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I guess that works as a working title. It's the start of a much longer story, not sure if it'll be a more or less "stand alone" short story or just integrate it with the first novel.
Wolvenhelm.
It was one of those peculiar words that came from someone who knew enough English to redo it from their native language into English so that people would say it right. This one was a bit more twisted than usual, but it did blend the Nordic roots well with getting Americans to say it right. The population of the town was about five hundred, with a few thousand more scattered around the county. Frank yawned. They'd been driving for two hours after getting off the highway to get here. His adopted father's job interview was with a small machine shop in town, which he'd claimed would be perfect—plenty of space for frank to run around, maybe even make friends that weren't gangsters. The town had a reputation for frequent wolf sightings though, which were rumored to be werewolves. The idea of werewolves both excited the young man and filled him with trepidation. A scent that barely penetrated the SUV's heater and vents prickled at the back of his mind.
Greg steered the SUV to the large steel sided buildings at the opposite end of town. A faded sign announced the fact that it was the “Old Wolf Machine Shop.” Noise could be heard behind a large overhead door, but when the family unloaded, they took the glass door that said “office” on the sign. He was hit in the nose by the scent of wolves. He'd hung out with a few other lycanthropes back in Pheonix, but it was nothing like this. A werewolf smelled much like a dog, a musky earth odor that the town stank of.
The inside of the office was still heated against late spring chill, and the decor strove to give an old west feel despite the LCD monitors and the hum of computers. Rather than cattle though, the pictures on the walls were of the machines in the shop, various intricate parts they had produced, and well drilling rigs. His examination of a tricone drill bit sitting on the table was interrupted by a man coming in through a door towards the back, preceded by the thump of his boots. It was only when he looked at him that he realized he was smelling another werewolf. Greg moved forward to introduce himself but stopped when he realized the two were staring at each other. Frank took a step back and the man shook himself before turning to Greg.
“Sorry, my name's Ludolf. You must be Greg.” He extended a hand for a handshake, which was accepted, but before he could throw himself into his automatic job pitch, Lowell had turned back to Frank, and again extended his hand. “You mentioned looking for an answer on the phone, perhaps you've found it.” He said over his shoulder. To Frank, he said, “Hi, my name's Ludolf, you can call me Lou, welcome to Wolvenhelm. It can be a bit odd for newcomers here, but we are the whole point of the place.” He smiled.
The secretary looked over, then back to her work. Frank looked up at Lou and said, “I don’t get it.”
“You will. Since you’re here for a few days, I’d suggest you come to the howl out at my place. We’ll be able to explain a lot more out there. Until then, you’ll have to excuse me, I need to see if Greg can handle this as well.” He turned and gestured Greg back towards the shop, and started explaining the company. “Plenty of places offer rework and manufacturing. We’re one of the closer shops to Brakken that offers both, but we’re far enough away that we don’t get swamped with all the emergency work from the oilfield. We’re close enough though that delivery is cheaper and faster than Casper or beyond.” After donning safety glasses, they went through the door into noise.
Most of the machines were running something, creating a background of noise that kept even a raised voice from carrying far. “What was all that about back there?” He gestured backwards.
“You do know the kid is a werewolf, right?” Lou asked? Greg nodded.
“Over half the population of Wolvenhelm is therian—werewolves and the like. Most of the rest, and a lot of the county, know that. The secret is kind of in plain sight, but causes surprisingly little trouble.” He gestured to the machines. “Moving here would be good for the lad, but I believe our current focus is me employing you as a business manager. We can discuss fur and tails later. If you please.” He crossed his arms and looked at the man until he put his eyes down and shifted his mental gears.
Greg was somewhat distracted during the rest of the interview, but the manager knew his job as well as the machinist next to him knew his. His wife and Frank were invited out briefly to see some of the machines, and Lou made sure they had the address to his house.
“Just about everyone goes to howls, even those that aren’t therian. We try to keep them small and spread them out otherwise the whole town would shut down once a month. It’s just an opportunity to blow off steam and have some fun. Helps keep us sane. You might pick up a bite to eat first though, not all the food is intended for a human palette.” He shook hands again, making sure to get Frank’s this time, and saw them off to sightsee for a few hours before the howl.
