The God Of Werewolves

Dawn rose, and as usual, Aton rose with it. After thousands of years he had the gist of his unusual existence. He looked around, unsure where he was for a moment. Slowly, painfully, he remembered. He was in a vast field, not far from the Moody Drive area of Kanata, Ontario. Nothing but farms in the area, though they were slowly being replaced by high-priced houses. The capital region of Canada was expanding as a result of immigration and other factors, and no place remained untouched. The only constant is change, so the saying goes. Aton found his belongings where he left them.

He put on his black leather jacket, and his blue jeans, along with his boots. He splashed on some Cologne before zipping up his jacket, for he didn't exactly smell sweet after a night in the woods. He walked a mile through the fields before he reached the road, then finally spotted a bus stop. He waited forty five minutes for the bus, then got on. At this time of day, there were hardly any passengers on the bus and that suited Aton just fine. He wasn't in the mood for company anyway. He rode the bus to the station, then boarded another bus heading to Ottawa. Another forty five minutes before he was finally at his dwelling in Vanier, the east end of Ottawa.

Aton always felt tired after the transformation, but such was the nature of his kind. He was a dual being, human and inhuman, mortal and immortal. That's what being a Werewolf meant. Aton lay on his bed, and thought about the events of the week. His manager Raymond called and told him that if he had one more unexplained absence from work, he'd get canned. Aton sighed. He'd been living in Canada for two years and the best job he could find was working as a security guard for twelve dollars and seventy five cents per hour. Still, he saw no reason to complain. The only problem was that on certain things, he absolutely couldn't work and his employer refused to accept that. Aton liked working for T.N.S. also known as Top Notch Security. Perfect job for an errant soul like him.

Aton sighed deeply, musing on the present, the past and the future. Throughout his preternaturally long life, he'd been many things. In the ancient Republic of Carthage, he was once a member of General Hannibal Barca's corps of personal bodyguards. Later, he worked as a carpenter in ancient Rome, a sailor in Greece, and a temple maintenance worker in the Kingdom of Ethiopia. He lost count of the odd jobs he'd done, or how many times he had been forced to leave places he cherished because the humans discovered who and what he was. Aton sighed. Such were the risks associated with his existence.

Aton was born in what would later be called the Land of Ethiopia around 1600 B.C. The son of Atos, an Ethiopian merchant who married Ashtoreth, a beautiful Phoenician woman of noble lineage. His family was wealthy and he lived a comfortable life. One day, while traveling through the forest, he encountered a strange beast. Although the creature had a canine appearance, it was bigger than any canine Aton had ever laid eyes on. The beast dwarfed the lions of the African savannah. It chased Aton through the forest, and even though the young Ethiopian was a swift runner, he couldn't outrun the malevolent beast. It bit him, and then took off. Aton couldn't believe his luck. The creature merely bit him and left. He thought it was going to devour him for sure. He returned to his family estate with nothing but a bite mark on his thigh to show for his misadventure in the forest.

Upon arriving at his domicile, Aton swooned in the arms of his mother and father. The village shaman was summoned, and he examined the young man. The shaman deduced that the beast who bit Aton must have had a toxic bite, and told his concerned parents that there wasn't much he could do for him. The shaman had great knowledge of herbs and toxins, but without knowing the exact nature of the beast who bit the young man and its venom, he feared killing him with the wrong antidote-like concoction. For three days Aton's family kept a vigil by his bedroom, praying to the Gods that their son might be spared. Fortunately, the Gods heeded their prayers. Three days after being bitten by the canine creature, Aton was better than ever. His family rejoiced. His father threw a lavish party as celebration and everyone in the village was invited. They rejoiced, when they should have known better. For Aton was gone, he and his family just didn't know it yet.

One month after being bitten by the strange beast, Aton found himself changing. His senses were more alert than ever before. He felt great. Also, he found himself suddenly stronger and faster than before. While hunting wild boars with some of the young men and women from his village, his horse threw him and he found himself facing the tusks of three angry boars. Alone, and without a weapon. Any other man would have perished at the tusks of the wild boars. Amazingly, Aton didn't panic. Growling like a savage beast, he launched himself at the porcine creatures. He tackled the biggest of them and somehow, tore its throat open with his fingernails. The young men and women of the village stared at Aton, stunned into silence, as he smeared the blood of the slain boar across his face and chest. When he returned to the village, he found himself a stranger there. For the others convinced everyone that Aton was no longer human. They accused him of being a demon, a devil. He sought refuge with his mother and father. They advised him to leave the village.

