Hunter Jones's intense blue eyes followed the werewolf's trail as it led from the suburbs and into the woods leading into the mountains. Hunter sighed, running his hand through his shaggy, light blond hair. This was the perfect place for a rogue. The town was not large but it was full of transients: college kids, vacationers, people who weren't going to be recognized, or missed. The ringing howls of the wolf had reached him nearly 10 miles away. Normally a wolf's howl traveled about 6 miles, but werewolves were larger, and resultantly louder. Plus, Hunter's hearing was rather better than most. The feral, viscous triumph he heard in the wolf's voice told him that the beast had found his prey.
Hunter hated rogues. He had no problem with werewolves, and was, in fact, trailing this one at the behest of the Philly pack leader. The rogue had marked all over their territory and killed a rancher and his family. It was not the thing most werewolves did, and it was why they live in packs. Any wolf that had violent tendencies was easily subdued by the other, more balanced pack members, and if not, the Alpha would simply take the wolf out before he could go rogue. Occasionally, though, they weren't fast enough. The Philly Alpha didn't know where this rogue had come from, but any werewolf that killed indiscriminately was instantly pegged for death, and bounty hunters were called in. Most didn't know why the rogues were different from the other werewolves, but Hunter had asked one rogue while he lay dying at Hunter's feet. The rogue had laughed and said it was because he was still human.
At first that made no sense. Most werewolves didn't think of themselves as human, but he supposed it was true there was a part of them that still was. Then the reality of it hit him, and Hunter felt like a fool as the rogue continued to explain. For most werewolves, the influence of their wolf was calming. Wolves had very simple emotions and motivations, and the often complicated ones of their human counter ids were usually met with confusion from the beast. Wolves didn't understand jealousy, hatred or shame. When met with these emotions, the wolf usually responded to its confusion with fear. This would force the human to buckle down on their own feelings in order to soothe their secondary psyche, giving werewolves a much calmer disposition as they learned to control themselves. The only exception was when the feelings of the human were shared by the wolf. Happiness and love were easy, and the wolf reveled in the strong emotions of the human. But fear and anger, these emotions always caused problems, which is why the Alpha became so important. When fight or flight kicked in, for a werewolf, flight was always the choice when humans were involved. If there was a supernatural creature, it would depend on the situation. Too many werewolves felt the need to stand their ground, no matter what, and it was the primary issue in packs, which the Alpha was always striving to control. But with rogues, most of them felt the fear trigger and went wild. These rogues could often be brought back into a pack, but many couldn't and now Hunter was beginning to understand why. If a human's emotions were too strong, too violent, the animal would often become so frightened it would simply retreat into the back of their conjoined psyche to escape its secondary self. This gave the human full control over the wolf's powers, but without any animal instincts, just the twisted, sociopathic desires of the human. It was a frightening concept, and Hunter thought he recognized it in the howl of this werewolf.
Hunter began to panic. He knew that if the werewolf was howling in manic joy, he was probably too late, but he ditched his bike anyhow and began to run in a bee line towards the sound. It took him nearly an hour before he came upon the whitewashed cabin in the woods, and the sun was high in the sky. A werewolf that attacked in broad daylight set his teeth on edge. Most attacked at night, when they had the advantage of better senses than their prey. If this wolf was more human, however, it made sense, since the wolf would be weaker in the daylight with the moon's influence dampened.
Hunter approached cautiously, his ears straining to hear any signs that the werewolf was still present. The only thing he heard was sobbing and someone praying in Spanish. It seemed that this wolf had left its victims alive. Hunter wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or bad. He bounded up the three steps to the porch with one leap and knocked gently on the door. When the door opened to reveal the face of a handsome older woman who stared at him with grief stricken eyes, he was thankful for his forethought in dealing with humans, and flashed the shiny silver star.
"I'm Deputy Jones, US Marshals. I've been tracking an escaped convict, and would like to ask you a few questions."
