Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

Sounds like I’m full of myself, doesn’t it? Not if you know the truth about my type. Our type. The Fangborn, Pandora’s Orphans, the ones the ancients called "Hope," supposedly trapped at the bottom of the box. But according to our legends, the First Fangborn got out, and it’s a good thing they did, too, for when evil was released into the world, so was the means of destroying it. Vampires and werewolves, the first to clean the blood and ease the pain, the second to remove irredeemable evil when we find it. Our instincts are infallible, our senses attuned to evil. True evil – not the idiot who cuts you off in traffic or steals your newspaper – exists, and we’re here to fight it. We’re the ones evil can’t touch, the superheroes you never see, if we do our jobs right. I believe that to the core of my soul, and it’s the best feeling in the world.

Imagine the world today if we didn’t put the brakes on evil. Funny, since the Fangborn have always been depicted as the most depraved killers in every mythology. My kind aren’t the most fertile in the world – there are less than one thousand of us in the United States – and when you normals turned from hunting to agriculture, you started popping out kids like it was going out of style. But we’re the children of Hope, so we do what we can, and every bit helps.

As for those myths: It’s not the turn of the moon but the call of evil that makes us Change, though I can manage it if I’m pissed off enough. I don’t have hair on the palms of my hands, though for a while when I turned thirteen, I was afraid of that happening for other reasons. Claudia says I obsess about anyone touching my stuff, but can you name one guy who isn’t territorial? When we order pizza, Claudia always asks for roasted garlic. She relies on the mirror by her front door to remind her to dress like other people when it’s cold. She also claims she’s allergic to silver, but that’s because she thinks it looks tacky against her skin.

In reality, we’re big on family and secrecy. Me and Claud live in Salem because eastern Massachusetts was where our family was needed, back in the day. Grandpa had a sense of humor about it: "Ven ve move from de old country, I tink, ‘Here, dey like tings dat go bump in de night, so ve vill giff dem bumps in de night!’" he’d cackle. I miss the old guy like crazy, but our presence has nothing to do with the witchcraft trials; it was just easier to hide a bunch of Germans with funny habits among the Polish and Russian immigrants in nineteenth-century Salem. Protective coloring is all-important. Around here, not only do you have tales of witchcraft, but there are rumors of a sea monster (a nineteenth-century gimmick concocted by ferry owners and innkeepers), pirate treasures, and haunted houses. What’s the occasional sighting of a big dog by moonlight against all that?

The traffic finally nudged its way to my exit and I pulled into the hospital parking lot. Many Fangborn are nurses, doctors, shrinks, cops, even clergy. Any job that gets us close to the public, the people who need protection, is a good job for us.

I didn’t even have to roll down the window. The stench hit me from outside the cab of the truck. It was all I could do to keep my hands from turning to claws on the wheel and my human brain focused on parking. I killed the engine as soon as I could, clutching the Saint Christopher medal that’s been on my neck since my first Communion. I don’t care whether he’s a saint; I’m not that religious. My mother gave it to me, and it helps to have something to focus on when resisting the Change. Claudia was right: this guy was a bad one. Smith had escaped her – which was saying something – and then left a trail that a normal could follow, if he’d understood why he was suddenly feeling queasy and irritable. There wasn’t a sound of bird or beast anywhere nearby, not even a seagull.

True evil has the smell of rotting meat, sewer filth, sickrooms. Add the feeling you get when you realize something life-alteringly bad is happening, something you can’t do anything about, and you’ll get close to what I felt. But my senses are a hundred times sharper than yours.

The good thing is that smell brings on the Change and that brings power.

I opened the door cautiously. The wind shifted and I found I could manage without going furry, so I visited the ER. The nurses told me the doc who’d treated "J. Smith" was gone.

I thanked them, then tried Claudia’s office. The scent was stronger here, possibly because of his attack on Claudia, but there was something else I couldn’t place: it set my teeth on edge. The assistant Claudia shared with the other shrinks told me I’d just missed my sister, that she’d been really shook up by a patient. I feigned surprise – Claudia could get into a lot of trouble for talking about the case with me, much less giving me the file – and said I’d check on her.

I tracked the scent back to the parking lot, where the guys at the valet stand said that a guy had caught a cab dropping someone off, a local company.

Just then Eileen came out, a tart little nurse who’d always had a cup of coffee and a kind word for me when I’d been on the force. Claudia’d said she was the nurse handling Smith’s case. We exchanged hellos.

"You heard about Claudia?"

"Yeah." I exhaled, whistling.

"She’s okay. Guy was a bruiser. Came in to get stitched up, said it was a slip, but I know a bottle-slash when I see one. Street fight, probably."

I nodded.

"Claudia gave me the high sign, so I sent him along to her. A post-trauma chat, I told him. Oh!" Eileen said, remembering. "It gets better. Weems brought him in. Said he found him in the middle of the street, and hauled him in to get him patched up. Too bad you missed him, you guys could have caught up on old times." She grinned a mean grin; everyone knew Weems and I hated each other.

"My bad luck," I said. I stuck my hands in my pockets. "Apart from this guy, you been busy?"

She shook her head. "Not the past two days. Not even a bumsicle." She glanced at the steely sky. "That’ll change. Snow tonight."

I nodded; I could smell that, too. We both knew that between the cold, the holidays, and the law of averages, soon enough there’d be accidents, drunk drivers, domestic disputes, and the homeless who’d freeze to death. The usual.

"Well, the kids will like it." She zipped herself up. "They’re out of school after today. Jumping out of their little skins already, the little monsters."

"Oh, come on," I said. "Kids should be excited about Christmas." I like Christmas. I like the effort people make. I like presents. I like the hope. Like I said, we Fangborn are all about Hope.

"Yeah, I guess." Eileen looked uneasy, though. "I’ve got this feeling, Gerry. Everyone’s on edge. Maybe it’s the low pressure or the full moon, but there’s something up. Watch yourself out there."