Mac came up the drive in his STI with his usual flair for speed. Behind him, Lou could see another source of dust on the dirt track that was going much slower. He could guess who it is. Greg's resume hadn't had much outside of Arizona and Texas, and all in the larger cities. While he wasn't far out of town, there was well over a mile of dirt road to traverse to get out here. He waved at Mac, who hefted a large cooler onto his shoulder and headed around back. Lou kept his eyes on the approaching SUV.
The trio pulled up at the end of one of the lines of cars lining the circular driveway, behind Mac's dust covered car. Sarah, his wife, gave it one of those long sideways looks like you might a venomous snake behind glass. As they worked their way past it and turned their attention to the house and the shadows in the porch, Lou got up from leaning against the door frame and started down to meet them. He considered how to do this meeting, and decided human would work best for now, they'd get a good does of fur later. The cheap jeans and t-shirt he'd had on at the shop had been replaced by clashing sweat pants and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. He'd already had to morph tonight, and was probably going to have to again, but the current outfit wasn't as outlandish as he normally wore.
Lou doubted the sightseeing was up to Frank's snuff—the few hours would have been more than enough to cover just about everything, especially at the young man's likely level of interest. He sulked slightly in his Phoenix Suns hoodie, looking like a wannabe gang-banger. He looked up as Lou approached.
“Enjoy the drive?” He asked. He had looked up the family, as any employer would do. Like his resume had said, Greg was mostly a city and suburb resident, for whom a dirt road was somewhat alien.
“That man—he was driving so fast. Isn't that dangerous?”
“Mac likes speed. He drives rally, and could take that road twice as fast as he was. As long as it's well cared for, a dirt road can take pretty high speeds, and the county works hard to keep them cared for.” Lou was looking at Frank again though. The boy had perked up.
Along with the canine musk of werewolves, there was something else that bugged his nose. Now, with the faint noise from behind the house—a techno track—poking his memory back to hanging out and dancing in Phoenix, the underlying scent was identified. Lou wouldn't have thought he'd know it personally, but it was similar enough to some other things that he probably knew what it was.
“Let's go inside and talk before we get out to having fun.” He waved his guests inside, and headed back to the house.
An outer wall with the fireplace was covered in fake stone, the other ones had carefully ripped strips of wood nailed up to make it look like it was a log cabin, despite the brick exterior. As they came in, Frank's eyes were drawn to a rack near the door, with several rifles and pistol belts on it. Two separate holders made for the purpose also held shocks—a claymore and a massive metal club. His step parents were paying more attention to the momentos of Lou's travels, most of the items being oriental in origin, including what appeared to be a massive, six foot long katana that the claymore lost the battle of size to. The furniture was a mix of well worn leather, reproduction split log structures, and at first two dogs, who converged on the group to sniff and get pet. The malamute and greyhound however were soon joined by other dogs coming in from the back. A long eared basset stood in the passage to the kitchen in the back and howled until shooed away, and half a dozen other dogs that mixed mostly huskies or malamutes or collies or cattle dogs came through briefly as they settled down to talk before heading back out. The music was louder through the kitchen, but unlike chattering lathes, didn't hinder casual conversation.
“So, as I told Greg, and as you other two have probably figured out, Wolvenhelm is mostly therian. In the late eighteen-seventies a Finn decided even his homeland up north of Europe was getting too crowded, and decided to move. He came here, fell in love with the mountains and valleys, and set up a werewolf utopia. Hypothetically. In some ways werewolves are worse than humans, but the town managed to work out, and slowly grew.
“Today, over half the town is therian, and at least a quarter of the rest know it. We keep things under control, and we have a bit of a tourist season during the summer with all the crazies coming out here to see a werewolf but almost get eaten by bears. Sometimes they even get lucky.” He smiled. Teasing the tourists was fun. “It's been decades since a human got eaten. Not much point with so many antelope around.” He grinned at the adult's surprised looks. “I'm joking. Werewolves who eat humans are put down pretty danged quick. Governments got secret agencies out the nose to deal with stuff like that.” He turned to Frank. “So how about you boy? What's your story?”
