Obamacare Prices

In the spirit of the flexible nature of this blog I'm going to use it to speak to something in the political/economic realm in the spirit of explaining something to my friends and readers, the sticker shock everybody, well almost everybody, is getting now that the Obamacare insurance exchanges are open.  Those prices are so high for reasons just about anybody who ever worked in insurance can explain easily enough.  The last jobs I held before I became disabled were as an agent in two different insurance companies.

In order to get that license to sell insurance every agent has to take a licensure exam and one question will always appear on the entry level exams, what is insurance?  The answer is that insurance is spreading the financial risk of injury, loss or damage of property or cost for medical health problems.  Now insurance companies are in the business of spreading that risk for people at a profit for their owners.  The reason behind the increase we all now have in premiums lies in how insurance companies traditionally did that in a manner to maximize their profits.

For decades now the insurance companies had a field day in that respect.  Since the 1940s congress forbade itself from meddling in the insurance market by law.  So the states regulated the insurance industry with the insurance commissioner, who was generally responsible for regulating the industry being an industry insider who allowed practices which maximized profits and seldom interfered with what the companies did.

To start off with, it is a principle that the more people insured the lower the overall risk.  However, that also means lower insurance rates.  Since profit is generally a percentage of the premiums, rates need to go up while risk is driven down.  To strike a happy medium between risks and premiums a number of practices have been allowed.  The first is that when a person buys insurance they are entered into a “pool” of buyers of the same policy.  The pool is limited in size to maximize the premium allowed and the profit derived from the combined premiums in the pool.

However, without further reduction in risk the premiums would be too high to sustain in a competitive environment.  So Insurance companies developed certain ways to further reduce the risk they had to cover.  Prime among those methods was to refuse to cover people with re-existing conditions.  By only insuring the healthiest groups of people costs through the payment of benefits were reduced and insurance companies were able to offer lower premiums while still gaining some of the highest profit margins in the business community.  They further reduced costs by refusing to pay out for certain products or procedures and developed the practice of denying legitimate claims over the years.  They also developed ways to eventually force people who developed chronic health problems off their rolls by moving healthy people into new insurance “pools” as time went by, thus making the premiums rise over time to the point that those left in the original pool could no longer afford their coverage and were forced to leave the pool with nothing.

That is how the insurance industry worked for decades.  Never forget, insurance companies are NOT charitable institutions, they are in the business of making profits for their shareholders.  So they conduct their business in a way to do just that.  One big exception in how the industry was run is in the Progressive State of New York, where for decades the insurance industry ran under a mandated profit margin lower than the rest of the country along with mandated coverage for certain things.  The folks in New York already paid higher premiums than the rest of the country and will actually see their premiums reduced under Obamacare, that’s why the President is pointing to New York as an example of how people will be doing better and paying less, of course they will!

So, now, along comes Obamacare.  It reduces the allowed percentage of profit by mandate.  It also mandates that those with existing health problems be covered.  It also mandates that certain things, such as birth control and abortion must be provided for free, though nothing is ever really free, the cost of providing it is still recovered through the premiums collected.  A bone is thrown to the industry through mandated commissions which will determine what other procedures, etc. will be paid for by the insurance companies with a mandate to reduce costs.  Those are Sarah Palin’s “death panels.”

Although this will be done through a progressive calculus concerning an individual's value to society, the costs under Obamacare will still be high and the insurance companies will still pass them on to customers through their premiums.  And it appears that the companies are still permitted to further maximize their profits, which are still a percentage of the premiums, through the use of smaller “pools” of policy holders based on carving up states into geographical regions or localities instead of using the entire state's population as a pool.  At least that is what it looked like when my wife and I went online to find out how much insurance would cost her if she purchased it through the exchange for our state.

For years those who had insurance benefited from the aforementioned practices and enjoyed relatively low insurance premiums, mostly through work.  Those practices deliberately excluded millions who needed help meeting their medical needs, and that was something which needed fixing.  Medicaid helped many of those people, but more was needed.  Obamacare purports to fix that problem and in doing so ends the free ride folks had over the years.  That, in part, is why the sticker shock.

A Note on Me and Politics

Because of an exchange that's taking place now between one of my Facebook friends and I over Margaret Thatcher...

