniforms who hated Catholic school and sat in their room wearing black and reading Tarot cards.”
“Then you didn’t know… about Lewis?”
“I think that’s what the meeting is about,” Dan said, at last.
Levy looked at him as Dan handed him his coat.
“I think there are a lot of things out there, that people believe are just stories, and I think that up until now we all just thought we were the only story that was real, and now we’re sort of…. Matching up the folktales.”


“My Lord, Kruinh,” Lewis said as they were sitting in Laurie’s huge living room, “the person I am most curious about is Evangeline.”
“That’s interesting, Mr. Dunharrow,” Kruinh said, “because I would have thought the person you would be most curious about is your cousin Eve and how she knows Evangeline.”
Loreal did not speak, but Kruinh said, “This Eve is your sister, is she not?”
“Half sister,” Loreal said. “And if she knows anything, she knows it because of my grandfather, Augustus.”
“Augustus Dunharrow,” Kruinh murmured, “Now, that is a name I have often heard.”
“But you have never met him,” Lewis guessed by Kruinh’s tone.
“No,” Kruinh said. “I have never had that distinct pleasure.”
“But,” Laurie said, “he seems to know everything.”
“Yes, he does,” Kruinh noted. “And I am eager to know how. He traffics with Drinkers. Apparently he knows werewolves as well. You should pay him a visit as soon as you can, Mr. Dunahrrow.”
“Lewis will suffice,” Lewis said. “And I remember him more and more, not in this life, but in others. I remember him as a boy, scheming and crafty, though this was centuries ago, for he is centuries old. How he made the acquaintance of vampires, maybe you can tell me, and how he came to know of the werewolves is beyond my reckoning. Lord Kruinh—”
“If Lewis will suffice for you, then Kruinh will suffice for me.”
“Very well. Kruinh, where did Evangeline come from?”
“She’s my sister,” Chris said. “You know that.”
“But you were not made at the same time. You did not even know she was made for two hundred years. How was she made?”
“Christopher was young when he was made,” Kruinh said. “In those days he said he had no knowledge of his family. I asked if he cared for any of them, to see any of them. He said… Or,” Kruinh turned to Chris, “would you rather?”
“I said I had too many brothers and sisters,” Chris said. “That I cared for none. And then I remembered Evangeline.”
“So you made her?” Lewis said. “For Chris.”
“No,” Kruinh said. “I sent others to find her, to find living members of Christopher’s family, to see how they faired. Not only the Drinkers I have made, but all who are of the blood of my household are part of our clan. I asked all family members to find her. And so it was a niece of mine, Rosamunde, an English lady, found Evangeline. Either because she truly desired her or to spite me, she made Evangeline for herself. She knew that being my niece, but not one of my progeny, I could not truly harm her.”
Kruinh did not speak immediately, and then he said, “I harmed her enough, though. But she had separated herself from us, established her own clan, not of her blood, not a true clan, and she was already making Drinkers. Evangeline was the first of them. How she came to know your family only you can answer, and you must answer it, for it is beyond us.”
“I have asked it before,” Loreal said. “But not here.”
“Yes?” Kruinh turned to her.
“Is it possible my grandfather has some scheme, some plot, and that all of this knowledge he is building up is to do some final thing?”
“My dear lady,” Kruinh said, “he has already done the something. The knowledge itself is the power. He has, through the Strauss family, come back into contact with the wolf kind again, a kind which, though I have known it, I have not seen in many years.
“It used to be,”.Kruinh said, “that shapeshifters were not rare. And not only of the wolf kind. In the north there were several such as the werebear, and it is said that the northern warriors, from whom your Strausses would be descended, in their dreadful battles could transform into their totems, bears, boars. Wolves. How it ceased, or where it went I do not know. Nor do I know from whence it came. The stories have been different, and they have been in all places. The powerful of the Changers could change at will, but many I hear, are victim to the three nights of the full moon. Some maintain wits fully and others not at all. I imagine that your Strauss family is of this kind. Or maybe of several. If you could keep me informed, I would be grateful.”
“If I could keep you informed then your knowledge might fill in the gaps in my own,” Lewis said.
“This is what I was thinking.”
“I was thinking something else,” Loreal said.
“Yes?” Laurie turned to her.
“I have to go down south and see my grandfather. I have to figure out what is going on, but when this is all done, I think I want to go find the Maid.”
“Onnalee?’
“Yes,” Loreal said. “she must know something, and I think that in the end, I am meant to succeed her.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent conclusion to the chapter! So much going on and I am excited to read more! I have never liked Evangeline much but what she is up to is always interesting. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, yes, Evangeline is a wicked bitch and she will definitely be back before long. Laurie and Loreal and the vampires. We're starting this new week with bang!

