The Reluctant

The Reluctant

By Aila Cline

Copyright 2011 Aila Cline

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* Poem excerpt that Will gives to Emily
in the form of a note is from e.e. cummings 1958 poem “i carry your
heart with me.”

*Quote in Author’s Note is from
William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar.

This novel contains mature
content and should only be read by adults who understand that
graphic content is present.

*******ENJOY THE
STORY*******

Emily

“Bar the fucking door,
Emily.”

Thump. Will’s body slammed against the
locked door. My arms shook as I folded my hands to keep a tremor
from dominating my body. Will had never lied to me before; I could
not imagine him lying to me about something so serious
now.

Another thud against the door, and it
splintered. He burst into the room, naked and ready, grabbing my
arm and yanking me up to him. He did not even bother to speak to me
before coming at me.

I screamed.

This is not where the story begins of
course. Aha, I’ve teased you into thinking that the tale begins
with debauchery. It does not. Instead, like all real stories, it
starts with a normal night in my normal life. The blood and the
hurt come later. But don’t worry, you’ll get your story. I
experienced plenty of both blood and hurt. This is not just a love
story. It’s one of revenge, of passion, and of pride. This is the
story of us, two creatures bonded by hate and love and blood and
hunger. It began with the hunt for a killer, and it ends quite
similarly.

Will

No moon tonight. Slight, crisp
breeze—a perfect hunting ground. Everything with sense has figured
out that the large animal padding along the path bears caution.
Unfortunately for the man who holds the hand of a four-year old
girl while fingering the machete strapped to his belt, he has no
sense, and the red haze which coats the practical part of his mind
will soon be splattered all over the softly-dewed grass. The little
girl, allergic to cats, sneezes.

As my best friend Luka would say, Let
the hunt begin.

I watched with wry amusement as the
cougar crept closer to the old sex addict and his prey. The hunter
becoming the hunted. It is always my favorite game to watch,
especially since I’d tracked the old bastard for so long.
Thankfully, the wind shifted and the big cat caught my scent,
causing him to creep away in silence. There were bigger things in
the woods than that night. Now I could focus on the target without
side distractions.

Brandon, forty-eight years on this
earth, all spent cultivating pedophilic tendencies with manners
that could embarrass even the most ardent Lycanti. Luckily for the
little girl he has chosen, I am the most reluctant Changeling I
know. That doesn’t really say much about me, especially when I’ve
lost control again, but you know I’d never do anything like that
while Changed. It’s like the human comes out of me when I’m a
monster, and the monster comes out when I’m a human. My English
classes taught me that this is called irony, but I’ve moved on from
that phase in my life. There are other things that I can’t let go
of quite as easily as a few literary terms.

I knew one day I would have someone
who realizes that I hold onto what’s human.

Don’t you remember the story I told
you? “You’ll be mine,” that old bitch said after the Change was
over. “Forever.”

I ripped her apart as soon as I was
fully Changed. She might have thought me hers, but she was never
mine. You are. You were, even then. From the first moment I saw
you, I knew it, Emily. She wanted to teach me to kill, but that
wasn’t what I needed to know. I needed to know when to kill. I had
to find that out on my own, through my acquisition of you mostly.
But you don’t want to know about that. The first night’s importance
can’t be underplayed.

The idea to hunt this scum hit me when
Luka gave me the news clippings about this guy who had been a
suspect in five different murder cases of children under ten, but
without bodies of the children, no one could find enough evidence
to indict him. Something burned in me, a feeling that I knew his
kind. I’d followed him, knowing he’d do it again. After all, we
monsters have a taste for blood that has to be quenched. I wasn’t
dramatic about it. I don’t skulk. I stalk. His smell lingered for
days at the back of my throat, the odor of too much sweat and not
enough soap. This is the smell of one who has lost his
humanity.

I did not give him the chance to draw
that machete. This was not the movies and I’m not some great, noble
guy who wanted to give him the chance to fight for his life. I
simply trotted over and stared at him for a moment. He stared back
at me, obviously wondering what I was doing out without a master.
The shadows hid my very human eyes and probably some of the
more…frightening parts of me, but he knew me for what I
am.

“Go away, mutt. You have no reason to
be here,” he said clearly. I’m sure that most people think that a
man needs to be drunk or mentally incompetent to commit horrendous
murder. Not true. He knew exactly what he did and had become very
good at it. That’s why it’s so damn wrong.

I growled and leapt. There was no
reason to give him a split second to take out that bushwhacker.
I’ve had my fair share of cuts and nicks, nothing serious yet, but
they’re quite annoying and hard to explain to normal
people.

Teeth to the throat will kill all but
the most obstinate, thick-skinned bastards. Thankfully, his skin
gave easily and the blood sprayed out. Unfortunately, though, the
little girl got the biggest shower of it. It’s amazing how kids
trust animals more than people. She did not cry or scream; rather,
she smiled and came up to me, petting me and nodding. She was so
tiny. She held tight to me during the silent walk back to a police
station where I left her. She waved as she walked in. I wonder if
they believed anything she told them. What a brave little girl.
It’s sad, but I never even knew her name.

