Friday 6 January 2012

Free Stuff #19 - Endangered (Chapter 2)


"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of our good friend Campbell. He was a great man, a loving father and a disciplined but considerate alpha"

Needless to say, that sentence caught me off guard. I had assumed that not only was the reverend human but everyone else bar the pack was. But upon taking a second look at him, I realised he was one of Campbell's former deltas.

A delta, as Jenna had explained a few weeks before, was the member of the pack who dealt out punishment the alpha or beta could not. The betas were considered to be the final measure. From what I heard, they were ruthless in trying to catch offenders who ran and when they caught them, the consequences were fatal.

How a delta werewolf ever got to be a religious man was beyond me. He must have had squatter's rights in the confession box. Either that or he considered himself pure in the eyes of the lord. Whichever option was true, the man was a force to be reckoned with.

It was only by pure chance that we were able to save Doug when we did from being attacked by a delta after his banishment from Campbell's pack. As soon as she had claimed him, Jenna rang him and told him in no certain terms that Doug was one of her wolves.

But enough about the past, it was time to focus on the present.

Looking around, I noticed a few wereleopards around, including Larry and his best friend Karlos. The alpha of the leopards was a few seats to the left of them and seemed to be deeply lost in his own reverie.
I know it seems heartless to say, but at that moment, I felt very little grief. Maybe it was the shock of the situation and I needed more time but in a strange way, it was like I had moved through the five stages of grief in less time than it took to wait for cress to grow. I also felt guilty for not feeling more upset, especially since my own father had been the one to fire the bullet.

I did feel grief for my dad, because he died from an attack by Campbell. But it was overshadowed by the rage I felt from his ignorance and intolerance of werewolves. That and the fact that I was in love with one and the fact I was now one to boot. But his death had taught me a valuable lesson, there's a fine line between love and hate. It was just a pity that my dad chose to hate me. And because of his choices, I had chosen to hate him. And I would let my feelings be known to his grave soon enough.

But for the moment, it was time to grieve for Campbell.

Eventually, the first part of the service was over. Doug and a few other werewolves had left without me noticing and a second later, they walked in carrying a mahogany coffin with golden fasteners. A few minutes of slow walking later, they lay the coffin on the centrepiece by the lectern that had a grate on top of it.

The coffin bearers returned to their seats. When Doug sat down, his eyes were glistening with uncried tears. A few had leaked out and were drying on his face. His messy golden brown hair looked more dishevelled than usual but I didn't care. The last thing he needed right now was for me to lecture him about personal hygiene.

That, and the fact I would be a hypocrite. Because my hair looked like someone had run a lawnmower over it and left most of it behind.

When our eyes met, he couldn't hold the tears back anymore. I held him close and stroked his back until he was done. When he stopped, I gently moved his face with my hands so it was facing mine.

"Thank you" he said quietly.

"No need to thank me, it's what I'm here for" I said graciously.

He smiled and kissed me gently. I returned the favour and after a second, I got him back in a sitting position. When I let go, he smiled and continued to watch the service in silence. Turning around, I noticed several people had laid items of great importance or emotional significance on the part of the centrepiece that was not occupied by the coffin or the grate.

Just as I breathed a sigh of no real importance, the church doors burst open and slammed shut. Within mere seconds, the temperature in the room felt as though it had dropped at least thirty degrees and everyone huddled themselves close to each other to keep warm. I held my thin coat to my chest to regain my composure but before I could regain my warmth completely, a low growling noise caught my attention.

At first I thought it was the sound of the heater kicking in but when I turned to face the direction where it was coming from, I noticed that it was coming from Jenna. She had got to her feet, her teeth were bared and she was definitely on the cusp of transforming into her werewolf form.

"Jenna, what's wrong?" I asked her.

As could be expected, she didn't answer. But Kari, one of Jenna's pack, pointed in the direction of the door.

I turned around, and saw the target of her rage.

A six foot tall man, with shining black hair and crimson eyes had walked into the room. He was built like a brick shithouse and his cheeks bore scars that looked as though they had been gained after being ripped apart by a pair of rusty nail scissors. He walked up to the coffin and bowed before it. He then strode back out of the church, opening and closing the door in the same way he had entered.

Jenna stopped growling and returned to her seat.

Stephen had been sat on Jenna's other side but now he was stood in front of her making sure she was alright. He too had been tense, but not growling. He didn't need sound to explain how he felt. His aura had been enough. It had been so full of unfiltered ire that if it were visible, the whole room would be obscured by its luminescence.