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER TEN

BEASTS

At the centre of all these noble races we cannot fail to see the blond beast of prey, the magnificent blond beast avidly prowling round for spoil and victory; this hidden centre needs release from time to time, the beast must out again, must return to the wild…

-Friedrich Nietzsche



“This is a very old house,” Joyce realized as they walked through the basement.
“Oh, it’s a very old house,” Peter told her. “Not just one of those vintagy things. This was the Keller house the way that where Mara and Kris live is the Strauss house. This was where Aunt Natalie and my grandfather grew up, and their father grew up here too. It goes…” Peter walked from the first great room filled with boxes, to the next one, “very far back.”
Now they headed down a hallway off to the side, and there was a metal door which Peter unlocked. It was painted grey, and Joyce tried to guess at the age, surely not as old as the rest of the house. And then they went down the hall and she said, “It’s a good thing I trust you, cause this place is scary as hell.”
Peter turned back to her, smiling. “It’s a good thing you trust me because… It’s good to be trusted.”
He stood before the last door and Joyce murmured, “Now, I’m scared.”
Peter said nothing as he took out another key and twisted it into the lock of a beveled steel door.
“This is some Frankenstein shit,” Joyce decided, and Peter dragged the heavy door open and then set the latch.
“I’ve got my phone,” Peter clapped his thigh, “and Steiger, Jim’s granddad, has extra keys.”
“For?’
“In case the door slides shut,” Peter said. “It doesn’t open from the inside.”
“And that’s your inducement for me to go in?”
“You’re right,” Peter said. “How about, I’ll just show you and you stand at the opening of the door?”
Peter flipped on a light switch, and the room was plain and white. There was a high shelf to the right of the door, but the room was empty save for a metal dish in the middle of the floor and a darkened rubber mat beside.
Bloodstained, Joyce noted, and moved into the room despite what Peter had said.
But the most terror inducing part of the room was directly across from her. Hanging from the wall was a harness.
“What is that?”
“It’s what it looks like,” Peter, in his jeans and sweatshirt, said. The tall man bent down and he picked up the harness and he strapped himself into it. There was a metal chain connected to it, rattling across the ground as he moved forward, and Joyce thought, I’m going to sound like an idiot if I try to be clever.
“What is it? I mean, I know I just asked you that, but…”
“You know what it is,” Peter said, setting the clasps home. “It is the harness for when I go through the Change. There,” he pointed to the dish, “is water. And there,” he pointed to the mat, “is where there is meat.”
He added, “There have been times when I was able to have a living animal in here with me. So that I could make the kill. I don’t remember what it was like, but I have seen the evidence.”
“But… There’s a way to stop it.”
“Yes,” Peter said. “The pills. They’re all on the pills. So am I, by the way. But sometimes I don’t want to be on the pills. That’s what this room is for.”
“You like becoming a wolf.”
“The Wolf,” Peter pronounced.
“I wish I could do it better, be relatively sane, control it. Do it whenever. I know the others are afraid of it. But in this house there have been precautions for it. Do you know Nate transformed? Mara and Kris’s dad. And so did mine. And… there is nothing like it.”
“I want to see it.”
“No,” Peter almost snapped.
Joyce blinked at him.
“It’s dangerous. You see those two metal doors. It’s dangerous. I only do it during the months when I don’t have the boys, and still I’m scared, but… I have to do it. The first time someone told me I could withstand the change… I wanted to. And… when I can do it, I do it.”
“Even if it means being chained up here?”
“Yes.” Peter jangled the harness. He began to unlock it, and he let the heavy harness fall to the ground.
“I suppose that would work if you where a wolf or a man,” Joyce discovered. “Handcuffs.. manacles…”
“Would be useless to a wolf. Would be painful. Dogs are not built like people. A pinioned dog would be tortured. And the manacles would not be enough for paws and animal ankles.”
I can’t believe were calmly discussing this.
“But even before the Wolf freed himself, he might hurt himself.”
Joyce said, “But… the Wolf is you.”
“Now,” Peter said. “But it could be Jim or Kris. It was my dad.”
Joyce nodded.
“If it’s all the same to you,” she said, at last, “I would love to go upstairs.”
“Yes,” Peter said. As they moved to the door he reached up and pulled down his keys and his phone.
“You must think I’m beyond strange.”
“I think you’re a werewolf,” Joyce said. “And I think you didn’t have to tell me.”
Peter cocked his head.
“I kind of did. Your best friend is my cousin, and she already knows. You are part of us, and I’m sorry for that.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No. I’m sorry for you, glad for me. Because I like you being a part of us. And you’re the first woman in my life who ever knew this.”
“Your ex wife?”
“I never got around to telling her.”
“But your sons…”
“I know,” Peter said.
“I keep on imagining this scene where you tell me that if I tell anyone you’ll kill me.”
Peter shrugged and said, “You can tell anyone you want. You won’t do that cause that’s not you, and also no one would really believe it. People are… thick. If I turned into a wolf in plain sight they would deny it because people don’t like their world to be too huge.”
“I get it,” Joyce said as they came out of the hallway into the first of the large basement rooms. “Why you like the Change.”
“I am so… calm all the time. I have to be so buttoned down. I handle all the legal business for this family,” Peter said. “I’m always… on. And when the Change comes that all slips away and I’m free. And it’s who I am, you know. It’s my inheritance. It’s a strange inheritance. But I am the Wolf. I wasn’t born a lawyer, or even the single father of three kids. But the Wolf… even though I can’t totally remember it when it’s over, when it’s happening, and when I’m coming out of it, I feel more myself than most of the time, when I’m just putting on suits. And pretending.”


