Neophyte / Adept (6 page)

The moon stood like molten fire in the night sky, stained by
the dark maria. My dreams that night were fitful and full of meaning. The
Venice clock beat like the wheel of time, and metamorphosed into a beautiful
red moon. I was speeding under it on my Gambalunga, with a pair of werewolves
chasing after me.

It was only then that I realized I was not alone, that they
were with me, not against me, and that we were chasing something together. When
I went to flick the throttle, I felt my paws hit the ground; the countryside
passed powerfully underfoot.

Chapter 6
– Munchies

Ballard came to pick me up the next night. Instead of
revving his engine in the street, as
I
would have done, my landlady buzzed him up, and let him pass unscathed.

“How? What?” I was completely baffled by this.

He looked all metrosexual and hot for his age. His smile
broadened in that irresistible Ballard way. “So what are we doing tonight,
hotshot?” he said, stepping into my apartment and taking a look around. He was
in a grey V-neck and matching jeans, still bronze from the Mediterranean
summer.

“You tell me. For starters, how you got past my landlady?” I
said. I motioned to the dingbat down the hallway. Ballard crossed his fingers
like the two of them were simpatico, and got his wolf grin again.

Was that stubble on his chin? Clearly, he was over being all
sullen guy.

I still had a little freshening up to do, I said, if we were
going to be staying out all night. So he stood and waited, by the French doors,
and when I came back out, he was holding on to the iron roses, an ornate
candlestick that reminded me very much of Lennoxlove Lenoir––for so
Dallace had told me that anyone with connections to the Paris Coven took on the
surname of
Lenoir
. Except Dallace had
called it a
sirename
.

I grabbed the candlestick from Ballard. I had been burning
the iron roses throughout the night as I had done research into European
wizards, witches and vampires, and what could have been responsible for these
wars
, as Dallace called them....

The room smelled of lavender. Ballard apologized profusely
but I said it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all, it was nothing,
absolutely nothing. “I’m ready to go,” I said.

“I thought first, we would grab a bite to eat,” he said,
“and then we could talk, if that’s all right, if you’re still hungry.”

My room was filled with junk food wrappers. “I could use a
decent meal,” I said.

“I have someplace to show you afterwards,” he said. “We’re
both
invited... this time.” My ears
perked up. “You’ll see,” he said.

We went downstairs, past what’s-her-face, who wore a look of
death upon her wizened old mug, and soon Ballard and I were both on our
motorcycles, heading out to eat. I made a mental note to buy more jeans. I wore
some now and a pair of boots.

* * *

The place we ate at was a
trattoria
, a small mom-and-pop outfit on the banks of the Tiber. It
was a quaint picturesque picture-postcard hole in the wall. I had not had a
real meal since Venice, and the food did not disappoint. It was served with a
particular fondness for Ballard. I looked inside the restaurant from our table
out on the walk, and saw the mom and pop responsible for the delicious food
waving at both Ballard and I.

There seemed to be some kind of transcendent affection that
went into the food itself. There was
spaghetti
alla carbonara
, a fresh wheel of pecorino cheese, and a scrumptious salad
made of fresh produce from the local market. For desert we had cheesecake.

I saw as twilight passed into deep, rich night, and the
sparkling waters of the Tiber came alive with streetlights and the passing
lamps of automobiles, and we talked, in our small alcove, amid the creeping ivy
of
il ristorante
, and the potted
plants that rose as summer faded and Fall began.

His words filled me with pictures of things, of wizards
dueling, and witches confronting one another, vampires breaking their bonds and
heading into the light, to be met by werewolves and other, fiercer things, that
had no name. As we spoke, I had an image of things as they may have been long,
long ago––
too
long
ago––in a faraway Past, too deliberately shrouded in mnemnosy, the
things we forget. The air a scintilla of scents of shared memories, and things
gone by, Time meaningless, all the while Ballard chewed and chose his words
with care and confidence, and I wanted to know more.
More.

I was determined that whatever came, I was going to be ready
for it. Everyone had given me pieces of things. It was time to put the whole
jigsaw together. Didn’t he think?