“Poor family, single mom. He—“ Greg was cut off by a look. The glance carried a shift in Lou's demeanor that Frank had never seen before. Greg had tried to do it many times, to Frank and others, but he lacked the prescient dominance needed to do it so quickly and easily. After Greg stopped he turned back to the teen.
“No one knew who dad was. Only reason mom kept me around was the bigger welfare check. I'd go hang out with the local gang while she was on the streets.” He'd been a real streetwise kid back then, and thought he could take on the world. “When I was twelve it was initiation time. I got caught jacking a car, and get sent to juvie hall. When I got out I was put with a foster family because my mom was in prison for prostitution. Bounced around a bit.” He shifted in the seat. A grown shiba inu came out of the kitchen, looked around, then came up and put his head on the boy's knee. Frank looked at the normal dog for a minute before continuing. The neutral expression on Lou's face didn't change, but Frank didn't dare stop from silent force of personality. “I kept running with the gang, and one night we ran into another one, they had dogs with them. I didn't know the difference between a wolf and a dog then, all I knew was it attacked us, tore us all up. While I was in the hospital I met one. He said he was sorry, but that I was a werewolf now. Said I shouldn't have been there, but they'd help me figure things out.
“They weren't a whole lot nicer than the gangs, but I was off the street. They'd meet at an old gym and box and stuff. I learned it was good to have an outlet and such. They insisted I go to mass with them too.” It was here that Lou interupted.
“Was there a priest involved with the pack?”
Frank blinked. “Pack” was a good word, better than “gang” or “group.” He liked it. “Yeah, there was. Was all dressed up old fashioned and the like.”
“I'll bet he had a crucifix with a wolf laying at the bottom of the cross.” Frank paused again at the statement. The old man had worn one from time to time. He nodded in reply.
This time Lou did a short monologue. “The Order of Luporum. Catholics, and other large organized religions have networks and other arrangements to work with therians. Never found much useful with Protestants, but they're split up for the most part and don't have the organization to make things happen. They always get mad when I refer them to the Catholics too.” He grinned. “Luporum are nice guys, but being from Europe, they have a different idea of how to keep control than I was taught.” He decided he had enough from the boy, and so turned to the adopted father. “Since you adopted him, I'd guess you came to some agreement that made everyone happy.”
That same look that drove the boy was now turned on the older man. He swallowed. “Father Corlin suggested we take the boy. He said we could offer what he could not. We didn't know at the time he was a werewolf, so the aggression was a big shock. We had fostered a couple of children before, much younger though. They responded well to a structured Christian household and I thought Frank would too. He had a tendancy to break things though.”
“I had a tendency to hit things. Not my fault they break now.” The boy interrupted. Lou chuckled, but gestured for silence from the boy and for Greg to continue.
“I found I couldn't physically discipline him—one time found me in the hospital. We slowly realized that we both needed each other. He needed us to show him the good side of life—kind parents, a whole family. We needed him to make us realize that we weren't going to be perfect parents and discipline only goes so far. Sarah was always trying to be kind, and things got even better when I started it too.” He looked down at his hands on his knees. He seemed kind of disappointed about something.
“Well,” Lou started, “I as you already know started in the Air Force. I got 'turned' while in Japan, and spent some time traveling while I was out.” He gestured at the various trinkets and decorations on the walls. It's too long to go into with a party waiting, but you'll hear it eventually. An important point,” He pointed at Frank, “There is a lot of lore related to therians, which very few Europeans or Americans know. You will be learning it eventually, but I want to explain one thing you already know a little bit about. We're half wolf, and thus half wild beast. The difference between the animal in you and the dog in your lap is hormones. Adrenaline, testosterone, et cetra. You have more, and thus tend to be aggressive and excitable beyond humans or normal animals.” Frank looked down at the Shiba. The big dog was in a favored position, sitting on the floor with his front feet and head on the boy's lap being pet.
