They called it the Wolf.
Back in the ancient days of terror and factionalism, everyone had called it “AAARRGGHH PLEEAASE NOOOO!” These days, they called it a hardcore campfire story.
All werewolves feared their inner wolf regardless. But the Wolf was beyond terror. It made alphas look like puppies. If you had an inner wolf, you could tame it. If you had the Wolf, you couldn’t stay sane.
It knew no tears, only blood. It knew no spirit, only flesh. It had no heart, which was just a squishy chunk between the victim’s ribs.
Every werewolf generation suffered one. The hunt went on. New societies merely meant new prey.
Smelling temptation, the Wolf sought fresh meat…
The middle of a fight is a bad time to have an identity crisis.
Unfortunately, Sour Sweet wasn’t getting much say in the matter. Not once she plunged into the water and began sinking slowly down to the depths.
Her fingers rose to the dying lights of the surface in a feeble, final attempt to… Well, she didn’t know. Even death seemed optional at this point. The unnatural clopping of hooves, the ominous shadow blotting an otherwise mesmeric view overhead, the ringing ache around her skull, the blood winding its way from her scalp like a cursed thread in the current: all became the memories of someone else, someone less urgent.
Bubbles trickled away from her mouth.
Inside her mind, there were two of her: each fighting for control, both losing. One screamed for it, clawing at the sky, gnawing at its chains, writhing with every muscle to grab the fight and rip its throat out.
The other held on desperately. It could see further ahead. It knew the fight wouldn’t end there. It remembered a face, a face that made its knees weak, the frightened face of a – of a friend. It didn’t have any other friends, and it didn’t want to lose the only one she’d ever kept.
Beast or bestie. Living beast or dead bestie. One or the other. She no longer had any better choice.
From another lifetime, she swore she heard her own name mocking her. “Sour? Sour. Sour!”
The bubbles… stopped.
Stop. Go back one day and one night. To before the full moon.
Of course, werewolves don’t need a full moon to transform. That’s just a myth. They don’t have to howl at the moon either. That’s just a fashion statement.
Transformation, on the other hand, is a constant. The choice is always there; it’s a matter of will. In truth, everyone – werewolf, vampire, earth person – has a chance to drop civilization and go feral, if only for a few minutes. Werewolves merely take it one step further.
One day earlier…
…Sour Sweet stared at five people.
Rather understandably, they shuffled their feet and didn’t look her in the eye. Being stared at was always embarrassing. Being stared at in someone else’s bed chamber was doubly embarrassing. Being stared at by someone who could leap the whole thirteen yards and turn them into mince dog food was so embarrassing that many of them trembled at the thought.
Sour Sweet felt the beast stir inside.
This was what a werewolf lived for. Live prey, not that pre-processed garbage in the supermarket. The first sight of a delicious silhouette. The quiet savouring of the ambush. The pounce. The chase. The mouth-sloshing rush of blood like an appetizer. The spice of the main hunting course. And then for dessert, the sheer ecstasy of catching the prey and going wild with it, whatever she wanted, no holds barred, no kills off limits, no restraints, no leash –
Sit, she told herself sternly.
No wretched master.
She felt the beast resisting her, but she held it steady. The trick was not to fight fire with fire. Werewolves were better at getting angry than humans could ever be. But humans had self-control. Fight fire with a bucket of cold water. It’d steam and hiss, but at least it wouldn’t break out into a wild inferno.
Excitement turned to fear. Rage into guilt. Bloodlust into a craving not to be hit on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.
Bad dog. Bad.
It was such an embarrassing trick.
But it worked. Sour Sweet let out a breath as the beast curled up safely in her cranium, and the five humans opposite sagged at the knees. One fainted.
At which point, Sunny Flare stepped out of the shadows. “At ease.”
The five servants gratefully slunk out of the room. One had to be dragged out. Sunny Flare didn’t speak again until the creaking door slammed shut.
“I don’t know why you still bother with this charade.” Her black dressing gown – which was a few ornaments shy of being a plush ballgown – swished elegantly as she leaned against the four-poster bed, ignoring the artfully placed cobwebs. “It’s been years since you killed anyone.”
Sour Sweet passed a paw – no, a hand over her own face. Don’t be the Sour; be the Sweet.
Her smile strained. “And think how awful it’d be if I stopped right now. A regular check means there’s not a fleck… of blood. Spilled.”
Sunny Flare shook her head. “Noooo, that slogan’s dead on the water as well.”
“Well, I’m working on it.”
One of Sunny Flare’s fangs gleamed. “Come on, stay for breakfast.”
Sour Sweet cringed. Love Sunny Flare though she did, she never liked watching the girl eat. It was the way the servants lined up to the dining table that gave her the creeps.
“I’ll use your favorite bowl,” said Sunny Flare teasingly. “The one with the daffodil decorations.”
And “World’s #1 Good Girl” carved into the side. Sour Sweet shuddered.
“You’re a real bitch when you wanna be,” she scolded.
“Hark who’s talking.” More coldly, Sunny Flare added, “And you’re having a bath first. My house, my rules.”
“Ooooooooaaaaaaahhhhh, Sunnyyyyyy!” moaned Sour Sweet.
“Don’t ‘oooh Sunny’ me. You owe me.” When Sour Sweet continued scowling, Sunny Flare rolled her eyes and added, “Hey! I let you roll around in top-quality imported mud. Do you know what a laughingstock I’d be if word of that got out? The least you can do is balance it out.” She snapped her fingers and pointed. “You. Bath. Now.”
Sour Sweet whined but put up no further resistance. Part of the price of keeping her inner wolf tame was having to acknowledge the master’s voice.
Not that Sunny Flare kept her or anything ridiculous. Quite apart from the fact that Sunny Flare would die again if word of that got out, Sour Sweet had her own home and was perfectly capable of mastering herself. Self-mastery was just easier with Sunny Flare helping. That was all.
The bath took ages. Merely getting into the tub required all her willpower; the wolf part dug in its heels whenever she tried to lower herself into the water. What didn’t help was Sunny Flare’s taste in interior decoration. The “tub” was the size of a small swimming pool and came with a hundred different gold-plated faucets, a little stone cherub pouring an endless stream into it, and paintings of ancestors who all apparently had passed down the same black opera dress and red-lined cape. She lost the soap and the scrubbing brush a few minutes into the bath. Sour Sweet sat and soaked and sulked.
Rumour had it that Sunny Flare bathed in the blood of a hundred virgins every night. Complete nonsense, of course. It would’ve been a waste of good food. Besides, Sour Sweet would have put a stop to it. She had Views.
Although Sunny had tried it with wine once. She’d refused to talk about it, except to say that she didn’t recommend getting drunk while naked.
Half an hour later, Sour Sweet was cleaned and dried, fully dressed, and heading downstairs for a doggie bowl with her name on it. Out of politeness, Sunny had placed it on the table. Along with six pairs of knives and forks, as per tradition: Sour Sweet never used them, but if she had Views, then Sunny had Standards.
The contents glistened with glaze. Chicken. Sour Sweet caught herself drooling and hastily used the napkin that Sunny offered her while looking the other way.
“I’ll never understand you and baths,” Sour Sweet complained. Her voice echoed slightly in the castle chamber. Modern day city, and Sunny still lived in an old castle. All the curtains were drawn too, despite a single star of sunlight peeking through one of them.
“So long as it’s not running water,” said Sunny, helping herself to a servant.
Sour Sweet winced and ignored the slurping sounds. “No, no, I mean – Oh, forget it.”
“It’s fresh and rejuvenating. The water’s pumped directly from a healing spring underground.”
“Doesn’t healing kill you?”
“No, just makes me stronger.”
It was hard to talk freely with the servants nearby. They stood in a neat and tidy line, all dull about the skin, all with bags under their eyes, all with gormless open mouths and heavy lids. Sunny stood in front of the first as though inspecting the troops and leaned forward. More slurping noises. Then the servant was dismissed – stumbling or swaying slightly – before the next one in the queue moved along.
True, taking a little from a lot was much better than the old standby of draining one person’s blood all in one go. That was why Sour Sweet and her Views had insisted on the new regime in the first place. No one died, the servants were kept under Sunny’s thrall, and she otherwise treated them well and even let them have weekends off and summer vacation. Didn’t make it any easier to watch.
Chicken was good, though. Sour Sweet tore into it with gusto. Out of respect for Sunny’s Standards, she at least piled the bones neatly on one side of the bowl.
The scrape of clawed chair legs meant that Sunny had finished her breakfast and now could sit down to entertain guests properly. It was a long table, so she sat at the head. It was an impractically long table, so Sour Sweet sat immediately to her right. Thankfully, all the servants had left to go about their business.
Teasingly, Sunny plucked a bone from the bowl and waggled it in front of Sour Sweet. “Fetch?”
“Don’t push it. I’m in a good mood today.”
“Come on, you know you wanna.”
Resisting the urge to bite the bone in two, Sour Sweet plucked it delicately from Sunny’s fingers and put it down.
“Not fetch,” she declared warningly.
“Not fetch-ing,” corrected Sunny.
“It’s werewolf slang. Don’t pretend you’re a master of that too.”
“As if I care. I thought it was all bark bark, woof woof, whine whine, beg.” Sunny took out a compact mirror and powdered her nose. It took skill to do that with no reflection in the glass, but she pulled it off.
Sunny Flare pulled a lot off. She pulled off the mouldy castle look, she pulled off the old-fashioned opera dress and cape, she pulled off the cool, suave “Mistress of the Night” thing, and she even managed to pull off looking catty. Or comme l’air du chat, as she’d probably put it. All this pulling off was putting Sour Sweet’s teeth on edge.
“You’re growling again,” said Sunny without looking up.
With a small yip, Sour Sweet stopped. “I didn’t mean to.”
“So what’s on the agenda today? Got another ball with the bloodsuckers?”
Trying to act like this was a normal conversation, Sour Sweet grinned weakly. “Mom’s keen, I’ll give her that.”
“Trade places, if I could. I’m stuck here till tonight.”
“Oh, yes. Nothing to do but swan about umpteen unused game rooms and lounges. It must be so hard for you.”
