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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