THE DEVIL'S HOUND

The man’s voice was like warm, sun-cooked gravel; there was an undeniable grit to it – earned over the years of a life hard lived, she imagined – and yet, underneath she still heard a careful, tentative layer of welcome. Another smile rounded the apples of her cheeks, and her shoulders lifted lightly to the response he gave with easy acceptance. Her life was a series of vague answers, after all; vague answers to obscure questions, neither with any true beginning or end, and very little direction in between.

He’d moved then from the counter, the motion pulling her mind back from its momentary, wayward wanderings, to the present once again. Had she been staring too long? She did that, sometimes without realizing how much time had passed – even among her sisters, Zoe never quite ever felt here nor there. Not really. She was always somewhere in between, floating like an apparition through the thin veil that separated what is, and that which connects it all in the beyond. It was something she’d gotten used to, that uncomfortable aversion she caused in others. Though, something about his retreat and the darting away of his dual-colored eyes that made her feel farther away than she normally did.

Zoe subdued the odd feeling that caused in the pit of her stomach, and she went ahead and approached the counter anyway as he busied himself with his work. His back turned, she watched the way he moved, the smooth siding of his shoulders as long arms reached to place the cigarettes up where they belonged, and listened as he traced the likely destinations surrounding them aloud, trying to be helpful. “It’s not really directions that I need, I’m not looking for a place on a map,” she admitted as his voice trailed, her fingers brushing mindlessly across a small display of keychains, making the cheap silver clink and rattle against one another, “I’m trying to find where I’m supposed to be.”

Her eyes fluttered upwards to his as he turned to face her, and again a smile settled gently against the curve of her lips. Zoe found ice in his gaze, saw mounds of deep white snow beneath the ghosted hues of his left eye, mangled with scar tissue whose fibers wove tales of a history violence and pain. Images of soft, blood spattered snowdrifts reflected as if from the broken edges of shattered glass. And as if an echo, plucked from the passing of quiet breeze, heard the footfalls of giant, padded feet against the landscape, the howling of a cold wind, and the low growing from behind a fortress of ivory fangs.

Ah, she thought, as those whose voices still whispered from the ancient bloodline coursing through her veins clarified for her the vision, a wolf. Zoe had only read of them in her covens Book of Shadows. Salem, over through the generations, had become a town protected by her circle; their influence and power, borne from the ashen bones of the first to be taken by the flames, served to create an impenetrable boundary against any who many threaten the sanctuary they’d created for their kind there. She’d been warned, before she left, to guard herself from the monsters – that she was still but a child, naïve and ill prepared for the task before her –  from those whose nature and bloodlust pulse stronger than thought or reason. But Zoe stood, knowing, and remained undeterred – he didn’t seem so bad.

“And so are you, it seems. For a long time now –  and yet, you’re still not where you belong either, are you?”

Glacial eyes followed him; he felt them, the way one feels cold air coming in from a busted window pane, or the way a shaft of sunlight warms the skin when everything else is cossetted in shadow. Wyatt lived in a world that made it hard to appreciate such sensations. The cold would have made him sick, and the sunlight would have blinded him in most instances. But her gaze (the piercing colour of her eyes aside) was somehow gentle, and only suggestive. As if she was seeing him through the frosted lenses of an apparatus. He didn’t feel judged which was a new sensation, one he rarely experienced. Like kindness. 

The werewolf had learned the hard way that kindness was often a carefully concealed dagger. He no longer trusted it, never accepted it, and had a tendency to meet it with aggression. A fault of his, he assumed, but he’d never known goodness without condition, without a heavy price. He preferred to be treated as though he was worthless or stupid, because at least that felt honest. At least it felt deserved. At the fight rings he visited, at the bars that had become his mainstays, within the grim community of near-do-wells that made the same circles as he did — he knew his place. He knew what he was, what he was capable of, and never let his mind leave that lane. It kept him alive, and kept him from getting hurt again.

Wyatt could remember the rusty gleam of his mother’s knife as it came toward his eye, and he could remember the savage beatings and endless torment he endured from the members of his very own pack. These images flashed in his mind as if on an old, malfunctioning projector. He could see them flickering, and knew that they happened, but he could not remember the pain. Without it, he felt hollow and numb. He preferred it that way.

After tucking away the last pack of American Spirits, he leaned back on the counter and focused on her mouth as she spoke. This woman had a way about her that was hypnotic. Her voice struck him like leaves dancing on a forest trail, or wind moving through the trees. The delicate music of a wind chime (the one that hung on the back porch of the half-way house he lived in for years. He’d sit and listen to that thing for hours, and it would whisper to him of coming storms). She didn’t belong in a place like this. First of all, the gas station was a front for a drug smuggling operation, and the likelihood of strung out types showing up with guns and a murderous tint to their eyes was all too real. Second of all, it was filthy, and she looked to Wyatt like a river-washed stone, clean and polished — the earth’s tesserae. 