“On my own,” Sunny reminded her.
“Apart from the walking larders, you mean.”
“Servants don’t make good conversationalists. Then again, neither do you.”
“My sides ache.”
“It’s like having a near-undeath experience.”
“Wait, are you talking about me?”
“The servants,” Sunny said heavily. She snapped her compact shut. “Why don’t you go let off steam? You sound stressed.”
Sour Sweet hastily put on a simpering smile. “I’m just maintaining a positive attitude!”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Be right back!” As hastily as politeness allowed, Sour Sweet got up and headed for the courtyard.
Sunny Flare thought of everything. The archery butts were already set up, and the servants offered her the quiver full of arrows and her custom longbow that had been an old birthday present from Sunny herself. It was considerate, generous, lovely, and 100% infuriating.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Sour Sweet fired off shot after shot. Then she paused, held the next arrow in place, lived a little more for the moment.
A werewolf traditionally blew off steam by going at it claw, fang, and fist. A werewolf also traditionally got carried away and tore up the place, or in extreme cases became the city’s most wanted. Tradition was sometimes a guide on how not to do it.
But with a weapon in her hands, Sour Sweet didn’t feel like an animal trapped in the wrong body. She felt intelligent. Her brain did more than throw instincts for her to catch. It aimed. It calculated. It judged. It watched and waited and claimed, however fleetingly, a piece of the effortless cool that made Sunny Flare at once a constant pain and a wonderful role model.
Sour Sweet took a deep breath, admired the silvery sheen of the point, then let the arrow fly.
Bullseye.
Silver arrows. For some reason, being the one to fire them made her feel more in control of herself.
That afternoon, Sour Sweet zipped up her hoodie but refused to raise the hood. She hated anything that covered her head. She didn’t even like getting into cars unless she could stick her head out the window, which was why she walked so much. Not that she minded a long walk. It was good exercise.
Viscera City lay like a half-rotten corpse in the sunrise after the wolves had finished eating. Hills rose sharply like ribs and bones, topped with old castles and – in the newer parts of Newfangland – high-rise apartments, mansions, and glass-fronted company HQs with giant, garish logos. Sunny Flare’s traditional family home fit in like a duke in a drawing room; most of Sour Sweet’s journey was downhill.
Back in the “gory days”, this had all been a rural nightmare. Jagged pine forests everywhere, tiny villages full of defeated humans, and an ominous castle nearby for, ahem, “weary travellers”.
Vampires and werewolves had long since moved on, of course, but they’d left their scars on the city, marked upon the housing arrangements and the unspoken class system they represented. These days, the forests were national parks, the quaint little villages had fused into a pooling conurbation that left tightly packed terraced housing and squat flats in its wake, and plenty of ominous castles now had gift shops and lifetime membership privileges, including free parking and access to the crazy golf course.
Sour Sweet strode through the eerily clean streets. Vampires were in charge of public sanitation, and some tended towards the obsessive-compulsive.
Lovingly, she breathed in the street-talk of the city’s smells. A good werewolf nose was better than a status update on a DarkPhone. A few people milled about. Humans, mostly – disinfectant-smelling cleaners working for the government, shampooed shop assistants setting up their wares, sweaty pensioners walking their excited dogs or collecting the crisp, freshly printed morning newspaper. Plenty of werewolves too – they were the ones who reeked of emotion, barely suppressed, always leaking out like claws stretching beyond the bars of a cage.
Hardly any vampires nearby, though a gentleman in a waistcoat and top hat had the telltale fang glinting under his monocle. One of the lesser lords, probably. Beaming contented as a cat, he stretched up his chin, the better to sun himself.
Despite the stories, some vampires could survive in broad daylight. They were the more “human” ones: former humans who’d been touched by higher vampires but never fully converted. Vampires saw no point in creating competition. Half-vampires were good intermediaries, though, between them and true humans. They were spared the more embarrassing vampire weaknesses, but it also denied them the full range of supernatural powers. No point making a servant too strong.
Werewolves didn’t have that problem. Everyone knew they were dumb.
Sour Sweet clenched her fist as she passed the gentleman.
Whereas vampires could fully turn a victim but saw no point in doing so, werewolves traditionally just killed whatever was in front of them. Survivors were rare, but they did exist; legend had it that Sour Sweet’s far-distant ancestor had been a normal human given a werewolf bite, thus starting the lineage.
And it was a tactical error – a werewolf who turned a human not only lost out on a good meal but made the human angry and at the same time had just levelled the playing field.
Sour Sweet passed a construction site for a new block of flats. Most of the blue-collar grunts smelled of werewolf. And frustration.
Kiyi. Mongrel. Mutt. Pooch. Sheepmuncher. Stray. Packrat. Bitch in sheep’s clothing. She’d heard them all. No one said them to her face, but sensitive ears that could swivel right round made it hard for people to keep secrets. Plus she could smell their fear and guilt.
Unlike vampires, werewolves rarely reached the top of the social tower. Sour Sweet was one such werewolf, and she had no intention of losing her place. Or her temper.
Sour Sweet’s mother had long since moved them into a high-tech spire. It was more “vogue”. Sour Sweet’s mother had a thing about “vogue”.
She also had a thing about punctuality. Sour Sweet braced herself, then stepped through the sliding door quickly to get it over with.
Imperiously, her mother clapped nail-taloned hands together, dalmatian-skin robe undulating like a curtain before the opening act. All around them, servants hopped to attention: some laid plates and bowls on the long tables, some clambered up and down stepladders to string intestinal tinsel across the walls, some rehearsed on the catwalk and stage that dominated the guest chamber.
“O-negative?” her mother scoffed. “Does this look like a comedy audition to you? That’s the commonest blood type. I specifically demanded AB-negative. The rarest. Go back to the Decadent Delicatessen and get the order right this time!”
“Yes, Doctor Milk.”
“Doctor Sour!” screeched her mother.
“Yes, Doctor Sour!” The servant lowered his handfuls of blood packs and hurried to the door.
Doctor Sour snapped her fingers curtly, swinging a purse size enough for a chihuahua. “You! Where is my photographer!?”
“Stuck in the Vein Subway, ma’am. We’ll try calling her until she answers, ma’am.”
“See that you do.”
Doctor Sour – technically Doctor Sour Milk, except she always hated the “Milk” part – passed by the intestinal tinsel without comment, which meant they hadn’t messed it up. The servants sighed with relief.
Then she caught sight of Sour Sweet, who cringed as the looming shadow poured scorn over her before any words struck her ears.
“You! Where have you been!?”
Sour Sweet almost whined. “Visiting Viscountess of Viscera, Mother. Sorry, Mother. Sorry…”
This time, she was lucky: the namedrop kept the scowl at bay. With a grudging grunt, Doctor Sour waved aside the explanation as not worth erupting over. She knew Sunny Flare’s family well enough.
Instead, she settled for being merely peevish.
“You know I like you to be here on the dot,” she complained, whisking off her designer sunglasses and using them to point. “This is your special day as well as mine. And you’re not wearing that. Come.”
Helpless as a dog on a choke chain, Sour Sweet allowed herself to be swept up in her mother’s wake.
Tastefully postmodern paintings and sculptures lined the corridors, along with shiny gold statuettes on plinths (behind burglarproof glass) and potted plants that glowed silver. They only grew at night.
Doctor Sour led her into the parlour, which had decorative webs all over as though someone had hoarded a bunch of drapes and then savaged them. Mirrors lined the wall. A team of makeup artists and costume managers leaped upon Sour Sweet the moment she stepped inside.
“I’ve got a fantastic Tallowsoul Boutique dress just for you,” said Doctor Sour, who cheered up at the prospect of fabulosity. “You’ll look adorable! And I do hear that Lady Rarity von Spindlewheel is the new name in vampire vogue.”
“I hear she’s got fake fangs,” muttered Sour Sweet. One of the servants tittered.
“Tonight could mean big things for Grindbone Industries,” continued Doctor Sour amid her happy social mountain-climbing. “As the heir to the family fortune, you must put your best paw forward. Understood, Sweetums?”
Like poisoned honey.
“Yes, Mother!” said Sour Sweet at once.
“Good girl.”
They made eye contact.
Her mother was a werewolf too; she could smell Sour Sweet’s suppressed anger. She knew… that Sour Sweet knew… that she, Doctor Sour, held all the leashes in this situation.
Sour Sweet was a lucky pup: her ancestors had done smart things, cleaned up on investments, fought off rivals, sniffed out winners, and fled bubble bursts fast enough to escape the splash zone. Most werewolves weren’t so lucky.
If Sour Sweet turned out to be unlucky… well, there were worse jobs waiting to catch her as she fell.
“Now then,” said her mother, rubbing her clawed hands with glee, “time to put you through your paces. You must be the best in show.”
Sour Sweet looked away; her eyes burned.
“Yes, Mother. Um, where’s Father?” she asked gingerly. She hadn’t noticed him on the way in, and he was usually first in line to serve his wife.
Doctor Sour waved dismissively. “Oh, he’ll be fine. He’s just dead.”
Not dead tired or dead depressed. Dead. As in, not alive anymore.
It happened a lot.
Doctor Sour often sent her husband – Shorten Sweet – out on dangerous assignments that he was too giggly and goo-goo-eyed to say no to, and then sent out the other servants to pick up the pieces. Often. So often, in fact, that she now had a permanent rod-equipped lightning lab on standby, plus a private team of specially hired surgeons from Igoria.
When Shorten Sweet stepped out onto the evening stage, his stitches hadn’t healed. He kept sparking on the microphone too. Otherwise, he looked his usual hunchbacked self.
He’d also forgotten to take off the pink apron. His tray of cupcakes looked sad and alone amid the more traditional vampire-werewolf buffets.
“Welcome, scaries and gentleghouls,” he boomed eagerly through the silent hall. “It is my most wonderfullest pleasure to announce the two most important days of two very special people!”
More spotlights turned on. Behind Shorten, his daughter Sour Sweet stiffened and held on to her smile like grim death. She heard appreciative “oohs”; they were admiring the dress. Her heart fluttered.