His heart broken, Aton was forced to leave the village he called home since birth. He was nineteen years old. He couldn't know it at the time but this was the beginning of a long journey. As time went by, he found himself changing. He continued to grow stronger and faster, and his senses continued to sharpen. If ordinary human beings couldn't sense what he was, animals certainly could. The beasts of the jungle and of the plain all gave him a wide birth. From lions and panthers to crocodiles and even zebras and antelopes, they all avoided him. Somehow, they could sense that he was unnatural. Neither man nor beast. One night, while surrounded by enemies, he fully transformed into a creature of nightmare.

The thing he became could have come straight from the deepest pit of hell. It was that monstrous and scary. And it definitely did not belong in the world of man. A seven-foot-tall, red-eyed, gray-furred beast that was both wolfish in shape and humanoid in build. At last, he assumed his Werewolf form. Everything after that was a blur. When he came back to his human self the following morning, there were one hundred and seventeen bodies strewn about the forest. The ravaged remains of the men and women from a nameless tribe which dared attack him.

It was in that fateful moment Aton realized what he truly was. A monster. He wasn't human anymore. Countless times after that moment of discovery, he sought an end to his dilemma. He seriously tried to kill himself. Throughout the ages he'd been stabbed, shot, burned, decapitated and buried alive. He was once flung off a cliff and smashed against sharp rocks, after plummeting for two hundred feet. He'd been pierced through the brain with a silver-tipped lance. He once got hurled inside an active volcano, and buried beneath molten lava. Time after time, he thought he would die. Again and again he lived. For the thing he became when the full moon rose was simply Immortal. It always regenerated no matter how severe the damage it sustained or how atrocious the injuries. Such was the nature of the curse.

Aton was Immortal, and there wasn't much he could do about it. He dedicated himself to learning more about himself, and about the world. For the next thousand years, he traveled all over the continent of Africa, and also visited distant places like the Arab world, and much of Europe. Traveling the world allowed him to see how big it truly was. The Kingdom of Ethiopia remained in his heart, though. Always. He would return to it much later, and find it much changed, like him. It was a full thousand years before he encountered anything like him. He was working as a construction worker in Rome when he heard tales of men and women who could turn themselves into wolves under the light of the full moon. The local populace dismissed these tales as foolishness, until the bodies began to pile up.

Aton had long ago worked a formula for containing his inner beast. He built a silver cage for himself and hid it deep within a grotto in the woods, far from any human settlements. During those nights of the full moon, he remained inside the cage, thus ensuring his safety and that of everybody else. Long ago he discovered that silver made the beast he transformed into quite uncomfortable. It didn't hurt the beast physically per se, but it sapped its energy. Aton always extricated himself from the cage in the morning, and then went back to his ordinary life. Well, apparently, there were others like him out there and they didn't share the same respect for humanity or passion for restraint. A pity, because this meant they would have to be dealt with.

While in Rome, Aton investigated the beastly attacks. Thus he came to the attention of a man who called himself Master Lupercus. Just like the ancient Latin deity. Tall and muscular, with bronze skin, curly hair and piercing blue eyes, Lupercus cut an imposing figure. The towering Roman lived in a magnificent villa in one of Rome's plush suburbs. He and his wife Lavia, a tall, regal Roman woman with raven hair, emerald eyes and alabaster skin, were the proud parents of twin daughters, nineteen-year-old Regina and Magna. The first time Aton laid eyes on Master Lupercus, he knew two things. First, Lupercus was no more human than he was, and secondly, the man was going to be trouble. And he was absolutely right. For Lupercus fancied himself the Patriarch of the Race of Wolf-Men. After being bitten by a wolf-man in the woods, he went to his family and infected them, effectively transforming them. Then he began "spreading the gospel".

Master Lupercus had dozens of wolf-men and wolf-women at his command, and he envisioned himself ready to rule the world. Lupercus offered Aton a place by his side, but the Ethiopian wanderer turned down the Roman werewolf's offer. Lupercus was clearly not the kind of man who was used to hearing the word no. In mortal life he'd been a Roman Consul, and one of the governors of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. He commanded respect in both the human and supernatural worlds. Aton went up against him alone. Even with the power of an Immortal, he was vastly outnumbered. Even though he couldn't die, neither could his wolfish foes. Their war would be waged across millennia, and echo throughout human history.

Waging a solitary war against Lupercus clan of werewolves took its toll on him. In the end, he lost. But not before taking out quite a few of them. He departed from Rome, and wouldn't return for centuries. By then, the place had changed a lot. Rome was still the capital of a great empire, but gone were the Pagan emperors of the old days. Rome, where Christians were once fed to the lions, would become the seat of The Vatican. One of Christianity's holiest sites. Aton didn't know it but his war against his own kind was just beginning. Aton would be both hunter and hunted throughout the ages as he sought to protect humanity from his wolfish brethren. And it would cost him. Every time. Fighting the good fight was never easy.