How long?
Not long,
‘Cuz what you reap
Is what you sow
                       Rage Against The Machine

Cycles

            “So what’s your name?” asked the tall, muscular man with the close-cut dark hair and tanned, rugged good looks.

            “Lupi,” answered the young werewolf, remembering not to lean forward and sniff at the man’s neck, as she would have if he were a male of her kind.  She was still getting used to all of the little do’s and don’ts of dealing with folks of the “mundane” persuasion, which was a term that her new vampire friend Kimmie used to describe regular, everyday human beings.  Having lived among the vampires of Los Angeles for nearly two months now, she was quite comfortable in the company of immortals, but she still had to work at adapting to the mundanes.

            The city’s vampires were a hardy, broadminded bunch that she got along with excessively well.  Though they were far more urban and modernized than what she was used to, she was learning their ways as quickly as she could, and making mistakes among them was easy, because they knew that she was unfamiliar with both the city and them.  Mundanes, on the other hand, presented more of a challenge.

Not only were they far more rigid in their ways and their worldviews, they were also more fragile and complicated than the vampires.  Where she could playfully roughhouse with the vampires in both her wolfen and regular human forms, she had to be more careful with the mundanes, who weren’t nearly as sturdy.  She also had to tread lightly in what she said and did in their presence, because their sensibilities could be offended in countless different ways, and she’d found that her customary bluntness didn’t work among mundanes like it did with her fellow supernaturals.

Tactfulness was something that didn’t exactly come naturally to her, so she was doing her best to cultivate it by learning to deal with the touchy and odd mundanes.  She knew that her uncle Lassic, a celebrated werewolf chieftain, had high hopes for her in regards to her future, as he saw her as the first of a new generation of werewolves who would help bridge the long-standing gap between lycanthropes and vampires not just in the Los Angeles area, but in other parts of America, and perhaps the world as well.  If she was going to do that, she had to learn how to be tactful and adaptable in her dealings with people different from herself, because sometimes it took little more than a wrong turn of phrase to ignite a major war.  So she threw herself into the task at hand, trying to learn as much as she could, not only for her beloved uncle’s sake, but for her own as well, because she very much wanted to help lead her people into a new era of peace and prosperity.

That, and she’d discovered she really liked the L.A. nightlife, so it gave her a very good reason to go out into it as much as possible.

“Lupi?” echoed the tall man, raising a dark eyebrow at her.  “That’s a new one.”

The young werewolf gave the reply that Stacey, the oddball elder vampire that she had become extremely fond of, had told her to in such situations.  “My parents were hippies,” she snorted.  “I am lucky I did not end up named ‘Rainbow Dancer.’”

The man laughed.  “I suppose you have a point there.  I’m Charleston Heaton.  Pleased to meet you, Lupi—?”

Lupi frowned for a moment, not sure what he was getting at, but then she remembered what Kimmie had told her about mundane men: he wanted her last name.  Apparently they thought that if they had both her first and last names, it created a more intimate connection between themselves and her.  She’d puzzled over that one, especially since she’d found that information such as a person’s first and last names were so readily available in mundane civilization that pretty much anybody could find out your name, address, and other details without having to ask you at all.  The way Lupi understood it, it would have been far more intimate to disclose social security numbers, since those seemed to be far more prized bits of information than mere names.  Kimmie’s subsequent explanation of “people are stupid” wasn’t much help.  But, as she’d heard Richie, a half-vampire friend, say in the past, when in Rome …

“Night Wind,” she answered.  “My name is Lupi Night Wind.”  Unlike the line about hippie parents, that was actually true: it was the English translation of her particular clan name, which she felt made for a proper last name.  Her actual first name was Lrrshprraa, but Stacey had christened her Lupi right before she’d come to the city, and she’d happily kept the name, not only because she liked it, but because it was a great deal easier for mundanes to manage.

The man nodded and smiled at her.  “That’s a pretty name.  Is it Indian?” he asked, and Lupi shrugged.

“There is Indian blood in my family line, so it is not unlikely,” said the werewolf, which was also true.  Lupi’s ancestors had peacefully coexisted with many of the Indian tribes that had dotted the American southwest for centuries, and there had been numerous instances of crossbreeding, resulting in quite a bit of Indian blood in her tribe.

“I thought so,” said Charleston.  “I can see the Indian in your face and skin, though the blonde hair threw me off a bit.  Is that natural, or do you dye it?”

“It is natural,” replied the werewolf, subtly sniffing in his direction, trying to get a measure of him without being overt about it.  Her dark blonde hair was a bit unusual among her tribe, which was mostly dark-haired and reddish-skinned while in human form, though there were still throwbacks to their original European stock here and there.  The white fur that covered her in wolfen form was also unusual, as nobody else in the tribe had that sort of coloration.  But that was something she wouldn’t be sharing with this particular individual, who smelled of soap, cologne, cigarette smoke, and something else she couldn’t quite place.

“That’s cool,” Charleston said.  “It caught my eye, and I thought I’d come over and get a closer look.”

Lupi nodded absently, trying to figure out what the other scent on the man was.  It wasn’t the easiest proposition in the world, as the interior of Zap City came very close to putting her on sensory overload.  The dance club, which was becoming a rather popular hangout for many of the city’s young vampires, was a multilevel extravaganza of strobing lights, pounding music, and a whole plethora of atypical people, both mortal and immortal.  The very first time she’d come to the club, she’d turned and ran away as fast as she could after only five minutes of the experience, her eyes, ears, and nose unable to withstand the sensory assault, but she’d been slowly getting used to it since.

Now she’d gotten to the point where she was almost comfortable within Zap City, adapting to the sights, sounds, and smells, though she still tended to remain lurking in the shadows and the corners as opposed to going out into the middle of all the dancing people.  She was getting used to all of this, but she wasn’t that far along yet.  She imagined she would try dancing one of these days, however, as she’d discovered that she rather liked the music played within Zap City, which Mary (yet another vampire friend) told her was mostly called “techno,” “house,” and “hip-hop.”  Lupi found the deeply resonant beats and flowing wordplay of the hip-hop to be especially enjoyable, as it was a far less brutal attack on her ears than the “heavy metal” favored by Brandi, the elder female vampire that essentially served as her surrogate mother for the duration of her stay in the city.  The heavy metal music tended towards the higher-pitched end of the aural spectrum, with wailing guitars and screaming vocals, which drove her to distraction in short order.  The deep, constant bass thud of hip-hop was far more soothing to her sensitive ears, and she’d found the genre’s clever wordplay served as a handy tool to help her decipher the meanings behind current slang and colloquial expressions.

When the young werewolf, lost in her thoughts, didn’t say anything else to him, the man continued with, “Now that I’ve gotten a closer look, I’m even more interested.  You look a lot more down-to-earth than a lot of the other people running around in here.”

This caught Lupi’s attention, and she turned to look at Charleston curiously.  “I do?  I thought my appearance would be considered to be ‘wigger’ in nature,” she said, using the word she’d heard some men on the street utilize in reference to her nature of dress.

She tended to favor loose, baggy clothes that wouldn’t become uncomfortably tight when she shifted to her wolfen form, as her body expanded a good bit when she changed, especially when her fur was taken into consideration.  It had seemed practical to her to wear baggy jeans cut off below the knees, as well as stretchy or loose tops that wouldn’t restrict her movements after she’d changed forms.  It would be terribly inconvenient to destroy an outfit whenever she shifted, after all!  She’d been delighted to find that her nature of dress was also very similar to that used by hip-hop artists, and with Richie and Mary’s help, she’d developed a look that was very hip-hop in style, but still basic and simple.  At the moment, she was comfortably dressed in loose black jeans and a black and blue jersey emblazoned with a logo that read, “NWA: Straight Outta Compton,” which matched an album she’d borrowed from Richie and had enjoyed a great deal.

She thought some of the other accessories that hip-hop artists used, such as sunglasses, oversized rings, clocks around their necks, and fancy shoes were very eye-catching, but such things were impractical to her, as they’d only get in the way when she shifted or was rigorously exploring the concrete jungle of Los Angeles.  She would’ve preferred to go barefoot, as she found shoes and boots to be uncomfortable, and the flesh of her feet was stronger than the materials used in most shoes, but going around barefoot was frowned upon in most of the city’s establishments, so she wore a pair of sandals instead.  Whenever she shifted to wolfen form, she simply stuffed the sandals into one of the deep pockets of her baggy jeans, no problem.