Her phone rang, and she looked at the number. She didn’t know it, and usually that meant she didn’t answer, but today Marabeth Strauss picked up.
“Hello?”
“Marabeth?’
“Yes.”
But before he spoke again, she knew his voice.
“This is Jason.”
Shit.
She had planned to be the bigger woman. She had planned to be the person who called him, who got his number.and behaved like an adult.
“Hello,” she forced not brightness, but lack of embarrassment, into her voice. “How are you?’
“I’m good. I’m real good. I was thinking about you. How’ve you been?”
“I’ve just been reading the journal and everything. And we’re waiting to hear back from the funeral home. About Dad’s funeral.”
“Right. Right.”
“As soon as it happens we’re going to go travel and learn some more. About Dad, I guess.”
“Yes. Right.”
And then Marabeth thought, well, here is the chance to behave like a grown up..
“Would you like to go out for coffee?”
“I don’t really like coffee,” Jason said.
“Oh,”
“I like dinner though.”
“I need to get out of this house.”
“How about I come by at… Well, what time is good for you?”
“How about,” Marabeth said, “I go back to my own place, and you can pick me up there. I ‘m not lying. I really do have my own place.’
“See, I just thought you were like a Bronte sister, and you’d never married so you stayed in that room upstairs.”
“I’ll have you know, one, that Charlotte Bronte was married, and two, so was I.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Clearly nothing.”
Jason laughed.
“You’re a funny woman, Marabeth. You’ll send me directions?”
“I’ll send them now. 1916 Birmingham.”
“Downtown. Alright then. What time?”
“Six seems too early. Eight seems too late.”
“That does leave seven.”
“Yeah, I think seven with a touch of the fashionably late.”
“See you then.”
Her mind retreated from what had gone on between them the night before. Apparently his did too. They were speaking so socially, in a joking manner like Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant out of a nineteen thirties movie. But there had been sex back then too. It simply wasn’t talked about. That was what subtext was for.
An hour ago she’d heard Kristian come up the front stairs. He knew when people would be up and where and always came up the stairway furthest from where anyone was. He wasn’t hiding that he’d been out all night; he had simply not wanted to publicize it, and the family respected him.
He’ll take me home. I need him to. Joyce is busy humping my cousin, I guess.
But for now the book.
Now, as she read it, she read with longing, and rather than reading the story of a long dead ancestor she had hardly known, who had declared Marabeth her heir, the journal became the story of a woman who, in some ways, was herself.


