The Loup Garou Society by Julie Steimle (ereader with android txt) 📖

had never seen one, but had only heard of them. She probably heard a werewolf’s version of vampires as well—kind of in a fairytale villain sense. Not that vampires were wonderful beings, because they weren’t. They were bloodthirsty demons who had chosen their parasitic lifestyle which required that they live in a perpetual night. And they hated werewolves. Vampires saw werewolves not so much as competition, but as a hindrance—as werewolves often protected humans from them. Vampires also saw werewolves as useless blood which they could not drink. Werewolf blood was toxic.

“I have a good friend who had been bitten by one,” he added.

She stared more.

“I don’t know what the pack tells you about the supernatural world,” he said. Some people marched by, going between them while casting him and Margarete looks. Rick smiled and waved. They said something in a language he did not understand, so he really didn’t care—but he waited until they were gone so he could continue. “But, it contains a lot more than what the pack has told you.”

Rolling her eyes, Margarete continued upward, clinging to the metal as she went on. “Don’t tell me there are witches. I know you…” she huffed, “…heretic wolves believe you are cursed by witches and not blessed by the goddess.”

He shrugged, walking up next to her. “Ok. So I do believe that. But not because I don’t know this goddess you believe in. I live in a witch town.”

More passersby went between them. A number of them stared.

Margarete leaned near him once those people were past. “There is no such thing.”

Rick chuckled, shaking his head. “You should tell that to the Ladies Aide Society of Middleton Village then. And the Men’s Club. Both groups are self-proclaimed witch covens.”

She stared after him. He was walking faster, as usual. It took a lot for her to catch up. “Just because they believe they are witches doesn’t make them witches.”

He turned around smiling. “I’m not talking flying on brooms, waving magic wands, and wearing black hats kind of witches. That is all nonsense. I’m talking about, uh, human-sacrificing, animal torturing, herbalists who use a darker stolen magic to manipulate people and cause dangerous unnatural transformations—which have taken innocent human beings and wolves, and ruined their lives.”

But those words might as well have been in Russian. She stared at him like he was crazy. So using a simpler analogy, he explained, “My friend Jessica—who is also my best friend’s girlfriend—has a long knife cut up her arm which the witches did to her on winter solstice two years ago. And they did it with the intent to conjure a demon—”

“Oh, there you go with the demon talk again,” Margarete rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” he snapped, his face flushing, thinking had to give her proof. “My friend Eve McAllister is a demon. Half vampire, half imp. And she—”

“Ugh!” Margarete shook her head. “Enough! This is all nonsense! Why do you have to imagine such ridiculous—?”

Rick ripped out his wallet and pulled out a picture of Eve. He was standing next to her in it. Eve’s face was pale as death, her long hair black as midnight, and her eyes were glowing orange. Oh, and in her wide smile, anyone could see her long vampire fangs.

Margarete recoiled from him and stared. “You made friends with a vampire?”

Groaning, Rick pointed at the picture which was in a canyon during summer. “Look! It is daytime! Vampires cannot come out in the day. They burn up.”

She ignored that. “I can’t believe you. You befriended a vampire! Does your father know?”

“She’s a vimp. And he does know,” Rick muttered, putting it away. He should have known it was a hopeless cause. And yet, he glanced at the other pictures in his wallet. He pulled that one out. “What about this one then? This is a picture of my friends from Gulinger High in New York. What do you get from this?”

Barely taking the picture, she stared at it. Then she stared harder.

“See the white haired guy with orange eyes?” He pointed at him. It was Tom.

She nodded, barely.

“See what is sticking out his back?”

She nodded again. Then she rubbed the picture as if it would make the image change. It didn’t of course.

“Those are wings. Small ones,” Rick said. He raised his eyebrows at her as he said, “He’s half imp. That’s a little devil, in case you don’t know.”

Rick quickly tucked the picture back into his wallet in case the gusting wind might carry it from his fingers and blow it away.

Margarete slowly pulled back from him again. Her stare was deeper now. She held onto the wall as if they were in an earthquake. Winds had blown under and around them, shaking the tower all the time, but she seemed less stable on her feet than ever. Rick stepped closer and said, “And that is nothing. I’ve met necromancers, a number of monster hunters, a scary Chinese witch, a number of half-elves, goblins, fairies, and a two spirit warriors who opened my eyes to possibilities. The world is incredibly large and full.”

Her eyes had not left his face. She was trying to read him, but could not comprehend what she was seeing.

“The pack protects you,” Rick said. “But they also keep you sheltered. You don’t even know the half of what is out there—and I don’t either.”

She stared more.

“But let me tell you something.” Rick sat down on the step, letting others get by. When those folk were gone (having given Rick and Margarete both dirty looks), he said, “I also have eight very special friends who have vowed to protect my family from all those nasty things.”

“A pack?” she asked, hopeful.

Rick shook his head. “Nope. They’re all human.”

She rolled her eyes.

Chuckling, Rick lent her his arm again, gesturing for them to keep going. “Don’t look down on humans. Especially these guys. They are called—and I know this sounds cheesy—the Holy Seven.”