I've dropped back from political commentary for several reasons, the most important being the tenants of the faith I pursue.  But when I do enter that fray my position is still the one I posted in my profile when I joined, right-leaning Libertarian.  That makes me pretty much the enemy of both the right and left as far as they are concerned.  However, because of my position I tend to support most of the positions of the right with the caveat that I don't like their relatively big government solutions any more than the left's.  Both grow government, just in different directions.

However, I am realistic about things, unlike many of my fellow libertarians.  Some government is necessary just to keep us from descending into national AND local chaos.  Some regulation is necessary, as history has shown, for our collective safety, both militarily and domestic.  Where I come down in the matter is on those solutions which both work, and invoke the least amount of governmental use of its coercive power, just as our founders envisioned when they wrote the Constitution and ratified it. They learned a hard lesson under the Articles of Confederation that libertarians, just like progressivism, doesn't work when taken too far.  Because of that experience they accepted that a certain amount of strength in the Federal government was necessary, though they did their best to structure that government in a way which constrained and limited that exercise of power.

The result was a country which was a "shining beacon" based on Judea/Christian principles which was a shining beacon to the rest of the world and the only country where God's Truth could arise and shine forth as well.  It was not a perfect country, no creation of man is, but it worked, and better than it does today for the most part.  The U.S. almost single-handedly raised the standard of living for people the world over through the inventiveness and industriousness of its citizenry, something historians are trying to erase knowledge of by incessantly harping on its flaws in books and college courses.  I, for one, am grateful for it.

Right now the great political struggle is between those who believe we, the people, wherever we live, own the government and those who hold to the age-old tyranny that the government owns us.  Because I'm not a statist I tend to favor those who pursue policies of smaller government with lower taxes for all, rich and poor alike, and the maximum of opportunity for all.  So I think well of politicians who honestly pursue both, like the tea-party politicians and the late Margaret Thatcher.  She came to power at a critical time in world history and was one of the trifecta, along with Reagan and Pope John Paul II, who were responsible for the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union.  At home her policies worked, for all the left both here and there try to deny it.  She restored some modicum of national pride when she repulsed a foreign invasion on national soil in the Falklands.

Was she perfect?  By no means, she was heavy-handed at times at home and some argue too heavy handed and I'm sure those who didn't like her can probably think of many more.  But you know what?  I don't think she was as evil as the left over there and here allege.  And I think it gauche that both are celebrating her death in the uncouth was they are right now.  I would ask the left over there to ponder what it says about them that they not only party in the streets, but wreak havoc with their destruction of property and looting as part of the celebrations?  Those "celebrations" of the death of a leader which belie the supposed noble motives and intentions of the movement they belong to don't speak well of them at all.

People are free to disagree with me on her, just don’t take offense if I choose to refute you.

That being expressed, my firm belief, once again, is that in this imperfect world the least government power invoked for safety and good order the better.  I have no problem with such things as government helping the unfortunate, like myself, even if it is constitutionally suspect, as long as we the People agree on it and it is done in as responsible a manner as possible.  But that might be a topic for another time.  George Washington is credited with the observation that government is the power of fire and a fearful master.  I would rather that power be limited as far as possible.

Since my faith basically calls for little or no involvement in politics; and I write about that here.  I am trying to limit my political posting and commentary to that which shows how the political world is heading to its inevitable conclusion towards destruction as decisions by political leaders only make the situation worse as they seek more and more power for themselves.  God is letting man stew in the juices of his own making to the point where mankind’s greed, and it’s not just capitalist greed, the other side is greedy as well, to the point where he must end it for the sake of the holy ones.

I reserve the right to enter the fray where a few subjects are concerned, such as our natural right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.  But they will be few.  I may also comment based on my own analysis as to the effect certain policies may be.  I’ve seldom been wrong when I have in the past because I try to be thorough with my research before I bang away at my keyboard.  But do note where I deem appropriate my faith will inform opinions expressed and the right-leaning libertarian view really flows out from that fact since I believe that only God, Christ and Christ’s Bride, should have the kind of power men currently seek over their fellows.  That will happen in Christ’s Kingdom and folks now can’t begin to envision the blessings that will bring, even in earthly terms.

