Changes Under The Moon

As I promised, here is the short piece I did to introduce my friends on Bookrix to my writing.  It was something I did on the fly, a sort of themed piece in a different genre than I wrote in up to that time.  It is inspired by the Alpha and Omega series written by Patricia Briggs and which are popular in our home.  After looking at it I had to clean up some mistakes in the piece, but enjoy:

Changes Under The Moon

The man stood at the edge of the runway and watched in the late afternoon sun through his dark aviator’s glasses as the Learjet which had just dropped him and his few bags off rocketed into the sky just before it crossed the end of the runway.  The man stood a little less than six feet tall and was dressed in black jeans, boots, and jacket.  His cropped hair was black and the eyes behind the sunshades were equally dark.  The broad cheeks and angular features spoke of Indian ancestry.

He stared for a moment at the powdery snow which was still being blown away from the runway by the blast of the air the jet had started as it left and sighed before turning and looking around him at the spare hangar at the side of the runway and then around until he found the road which led to the strip and directed his gaze, squinting into the evening sun looking for the truck he knew would be coming to pick him up.

Though surrounded by the majestic beauty of the Rocky Mountains bathed to a golden hue in the waning light, the wonder of the scene didn’t register in the man’s mind.  Nothing did, nothing mattered, not since that night not so long ago when everything changed.  Since terrible night nothing had been the same.  Since that night, everything had spiraled downhill as he lost everything of any importance to him.

It had been a wonderful day as John Meeks, an Eastern band Cherokee Indian, had made his way into the Blue Ridge Mountains for a few days of well-earned solitude in the part of earth he considered home.  His fiancé thought it ridiculous that the first thing he wanted to do after burning out a little passion on his return from a tour in Afghanistan, where he worked in a CIA spec-ops group, was to head-off into the back end of nowhere in the mountains.  She laughingly referred to it to her friends as his “need to commune with nature,” but that was alright, she loved him anyway, quirks and all.

Yes, he thought of those dark eyes Carla had, and the magic of those eyes in the firelight as she gazed into his from beside him in bed the night before and felt himself warm in the cooling breeze as he made camp for the night.  Carla, a half Mexican-American and half Arab woman with a supple body and a mind like a spring-trap, would be his bride come Christmas, when both could get the time off for a ceremony and honeymoon.  She was an analyst at the Shop who spoke fluent Arabic, the tongue her mother had taught her from the cradle and the jewel of his life.  As he started a small fire, Indian style, he mused that the wait from early fall to mid-winter was going to be a long one, even though they were already lovers.

After cooking a quick meal of a burger and a fire roasted potato, John sat back and watched the play of the colors on the fall leaves on the mountains as the day gave way to night.  The hike in had really been spectacular as the trees were in full fall color splashing the mountains with hues of red, yellow, brown and green in a display no picture could ever do justice to.  This was home, and this was the perfect season to enjoy nature’s changes in all her majestic beauty.

John sat by the little fire and continued to watch as off in the southeast a full moon rose in the deep black background of sky and surrounded by a halo of stars and thought of the wonderful days to come with Carla and their upcoming nuptials as the moon rose and a meteor or two flashed across the sky.

Then his reverie was interrupted by a long howl not that distant.  He jerked up and paid attention.  A wolf?  There shouldn’t be a wolf here in the national park.  The wolves had been driven to extinction in this part of the country there shouldn’t be one here.  Yet, as a second howl broke out a little closer there was no mistaking it.  John had heard wolves during some of his training in his army days out West.  That was a wolf.  As the forest went silent around him John rose to his feet and stepped away from the fire to get his eyes acclimated to the dark.

A rustling in the underbrush brought his hand to the handle of the bowie knife he wore at his back.  It wasn’t legal to carry guns in the National forest, but knives were and he had more than one on his person as an Apache friend taught him to do.  As he peered into the darkness two eyes stared out from the darkness into his and with incredible speed they moved straight at him.  John barely had enough time to roll out of the way and back onto his feet, knife in hand and at the ready to face the animal.

What John faced was the scariest sight he’d ever seen, or ever would.  It was a wolf, but such a wolf!  Two hundred pounds if it was an ounce it wasn’t quite like a normal wolf, in place of the thin legs a wolf usually had were legs more reminiscent of arms.  They were bulging with muscles and the feet had claws instead of nail which looked razor sharp and utterly deadly.  The legs grew out of equally bulging and powerful shoulders which led up to a head which differed from a wolf’s as well in that the braincase seemed larger than normal.  Protruding from powerful jaws were large and lethal looking fangs, but the feature which nearly arrested Johns heart were the eyes.