It seemed a very sensible way to dress, and when she’d heard herself referred to as a ‘wigger’ by a few people in passing, she’d thought that the term was simply descriptive of her style.  Apparently it wasn’t considered to be a complimentary term, according to what Richie told her, but she was still a bit unsure about all of the reasons regarding that.  She’d have to ask him to explain it again, because it all sounded rather complicated.

Charleston frowned, probably at the use of the word; Lupi had noticed it was one of those words that made most people uncomfortable.  There were so many facets and odd things about mundanes, their language, and customs that it seemed like it would take her several lifetimes to master them all!  Fortunately, while lycanthropes weren’t immortal like vampires, their lifespans were still considerable, nonetheless.

“I don’t know if I’d describe it as … ‘wigger,’ like you said,” Charleston carefully said, “What caught my eye more than anything else was that you don’t really seem to be here to be seen, like just about everyone else here is.”

“Is that a good thing?” Lupi asked, unsure of what he was getting at.  Actually, she was becoming a little annoyed with this man, who seemed to be having difficulties making his intentions clear.  If it weren’t for the fact that she was still trying to determine what the odd scent on him was, she probably would have slipped off and lost him in the crowd.

“I think it is,” answered the man, and he held out a hand to indicate the little table she was sitting at.  “May I join you?”

She momentarily considered telling him no to see how he would react to that, but she decided to be nice instead.  After all, he hadn’t actually done anything offensive to her, so there was no need to be rude to him.  At least not yet.

“If you like,” she said, eyeing him, instinctively watching his movements and body language, trying to learn as much as she could about him.  He moved confidently and smoothly, far more so than the average mundane, and he had an admirable economy of motion about him.  When she noticed that he kept his eyes on her as he took a seat across from her, she realized that she was being appraised as well, and not just in a sexual way, as most mundane males tended to do.  Interesting.

He shrugged disarmingly after sitting down and asked, “So, Lupi Night Wind, what do you do?”

“Do?” she echoed, frowning again.  What kind of question was that?  “I do many things.  I eat, I sleep, I bathe, I breathe, I—“

He laughed heartily at that, and smacked his hand against the glass tabletop in what she recognized to be an emphatic gesture, underlining his amusement.  Exactly what he found amusing was beyond her, however, and if she had been in wolfen form, she would have pricked her ears up in a nonverbal question.

But before she could verbally ask him what was so funny, he said, “You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” she answered truthfully.  Ever since she had been a pup, the members of her tribe and family had remarked on how precocious and sharp she was, and she’d received compliments from several vampires because of how well she was adapting to life in the city.  She took her cleverness as a given.

“And modest too, I see,” said Charleston, winking at her.  What did he mean by that?  Her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out his meaning, but he went on with, “Anyway, what is it you do for a living?  Do you work anywhere interesting, or just doing the 9-to-5 thing until something better comes along?”

Ah, now that she understood.  At least most of it.  “I am a student of cultural anthropology,” she said, using another one of the handy answers Stacey had given her for such situations.  The vampire was very good at arming her with such things, and was quite the clever individual himself, despite the fact that most everybody else said that there were many, many things wrong with his head.  She had a theory that he was so full of knowledge that most people mistook his wisdom for lunacy and pronounced him to be insane because of it.  He also did have a considerable fondness for explosions, which probably didn’t help perceptions any.  “I am also minoring in animal behavioral studies, with a primary focus on wolves.  I wish to learn as much as I possibly can, though I must admit that I am not sure of what the ‘9-to-5 thing’ is.”

To her consternation, Charleston laughed again and said, “You’re a college student, all right!”

Deciding to try to go with the flow, she offered him a smile and said, “I am a funny college student, too.  Correct?”

Charleston rolled his dark eyes and chuckled.  “Very much.  So you just go to school and make careful use of those student grants, huh?”

“Yes,” she replied, and pulled out another line that Stacey had taught her.  “I am going to bleed those government assholes for every penny that I can before I have to get a real job.”

Now the man roared with laughter, and Lupi politely joined in.  The line never failed to generate amusement, even though the very concept of bleeding pennies out of somebody’s asshole sounded completely horrible.

“You’re pretty cool,” said Charleston, winking at her again.  “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“That is good.  It is always a fine thing to find a friendly person.”

“It is indeed.”

Deciding to try her hand at guiding the conversation, Lupi asked, “So what do you do for a living?  Are you a student as well, or do you go to a job?”

“Neither, actually.  I come from a very well-off family, and when my parents passed away, I received a rather nice inheritance from my them, invested it wisely, and now am able to live a life of leisure,” said Charleston.  “I pretty just do whatever I feel like.”

He waited for a few moments, not saying anything but looking at her expectantly, and Lupi figured out that she’d been prompted to ask what it is that he liked to do.  She almost sighed: why did mundanes make simple communication so complicated?  If somebody wanted to say something, why didn’t they just come out and say it, instead of resorting to all of this verbal maneuvering?  Oh well, she’d go along with it if she had to; as mundanes went, he wasn’t bad-looking, if a bit too clean-cut for her tastes, so he could at least make for some decent company for the time being.

“What is it that you feel like doing in your life of leisure?” asked the young werewolf.

Charleston shrugged, as though he thought the question unimportant, even though he’d specifically directed the conversation in such a way that she would ask it.  She curled her toes in annoyance.  “Not too much, really,” he said.  “I like to travel around to other countries, jet-ski, rock-climb, and things of that nature.”

“I see,” said Lupi, nodding her head.  If she was reading this right, she was supposed to be impressed by the fact that he had a lot of wealth and time on his hand.  Such a life was considered to be glamorous and desirable by many mundane females, she’d learned, so mundane males often tried to impress them by cataloguing their assets and activities.  Lupi wasn’t attracted by such things, however, and she found Charleston less and less interesting as the seconds passed.  What was it that Kimmie would have called him?  A spoiled rich kid.

“That is interesting,” she said, trying to be polite, even though she had no desire to discuss his activities any further.  She turned her attention back to the dance floor, and Charleston cleared his throat, apparently unsettled that she hadn’t responded to his offhand description of his rich life.

“I also hunt,” he said.  “I’ve stalked and hunted all manner of dangerous creatures on all the continents of the world.  There’s nothing I can’t bring down.”

“Hunt?”  Lupi turned back towards him, suddenly very interested.  She was one of the better hunters in her tribe, and she’d always enjoyed the adventure and challenge of a good hunt, not to mention the feast and celebration following a successful hunt.  Perhaps she had misjudged him!  She looked him over again, noting that he looked extremely pleased at her resurgence of interest, and after a few moments of consideration, she said, “Forgive me.  Your appearance did not strike me as being that of a hunter.  You look more like an urban dweller instead of a wilderness person.”

Charleston’s forehead creased just a little bit, as though he wasn’t sure what to make of her comment, but he forged ahead nonetheless.  “That’s okay.  I clean up well,” he said with a smile.

“What dangerous creatures do you hunt around the world?” asked Lupi, leaning forward.  “There are few truly dangerous animals to hunt in this region, other than bears, which are powerful and fearsome, but don’t make for good eating.”  She and her fellow werewolves avoided bears whenever possible, and only fought and killed bears in defense and when there was no other alternative.  Her back still bore the scars of a grizzly bear attack from several years ago, when she and several of her kinsfolk had strayed too close to the bear’s cubs and the angry mother sprang to her young ones’ defense.  Fortunately, neither bear nor werewolf had gotten killed during that unfortunate incident, and Lupi had been the only injured party.  It had hurt like hell, but it had certainly given her respect not only for bears but also for the ferocity that motherhood could bring on.

The man laughed and said, “I’ve bagged bears here in the States and Canada, and have even gone on a few bear hunts in Russia, too.  They’re some of the most dangerous animals out there, that’s for sure.  Lions and tigers definitely live up to their reputation, also.  Taking out a determined lion or tiger isn’t an easy proposition, even when you’ve been on as many hunts as I have.”

As he spoke, his chest seemed to puff out a bit, as though he were swelling with pride at his accomplishments.  Though from what she’d heard, the big cats of Africa were some very tough customers, so perhaps his pride was well-founded.  He must have been hungry indeed to have dared going after such formidable prey!  Then a thought occurred to Lupi, and it severely disturbed her.

She frowned deeply and said, “I thought you said you were rich.”

He chuckled and replied, “Yes, I suppose I did.  Didn’t mean to brag or anything, sorry if that—“

“No, it is not that,” said Lupi, focusing on him with her ice-blue eyes and watching his every movement.  “If you are so rich that you can travel around the world, why were you hunting lions and tigers and bears?”

“Oh my!” quipped the rich man, leaning forward to pat her hand.  He recoiled surprise when she emitted a low growl and bared her teeth at him in an instinctive warning display.  “Whoa, chill out!”