“First of all, today is my special little fallen angel’s 160th birthday. Why, I remember when she was my widdle pup, and we used to play together on her first ever My Little Easy-’Speriment set with the bottles of formaldehyde and the brain electrodes – oh, and how she loved to bring home baby birds for the Heckle-Jibe split personality modulator. What lubbly-jubbly memories! I think we’ve still got the Hitch-Hawk birds in the monster menagerie –”
Sour Sweet coughed loudly, hoping it was the spotlight that was cooking her cheeks raw.
“And look at her now!” spluttered Shorten. “The pride and joy of the Grindbone empire has come of age at last!” He started to sob. “But she’ll always be my sweet widdle pumpkin pie –”
Sour Sweet coughed more loudly and less nicely.
“I’m sorry, Sweetie-poo. It’s just such a once-in-a-lifetime –”
Doctor Sour thumped his head with her purse. It made a clanging noise.
“And secondly!” Shorten shouted, as though the last few seconds hadn’t happened. “Today is also my dear adorable wifey-poo’s Carno Conference on behalf of Grindbone Industries. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Oh darling, you’re as brilliant as you are beautiful –”
“Thank you, dear!” Doctor Sour snatched the microphone off him and pushed him aside before any more damage could be done; this earned her a round of enthusiastic applause. “Yes, Grindbone Industries continues to be at the forefront of modern mad science, using the latest in bio-augmentation…”
On cue, Sour Sweet sidestepped to the other side of the stage. Her role at this point was to smile and gesture at whatever appeared on the catwalk. She wished the spotlight would stop cooking her. The darkness beyond the stage shuffled and murmured to itself, and she felt all eyes adding to the heat.
Eventually, her mother stopped boasting and got on with the presentation.
“Our first prototype is the Doberman Reaper,” she called out as a padded handler brought a dog on a leash.
It burned black all over. Its fangs and claws had been bred for a dog twice its size. Two mad, red eyes bulged like pus-filled blisters. Sour Sweet’s heart melted at the way the poor thing strained against the elephant-chain collar.
“Genetically modified to be the ultimate killing machine, the Doberman Reaper comes with sixteen specially honed senses and a complete lack of restraint when hunting down its prey. Coat color on request for no extra charge. You’ll find this travelling companion makes a sharp statement!”
A few appreciative chuckles in the audience. If her future hadn’t depended upon not doing it, Sour Sweet would have groaned.
“Next is our Cerberman.” A three-headed woman shuffled onto the stage after the dog had left, looking dead-eyed and gormless. “If two heads are better than one, we said, then why not three? Whether you need a secretary to answer all the phones, an all-seeing sentinel, or a qualified babysitter, the Cerberman can do it… in a trice! Remember: we use only the finest quality humans for our test subjects.”
What an inheritance. Sour Sweet felt queasy. Smile anyway. That was the deal. Smile.
The show dragged on…
And then there was the worst part: the mingling.
Sour Sweet wanted nothing more than to retire to her room, maybe admire the dress a little more. Anyway, her pets would need feeding soon. None of the servants would ever let them starve, never, but she preferred to beat them to it and say hi to her little friends. Bubblecuddle the Demonic Sharkviper would fret and bang the glass if she didn’t see Sour Sweet every day, the poor baby.
“Yes, have you met my daughter?” said Doctor Sour, who gripped Sour Sweet’s shoulder and steered her towards the next vampire. “Top student in her class at Queen Cinch’s. Actually, she was the one who bought the first Drainglass from Lady Rarity’s boutique. She has such an excellent nose for trends!”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” said the young Baron von Trenderblood with an all-too-amused smile down at Sour Sweet; her fist tightened, as did her mother’s nails on her shoulder so the bones rubbed together. “One has to admire the perspiration – I mean, perseverance – of the self-made class.”
Doctor Sour laughed too shrilly. “Oh! Excuse me! I’ve just seen the Earl of Banterclot. Fancypantaloons! Yoohoo! Sir Fancypantaloons!”
More pale faces, more condescending smiles, more tight-fisted restraint from Sour Sweet and her mother. The room was almost all vampire: hardly any werewolves. The only humans were servants.
Well, except for one family.
Both Sours bumped into them on the way to the buffet table – Sour Sweet because eating might calm her down, Doctor Sour probably because that was where most of the guests were heading.
An awkward silence followed.
“Ah,” said Doctor Sour, lips faltering slightly. “Night Light. Velvet. How… nice. To see you here.”
Night Light the father beamed over his oversized scarf. “Not at all! Why, my daughter takes a keen interest in biology. And all the major sciences in fact.”
“I see! She, er, goes to… Queen Cinch’s, perchance?”
“Homeschooled,” explained Velvet the mother, who for bizarre fashion reasons had a pith helmet on her head. “We travel a lot, you see, but it’s always nice to make friends wherever we go. Say hi, Twilight.”
The bespectacled girl waved weakly. “Um, hello.”
Sour Sweet disliked her on sight. Well, on smell. Beneath the awkward veneer was a buzzing, unceasing curiosity that poked through Sour Sweet’s nose like a pointed stick. Also, a trace of garlic.
“Our son wanted to come,” said Night Light, “but he’s away battling evil on the edges of Newfangland with his fiancée. I always hoped he’d follow me in accounting and legal, but –” he laughed heartily “– you know what they say about horses and water.”
“They grow up so fast!” Velvet wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, and you looked wonderful on the stage in your dress, dear. Really brought out the color of your eyes.”
Sour Sweet couldn’t help herself; if she’d had a tail, she’d have wagged it. “Thank you! You’re too kind!”
“And your parents must be very proud of –”
“Excuse me,” asked Twilight, adjusting her glasses in a way that made Sour Sweet want to thump her, “but did I hear correctly? You’re top of your class?”
“Uh,” said Sour Sweet.
“A true prodigy,” boasted Doctor Sour, who seemed relieved to have found something to latch onto.
“Only I checked the record of exam results for the last semester when Queen Cinch tried to recruit me, and I don’t remember seeing –”
“Well, then!” squealed Sour Sweet with deadly cheer. “You must not have been looking hard enough!”
“You’d be surprised,” said Night Light, patting his daughter proudly. “Twilight’s got her old man’s eye. She can read a whole page of technical details in a second and remember every item perfectly.”
“How… studious.” Sour Sweet’s shoulder hurt as her mother firmly steered her away. “Lovely talking to you. Now, if you’ll excuse us…”
When Sour Sweet looked back, the family looked awfully alone. Somehow, the vampires and werewolves were giving them a wide berth.
The Light Family.
That was how they were known and feared throughout Viscera City.
Humans were generally servants or workers – or employees, in kinder settings – but the Light Family had managed to gain respect on par with the higher vampires, far more than Sour Sweet’s family had managed to scrape. They were an anomaly that everyone else had to work around.
Firstly, they were rich, apparently from treasures seized abroad on various adventures, the nature of which escaped everybody else. International politics, however, had mysteriously found itself depleted of megalomaniacal psychopaths and overrun by reasonable authority figures.
Secondly, they hadn’t fallen victim to the cut and thrust of vampire-werewolf politics. Any vampires, werewolves, or mercenary humans who were… ahem, sent on an informal basis to revoke the family’s breathing privileges – usually at the dead of night so as not to cause undue paperwork in Queen Cinch’s government bureaucracy – tended to vanish without a trace.
Thirdly, they’d surpassed the usual garlic and silver bullet schemes a while ago and had researched new and horribly effective means of warding off enemies. Vampires knew how to deal with garlic. They’d never learned how to deal with alchemically engineered shallot-chive derivatives with even more potent effects.
And fourthly, they could bolt and jink around most of the city’s vampire- and werewolf-favouring laws with all the skill of a superintelligent sheepdog faced with an unimaginative flock.
Sour Sweet smelled the fear pouring off her mother.
Vampires on one side, the Light Family on the other: it might have been lonely at the top, but it was still going to be a tight squeeze.
This birthday sucked. They always did.
She looked desperately for any sign of Sunny Flare. Ached for the scent that had abandoned her in her time of need.
The moon had been full, but tonight began to wane. It shone down upon the Grindbone estate, and upon the gleaming limousines and horse-drawn chariots of the guests leaving the garden. It shone through a grate in the lower dungeons. It shone on the glass elevator transporting Sour Sweet and her family past the secret labs and down to the secret secret labs which didn’t have convenient grates for spying. Or eavesdropping. By any particular families who might feel morally obliged to hang around.
“I hate that family so much,” hissed Doctor Sour.
“Tell me about it,” grumbled Sour Sweet in rare sympathy. “That Twilight’s such a faker. She wouldn’t last five seconds in Queen Cinch’s academy.”
“Well, I thought they were quite lovely,” gushed Shorten Sweet. “Velvet was ever so nice to give me that recipe for cinnamon buns –”
“Shut up,” said both Sours united.
“Shutting up, my moonlight treasures. I shall be silent as the grave for you, and forever – mmph mmph mmph!”
“Anyway,” muttered Doctor Sour, “enough of that Carno Conference crap.”
The elevator reached the darkest recesses of that which man… or werewolf… or any sapient species, natural or supernatural… was not meant to know. This being the modern age, it also had a bunch of computers and one broken lightbulb. Not that werewolves needed much light, given their excellent night vision, but the dingy look was in this season.
Doctor Sour let go of her husband’s lips and swapped her designer sunglasses for designer goggles. Shorten limped over to the nearest console and began tapping the keyboard, whispering “beep, boop, beep” as he did so.
Sour Sweet shuddered in the gloom. The “party” had been shaming enough, but this? Well, she didn’t dare ask any questions yet. When her mother called her, she came. No ifs, no buts, no mutant killer coconuts.
A silhouetted cage lurked in the middle of the lab. Glaring computer screens failed to penetrate the well of darkness. Even aided by natural night vision, the glistening contents of the cage were indiscernible.
Her mother returned to her, wearing a white lab coat and black leather gloves. She snapped one. Sour Sweet winced.