“There are four ways to deal with this. You can meditate, but you spend so much time on it it's not worth it. You can beat it out of yourself, like your group was doing in the gym. You can also work it out—I get a lot of satisfaction at work. Third way is to chemically numb yourself—stoned werewolves don't fight, and probably half the serious stoners in the country are werewolves. Fourth way is to find a partner and have sex until you drop. These parties are to do all of the above—you'll mostly find dancing and fighting, sex is done quite discretely though finding a partner isn't always. Smoking a joint can be done almost anywhere any time, so most such come for the food and social life. Shall we go?” He stood, gesturing for them to follow him out the door and strode towards the kitchen.
Mild techno met them, though “mild” was relative for the conservative businessman. As they exited the sliding glass door onto the porch behind the house, the DJ chose to fade from a girl talking about wanting to party to the lively chords of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “Shotgun Boogie, much to Frank's disappointment. Two long tables were laden with edible and drinkable concoctions—at least most of them looked edible at first glance. More of the porch was taken up with dancing of various types, and surprisingly at least one chess game. Farther out the yard was taken up with yard games and fighting, and there were dogs everywhere. Apparently werewolves liked dogs. All sorts wandered around, playing and wrestling with each other and with the various people present. Near the fighting they really got into it, a master and his dog sometimes going two on two with another man and his dog.
He was also surprised that several people were “in their fur.” They were generally topless, with loose baggy clothes like sweats though most seemed to prefer a loincloth. One was actually wearing a kilt. The pack down in Phoenix was about ten wolves, but by nose alone he could tell there were over twice that. Both Lou's home and the party in general had that musky smell you get in a house that has a dog, but isn't cleaned quite as often as it should.
The movement of the adults out of the house drew him towards one of the tables, and once he was in the cloud of smell that surrounded it his mouth started to water. As their host had implied earlier in the day, not all of the food was for human taste. There was the usual array of casserole and cookies you'd expect at a potluck, but also what looked like sushi, raw ribs, even rabbits, quartered and gutted but with the fur still on. The smell of blood teased his animal side, and his stomach rumbled. He picked up what looked like a sushi roll, only to find it wasn't fish. He wasn't familiar with the red meat, but knew it wasn't beef.
Wolvenhelm.
It was one of those peculiar words that came from someone who knew enough English to redo it from their native language into English so that people would say it right. This one was a bit more twisted than usual, but it did blend the Nordic roots well with getting Americans to say it right. The population of the town was about five hundred, with a few thousand more scattered around the county. Frank yawned. They'd been driving for two hours after getting off the highway to get here. His adopted father's job interview was with a small machine shop in town, which he'd claimed would be perfect—plenty of space for frank to run around, maybe even make friends that weren't gangsters. The town had a reputation for frequent wolf sightings though, which were rumored to be werewolves. The idea of werewolves both excited the young man and filled him with trepidation. A scent that barely penetrated the SUV's heater and vents prickled at the back of his mind.
Greg steered the SUV to the large steel sided buildings at the opposite end of town. A faded sign announced the fact that it was the “Old Wolf Machine Shop.” Noise could be heard behind a large overhead door, but when the family unloaded, they took the glass door that said “office” on the sign. He was hit in the nose by the scent of wolves. He'd hung out with a few other lycanthropes back in Pheonix, but it was nothing like this. A werewolf smelled much like a dog, a musky earth odor that the town stank of.
The inside of the office was still heated against late spring chill, and the decor strove to give an old west feel despite the LCD monitors and the hum of computers. Rather than cattle though, the pictures on the walls were of the machines in the shop, various intricate parts they had produced, and well drilling rigs. His examination of a tricone drill bit sitting on the table was interrupted by a man coming in through a door towards the back, preceded by the thump of his boots. It was only when he looked at him that he realized he was smelling another werewolf. Greg moved forward to introduce himself but stopped when he realized the two were staring at each other. Frank took a step back and the man shook himself before turning to Greg.
“Sorry, my name's Ludolf. You must be Greg.” He extended a hand for a handshake, which was accepted, but before he could throw himself into his automatic job pitch, Lowell had turned back to Frank, and again extended his hand. “You mentioned looking for an answer on the phone, perhaps you've found it.” He said over his shoulder. To Frank, he said, “Hi, my name's Ludolf, you can call me Lou, welcome to Wolvenhelm. It can be a bit odd for newcomers here, but we are the whole point of the place.” He smiled.
