The hum of the giant amplifiers rings inside Izzy’s head as she feels herself being lifted from the ground, her body naked and cold. She feels hot breath and sharp claws and the particular smell of the blond werewolf as she nuzzles close. “Cane,” she whispers and is greeted with a short growl.
She wraps her arms around his body covered in his soft fur, thick and warm to the touch, his face long and his eyes sharp. He leaves the throngs of people and jumps, running the rest of the way back to her room. He grunts and points at the bathroom and leaves.
She staggers to the bathroom and pees and looks at herself in the mirror; she is covered in dirt and other fluids. She grabs at the counter and takes more Tylenol than she should before flushing and getting into the shower. It isn’t long before she hears the door open and a complaining Jacob is dragged into the room.
“What the fuck?” He beats at Cane’s chest as hard as he can, but the werewolf doesn’t feel it.
“Soon the gathering; get ready, you promised,” Cane says through sharp teeth and an inhuman voice box.
“Yeah, sure. Did you have to drag me away just then?” Jacob remembers the tingle in his body from the music. The woman he had been delighted to have press against him as they danced was the one who had pushed him to his knees. But it wasn’t the same woman who he had been inside; he can’t remember her at all. The bliss of uninhibited delight. He shivers as he remembers the guy who had tried to get inside him….
Then Jacob remembers the crash. The emotional burnout as the concert ended had left him lying among the bodies in the field as the stage was torn down and Psyche left.
Cane steps outside the ranch and watches as the main fire is lit for the ritual. He narrows his gaze and focuses; he can hear the witches and the fates chant and dance.
The fire crackles to life and looks around itself. The magic that brought it to life, binding it to the spell that had already started being woven even before his birth.
The fire dances to the music; Mars, looking worse for wear, raises his hands higher and pours more of his expanding faith into it.
Now, the weakest time of the year, the faith that is here empowers him, making him strong again, strong enough to live another year. His sore anus throbs, and he thinks of Grup, and for a moment the raging inferno looks like Grup… naked….
Mars focused on the burgeoning elemental, now 20 feet tall and radiating enough heat to be felt at the edge of the circle. “I, Mars, grant my blessing; may you protect this temple to my greatness throughout the year and into eternity,” he says and steps back to watch the process.
The fates step forward, and Clotho reaches down and grabs a thread from between her legs and walks slowly around the fire as the witches chant.
Lachesis walks behind her, counting the inches of length.
Atropos waits her turn as the thread twists 7 times around the fire; Lachesis tells her where, and she snips the thread.
Clotho ties the ends together, binding the elemental to the ground.
A deep sound felt in the bones is heard, felt, and experienced. A calling, a summons, and the gathering has begun.
Cane steps back inside. “Get… dressed… we go… soon…” he growls.
Izzy, now cleaned up, gets dressed, and Jacob jumps in the shower and soon gets dressed as well.
“Cane, what happened at the concert?” Izzy asks, but what she gets in response is the glare of a monster, one that hungers for her, hungers in every way.
“We go… it’s time…” Cane growls and grabs a half-dressed Jacob and Izzy; he opens the door with his teeth and runs into the night, leaving the door open.
“PUT ME DOWN!” Izzy tries to scream as they are hurtling across the parking lot, the sound of paws slamming on pavement and the feeling of weightlessness between strides.
Jacob dangles from one arm, his pants only half on and no shoes to speak of. Ahead of him, he can see the roaring bonfire now looking normal and large. There is a throng of people around the edge of the event just inside the ring of caravans.
Cane kicks off of the ground and flies over the heads of people and the caravan and lands on the inside of the ring. He sets them down carefully on the outside of the glowing thread. A thread only Izzy and Cane can see.
“Stay back! Stay safe…. I….” He nuzzles against Izzy’s face, then Jacob watches in horror as Cane is slammed sideways, knocked off his feet, and slid 10 feet around the circle. A jet-black wolf’s teeth digging into him.
Cane yelps in surprise and flips himself back onto his feet; he stabs out at the eyes of his brother. The black wolf is bigger than him by a foot and heavier; the wolf’s claws shine with the color of blood, Cane blood.
The black wolf is grabbed away from him by the scruff of his neck and thrown towards the fire, and a dyed rainbow wolf attacks Cane from behind; he can feel the teeth sink into him. He reaches over his back and bites down on the unknown wolf’s ear, leaving holes that will become a permanent scar.
The rainbow one yelps and slips off his back and over the border of fate. They fall and collapse on the ground, the crowd giving them space; they revert back into a rainbow-haired woman covered in bite marks and blood, not all of it her own.