The woman nodded mutely, and he was thankful she understood English. His Spanish was rusty, as was his Mandarin and Arabic. He'd taken a lot of language classes, but the amount that stuck was limited to basic conversations. She led him inside and there was a young girl lying on the couch, the side tables, coffee table and sofa table surrounding it were filled with lit candles. It looked almost as if they had been performing some strange exorcism. He noticed both the women were still damp from a shower, wrapped in bathrobes, and their tan skin looked just a little too pink, like they'd gone overboard with the loofah. The floor was freshly scrubbed with a strong, lemon scented cleaner, but he could still make out the tangy taste of blood in the air. The werewolf had obviously been here, and shed blood, yet the two women were both whole and seemingly unharmed. The young woman on the couch suddenly stopped sobbing and he noticed her staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. He smiled tentatively and she scrambled to a sitting position. The older woman didn't seem to notice the young one's reaction and sat down in a chair she had pulled next to the couch, beginning to pray again. Watching the young woman tremble and stare at him with such anxiety, while the older woman was numbly staring into the candle flames, he deduced that they had obviously suffered some trauma. He'd seen people react with grief from the loss of a loved one with the reactions of the grandmother, but the granddaughter's reaction didn't fit grief. When he realized what it reminded him of he was nearly sick. The over scrubbed appearance, the uncontrollable sobbing, and the irrational fear of a strange man in her house: the werewolf had raped them. On top of the brutality of being raped in the first place, the triumphant howls he'd heard made him certain that he'd not done the act as a man.
Hunter clenched his fists tightly and lowered his gaze to the floor, taking deep even breaths, trying to calm his raging fury. He didn't want the women to know how angry he was, it might frighten them, but he could barely contain himself. He'd never seen a case like this, but he'd heard of it once. The girl involved had not simply been raped once, but again and again as the werewolf stalked her over the course of several weeks. She'd been committed to an insane asylum eventually because no one believed her ravings of the horrible monster who was abusing her, and they could never find evidence of an attacker. They had assumed her wounds were self inflicted and locked her away for her protection. It was in the early 20th century, and the only reason anyone even knew was because another inmate, who had been put into the ward for strange behavior, had escaped when the moon was full. She later told her pack of the horror the girl had described to her, but in the many years since, most werewolves thought it an urban legend.
When Hunter finally felt he could speak without bursting into an angry rant, he raised his gaze to look at the young girl again, not meeting her eyes directly, but observing her inadvertently, while staring beyond her shoulder. So much time spent with werewolves made him want to treat her like a young pack member, avoiding a challenging stare, not confronting her directly. When he approached her, he didn't walk straight to her, but instead moved sideways to stand at the back of the sofa. He could sense her relaxing, and as the fear of him drained away, it was replaced by something he didn't expect. Her voice trembled, still choked with her earlier sobs.
"You don't act like a cop. You know, don't you?"
Briefly he flicked his eyes to meet her hopeful gaze. Nodding his head, he found that the grandmother had stopped her chanting to listen to the conversation.
"You can protect us? It said it would come again..."
Now the prayers made more sense. They were trying to invoke protection, not exorcism. It was the other case all over again, the werewolf involved would certainly return. Hunter smiled gently at the girl, not trusting his voice yet and nodded again. If the wolf returned, it made his job easier. He would simply need to wait, and then take him down. Hunter noticed the grandmother glowering at him. He was surprised by her sudden anger.
"How can you protect us? It was a demon who came, no mortal man would stand a chance against such a creature."
Although he knew it wasn't the wisest thing to do, he met the grandmother's stare.
"Ma'am, I am no mortal man."
The grandmother dropped her gaze, shuddering with sudden apprehension. He knew he'd frightened her, but he needed their cooperation, and by the looks of the house, it belonged to the older woman, not the girl. Suddenly Hunter was nearly barreled over as the young girl crashed into him, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug, sobbing into his chest. Slowly, Hunter wrapped his arms around the girl and rubbed her back gently, murmuring soothing words and swearing again and again that he would protect them both. Finally her sobs broke into violent tremors and he lifted her in his arms, carrying her towards the bedroom he could see through an open door. When the girl saw where they were going, she began screaming and kicking in fear. He realized that the bastard must have raped them in the bedroom, and immediately turned around, whispering assurances and reminding her she was safe now. When she had calmed somewhat, he laid her down gently on the couch again, moving the coffee table so he could hold her hand. Finally she seemed to wear herself out and began to nod off to sleep.
Hunter turned to the grandmother, who watched him suspiciously from her chair. He still didn't know their names, and figured this was as good a time as any to ask. Taking out a digital voice recorder, he clicked play and introduced himself again.
"I'm Deputy Marshall Jones, Ma'am. I've tracked an escaped convict to this area, and I get the feeling he has been here. I can protect you and your granddaughter, but I need to know what happened. I know you haven't contacted the police, yet. If you want, I can submit my report to them for you."