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion with some great writing! Learning more about the wolf transformation is always interesting. I am looking forward to reading about Marabeth and Jason's date tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I'm glad you're enjoying things. Given the pace of this story: which is that basically only three days have passed within the book, I don't know how long it will be before we get to the date.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT PAMELA, NOW IN AMERICA LIVING WITH THE KELLERS, BEGINS TO LEARN OF WOLVES FAR OLDER THAN HERSELF AND DIG DEEP INTO OLD LORE

IN THE DAYS FATHER went out with Ada’s husband. He was an American. His parents had come from Bavaria, but his whole life was here. He was, as they say, close to the earth, a woodsman and a hunter. You must not imagine the city as it is now. Germantown was the edge of downtown, and east of it there were woods and wildness. Among the rivers and streams there were animals to trap, and Friederich worked by day alongside Albert. At night, he did his own work, soon making Albert very rich. I had thought I would work as a maid, but Ada said, “I only want you to studying. You have a quick mind, and you could be a teacher in one of the schools.”
She showed me to a great room filled with books, high ceilinged, like the library I would possess one day. There was an old globe in it, and Ada said, “My husband’s father was from Bavaria, but his mother was a Schiller. They were one of the great families here. They held this house for three generations. Old man Schiller owned two beer factories. Their fumes built this house. Enjoy their wealth.”
There was always a great blazing fireplace, and in the library was a massive bearskin rug. The bear stared at me fiercely, and firelight shone on its teeth, and here Ada would make me lock myself away with tea and cakes and read.
One evening she said to me, “My Pamela, this is for you.”
They were red, leatherbound books, and I asked, “What are they?”
“Stories of us.”
There was Kant, and Goethe. There was Nietzsche even, and scores of Wagner and thick old records for their phonograph. There was Parzifal and Siegfried, and Ada took three slim books down for me and said, “Begin here.”
And so I looked on their simple spines and read one word.


VOLSUNGASAGA


There was a king called Siggeir, who ruled over Gothland, a mighty king and of many folk; he went to meet Volsung, the king, and prayed him for Signy his daughter to wife; and the king took his talk well, and his sons withal, but she was loth thereto, yet she bade her father rule in this as in all other things that concerned her; so the king took such rede that he gave her to him, and she was betrothed to King Siggeir; and for the fulfilling of the feast and the wedding, was King Siggeir to come to the house of King Volsung. The king got ready the feast according to his best might, and when all things were ready, came the king's guests and King Siggeir withal at the day appointed, and many a man of great account had Siggeir with him.
The tale tells that great fires were made endlong the hall, and the great tree aforesaid stood midmost thereof; withal folk say that, whenas men sat by the fires in the evening, a certain man came into the hall unknown of aspect to all men; and suchlike array he had, that over him was a spotted cloak, and he was bare-foot, and had linen-breeches knit tight even unto the bone, and he had a sword in his hand as he went up to the Branstock, and a slouched hat upon his head: huge he was, and seeming-ancient, and one-eyed. So he drew his sword and smote it into the tree-trunk so that it sank in up to the hilts; and all held back from greeting the man. Then he took up the word, and said—
"Whoso draweth this sword from this stock, shall have the same as a gift from me, and shall find in good sooth that never bare he better sword in hand than is this.

