“Oh, don’t look so worried, Sweetstuff. This isn’t a punishment –” Doctor Sour glowered. “– yet.” The glower sank back into the depths. “I just wanted to wait until after the party before giving you your birthday present. Call it a reward for good behavior.”
“You were radiant today, schnookums, a true lady!” cooed Shorten, who whimpered and hurried back to the console at a glance from his wife.
“Yes.” Doctor Sour steepled her fingers. “Disengage safety protocols.”
“Anything for you, oh love of my –”
“Just do your job.” Beaming down at Sour Sweet, she continued charmingly, “Can you guess what we’ve made for you?”
Sour Sweet inspected the heaped, glistening folds for a clue. At first glance, it looked like a butcher’s pile. Then she smelled horse.
She gasped and smiled at once. Those smells… it couldn’t be…
“A PET!?” she squealed.
“Clever girl.” Metal clinked and bolts hissed pneumatically as the restraints on the meat released themselves. “Not just any pet. The prototype for my new line of designer animals.”
The heap began to tremble. Sour Sweet watched in awe.
“I predict they’ll be all the rage in Viscera City next season.” Moans and low rumbles interrupted Doctor Sour as the beast stirred. “And only the best for my little pup. Especially now she’s officially the head of Grindbone Technologies.”
“Yes…” A flicker of worry nipped Sour Sweet’s hindbrain, but she was too busy disentangling the bits of flesh with her eyes. Now she could tell where the limbs unfurled and the torso flexed.
“You’re the leading member of our family, and our family is the head of the entire werewolf community. All eyes – human and wolf –”
“And vampire,” interjected Shorten.
Impulsively, Doctor Sour bared her fangs at him, then she retracted them and licked her lips. “Yes, all eyes – whatever – will be on you.”
Sour Sweet’s eyes were firmly on the beast rising in its cage. Four legs oozed, red as rust, thick as cancer. One eye split open and squelched in its socket as it rolled over.
“It looked at me!” cried Sour Sweet. She couldn’t have been happier if she’d been a hen facing her first chick.
“And that means –” Impatiently, Doctor Sour clicked her fingers in her daughter’s face for attention. “That means you. Can’t. Make. Mistakes.”
The creature’s head swung round to shiver at them. No skin to protect it from the cold.
And another creature – conjoined – lolled on its back, flailing stray limbs and searching blindly for something to look at. This second head had no eyes. A mouth sliced the skull in half, expanding far further than a normal jaw should’ve, and the retractable rim of needles splintered out as teeth.
“So… majestic…” Sour Sweet clasped her hands together. Stars gambolled in her eyes.
“Say hello,” announced Doctor Sour, “to your new pet Nuckelavee!”
“Yes,” said Shorten nervously, approaching the cage to pat the creature on the flank. “And it’s all yours. Your mother and I worked extra hard to make it as child-friendly as AARGH AARGH AARGH!”
Sour Sweet thought she’d died and gone to heaven, or to hell on a good day. The speed, the power, the way the Nuckelavee lifted her father like a puppy with a squeaky chew toy…
His arm made a noise healthy arms shouldn’t make. He fell to the ground, then stood up, waved the stump, realized what he was doing, and instead waved his other arm happily at her.
“Ta da!” he exclaimed.
“I want it!” breathed Sour Sweet, on the verge of tears.
Sheer unbridled joy guided her closer and closer to the cage. Dimly, she was aware of her father reaching out to stop her, only for her mother to step smartly between them and shake her head at him. Now all she had eyes for was the hybrid mass of muscles in the cage. The one red eye of its lower head swivelled ominously towards her… like a frightened old doggie that needed a home.
Her fingers reached up to the exposed bone of its muzzle just as a more intelligent thought asked, Is this a good idea? Really?
But she had to touch it.
She’d die of cuteness loss if she never so much as touched it…
The bone pressed hard against her fingertips, smooth yet jagged at the edge of the bridge. Its flesh made squidgy noises as she rubbed up and down to the limits of its facial muscles. Gently, the one eye closed.
She felt the release of pressure around her. Her parents even clapped with relief.
“Success!” shouted Doctor Sour. “You see!? I designed it to recognize its true master. It’s all yours, honey.”
“It’s boiling,” commented Sour Sweet, working her hand up to its crown. Nerves flickered in her gut. “Is it feverish?”
“That’s perfectly normal,” Shorten reassured her, patting her shoulder with his stump. “But you must feed it regularly. Its body requires lots of energy, so it’s got quite the appetite.”
“I will! I will! Thank you both so much! And I will name it Nukie, and I will hug it, and pet it, and squeeze it, and pat it –”
“Awww.”
Sour Sweet patted it too hard.
A smack on its shoulder.
The Nuckelavee scream-screech-squealed in too many voices painfully wrapped around each other like mangled corpses. Its lower body reared like a spooked horse, its upper body raised its club fists at the roof of the cage, it struck with legs and arms until the metal pinged and bent, and it rounded its bloodstained, cyclopic eye like a furious tumour upon Sour Sweet.
She backed away at once. Into the grip of Doctor Sour.
The cage ruptured like an overfed gut.
Shorten bravely threw himself between them and bravely got snatched up and savaged. Shrapnel and broken bars scattered over Sour Sweet as she crouched, covering her eyes. Horrible yells, punctuated by fleshy tearing sounds.
Cantering hooves ran wild. Computers exploded into chips and shards. The Nuckelavee’s unnatural bellows and rasping screeches blended – became a human voice howling in pain and fury. More computers exploded into scrapyard dust.
Sour Sweet opened her eyes, then shrieked.
The rising tide of Nuckelavee launched itself at her, equine lower half awash with square teeth, humanoid upper torso surfing on a wave of red, curling an overlong tongue like a spiked whip.
Tearful, Sour Sweet flinched.
And the beast leaped clean over her. Smashing, crashing noises followed. She didn’t dare turn around.
Silence reigned.
Then she turned around.
Past her mother, who had fallen onto her back and scurried out of the way, a gigantic hole in the sheer granite wall. A darkness beyond. A distant splashing of sewage. Fleetingly, an echoing howl.
She gaped at her mother. “What did you do?”
Her mother gaped right back. “What? I thought you liked ponies.”
Sour Sweet continued to stare.
Doctor Sour stood up and dusted herself off carelessly, brushing a bit of her husband off her arm. “Tell you what: how about I make you a new one? Pink? With purple highlights?”
“Nukie! Nukie!”
Sour Sweet would wade through sewers to find a critter in need. Reluctantly, yes: the heat-generating water made the air humid, and the less said about the smell, the better. So long as her nose could single out the trace of exposed flesh and cocktail of abominable pheromones, she’d keep going.
“Nukie! Sweetie! Mommy’s here! Nukie!”
Mommy waded alone.
“I’ve got friends for you to meet! Come say hi to Skullcrusher, and Fangblaster, and Headripperoffer, and Asphyxiator! You gotta meet Axy!”
She started to run, subtly changing her leg length to increase her stride. Partial transformation, partial benefit.
Yet the heat and the dizzying stench and the embarrassment invaded, smashing against her walls of generosity.
“NUKIE!”
No, no, calm down. Be nice. Poor thing must be scared stiff, wandering off alone…
“Nukie, sweetie!”
In the peaceful sleep of darkness, Sour Sweet indulged a dream.
And a mile away, someone else woke the house right up.
“Yo, what up, party people?” shouted Sunny Flare in her slightly raised non-shout.
The Lovebite nightclub burst with cheers, flared with confetti, roared with rainbow lasers. Vampires, humans, and werewolves packed the place until it was impossible to tell which was which. Sunny Flare couldn’t hear much over the DJ’s fight between EDM and epic choir music. In the otherwise laser-streaked gloom, she could barely see through her star-shaped glamour glasses. It was that kind of night.
“Hey, how are you? Nice to see you again. Enjoying yourself? Good? Good.”
She strode through the club like a queen in her palace, which – essentially – she was. She owned the club.
Vampires couldn’t get by on just old money, she’d figured. So she’d bought a business that made sense for a species keen to have fun at night. It made her popular, it gave her something to do, and most importantly, it made money. Everyone had a great time, she guessed.
“Bar is open! No holding back, people! Live a little! Live a lot!”
Sour Sweet was getting impatient.
“NUKIE! COME HERE!”
The scent was starting to vanish. Too many confusions: she swore the Nuckelavee was outpacing her. It had been fun the first hour or so, but the sewer and the stress were getting to her.
“Nukie! Please! Come to Mommy!”
She cooked in rage and confusion. Don’t let it come to a boil, never let it come to a boil…
If only somebody had been around, like an unkillable vampire, so she could kill it. Work out her frustrations – NO! That was the wolf talking. Sour Sweet would never… She couldn’t… She didn’t dare.
“Much help you are,” she snarled to no one in particular.
Sour Sweet raced on, hoping she wasn’t about to lose the scent.
Deep inside, the Wolf had picked up hers…
Less than a mile away, someone else felt their eyelids droop.
“Night’s still young, people.”
Sunny Flare waved and smiled at various customers, but it was mostly to keep them off her back. She’d found her way to the bar, and three glasses of Ave Bloody Maria found their way into her gullet. Wine. A very unusual wine.
“Lovin’ it. Yay.”
Going without blood. It had been one of Sour Sweet’s pleading ideas for human welfare. Sunny Flare alternated between ignoring it and hating having to do it, but she remembered whenever Sour Sweet winced at the dinner table. She herself wasn’t used to feeling guilty about what she did. Sunny found it hard to care about anything much. Whereas Sour Sweet reeked of low-grade furious guilt all the time.
The nightclub sounded like it was having fun. That was what it was there for. Good.
In a crowd of dozens, Sunny Flare felt at home. Alone.
Moonlight poured through grates high up, giving the sewers rare doses of light in a grey-to-dark labyrinth.
And Sour Sweet staggered down the next tunnel, smelling nothing except sewage.
Her hands had claws. Skin bristled as patches of fur. Perhaps her mouth and nose seemed longer than usual, almost muzzle-like. One of her ears was pointed.
“Stay…” she told herself sternly. “Stay.”
