Blood Red Moon

Running consumed him.

The chase had been desperate at first. He had thrashed through the forest as fast as his legs could carry him, brambles and branches ripping at his skin, the hounds hot on his heels, and the shouts of men loud in his ears. Their weapons clashed together as they closed in on him, seeking to drive him with a barrier of noise toward the cliff and trap him. Only the combination of his desperate human cunning and moon-given strength had saved him from those who hunted him. Assuming they were tracking a mere wolf, he had managed to outpace the hounds, double back, and dash past the last man in the hunting line at wolven speed before he could react and bring his weapon to bear.

A few hours later, he was a long way ahead of the hounds and men; his speed and stamina beyond that of any normal man, and yet he still had no idea what to do or where to go. Pushing his way through a low stand of bushes at the edge of the woods, he paused in the twilight of the clearing, panting heavily. A cloud of insects gathered in unwelcome distraction around his head as he took stock of his situation.

He knew he was in trouble. Sundown wasn't far away and he had only the trousers and shirt in which he stood. He was hunted, alone and weaponless; there was no chance of assistance, no hope of absolution and remorse weighed down on his thin shoulders.

His blood stirred restlessly in his veins. He could feel the moon waiting patiently for the sun to drift down across the sky, the tail end of the warm midsummer's day making him sweat. Why now, why tonight? The itching on the inside of his skin grew as his blood roiled with the primeval internal growl of the Change. Every day varied, but the full uncontrollable change to wolf only happened a few nights every month. Each night was different. Normally, he could control when or if he changed; enhance his sense of smell, change his form to run faster, or increase his strength. But the two nights of the month when the moon was at its fullest were different. Tonight was the second night, but it was last night that had brought him to where he was now.

The first night was always the worst. Everything that was animal about the Change came out completely on the full moon's rise, and all control was devoured by the raging beast within. He'd awoken that morning far from his normal area, the gutted and half-devoured corpse of a young man lying in front of him. That had never happened before. Normally it was a sheep or a goat or some other domestic animal. Once, it had been a mountain lion that had left him scarred and battered in the aftermath of an unremembered fight for survival.

He had spent most of the following day as a human wallowing in grief and self pity. After burying the body and saying a brief prayer, he had curled into a ball and cried, deep sobs racking his body. Only the baying blood lust of the hunting dogs had lifted him from his darkened pit of despair, the sound snapping him into action.

He ran.

Moving away from the horror of his recent memory, and having regained his breath, he made a choice and loped away from the clearing into the dwindling sun to see what the night would bring.

Cresting the top of a rise a short time later, he knelt in the long grass, making sure no one would see him silhouetted on the hilltop, and studied the terrain in front of him. The trees had thinned and a gentle grassy valley with a winding stream lay in front of him. He had smelt the house in front of him a few seconds earlier, the scent of a meat pie calling tantalisingly to him on the light breeze.

A picture-perfect timber house nestled in a hollow, a gentle trickle of smoke from a cooking fire twisting in unfettered wispy freedom from the chimney. Well kept fields and pens filled with chickens, sheep, goats, and pigs surrounded the house, and a barley field swayed in the light breeze. Any other time he would have stopped to take in the view, but night and its unforgiving moon was on the way, and a shed behind the house was looking inviting.

He sniffed again. The smell of pie was wonderful and his stomach growled, but he remembered his previous meal and lost his appetite as the vision of the eviscerated body floated past his eyes.

The sun was dropping behind the hills in a flurry of colour which left him little choice but to bed down in the shed and hope for the best. At least on the second night he had some control despite the full moon, as even in wolf form he retained his human consciousness.

Decision made, he ran down towards the house, skirted wide around the penned animals, and made his way to the empty shed.

A few hours later, he sat waiting for the Change. The moon was rising and he sat naked in the near darkness waiting for the pain to begin. As the silver rays shone through the window in the door of the shed he stiffened in shock as needles of fire danced in waltzing agony down his spine. Clamping his lengthening jaw firmly shut to stifle the howls of pain, he writhed in silent agony in the straw as his body twisted, stretched and shifted from human to wolf. Minutes later, the newly transformed werewolf whimpered softly and curled into a ball to try and get some sleep.