Do you sometimes wish you could be
like that, Emily?

Emily

I ran down the path, out of breath but
loving it. Pushing my body like that always paid off. I would look
less like a doughnut in my bathing suit that summer and more like a
doughnut stick. The ocean would be my coffee. Ahhh, I could feel
that salty breeze now. And men. Delicious men who would look at my
tan body and want me. Yes, all that running on dark nights in
November would pay off when the weather turned in March—or at least
I hoped so.

An Ipod fueled my muscles with the
hard-hits of Disturbed. Their series of albums had almost played
through. Alphabetical order-me would have The Exies to listen to
next, The Fray after that. Predictable was good. Being nineteen and
taking a gap year between high school and college, also good. My
folks believed in a privileged childhood—childhood being defined as
however long I decided it to be. My friends had all gone to college
and left me to rot from boredom, but at least I wasn’t buried
beneath the books like I’m sure they were. Boarding school in the
east had burned me out on school for awhile—and parents. I had
returned with an attitude and a tattoo. I had learned to live
without them and enjoyed it. Being back wasn’t so bad though. They
gave me whatever I wanted mostly. I had to admit:

Life was good.

I stopped to catch my breath. Usually
background noise of crickets and birds punctuated my run. I could
always tell when I’d arrived at the last quarter mile of the track
because an owl would usually make slow, sad sounds of mourning.
Sometimes I’d even talk to him, trying to console him.

That was the last quarter, but my
sorrowful buddy wasn’t around. Instead, I heard a low growl and an
exclamation of pain. Some idiot had let their dog loose again, I
was sure of it. Probably bit one of the other regular runners.
Hesitantly, I started towards the sound. Something made me pause
though. A chill went through me. Then I heard the strangled choke
coming from that direction, but I could not make my feet move. To
this day, I’ll never know what made me hesitate. Maybe Will was
right. People just know when to stay away from him. I certainly did
that night.

I ran to slim down my body, not to
build it with clunky muscle. I could not help, so I turned on my
heels and ran. Something dangerous was out there. I would call the
police when I got home.

I didn’t know how helpless I really
was that night, for I had been spotted and marked by the killer in
the darkness.

As teenagers are apt to do, I
completely forgot about my uneasiness in the park. I told myself
the next morning that my mind had been playing tricks on me. I do
have an overactive imagination sometimes. Things that seem so
ominous in the dark become a laugh the next morning. Most likely, I
convinced myself, someone had fallen while walking their dog. The
wet gurgle was only a muffled exclamation at pain. He or she had
probably fallen on the dog’s foot or something.

Imagine my surprise when I watched
video footage of a slashed body being removed from the last
quarter-mile of the track the next morning. The preliminary reports
claim that an animal attacked the man, but the bites and scratches
had hit debilitating areas: the jugular, the groin artery, and a
lung. A very deliberate animal, the police chief claimed.
Californian rednecks took to the woods to find the culprit,
delighted with the idea of a hunt.

My parents forbade my running there,
instead buying me an expensive treadmill that had a dozen or so run
options with incline. I did not want to admit that I could have
been wrong by turning and walking away from the threatening sounds.
I did not want to face my own cowardice. Obviously I know that now,
but as a silly little girl then, I decided that the treadmill was
better for my knees and that justified my staying home. I thanked
my parents and resigned myself to a life of indoor
exercise.

Will

That night in the moonlight I felt you
across the park. Something tugged at me. I took the girl through
the woods instead of the path, knowing that anyone who saw a
golden-haired child with a monster would shoot first and ask
questions later. I had been human up until about three minutes
before I killed the pedophile, and it would be a long while before
I was human again. Tension sparks it in me, and I do not relax so
easily. When I’m wound up, I Change. My clothes and hunting knife
remained in the brush, no doubt found by the investigators of
Brandon’s death.

But still, I returned to the running
trail and inhaled your delicate scent that filled me with a longing
to touch you as a man. You smell like a woman should, soft and
vulnerable. I knew then that I had to have you. I tracked your
scent home that night. I could have overpowered you as a monster,
but nothing should ever happen that way. Sexuality dominates the
Change, but I have morals. So I had to wait. I haunted the shadows,
listening to the cycles of your breathing as you watched
television, ate, and ignored whatever dribbling advice your parents
presented you. The musical tones of your voice wrapped around me,
the different timbres of you intoxicating me. I knew I couldn’t
forget you now. That voice would have clung to me for the rest of
my life.

The anticipation of tasting you kept
me so on edge that I couldn’t change back while your presence
swirled around me. The longer I waited, the more frustrated I
became. But sensations in that state are like dulled edges of a
knife. They prick at the core of me and can’t be fully expressed
until I’m human again. Even with my condition dampening the
emotions, my claws scratched grooves into the dirt; my tongue
lolled and I salivated, imagining in carnal terms what I would do
to you. Even with my rigid code I could not help but be aroused in
that state. I just would not allow myself the blasphemy of touching
you while a monster. Imagine how trapped I was in my bindings of
lust for you.