The eyes which bored into his were intelligent, frighteningly wolf and human.  And those eyes were filled with loathing, fury and death.  But the most terrible thing of all was the totally lack of any mercy.  This was death in all its most nightmarish horror, crystal in its purpose, sure with its intent.  And John’s knife seemed a pitiful weapon to wield in a vain attempt to stave it off.

After giving John a moment to see death coming, it leaped at him with unnatural speed.  This time John managed to somehow dodge to the side and avoid the pounce while raking the hellish creature along the side with his knife.  With an angry howl of pain the creature managed to turn itself before its full length passed John and dive back in for the attack.  John had been taught the Apache way with the knife.  No better knife men ever walked the earth.  But the end was inevitable and at the end of it the wolf limped off gravely wounded and leaving a disemboweled and dying man in its wake.

Left alone, John tried in vain to gather his intestines in his hand and force them back into his belly.  Then he gave up on that and lay back on the ground.  He was hours away from help even if he could somehow get to his satellite phone and call for it.  Still, he tried to crawl over to where the phone was secreted in his pack and gave out before he got there.  As he lay back again he saw his life passing before him.  Now beyond pain John mourned for the life he now wouldn’t live and waited for death to come.  But it wasn’t death which came in the night as an even more profound darkness enfolded the dying man, it was something far worse.

II

As a red pickup came out of the distant tree line and rounded a bend towards the strip, the man remembered what came next with a grim frown on his face.

John had miraculously awakened the next morning, or so it seemed, to a changed world.  His tattered clothing and bloodied knife were all that were left of the struggle from the night before.  John changed to his other set of cloths and hastily struck camp.  As he did so he noticed other changes, the colors were brighter, and the load of his pack seemed so much lighter, almost like nothing.  But most notable was the smell.  He smelled so much more than he had before.  And he could smell his attacker from the night before all over the camp where they’d fought.  In fact, it was the smell along with the churned up ground and blood, both the attacker’s and his own, which affirmed for him that last night had not been some sort of a terrible dream.  It was, however, a smell he would never forget

John hastily hiked out of the forest and got into his truck to head home.  He briefly considered informing the park rangers on the way out about the presence of the unusual wolf in the park and the danger to other campers, but rejected the notion because even he, who’d lived it, could scarcely believe the tale himself.

The next change he noticed was when hunger drove him to stop at a steakhouse along the way and ordered his steak rare.  John had never eaten his meat rare in his life, he was a well-done man.  But his craving for rare steak was overwhelming.  As he wolfed down his steak alone, another thing he didn’t do by habit, he became more and more edgy as the lunch crowd grew and finished his meal hastily before making a hasty exit and continuing his journey home.

Over the next several weeks the changes piled on another.  John’s legendary patience became shorter and shorter as an almost uncontrollable temper and fury set in.  His life with Carla went downhill fast as he snapped at the least little irritation.  As the close of the first month after that night drew near Carla told him that she would leave but that his new passion in bed was such that she could put up with almost anything for the thrill it gave her.  However, she warned him sternly in a moment when she was sure he wouldn’t snap that whatever the problem was he needed to get control over it or she would have no choice.  Then the final two straws fell.

John joined the line in the cafeteria at work and noticed the man who shortly entered behind him and head for the line right behind him.  Steven Jones was not a figure John wanted to see by any measure.  A real jerk known for his sneering sense of importance and short temper, Steve wasn’t well liked among his peers at all.  However, the man did his job in another CIA spec-ops team well and was tolerated by the powers that be.  Nothing spoke like success.

Steve strode up to John and then screwed up his face in disgust.  “You smell of dog Meeks.” The man said derisively.  That was it!  John grabbed the man by the shoulders with speed he didn’t know he had and slammed him up against the wall with enough force to leave an imprint of his body in it.  “What did you say?” John asked softly in a voice dripping with menace in the silence which fell on the room as he stared a challenge into the other man’s eye.  As John realized Steve smelled of the same thing which had attacked him, though not the same one the normally arrogant and belligerent Steven Jones meekly dropped his gaze like a cur cowering before a bigger and meaner dog and mumbled, “Nothing really John, would you please let go?”

Aghast at his own conduct John released the other man and swiftly strode out of the room as he heard Steve calling out to him “Stop, John, we need to talk!”  But John turned and held out a finger at Steve and sent him a stern “leave me alone” before turning back around and making his way back to his cubicle, grabbing a snack from the vending machine along the way.  John considered checking out sick for the day, but continued until he heard a familiar voice.  “John.”