 

A Word for Christian Authors

Hello my dear friends and readers!

Today I’m going to take to trying coming back from my hiatus due to my surgeries.  And I’m going to by following a line of thought which caught my eye today when I read an article online about telling stories from the Judeo-Christian point of view.  I’ll link the article at the end and you might well want to go ahead and look at it before continuing.  Now, don’t get me wrong with my werewolf story, I am a Christian and it was very shortly after I wrote that story that I came to realize that I needed to change the way I write, but how?   The author of the opinion piece in BreakPoint kind of nailed it and validated what I really want to do.

He mentions how people think that C.S. Lewis’ Narnia stories were meant to push the Christian message, they weren’t.  The stories simply flowed out of him from the viewpoint he held dear.  Yet, it is amazing, isn’t it, that he would use fantasy and an alternate world with witchcraft and magic involved to impress the wonderful Christian narrative of Christ’s sacrifice upon readers for generations.  And those stories are still well received and beloved by millions of people today.

The same could be said for J.K. Rawlings, whether she likes it or not.  Ms. Rawlings is a student of the classics, which means she was steeped in narratives which in some way or another celebrated the mainstream Christian theme.  So when she wrote what flowed out was a series of books in the fantasy genre which held Christian themes throughout however little she may admit it.  That’s one of the things I often pointed out to Christians and conservatives who liked to bash her books online for years.  The fact is they hold both Christian themes and conservative ones as well.

And therein lays the key for us.  Take C.S. Lewis; look at how he weaves the Judeo-Christian worldview through his story telling.  He doesn’t sermonize like many do.  He isn’t in your face with his Christianity, though his views were well known by the world of the time because of some of his other works, the Christian apologetics where he did sermonize.  He just tells a story which came into his fertile imagination and told said story well.

But how do we do this?  The first step should be obvious.  The best writers of all time all immerse themselves in their core worldviews and tell their stories from those views without the in-your-face sermonizing.  They let their hearts tell their stories and concentrate on telling those stories well.

And don’t worry too much about how you’ll market those stories.  The internet is a wonderful way to get around the usual gatekeepers, some of whom do have an agenda or a slightly warped idea of what people want.  One still has to invest some money and effort into the promotional side of marketing, but we’re already seeing unbelievable success stories from folks who couldn’t get past the traditional gatekeepers in publishing but are successful because once folks saw the quality of their stories they caught on.

Not Sermons But Stories 

Update

Hello my readers!

There’s good reason I haven’t been doing anything here.  Last week I was in the hospital on a telemetry floor, so I had no access to the net.  Since then I’ve been diagnosed with macular edema in the eye which was operated on two weeks ago, so I have to take it easy.  That means little in the way of writing since I don’t have my voice recognition software down yet.

I was also operated on the other eye to remove a cataract and replace the lens.  So I have to take it easy for that reason as well.  I’ll post more when I can.  My best to all!

The Writing Process

So how do we get our stories out and into type?  That is what the writing process is all about.  For those among my readers who want to give writing a shot let’s see if we can demystify the process somewhat.  The how isn’t really all that hard once you know it.

First let me give you a word about where it all begins, that’s through research.  If you don’t have something in what Hercules Poirot, of Agatha Christie’s detective stories, calls “those little grey cells” in your brain to begin with there is no way you’re going to have anything to write.  That requires some amount of research.  If writing nonfiction is the goal, then research is supremely paramount.  Find out everything you can about what you want to write about beforehand or you won’t be credible.

Fiction is a lot more forgiving in that regard with the mount of research varying from minimal (science fiction and fantasy) to a relatively greater importance (historical fiction).  That being said don’t skip on the amount of research appropriate to the genre you plan on writing in.  Those little details can trip you up pretty fast if you don’t watch it. 

One important point to the fiction writer is to get a copy of Dr. Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.  I can’t emphasize that enough.  Dr. Campbell was a cultural anthropologist who decided to take all the myths he could find and figure out what made them so appealing to people.  His book detailed the results and was used by no less a story teller than George Lucas, who attributed the success of his Star Wars series to a thorough knowledge of Dr. Campbell’s book.  A word to Christians, he lumps the Bible’s stories together with the rest as myths, but don’t let that put you off from reading a surprisingly worthwhile book.  What the book will do is give you an idea of how to frame a story that will sell; the presumed goal of the writer in the first place.