As Marabeth reads, she is aware that Pamela, who read this once, is currently writing this all for her. That as she reads of Pamela reading, Pamela is telling her an ancient story, and as she learns an ancient story from Pamela, in some ways, it is Pamela she is becoming.



THEREWITH out went the old man from the hall, and none knew who he was or whither he went.
Now men stand up, and none would fain be the last to lay hand to the sword, for they deemed that he would have the best of it who might first touch it; so all the noblest went thereto first, and then the others, one after other; but none who came thereto might avail to pull it out, for in nowise would it come away howsoever they tugged at it; but now up comes Sigmund, King Volsung's son, and sets hand to the sword, and pulls it from the stock, even as if it lay loose before him; so good that weapon seemed to all, that none thought he had seen such a sword before, and Siggeir would fain buy it of him at thrice its weight of gold, but Sigmund said—
"Thou mightest have taken the sword no less than I from there whereas it stood, if it had been thy lot to bear it; but now, since it has first of all fallen into my hand, never shalt thou have it, though thou biddest therefor all the gold thou hast."
King Siggeir grew wroth at these words, and deemed Sigmund had answered him scornfully, but whereas was a wary man and a double-dealing, he made as if he heeded this matter in nowise, yet that same evening he thought how he might reward it, as was well seen afterwards.
Now hear the tale of King Volsung and his sons that they go at the time appointed to Gothland at the bidding of King Siggeir, and put off from the land in three ships, all well manned, and have a fair voyage, and made Gothland late of an evening tide.
But that same night came Signy and called her father and brothers to a privy talk, and told them what she deemed King Siggeir was minded to do, and how that he had drawn together an army no man may meet. "And," says she, "he is minded to do guilefully by you; wherefore I bid you get ye gone back again to your own land, and gather together the mightiest power ye may, and then come back hither and avenge you; neither go ye now to your undoing, for ye shall surely fail not to fall by his wiles if ye turn not on him even as I bid you."
Then spake Volsung the king, "All people and nations shall tell of the word I spake, yet being unborn, wherein I vowed a vow that I would flee in fear from neither fire nor the sword; even so have I done hitherto, and shall I depart therefrom now I am old? Yea withal never shall the maidens mock these my sons at the games, and cry out at them that they fear death; once alone must all men need die, and from that season shall none escape; so my rede is that we flee nowhither, but do the work of our hands in as manly wise as we may; a hundred fights have I fought, and whiles I had more, and whiles I had less, and yet ever had I the victory, nor shall it ever be heard tell of me that I fled away or prayed for peace."
Then Signy wept right sore, and prayed that she might not go back to King Siggeir, but King Volsung answered—
"Thou shalt surely go back to thine husband, and abide with him, howsoever it fares with us."
So Signy went home, and they abode there that night; but in the morning, as soon as it was day, Volsung bade his men arise and go aland and make them ready for battle; so they went aland, all of them all-armed, and had not long to wait before Siggeir fell on them with all his army, and the fiercest fight there was betwixt them; and Siggeir cried on his men to the onset all he might; and so the tale tells that King Volsung and his sons went eight times right through Siggeir's folk that day, smiting and hewing on either hand, but when they would do so even once again, King Volsung fell amidst his folk and all his men withal, saving his ten sons, for mightier was the power against them than they might withstand.
But now are all his sons taken, and laid in bonds and led away; and Signy was ware withal that her father was slain, and her brothers taken and doomed to death; that she called King Siggeir apart to talk with her, and said—
"This will I pray of thee, that thou let not slay my brothers hastily, but let them be set awhile in the stocks, but longer life I pray not for them, because I wot well that my prayer will not avail me."
Then answered Siggeir:
"Surely thou art mad and witless, praying thus for more bale for thy brothers than their present slaying; yet this will I grant thee, for the better it likes me the more they must bear, and the longer their pain is or ever death come to them."
Now he let it be done even as she prayed, and a mighty beam was brought and set on the feet of those ten brethren in a certain place of the wild-wood, and there they sit day-long until night; but at midnight, as they sat in the stocks, there came on them a she-wolf from out the wood; old she was, and both great and evil of aspect; and the first thing she did was to bite one of those brethren till he died, and then she ate him up withal, and went on her way.
But the next morning Signy sent a man to the brethren, even one whom she most trusted, to wot of the tidings; and when he came back he told her that one of them was dead, and great and grievous she deemed it, if they should all fare in like wise, and yet naught might she avail them.
Soon is the tale told thereof: nine nights together came the she-wolf at midnight, and each night slew and ate up one of the brethren, until all were dead, save Sigmund only; so now, before the tenth night came, Signy sent that trusty man to Sigmund, her brother, and gave honey into his hand, bidding him do it over Sigmund's face, and set a little deal of it in his mouth; so he went to Sigmund and did as he was bidden, and then came home again; and so the next night came the she-wolf according to her wont, and would slay him and eat him even as his brothers; but now she sniffs the breeze from him, whereas he was anointed with the honey, and licks his face all over with her tongue, and then thrusts her tongue into the mouth of him. No fear he had thereof, but caught the she-wolf's tongue betwixt his teeth, and so hard she started back thereat, and pulled herself away so mightily, setting her feet against the stocks, that all was riven asunder; but he ever held so fast that the tongue came away by the roots, and thereof she had her bane.

