Werewolves: The Gravediggers pt. 4

This story features Jolon's father, Delsin, and takes place several years before the events of 'Werewolves: Haven Rising.' 

[If you haven't yet read parts 1-3, click on the Collections tab and select 'Werewolves' to find the previous installments of this story.]

"Hey, Delsin!" someone called out through the night, nearly causing him to jump out of his fur. He hadn't been paying proper attention to his surroundings. "Getting back late, again? Tama sent me to look for you."

 Delsin groaned. "Gods damn it, Tuari," he replied. "I told her I'd probably be back late."

 "She said it's a wife's duty to worry about her man."

 "So she came to you?" Delsin approached Tuari. He was in human form, huddled beside one of the many trash barrels the pack burned in the evenings to keep warm when they were on patrol in the streets.

 "I'm on watch, tonight," he replied. "So, yeah. She came to me. Apparently it's my job to relay messages between spouses who aren't talking enough to each other. Not sure when I signed on for that job, but it is what it is."

 "Give me a damn break," Delsin said. "You think I wanted to be over there a second more than necessary? Look at my fur—it's a mess!"

 Tuari leaned away from the snapping fire to get a better look. "You're not kidding," he said with a disapproving cluck of his tongue. "You look like hell. Just shift back to human form if the matted fur is bothering you so much. What's the problem?"

 Delsin grunted. He was about to reply when he realized he had no idea why he was still in wolf form. It was quicker to get around in what he considered his natural state, but he'd already burned through his last meal, leaving him with a hollow feeling in his stomach that he'd been trying to ignore. Not for the first time he wondered why werewolves were created this way. Fueling the fire of the beast consumed an incredible amount of calories, and maintaining the bestial form became quite difficult to manage after a day's labor. One of the injections the nurse had been giving him helped to balance out his body's needs, but it couldn't alleviate them entirely.

 "You're right," Delsin said. "I wasn't thinking clearly. It's been a hell of a day." He closed his eyes and initiated the change. Bones writhed underneath his taught skin, snapping and rearranging themselves as his fur receded and eventually disappeared entirely. In less than a minute he was human again, at least in appearance.

 How many times had the human scientists asked him to explain the shift to them over the last few years? Dozens at least. The best he could do was to ask them how they moved their arms or blinked their eyes—it's just something that comes naturally. A wolf doesn't have to think about the mechanics of the change—they just do it. The white-coats hadn't been all that happy with that lack of information, but he couldn't tell them anything about physical mechanics under the hood that he didn't understand, himself. He tightened the belt barely holding up his suddenly too-wide pants before he exposed himself to the world.

 Tuari grinned. "Letting that human modesty get to you, eh?" he asked.

 "Meh," Delsin replied. "I was never big on the casual nudity thing back in Yellowstone, anyway." He snapped the waistband of his pants. "At least the humans developed some decent clothes for us that would survive the shift. Better than what we had before."

 "About the only thing that's better."

 Delsin shrugged and stepped up to the barrel fire to warm himself. It was always a bit of a shock to go from fur covered to smooth skin, especially when the wind was blowing and you were still damp. "I'll take what I can get at this point."

 "So is Jaci with you?" Tuari asked.

 "What?" Delsin arched an eyebrow. "Why? His wife ask after him, too?"

 Tuari laughed. "Not at all. She's been keeping it together pretty well over the last few weeks. If anything, I'd say she's the one who's keeping him from cracking up."

 "Huh," Delsin grunted. "Interesting."

 "I don't mean anything by it. Just that he's been having a rough time. You must have seen it by now. He's your friend."

 "Yeah." Delsin stifled a frown and stepped back from the fire, looking toward home. He didn't want to talk about Jaci right now, not after the discussion they had back at the gravesite. The poor idiot was gonna get himself into trouble, and if he did, he might just take Delsin down with him. It was bad enough what happened to Sahale—if he had to bury Jaci next, Delsin might as well throw himself in the grave too and be done with the whole business. "I should get back. Especially if Tama's worried."

 "So you're leaving me all alone out here?"

 "Gods damn it, Tuari," Delsin grumped. "You said Tama was asking after me."

 Tuari waved him off. "I'm just playing, man. It's been a long night. Just be glad you still have a wife to go home to. We don't all have what you have."

 Delsin sighed. "Yeah. I know," he said. "But you gotta understand—having a family in a place like this isn't all it's cracked up to be."

 "Yeah? How's that?"

 "Every week, my wife goes over that bridge along with the rest of you to get picked at by those human doctors—tortured trying to figure out what makes her tick. Every time she comes home to me, crying her eyes out, and every time I have to tell her that it's gonna be all right. We both know it's a lie but we keep telling it to each other anyway. So I got something from the doctors to make me feel better about the whole thing. Little cocktail to numb the beast. "

 "A present from the boss man for doing his dirty work?" Tuari narrowed his eyes.

 "Thankless job, more like."

 "And what's that? What do you and Jaci do over there?"

 Delsin shook his head. "I'm not supposed to talk about it. Part of the rules. We all gotta play by 'em and you know that. It's what we signed on for when we came to this dump. Let's just say that you and the rest of the pack aren't the only ones doing things you don't wanna do for the doctors over there."

 Tuari's expression sobers. "Yeah," he said softly. "I get it."

 "Anyway, I tried to get Tama to take the shot—make things mellower for her, right? But thing is, she won't take them. So she worries. And she hurts. It's starting to affect our son."

 "Jolon's a good boy," Tuari says. "We need to protect him from this stuff—all the Haven pups."

 "That's what I'm trying to do," Delsin replies. "But he's getting older, and sooner or later he's going to realize that his mom cries herself to sleep on the same night of the week every time."

 "Better get back to her, then."

 Delsin nodded and stepped away from the fire. "Sooner or later those assholes are gonna learn everything they can from us," he said as he walked deeper into the ruined city. "And then this nightmare will be over. Even Jaci believes that."

 "Yeah," Tuari says before muttering to himself. "I'm sure everything will get better the moment we're not useful to them anymore."