His eyes shied away from hers, ducking down as if trying to keep her from seeing within, seeing his scarred, faded iris. “I can tell you with certainty, miss, you sure don’t belong here.” No one belonged here. This place was a prison, a trap. This place was a haven for spirits that had sunken low. He busied himself with lighting a cigarette, something to keep his hands busy, something to keep from looking in her eyes — but he did anyway, and he knew that she saw the frost in him, his soot coloured pelt slick with blood, his paws dug deep in a rift of snow. How did she know? Was he just being paranoid again? When she spoke, it felt as if her words dripped off of his frame like rain water, and he stifled a shiver. 

Wolfie didn’t want to play. Eva considered herself disappointed. ( Disappointment; that settled like the pin drop of silence that never rang. As more to say, not at all. )

Eva was a master at playing charades, you see, for centuries had left her whittled for nothing more. The charades carrying her form glided upon all that made her predator, and whittled it down to a mirage– -something they could see, something they could try to touch, something they could attempt even to understand. ( The foolish mortal was none the wiser, none the wiser. ) But she wore the dark cloaked around her like the embrace of death wrangled into submission, she culled her lips to drain such mortals of their humanity– -and she played charades to keep those at her bay at ease, for then the resting predator was but a pristine presentation to be in awe of ( – -not that vessel devoid of even death, built on shattered tendrils of those who had been & those devoured. )

His gaze questioned her like he was confused– -delusion setting thinly veiled on a wolf known to see her kind and know better. He didn’t smell of a pack, something haggard in the power of his shoulders and the way he carried himself like a one-man army. Most wolves came with the rough, frayed edges and unshaven tongues of the brash, but this one– -no, this one came with all that and held a silent gaze, a steadier tongue. If she was to be an oil painting, he was a portrait done and cut in charcoal: unforgiving in the bruises that penned him into this present, sharp in its cut with the dark, heavy settlement to ground him to this earth, this ground, this moment in time. How many self-proclaimed victories had him hiding away in dingy corners selling mundanes their sanity, Eva did not know– -did not care to.

“Oh?” She humored as he spoke of where the mountain top lay. A sharp gaze that played no pretend at being dulled noted the map he slipped into the bag, a surprisingly tame gesture for this blood-sworn enemy that seemed satisfied in standing his ground even as she waltzed upon his territory in assessment. ( She was being good, surely. He was not the entertainment she looked to amuse tonight. )

“Why, coven meetings to plot your pack’s demise.” Eva replied, words flat and lacking any lilt. She’d given up any pretense other than the unearthly stillness that took her form by nature, moving onto the charade of predator at rest, that she played better. Sharp gaze cutting to him, she cocked but a brow in lieu of breaking character for purposes of humor ( for there were no covens and no caves that they would entertain as so ), Eva continued. 

“But you strike me as a lone wolf.”

The games vampires played weren’t amusing to him, but he reckoned it was the weight of an immortal curse that kept them wrapped up in pretense and posturing. It was how they passed the time, twisting themselves in black ribbons of wordplay and manipulation. They were beautiful, it was impossible to deny, but he couldn’t help but imagine how cold and black their insides were. Like the sunless belly of a cave, glistening and empty. A many faceted stone that came alive in the fire’s light, but remained cold and hard to the touch. After nearly a century, Wyatt had encountered a handful of their kind, and each one was more self-important than the last. They delighted in putting on airs and wreaking a sophisticated havoc on the world around them. When their focus landed on him, it was always a brief affair. He would always stick his maw up in defiance, stand his ground, and refuse to be lured into shimmering webs like a fool. 

Fortunately, most vampires grew bored of his likes easily — firstly, he was a loner with no family, and no pack. There was nothing they could really take from him, nothing they could lord over him like spoils of war. Furthermore, he did not wear his pelt with pride. It was the skin he was born into, nothing more, nothing less. The ancient rivalry that he only knew instinctively only went as far as his gut would take him. Lastly, he had no personal worth that could be exploited for their amusement. He was poor, scarred and blind in one eye, unable to read and write, and his only talent was for violence, and perhaps betrayal.