There are really two writing methods, each with it advantages and disadvantages.  Which one you choose will depend on the purpose of your writing and your personal preferences.  It really must feel right to you if you want to enjoy writing.  The first is the formal writing method.  This is the one taught in schools and colleges.  Since most writing in both are geared to nonfiction it is no surprise that it fits that genre best.

Formal writing follows a pathway.  One does one’s research, makes an outline of the piece to be written and then follows the outline as one writes.  Chief among the advantages is that it follows a plan, both in preparing for writing and the writing itself.  Following and outline saves some time on the back end as far as polishing the work goes and with an outline in hand one can shop one’s book, if one is writing that length of a work, before one is finished since what most agents and publishing houses want to see is the first chapter and an outline.

The chief disadvantage is a loss of spontaneity in one’s work since the writer is following an outline with little or no deviation.  That can lead to some rigidity in the work which is just fine with nonfiction writing, but can be a little problematic for fiction which tends to be more free-flowing.  That is not to say that one cannot turn out good fiction using that method; it is the method of choice for many good fiction writers.

The second method is to just sit down and let the writing flow out and onto the paper once you have your research done.  That is the method Myamoto Mushashi implied he wrote with in his Book of Five Rings which is still a classic hundreds of years later.  Musashi had plenty of years of experience at winning fights to draw on which stood in for his research.  Informal writing is the method used by a number of published and top selling authors I know of.

The method is simple, one does the research they need to do, let’s the story simmer awhile in their mind and then sits down and writes it.  One just let’s the heart tell the story and they may be surprised at what comes out.  But those who follow this method don’t judge the story’s content as the story flows out and onto paper or computer screen.  Judgment is for later, during the editing process.

Chief among its advantages is the spontaneity of the story and writing, which makes this style of writing a good one for fiction.  Its chief disadvantages are the lack of an outline, which means one has to wait until a later stage to make an outline, and more work on the back end during the editing stage.  And make no mistake; there will be plenty of editing no matter what style one uses to produce their initial work.

My wife and I were once acquaintances with an author whose works are still quite popular in England.  My wife used to clean both her home and her parents home and during that time we both learned quite a bit about fiction writing since we knew her while she was still writing.  One thing I learned was not to make the mistake many first time writers do of getting so attached to their work that they have a difficult time re-writing their work to fit it to the market demand.  Never forget that a first draft is just that, a first of what will likely be more than one re-writing, with changes often dictated by the publisher who agrees to publish it.

Your novel, or article or essay will likely go through more than one re-write before you see a dime.  First you have to re-write it yourself to smooth out any awkward moments or transitions in your work and polish up the grammar.  This will be the time that an author of a love story might remove some of the salaciousness to elevate the story or a romance writer might want to ramp the salaciousness up in a creative way.  For the nonfiction writer this will also be the time to verify one’s facts.  The Science fiction writer might want to make sure they haven’t played too fast and loose with the science end of the work and the fantasy writer might want to polish it up so that it isn’t too far out there to be believable.

If one hasn’t done it by this time it is a good idea to make the outline, which is something of a resume for the piece of work itself.  Once accepted for publication there will be more re-writes of the work.  Remember, the publishing house makes its living publishing works the public is likely to buy.  So as a rule they know what the public wants better than you since they deal in hard numbers.  Every job has its drudge factor and this is just the drudge work you have to do to get published, unless you’re self-publishing.

Even after that a professional editor hired by the house may well take your work in hand and make further changes.  Just keep in mind your publisher wants the final product to sell once it hits the bookstore shelves as well.  It’s just part of the process.

It goes without saying that if you are writing for your own blog or website you are the editor and publisher.  Your success or failure will depend on how well you do your work.  This post went through some editing before being posted as well.

The method you use really depends on what is the most comfortable fit for you.  As I mentioned earlier both methods are used by top-notch authors in many genres, so it’s really up to you which one to follow.  Just make sure you don’t scrimp on the important parts.  So go ahead and get busy writing and have some fun along the way.

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.