“What were you hunting lions and tigers and bears if you are already rich enough to feed yourself?  Bears are not good eating, and I am certain that lions and tigers are not, either.  By their very nature, predators make for poor food, unless one is desperate, which a rich person would not be.  Were you stranded or desperate?  Or were you defending other animals or people?” asked the werewolf.  “Tell me, so that I can be sure I have not misunderstood you.”

Charleston was silent for several moments, and a look of irritation crossed his face.  “When you told me you were a college student studying animal behavior, I should’ve guessed that you’d be one of those earth-friendly types that doesn’t understand a thing about a man’s need to hunt.”

Lupi’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward a little, her eyes locked on his.  “I have been hunting since I was a child, so I understand a hunter’s heart perfectly well.”  She paused, gathering the words she needed to make herself understood.  “Tell me why you hunted those animals.  Why would a rich person need to hunt for food?  It defies common sense.  Please explain this to me.”

He rolled his eyes.  “I didn’t hunt them for food, obviously.  Like you said, predators don’t make for good eating.  I hunted them for trophies and for the adventure, because there’s more to life than sitting in the city sipping champagne.  I wanted to get out there and get in touch with my instincts by hunting something dangerous and wild.  There’s not a thing wrong with that.”

“You didn’t eat what you killed, nor did you kill in defense,” grunted Lupi, her upper lip curling up uncontrollably to show her teeth.  “That is disrespectful and wasteful!”

“The hell it is!” countered Charleston.  “I had them made into trophies, so that their magnificence will live on forever.  I’m respecting them by preserving them.  It’s better than catching them and sticking them in a zoo, where they have to be shells of themselves for the amusement of the masses.  At least they got to die out in the world where they belonged instead of in the middle of some stinking city,” he said, the tone of his voice indicating that he thought he was doing the animals in question a favor.

“They did not have to die at all!  It is hateful and disgusting to kill a creature for sport!” snapped the werewolf, spitting out the last word with contempt.  She was getting loud enough that the people sitting at the neighboring tables were starting to surreptitiously glance over at what they assumed was some sort of romantic argument.  “Among my people, it is a crime of the highest order to kill without reason!  Such a thing violates the natural order of the world and can only bring needless pain and trouble!”

“Oh give me a break,” groaned Charleston, rolling his eyes again.  “I’ve already heard that kind of crap from the Humane Society, PETA, and Greenpeace, and I don’t need to hear it in a dance club, okay?  If you don’t like what I do, I’ll just leave, all right?  You don’t have to get all high and mighty with me.”

He started to get up from his chair, and with a snarl Lupi shoved the table forward and knocked him back into his seat, never once taking her eyes off him.  “You do not understand,” she said, her voice harsh.  “You and others like you are disrupting the natural order with your actions, and there is a saying among my people that—“

“Look, I don’t give a fuck!” barked the man, trying to shove the table back in her direction, but was unable to since she was holding onto it and his strength was no match for hers, even when she was in human form.  He scooted his chair backwards and stood up.  “I don’t care what you and your ‘people’ have got to say about what I do.  I’m sick to death of hearing this hippie-dippy tree-hugging save-the-whales crap from all of you.  If you had the time and money to do what I do, you’d be right out there with me and you know it!  You’re just jealous that I don’t have to spend my whole life as somebody else’s slave and can go and do whatever I want.  You wanna make me out to be a monster?  Go right ahead, but that’s not gonna change the fact that I’m a have and you’re a have-not!”

“It is not a matter of wealth, it is a matter of respect!” growled Lupi, getting to her feet as well, her body trembling as she struggled with her instincts.  She wanted to pounce on him and rip him to pieces at that very moment, and it was getting more difficult to resist the urge with each passing second.  “You want for nothing, yet you inflict needless death upon creatures that would do you no harm if you simply left them alone, simply for entertainment!  You are horrible!”

By this point, everybody in the immediate vicinity was watching them with interest, certain that they were going to get treated to a good show.  Fortunately, they weren’t the only ones that noticed, because if things went on much longer, they were going to get extremely ugly.

Mary got to her first, and slipped up next to the werewolf.  “What’s happening, luv?” she asked brightly, her customary good cheer a sharp contrast to the fury building up within Lupi.  “Having a spat, are we?”

“It is not a spat, it is something far worse,” growled Lupi, pointing at Charleston with a shaky hand that wanted to latch onto his throat and rip it out.  “He is a criminal and his very existence disgusts me!”

A pink-and-black-clad figure appeared next to the man, and Kimmie looked him over with distaste.  “He looks like a tool to me.  He giving you trouble?” she asked.

“Nothing that I cannot handle,” Lupi growled, lunging towards Charleston, her instincts getting the better of her despite her efforts.

But as strong as Lupi was, Mary was even stronger, despite the fact that the redhead looked more like a Spice Girl than a powerhouse immortal, and the werewolf didn’t even travel a step before the young vampiress’ hand latched onto her arm and held her in place.  “Not here, please,” Mary breathed into her ear, sounding distressed, as she didn’t like to see her friends upset.  “Whatever he said, he’s not worth it.”

“He’s not worth the life he’s been given!” snarled the werewolf, struggling with Mary’s grip for a few moments before realizing she’d have to change over to her wolfen form before she would be strong enough to overpower the vampiress.  Doubly so once Mary had gotten behind her and wrapped her arms around Lupi’s midsection, firmly holding her in place.

“Is there a problem here?” demanded a burly, thick-necked bouncer as he none-too-gently waded through the crowd towards them, looking as though he was hungering for somebody to throw around.

“Not once you get fucko out of here,” replied Kimmie, giving Charleston a shove in the bouncer’s direction.  “He keeps screwing with my friend and won’t leave her alone, so he’s gotten her pretty pissed off.”

“She started it!” growled Charleston in protest as the big bouncer grabbed him by the back of his neck.  “I was getting up to leave and she shoved the table at—“

“Bollocks!  I saw the whole thing!  You kept bothering her until she couldn’t take it any more!” exclaimed Mary, scowling at Charleston.

“You are a monster!” Lupi roared the man, fighting against Mary to no avail.  “You should not even be alive!”

“Fucking asshole,” snapped Kimmie, jabbing a finger in Charleston’s direction.  “If I ever catch you messing with her again, I’m gonna break your neck, bitch-boy.  Got it?”

“Just get me the fuck out of here,” Charleston said to the bouncer, his voice full of disgust and annoyance.  “Stupid bitches.  Didn’t feel like slumming it for the rest of the night anyway.”

“Slumming it?  Here?  This is a nice place!  Man, you are an asshole,” grunted the bouncer, giving the other man a shake with his baseball mitt-sized hand.  He nodded in the direction of Lupi and Mary.  “She gonna be all right?  You want I should let her into one of the lounges to cool off or anything?”

“Naw, we’ll be fine,” said Kimmie, and she produced a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to the bouncer.  “Make sure he lands on his head when you toss him out, okay?”

Grinning, the big man tucked the bill into the front pocket of his shirt and winked at the pink-haired vampiress.  “That can be arranged.”  He looked over at Lupi, who was still fuming and glaring at Charleston with open hatred.  “Sorry about the trouble, ma’am.  I’ll make sure he bounces a couple of times, just for you.”  He yanked his temporary prisoner around and started towards the stairs leading to the lower level.  “Come on, prick.  You give me any trouble, I’ll throw you out into the alley where the bums piss all over the place instead of the sidewalk out front.”

Charleston cast one last glance towards Lupi and gave her a hard glare.  “I’ll be sure to think of you the next time I’m on the hunt,” he said with a bitter smile.

The she-wolf roared and nearly broke free from Mary’s hold, furiously struggling with rage.  She started to spit curses at him in her native werewolf language, which sounded like nothing more than growls, snarls, and grunts to the untrained ear.

“Oh, that’s it, motherfucker!  Into the alley you go!” said the bouncer, lifting Charleston up and slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  “Fucks like you just don’t know when to shut up, do you?”

Kimmie stepped over and helped Mary restrain the werewolf until the bouncer had carried Charleston out of sight, and the two young vampires eased the muscular blonde back into her chair.  Once Lupi was seated again, the pink-haired vampiress looked around and saw that everybody was still staring, and she barked, “What, you guys never seen a philosophical discussion get out of control?  Mind your own business!”

Finally, everyone turned back around and got back to whatever it was they were doing before the argument broke out.  As the dancing and myriad conversations started up all around them again, Mary and Kimmie sat down on either side of the young werewolf, letting go of her but clearly ready to grab onto her again if necessary.