The secretary looked over, then back to her work. Frank looked up at Lou and said, “I don’t get it.”
“You will. Since you’re here for a few days, I’d suggest you come to the howl out at my place. We’ll be able to explain a lot more out there. Until then, you’ll have to excuse me, I need to see if Greg can handle this as well.” He turned and gestured Greg back towards the shop, and started explaining the company. “Plenty of places offer rework and manufacturing. We’re one of the closer shops to Brakken that offers both, but we’re far enough away that we don’t get swamped with all the emergency work from the oilfield. We’re close enough though that delivery is cheaper and faster than Casper or beyond.” After donning safety glasses, they went through the door into noise.
Most of the machines were running something, creating a background of noise that kept even a raised voice from carrying far. “What was all that about back there?” He gestured backwards.
“You do know the kid is a werewolf, right?” Lou asked? Greg nodded.
“Over half the population of Wolvenhelm is therian—werewolves and the like. Most of the rest, and a lot of the county, know that. The secret is kind of in plain sight, but causes surprisingly little trouble.” He gestured to the machines. “Moving here would be good for the lad, but I believe our current focus is me employing you as a business manager. We can discuss fur and tails later. If you please.” He crossed his arms and looked at the man until he put his eyes down and shifted his mental gears.
Greg was somewhat distracted during the rest of the interview, but the manager knew his job as well as the machinist next to him knew his. His wife and Frank were invited out briefly to see some of the machines, and Lou made sure they had the address to his house.
“Just about everyone goes to howls, even those that aren’t therian. We try to keep them small and spread them out otherwise the whole town would shut down once a month. It’s just an opportunity to blow off steam and have some fun. Helps keep us sane. You might pick up a bite to eat first though, not all the food is intended for a human palette.” He shook hands again, making sure to get Frank’s this time, and saw them off to sightsee for a few hours before the howl.
Mac came up the drive in his STI with his usual flair for speed. Behind him, Lou could see another source of dust on the dirt track that was going much slower. He could guess who it is. Greg's resume hadn't had much outside of Arizona and Texas, and all in the larger cities. While he wasn't far out of town, there was well over a mile of dirt road to traverse to get out here. He waved at Mac, who hefted a large cooler onto his shoulder and headed around back. Lou kept his eyes on the approaching SUV.
The trio pulled up at the end of one of the lines of cars lining the circular driveway, behind Mac's dust covered car. Sarah, his wife, gave it one of those long sideways looks like you might a venomous snake behind glass. As they worked their way past it and turned their attention to the house and the shadows in the porch, Lou got up from leaning against the door frame and started down to meet them. He considered how to do this meeting, and decided human would work best for now, they'd get a good does of fur later. The cheap jeans and t-shirt he'd had on at the shop had been replaced by clashing sweat pants and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. He'd already had to morph tonight, and was probably going to have to again, but the current outfit wasn't as outlandish as he normally wore.
Lou doubted the sightseeing was up to Frank's snuff—the few hours would have been more than enough to cover just about everything, especially at the young man's likely level of interest. He sulked slightly in his Phoenix Suns hoodie, looking like a wannabe gang-banger. He looked up as Lou approached.
“Enjoy the drive?” He asked. He had looked up the family, as any employer would do. Like his resume had said, Greg was mostly a city and suburb resident, for whom a dirt road was somewhat alien.
“That man—he was driving so fast. Isn't that dangerous?”
“Mac likes speed. He drives rally, and could take that road twice as fast as he was. As long as it's well cared for, a dirt road can take pretty high speeds, and the county works hard to keep them cared for.” Lou was looking at Frank again though. The boy had perked up.
Along with the canine musk of werewolves, there was something else that bugged his nose. Now, with the faint noise from behind the house—a techno track—poking his memory back to hanging out and dancing in Phoenix, the underlying scent was identified. Lou wouldn't have thought he'd know it personally, but it was similar enough to some other things that he probably knew what it was.
