Nocturnesque Chapter 11
by Jeff Lewis (aka The Werewolf!) © 1985
"You saw what?" Steve looked at me in shock.
"There was a man attached to the same counterpart. An ugly, ugly, evil
man," I told him.
"Gevaudan," Jen said quietly.
"You said that before. Who is Gevaudan?"
"'Who was Gevaudan?' actually. He lived in France in the 1700's. His
real name wasn't Gevaudan; nobody knows what his real name was. He was a
terribly evil man who became a Lycaon. He terrorized France for years
until one day he vanished. He was called 'La Bete de Gavaudan'," Jen
explained.
Steve turned to Jen. "I don't see what that has to do with our new
Lycaons problems. You can't attach another human soul to a living human,
can you?"
"Not normally, the living body will resist it. The Bete was not a normal
man or a normal Lycaon by any means. He had an insane amount of personal
drive, and he was very smart. They never caught him, even in a time
where lycanthropy was generally being sought out with greater passion
and visciousness than witches were. No, I'm sure that some how that
monster has survived." Jen shook with rage," and he used me to give him
a life."
I stood there, my mind a blank. "What can we do for him?" I asked.
"Well," Steve began," we're not equipped to handle this. How your
boyfriend resisted him long enough to let us switch him back to human
form, or for that matter, why he could switch back to his form and not
the Bete's form is beyond me. We need help. Jen love, can you keep him
under?"
She walked over to the inert form on the bed and touched his head. She
drew her hand away as if it had been burnt. Clutching her hand to her
chest, she said, "I think so, but the monster is so strong. Everytime I
go in deep enough to keep him down, the monster tries to attack along my
life line."
I gave Steve the car keys and directions to the apartment. I asked him
to fill the tank and load the suitcases with clothes for him. As he
left, I called to him: "Hurry!"
Jen was sitting on the bed keeping an eye on the still form. He looked
so peaceful, how could any of this happened?
Steve returned very quickly. I checked my purse for my wallet and we
began to carry him to the car.
Jen sat in the back with him, and Steve and I rode in the front. We rode
back to the town in silence broken only by the sound of my mate's skin
rubbing against the rough blanket we used to cover him.
As we rode up to the Elder's Hall, the sun was just starting to break
over the horizon... such a beautiful morning for such a horrible night.
We could see that within the building, people were moving about and two
larger men I didn't recognise came out and helped carry him into the
large open room which made up the meeting area. The Elder and several of
the oldest citizens were there setting up various paraphernalia,
lighting candles and setting out garlands of herbs and leaves.
We carefully lay the naked body in the center of a ring of incensed
candles which filled the room with a cinnamon scent. Jen led me to a
dark corner of the room and made me sit.
"You can't help - neither can I. Just wait. The Elders know what they're
doing." she said to me. We made ourselves comfortable and lifted to the
higher plane to watch the real battle and to be ready if we were
needed.
The Elders appeared on this plane as bright lights moving around the
dark mass huddled around the man I loved so much. I could see his form,
the wolf he was to be paired with and that horrible monster holding them
within his form. They weren't even trying to escape... they seemed dead
but the thin glimmer of their life-line told me that there was still
hope.
Each light moved into its place in the configuration of six and reformed
into six pairs of human and wolf - three pairs male and three female
pairs to complete the balance - the wolves sitting anxiously in front of
and at the feet of the humans to guard them from attack. Their lower
bodies seemed so old and frail, but their higher bodies were so young
and vital. It was almost painful to look directly at them.
The light of their spirit flowed over the Bete and making him scream in
anger. He rose, a black pillar drinking up their light. Once again, it
took on the form of a huge characture of a wolf, snapping and howling in
the aether. It pounced at the youngest of the Elders, knowing that his
youth would make him the weakest link.
For a moment, his light dimmed and it seemed as if the circle would fall
but his companion managed to grab the Bete in the flank and bit hard.
The Bete returned the attack with a vicious swipe of its razor sharp
claws. That gave the Elder the time he needed to regain his strength
from the others and to throw back the Bete to the center of the circle.
Thin lines of energy started forming between the Elders binding the Bete
within their eldritch boundries. It grew in volume and complexity as if
it some spider web of magic threads were being woven around the creature
within.
At first it seemed not to affect him at all. His claws easily tore the
lines apart releasing the energy - the Elder's life force, into a spray
of sparks which he swollowed greedily, but the webbing was growing so
fast, so thick, that soon he could not continue devouring the strands.
They just broke apart as they touched him, but not they hurt him when
they broke.
I watched this in quiet fascination as I realised that they couldn't win
this way. Each new strand was a part of the their life-force and that
wasn't infinite. Something had to be done, something final. Without
warning, I knew what to do.
Dropping back into my lower form, the room plunged into darkness as I
returned to the normal world. My astral vision had been giving me a view
of the room so bright that my normal vision had been compensating for
the light. A precious second passed as I regained my sight and made my
way past the Elders to the centre of the circle to stand over my mate.
I gathered all my strength and turned my vision inward. No hint could be
given so I was flying blind. Focussing all of me into one place, I burst
through into the astral plane and directly into the centre of the Bete.
My life force exploded out in all directions...
I was laying on a cold wooden floor in a blindingly bright room. Someone
was yelling and other people were running about. As my eyes refocused, I
realised that it was she.. the woman I loved and she was laying next to
me. I took her up and she was so cold.
One of the old people, the one I met at her house walked over and
kneeled next to us. "Is she.." I started to ask, but he put a finger
over my lips. He just said "Wait."
There were six of them and they sat around us in a circle. One of them
looked in pretty bad shape. The woman called "Jen" came over and pressed
a finger to my head and I suddenly felt calm and lightheaded. The room
went blue and filled with a glowing vapour.
I could see us sitting and laying on the ground and at the same time, we
were floating in the air. Suddenly, there was a large male wolf sitting
next to me, licking my face. It was made of the same vapour everything
else was formed from, but I could touch it.I could see a figure floating
well above us. "Call her back... call her to you" a voice told me.
I stood up and yelled her name. The sound seemed to die in just a foot,
muffled in the thick vapour. I lept for her and found myself propelled
in her direction. I caught her arm and saw the light which was drawing
her away. It was so pure, so beautiful. I knew that if I looked at it
for another second I'd follow her into it.
Squeezing my eyes closed, fighting back tears, I pulled her down. From
here, I could see the six lights of the elders. One was clearly dimmer
than the others. My love was standing next to me, so quiet and weak. The
brightest elder stood and helped the dimmest elder to stand.
They embraced and the one pulled a strand of silver from the body of the
other as if unravelling a cloth. The real body of the dim one, now
floating over us, slumped forward. The bright elder took the silver
thread and drew it out, draping it over my love's real body and then
over the ghostly form next to me.
A shaggy form lept out of the real body of my love and bounded to the
ghost next to me taking its place as all of the parts merged together. I
dropped back into my body and passed out.
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