“So what was that all about?” asked Kimmie, raising a pink eyebrow in curiosity.  “Usually you’re the best-behaved out of all of us.”

Lupi continued to glare in the direction that Charleston had disappeared in, huffing angrily, but she said, “I am sorry.  I could not help myself.  Among my people, he would be considered a criminal and monster of the worst sort, because what he does violates some of our most sacred tenets.  In the eyes of my people, simply allowing him to live is an abomination.”

“What does he do?” Mary asked, sounding as though she were wondering if she should have just let Lupi rip the man apart.  “Is he a pedophile or something?”

Growling, the werewolf replied, “He is just as bad.  He hunts and kills animals for sport, not for food or defense.  It is a terrible, needless waste of life and an abuse of nature.”
            “Oh dear,” said the redheaded vampiress.  “I’ve never liked the sorts that go around doing that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, all that chest-thumping male bravado shit,” grunted Kimmie, shaking her head.  “Where I grew up, there were a lot of guys that’d skip school to go out hunting once deer season started, and they wouldn’t even eat what they killed.  They just shot ‘em and put the heads up on their walls or the antlers on their pussy little pickup trucks, like it made ‘em some sort of big deal because they killed a harmless animal with the guns their daddies bought them.”

Starting to calm down now that she had some sympathetic ears, Lupi nodded vigorously.  “Yes, you understand my frustration, then.  My people routinely kill deer and other vegetation-eaters for food and supplies, and anything that we cannot eat or use, we bury so that the remains can become a part of the cycle of nature again.  For us, who live out in the wilds and in the caves, it is very important that we live in harmony with our environment, and it is something that all werewolves begin learning from the moment they are born.  To kill needlessly is a terrible crime, and the only times that we kill for anything other than food is for defense, mercy, or because a creature is behaving aberrantly and is causing harm to the environment or those that live in it.  To kill living creatures for nothing more than sport is …” she trailed off and began to growl again, low in her throat, which caused both Mary and Kimmie to exchange concerned looks.  Though vampires often growled when angry, theirs were more feline in nature, while those of a werewolf, even in human form, were deeper, heavier, and especially dangerous-sounding.

“You gonna be okay?” asked Kimmie.  “You wanna leave and walk around town for awhile?  That usually helps whenever I’m pissed off.”

Lupi shook her head apologetically, wishing that she could shake off her anger and frustration as well.  “I am sorry for this trouble.  There are still things I am having a hard time adapting to in the city, and the cavalier disregard for animal life that so many mundanes have disturbs me more than I can say.  He … pushed my buttons, I guess you would say.”

“It’s all right,” said Mary, reaching up under Lupi’s long dark blonde hair and rubbing the back of her neck to help relax her.  “I’ve lived in cities all me life, and there are still things I have trouble accepting.  I’m not a werewolf, but I can see what you mean, and it makes me mad, too.”

Kimmie leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and scowled.  “Like how that J-Lo cunt uses real animal fur in her cutesy clothing line and thinks she looks all rich and glamorous because she wears it.  The dumb bitch seems to think it’s still the 18^th century or something.  Like it’d be all that hard to figure out a way to clone fur and leather and other stuff so nothing had to die just so some stuck-up twat can wear its hide.”

“Oh no, you’re not going to get started on that human-skin coat thing again, are you?” groaned Mary, putting a hand to her forehead and looking nauseous.

Kimmie scowled even more deeply.  “Me wearing a coat made out of J-Lo’s skin wouldn’t be any more disgusting than her wearing the fur from a dozen minks.  Actually, it’d be a lot less disgusting, because minks don’t bother anybody, and J-Lo annoys a lot of people with her shitty music and snobby bullshit.  I’d be doing the world a favor if I turned J-Lo into a coat.  Maybe a pair of boots, too.”

“That’s still a bit harsh, I think,” said Mary.  “It sounds like something a serial killer would do.”

“You know, there are times that I think some serial killers are doing the world a service,” said the pink-haired vampiress, and Mary groaned again.

“I wish you’d never started watching all those serial killer documentaries on the telly and reading all those dark philosophy books.  You get so morbid sometimes!”

“I can’t help it if I think it’s stupid that everybody gets all in an uproar when somebody goes around killing a bunch of humans, but nobody says a thing when animals get killed or abused.  Personally, I think it’d be great to go out into the woods, give all the animals a bunch of guns, and turn them loose on some affluent suburb and let ‘em keep whatever they kill.  See how people like it when the tables get turned,” said Kimmie with a dark grin.  “Humans pick on animals because nearly the entire human race has an inferiority complex and feel the need to prove their superiority by abusing or controlling every other living thing they lay their hands on.  I bet people wouldn’t fuck with animals nearly so much if the animals could fight back on even terms.”

Mary slowly nodded, looking thoughtful.  “Well, you’re being rather mean about the whole thing, but you do have a point in there somewhere, I think.”

Lupi turned and looked at Kimmie intently, digesting everything the vampiress had said.  “You support the right to arm bears,” said the werewolf, wonder in her voice.

The pink-haired vampiress looked at Lupi, raising both eyebrows this time.  “Say what?”

“It is something I have heard Stacey say,” explained Lupi excitedly.  “He says that he supports the right to bear arms, but says that it’s only fair that he also supports the right to arm bears, so that all things are equal.  Now I understand what he means!”

Kimmie looked surprised at this, and said, “Uh, okay.  Yeah, it would be fun to see a bear with a shotgun chasing down a redneck, wouldn’t it?”

“I think I saw that once in an Elmer Fudd cartoon,” said Mary with a chuckle.

“Technology has given humans an unfair advantage over the beings that they once shared equal footing with, and the balance of nature has been upset,” said Lupi, repeating from memory something that she’d heard her uncle Lassic say numerous times in the past while ruminating on the state of the world as he understood it.  “Whole species are threatened by this, fragile environments are damaged beyond repair, and ultimately, humanity is quickening its own destruction by wreaking such havoc upon a world that it should exist in harmony with.  A balance must be achieved, or we will all fall off this world.”  Her blue eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness of Zap City as she unveiled the revelation that Kimmie had unwittingly placed in her lap.  “But … that balance can be restored by arming bears,” she said, decisiveness sharp in her energized voice.

Both Kimmie and Mary frowned in confusion, and they regarded her for several moments before speaking.  “So … you’re going to give a bunch of guns to bears?” asked Mary, clearly trying to be polite and not giggle at the concept.

But while Mary missed Lupi’s point, Kimmie did not.

Despite the fact that some of the elder vampires didn’t much care for her and thought her a troublesome sort, Lupi had come to realize that Kimmie was developing a far more realistic and harsh view of the world than was common for one of her very young age.  In some ways, her viewpoints were more realistic than those held by vampires many centuries in age, and Lupi found herself wondering if perhaps the reason that some elder vampires didn’t like her was due to the fact that they felt uncomfortable with how perceptive she already was.  Perhaps they thought that if she continued down the path she was traveling along, she might someday become a threat, and were trying their best to discourage her from the direction she was going in.

But regardless, Kimmie understood what Lupi was getting at, and her eyes gleamed with the same light that the werewolf’s did.  “Not literally, Mary,” said the pink-haired vampiress.  “But nature has its own weapons, some more deliberate than others.”

Lupi nodded.  “Yes.  Bears can be armed with much more than mere guns.”

“So can wolves,” said Kimmie.  She reached into one of the pockets of the long, flowing black skirt she was wearing, pulled out an alligator-hide wallet, and handed it to Lupi.  “I swiped this off that asshole when I shoved him earlier.  I figured the prick didn’t need it, so I thought I’d donate it to a worthier cause, like myself.  But now I can think of an even more worthy cause.”

Mary shook her head and chuckled.  “You’ve become a regular pickpocket, haven’t you?”

The other vampiress shrugged.  “I only steal from jerks that need to be parted from their valuables.  If you’re going to be a fucker, you’d better be ready to pay for it, I say.  The fifty I gave the bouncer earlier was from that wallet, as a matter of fact.  Thought it was a nice piece of poetic justice.”

The redhead looked at her friend with a mixture of exasperation and admiration.  “I’d think you an absolutely terrible person if you didn’t make such good sense at times and didn’t do such nice things for your friends.”

Nice things indeed.

Lupi quickly thumbed through the wallet, familiar with much of its contents, as Brandi had sat her down and told her all about money, credit cards, driver’s licenses, and other mundane affectations early in her stay within the city.  It was the driver’s license that she was in search of, because a driver’s license contained all sorts of helpful information about an individual, including their address.