But some men say that this same she-wolf was the mother of King Siggeir, who had turned herself into this likeness by troll's lore and witchcraft.


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to read so much of Pamela's words! Lots going on but I am enjoying it! Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

And now we have Marabeth reading Pamela reading Volsungasaga....

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE CONCLUSION OF CHATPER NINE

MARABETH CONTINUES TO READ AS PAMELA CONTINUES TO READ THE VOLSUNGASAGA...

PAMELA SPEAKS:
I WAS BEHOLDING SOMETHING old here, that opened in me feelings I could not understand, and out of all the feelings there was a rage in me for the woman Signy. I did not feel sorrow for her father. I wondered, almost, if she had been content to see him and her other brothers die, if she had settled
on the one she loved and chosen him for life.


OF HOW SIGNY SENT THE CHILDREN OF HER AND SIGGEIR TO SIGMUND

Now whenas Sigmund is loosed and the stocks are broken, he dwells in the woods and holds himself there; but Signy sends yet again to wot of the tidings, whether Sigmund were alive or no; but when those who were sent came to him, he told them all as it had betid, and how things had gone betwixt him and the wolf; so they went home and tell Signy the tidings; but she goes and finds her brother, and they take counsel in such wise as to make a house underground in the wild-wood; and so things go on a while, Signy hiding him there, and sending him such things as he needed; but King Siggeir deemed that all the Volsungs were dead.
Now Siggeir had two sons by his wife, whereof it is told that when the eldest was ten winters old, Signy sends him to Sigmund, so that he might give him help, if he would in any wise strive to avenge his father; so the youngling goes to the wood, and comes late in evening-tide to Sigmund's earth-house; and Sigmund welcomed him in seemly fashion, and said that he should make ready their bread; "But I," said he, "will go seek firewood."
Therewith he gives the meal-bag into his hands while he himself went to fetch firing; but when he came back the youngling had done naught at the bread-making. Then asks Sigmund if the bread be ready—
Says the youngling, "I durst not set hand to the meal sack, because somewhat quick lay in the meal."
Now Sigmund deemed he wotted that the lad was of no such heart as that he would be fain to have him for his fellow; and when he met his sister, Sigmund said that he had come no nigher to the aid of a man though the youngling were with him.
Then said Signy, "Take him and kill him then; for why should such an one live longer?" and even so he did.
So this winter wears, and the next winter Signy sent her next son to Sigmund; and there is no need to make a long tale thereof, for in like wise went all things, and he slew the child by the counsel of Signy.