Muffled, distant music suggested itself to her mismatched ears, but it left no further trace on a mind at war with itself. She’d been searching for hours.
“No… don’t…”
The moonlight was intoxicating. She passed over a natural spotlight and reared up to howl before her human part seized control.
“I SAID NO!”
Under the lunacy, she was on white-hot fire. She wanted not just to kill something, but to savage its guts out. She hadn’t been out of her den for ages…
That was the inner wolf talking. The human sensed it and pounced on top instinctively.
Confused by a million increasingly subtle smells, Sour Sweet stumbled towards one that seemed… familiar… reassuring… sweet.
Right overhead, Sunny Flare closed the door to her private chamber and shut out the thump-thump-thump of Countess Vinyl Disk’s latest shuffle. This was her local retreat whenever the nightclub wasn’t doing it for her.
She lay in the specially prepared coffin, put her hands over her face, and sighed.
Maybe the lasers were too much. She swore she felt weaker after a few minutes of being blinded by them.
Maybe it was the drinks. Wine was an acquired taste, even after a hundred years.
Maybe it was the music. Such heart-pumping, ear-blaring chaos left her feeling weirdly drowsy, as though her body struggled to cope.
Or maybe it was the cold, brittle realization that she knew a lot of names and faces, yet knew virtually none of the people here.
Just a time out. Just some rest.
Vampires looked so cool and precise. That was because vampires obsessed over image. Werewolves were lucky. They could turn up looking like a dog’s breakfast, and no one cared. Well, some cared, but werewolves didn’t care right back, so it balanced out.
Lucky.
Sunny? Sunny! SUNNY!
Maybe it was the drinks. For a moment there, she swore she could hear the bathroom calling her name…
And now there was a crater where the bathroom had been. Sour Sweet didn’t bother with subtlety.
“Lovebite is a stupid name for a club,” grumbled Sour Sweet over the bowl of perfume. She had a towel round her shoulders.
“Haven’t heard that one before,” said Sunny Flare with a shrug. She kept her distance, nose wrinkled: Sour Sweet’s dress dripped something indescribable onto the second bathroom floor.
Purple dress. Sparkly. Very subtle, Mother, thought Sour Sweet dully. Real subtle.
Sunny didn’t actually have a second ensuite bathroom, but it was easy enough to commandeer one of the public bathrooms and install a bodyguard outside the door. It was also easy enough to lurk like a shadow in the corner. Vampires were good at lurking.
“And the music’s too loud! How does anyone talk!?”
“Uh huh.”
“Everyone’s so close together!”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And the drinks smell like piss!”
Sunny didn’t bother retorting as Sour Sweet chose that moment to be violently sick in the bathroom sink.
“Fancy schmancy marble bathroom tiles with gold faucets… Gold!? Faucets!? Seriously!?”
“You done yet?” Sunny flicked a dust mote off her immaculate shoulder.
Sniffing, Sour Sweet wiped her mouth with her arm and blushed, still scowling, into the mirror. Not that Sunny had a reflection to scowl at.
“Now that you’re what passes for ‘presentable’,” continued Sunny in a bored voice, “you mind telling me why you destroyed my ensuite and why you were wandering around the sewers? That’s low even for you.”
Flickering, Sour Sweet’s anger unclenched. “I was looking for Nukie.”
Sunny rolled her eyes. “Another pet?”
Sour Sweet nodded like a naughty child. As the red mist faded, she was getting a good look at her reality for the first time.
“Of course.” Sunny smiled without any humour: an undead smile, as it were. “What else would you be doing?”
“I can’t just leave it down there.”
“You’re so weak sometimes.” Rapidly, Sunny held up a hand to cut off Sour Sweet’s protests. “So when do you plan on paying for the damages?”
“Nukie was a birthday present!” When Sunny raised an eyebrow, Sour Sweet took it as encouragement to continue. “Mother made it for me. She said it was a Nuckelavee.”
“The hell’s a Nuckelavee?”
“Uh dunnuh,” Sour Sweet grunted. “But I love it! It’s got these big exposed muscles so you can see how beautiful it is on the inside, and these elegant rib-fang things that tore Father up like –”
“Geez, you’re such a sentimentalist.”
Sour Sweet squirmed and whined. “But the poor thing’s lost and all alone –”
“There you go again, not thinking it through. You really do have a weakness for monsters, don’t you?”
Sour Sweet bristled. “You should know.”
Sunny snapped her fingers for attention. “Hey. Focus here. Seriously, how easy are you to fool? You’re so smitten you can’t even spot when your ‘Mother’s’ bought you off with a new bribe.”
“Hey!”
“What? You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. She’s been doing shady stuff for years. It’s probably a bribe so you don’t tell anybody about her latest scheme, or some–”
“Well, you never got me a birthday present!”
That shut Sunny up at once. If it hadn’t been for the shocked, pulsing bulge of her eyes, she would have played it off as cool disdain. The rest of her held firm.
“Ex-actly,” sneered Sour Sweet, throwing aside the towel and rounding on her to deliver the coup de grâce. “It might suck to be a werewolf sometimes, Sunny, but at least we have feelings. Even if they are… sucky…”
She rallied angrily.
“But you don’t care about anything, and you act like that makes you better than the rest of us. I’m sick of it! So what if Mother’s up to something? Again? She’s under stress! We’re under a lot of stress! I was watching when she talked to every vampire at that birthday party Mother threw me. They think we’re dogs! You think we’re dogs! You think I’m just some pet you can smack on the nose with a slipper! Well, my family is clawing its way up to the top, and when we get there, you better hold on to us by the ears, because we’ll have yours!”
Sour Sweet took a long time to get her breathing under control.
Not helped by how Sunny resembled a bored statue the whole time. She kept her arms crossed. It was like she was holding her cool in.
Eventually, the only movement was Sunny looking Sour Sweet up and down. “Your dress looks nice. Shame about the stains.”
Screaming, Sour Sweet drew her claws back for a swipe – lunged – yelped – swerved it away at the last second, inches ahead of Sunny’s immoveable nose – clenched her fist – punched a cubicle door, which crumpled and took most of the cubicle and its neighbours with it in a collapsing wreck.
Sour Sweet rounded on the sink and clung to it. Her grip cracked and dented the marble. She didn’t dare look at her reflection. Knowing that she was being stupid didn’t make her feel any less stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
“I think you should leave now,” continued Sunny as if there had been no interruption. “Your Nukie is still wandering around the sewers.”
“Don’t – tell me – what to –”
“I’m not telling you to do anything. Anyway, you’ve made it very clear you don’t want to be here.”
Sour Sweet waited for the confusion to clear up. She clung tighter to the sink. Her heart felt like it was going to burst, a small wolf savaging its way out.
“You don’t know,” she growled. “You don’t know what I’m going through. It’s all going to be mine. All of it. It’s all on me –”
Her ear flickered. The distant murmur of voices sounded suddenly louder, higher-pitched… more… urgent…
“Screams?” she murmured.
“I hear them too.”
By the time Sour Sweet had reached the door, Sunny had already beaten her through it.
Bodies.
Bodies littered the nightclub.
Sour Sweet put a hand to her mouth: shock, and a sudden pressing desire not to throw up. Sunny just stared.
Several humans had been flung aside like clothes on a bedroom floor, their limbs strewn at random, their faces creased with pain or panic. Some had holes in them. Some were torn in half. Some flopped in ways that couldn’t happen if their bones were still intact.
It wasn’t only humans who’d been slaughtered. If anything, the vampires were worse. Covered in strange splinters. Missing heads. Bruised, which took some doing on a vampire. Shredded into splattered heaps of mince. Some large piles of dust suggested a fate much more customized than the usual physical violence, and the smell of garlic fizzed in the air.
A lot of smells fizzed in the air.
Sour Sweet desperately wanted to look away, and yet she couldn’t stop staring. She shivered. The human bodies upset her more; unlike vampires, they always seemed so weak and helpless to her, like children. But the vampires…
She glanced aside at Sunny and was slightly relieved to find her glancing back at the same time. Even Sunny’s icy exterior broke.
And the worst part was that the bodies awoke something.
Deep behind Sour Sweet’s wrinkled nose, the Wolf sniffed the air.
Shouts and screams, from outside. As one, they rushed to the torn-off door – and Sour Sweet recognized the scent now.
“Nukie?”
Sunny vaulted over the ruins. Sour Sweet swiped and kicked them out of the way. Then they both gasped.
The Lovebite nightclub opened onto one of the town plazas, a remnant of the old village green before the conurbation swallowed it whole. There were still strips of grass verge – long since converted into flowerbeds – yet flagstone tiles had successfully invaded, and a central fountain ruled all, the throne to a proudly upright statue of the vampire founder.
Except the crowds were fleeing. Roads around the square were clogged with panicking citizens – human, werewolf, vampire. Plenty of victims remained trapped in the square, though, and these found themselves seized and trampled by –
That one-eyed head, that horsey lower half, that rearing torso like a mounted rider on its spine…
“Nukie!” called Sour Sweet. “Stop it! Stop! Come here! Come to Mommy!”
“We should go…”
Sour Sweet goggled at Sunny, who took a step back; her eyes had widened, taking in the square and the fresh heaps of bodies. She’d never looked so panicky in her life.
“It’s just…” Excuses came there none. Sour Sweet could smell the fear and blood.
“Open your eyes, Sour! That is not a pet!”
“But –”
Then she saw it happen. She screamed.
One of the vampires had taken off, thrown his caped form into the air, flapped as batlike wings sprouted from his stretching arms – Not fast enough. The second head of the Nuckelavee opened its unnatural mouth, exposed splinters of teeth, and then –
A fleshy whip: the black-tipped, barbed tongue. They heard the shriek of pain as though the poor vampire was screeching right into their ears. He convulsed. The tongue impaled him like a lance through a scarecrow, then curled around the twitching, frozen body until it was tight enough to crush his ribs. The tip tapped his cheek; instantly, a purple stain spread through his skin. He curled, crumpled, turned purple all over, and finally burst into a descending heap of dust.
The tongue withdrew, cracking through the air, and snapped back into the mouth of the Nuckelavee.