She grunted in satisfaction when she located the sturdy plastic card, and removed it from its plastic sleeve to examine it more closely.  Charleston Michael Heaton lived in Bel-Air, California.  The werewolf had never been to Bel-Air, but she had heard of it, and the handy maps of Los Angeles she kept in one of the pockets of her baggy ‘wigger’ jeans would help her find out where she needed to go.

“What is this?” she asked, pulling out a card that was very similar in appearance to a credit card, but it lacked the embossed numbers and graphics that were usually printed upon credit cards.  It was dark grey in color, had a magnetic strip on the back, and little else to add to its rather plain appearance.  “I have not seen a card like this yet.”

Kimmie took it from Lupi’s hands and looked it over before handing it back.  “It’s a security card.  My grandma’s got one like this for her duplex.  You can use it to activate or shut down a home security system without having to remember a passcode.  It’s supposed to be helpful because it means the owner can’t mess up entering the passcode and have the security system go off on them.  Most companies don’t use them, though, because even though they’re convenient, anybody who’s got the card can run the security system, including prowlers,” she explained, her voice sly.

“I understand,” said the werewolf with a smile.  She took the security card and Charleston’s driver’s license and put them in the same pocket as her city maps, and then put the wallet into a different pocket after removing all of the money and credit cards from it.  She handed the thick wad of bills and pieces of plastic to Kimmie and said, “I thank you for your help.”  She lowered her eyes respectfully as she passed the money to the surprised vampiress.

“I figured you’d want to keep it, since he pissed you off so much,” Kimmie said, looking impressed at just how much money she was holding.

“I already have what I need from his wallet, and everything else is yours.  Enjoy yourself at his expense,” she said, chuckling when she realized she’d made a very appropriate pun.  She got up from her chair, and then leaned over and nuzzled at Kimmie’s neck for several seconds in a show of werewolf affection.  The vampiress, who had gotten used to the very physical nature of werewolf friendliness, patted Lupi on the back in return.

“If that’s what you’d like, sure.  Mary and I can go on a shopping spree,” said Kimmie once Lupi had straightened back up.

“I would like that, yes,” said Lupi, turning to give Mary a similar display of werewolf affection.  “Thank you for your help as well.  If not for your strength, I might have done something very regrettable.”

“Just don’t go out and do something else regrettable, okay?” asked the redheaded vampiress, a very serious expression on her face.

“I will be … discreet,” said Lupi after a moment’s consideration.

“Please do.  I don’t want you to get into trouble or get hurt.”

Lupi gave her a very wolfish grin.  “Do not worry.  I can handle myself.”

“One more thing,” Kimmie said, “Generally speaking, most security alarms can be triggered for 30 seconds to a minute or so before the cops are alerted.  That way, the cops don’t come all the way out to somebody’s house just because the owner screwed up and accidentally tripped the thing.  At least that’s what the security people told my grandma.  It’s something you might keep in mind.”

“I shall,” Lupi said with a studious nod.  She turned and headed off through the crowd, swiftly and easily threading her way through all of the people.

Mary gave Kimmie a concerned look.  “Do you think we should have gone with her?  I know what she’s going to do, and I’m not sure if we should just sit here and let her do it.”

Counting the ill-gotten money, Kimmie shrugged.  “There’s nothing we could do to stop her, no matter how strong either one of us is, she’s stronger when she’s wolfed out, and if we went along with her, we’d probably just slow her down.”

“We could tell the elders.  I could call Donita and she could get hold of Brandi, and you know Lupi would listen to her,” said the redhead.

“What makes you think Brandi would stop her?  From what I’ve heard, she plays pretty fast and loose with shit like this herself, except her specialty is pedophiles and child abusers.  Somebody told me she once beat up a kiddie-porn photographer so bad that she liquefied him,” said Kimmie, giving Mary a pointed look.  “She may be Lupi’s mother figure in the city, but she’s not exactly a soccer mom.  As a matter of fact, she got inducted into Lupi’s tribe awhile back, so as far as werewolf customs and rules are concerned, she’s one of them.  Not only that, but what makes you think Donita would even bother telling Brandi about what Lupi’s going to do?  You know how she is about animals.  Remember that night when she took us out hunting and she saw that guy kicking his dog around in his backyard, and she went ballistic on him?”

Mary shuddered a bit at the memory.  “I didn’t even think it was possible to tie a man’s knob into a knot like that.”  She tilted her head to the side as she listened to one of the voices in her head, and nodded in agreement.  “I know, Lucille.  I’ve never heard a man scream like that, either.”

Kimmie smirked.  “Exactly.  This is Lupi’s business, and we should stay out of it unless she asks for help.”

“But she’s still pretty new to the city and everything, what if she gets in over her head?” protested Mary.  “Maybe we should call Donita anyway and see what she says.”

Kimmie grimaced.  “The elder vampires may be the big cheeses around here, but that doesn’t mean we have to go running to them for help or advice every time we’re unsure about something.  I’ve got plenty of confidence in Lupi’s abilities, and unlike a lot of the elders around here, I’m going to give a young one enough credit to actually be able to take care of themselves on their own.  She’ll be fine.”

Mary sighed and relented.  “All right, if you say so.  I just hope nobody gets hurt or in trouble over this.”

The pink-haired vampiress laughed.  “I think the only one who has to worry about hurt and trouble is Lupi’s little hunter friend.  I’d hate to be in his shoes here in a little while.”

*     *     *

            Lupi let out a yip of surprise and nearly bolted when the security alarm began loudly whooping after she’d none-too-gently kicked in the back patio’s double doors.  As the now-broken glass portions of the doors shattered against the stone floor, the young werewolf’s head jerked back and forth like a bird’s, taking in the room as she fumbled around in her pocket for the security card.  The high-ceilinged room was vault-like in its size and scope, its walls lined with shelf after shelf of books and metal trophies both large and small, which glittered softly in the subdued light of the lamps positioned on all of the walls.

Apparently, Charleston hadn’t been kidding when he said he was wealthy, because this was already the most opulent private structure she’d been in, with its rich leather chairs, fine wooden tables, and large animal statues carved from stone.  She knew that this room was the library, a repository of knowledge in printed form, and it was also a display area of some form, judging from the paintings on the walls and all of the trophies on the shelves.  The rich boy probably entertained guests here, likely regaling them with tales of needlessly slaying animals while they sat around and imbibed alcoholic beverages.  She snarled at both the thought and the loud, annoying alarm, feeling anger rise up in her again as she frantically looked around for somewhere to use the security card clutched in her dirty hand.

It hadn’t been very difficult finding her way here to Bel-Air, as she’d learned how to read her handy maps quite effectively, and she had also found that it was very useful to ask directions from older mundane males, as they usually knew their way around pretty well and were eager to assist young women in need.  Usually.  When she’d stopped and asked one well-dressed man for directions, he’d reached out and had rather rudely put his hand on her ass, grabbing and squeezing it as though he were trying to judge the quality of her flesh through her pants.  She hoped that being violently slammed through a metal and glass bus stop had taught him a thing or two about manners, because she found such behavior unacceptable.

The scantily-dressed women, which she had learned were called ‘hookers,’ watching from a corner had certainly approved of the young werewolf’s actions, and had loudly hooted and cheered their assent.  As it turned out, they were very helpful when she explained that she wished to go to Bel-Air to teach somebody else a lesson, and one of them even had a friend drive Lupi the rest of the way, cutting down on her travel time significantly.  She was extremely grateful for their help, and she decided that she was going to have to do something nice for them in return in the near future.  But she’d worry about that later, because she had to deal with the damned alarm first.

Her ice-blue eyes settled on a blinking metal box mounted on the wall, which didn’t look all that different from the credit card readers she’d dealt with at retail stores.  That must be it!

She galloped across the room, the tough flesh of her bare feet unaffected by the broken glass, and took a scant moment to study the metal box, which was adorned with a little screen, flashing lights, and a complex-looking keypad that made absolutely no sense to her.  Fortunately, the groove on the side of the box was quite familiar to her, and she swiped the card through it just as she had countless times before at stores throughout the city.

The box made a soft beep of acknowledgement, and alarm blessedly fell silent.  Lupi breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking Kimmie for taking the time to explain the security card to her, because without that knowledge, she would have been unable to deactivate the alarm, and would have had to make a retreat, a prospect she found very distasteful.  She stuffed the card back into her pocket and took stock of the situation.

Then, with a sudden yelp, she darted across the room to the nearest dark corner, cursing herself for not paying attention to details ahead of time.

