The Twins of Noremway Parish (26 page)

The arrow passed through the chancellor’s heart, striking the floor beneath him. Urey didn’t notice, but instead quickly stood up, grabbing his abdomen in pain. His face contorted in canine images of its human form as if he were struggling to maintain a resemblance of his humanity.

A smile crept upon Gool’s face as he witnessed the chancellor transform not just into a wolf, but into a large, ferocious beast, the one-of-a-kind monster known only to legend as a werewolf.

“
Like I said, Chancellor, you’ll thank me.”

***

As Franz was helping Rita with her broken face, he heard the loud, inhuman roars. He looked over his shoulder and saw Johnny, who stood between him and the jailhouse, running away in terror. He ran toward the stable, jumping in the water trough despite the fact that it was currently filled with waste product of all kinds, including horse (and human) feces and urine.

Plague came out first. The look of horror on his face was unmistakable, but was entirely justified given the horrific sounds coming from within the jailhouse. Ortega Gool quickly followed him, holding a crossbow and shooting behind him. Then he saw Phoenix and turned the crossbow on him. “Move it,” he said.

Franz was stunned, too stunned to even notice the crossbow. His attention was fixated on the jailhouse. As he stared, the great wolf, formerly Ghora Urey, emerged. His long snout, large gnashing teeth, and wide yellow eyes betrayed no hint of the chancellor’s original appearance, yet somehow Franz knew who this was. The connection he felt with him was still there, the connection he’d had since that vague and all-but-forgotten trip to the Waterman House.

Something evil had been incubating in them both, and the thought of it made him smile. Indeed, having a partner in crime was always good, and seeing the hulk of a wolf coming out of the door, standing nearly ten feet tall, looking like a muscular human-wolf hybrid made him happy. This creature could be his,
would
be his, to control and manipulate.

Urey sniffed the air and then, seeming to notice the sheriff, charged toward him, smashing him with his large, razor-like claws.

Then all was black.

Chapter 17

The sheriff woke in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. Darkness surrounded him except for the faint orange glow from beneath the door. Shadows periodically blocked the light, causing it to flicker, but he could see two people standing just on the other side of the room, whispering. His whole body hurt, but especially his face. As he rubbed a particularly tender muscle on his left arm, memories flooded back to him. A large beast had charged at him; a beast that was somehow also the chancellor Ghora Urey.

Where am I?

He stared into the dark, attempting to isolate the whispers. He heard a light jangling of metal clanging against metal.
What is that?
He needed to hear what they were saying. Then the door opened and two men walked in. One was carrying a lantern. “Oh, I see you’re finally awake,” said a voice he recognized as Bartholomew Plague’s.

“
Where am I?”

“
My Lair, of course,” Plague said. “How are you feeling?”

“
My face hurts. My head hurts. My whole body hurts,” Franz said. “What the hell happened?”

Plague stepped back to talk to the man in the shadows. He couldn’t see who it was; the lantern light only illuminated small swatches of the room, leaving the rest in a flickering shadow.

“
The organs had to be harvested immediately. We have fate to thank for that. I never would have imagined this turn of events,” Plague was saying to the unknown man.

“
Wait, what? What? Have you taken my organs?” Franz said, honestly clueless, disoriented. It certainly would explain the pain he felt throughout his body.
Organs harvested? Human harvesting? What is Plague up to?

“
The less you know, the better, Sheriff,” the unidentified man said. He stepped out of the dark. The jangle of the ornaments on his cloak gave him away before he saw his face. “Now that you’re in retirement.”

“
I think I’m going to throw up,” he said sitting up.

“
Hey, just lie down,” advised Plague. “You should just rest.” Franz reluctantly obeyed; something he wasn’t used to doing at all.

***

As Franz was waking up, nearly a day after the incident with the wolf, Decon Mangler and Teret Finley were heading toward Plague’s Lair. The twins were wrapped in a blanket in Teret’s arms. This trip served a dual purpose. They wanted to see how the sheriff was doing, but they also wanted to speak to Plague about the pending surgery to separate the twins. Seemingly, no one knew about the werewolf that the chancellor had become. And, speaking of the chancellor, here he was coming out of the infirmary as Decon and Teret went in.

“
Chancellor,” they both said. “Fine day.”

“
That it is,” Urey said and took a deep breath. “Several days after the rains and the air still smells fresh. I love it.”

“
I know exactly what you mean,” Teret said.

“
It’s good to be alive. After being shot twice, you start to get some perspective.” He rubbed his shoulder. “Although my injuries are superficial compared to Franz’s.” Then he looked at the twins in Teret’s arms. “I hope something can be done for them.” Then they all took a small bow and continued on their ways.

Inside, they found Plague standing alone, looking over his notes. The sheriff was in a bed in an adjacent room. Plague did not seem surprised to see them together with the twins, appearing as a couple. It was only natural, and if Plague had known about the fact that Decon and Teret had already consummated their relationship, he would have understood.

“
So, how’s the sheriff doing?” Decon asked as he entered the dark chamber. He could honestly say he had never cared for the abrasive sheriff, not one bit. But now that he was seriously injured…

“
Aw, the twins,” Plague said with a wide smile that showed long, slightly yellowed teeth, ignoring the question about the sheriff. “You pick names yet?”

Teret laughed. “We’ve been discussing it.”

“
Oh?”

Decon said, “We don’t want to announce any names until after their separation. Don’t want to jinx anything.”

“
Telling him should be fine, Decon,” Teret said.

“
You two don’t believe in jinxes.”

“
No, we don’t,” Teret said with a smile. “Decon, do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

“
Well, the big one is Julian Mangler,” he said with a wink to Teret.