I decided to find out what the problem had been. Maybe not that wise in hindsight but at least I would know why everyone had treated the stranger as a threat. I turned my attention to Stephen because he seemed to be more likely to answer. Not that he would, but it was worth a try.

"Who was that?" I asked him slowly.

The werewolf turned from his alpha and looked at me with a face that definitely screamed danger.
"His name is Lucas Bane; he's the werewolf who killed my mother"

My face drained. At least I felt like it did.

"He killed your mother?" I repeated.

Stephen growled in response. I know he wasn't aiming it at me directly but he must have felt like he didn't want to explain. So warning me away was the only way to get me to stop. I tilted my head slightly in respect for his sorrow then pulled back to sit in the pew next to Doug. He looked just as shaken as I was.

"Did you know him?" I asked.

For a second, it looked like Doug was going to blank me. But he nodded his head slowly after a few seconds then returned to his mode of silence.

The rest of the service continued in much the same way as any other funeral I had ever attended or seen on TV. Admittedly I had seen more of the latter than the former but it did bring me to expect certain things.
After closing the book on the lectern, the reverend cleared his throat.

"You may now pay your last respects" he said as calmly as he could.

Slowly but surely, the packs stood up and formed into a queue. Being a member of neither pack, I stood right at the end of the line. I wasn't sure about my motives for doing this, either I felt it was a mark of respect to let them go first or just because I still felt a pang of doubt and guilt about his death being caused by my father.

But whatever the reason, I did anyway.

Shadow stood behind me a second later and licked my ear gently to ease my uncertainty. I returned the favour and afterward, we turned to face the coffin. It took a very long time for the queue to go down, several people broke down into sobs, some transformed and howled in anger, others simply cried silent tears and some, did nothing at all.

An hour later, it was my turn to stand before the dead alpha. I walked slowly like a puppet on a string and eventually, I reached the carved container. I bent down on one knee and bowed my head in respect. In that moment, the grief hit me. I had been naïve to think it wasn't coming and now I felt it. Not just for me, but for my father as well.

"I'm so sorry Campbell"

After the words left my mouth, I got to my feet. Then, I ran out of the church. After forcing my way through the crowd and the vestry, I finally made out into the graveyard.

"Why did I have to do it?" I screamed and pounded my hands onto the stone fence by an open field. I could feel the stone crumbling but I was not in a state to care.

Before anything else could happen, I heard someone come up behind me. However it was placed their hand on my shoulder. But that proved to be a big mistake.

"Get off me!" I roared and threw my fist at the stranger.

As soon as my fist collided, I knew I had made a huge mistake, all my anger left me and shock and sorrow quickly surfaced again.

I had hit Doug.

"Oh my god" I gasped.

For a second, he was stunned. Then, he turned nasty. His eyes glowed with rage and he punched me back. The pain was gone almost instantly, but my anger was back.

"I said I was sorry!" I snarled.

The next thing Doug said shocked me to the core. There was no emotion, except for pure hatred and contempt.

"Not good enough!"

He punched me again. And again. And once more. Thankfully, I dodged the fourth attempt and delivered a blow to his chin. He slammed against the bark of an old oak and slumped slightly. But a second later, he was charging back in my direction.

"What part of sorry don't you understand?" I bellowed.

My voices didn't even reach his ears. His wolf had taken over almost completely, feeding on his anger and making him almost immune to reasoning. This would work in my favour, because the wolf lacked reasoned judgement, which I had.

I leapt into the air and landed a few metres of another tree by the fence I had almost destroyed. He roared and raised his fist ready to strike, but something happened.

Something none of us expected.

A bright flash of light appeared in the middle of the path. Then, before either of us could move, an ethereal image of a man walked through the light and over to Doug.

The presence placed a hand on my boyfriend's shoulder. For a second, Doug looked like he might rip off the man's genitalia but upon seeing him, the human side of him broke through and his mouth fell open in shock.

The spirit turned to face me and smiled. I didn't speak for a short time, and when I did, it croaked worse than I when last had a cold.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The image laughed, and the laugh was familiar. An idea came into my mind, but it couldn't be him, it just couldn't.

"But, you're dead?" I said with a half tone of disbelief.

"Turns out you can't keep an old wolf down" said the familiar voice.

After he had spoken, the vision smiled, and it was definitely a smile I had seen before. And thanks to both the answer to my question and the familiar mannerisms, my suspicion was confirmed. To my disbelief, my horror and to some extent, my intense gratitude.

The translucent man was a ghost. And it was none other than Campbell.

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