“That’s what I’m excited about,” said Ballard. “When they
came, with the letter, and whatnot, about a month ago, and a plan, and that it
must be done, done, done, and here are some people who can
help you... I mean
, Gaven got Lia and the others and they had a
Wolves’ Council
, which is where we’re
headed tonight... to a second one... I’m finally invited.” He ate while I
chewed on more than my food. “The whole thing was a misunderstanding, just a
total misunderstanding. Anyway, since I started changing.... The letter is for
girls only. Sorry.
Women.”
He twirled
his spaghetti, and thought some more.

His confidence was faltering with whatever was eating him
up.

“Ballard... Slow down! You’re like a runaway Gambalunga,” I
said. “Who’s
they
?”

“You know... the what-d’you-call-’ems––vampire
emissaries... the Renoir...”

“Renoir was a painter,” I said.

“Oh sorry. The
Lenoir
.”

My fork clattered onto my plate.
“They
were here?” I said. “When?” I held on to every word, as
Ballard explained how they had come, and that Rome was to re-enter what he
called a Golden Era of prosperity––

“‘...Where werewolves
and other shapeshifters could be welcomed back, into a community of like-minded
blah blah blah...’
At least that’s how Lia put it. I don’t know about you,
but I’m tired of getting everything secondhand,” he said.

I listened as he railed against his sister (“She has it out
for me. If she wasn’t going out with Gaven, she wouldn’t even be
on
the Wolves’ Council. It’s what we
call a gathering of I Gatti,” he said, when he saw I wasn’t keeping up. “They
don’t exactly trust these blood-gulping bozos. Who would? Apparently they’re
all smiles. I can’t say that I blame her. I just want to know if there’s going
to be a fight. I want in, that’s all.”)

Ballard explained to me about shape changing (“It’s like
this tingling in your nether bits,” he said) and how it’s really painful. “It
sounds like you’re doing it wrong,” I told him.

“That’s the thing. I have so much to learn. I
want
to learn,” he said. “I want to
know
. Finally I understand what it’s
like being
you
!”

He laughed and finished his spaghetti. It was like watching
the bloodied muzzle of a carnivore tear its way through a carcass.

A bunch more questions popped into my head, now that we were
being honest with each other.

I reasoned that any knowledge was good knowledge, and that
it would improve my magical education, would it not, knowing as much as I could
about he and his family? I did not tell him that I had dreamed
I
was a wolf. There was no need to freak
him out too badly.

I noticed that he had seemed to take on a bit of the
werewolf in his everyday life. His table manners were not of the best.

“Even when I’m on two legs, I’m still a werewolf,” he said,
“if you follow me?” He grinned. I could tell what he meant. It sounded like a
license to kill.

“Don’t get carried away too much by it, Ballard,” I told
him. He told me not to worry about it.

“What about when a werewolf bites someone, is that person
placed under
the Curse
?” I asked him.
I wanted to know if he was dangerous, and if I should worry about him.

“Curse?” That seemed to astonish him greatly. “No, no. It’s
like we’re super powerful. You’re either born with the gift or you aren’t.
There is no curse.”

“And the whole full moon thing?” I asked.

“I love the full moon,” he said.

“You know what I mean, Ballard.”

“I can only tell you this. We’re sitting under a full moon
now. The remnants of last night’s full moon, and if I didn’t kill anybody
then.... Werewolves get better with age, more powerful, and we also learn
self-control. But this is more to do with controlling the gift, not wielding
it.”

“Actually, you seem rather composed. If we’re going off
stories, I mean.”

“The werewolf roaming the countryside myth? Hogwash,” said
Ballard. “We’ve been used to explain away criminal behavior in human beings.”

I listened as Ballard explained about murderers and other
sickos stalking the night.

“...Cannibals, mutilation, is he or isn’t he on a
lunar
cycle? It sickens me. But then I
remember that is what we want them to think––people. That we don’t
exist. That we are not
real
.... It’s
like the best inheritance ever!”

I watched him dip his fork into the cheesecake, with the
dripping wet red cherries, and took a bite of my own. We were in our own
unusual world.

“I prefer the cave paintings,” he said. “At least there, man
and animal were one.”

How many of them were there? And was that how long it had
been going on? Had human beings been metamorphosing into animals since
pre-history?

“It’s all there...” said Ballard. “At Lascaux, the
pyramids––Pleistocene aurochs and
cats
, alligators and the like. And that’s another thing. I Gatti is
comprised entirely of cyanthropes...
Dogs
...
How we came to be called
the Cats
is
beyond me...”