“
And,” Teret said, “the lil peanut is my beautiful Gaylen Finley.” She held them up high. They weren’t as heavy as they looked, and she was able to hold them high above her head with ease. Then she kissed them each on the forehead. Julian giggled while Gaylen let out a brief cry, as though he didn’t like the contact with her lips.

Decon loved seeing her as a mother. She took to it so naturally. That was probably one of the reasons she was such a successful parochial vicar and teacher. She genuinely loved children. The twins—even in their deformed state—were no exception. They had been crying just fifteen minutes before, but now they seemed content in their adoptive mother’s arms.

“
They seem very happy,” Plague said. “And, you know, they seem, well, almost normal when you just listen to them. Just wait until they’re teenagers and want to rebel. I think it’s great that the two of you are willing to do this. Noremway Parish owes you.”

“
Thanks,” Teret said. “I love them, and I would do anything for them.” Then the sheriff—who had decided obeying orders was not his cup of tea—walked in the room, groggy and in pain, a bandage over his right eye. “I think the parish owes the sheriff here an accolade as well.”

“
Aye,” he said. “I heard voices. What the hell am I doing up?”

“
Go lie down,” Plague ordered.

“
What even happened? Attacked by a damn werewolf. Doc, am I missing an eye?” His hand went up to the bandage. “The
hell
?”

“
Just lie down, and I will discuss your condition with you shortly.” Miraculously, Franz obeyed and went back to his bed.

As soon as he was gone, Plague spelled out his plan for separating the twins. As he explained it, the looks on both the friar’s and the parochial vicar’s faces indicated the horror they each felt over the proposed plan. “Human harvesting?” Decon asked. “Seriously? There are so many ethical issues, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m horrified. In fact, I’m disgusted you would even suggest such a thing.”

“
Hear him out, Decon,” Teret said. “I’m actually intrigued.”

“
Intrigued?”

“
Aye,
intrigued
. Don’t be so rigid. Instead of becoming worm food, the deputy’s body could be used to help build body parts for the smaller twin. It’s not immoral; and it’s not disgusting. It’s actually ingenious.”

“
Now you say it’s ingenious.”

“
Aye, perhaps nature can be the ingenious solution to unnatural events.”

Plague smiled throughout this exchange. Teret was so open in her outlook it wasn’t hard to see how she was so popular among some in town and viscerally loathed by others, especially Rita Morgan. Even though Decon observed a more open-minded outlook than most, he was slower on some of the more non-traditional things.

“
Look, Decon, Teret,” said Plague. “With your blessing, I would love to separate the twins and use the modified organic matter to construct the incomplete twin’s missing parts. I have equipment capable of doing that; it just has to be modified slightly. There is a drawback, however–and this is something you must be aware of as his foster parents. He will require an injection of a hormone that will ensure his body does not reject the limbs and organs. There is a very large chance that without the hormone his immune system will turn against the organs and destroy them. As long as he gets a regular dose of the chemical found in the Cagus root, he will be fine. If not, he will die a very painful death.”

“
I see,” Teret said.

“
Do you really want to go through with this, Teret?” asked Decon.

“
Do we have a choice? I haven’t heard a better option. It’s most certainly better than letting him die before he even gets a chance at life.”

After several long minutes, “Alright, do it, Bart,” Decon agreed. “Might be a tough sell around the parish though–he may be treated differently.”

“
We’ll deal with that when we have to,” Teret said. “For now, its life and death for this child, and I refuse to choose death.”

***

The chancellor’s chest hurt like never before in his life, as was to be expected, he supposed. After all, he’d taken an arrow through the heart. He walked across the parish to see Rita. Since coming into town the day before in hysterics, she had not been seen, and she never said what that had been all about. After recovering from being hit by a To-Sphere, she got patched up, and was sent on her way.

He barely remembered transforming into a werewolf. No one besides Gool, Phoenix, and Plague had seen his transformation. He had it on the good word of Bartholomew Plague that he was going to keep a lid on it while trying to find a cure.

Now it was time to see what Rita had wanted. She never usually kept to herself for this long, especially when she had fire ants in her underwear about something. He came up on her house and saw no one outside, no one in the field behind. It was strange that she wasn’t doing something out of doors on such a beautiful day.

“
Rita, it’s the chancellor. Can I come in?” He gave the door a hard knock. There was no response, but he could hear the shuffling of feet inside, the scrape of a chair against the wood floor, and then a cough. But no one came to the door.

He knocked again. This time Rita came to the door, hair disheveled, nose bandaged. “What do you want, Chancellor? My daughter is here for a visit, and we would like to be left alone.”

“
Your daughter? She’s here? When did she arrive?”

“
Just yesterday. Now if you could please leave us, I would appreciate it.” She started to shut the door as Urey made a move to step in. “Excuse me, Chancellor, but I didn’t invite you in. Can you please leave us?”

“
Just making sure everything is alright with you. People were saying you rode into town yesterday like a banshee was chasing you.”

“
I was just excited to see my daughter. That’s all.” With that, Urey did an about-face and started walking back the way he had come, but decided his time would be best spent attempting to determine the cause of Rita’s newly found secrecy.

***

After the chancellor left, Rita swiftly closed the door, sank to the floor and cried. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew she couldn’t involve the chancellor; the fewer people that knew the better, and that was the truth.

“
Mother, why do you cry so?” inquired Abigail from the rocker that had once been her favorite. “I am finally home, but all I’ve seen you do is cry.”

She looked up from the crook of her elbow. Her face was red and stained with salty tears, but she managed a smile to her dearly departed headless daughter.
My daughter is sitting there, rocking in the chair, talking to me with her head on her lap! I must be mad!
Many in the parish would have said she’d been mad before this, but as it so happened her daughter
really was
dead, rocking in a chair, and talking to her with her head on her lap.