Deirdre tried to keep from shaking as she made her way through the woods, following a sound halfway between a howl and a cry of despair.
Anyone seeing her would have thought she looked out of place rushing through a dark forest. A high school girl with long red hair and sparkling green eyes, she looked as if she ought to be out on a date. Dancing with her boyfriend, moving gracefully across the floor as other guys admired her figure. Or perhaps laughing at his jokes, the sound warm and cheering, as they held hands and waited for their milk shakes in the diner.
Deirdre had no time for such things now. Trevor needed her, and she had failed him. She had to make up for that failure—and quickly.
He wasn’t being especially stealthy tonight. It was easy to follow the trail of broken branches and trampled plants that he’d left. He’d also left boot prints in the mud. That his boots were still on was a good sign. Maybe there was still hope.
She found him at last, lying in a crumpled heap, sobbing. She reached down and touched his shoulder.
“Trevor,” she whispered.
He shuddered and tried to pull away from her.
“Go away!” His voice was deeper than normal, more growly.
“You know I can’t,” she said. “You know I won’t.”
“Go away!” He shouted this time, and his voice echoed in the empty woods. Empty of other humans, anyway. Deirdre could hear the rustling of frightened animals in the undergrowth.
Under normal circumstances, the tone would have been enough to make her turn and run for her life, but she knew Trevor too well to be frightened, even when he was…like this.
“Look at me,” she said gently.
Surprisingly, he did look at her rather than shouting at her again. She gave herself credit for not cringing.
Trevor’s normally brown eyes were amber and lupine. His usually clean-shaven face had fur jutting out of it at irregular intervals, and the black hair on his head looked longer than normal, wild, and tangled. His ears had become pointed.
“I know this isn’t what we hoped for,” she said. “But don’t you see what this means?”
“That I’m a freak,” he replied, his voice low and quiet. A tear started to run down his cheek before disappearing into the fur.
“My spell stopped the transformation from completing. That means—”
“It hurts,” he said, shedding more tears. “My whole body hurts.”
“But you’re still in control,” she said, trying to hug him. He pulled away from her. “I just need to improve my technique or maybe find a more powerful Wiccan to help me, and we can suppress your lycanthropy completely.”
“Maybe the transformation didn’t complete because of the blood moon,” said Trevor, looking up at the sky and shaking.
Deirdre paused for a second. It was a lunar eclipse, so the full moon was a dull orange instead of a silvery white. But Trevor had been a werewolf long enough to have gone through a blood moon before. If he hadn’t fully changed then, he would surely have said something.
“Trevor, I know this is hard—”
“My innards feel as if they’re tied in knots. Bathing in molten silver would feel better than this.”
Deirdre was pretty sure that would be immediately fatal to him, but she didn’t point that out. She was distracted by the way the faint moonlight interacted with his eyes, making them look as if they were glowing. She almost imagined she could see herself in them. She even noticed a silver gleam there—a reflection of her handmade crescent moon pendant.
Perhaps saying nothing at all was better. She took off her pendant so there was no risk of the silver touching him. She did her best to hug him, and this time, he didn’t try to pull away from her. He felt feverish by human standards, and his skin moved slightly as bones and muscles shifted slowly beneath it. No wonder he was hurting!
“Maybe we can prepare something for the pain,” she said as she tried to pull him more completely into her arms. “I doubt normal pharmaceuticals would work, but some herbs might, and there’s a spell—”
“Enough with the spells!” growled Trevor. “Look how well this one turned out.”
Deirdre couldn’t help feeling a little defensive. “There isn’t much information on lycanthropy cures and treatments. I had to improvise. But if you want to try something else, we can. Perhaps the local priest—”
He shuddered in her arms as if the pain had increased. But something remotely resembling a laugh forced its way out of him.
“Priests can’t even do exorcisms without explicit Vatican approval. And anyway, I’m not possessed. I’m cursed. You think our local priest is an expert on curse breaking?”
“You don’t have to be nasty about it,” said Deirdre, but she didn’t let go of him. She couldn’t let go of him.