“You’re saying people transform into all of these things?” I
said.

“No. I’m saying that I have a tail. It’s just hidden right
now,” said Ballard. “The gene, or whatever it is, isn’t recessive at all. It’s
dominant. Every member of I Gatti is affected. We all change.”

As I listened to him speak, I recalled that of the 8 Virtues
which affected my kind––Insight, Discretion, Virtuosity,
Severeness, Humor, Goodwill, and Grace––one of them was also
Malleability, which was the ability to change in its purest form.

Had I just discovered my own Virtue? Were the dreams telling
me that I was Malleable? That I was going to be a shape changer?

He talked about what he called the transmigration of the
soul, next. “A wolf can be you or your double, the soul animal, a vehicle for
the spirit. I don’t really understand it myself. Gaven keeps telling me about
something called
metempsychosis
, it
takes a while. Like he would know. Everything comes so easily for him. I’m
running to keep up.”

I soon wanted to know what werewolves could do and what they
couldn’t do.

“Do you believe in the sharing of your soul?” he asked me,
in a tangential line of questioning that had me searching for its roots.

“I believe in soul
mates
,”
I said, “that two people can be together forever...” I quickly steered us
someplace else. “What you’re talking about sounds like something different.”

The smolder in Ballard’s eyes died somewhat. “Forgive me,”
he said. “There’s a reason we like to howl at the moon.”

“What d’you mean?”

“This. All of it. Our behavior. Everything. It’s a
hereditary condition. Invulnerability, speed, strength, falling from great
heights is also not a problem. Of course, there is also aggressiveness,” said
Ballard, “and we have certain
urges
...
of the sexual variety.”

“Nether regions...” I said.

“It goes with the territory,” he said. “Sad but true.”

“So, is that a problem, with so many males and females, in
the Pack?” I asked him, being somewhat facetious, but curious all the same.

“It explains one thing,” he said. “Why they all seem to pair
up. But
you
know.”

“No. I don’t,” I said.

“How can somebody like us ever be with somebody who isn’t...
like us?” he said. “They don’t understand. Take what’s-his-face, that vampire
guy.”

“His name is Lennox, and I don’t want to talk about him,” I
said. I glared at Ballard like a silver bullet.

“All right. Point taken. But I’m just saying. He didn’t seem
to have anything in his life, until you came along. Where is he anyway?”

I started to tell Ballard about the Agonies––but
something interesting happened. I wasn’t sure Lennox would want me speaking to
a werewolf about something so private that concerned vampires, even if that
werewolf happened to be my best friend. It was the first time I had ever been
faced with choosing sides, and I didn’t like the feeling.

“He’s hunting Marek,” I said.

“The other bloodsucker, you mean?”

“Ballard...” It was important I change the subject. Even
though Lennox and Ballard had fought this summer side by side, Marek’s betrayal
had put Ballard off them permanently, including the rest of the Immortals. “I
wanted to talk to you about... something. These
dreams
I’ve been having,” I said.

He leaned forward.

“But first, will you wipe your face? You have spaghetti
sauce all over your mouth.”

“Oh right.” He wiped his face with a paper napkin. “What’s
up?” he said.

I had to proceed with caution.

“I think I’ve been having dreams about you,” I said. He
beamed.

“It’s been really weird actually.”

“But you have been dreaming about me?” he said.

I blew the strand of hair out of my face. He quietened down.

“I’ve been getting them since I left Rome, last month. At
first they were just impressions, they didn’t make much sense. But now the
dreams are starting to,” I said.

“You mean you get them every night?” He thought about this.

“Something’s after me, Ballard. And I think, whatever it is,
is a shapeshifter...” I said.

“You mean like me?”

I nodded.

“But that’s impossible. I know I Gatti. They wouldn’t do
that,” he said.

“Of course not. But you said yourself. There are other shape
changers in the world besides I Gatti.”

I didn’t tell him, but I had just figured something out. The
creature that had smashed through the stained-glass window and defended me from
Marek
wasn’t
a werewolf. It was
something else. If I had to guess, a cat. It had black fur, and yellow eyes.
But who was it, and why had it tried to save me?