His eyes of milk and ice flicked up to hers, and he nodded wryly. She knew where the mountain was, but he let her guide the conversation, because he wasn’t interested in squaring off with a vampire the last hour of his shift. He had a six pack to look forward to, and after earning a full pay check, he could afford to keep staying in the little apartment he was renting. Maybe even buy a mattress to sleep on, maybe even buy a TV at the pawn shop. Wyatt was used to sleeping in motels (when he had the cash) and train cars, sometimes even gutters cut low enough into the earth to keep out the wind. Now that he actually had a few coins to rub together, and a place to call his own, he had no real interest in jeopardizing that. His pride wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it.

“Well, godspeed, lady. They damn well deserve it,” he muttered, pushing the bag towards her, and across the cracked, laminate counter-top. He could hear the paper sack tearing on the busted surface, but really didn’t give a shit if she picked it up and dropped everything. It would be a small victory for him; Wyatt had few to mention. 

Moving aside curtly for the departing customer to go past, he watched him closely, eyes honing in on the inscrutable pulse at the base of his neck. The bell above the door tinkled again as he left, and perhaps if he had been hungrier, or the man less repulsive to his tastes he might have pursued out of nothing more than boredom. 

Octavian regarded the interior of the gas station in the same way one might look at a piece of gum stuck to the sole of their shoe, or a dead rat that the cat left on the doorstep. There was nothing about the establishment that appealed to him bar proximity, convenience and the fact that few other places were open at time when he could risk leaving the house without disintegrating into a pile of dust of gold and ivory within a pile of crumpled clothing far too impeccably chosen for an emergency cigarette run to a gas station.

Stepping over the unpacked box in the aisle with an expression of distaste, he made his way to the counter and cast a scrutinising look at the man he found there. Sitting on the counter, a can of swill in one hand, Octavian was far from impressed, though that judgement had more to do with the stink of werewolf that centuries of familiarity had made instantly recognisable. “Pack of Marlboro’s.” He snapped, words dragged down by the Italian accent he had retained over centuries slinking between terracotta roofs and cobbled streets worn smooth by centuries of footsteps he had borne witness to. 

He made a tsk of disproval as he cast his eyes over the stranger drinking on the job. “Rough night? Or bad habit?” The vampire questioned patronisingly with an amused smile on the corners of his mouth. 

The gas station was a dump, Wyatt was well aware. Fly traps hung from the water-stained drop-ceiling, and a film of dust and motor clung to every surface. The windows were smudged, the cash register wouldn’t open unless you pried the end of a plastic spoon in its guts, and the floors were coated in a sticky substance that the wolf didn’t have the patience to identify, or mop up. Because it was the only gas station for a long stretch of road, it managed to stay in business, and as long as he could help himself to the cheap beer while he was working the counter, he kept showing up for minimum wage. 

What the fuck else did he have going for him? The fight rings would only let him work twice a month, and that’s what really kept him afloat (meaning it helped pay his rent, and kept him in smokes), but he had nothing else to offer the world. He could hardly read, and couldn’t write. This was where creatures like him wound up, and he wasn’t about to turn his lip up at the breaks he got.

The vampire that walked in had rubbed him the wrong way almost immediately. He could see the disgust on his face as he moved through the narrow aisles, and Wyatt wondered if he’d ever known true squalor or hardship. Resentment bubbled up in his throat like tar. With his jaw tensed, he lifted his chin, and wordlessly turned to retrieve the cigarettes from the shelf. 

Wyatt could hold his own with anyone when it came to grit and brute strength. If every debate allowed for the use of his fists, sheer dogged determination would ensure he came out the winner. But when clever words and patronizing gazes raked over him, he reacted as tactfully as one might expect a stray, beaten dog to — suddenly, he was back in Manitoba, the crunch of snow beneath his paws, and the warble of harsh wind in his ears. He could feel the sting of bite marks in his hide, and smell the blood spattered on the white snow. 

Zoe stepped out from the rusted old pick up truck, and wished the kindhearted driver well on his way. He was concerned, of course, leaving an odd woman like her alone at a gas station so far from the city, with apparently no means of transportation, but she assured him she was precisely where she was meant to be. With sighing reluctance, he took her at her word and pulled out from under the canopy, returning to the road.   The night’s air was cool and clear, and it tricked down the length her spine like a pleasant rain - it was a confirmation: this was the place. She made her way into the small building, squinting for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the flickering florescent lights and the smell of aged mop water lingering from.. uh, somewhere. 

She felt from her periphery the gaze of another, and she turned to find them standing there behind the counter, the tangle of jewelry she wore about her neck and dangling from her ears chiming with the motion; small stones and wrapped metals, ragged lines of leather threaded with colorful beads and the skull of what may have once been a small bird. A smile, then; a curling line of crimson pulling happily across a a pale ivory canvas. “Greetings,” she said, politely - her voice warm like melted milk chocolate. 