“I’m not trying to be,” he said, his voice sounding almost like his own. Maybe his pain had eased up a little. “But this isn’t the Middle Ages. No cleric of any faith is going to have a clue what to do about me. Hell, I probably can’t even get a silver bullet to put me out of my misery.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Deirdre snapped. “I will find a way to help you.” She kissed the side of his wolfman face. The fur tickled her lips, and she could taste the salt of his tears.
He looked at her with his amber eyes. “But that’s just it. I want you to have a life, Deirdre. I want you to be happy. How’s that going to happen if you have to spend every waking minute worrying about me, taking care of me?”
“It’s what I want to do,” she said. “You’re the love of my life.” She kissed him again, this time on his tight lips. She could feel his fangs beneath.
He shook so hard that he might have been having a seizure. But that proved to be just a prelude to pulling out of her arms.
“No! If you stay with me, you’ll just be dragged down with me when my secret comes out. Even my parents know something’s wrong. I mean, how many migraines can a guy have? Especially when the doc says nothing is wrong with him. And what if I hurt someone? What if I don’t get out into the woods fast enough?”
“We can find a way to chain you up—”
“You’ve watched too many episodes of Teen Wolf,” he growled. “Life doesn’t work that way. How could either of us buy enough heavy chain without raising questions? And though I couldn’t break the chain, I might pull it right out of the wall. Those old basement walls aren’t exactly made of steel.”
She tried her best to look him in the eye. Was his face getting furrier?
“What can I do to convince you that I’m in this for the long haul?” she asked. “I’d scratch myself on one of your claws if I had to, just to show you that I won’t leave you, no matter what!”
That last sentence got through to Trevor, but not in the way that she’d hoped. She jumped up from the ground and howled loudly enough to be heard in the center of town. Then he looked at her with obvious anger in his amber eyes.
“Are you insane? If you did something that, you’d become like me. I couldn’t stand that. The guilt would destroy me.” He stumbled a bit closer to her. But he changed his mind almost immediately and moved farther away instead.
“I didn’t mean that literally—” began Deirdre.
“You better go,” said Trevor, doing another whole-body shake. “I think the transformation is getting ready to complete.”
He was looking more lupine. But the spell also felt as if it was holding.
She poked around in her backpack and pulled out the bottle of wolfsbane juice that she had so carefully prepared.
Trevor’s eyes widened, and he tried to speak, but all that came out were growls.
“I think creating a magic circle with wolfsbane will hold you,” said Deirdre. “If it does, we won’t need to worry about chains.”
Trevor started shaking so badly that he could hardly stand. In fact, he was beginning to hunch as his body moved closer to quadruped mode. Because of the way he was positioned and how claw-like his hands were, it was all the more surprising when he managed to reach out and grab the wolfsbane bottle.
He almost dropped the container, but he succeeded in holding onto it just long enough to pour its contents down his throat.
“No!” shrieked Deirdre, feeling as if her whole world had just exploded.
Wolfsbane was toxic to both wolves and humans, but after a howling convulsion during which his transforming body looked as if it might disintegrate, it was the wolf who died first. Trevor was fully himself by the end.
“We can get you to a doctor,” said Deirdre, frantically trying to pull him to his feet.
“We’re in the middle of the forest,” said Trevor so faintly that she could barely hear him. “Even if I could walk, I’d be dead before we got anywhere near help. Even if you called 911, the paramedics would never…”
His voice trailed off, and his breathing sounded labored.
She put both her hands on his smooth face and pulled up his head enough to make eye contact. “You will not die! I know some healing magic.”
Trevor managed to shake his head despite her restraining hands. He struggled to make his voice audible. “You healed that…cut I had…once. But…this is different…I’ll be gone before…Never…mind. Promise me…you’ll forget me…and be happy.”
Deirdre listened intently for more words, but there were no more. There would never be any more.
She took his pulse. She listened for breathing sounds. But she knew he was already gone. She kissed his lips, still warm, just as in Romeo and Juliet. The fangs beneath them were gone.
He looked so peaceful lying there that she could almost forgive herself for having failed him.
Almost.
Then the anger flared up inside her, burning so brightly that it made it impossible for her to see anything else.
He should have trusted her. She could have saved him. But instead, he killed himself and broke her heart. How dare he!