He looked up to see his supervisor, Jared Poindexter, motion him to follow him to his office.  With a sigh because he knew what was coming up, John got up from his cubicle and followed Jared into the office, where Jared motioned for him to shut the door and sit down in the chair in front of the desk.  “What the hell was with that little stunt in the cafeteria John?” His supervisor asked with an exasperated tone.

“The man insulted me Mr. Poindexter,” John answered, “I just lost it.  I can’t explain it, I just lost it.” He finished with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Well, you just can’t go around here slamming people who say things you don’t like up against the walls John!” Jared warned.  “In fact, I’ve had a number of complaints about you since you got back from Afghanistan, what’s eating at You, Trouble with Carla?”

“No,” John answered back and then continued in a frustrated voice, “I don’t know what is going on and I don’t like it, but it started after that overnight hike I took when I got back, something happened there, something I can’t really talk about and it seems to have gotten to me.”  John explained to his supervisor.

“Well, John,” Jared began.  “I’ve known you a long time and we’ve been friends for years, so this is how I’m going to play things out.  I’m authorizing a month’s paid leave; you’re a valued asset here.  But go home, do whatever you have to do to get over this.  See a shrink, take a trip, just do whatever it takes to get your attitude squared away, or don’t come back.” Jared ordered sternly.

That night was the full moon.  And John and Carla were in bed when it happened.  John suddenly felt very sick to the stomach and felt like he was going to spew it al out right there in bed.  He hopped out and rushed to the bathroom but didn’t make it.  He seized up with the most terrible cramp he’d ever had about half-way there and fell to the floor as the pain quickly spread to his entire body.

To his horror he could feel his body shift and morph into something else as hot pain lanced along every nerve.  But he also felt something take over and felt his mind become more animal and feral, and furious.  Faintly he heard Carla’s screams compete with guttural growls and cries of pain as Carla backed up against the headboard and stared in utter horror at the transformation taking place before her.  Finally, it was over.

John climbed unsteadily to four feet instead of two.  He looked down in horror mingled with fury to see his front to feet resembling the clawed feet of the monster that’d attacked.  He had become the monster!  Fury rose even higher in his breast as he looked over and saw the human who occupied the room with him with her hands on her mouth and eyes wide and filled with fear.  “Attack, Kill!” something uncontrollably feral insisted in his mind.  As he stepped forward and prepared to jump the realization of who he was about to pounce on hit him.

This was Carla!  The woman he loved more than life itself!  As he warred with whatever it was which demanded to be turned loose he saw his lover white as the sheet she was on and the horror of the sight helped him win the war within.  With a supreme effort launched himself through the second story bedroom window and into the darkness beyond.

The next day john returned, naked and exhausted, to his house to find it empty.  But that hadn’t come as any surprise, given the choice he wouldn’t have stayed with himself either.  She’d packed and gone, but left a note, for whatever good that did, smeared with tears but explaining that last night was the last straw and that she couldn’t stay with the monster John had become.

After sitting there for an hour cursing what fate had done to him, John made some calls arraigning to put his house up for sale and to resign from the CIA.  It took another day to pack up whatever was still valuable to him and put it in storage, then, with pack and duffel bag in hand John climbed into his truck and headed back to the area where it all began.  He had one more thing to do before disappearing into the mountains to figure out how to control the beast which now raged in him and whether to go on or end it all right there.

An hour later a truck pulled up to his house and two powerful looking men got out and knocked on the door.  After going around the house and making sure nobody was at home, they left.

III

A wary Eric Jonsson stood at the bar and waited with quarry in sight.  But there was a complication, there was another of their kind in the bar and that wolf was good, damn good!  The last time Eric had not been able to single a wolf out of a crowded barroom like that had been in the Middle Ages and almost cost him his life.  That assassin had been trained by the legendary leader of the Hasshshin Cult himself and been sent to kill him.  While Eric had been savvy enough to overcome all the things which could kill a werewolf up to that time, he could remember the news of the Arab invaders which had inspired him and his fellow Vikings to head south and grab parts of a weak Europe.  That experience had left the old wolf very wary indeed.  The realization that he was a potential target to very powerful people indeed was something Eric, formerly called Eric the ugly, ironic considering the Blonde haired and blue-eyed man cut a handsome figure, would never forget.