“I’m trying to find my way. Can you help me?”

She smelled of sage, and petrichor — and her adornments made music when she moved; delicate, suggestive melodies like a broken music box. Timid, but somehow unapologetic. Wyatt stayed where he was, ignoring the gravitational pull that was tugging him toward the counter, toward the nameless sylph who’d waltzed inside and suddenly become an undeniable cynosure. It was Wyatt’s usual tactic to watch soundlessly, as if on the other side a fence, to gather intel, to feel out the situation and protect himself if the need arose. But when she was the only other soul in the place, and he was the cashier, his job depended on speaking up. 

“Hey,” he responded in kind, flicking the metal can of PBR he held in his hands. “Depends on where you’re goin’,” was his vague answer. 

Wyatt didn’t tend to care what people thought of him, or how he was perceived. That battle against himself had been won decades ago when he was just a young wolf, an outsider among those of his pack. It took a great deal of grit to survive what he had, including his mother’s insanity, but for that reason, he didn’t question himself anymore. He trusted his instincts, and relied on his lycanthropic nature to sort out the rest. When it came to women, he had an easy enough time, once they got past the eye — or the lack thereof — and if they couldn’t get past it, to hell with ‘em. 

But for the first time in countless years of living with one scarred, milky eye, he felt self-conscious. When this woman looked him, it was as if she were looking past guard walls that had taken a lifetime to construct. Her gaze was piercing, and rather than suffer it longer, he hopped down from the counter, and idly took to stocking the American Spirits. 

She had smelled the wolf miles away, insides curling in a primal cry that reached octaves high and wide in self-preservation. ( Her wounds ran more personal than the rivalry folklore played upon those of children of the moon, children of the night. She still remembered what it felt to breathe in a dying breath, still remembered what it felt to have claw tear flesh. ) But these were modern times, and they were modern myths tamed well in the versed ways of civility.

The door twinkled her arrival behind her, a chime breaking the silence around the stillness of the shop. Eva’s gaze passed over him as that of a passer-by would, before she was moving through the aisles with a practiced presence. She took to the shadows like light took to bending corners, but Eva was well traveled, well versed, in all the ways to look human. She didn’t play pretend for the wolf’s benefit as so much as that of the parts they played in this sketch of normality– -it was practice, if nothing more.

Rounding to the counter once she had gathered the things she needed, absolutely desired: a lighter, Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, a bar of chocolate– -mints, she tossed in at the counter. For a gag of laughs, or as a play to see who broke character first. ( Likely neither. ) Gaze rising as she waited for him to ring up the items, she made talk as civilians would. As strange civilians in stranger neighborhoods should. Turning to throw a glance out the windowed gates of the convenience store, her question was directed to him.

“Got any idea how long I gotta head north before I hit Alamagre?”

The sharp scent of rust, and the musty waft of brittle earth came with her as she crossed the threshold; strangled light from whining florescents painted a grim portrait of a creature chiseled from marble, preserved and statuesque, yet somehow languid and ethereal. A vampire. Had he been like his brother wolves, he might have snarled and raised his hackles, but he had more distaste for his own kind than any vampire. There was still that inborn aversion that caused his sinewy muscles to twitch, and his pale eyes to follow the narrow path she walked without deviation.  

Adrenaline tasted like honey.

It was weird seeing one of them in a place like this, among such ordinary things. Fly traps, Fix-a-Flat, toilet paper, and gummy bears — shitty audiobooks, half-priced sunglasses, and bargain DVDs. Even though the old shop saw its fair amount of traffic, all the surfaces were covered in a greasy film of dust and motor oil, as if no life had stirred among the artifacts in ages. Meanwhile, the woman with alabaster skin and painted lips gleamed like an oil painting, reflecting centuries of learned cunning, and a lethal beauty as sharp as a dagger’s edge. It was irritating to him. With a sigh, he shifted down from the counter as she approached. His boots knocked on the decrepit pine, and a stand of scratch-offs sang a warbling chorus of disapproval.

There was no greeting.

Instead, disbelieving eyes hung on hers as he tugged her strange array of purchases through the thin, red light of the scanner. This charade was fucking weird, and Wyatt wasn’t really one for show. When she spoke, he tongued the toothpick in his teeth, and pushed it to the side. “You can go north as long as you want, you won’t find Almagre,” he said drolly, reaching over and nabbing a roadmap from one of the lop-sided stands on the other side of the counter. He tossed in it the bag, as well. “It’s west of here.” He pushed the paper bag towards her, and gave her a long, appraising look.