So on a tide it befell as Signy sat in her bower, that there came to her a witch-wife exceeding cunning, and Signy talked with her in such wise, "Fain am I," says she, "that we should change semblances together."
She says, "Even as thou wilt then."
And so by her wiles she brought it about that they changed semblances, and now the witch-wife sits in Signy's place according to her rede, and goes to bed by the king that night, and he knows not that he has other than Signy beside him.
But the tale tells of Signy, that she fared to the earth-house of her brother, and prayed him give her harbouring for the night; "For I have gone astray abroad in the woods, and know not whither I am going."
So he said she might abide, and that he would not refuse harbour to one lone woman, deeming that she would scarce pay back his good cheer by tale-bearing: so she came into the house, and they sat down to meat, and his eyes were often on her, and a goodly and fair woman she seemed to him; but when they are full, then he says to her, that he is right fain that they should have but one bed that night; she nowise turned away therefrom, and so for three nights together he laid her in bed by him.
Thereafter she fared home, and found the witch-wife and bade her change semblances again, and she did so.
Now as time wears, Signy brings forth a man-child, who was named Sinfjotli, and when he grew up he was both big and strong, and fair of face, and much like unto the kin of the Volsungs, and he was hardly yet ten winters old when she sent him to Sigmund's earth-house; but this trial she had made of her other sons or ever she had sent them to Sigmund, that she had sewed gloves on to their hands through flesh and skin, and they had borne it ill and cried out thereat; and this she now did to Sinfjotli, and he changed countenance in nowise thereat. Then she flayed off the kirtle so that the skin came off with the sleeves, and said that this would be torment enough for him; but he said—
"Full little would Volsung have felt such a smart this."
So the lad came to Sigmund, and Sigmund bade him knead their meal up, while he goes to fetch firing; so he gave him the meal-sack, and then went after the wood, and by then he came back had Sinfjotli made an end of his baking. Then asked Sigmund if he had found nothing in the meal.
"I misdoubted me that there was something quick in the meal when I first fell to kneading of it, but I have kneaded it all up together, both the meal and that which was therein, whatsoever it was."
Then Sigmund laughed out, he said—
"Naught wilt thou eat of this bread to-night, for the most deadly of worms hast thou kneaded up therewith."
Now Sigmund was so mighty a man that he might eat venom and have no hurt therefrom; but Sinfjotli might abide whatso venom came on the outside of him, but might neither eat nor drink thereof.



I continued to read, and perhaps you will think I read because the tale caused me pleasure. But no, it was such a strange thing to me, and here, in this American living room, the story made even less sense.
“But you must understand,” Ada said. “They were the Wolf. They were united to the Wolf and so their actions were more wolf than human, certainly they were not Christian.”
I said, “But why does the story trouble me so?”
And Ada said, “Because it is your story, Pamela. Because the story is true.”