She would show him the strength of her love that he had cast doubt upon. She would find a way to bring him back.
Wiccans were too eager to preserve the natural balance to have any resurrection spells. Indeed, there were numerous cautions against event trying such a thing. But if the Goddess wouldn’t help her, there were plenty of others who would.
Checking out the right books in the town library would have raised eyebrows if such books had even been available there. Fortunately, there was the internet to fall back on. Deirdre had looked at a number of things she had no intention of using. Just out of curiosity, of course. At least, that was what she had told herself.
She had the right kind of chalk to draw a magic circle, even though the muddy ground wasn’t an ideal place for it. But she had no time to spare, for she needed Trevor’s body to be as fresh as possible. The longer she waited, the more complications might arise.
The wind picked up, making her work difficult. At some point, the lunar eclipse had ended, and she saw her moon pendant glittering on the ground but partially obscured by a muddy footprint. She had stepped on it without even realizing.
She didn’t pick it up.
She did look at the heavens, where the moon shone beautifully and the stars twinkled.
“Then I defy you, stars!” she said, quoting Romeo. She followed that up by stamping her pendant into the mud.
She held back her tears as she read a Latin invocation that would summon Satan.
Trevor would not have approved. She knew that, and the thought made her hesitate.
But she only paused for a moment. She was doing it for him, all for him. If she succeeded, he would forgive her.
The wind came close to ripping out of her hand the paper on which she’d written the invocation, but she managed to hold onto it.
The moment the ritual was completed, she saw two red eyes gleaming at her in the darkness.
“I knew you would call,” whispered a voice from somewhere nearby.
“I want to make a deal,” she said, pointing to Trevor’s body. “I want him brought back to life, fully restored to health, and cured of his lycanthropy.”
“Anything else? World peace, perhaps?”
She had not expected whatever demon was representing Satan to be sarcastic, but she wasn’t worried.
“No, that’s all I ask.”
“One soul is not going to cover that much,” replied the voice.
“I don’t intend to give you my soul, anyway.” That wasn’t entirely true. Deirdre was willing to do anything for Trevor. But there was no harm in bargaining first. Since she had to take a deal, she was determined to make it the best deal she could possible have.
The voice chuckled. “You must have known there would be a price. If you refuse it, we have nothing more to talk about.”
“I am willing to suffer in this life,” said Deirdre. As quickly as she could, she outlined what she had in mind.
“Interesting,” said the voice. “But if you accept such a deal, you may well damn yourself, whether you sell your soul or not.”
Deirdre knew that’s what the demon would think. But she couldn’t understand why he felt the need to explain it to her. Wasn’t that precisely the kind of fine print demons tried to keep you from seeing?
“I know,” she said, even though she was positive she could avoid that problem. Stupid demons!
“Very well, then,” said the voice. “Sign here.”
An ancient looking parchment appeared right in front of her, written in Latin calligraphy. Right next to it floated a tiny blade for the blood drawing.
Deirdre read the contract very carefully—who said there was no point in learning Latin? Then she signed her name in blood.
“It is done!” said the voice, much more loudly than it had spoken before. Parchment and knife both vanished.
The world around her turned completely black for a moment as if the magic swirling around her had momentarily blotted out the moon. When the darkness cleared, Trevor was sitting up and looking at her. He showed no sign of the wolf anymore.
She ran to him and threw his arms around him as he rose to his feet.
“What…what have you done?” he asked in a horrified tone. His face, which had looked so calm when he faced death, was now so twisted by fear that she hardly recognized him.
“What have you done?” he repeated when she didn’t respond. He ripped himself free from her embrace and grabbed her by the shoulders as if he wanted to shake the answer out of her. What could possibly have frightened him so much? He must be worried for her safety. But once he understood, everything would be all right.
She kissed his now warm lips. “I didn’t do anything that won’t be worth it in the long run.”
In his eyes, she could see the reflection of her own. His eyes were back to their natural brown. Hers glowed amber in the moonlight.
Very nice twist and a good story overall. Liked it very much!
I liked the twist at the end. Definitely the kind of price a demon would exact for the deal she made.