“Let's go inside and talk before we get out to having fun.” He waved his guests inside, and headed back to the house.
An outer wall with the fireplace was covered in fake stone, the other ones had carefully ripped strips of wood nailed up to make it look like it was a log cabin, despite the brick exterior. As they came in, Frank's eyes were drawn to a rack near the door, with several rifles and pistol belts on it. Two separate holders made for the purpose also held shocks—a claymore and a massive metal club. His step parents were paying more attention to the momentos of Lou's travels, most of the items being oriental in origin, including what appeared to be a massive, six foot long katana that the claymore lost the battle of size to. The furniture was a mix of well worn leather, reproduction split log structures, and at first two dogs, who converged on the group to sniff and get pet. The malamute and greyhound however were soon joined by other dogs coming in from the back. A long eared basset stood in the passage to the kitchen in the back and howled until shooed away, and half a dozen other dogs that mixed mostly huskies or malamutes or collies or cattle dogs came through briefly as they settled down to talk before heading back out. The music was louder through the kitchen, but unlike chattering lathes, didn't hinder casual conversation.
“So, as I told Greg, and as you other two have probably figured out, Wolvenhelm is mostly therian. In the late eighteen-seventies a Finn decided even his homeland up north of Europe was getting too crowded, and decided to move. He came here, fell in love with the mountains and valleys, and set up a werewolf utopia. Hypothetically. In some ways werewolves are worse than humans, but the town managed to work out, and slowly grew.
“Today, over half the town is therian, and at least a quarter of the rest know it. We keep things under control, and we have a bit of a tourist season during the summer with all the crazies coming out here to see a werewolf but almost get eaten by bears. Sometimes they even get lucky.” He smiled. Teasing the tourists was fun. “It's been decades since a human got eaten. Not much point with so many antelope around.” He grinned at the adult's surprised looks. “I'm joking. Werewolves who eat humans are put down pretty danged quick. Governments got secret agencies out the nose to deal with stuff like that.” He turned to Frank. “So how about you boy? What's your story?”
“Poor family, single mom. He—“ Greg was cut off by a look. The glance carried a shift in Lou's demeanor that Frank had never seen before. Greg had tried to do it many times, to Frank and others, but he lacked the prescient dominance needed to do it so quickly and easily. After Greg stopped he turned back to the teen.
“No one knew who dad was. Only reason mom kept me around was the bigger welfare check. I'd go hang out with the local gang while she was on the streets.” He'd been a real streetwise kid back then, and thought he could take on the world. “When I was twelve it was initiation time. I got caught jacking a car, and get sent to juvie hall. When I got out I was put with a foster family because my mom was in prison for prostitution. Bounced around a bit.” He shifted in the seat. A grown shiba inu came out of the kitchen, looked around, then came up and put his head on the boy's knee. Frank looked at the normal dog for a minute before continuing. The neutral expression on Lou's face didn't change, but Frank didn't dare stop from silent force of personality. “I kept running with the gang, and one night we ran into another one, they had dogs with them. I didn't know the difference between a wolf and a dog then, all I knew was it attacked us, tore us all up. While I was in the hospital I met one. He said he was sorry, but that I was a werewolf now. Said I shouldn't have been there, but they'd help me figure things out.
“They weren't a whole lot nicer than the gangs, but I was off the street. They'd meet at an old gym and box and stuff. I learned it was good to have an outlet and such. They insisted I go to mass with them too.” It was here that Lou interupted.
“Was there a priest involved with the pack?”
Frank blinked. “Pack” was a good word, better than “gang” or “group.” He liked it. “Yeah, there was. Was all dressed up old fashioned and the like.”
“I'll bet he had a crucifix with a wolf laying at the bottom of the cross.” Frank paused again at the statement. The old man had worn one from time to time. He nodded in reply.