What if Charleston was already home?  What if he knew she was here?  What if he called the police?

She wasn’t so much worried about dodging the police, because her preternatural abilities gave her such an edge that it would take a rather large, well-armed compliment of cops to find and bring her down at night.  What did worry her is the possibility of blowing her chance at getting to Charleston, because if he knew she was after him, it would greatly complicate things and likely make it much harder to get to him.  She wanted to bring him to justice on this very night, without him knowing anything in advance.  When hunting prey, one of the greatest weapons one could wield was the element of surprise, and she’d forgotten that in her fervor to get inside his mansion.  If Brandi had been there, she probably would have grabbed Lupi by the scruff of the neck and given her a good shaking and scolding, just as a werewolf elder would have, and rightfully so.

But Brandi wasn’t here, and if she had properly read Kimmie’s intentions, Brandi wasn’t going to know anything about this unless Lupi herself brought it to her attention, and whenever the time came for that, she’d simply omit this little detail.  Of course, if her oversight had alerted Charleston to her presence, she might have to simply abandon this mission for the time being and wait for another chance, meaning that she wouldn’t tell Brandi or any of the other elders about this at all.  She wanted to bring her prey down without getting anybody else involved because she felt this was something she had to do on her own.

As much as she respected and loved her elders, she knew they could be prickly about her involvement with mundanes at this early stage of the game, and she had actually been forbidden to kill any mundanes unless a vampire was present to properly judge the situation.  Mundane society was much more complex than it appeared on the surface, and killing the wrong person could lead to a great deal of trouble and unnecessary attention, and the elder vampires themselves imposed certain limitations upon the fledgling vampires to prevent such problems; Brandi had made it clear that those limitations extended to her as well.

Lupi understood the reasoning behind the rules and restrictions, and she normally did her very best to follow them, not only out of respect but also common sense, because the rules were quite logical.  But this situation was not one that called for logic.  This was a matter of nature and crimes against it, and while Lupi was content to follow the elders’ rules in regard to the city, she as a werewolf could not stand by and allow someone who hatefully abused nature’s creatures to continue to live.

Nature had been good to her and her people, giving them great strength, endurance, and health, and had also provided a wonderful home out in the wilderness, and as far as Lupi was concerned, it was her duty to return the favor whenever possible.  Nature existed long before there were rules or regulations, and humanity’s structured world meant nothing to something as monumental as nature, and in her heart, Lupi felt that this was something that superseded any directives given to her by her elders.  She had to defend that which had created her and her people, personal consequences to her be hanged.  This was the right thing to do.

She sniffed at the air and keenly listened to the sounds of mansion, trying to pick up on any cues that her presence had been detected.  She heard the soft whoosh of air conditioners functioning, the gurgle of water moving through pipes, and the ticking of many clocks, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pick up signs of anything human within the huge house.  It seemed as though she’d lucked out and her blunder hadn’t alerted anybody to her presence.  Or perhaps the Elements themselves were looking out for the headstrong wolfchild that was seeking reparations for nature.

Due to their close relationship to the natural world, most werewolves had incorporated much of the ancient Elemental religion into their beliefs long ago, and Lupi was no different.  She’d learned much about mundane religions, and they all seemed rather silly to her because they called for the worship and belief in faraway beings that only a select few, if any, were ever allowed to see or interact with.  To her, belief in the Four Elements made a great deal more sense, as everybody could clearly see the existence of earth, air, water, and fire, and feel their influence all over the world.  The Four Elements were everywhere, making up everything, even within the cities, and their presence could not be denied.  She could feel them in the wooden flooring beneath her bare feet, sense them in the cool air circulating through the library, and see them in the soft glow of the electrical lighting.  Though Charleston Heaton may not have known that she was in the house, the Elements did, and they would know that what she was doing, she was doing for them, because all of nature itself was composed of the Four, and by serving nature, she was serving the Elements.

The Elements could be twisted and perverted by the machinations of man, and they could be used to unleash terrible forces that could cause untold suffering, and just because someone served the Elements, that did not mean the Elements served them.  But Lupi also fervently believed in the notion that the Elements ultimately balanced everything out, and that for every wrong that they were involved in, they would ensure that a right would occur to properly correct the balance.  A fire could destroy a beautiful forest, but the ashes from the fire would serve to fertilize the ground so that a new forest could grow.  A river could flood and wipe out a vast stretch of land, but the resultant swamp would one day become home to a tremendous array of life.  A man could slay scores of innocent creatures for no reason other than cruel sport, but would ultimately pay the price when one of nature’s children rose up to destroy him.  Tonight, the debt would be paid and the balance would be restored.

            Lupi frowned and sniffed at the air again.  The same odd scent that she had noticed on Charleston in the club was present here, only much stronger, and she curled her nose at it.  It was a smell she doubted a mundane would notice, but even in her human form, her nose was still more sensitive than most vampires’, and the smell in question was very noticeable to her. It was a distasteful odor, and one that actually bothered her.  There were plenty of unpleasant scents to be found in Los Angeles, and while she disliked them, they didn’t make her skin crawl like this one did.  Before, mixed in with the myriad smells of Zap City, the scent had been faint enough that it had piqued her interest, but now, with it saturating her sensitive nostrils, it made her want to flee.

            She found herself shaking her head and uncomfortably shifting positions in the dark corner she was hidden in, unconsciously trying to escape the smell.  It was like death, but not quite, as though the death had not been allowed to complete itself and had been captured in suspended animation.  What was it?  What could smell like this?  What in the blazes did Charleston have in his house?  Lupi snarled and stood back up, her hackles rising as the disturbing smell dug itself into her nose and jabbed at her brain.

            The young werewolf glanced around the library and moved around, trying to find the source of the scent, and after a few moments of sniffing at the books and peering under the tables, she’d determined that the smell didn’t originate in the library.  The smell was far stronger over by the door that led to the rest of the house, and the rear of the library was blessedly free of the aroma courtesy the doors that Lupi had kicked in.  She looked longingly towards the doors, wanting to slip away from the smell, if only for a few moments, but she knew that she couldn’t.  She had to stay here until she’d made sure the debt to nature had been repaid, and she had suspicions that the smell was somehow tied into Charleston’s horrid pastime.

            Steeling herself, she cautiously slipped through the library doorway and out into a vast hallway lined with assorted paintings.  Almost unable to control herself as her instincts came to the forefront, she began to follow the scent down the hallway, needing to know what the source of it was.  Something wasn’t right here, and she was determined to find out what.

            After padding down the thick carpet of the hallway for 100 feet or so, Lupi came to a stop in front of a set of carved oaken double doors, and she growled at how strong the smell was here.  Whatever it was, it was behind the doors, and she hesitated as she reached for the doorknobs, feeling a terrible unease slithering through her blood.  Part of her badly wanted to go to some other part of the vast house and wait for Charleston to show up, so that she could deal with him and then be gone, leaving whatever it was behind the doors alone.

The smell was unlike anything else she’d ever experienced, and it filled her with a sense of unnamable dread.  She’d never wanted to run away from anything so badly in all her life, and that disgusted her almost as much as the smell did.  She’d never been one to be afraid of much of anything, something that was a source of pride to her.  She’d never run from a challenge and had never backed down when things got tough.  Now wasn’t the time to start.  As Brandi would have said, screw it.

She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and opened the doors wide.

The young werewolf stared into the room as the sickening smell assailed her nose and the terrible sight speared into her eyes, so horrified that she was momentarily unable to move, breath, or even think.  She finally dropped to her knees, a low whimper escaping from her throat as tremendous sorrow washed over her in an icy, painful wave.  Filling the large, vaulted room before her was a sight that seemed to have come from the depths of the underworld itself, a twisted parody of life that offended her to the very bone.

There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of animals in the room, all of them dead.  But they were made to look as though they were still alive, their noble bodies twisted into permanent poses that mocked those they might have affected in their lifetimes, stiffened and frozen by the cold handiwork of man.  As Lupi’s eyes darted in all directions, taking in the appalling tableau, she recognized animals that she had only previously seen in books and movies; she saw bears, alligators, lions, and tigers.  But there weren’t just fierce and dangerous animals here; there were deer, kangaroos, and hippos.  Dead monkeys sat in fake trees while dead cheetahs lurked in fake grass, and a dead rhinoceros stood proudly next to a false pond where a crocodile sunned itself on an imitation mudbank.  Lupi saw rabbits, squirrels, and koala bears.  She even noted the presence of several penguins off to the side of the room, situated in a small area made to look like the surface of an iceberg.