THE TALE TELLS THAT Sigmund thought Sinfjotli over young to help him to his revenge, and will first of all harden him with manly deeds; so in summer-tide they fare wide through the woods and slay men for their wealth; Sigmund deems him to take much after the kin of the Volsungs, though he thinks that he is Siggeir's son, and deems him to have the evil heart of his father, with the might and daring of the Volsungs; withal he must needs think him in no wise a kinsome man, for full oft would he bring Sigmund's wrongs to his memory, and prick him on to slay King Siggeir.
Now on a time as they fare abroad in the wood for the getting of wealth, they find a certain house, and two men with great gold rings asleep therein: now these twain were spell-bound skin-changers, and wolf-skins were hanging up over them in the house; and every tenth day might they come out of those skins; and they were kings' sons: so Sigmund and Sinfjofli do the wolf-skins on them, and then might they nowise come out of them, though forsooth the same nature went with them as heretofore; they howled as wolves howl, but both knew the meaning of that howling; they lay out in the wild-wood, and each went his way; and a word they made betwixt them, that they should risk the onset of seven men, but no more, and that he who was first to be set on should howl in wolfish wise: "Let us not depart from this," says Sigmund, "for thou art young and over-bold, and men will deem the quarry good, when they take thee."
Now each goes his way, and when they were parted, Sigmund meets certain men, and gives forth a wolf's howl; and when Sinfjotli heard it, he went straightway thereto, and slew them all, and once more they parted. But ere Sinfjotli has fared long through the woods, eleven men meet him, and he wrought in such wise that he slew them all, and was awearied therewith, and crawls under an oak, and there takes his rest. Then came Sigmund thither, and said—
"Why didst thou not call on me?"
Sinfjotli said, "I was loth to call for thy help for the slaying of eleven men."
Then Sigmund rushed at him so hard that he staggered and fell, and Sigmund bit him in the throat. Now that day they might not come out of their wolf-skins: but Sigmund lays the other on his back, and bears him home to the house, and cursed the wolf-gears and gave them to the trolls. Now on a day he saw where two weasels went, and how that one bit the other in the throat, and then ran straightway into the thicket, and took up a leaf and laid it on the wound, and thereon his fellow sprang up quite and clean whole; so Sigmund went out and saw a raven flying with a blade of that same herb to him; so he took it and drew it over Sinfjotli's hurt, and he straightway sprang up as whole as though he had never been hurt. Thereafter they went home to their earth-house, and abode there till the time came for them to put off the wolf-shapes; then they burnt them up with fire, and prayed that no more hurt might come to any one from them; but in that uncouth guise they wrought many famous deeds in the kingdom and lordship of King Siggeir.


There was a wrap on the door that jolted Marabeth out of the room where Pamela sat, absorbed in the story of the Volsungs. She looked up and saw Joyce standing there, her hair disheveled.

“I debated telling you this,” Joyce said, sitting on the bed, “not because there’s anything I ever don’t want to tell you, but because… Peter.. I mean, I’ve been with him. It’s wrong, I really think it’s wrong to tell about things that happen with a person you’ve been with… well, a couple of times by now. And I like him, Mara, I really do like him. I more than like him, and that’s foolish, but…”
“Joyce,” Marabeth held up a hand, “is there something you plan on telling me?”
“He knows,” Joyce said. “He’s knows everything. Well, some things.”
“I thought he did,” Marabeth said. “We determined that last night, me and Kristian, that he knew.”
“He changes, Marabeth.’
“What?” Marabeth looked at her.
“Those pills, the medication, it really is to prevent the Change. All the men in your family take it around puberty, after it’s seen if they are going to change or not. Except for Myron, I think they started him early. But Peter doesn’t always take them. He Changes when he can. He has a part of the basement in his house where he secures himself to… make the Change. I couldn’t keep it from you, and I told him I couldn’t so you have to see him. He knows I’m telling you. I told him I couldn’t keep anything like this from you.”
“Well… Well, shit,” Marabeth said. “Well, is he home now?”
“He’s at his office.”
“Fuck, I hate that. He’s so official looking at his office. But, I need to see him.”
She stood up.
“Will you take me there? And then can you finally take me back to my house? Is that too much?”
“This whole thing is too much,” Joyce said, standing up. “How soon do you need me to be ready?’
“Five minutes,” Marabeth decided. “That’s what I need.”

MORE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WEEKEND! LATER TONIGHT.... THE BOOK OF THE BLESSED

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was some great writing and a great portion! Things seem to be coming to a head for Marabeth and I hope her meeting with Peter goes ok. I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

When she meets with Peter it will certainly be interesting. A lot of old stuff is bound to come up.