Chapter Text
There was a new man in town. He showed up in a car that was just old enough to be called not new and just new and ugly enough to not be called vintage. This not new, not old enough car had all of his belongings stashed in the trunk and the back seat. This new man had his clothes, a record player, and a few milk crates full of records stacked on the passenger’s side of his vehicle. A cat in its carrier pawed and mewed in the back, delicately perched to keep it from being flattened by any moving luggage. There were a few large boxes hitting him on the back of his head as he pulled into the parking lot of his new lodging complex. He quietly cursed each time it bumped into him, but did nothing to fix it. He started to unpack, lifting box after box from his car and holding the door to his flat open with a free pair of snow boots.
There was a new man in town, and most of his flat’s furniture was made out of repurposed wood pallets. Good thing it had been left by the previous tenant and he hadn’t paid a cent for it.
He unpacked the last boxes from his car when he knew everyone else in the building was either in their flats or asleep. A big box just labeled “Spices???” by whoever had been packing up his more…regular affairs.
They weren’t spices, but thanks for offending him.
Another large box, which the new man gingerly placed on his makeshift wooden pallet coffee table. Out came a few more bundles of herbs; these were the ones that he was not able to have fit in the other “Spices” box.
A couple slabs of salt. Literally several tablets made of rock salt. Feathers, enough to make a whole bird, and crystals. Vials upon vials of various sizes and a few empty Hennessey bottles filled with things that were definitely not Hennessey.
Candles. So many candles.
A cauldron, which contained a grimoire scratched raw and oozing with notes in black ink.
There was new man in town, and we might want to add that he was a sorcerer.
He was here on business. Someone who would remain nameless had told him that there was word of pack of werewolves somewhere in the area that should probably be at the very least registered and reported. Hopefully not hunted, but he never knew.
He could feel them sitting on the nape of his neck, though. They were definitely close; he would know that spearmint tang of werewolf trail from anywhere. He had no idea if they could sense him. He figured if they had, they would have already been at his door. The moon wasn’t even full; it was the new moon, meaning their physical strength was probably at its most human.
He had things to unpack, a life to live, and a new town to get the hang of before he was ever going to really get a hold of any werewolves. He would have to keep a low profile.
~~
He was trying to ignore the oddly colored pair of eyes following him down the historical nonfiction aisle of the library. He had stayed awake all night in a vain attempt at getting his life organized and was trying to find the most antisocial way to be social. Nothing said getting “out there” quite like grabbing some goliath of a book and thumping it open while crouched over it in public. He was doing exactly that when the washed-out figure in the corner stalked forward and dropped himself into the chair across from him.
“Did it come with a broom?”
“Pardon?” The new man did not look up.
“Your overcoat thing. Did it come with a broom?”
The new man briefly looked down at his…oh, shit. Way to keep a low profile. It was what had been at the top of his box of clothes: a long, flowing black overcoat with sleeves that most people could stuff their heads into. If that was something they were interested in.
“It didn’t.”
The intruder tugs at the wide sleeves of his coat, rubbing it between his fingers. The owner of the coat doesn’t know whether to feel discomfort at this newcomer’s sudden invasion of his space or just irritation.
“Is it a kimono?”
“Is it any of your business?”
“I apologize. I really should introduce myself. I’m Gilbert Bielschmidt, and I’m probably dressed more sensibly than you.”
Silence.
“Your turn.”
The new man finally turns his eyes up to look at whoever is bothering him. The man calling himself Gilbert looks like something neatly carved from granite; he was paler than the pages he was just poring over, and looked just as capable of giving you a nasty cut.
“I’m Arthur.”
“Like the king?”
“Yes. Are you Gilbert like the liver issue?”
Gilbert lets out a laugh that’s more of a wheeze.
“Nope.”
There is a defiant softness to Arthur’s features; his too-dark brow is set low and his chin is stubborn in a way that offsets the fullness of his cheeks. Gilbert cannot tell if the person he has decided to speak to is fourteen or forty-five. He imagines Arthur prefers it that way.
“You’re new here.”
“You’re very observant,” Arthur replies before turning the page of his book. “Do you have other things to do other than observe things?”
“No, I read my quota of four books and then I terrorize the other people here until someone kicks me out.”
Silence.
“I don’t actually do that.”