“Nukie…” breathed Sour Sweet. Her fists clenched, hanging on tight to themselves.
“It’s not listening! Let’s go! Now!”
Sunny seized her arm and tried dragging her away. She might as well have towed the statue.
“Sour! Now!”
Sour Sweet had never heard Sunny panic before.
The Nuckelavee’s one eye squeaked in its socket. The horsey head swung round. The second head screeched with bloodlust, and the whole beast was suddenly upon them.
Sunny bolted, took off, transformed into a small bat as the splintered mouth opened and Sour Sweet realized what was about to happen.
“DON’T!” Her legs shifted. She leaped in-between, arms outstretched.
Snorting in contempt, it swatted her aside.
She somersaulted and gripped the flagstones with growing claws, scraping to a stop. She began running back before the tongue lashed out.
Spearing Sunny.
The world turned red. The barbed tongue undulated in slow motion. The small bat that was Sunny Flare stretched taut, locked in squealing agony as she was impaled.
Sour Sweet felt the stab wound as if it were her own. Lost her breath. Couldn’t move.
Then, in a blink, the world came back. She seized the bat in one hand and wrenched the tongue out with the other. The Nuckelavee yelped.
Cradling Sunny in one hand, Sour Sweet raised the other to push the Nuckelavee away, but it was already backing off. More bats had taken to the air. Preoccupied with new victims, the tongue lashed out.
Blood trickled along Sour Sweet’s hand. The little bat was too limp, too silent. Were it not for the hole sliced through her chest, she might have seemed asleep – but she was breathing. Weakly, but still alive.
Sour Sweet kneeled there, cupping Sunny in both hands now. The eyes were shut tight. Her own became hot and blurry.
She barely took in the rampage of the Nuckelavee as it cantered back and forth, spearing victims. She barely noticed the werewolf police burst through the crowds, raising revolvers and shouting something. Then the Nuckelavee kicked one aside. The others fired. Nothing. Specialist officers hurled silver-lined gleaming nets using their protective gloves, fired pure wooden crossbows as makeshift stakes, sprayed jets of garlic broth from water tanks strapped to their backs. The Nuckelavee either ignored them or punched them out.
Sour Sweet barely had any mind left to wonder why the officers were being knocked out, not killed. The rest of her ached, shivering, lost as a child in a warzone.
She did notice the shouting, though.
Some citizens burst through the crowds too, but unlike the police, they promptly turned on the survivors. Some waved banners – she couldn’t read them at this distance – but most threw things. As they rushed closer, she saw they had masks and scarves and balaclavas: face-concealing clothes.
One man – whose eyes were scowling between his scarf and hood – ran close to her, pulled something small and round out of a pocket, did something with his hands…
“MONSTER SCUM!” he shouted, and then threw it into the air.
Barely a pop. Sour Sweet flinched, but the result was quite beautiful. The grenade-looking thing burst into a scatter of sparkles that rained down prettily upon –
One of the sparkles touched her skin. She heard the sizzle before the burn stung her. She yelped, jerked her arm, watched the silvery flake fall to the ground.
Silver?
More sparkles touched her skin, and at once she squirmed and yelped at stinging pains erupting all over. The human side of her cried out –
The Wolf began to rise, hackles stiff.
Sour Sweet’s fangs sprouted. Her claws lengthened. She swiped at the man – who leaped out of range – before she could yank control back. The Wolf dug in its claws, refused.
Her eyes burned harder. Everything reddened.
Blinking furiously until it stopped, she clutched her friend to her chest and turned and ran. Away from the shouting attackers. Away from the frantic screams. Away from the triumphant, legion-voiced roar of the Nuckelavee.
Grindbone Industries was a dead shadow when Sour Sweet burst through the front doors, slammed them shut, and got her breath back. Claws and fur retracted. Human hands gripped the bloodied bundle of bat fur to a definitely human chest.
Sour Sweet’s footsteps echoed across the abandoned corridors. Never had the treasures been more worthless.
She growled impatiently as the glass elevator inched downwards.
What her mother heard next was the shattering of glass and metal, followed by a thump, then by the grind of stone as Sour Sweet elbowed her way through the elevator’s security doors. They’d been built to withstand a siege, but Sour Sweet’s werewolf strength had forgotten that.
Doctor Sour sat and watched an intact screen, swirling a glass of blood-red chianti. She didn’t react when Sour Sweet hurried over to the operating table. Shorten Sweet did, though.
“Aw dear,” he cooed, seeing the limp wings in Sour Sweet’s hands. “Let me get the medicine kit.”
Holding back sobs, she shoved him aside and spilled bandages across the table, then gently placed the tiny form of Sunny amid the chaos. She’d stopped breathing. Vampires, vampires, what cured vampires…?
“Quite dangerous out there,” spoke her mother calmly, “isn’t it?”
Sour Sweet glanced up. Onscreen, fires and explosions echoed across the cityscape.
“Seems the Light Family were a bad influence after all,” continued Doctor Sour, watching the newscast. “Seems a rabble of humans think they can get rid of werewolves and vampires with some stolen ‘Night Light’ technology. Call themselves the ‘Twilight of the Gods’. Dear, dear. As the saying goes: one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Sour Sweet ignored her. Vampires could recover from holes in their chests. But she’d seen the tongue stab one and reduce it to dust. What if Sunny…?
“If she’s been poisoned,” her mother piped up casually, “then you’re wasting your time.”
Stitches… curse reinfectant… basilisk venom… drop of fresh blood – for that, she’d need a scalpel. This time around, Sour Sweet didn’t even hesitate. She raised her hand over Sunny’s wound.
Winced. Once.
Soon, the bat started breathing again.
Holding the medicine kit, Shorten Sweet wiped his brow and sighed. “That went much more smoothly than last time. Seems like only yesterday…”
“Sunny!?” Sour Sweet cupped the bat in her hands. Still unconscious. She’d cured any number of small horror beasts on this very table: a vampire only once before.
Their first time.
Above the wreckage of the lab, glowing eyes peered out of suspended cages.
“Ah, yes,” purred her mother, and her shadow fell over Sour Sweet’s back. “The Viscountess.”
Shorten shuffled aside hurriedly.
Doctor Sour stood much too close. Draped in the dalmatian fur coat, topped by two black holes that had nothing to do with designer sunglasses or goggles. Pure, unblinking emptiness.
“Waste of medicine, my dear,” she breathed.
One long-nailed hand gripped Sour Sweet under the jawline, turned her round, forced her to tilt her head up… then playfully tapped her on the nose.
She didn’t like the way her mother grinned. It was almost a leer. Sour Sweet clung to Sunny like a child with a blanket.
“You know I love you,” said her mother, savouring every word like her precious chianti. “Sweetheart.”
What terrified Sour Sweet the most was the lack of monstrosity. Her mother didn’t sprout fangs or unsheathe claws or growl. She could do anything while being pure, lovely, smiling human.
“Sunny –” Sour Sweet mumbled hesitantly, “was attacked – by the – by Nukie – and –”
“The Viscountess was a good friend to have, wasn’t she? Popular. Useful. But we don’t need her anymore, Sweetums.”
Sour Sweet lost a second of her life. When it came back, the chills held it hostage.
“Wh-what?” she squeaked.
Now her mother began circling her, running fingers along her shoulders and hair. “You mean you haven’t figured out what my birthday present is yet?”
“N-no, M-Mother.”
Doctor Sour gestured to the explosions and silhouettes on the screen. Something red reared up and roared.
“Nukie’s just the tip of the talon,” she whispered. “That’s no ordinary little pet…” She bopped Sour Sweet playfully on the nose. “…Pet. It’s the ultimate bioweapon.”
More transmitted shouts. More transmitted screams.
“Didn’t you notice that only vampires and humans were targeted? Nukie’s unstoppable. I combined the strengths of each species, weeded out the weaknesses, and added a few tricks of my own. My guess is that the venomous tongue spike only struck your friend a glancing blow, otherwise we’d be sweeping her off the floor.”
“What?” Sour Sweet backed into the table.
“Tipping off the ‘Twilight of the Gods’ was a part of the plan too. With the Light Family inspiring more humans to stand up for themselves, those savages were itching to start their ‘glorious’ revolution anyway. News of a monster attack ahead of time must have made them very angry. Cute. But I just needed an excuse to distract the police.”
Shorten wrung his hands behind Doctor Sour’s back. “Please, Pumpkin, she only had your best intentions at heart.”
“Why are you doing this!?” Tears crept up the insides of Sour Sweet’s eyes. Every now and then, her mother tried to snake a hand towards Sunny, only for Sour Sweet to twist away.
“For you, Sweet Basket,” sneered Doctor Sour, pinching her daughter’s cheek – drawing blood. “Because you’re the heir of this family, and this family is at the top of the werewolf food chain. And within a month, that’ll be the only chain left.”
Sour Sweet breathed harder. Beyond, she could hear the cries of humans. They were like talking animals to her…
“Think of the family,” pleaded Shorten, cowering behind his wife.
Sour Sweet swallowed. “We’ll… we’ll be in charge?”
“You’ll be in charge,” corrected her mother. “You have a future. You have our legacy. You have responsibilities to us now. So, give me that old toy of yours. It’s time to put away childish things.”
Sour Sweet refused to let go. She refused to disobey her mother. She knew what’d happen if she disobeyed her mother. But she felt Sunny’s small ribs breathing against her own.
And she didn’t want all that stuff. They treat us like dogs. Had that been her own voice? Her own words? Her?
Had any of this been hers?
She looked into her mother’s cold, dead eyes and opened her mouth to say no.
Sour Sweet faltered.
Her mother had Sunny between her fingers. Now all she had to do was wrench the little bat away –
Certainty struck back. “NO!”
The smack of hand against hand somehow seemed louder than the cry. Shorten covered his face and whimpered. Sour Sweet froze, terrified.
Doctor Sour clutched her own wrist, no longer smiling. “Give. Me. The bat.”
“N-no!”
“You can’t fight me, you selfish runt. You’re not going to win this one. You never win.”
“No, please! Mom!”
“It’s ‘Mother’ to you!”