“You said there were eight.”

He laughed, nodding. “Yeah… But the name is just a title. It really just means they are a team of warriors for God.”

Margarete stared at him with one eye closed. “Which god?”

Laughing more, Rick nodded. “The real one.”

She moaned. It was obvious that she thought all other beliefs in any other god besides her precious moon goddess had to be either fakes, or insignificant to a werewolf. He believed it was the latter. If one believed in a moon goddess, they had to acknowledge such a goddess belonged to a pantheon.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to get into a religious debate with you.”

“Good,” she said brusquely. “Don’t. We’ll just start fighting.”

“But there are a lot of counterfeits out there,” he added, not willing to let it go just yet.

She shot him a very dirty look. “But Diana—”

“I know you believe in this Diana…” Rick murmured with a roll of his eyes. “And I know you already think I am a heretic for not believing in her. But—and you are going to hate me for saying this—if there really is a Diana, she is not actually a goddess.”

She stared in shock. Apparently he had crossed the line.

Unfortunately, he needed to cross it farther. He groaned. “My grandfather—No. Our grandfather was born a wolf. A witch—I even know her name—transformed him into a man to create an assassin. That’s where werewolves like us come from. That’s where we, in particular, come from.”

She glared now. If she had been a wolf then, her hackles would be raising. He’d seen it in his father plenty of times. Unfortunately, he was committed to telling her the truth.

“Now maybe an elf going by the name of Diana—”

She glared even more. He could see her hairs standing up a little.

“—cursed a person into becoming an animal. I’ll believe that,” Rick said.

Her glare deepened still. Her eyes flickered with wolfishness.

“Look, some elves are known to pretend to be gods.” Rick raised his hands in protest. “Zeus. Thor. Ra. All of those. They were just elves.”

“Not another word,” she said through her teeth. Her canines were sharpening.  

Massaging his forehead, Rick shook his head. “Fine. I quit. There is only so much of your understanding of the universe I can shatter in one day anyway.” He walked ahead.

They went on in silence. He could feel her fuming behind him. But it bothered him that she believed in this so-called goddess when he had seen so much proof of not just his own origins, but that elves pretended to be gods once.

Breaking the silence, he finally said, “You know, I once dated half-siren.”

“I said not another word.”

He looked back at her. Her face was still hot. The scary thing was, he could tell she believed him, and it was just too much for her.

But he didn’t quit yet. He whispered, “Her name was Selena Davenport.”

She groaned.

“Her mother was seduced on a vacation along the Mediterranean Sea, and she—”

“No more!”

Rick stuffed his hands into his pockets, sighing. Rocking on his feet, he then took a step away from her and said, “She could manipulate water and talk a person into doing anything.” He then ran up the stairs from Margarete, dodging around other tourists.

“Rick!” She chased after him, furious.

They went up and up. She was panting, breathless, but she reached the top not far behind him. Tourist were milling about on that level, some peering at him.

“See! You made it!” he announced once she tromped out of the stairwell. He stood like Peter Pan a few feet away from her.

Stomping over to him, Margarete grabbed his collar and pulled him close. “Don’t pretend you were saying all that just to get me up here faster.”

He shrugged, sheepish. “I won’t pretend it…. Do you intend to push me off the Eiffel Tower now?”

Groaning, Margarete let go of his shirt.

They lingered up top, looking at the broad view of the city. It was extremely high, a little smoggy below, but Rick had been in the Statue of Liberty and on top of the Empire State building, besides the one tower in Dubai.

“Why do you make up stories to upset me?” Margarete murmured, gazing out alongside him. “Do you have a death wish?”

Rick shook his head. Her posture was slumped. She looked hurt now, sad with the way she stared at him.

“All the joy I have ever had in life was because of Diana,” she said. He watched her expression ripple between sadness and struggle to regain her sense of the universe. “Your view on life is full of monsters and demons.”

He closed his eyes, thinking that perhaps she had a point, even though she had omitted the elves. But then he said, “You know, when I was kid, I had no idea werewolves were real.”

She blinked at him surprised.

“I didn’t change until I was thirteen,” he said. “It scared me half to death.”

“Oh.” Pity came into her eyes.

He chuckled, shaking his head as he stared out at Paris. “But I knew witches were real.”

She stiffened.

“You see, they used to try to pick on my mother. Sent curses and… other things.” He mentally tracked the number of times those witches meddled with his family—saved only by the watchful care of the town priest—Pastor Cartwright. His best friend’s grandfather. “I don’t know your Diana. But I do know the man who protected my family while my father was away was a strong believer in the Christian God. And he acted on his faith.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m not going to make you believe it,” he said, looking to her. “Just… know I’m not making things up.”

 Margarete rubbed her arms, shivers going up and down them.

“Please,” she said, her eyes begging. “No more.”

He sighed heavily. He knew it had been a lost cause. 

“And please don’t tell those stories to Genevieve when she comes,” she said.

He chuckled. No… there was no way he would try that again. Maybe in the future, when he could introduce them to his friend Tom, would he be able to bring it up again. Tom was an excellent visual aid.

Crowds came up on the