Cane eyes her with contempt and looks around the arena. The fire is hot, and the battle is underway. He runs towards the nearest wolf, another unknown generic wolf like many before him. The werewolf community is large enough that he doesn’t know each one personally. But now he knows the flavor of this one’s blood.
He yanks his jaw sideways and hears a tearing of flesh; he throws the contender out of the ring.
He breathes deeply and turns to watch his black-haired brother on his back kick an opponent up and out of the ring, landing on a caravan. The crowd is going wild. A group of paramedics rushing to the injured man.
He gets up and glares at Cane for a moment before rushing around the other side of the fire.
Cane feels so alone in the middle of the gathering. He howls at the moon high above, tinged red by the firelight.
He hears movement behind him and jumps sideways, getting too close to the fire, his hair sizzling, but his second cousins twice removed are an odd pair, each with half black and half white on opposite sides. The twin littermates had attacked him. He jumps back and bites the leg of the closest brother. He hears a crunch and lets go; even in a blood-fueled rage, he knows this is a contest, not to the death, but for supremacy.
The uninjured twin takes a swipe at his side, opening him up. He looks back at the wound and snaps at the attacker. His vision is going blurry as the pain overwhelms him. The wounds start to close up quickly, scabbing over almost immediately.
Cane misses, and his teeth slam together loudly. He kicks out and jumps away from the situation only to slam into the side of his brother, who claws out at him, scratching his face. Cane howls and jumps the other direction and finds himself in a clear space as more and more Werewolves jump into the ring, each one fighting everyone else—no teams, no allies, each wolf for their own.
Bleeding, battered, and soon alone, hundreds of werewolves defeated, thrown out of the ring, he stands covered in ichor, proud and bleeding. He scans the ring when he hears the sound he has been dreading.
A double slam followed by softer front paws landing—a sound he knows from birth.
his mother…
Cane whirls around and faces his greatest challenge: the reason why he isn’t the leader of the werewolves. She is massive—10 feet and 700 pounds—the biggest, meanest werewolf in North America. Tired and foggy from the abuse of the combat, he launches himself at her. She swats him out of the air, sending him tumbling. He watches as she leaps at him.
The black wolf jumps through the fire, his fur burning as he lands on her side, catching her on fire as his teeth sink into her side. He bites rapid-fire and climbs onto her back, attacking.
Cane, seeing an opportunity, goes at his mother, his own teeth sinking into her shoulder; he scratches and claws. The legendary viciousness of the monster inside of him is thrilled; it is filled with a hunger to cause pain. Cane is filled with hunger; he tears and rends.
The Leader roars and slams herself onto the ground, crushing the cane between her and the hard ground. There is the sound of breaking ribs on both sides as well as the sound of tearing as the black wolf tears hunks out of the back of her neck. She rolls over, and as the black wolf tries to scurry away, he gets slapped hard and sent towards the fire, his black fur catching fire again.
The leader’s blood drips to the ground, where it flows towards the fire. Each drop making it grow hotter and bigger. All of the blood on the ground is flowing towards the fire.
Cane howls in pain and runs away limping and whimpering. He sees his brother rolling on the ground far in the distance. Their mother gets back on her back paws and looks around to howl at the moon. Outside the ring, all of the now humanoid werewolves tip their heads back and howl. Cane weakening rushes toward his brother.
The black wolf can only see out of one eye; he is trying to brush the blood out of it, but the fur on his arms is charred and soaked. He never sees his brother slamming into him, grabbing him by the neck, and throwing him out of the ring to slam into the crowd, knocking 3 guests over.
Cane’s weakened vision blurs as he looks at his mother bleeding and weakening and falling over. She grabs him delicately by the scruff and sets him outside the ring. The challenge is over.
She looks at her son lying bleeding just outside the thread. She is proud this year he will be her general to be called upon in times of war. She had always wondered who would be the next leader, he or his brother.
She feels the magic circle compelling her out of the ring and steps outside, her body turning into a naked, bruised, and bleeding human form. She stays strong, standing as the blood stops flowing.
The witches standing on their caravans begin the final part of the ceremony.
Izzy’s jaw still hanging down, she looks for Cane in the throng. She knows where he had been thrown but is struggling with Jacob in hand to reach it. “What the fuck was that?” Izzy asks, and Jacob shrugs in response.
They manage to get there, and Cane is lying on a blanket, his wounds deep and his bones broken. “Izzy Jacob, thank you for being there,” he whispers and passes out.