Amongst the penguins were a couple of young ones, little more than babies, and she’d noted that nearly all of the displays contained juvenile versions of the animals along with their full-grown counterparts.  Charleston apparently had no compunction about killing the children as well as the parents.  She began to shiver.

Haltingly, fearfully, she stepped farther into the room, as though afraid to disturb the cryptlike silence of this menagerie of death.  These were his trophies.  The little metal and wood awards out in the library were nothing.  It was this enormous collection of preserved and stuffed corpses that was Charleston’s pride and joy, Lupi was certain.  These still bodies were proof to any claims that Charleston could make, and the werewolf could imagine him leading other rich people through this room, casually remarking on how he’d killed this or that animal, giving everybody a thrill with his tales.  Then everybody would leave the room and go do whatever else that rich people did, nobody even thinking about the horror that they’d just witnessed.

Lupi reached out and shakily put her hand against the flank of a buck deer, and nearly pulled it away at how stiff and lifeless it felt.  She’d hunted deer many times in the past, and had caught every single one with nothing but her teeth, claws, and cunning, then had honored the spirit of the animal by devouring every edible part of it, taking care to share with her friends and family, finally burying what little remained so that the creature could rejoin the endless cycle of life.  She and her werewolf brethren took great care to respect the life that they took from nature, and something like this, turning a wild creature into a trophy, was anathema to the beliefs she’d carried since childhood.

She nearly sobbed when she saw how the deer’s dark, attentive eyes had been replaced with poorly-made replicas, which shone dully in the bright overhead lighting.  They didn’t look lifelike in the least, and they only made it all the more awful.  How could a person bear to see such a mockery day in and day out?  How could someone be comfortable, even proud, of having something like this in their home?

When she drew her hand away from the deer’s flank, she found that her hand was dusty from the deer’s long-dead fur.  This time she did sob, and tears fell freely from her eyes as she walked deeper into the nightmare.

She reached out and touched every animal she found, trying to comfort the spirits of the poor beasts, which were surely in torment from the mistreatment of their bodies and the horrific nature of their deaths.  This entire room was nothing but a monument to needless, selfish killing in the name of ego gratification, and simply being here was a crushing weight upon her soul.  But she couldn’t leave, not now.  Especially not now.

Lupi carefully caressed the outstretched wings of a falcon, a creature she had observed and admired from afar many times in the past, now mounted to a fake tree branch in a pose that suggested flight preparation, though the bird would never feel the freedom of the skies again.  “I am here now, and I understand,” she murmured to the magnificent bird.  “I will not let this continue.  I—“

She stopped, staring at the trio perched atop a fake boulder a short distance away, and her stomach dropped completely out of her.

Leaving the falcon behind, the young werewolf stumbled forward across the wooden floor until she’d reached the three creatures and their boulder.  “By the Elements,” she whispered, her voice choking up.  “What has he done to you?”

The three wolves, a pair of parents and their cub, stood transfixed on the low, flat boulder, unable to respond to her.  Though they were of different species, werewolves and regular wolves had always gotten along quite well, and were capable of understanding one another a great deal.  There had been many times in the past that wolves had cared for a lost werewolf child, and werewolves had aided countless wounded and hungry wolves in times of need.  The werewolves considered wolves of all varieties to be part of their family, and apparently the wolves felt the same way, because they always welcomed their lycanthropic allies.

If this were out in nature, they would have cautiously circled one another, sniffing and nosing about until satisfied that no hostility was present, and then they would have enjoyed each other’s company for a time, sharing meals and comfort.  But these parents couldn’t watch their young one play with his two-legged cousin, nor could their young one ever grow up to sire cubs of his own.  These wolves could never howl under the moon with her and could never run wild and free through the forests beneath the stars.  Someone that hadn’t even had the courage to face them on equal footing had ended their lives, and then to add insult to injury, their bodies had become grotesque trophies for that vicious monster.

Looking at the cub, frozen in what was supposed to be a playful pose but was only a sad travesty, Lupi felt her heart tighten painfully in her chest, and she threw back her head and let go with an agonized howl that was not only for herself, but for all of the creatures trapped here, and for all of those that had been hurt and abused by bastards like Charleston.  What had these wolves done to him to deserve this fate?  What had any of these creatures ever done to warrant this?  The knowledge that Charleston was assuredly far from the only person that did things like this only made it hurt all the worse.

The howl draining her, she collapsed before the boulder and began to violently cry, sounding like a wounded wolf with her whimpers and moans of sorrow.  She grabbed the cub and clutched him to her chest, desperately stroking his fur and nuzzling him, murmuring to him in the werewolf language, wishing that she could bring him back to life simply through sheer force of will alone.  But that wasn’t possible.  No matter how badly she wanted to, she couldn’t save the lives of these poor creatures; their lives had already been taken before she had ever become aware of them, and their beauty was lost forever.  They could not be restored, regardless of what she did.

But they could be avenged.

The werewolf reverently set the cub back down with his parents, and then clenched her fists and called forth the wolfen spirit that dwelled within.  Her teeth shifted and sharpened as white fur sprouted from her skin.  Bones and muscles realigned themselves into even more powerful configurations.  Ears grew into points and changed position atop her head.  Finger and toenails became black, inch-long claws.  The magick of transformation that had been imparted upon her people by nature untold ages ago flowed through her blood, unleashing the feral might within, and when Lupi howled this time, it was a deep, powerful sound, full of fury and primeval power.

As the howl tore through the interior of the mansion and rattled its windows, a chorus of barks, roars, squawks, chatters, and countless other animal noises joined it, creating a cacophony unlike anything heard in that part of the world before.

Lupi couldn’t wait for Charleston to get home.

*     *     *

            When Charleston Heaton stepped through his door several hours later, he only caught a vague impression of a white-furred, wolfen form dressed in baggy pants charging at him before he was slammed against the wall and mercilessly beaten into such a deep unconsciousness that he didn’t wake up for quite some time.

*     *     *

            “Hey, I think he’s coming around!” said a husky female voice, and Charleston felt himself roughly yanked upwards and given a long, violent shake that rattled every bone in his pain-wracked body.  “Wakey wakey!” taunted the voice as he was shaken.

When Charleston opened his eyes he saw the feline features of a green-eyed, red-haired woman directly in front of his face, looking at him with an expression of amusement and contempt.  He tried to flinch away when she plunged her hand towards his eye, but he found that she had a very firm grip on the back of his neck, making it impossible for him to turn away.  But she didn’t do any further damage to him.  She only pried his eyelids as far apart as they would go and leaned forward to look at his eye.

After a few moments, she made a grunt of satisfaction and called out, “Only a minor concussion, I think, though it’s hard to tell in these conditions, and I’m not exactly a doctor.  But from the looks of it, you didn’t beat him into complete uselessness, kiddo.  He should be able to run just fine.”

It was only when she tossed him back to the ground that he realized just how tall the woman was, as well as the fact that she’d been easily holding him aloft with one hand.  That probably would have bothered him more if he weren’t preoccupied with the countless jolts of pain shooting through his bruised and battered body.  He felt like he’d been ran over by a train, and instinctively curled up and clutching his aching midsection, certain that he had a couple of broken or cracked ribs.  It didn’t help when someone kicked him in the back hard enough to send him pinwheeling across the dirt until he collided with a big rock.  He howled in agony as one of his wrists was crushed against the unyielding stone, and a chorus of harsh laughter filled the air.

“Listen to the mighty hunter now, eh?” exclaimed the red-haired woman with a hearty chuckle.  “Fuckin’ pussy.”

Adrenaline surging through him and easing some of his discomfort, Charleston flopped around like a fish for a few moments, trying to right himself, and after he managed to get to his knees, he turned towards the source of the laughter, snarling angrily.

“What the fuck is this?!” he demanded, glaring at the large crowd of people assembled around an enormous bonfire in the middle of what looked like a forest clearing.  “What the hell’s going on?!”

The people around the bonfire were backlit by the blaze, making it hard to pick out their features, but they looked like pictures he’d seen of American Indians gathered at tribal functions.  The vast majority of them had dark, reddish skin and the predominant hair color was black, with a few brunettes and redheads thrown in here and there, and most of them were dressed only in simple leather tunics and breeches, if anything at all.  A good number of them were clad in wolf pelts, head and all, making them look like cinematic wolfmen, as though they were in the middle of some kind of ceremony.  There were a few that were dressed in loose-fitting modern clothing, and for the life of him, they looked like hip-hop Indians, and he might’ve spared them a laugh if not for the anger smoldering in their dark eyes as they gazed at him.

