A Supernatural Race War

The name is Richard Saint-Preux. A six-foot-three, broad-shouldered and muscular, ruggedly good-looking young Black man living in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. And I am a lycanthrope. What you people call werewolves. I am a member of the Sanctus Erebus Clan. One of the largest and most numerous Clans among our kind. We're made up of families who are philosophically and biologically related to one another. We're African-American, Haitian, Jamaican and Puerto Rican for the most part. And we're on the verge of war with the Crimson Pelts, a pack of Irish and Italian werewolves. Unless someone puts an end to the conflict, the city of Boston will become the site of yet another bloodbath.

By day, I attend Emerald Isle College, one of the oldest schools in the Boston area. Twenty one thousand students. The student body profile is fifty four percent Caucasian, thirty six percent African-American and twenty percent Hispanic or Asian. It's a private institution offering associates and bachelor's degrees in more than sixty fields. At first glance, the Emerald Isle College campus seems like a dream come true. It's a surprisingly affordable private school, at least when compared to the likes of neighboring institutions like Boston College and Northeastern University.

While academia is what we're known for, we're also considered quite the athletic powerhouse, sponsoring intercollegiate teams in Men's baseball, basketball, cross country, rugby, gymnastics, fencing, soccer, volleyball, swimming, football, rifle, track & field, wrestling, golf, tennis, water polo and ice hockey along with Women's softball, basketball, cross country, volleyball, soccer, fencing, swimming, rugby, gymnastics, wrestling, track & field, tennis, golf, water polo and equestrian. We compete in the NCAA Division Two. Also of note is the fact that our school has a slight gender imbalance. Fifty eight percent of the student body is male. This makes us quite unusual, especially at a time when male students are the minorities on college and university campuses across the United States of America.

I like my school, as you probably can tell. I am proud to represent them on the gridiron as the quarterback of the Emerald Isle College football team. My only problem with the school? It's not just a diverse and affordable private school. It's also a stronghold of the Crimson Pelts. Just like the city of Boston used to be. They've ruled this town for centuries and they don't deal with change too well. The Sanctus Erebus Clan is here to stay and the Crimson Pelts simply won't stand for it. Like many of the Clan's young men and women, I attend Emerald Isle College. The Crimson Pelts see us as encroaching into their territory. For now, they've got the numbers and numbers aren't everything. Centuries of living among humans has made the Crimson Pelts complacent. They're not exactly the top warriors among our people. Rather, they're a Clan of politicians, businessmen, entertainers and bureaucrats. We're warriors first and foremost. That's why we have survived thus far.

I mean, even though my Clan is technically the one with fewer numbers, we dominate our rivals at most endeavors. Men and women from my Clan are leading executives on State Street. We also put our people in the State House of Representatives and in the Massachusetts State Senate. The Clan takes care of its own. We're up against a formidable enemy. One with great resources. They control the circles of power in the city of Boston. They own the sports franchises, the hotels, the big businesses and virtually everything else. They're a rather clever bunch. Many of our people are police officers, corrections officers and soldiers in the state of Massachusetts but we have seen the need of diversifying our forces in order to triumph in the conflict that is to come. Simply put, we can't all be soldiers. We're sending our sharpest men and women to the city's law and business schools because we desperately need more of them. The Crimson Pelts watch us, and we watch them.

And the humans amongst whom we live have no idea about us. There is a reason for that. The ancestors of the lycanthrope species have long seen the wisdom of hiding in plain sight. The humans have many myths and legends about us. They think lycanthropes are men and women who turn into wolves or wolf-like monstrosities under the light of the moon. The truth of the matter is that we're not human. We were never human. We're another species altogether. We look exactly like humans, but that's just an example of parallel evolution, nothing more. The average full-grown lycanthrope male is seven times stronger and four times faster than the average adult human male. And the female lycanthrope is even stronger and faster than her male counterpart. The core of the species rests within the female after all, thus making her the deadliest of the bunch.

When we get really worked up, our eyes occasionally turn yellow, and our teeth turn into fangs. Our fingernails turn into seven to ten-inch claws. Claws which can slice through steel if we wish them to. That's it. The extent of the physiological transformations we're capable of. We cannot turn into the hairy beasts that amateur horror filmmakers with no lives dream about. Seriously. I can't think of anyone in my Clan or any other who can assume the form of a lupine animal. We're not connected with natural wolves in any way. Humans call us werewolves because they're ignorant. We've allowed them to believe their own lies because it suits us fine. Works great for our cover. We've stuck by the name lycanthrope because we find it less offensive than the term wolf-man. What we call ourselves is unpronounceable in human tongues so I don't even bother sharing it with you.

Yeah, the life of a lycanthrope isn't easy, folks. I'm really worried that my Clan is going to war. There are tens of thousands of us in Massachusetts. Perhaps thirty thousand. The Crimson Pelts outnumber us at least three to one. I really don't want to go to war. The last full-scale war the Sanctus Erebus Clan fought took place before my time. It was fought in North America during the 1960s. Unbeknownst to the humans, the lycanthrope world was divided over questions of race and ethnicity just like the ordinary humans were. Lycanthrope Clans from South America, Mexico, Africa and the Caribbean made their way to the United States of America and fought against those who opposed them. Who were their enemies? Mainly the lycanthropes descended of Clans from Ireland, Italy and Greece. The ruling Clans of North America. We took them on and won, even though hundreds of thousands of us died in a conflict humanity will probably never know anything about. It's not just in the human world that racism exists. Whites and Blacks along with Latinos and Asians in the superhuman community don't magically get along either.

Now it seems we're about to have another war on our hands. The leaders of the Sanctus Erebus Clan are supermen and superwomen of much greater wisdom and power than myself. We cannot take the city of Boston from the Crimson Pelts by ourselves. Word on the grapevine is that we're on the verge of forging an alliance with a powerful Clan from Mexico. If the alliance succeeded, they'd be sending thousands upon thousands of their warriors to join our Clan's effort against the Crimson Pelts. Should we win, the Age of the Crimson Pelts would be over. That's why they don't like us. We make them nervous because our numbers are growing and we're getting into the places of power in business, education, science, politics and the law. And they cannot allow it. We're not just sundered cousins and out-of-town screw-ups to them anymore. Now we're competition. As they become minorities in the world they once ruled, all that will be left is us.

My Clan is about to step into the crucible. War is coming. Werewolf style. As we wrest power from their hands, the Crimson Pelts and the human men and women they champion because of shared ethnic heritage ( those humans who look like them on the surface ) will ally themselves against us and the humans whom we chose to champion, the so-called racial and ethnic minorities of America. They who will one day become the dominant majority in this country. Colonists are always outnumbered by those they colonized in the end. It eventually happens everywhere. Look at Africa, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Just call it Mother Nature's cruelest joke. All of a sudden, I don't feel anxious anymore. I feel a fierce joy. War is coming. I accept it. It's in my blood. Enemies of the Clan must be destroyed. It's that simple. Excuse me, folks. I've got some time to kill and genetic enemies to slay. Who's going to win in this supernatural race war? Place your bets. Just don't bet against us.