Pretending to ogle the exposed breasts of the buxom beauty next to him, Eric stealthily scanned the room around him. There!  Just out of the side of his eye Eric caught a fleeting glimpse of another figure, one he never would’ve recognized had it not been for the pictured faxed to him a couple of weeks ago.  And just that quick John Meeks had ducked out of sight.  Eric lifted the beer and pretended to drink as he considered the situation.  John was obviously on the stalk for the same quarry as he.  Well, that could prove interesting!  As Eric patiently waited on the quarry he was already watching, to make his move he considered more.

Eric was the newly made master of all the werewolves on the North American continent.  That had been some task which had taken him some fifty years to finally bring about.  Finally, all but a few packs were under his thumb and those would either fall in line shortly or be taken care of.  North American werewolves, like their human brethren, were notoriously independent, for all that they’d formed into packs for protection many years ago, but Eric had taken a page of inspiration out of a long dead president’s book and set about forging a new reality among the wolves.  He’d believed it necessary as time changed and it was becoming more important for the wolves to stay under the radar, and more difficult.  They couldn’t have rogues running wild and upsetting the apple cart, and that was why Eric himself was here.

The wolf that was his quarry tonight was one such wolf.  He’d refused to get with the program and pulled deeper into the backwoods, emerging now and then like tonight.  But every full moon there’d been reports of strange killings by some unknown animal spread all over the mountain range and a month ago a report of a possible attack, which somebody survived and probably turned into a wolf.  Eric’s network had tumbled him to a new wolf that’d appeared briefly at the CIA, and then disappeared too quickly for the local wolves to get to and take into their pack.  But now it looked like the fates had dropped an opportunity right into Eric’s lap, and he was too canny and old of a wolf to let it go to waste.

John could be the perfect solution to a problem.  A trained assassin himself who’d killed men all over the globe for his country, John was an answer to a prayer.  Now that Eric had things more or less under his thumb, what he badly needed was a wolf like John, somebody who already had the basic skills to be his enforcer and assassin and new enough to be pliant and moldable enough to have his training finished and become a reliable and loyal asset to Eric.

Oh, it wasn’t that Eric didn’t have assassins available.  A group of Chinese Weres had moved to the Southwest as part of the migration by the Lin Quai.  The leader among them was positively ancient and said to have plied his trade for Sun Tsu and his King in the dim Chinese past.  One thing about the old Were, he was honest and preferred to get along as long as one didn’t cross him.  Eric had cut a deal with the old Were which was to both men’s advantage.  But Eric still preferred to keep as much wolf business in house as possible.  That was why he was out on the hunt himself.

Eric’s quarry finally made his move for the door and Eric followed along quietly.  Eric figured he knew what was going to happen.  Sure enough, as his quarry bolted towards the end of the parking lot and safety, a dark figure moved out of the darkness and pounced on the wolf.  When Eric finally came within hearing he heard John Meeks demand an answer of his captive.  “What in the HELL did you do to me dammit?”  Eric stepped into the light where John could see him and calmly answered for the Were.  “He turned you into a werewolf, John.”

John looked over to the stranger and appraised him as he restrained his struggling captive even more mercilessly.  “Say again?” he queried at the man.  The stranger smiled and replied again.  “He turned you into a werewolf like himself and me John.  You’re now one of us.” He explained in a soothing voice.

“I’m nothing like you!” John spat back in denial, even as his heart told him the words were true.

“Really, John?” the man asked him, “Since you were attacked a little over a month ago haven’t things changed for you.  Don’t you now like your meat raw and your women sizzling?  Isn’t your temper short-fused and barely controllable, if at all?”  Then the man stepped closer and asked in a voice almost a whisper and reverential, “And don’t you feel the call of the moon?  The call to let loose, run wild and howl at the full moon?”

“Yes!” John answered not much louder but with feeling.

“Then finish what you came here to do, kill this wolf and come with me!”  The other man ordered.

“Woe there man!” John objected, “I came here for answers.” He declared.

“And answers you shall have my friend.”  The man declared, “But this wolf is a danger to our kind as well as humans and he has to be put down.  He had his chance but rejected it.  Go ahead and we’ll dispose of the body and I will give you your answers!”

Yes, the man in black reflected as the truck pulled up next to him, he’d done the deed and gotten his answers that very night from the man who’d introduced himself as Eric Jonsson, the chief over all the werewolves on the North American continent.  John Meeks shook his head and spit into the snow before picking his pack and his duffel up and took the next steps into his new life as Wolfsbane, the emperor’s new executioner.