He wondered if some of the people from the Arizona reservations had finally gotten to him to pay him back for the poaching he’d done on their land.  They’d sworn up and down they’d pay him back for what he’d done, and had attempted to sue him several times.  But fortunately, the U.S. justice system treated rich white men far more equally than it did poor red men, and he’d gotten off without a hitch every single time.  Other than sending the occasional threatening letter sent to him through his attorney, the Indians hadn’t been able to do squat to him.  But now it looked like they’d decided to take the law into their own hands.

“Hey, look, if this is about the bighorn sheep, I can pay you guys back, okay?” he said, gasping at the stabbing heat in his wrist as he moved upwards and tried to get into a sitting position on the rock.  “I can even repay you for the legal expenses, no problem.  I didn’t think it’d bother you guys this much!”

He turned to the big redhead, who was smirking at him with her bared, muscular arms folded across her chest.  “Talk to them, would you?  I can make this worth everybody’s time, and nobody has to get hurt.  Any more, at least,” he added with a groan, holding his smashed wrist in his bloody and dirty good hand.

The redhead rolled her eyes and then turned to look at the shorter woman standing next to her, who was also a redhead, though her hair was straight as opposed to the big woman’s curly locks.  “So you wanna make the transfer, or should I?”

The shorter redhead, who was wearing ripped jeans and a Judas Priest t-shirt, grinned and said, “I’ll do it, if you don’t mind.  I’ve been itching to do something official since I completed my rite of passage last month.”  She strode forward, moving smoothly across the earthen forest floor in bare feet, and as she drew closer, Charleston recognized her with a start.

“Venus d’Morte!” he exclaimed, giggling nervously.  “I remember you!  You were in Steel Dragon!  I saw you at the Pacific Megarena back in ’94!”

“Hope you enjoyed the show,” she said as she approached, the ice in her voice as sharp and cold as the ice in her sapphire eyes.

When she was right next to him, he said in a hushed voice, “You gotta help me here, Venus.  These guys don’t look like they’re the nicest bunch of people around, and I’d rather end this with big checks for everybody instead of bloodshed, if you catch my meaning.  I can totally make it worth your while … I’ve got connections, after all.  I could probably get you on Leno!”

She gave him a cold smile and shook her head.  “Wow, you’re an even bigger dick than Lupi described.”

He twitched in surprise at the mention of the name.  “Lupi?” he echoed, remembering the strange, hostile girl he’d met in Zap City, and he felt a chill pass through him.  “Oh shit.  The bitch set me up, didn’t she?” he snapped.  “She wasn’t there by accident, was she?  She was just there to scout me so those Indian whackjobs could figure out where I lived!  She was the one that stole my wallet, too!”

The people by the fire began to loudly grumble at the sound of his words, sounding like a pack of angry dogs, and Charleston shivered at the sound.  He leaned closer to the redhead and said, “Look, all bullshit aside, please help me out here.  I didn’t do anything to these guys that was any worse than what the government does to them on a regular basis.  I don’t know what they’ve told you, but all I did was illegally shoot a couple of bighorn sheep, so what?  They acted like I’d gone and killed their kids or something, and if it weren’t for the police, I probably wouldn’t have gotten off that reservation in one piece.  These people are stone-cold psycho, all tangled up in their mystical mumbo jumbo, not like you and me.  We’re just regular folk, you know?  We gotta stick together.”

The redhead threw back her head and laughed mightily, and then looked back down at him with a sly grin.  “Oh, I’m not regular folk, either.  Never have been, never will.  As a matter of fact, I just officially became one of them last month, even though I’ve been on good terms with them for quite a while longer.”  Charleston gaped at her, now certain that she was one of those celebrities that hung around with primitive people so much that she eventually went native and thought that she was part of their tribe or whatever.  Just great!  “But I’m also a rather noteworthy individual on the shadowy side of Los Angeles, which gives me the proper jurisdiction to do this.”

Her hand shot out and clamped against his forehead with more strength than he would have thought her capable of, and he grunted at the sudden pressure on his skull.  She began to make guttural barking, growling, and yipping noises, as though she were a canine of some sort, and after a few seconds, it began to sound as though she were speaking in another language altogether.  He shuddered as he was suddenly gripped with the awful sensation of something alien within his brain, rifling through its contents at high speed.  It was a horrific feeling, far worse than the physical aches peppering his body, and he made a high, keening sound of profound discomfort.  What was she doing to him?!

He awkwardly reached up towards her wrist with his good hand, wanting to pull her hand away from his head, but it was as though his muscles didn’t want to work properly.  Charleston was helpless.

But it didn’t last much longer, as the redheaded woman let go as quickly as she’d latched on, giving him a contemptuous shove backwards as she did.  He squawked as he struggled not to fall off the rock, painfully jarring his wrist in the process, and as he yowled the redhead addressed him in an authoritative voice.

“I, Clarisse, hunter of the Hollywood grounds, have now excommunicated you from my hunting territory.  I have done so on the grounds that you have committed acts towards the natural world that are so offensive that they must be answered for in grand fashion.  You have willfully and even gleefully taken the lives of a multitude of creatures that had done no harm towards you, without intent to make use of their bodies as anything but trophies.  From records we have obtained from your dwelling, which my look into your mind has just correlated, you have also taken part in ‘hunts’ where animals were illegally acquired from dealers, and then penned in and offered no possible avenue of escape, unable to defend themselves or flee as you murdered them from a comfortable distance,” the redhead, apparently named Clarisse, said, and her voice began to shake with barely-contained anger.  “You have even gone so far as to slay young animals in such a manner.  The evidence against you is overwhelming, both in terms of your ‘trophies,’ the papers within your files, and the videotapes of your exploits you kept in your home theatre.  Your guilt in this matter is undeniable.”

Trembling, she reached out towards his face, her hand bent into a claw, her long blue nails shimmering in the light of the fire, and for a moment he thought she was going to slash at his face.  The big redhead apparently did as well, because she took several steps towards the smaller one, a look of concern on her face.  But Clarisse brought herself back under control, took a deep breath, and continued.  “Due to the proximity of your dwelling to the hunting grounds of my people, it is the hunters of Los Angeles that have claim upon you, and thusly it would fall to us to administer the necessary justice in this situation, according to lycanthrope custom.  But, at the behest of Lupi Night Wind, kin to Lassic, the respected chieftain of this tribe, I have transferred any claims myself or any of my fellow Hollywood hunters might have upon you to Lassic’s tribe, and to Lupi Night Wind in particular.  I present you to this tribe as a gift of goodwill from the vampires of Los Angeles to the lycanthropes of California.  This gift has been approved not only by Brandi and myself, but also several of the other elder vampires of Los Angeles, and with this gift comes our urgings of swift and vicious justice for you.”

She leaned forward and growled at him for a few moments, her eyes murderous, and then threw back her head and howled long and loud, sounding exactly like a wolf.  That was chilling enough for Charleston, but it was even worse when the other redhead and all of the people by the fire joined in with her as well.  Vampires?  Lycanthropes?  He was surrounded by lunatics!

Charleston started to get to his feet to make an escape attempt, and then he caught sight of the enormous assortment of his trophies next to the bonfire.  His eyes darted towards the fire, and he felt a sharp surge of anger shoot through him as he noticed the outlines of his prized elephant trophies in the middle of the fire: those idiots must have built the fire around his elephant trophies!  Did they have any idea how much it cost to have a family of elephants stuffed and then smuggled back overseas?!

Forgetting his fear from a few moments ago, he leaped up and pointed towards the fire.  “What the fuck are you doing to my trophies?!  I didn’t take those fucking elephants from your damned reservation!  You’ve got no right to destroy my property!”

By this time, the howling had stopped, and the clearing was silent as everybody simply stared at him, as if completely floored by what he was saying.  He stumbled towards his trophies, shoving past Clarisse, and roared, “Stay the fuck away from my property, you hatchet-face assholes!”

A big, wolfskin-clad figure stepped in front of him so swiftly that he ran headlong into it.  It was akin to running into a wall, and he fell backwards onto his ass hard enough that his head swam.  “Oh gawd …” he moaned, putting his good hand to his forehead as he fought down a wave of nausea.

“Those remains are not your property,” said the shadowy figure in a stern, throaty voice, seeming impossibly huge from Charleston’s perspective on the ground.  “They never were.”

“The fuck they aren’t!  Do you know how much money I’ve sank into collecting them?!” Charleston demanded as he struggled to his feet.  A large hand palmed the top of his head and roughly shoved him backwards hard enough that he almost flipped head over heels.

“Money means nothing,” declared the big figure, and from the tone of his voice, it sounded like he believed it, too.