He awoke just before dawn to near darkness and the faint sound of the hounds. The moon was still high, but the faint light of the pre-dawn sun turned the early morning world to a monochrome panoply of grey shadows.

Rested, but still in wolf form, he decided he would have to make a run for it. Moving stealthily from the shed past the paddocks, he moved to the front of the house.

He paused. Something was wrong. The air was unnaturally quiet and still; even the gentle susurration of insects was missing. He growled quietly just to hear a noise and felt his hackles rise.

As he was about to move away, he noticed a faint glow under the door of the cabin. Despite his foreboding, his curiosity got the better of him and he moved towards the door putting his eye to the keyhole.

An old woman in a white shawl stood with her back to him, cooking over the fire. Bent, arthritic and wizened, she was intent on her cooking and seemed happy in her work, humming to herself as she prepared something over the cooking fire.

His ears pricked up and his head turned as he heard the baying sounds in the distance again.

Time to go.

Stepping back from the keyhole, he froze in his tracks as the door to the house whipped open. The old lady stood in the doorway, light spilling from behind her, her shadow projected towards him by the lanterns inside. Caught unawares he cowered backwards and bunched the muscles in his legs to run but, before he could move, she spoke.

"Hello wolfy," she said in a kindly voice. "Sounds like you're being hunted. Have you been a bad boy?"

The corpse of the boy swam across his mind again in red tinged horror and he closed his eyes against the memory, shaking his muzzle to try and clear the image.

Distracted, he looked back at the old lady as she smiled again.

"Bad boys need to be punished you know."

The wolf leapt away towards the encircling darkness, aware now that something was very wrong, only to be halted in mid bound. He howled in agony as something grabbed him by the rear legs, hauling him up into the air, and whined in terrified astonishment as he realised it was the woman's shadow that had picked him up. A dark spectral hand clamped around his legs, and held him dangling painfully upside down, yelping in pain and distress.

The old lady stood in the doorway, the lantern-light bright in the pre-dawn blackness, her own hand lifted in mimicry of her shadow: it was held as if she had picked a stray hair from someone's shoulder. She smiled, a mere lift of one side of her lips, and flicked her hand up in the air and grabbed as if she was playing with a dead mouse. The wolf found himself momentarily airborne, and caught roughly, bands of iron clamping around his belly as he fought for breath and release, his claws slashing futilely through empty air.

"Naughty boy," scolded the old woman. "Come in and warm yourself by the fire."

Dragged forcibly into the cottage, the man in wolf's clothing could do nothing but watch as the old woman's shadow form shut the door and held him pinned to the wall by the fire, feet dangling helplessly as the old lady locked and barred the door.

"I was wondering whether this spell would work dear," she said conversationally. "I performed a summoning you see, but I almost left it too late this time. I'm sorry wolfy but I need you to give me something."

The old woman walked slowly across to the wolf who was still pinned to the wall and breathing shallowly through the shadow's vicelike grip. Reaching into her belt she pulled out a black-bladed dagger with a wire-bound hilt. It was old, pitted, and crusted with blood, with what looked like a large red jasper set at the pommel. She held it reverently and looked into the werewolf's eyes.

"Hmm, you're a skinny specimen aren't you, but you'll have to do. I'm sorry about this you know, I do like animals but...."

Her voice trailed off as she looked again at his eyes. Her own eyes narrowed, and she moved closer and appeared to concentrate, stepping back with a shocked look on her face.

"You... you're not a wolf at all, are you?"

The werewolf shook his head violently and struggled as much as he could to free himself, thrashing at the shadowy form that held him.

Opening his mouth, he forced his wolf-like vocal chords into a semblance of speech.

"Rrrrr oi am...."

"I am, he says," she snapped. "I am. Unfortunately, I am too. I am here and alive, and I want to stay that way."

The old woman sighed, her face troubled momentarily.