“Mom – Mother! Please!”
Doctor Sour struck her across the face.
Shorten wailed.
Sour Sweet didn’t react. She was used to this.
Quietly, quiveringly, she mumbled, “N-no. I’m n-not gonna let you hur-hurt her.”
The snarl of fury cut itself off; Doctor Sour looked thoughtful, then cold, then gradually amused. She waved it all away.
“No matter,” she spat, shrugging. “The Viscountess is as good as dead either way.”
“Her name is Sunny! And she’s coming with me!” Sour Sweet was shocked at her own words. “We’re not staying here a minute longer!”
Another dismissive wave: Doctor Sour sauntered away, then seated herself back down to watch the unfolding newscast. She picked up her glass.
“You’ll be back,” was all she said. “You always come back to me.”
Whimpering, smarting where the slap had struck her cheek, but hoping Sunny would come back to her, Sour Sweet fled before she lost her nerve.
A lone wolf is a dead wolf.
That was the rule of the pack animal. That was the rule Sour Sweet had tried to break so many times before. That was the one rule she feared in despair.
Yet she forced herself to ignore it as she slung the quiver and bow over her back, held on to Sunny, and fled into the streets with no better idea than to put as much distance between her and her mother as she could.
The fires raged all over the city at random – twice, she turned a corner, only to double back at the sight of people fleeing an inferno. Geez, how many ‘Twilight of the Gods’ nutjobs were there?
People in masks and scarves tried to block her way. She transformed her limbs and leaped right over them. They didn’t terrify her more than her mother did. Not yet.
Still… this was her city. In a way. These screaming people… it made her ache to stop, to do something – ah, but that urge would get her killed. Her skin twinged with emerging burns from the silver chaff grenade earlier.
No! Too much. It was all too much. Simplify. Focus.
Keep Sunny safe. Then find Nukie –
The wall shattered into dust beside her. A long tongue lashed out, black-tipped and barbed.
Sour Sweet yelped as it wrapped around her, the tip curling round to strike her heart – to strike Sunny –
Instinct pounced… and was pushed back. Only Sour Sweet’s jaws lengthened, teeth sharpened. She bit down. Hard.
Severed tongue flopped to the ground.
The pained screech of the Nuckelavee fell behind; she rushed on, right into a forested patch of park. She forced her jaws back and her teeth down to squares. This was no time to give in. She had a vampire in her hands. Werewolves would kill vampires on instinct. Stress and suppression and comfort and coping snarled, fighting each other in her heart, which beat just a few inches away from Sunny’s own.
Sunny was always so cool and precise – NO! FOCUS!
Now Sour Sweet could smell every leaf’s green pheromone and every summer-baked blade of grass. Forest. Natural home of the Wolf.
Which stirred.
Rising within the chaos of her mind.
NO, I SAID!
A bunch of humans rushed out in front of her. She roared, raised a clawed fist, saw them stop and cower.
Poor humans.
“Nukie’s coming!” she shouted at them. “You’re running right towards it! Go that way!” She pointed randomly to her left.
One of them nodded – gaping at her – and hurried on, leading the others. Sympathy cheered them on before Sour Sweet’s panic overtook her; she rushed ahead.
Further in, another group of humans accosted her. These ones didn’t look like panicky victims. Not with the grenades, wooden crossbows, and weirdly purple-lit torches in their hands.
“Die, you dog!” shouted one.
“Death to the oppressors!”
“Man bites wolf!”
“No!” Sour Sweet raised an arm to shield herself. “You don’t underst–”
Nukie bowled right into her, knocking her aside.
As she stumbled and then kept running downhill, she heard the human screams fall behind. Get away, get away, get away –
No. Think!
Attack. But not with claws or fangs. She needed a clear shot. The Nuckelavee had to have some weakness, some way for Mother to punish it, keep it in line, that was her style…
Up ahead, she heard running water.
Sour Sweet hesitated.
Then her memory trickled back.
Holy water was banned in Viscera City. They had workarounds, though: healing water from underground springs were major tourist attractions, and purified water ran naturally through some of the tributaries to the great River Viscera. Vampires could cope with those, though they’d rather not, since what didn’t kill you could certainly make you wish it could.
Running water. That might work.
Sour Sweet held back. Swimming wasn’t part of the plan. Even a werewolf jump would only land her in the middle of the river. She recoiled from the trickle of the current. Nighttime or not, the water sparkled ethereally.
She slapped herself. “Pull yourself together, runt!”
Deep breaths, deep breaths…
Partial transformation helped. Human limbs were better at strokes, but werewolf muscles boosted the speed. She placed Sunny delicately in longer, more spacious wolf jaws, sternly keeping an eye on the instinctive, unthinking urge to snap them shut. Then she splashed right in, holding her head aloft, using her teeth as a protective cage.
It appeased the Wolf. Briefly.
Darn, she hated baths.
As soon as she reached the other side, she saw the police cordon at the top of the bank where the main road swerved by. Officers patrolled it, evidently hoping to contain the crisis. She ignored their shouted summons and looked around. Bushes everywhere. Now what?
Gently guiding Sunny’s limp form out of her mouth, she placed the delicate bat under a bush. Then she picked out a silver-tipped arrow, strung her bow, turned, and spotted the Nuckelavee on the opposite bank.
It had stopped. Red flesh glistened against the sparkly surface.
“That’s right,” Sour Sweet whispered. “Hold that pose.”
The red eye glared back at her. Or at the bush. Hard to tell at this distance.
Behind her, the officers’ cries became louder and more insistent.
Then, the Nuckelavee moved. It stepped right onto the water as though it were a road. Its equine lower half cantered right towards her. Its abominable upper half screeched eagerly.
Sour Sweet’s arrow lowered itself. “No way…”
She remembered herself just in time.
She fired.
The arrow staggered the Nuckelavee mid-stride, only for it to keep going. She’d expected that – fast as a whipcrack, she loaded another and fired again. Missed the eye, hit its shoulder. Loaded. Fired. Loaded. Fired. Loaded. Fired.
The Nuckelavee was almost at the bank. Veering off. Definitely heading towards the bush.
Sour Sweet threw down her bow, changed, tore the strap of her quiver, and pounced right onto the upper half’s chest. No time to think.
Until the Wolf seized more and more skin, spreading fur like an infection – NO!
She forced the Wolf to stay within her jaws and claws, but the Nuckelavee twisted and bucked, fighting back in turn. She couldn’t control it and the Wolf at the same time. Her claws left nicks but no scars. Her teeth gave crushing bites, but the flesh simply expanded back into shape.
So she climbed up onto its higher back, seized it round the neck, and yanked backwards. If she could rein it in somehow –
Spotted the terrorists on the bank. Masked and hooded. They’d broken through the police cordon – the air sparkled and vibrated with howling pain – and now she saw them closing in on Sunny’s hiding place.
“SUNNY!”
A punch winded her. The Nuckelavee viciously threw its head back, smashing her nose. Spiky explosions of ribs ruptured its skin like porcupine spines, stabbing her. Some fired as splinters.
Too much… too much…
Sour Sweet finally gave up. She slid off its back and splashed into the river, sinking out of sight.
The middle of a fight is a bad time to have an identity crisis.
Bubbles trickled away from Sour Sweet’s mouth.
Inside her mind, there were two of her: each fighting for control, both losing. One screamed for it, clawing at the sky, gnawing at its chains, writhing with every muscle to grab the fight and rip its throat out.
The other held on desperately. It could see further ahead. It knew the fight wouldn’t end there. It remembered a face, a face that made its knees weak, the frightened face of a – of a friend.
Beast or bestie. Living beast or dead bestie. One or the other. She no longer had any better choice.
From another lifetime, she swore she heard her own name pleading with her. “Sweet? Sweet. Sweet!”
The bubbles… stopped.
Sour Sweet shut both her eyes. Opened one. It glowed pure, furious red.
And the Wolf rose faster.
On the surface, the spiky Nuckelavee had barely taken a few clopping steps when the water erupted and the Wolf wrestled it onto its flank.
Rib-like spikes burst from the flesh, stabbing at the Wolf. They might as well have poked a wall. The topmost head grew its splinter teeth, then tried biting back. A paw crunched the Nuckelavee’s jaw like a paper cup.
Then – claws scything, fangs mashing – the Wolf went to town.
There was no over-the-top howling, no proud roaring or wailing. This wasn’t about territory or dominance. This was just a quiet, concentrated effort to kill. Ignoring the screams of pain – energized by them – the Wolf mashed and minced its way through muscle and bone. Splinters, flecked with marrow, drifted away in the current. Yet the Nuckelavee’s curse kept all its parts floating on the surface, regenerating, healing its wounded, broken flesh.
So the Wolf climbed on top, grabbed both heads – puncturing the eye into bloody stains with a stray claw – braced itself on the pile of gore, and pushed down.
Black sparks erupted where the cursed heads met running water. Pained screams reached a sky-high pitch. Relentlessly, the Wolf pressed down, harder and harder and harder until the curse finally broke first.
Now the screams were indescribable.
Submerged, the heads became skulls caked with flecks of flesh, then just pure bone. Then they crumpled into powder. Black steam hissed into the night.
Underfoot, the struggling stopped.
Bits of the Nuckelavee drifted in the current, then evaporated into wisps of smoke, which joined the clouds of the coming dawn.
All the humans saw from the bank was an expanding black mist. None of them had moved since the slaughter broke out in earnest. None of them had ever seen a werewolf go full Wolf, either. Werewolves in Viscera City learned self-control as a matter of social survival.
They waited. Apart from the billowing steam, nothing seemed to be happening.
One of the masked men raised a wooden crossbow. Aimed at Sunny. As good as a stake to a vampire.
His companion slapped him on the shoulder urgently, then pointed. They watched the edge of the water.
A red eye emerged.
Slopping wet, having simply sunk to the bottom and then walked back to land, one red eye glinting furiously… the Wolf strode out of the river.
Some of the humans backed off. Three raised silver grenades. One drew a revolver.