“I assumed.” Arthur gets up and is suddenly hit with the unmistakable smell of spearmint. Be calm. He fingers the silver amulet in his pocket.
“Something wrong?”
“I’m fine.” He looked back over at his new acquaintance, who had a look of concern that utterly contradicted his bleak facial structure.
“Don’t you have a job or something else you could be doing?”
Gilbert lets out a low whistle.
“Do you?” he responds.
Arthur, not having any sort of proper response to that, moves away to check out the book he was reading. The smell of spearmint was assaulting his nostrils. The woman who is stamping his book cranes her neck to take a look at the area that Arthur just exited.
“You have a mild nuisance in the nonfiction aisle,” he said nonchalantly.
“Gil? He doesn’t really mean any harm.”
“Mm.”
“Where are you from?”
His eyebrow quirked.
“Your accent. What part of England are you from?”
“Cardiff,” he replied, picking a thread off of his decidedly witchy overcoat.
The silver-haired gentleman was still preening in the nonfiction aisle, picking up some book on the military and opening it before slumping (he used that word loosely; almost all of the man’s movements seemed to be measured with a protractor) into a chair. Book #5, Arthur briefly thought before making his way out the door.
~~
He imagined his mother, who was a librarian for fifty years, was turning in her grave. Why, you ask? Because he was using that beautifully bound book he’d gotten from the library as a temporary mouse pad.
The spearmint smell had chased him out quickly enough that he hadn’t been able to lurk; if he’d not been chased out, he’d have been able to get some proper lore and not have to result to…Wikipedia.
He felt like a damn fool Googling “how to subdue a werewolf”, but he’d already graduated college, so there was always something he could have done that was more foolish than getting a degree in the Occult. Now there was a conversation he never wanted to have with his family again.
You want to be a magician?
No, mum—
His brother had interrupted: What kind of job are you going to get with that? Do something sensible, like business or economics! He puffed out his cheeks in spite of himself. Perhaps I’ll be a high-ranking, certified sorcerer, dickhead!
He clicked the first link that came up, reaching for a chipped mug at the side of his desk half-full of milky black tea. What could the Internet tell him that a semester of Supernatural Creatures 101 couldn’t? Admittedly, he had slept in the back half of the time, but he had done all the readings and had gotten an A, so did he really sleep at all?
He has an uncanny way of finding the “legitimate” websites as opposed to the non-Occult nonsense forums that tend to deal with uninformed people spreading stupid nonsense about supernatural creatures that they didn’t have the faintest clue about. Made his blood boil. He was getting off track.
Was there anything in particular that he could use to ferret them out besides the presence or the moon itself?
Swinging gait. This person said that they walked in a very distinct way. Great, but unless there was someone who wanted to demonstrate, Arthur was going to keep looking.
Anyone born on Christmas Eve. His brother was born on Christmas Eve and as far as he knew…
He leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin. Was Caoimhean a werewolf? He was a good eighty percent sure that Caoimhean wasn’t a werewolf. He was a good one hundred percent sure that Caoimhean was an asshole, however.
Anyone excommunicated by the Catholic Church will automatically become a werewolf. That sounded like a heaping pile of bullshit if he’d ever heard anything. He kept scrolling.
Unibrow. Okay, fuck you, LoneStarChaser909.
Rage issues. This he had already known: werewolves got more aggressive and were more prone to outbursts the closer the full moon came. Werewolves were the most agreeable, the most docile, during the new moon.
…thirst. A werewolf would be drinking water after water bottle with no end in sight to match the amount of water used to shapeshift. That was good to know. That he believed.
The name Thiess of Kaltenbrun glowed on the screen and he clicked it more out of muscle memory than real interest.
- Jürgensburg:
We are the Hounds of God.
Now he was paying attention.
We are the Hounds of God, us you call werewolves. We work to protect humanity from the Devil. We fight the servants of Hell: the devil and his witches. We take the crops he takes to feed his demons back, keep him from spoiling our lands and our children. There is a place in the world for us. There is a place in Heaven for us.
Judging by the time stamp and location, he assumed this was a translation. The phrase “lupus dei” began to loop through his mind. Where had he heard that before?
Lupus dei, lupus dei…
“Meow.”
“Not now, Iggy.”
“Meow.”
Thump. A ball of fur and claws nestled herself into his lap.
“Fine.” His fingers found themselves carding through that soft fur and flicking her folded ears.
“Brrt.”