"This is unfortunate dear," she said thoughtfully. "You see, I'm going to die in the next few days unless I can recharge my life force. Normally I do it with wolves or a bear or mountain lion: something that's strong but won't be missed by humans. I can use your wolf life to extend mine by about twenty years. Life gets addictive you see, and I don't want to stop now."

She paused and listened. The baying of hounds was louder now and she closed her eyes again in concentration for a few seconds, the head of the shadow form mimicking her as it seemed to look outside of the house, head cocked on one side.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of time."

She gestured with one hand and the shadowy form released him from the wall. The wolfman stopped struggling, hope blooming in his chest as he staggered forwards still on his hind feet. It was only then that he realised something was very wrong. Looking down he was stunned to find the dagger protruding from his chest. Strength draining from him, he sank to all fours, whining in pain.

"I hope this works," muttered the old woman.

The stone set in the handle of the knife started to glow a sickly red colour as the wolfman sank to his knees. The glow intensified and two snaking tendrils of twirling claret smoke drifted from the stone, enveloping the old woman in twin helixes of dancing magic. Her body lifted from the floor and she closed her eyes, her white hair lifting from her head as if in a sudden breeze or static repulsion as the smoke span and danced around her in a vortex of red. The wolfman gasped in pain and terror, yelping and writhing as more and more of the red smoke poured from the jewel in the dagger. He howled, a primal scream of agony tearing from his throat, as he cried to the moon in pain. The old woman was encased in red smoke, a cocoon of crimson pulsing with flashes of magic, the darkness of her form only faintly visible. Her head tilted back and she screamed in answer to the wolf's ongoing howling, the duet of pain and magic rising to a crescendo as baying hounds joined in outside, and a hammering percussion battered the cabin door.

Faintly through the pain, the wolfman heard the banging on the door. It acted as a stimulant to his faltering heartbeat and he staggered to all fours as the pain decreased. Unsteadily he headed for the exit, seeking only to escape his tormentor. The door finally gave way under the rain of blows from outside, fresh night air blowing into the cottage with dawn's light. He lifted his muzzle to the breeze and the axe cleaved through his skull killing him instantly.

It had been a simple piece of magic at the end. The woodsman had left believing he had valiantly saved her from the wolf, turning up in the nick of time to put his axe through the animal's head as it attacked her.

He would not remember standing in the doorway as the weakened, white muzzled and ancient wolf morphed briefly into an ancient human, and back into a wolf as it died. He would not remember standing gaping at the dissipating red smoke that had filled the cabin, or the naked form of the shapely young woman who stepped from the cocoon; younger, revitalised, and full of power. Power of not only wolf, but of man as well.

The woodsman had heard her scream whilst the magic was working and, assuming someone was in trouble, had promptly taken his axe to the door. He was a simple but strong man who had chased the wolf that had killed his nephew. Now, he could go home to his sister with a tale of revenge and heroic deeds, the only one of the original hunting party to see the hunt to its conclusion. Regretfully, he'd arrived too late to save the old woman, but had managed to kill the wolf before the young girl could be hurt.

He would remember only what she wanted him to remember and, happy with his day's work, the man had gathered his dogs and headed off into the forest, stopping briefly to wave goodbye to the figure standing in the doorway who lifted a hand and waved back to him as he walked away.

She closed the cabin door and smiled, a mere lift of one side of her lips, as she looked at the desiccated corpse of the wolf on the ground.

"My, my, what big teeth you have wolfy," she said as she turned to look in her mirror by the door.

No, she corrected herself, her Granny's mirror of course. Poor old Granny, all eaten up by the nasty old wolf: a wolf killed by the valiant woodsman.

She lifted a white shawl over her head, her auburn tresses framing the delicate face of the sixteen-year-old girl she hadn't seen for five hundred years. Looking at her reflection, she smiled her crooked little smile again and concentrated, her clothes changing in a swirl of fabric and colour.

"My, my, what beautiful eyes you have," she murmured to her reflection.

Satisfied with her appearance, she opened the cabin door, enjoying the early morning sun. Pausing for a moment, she lifted the hood of her new red cloak against the chill and stepped out into a new day.

The End