The Wolf’s fangs were so large that closing its mouth made little difference. Fur sodden with pure water and blood, it walked unconcernedly towards the bush where the little bat lay crumpled. Only then did it stop. Dripping. Growling. Swaying.
It lowered its massive head. Spotted the tiny prey, unable to fight or flee.
Opened its other eye.
A human eye. Weeping. Small and out of place against the bulk of its body. But recognizably human.
Sour Sweet was shaking with the effort of keeping it there. Fur around the face closed in and drew back like an army poised on the brink of victory.
Whining, she nudged the bat. No response.
Without prompting, the Wolf stepped forwards, ripped the bush out, and hunkered down, careful to curl its limbs so that the bat wasn’t crushed under the giant belly.
The human eye and the red, glinting eye watched the terrorists. Daring them to move. The growl sharpened the air.
One fired his revolver.
Sour Sweet winced. A silver bullet stung her shoulder. She didn’t cry out. Somewhere in her brain, the pain had gotten lost in the confusion and chaos.
Was this what her mother had wanted all along? Was Nukie just a goad?
She hung on tight as the humans fired. Wooden stakes buried themselves in her hide. Silver bullets dug into her face like wasps. She hissed but refused to budge.
The nearest man tossed a grenade onto her back. She yelped at the small blast, then gritted her teeth against the sparkly rain of silver. Fire pinched her all over. Her claws gripped the earth tighter, trying to channel the pain downwards.
Sour Sweet was so focused on this that she barely registered the shout: “ENOUGH!”
A grenade landed below her chin. Not from the terrorists, though. From off to the side. The humans spun round, weapons raised, but they were too late.
A burst. Then the world was full of smoke.
Movement among the billows.
Sour Sweet smelled new humans joining the fight, but she no longer cared. The Wolf fell. So did she.
All she remembered – before the sweet, simple oblivion tucked her in – were human hands pushing her onto her side. So she wouldn’t crush Sunny. Thankful…
All instincts went out.
All higher thought ceased.
The Wolf fell asleep, but it was Sour Sweet who found the light again.
In her mind, she waited. The instincts didn’t come. She’d returned to consciousness ready for a fight, only to swat at empty air.
It couldn’t be. The Wolf was too big to disappear.
Biding time till the worst came to the worst, she spread her inner gaze to the rest of her body. Small and thin. So, she was human again. Lying down. Wrapped in warm substitute love: a thick blanket. A welcome surprise.
Wearing a thin hospital gown. Less welcome. It meant she was far away from her bed, and from her army of stuffed toys that she’d never let herself tear apart despite the occasional outbursts.
Impatience strengthened her. She opened her blurry eyes.
A small white room – a ward? She sniffed: two people nearby, one unfamiliar, one very familiar.
Sour Sweet blinked the blurs away.
Sunny lay tucked into the next bed over. Human again: only her head could be seen resting on the pillow.
Sour Sweet sat up at once.
“It’s OK,” said an unfamiliar voice. “She’s fine.”
The other person sat on the edge of Sour Sweet’s bed. Sour Sweet stared at her. She stared right back.
“We had quite a job getting you out of there. It was a lot easier when you turned back into a human. I’m impressed. You were unconscious and still had the Wolf under control.”
Recognition hit Sour Sweet on the nose. “Wait…”
They sized each other up. Sour Sweet noticed one of the woman’s hands in a pocket. The spike of silver’s aura reached her even here.
What the heck was going on!?
“It’s OK,” repeated the woman: soothingly, as though to a spooked animal. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s just a precaution.”
“You’re Velvet.” The fact dropped through Sour Sweet’s brain without hitting the sides.
Velvet nodded. “We’ve done what we can, but some of those burns might be permanent. I’m sorry. I wish I could do more.”
Sour Sweet’s arms had red pockmarks along their length. She hoped her face didn’t look like that.
“Wait… the Twilight of the Gods… I remember! They’re your –”
“They’re renegades. We’re not. We fight monsters. We don’t become them.” Then Velvet smiled grimly. “Myself, I always wondered what the daughter of Doctor Sour Milk would be like.”
Sour Sweet’s eyebrows flickered: that tone… “You know Mother?”
“Mm. Let’s just say our families go way back.”
“I never heard that!”
Velvet’s smile withered in flames. “Yes, Doctor Sour liked to keep things under wraps. The truth is that she was already under investigation before the Nuckelavee disaster.”
“You know about…?”
“It was your smell. The Nuckelavee didn’t leave much scent – Doctor Sour did a good job letting it escape into the sewers – but your scent remained. The werewolf police traced it back to her lab. She’s been arrested.”
“Arrested!?”
“Yes, and her husband, though apparently he volunteered to join her in prison.”
None of it made sense to Sour Sweet. Focus on Sunny: Sunny was the one thing that made sense, in this strange room and these strange clothes with this strange woman spouting strange nonsense.
Otherwise, Sour Sweet saw nothing but her mother. Waiting for her to come home. She always did.
She started to panic…
“So,” whispered Velvet, “you’re in charge now.”
“No, I’m not!”
By the time she’d steadied her breathing, she realized Velvet was still there. Still patient. Still…
“I don’t want to go to prison!” Sour Sweet gripped the bedsheets.
“You won’t.”
“I didn’t want this!”
“It’s OK. When you’re ready, we can take you home and –”
“I DON’T WANNA GO HOME!”
Trying to tame the Wolf was easier than holding this back. The springs in her mattress crunched under her digging grip. Somehow, not knowing what she’d do if she panicked made the panic even worse. Her mother wasn’t in prison! She was home, waiting for her! She always was! And then…
Velvet’s gentle hand lived up to the name; it cushioned her own, relaxing the grip on the mattress. “You’re stronger than you know.”
Sour Sweet burst into tears. She barely felt the hug. She didn’t recognize it as such for a while. She wasn’t used to them; even Sunny preferred to keep bodies aloof.
Some sane fragment of Sour Sweet marvelled at the fact that this mother was comforting a child four times her age.
Sour Sweet waited before gently pushing her away. She wiped the tears on the back of her hand.
“We’re going through the evidence in Doctor Sour’s lab,” said Velvet, “but she’s wiggled out of tight spots before. With your testimony, though, maybe this time we can put her away for good.”
The panic came clawing back. “I can’t!”
“Take it easy. We won’t push you into anything. But I believe you can. I saw you when the Wolf took over. You were w–”
“Weak?” Sour Sweet spat.
“Wonderful. Even a powerful werewolf like Doctor Sour couldn’t have stopped the Wolf. True leaders don’t just fight. They have s–”
“Something to fight for,” scoffed Sour Sweet.
“Some-one.”
Instant guilt silenced Sour Sweet. She glanced pleadingly at Sunny. The slight breaths caressed the air.
“People are what matter. Things, ideas, duties: they’re just there to help. Er, distracting as they can be. Tempting. It’s our job to muscle through that to the real thing.”
Amid her misery, Sour Sweet wondered if anyone was looking after her pets back home. She always let them out of their cages once a week.
“Sour Sweet… you’re the heir to the Grindbone estate. Your mother’s not in charge anymore. You are. You’re the one werewolves everywhere will look up to. I want to know what kind of person they’ll see.”
And the equipment, the genetic devices, the medical kits and new kinds of pharmaceutical drugs…
…all the Frankenpets that needed a vet. And humans. Did humans need vets? They always seemed so fragile. She just wanted to scoop them up and take them home.
And she was thinking this whilst sitting next to a human who’d waged war against her mother. And won.
Meanwhile, Velvet smiled at Sunny. “She’s special to you. Isn’t she?”
Sour Sweet had never really talked with a human before. Like an equal. A strong human, or a weak werewolf? Both possibilities scared her to her core.
“Yes,” she dared to say. “She makes me feel…”
“Human?”
Sour Sweet glared at her.
“Sorry. I forgot how that must sound.”
“How did you fall in love?” Sour Sweet was surprised to hear her own voice say those words. But Velvet, if anything, looked flattered.
“Night Light? We met on our travels. I saved his life. Or he saved mine. We kinda saved each other at the same time. It was a blur, to be honest.” Velvet’s giggle put some life back into Sour Sweet’s heart. “We got so good that we just kept doing it after that.”
Gradually, the unspoken thoughts dampened their smiles. This was all too much for Sour Sweet. It still didn’t feel right.
“You saved a lot of people’s lives yesterday,” said Velvet. “I’m proud of you.”
Sour Sweet’s hand flew to her eyes; she’d felt the warning prickles. “So what happens now?”
“You’re welcome to stay with us for a while. Night Light’s coordinating with Queen Cinch to round up the ‘Twilight of the Gods’ loonies, then who knows?”
“Will there be lamb-lambs?”
“Er… yeah, sure.”
Sour Sweet sighed. Politics and adventure scrambled her brains, but she was dead set about the future having lamb-lambs in it.
Velvet stood up and bowed politely. “I’ll leave you both alone.”
As Velvet stepped out of the ward, Sour Sweet wondered if she could have a family like that – Wait, “both”?
She swung round. Sunny’s eyes were open.
“I heard everything,” was all she said.
Sour Sweet was on her faster than blinking, sitting next to her and easing her up so the vampire could lean against her arm. She noticed the bandages wrapped around Sunny’s midriff. Vicious, but manageable.
Too much buffeted Sour Sweet’s mind, but she’d face the entire city of Viscera and all its silver deaths before she let Sunny go.
Sunny didn’t object. Even now, so cool and precise.
Her voice was weak. “How’s it feel to be in charge?”
Sour Sweet clung tighter. “Dunno.”
“Well. I’d vote for you. If there was a vote. Which there isn’t.”
Darn you, Sunny, you tryhard.
They savoured the blank, undemanding peace. Then Sunny shifted. Before Sour Sweet felt it, Sunny’s kiss was already cooling on her burning cheek.
“And Lovebite. Is not. A stupid name for a nightclub.”
Sunny felt so weak in her arms that Sour Sweet’s lips trembled with the effort of holding on.
“Oh, sure,” she whined, fighting to sound careless. “If you’re a big softie, maybe…”
Sometimes, the wolf in sheep’s clothing just wants to be a sheep.