This time Lou did a short monologue. “The Order of Luporum. Catholics, and other large organized religions have networks and other arrangements to work with therians. Never found much useful with Protestants, but they're split up for the most part and don't have the organization to make things happen. They always get mad when I refer them to the Catholics too.” He grinned. “Luporum are nice guys, but being from Europe, they have a different idea of how to keep control than I was taught.” He decided he had enough from the boy, and so turned to the adopted father. “Since you adopted him, I'd guess you came to some agreement that made everyone happy.”
That same look that drove the boy was now turned on the older man. He swallowed. “Father Corlin suggested we take the boy. He said we could offer what he could not. We didn't know at the time he was a werewolf, so the aggression was a big shock. We had fostered a couple of children before, much younger though. They responded well to a structured Christian household and I thought Frank would too. He had a tendancy to break things though.”
“I had a tendency to hit things. Not my fault they break now.” The boy interrupted. Lou chuckled, but gestured for silence from the boy and for Greg to continue.
“I found I couldn't physically discipline him—one time found me in the hospital. We slowly realized that we both needed each other. He needed us to show him the good side of life—kind parents, a whole family. We needed him to make us realize that we weren't going to be perfect parents and discipline only goes so far. Sarah was always trying to be kind, and things got even better when I started it too.” He looked down at his hands on his knees. He seemed kind of disappointed about something.
“Well,” Lou started, “I as you already know started in the Air Force. I got 'turned' while in Japan, and spent some time traveling while I was out.” He gestured at the various trinkets and decorations on the walls. It's too long to go into with a party waiting, but you'll hear it eventually. An important point,” He pointed at Frank, “There is a lot of lore related to therians, which very few Europeans or Americans know. You will be learning it eventually, but I want to explain one thing you already know a little bit about. We're half wolf, and thus half wild beast. The difference between the animal in you and the dog in your lap is hormones. Adrenaline, testosterone, et cetra. You have more, and thus tend to be aggressive and excitable beyond humans or normal animals.” Frank looked down at the Shiba. The big dog was in a favored position, sitting on the floor with his front feet and head on the boy's lap being pet.
“There are four ways to deal with this. You can meditate, but you spend so much time on it it's not worth it. You can beat it out of yourself, like your group was doing in the gym. You can also work it out—I get a lot of satisfaction at work. Third way is to chemically numb yourself—stoned werewolves don't fight, and probably half the serious stoners in the country are werewolves. Fourth way is to find a partner and have sex until you drop. These parties are to do all of the above—you'll mostly find dancing and fighting, sex is done quite discretely though finding a partner isn't always. Smoking a joint can be done almost anywhere any time, so most such come for the food and social life. Shall we go?” He stood, gesturing for them to follow him out the door and strode towards the kitchen.
Mild techno met them, though “mild” was relative for the conservative businessman. As they exited the sliding glass door onto the porch behind the house, the DJ chose to fade from a girl talking about wanting to party to the lively chords of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “Shotgun Boogie, much to Frank's disappointment. Two long tables were laden with edible and drinkable concoctions—at least most of them looked edible at first glance. More of the porch was taken up with dancing of various types, and surprisingly at least one chess game. Farther out the yard was taken up with yard games and fighting, and there were dogs everywhere. Apparently werewolves liked dogs. All sorts wandered around, playing and wrestling with each other and with the various people present. Near the fighting they really got into it, a master and his dog sometimes going two on two with another man and his dog.
He was also surprised that several people were “in their fur.” They were generally topless, with loose baggy clothes like sweats though most seemed to prefer a loincloth. One was actually wearing a kilt. The pack down in Phoenix was about ten wolves, but by nose alone he could tell there were over twice that. Both Lou's home and the party in general had that musky smell you get in a house that has a dog, but isn't cleaned quite as often as it should.
The movement of the adults out of the house drew him towards one of the tables, and once he was in the cloud of smell that surrounded it his mouth started to water. As their host had implied earlier in the day, not all of the food was for human taste. There was the usual array of casserole and cookies you'd expect at a potluck, but also what looked like sushi, raw ribs, even rabbits, quartered and gutted but with the fur still on. The smell of blood teased his animal side, and his stomach rumbled. He picked up what looked like a sushi roll, only to find it wasn't fish. He wasn't familiar with the red meat, but knew it wasn't beef.
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 50 x 50px
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