John Wolfstone-The Book

More renters, more about John's past

A little while later, John was starting to put a rather large roast in the oven. It was venison, from a deer he had killed and butchered himself, in the way that his father had taught him to. He was cooking it using a recipe that his mother had taught him before he had gone to the university. Also, in addition to his teaching and philosophy courses, John had taken some cooking classes; though no one was allowed to be part of any of the dishes, much with some minor disappointment of the non-humans that wanted to make professional dishes that had humans served in them. Because of that, John knew how to cook foods that would make most chefs jealous.

He then set the temperature and timer for the roast, and getting to have the other things ready to be cooked as well.

However, just as he put desert in the fridge to chill, the doorbell rang.

“Coming,” he shouted, as he turned into his werewolf form, as about the only people that tended to show up at that time were traveling salesmen and priests.

However, the people who awaited him at the door were not salesmen or priests. Standing before the doorway was a male naga, a creature that looked like it was half snake and half human, and a female dridder, a creature with the abdomen of a spider and the upper body of a human. With them was a twelve year old male human boy, that happened to be ridding on the dridder’s abdomen, fully clothed, trying to hide from John’s fearsome gaze.

“What do you two want,” John asked, looking at the dridder and naga, who had clothing on their upper bodies. “If you are here to sell me something, forget it, I am not buying.” He spoke in a deep voice, as if he was annoyed by their intrusion onto his land.

The pair looked at each other, somewhat shocked. Then the naga looked at him and said, in his own deep voice, “We came here to rent a home. We heard that you had houses for rent.”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” John said, with his voice still deep.

Then he looked at the boy, as if noticing him for the first time.

“Nice human,” he said. “How much you want for it?”

The dridder gasped and said, “My son is not for sale, you monster.”

“Are you sure he’s your son?" John asked, speaking in a manner that would provoke a certain responce, one of those who truely cared for their children, even those who were not theirs by blood. "Don’t you mean, pet, or slave, or even, your next meal?”

At this, the naga grabbed John by the throat and said, “Talk like that about our son one more time and I will KILL YOU, nice and slow.”

With that, John just chuckled, as he grabbed the naga’s wrists, forcing them to release his neck. It was just the sort of responce that he was looking for.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, carefully massaging his throat. “I had to check your response about me talking like that about him. You’d be surprised about how many people would take up an offer on something like selling their children, even humans. Also, by your responses, I can tell that, at the very least, at least one of you is the boy’s adoptive parent, if not both, and you both love him enough that you would kill to keep him safe. However, while I won’t ask if he is the child of one of you and a human lover, or adopted, I have to ask you this, how do you feel about humans in general?”

“Why do you want to know?” the dridder asked, with worry in her voice.

“It is because I have certain requirements that I expect those who rent a house from me to follow,” John said, looking at both of them.

At this, the naga looked at the dridder and said, “This guy is very strange. From the way he’s been acting, I would say that we shouldn’t trust him, but at the same time, I’m getting a feeling that tells me that we can trust him with our secret.”

At this, John smiled and said, “Let me guess, the two of you are ‘vegetarians’ as it were.”

The naga looked at him and asked, “Why would you say that?”

John just smiled and said, “It takes one to know one.”

“What do you mean?” the dridder asked. “Are you one as well?”

John just chuckled and nodded. “I was raised to think of humans, and treat them, as equals. Then again, I had several dozen stepbrothers and sisters who were humans. Also, as much as I hate the fact that a small part of me thinks that human flesh is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten, I think of humans as people and not potential meals.”

“Have you felt the pain?” the naga asked.

John lowered his eyes and said, in a low voice, “Yah, ever since I was seven, when I had my first actual taste, and ate some human flesh. I thought that it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. But, when I found out what it was, I was so overcome with guilt that I threw up in my cousin’s wife’s lap. Even now I can taste it in my mouth, all of those ‘wondrous flavors’ that cost someone their life to produce. The mere thought of eating a human, or seeing someone else doing it, just sickens me to the pit of my stomach. In fact, the school I work at, as a philosophy teacher, has had to do a lot of changing, because teachers don’t dare to ‘fail’ any of the students taking my class, and no student dares to have another for ‘lunch’ because, practically, all of them, including the other teachers, fear my reputation.”

“Why?” the couple asked.

“Well, when a young kid kills a teacher, in self defense, and by accident, and has a reputation for being a fighter, you don’t dare force him to do something he doesn’t want to do," John said, with a bit of a sigh. "Also, when one teacher tried to fail one of my students, I forced him to let the kid out, and afterwards I had to kick his ass, and paralyze him below the waist. The school had to get a new gym teacher after that. Also, when I caught some students, who had been sneaking around and eating other students, let’s just say I tied them to the flagpole and leave it at that. I doubt you’d want your son to hear the exact details. About the only sad thing is; I can’t be my real self while on the job.”

“I know what you mean,” the naga said. “In a way, I was in that sort of position myself, back when I was a police officer in the city we are moving from. I mean, there were certain things I could deal with, even though I hated it, but, as a parent, there are things that I wished I could use my power to shutdown.”

“Let me guess," John said, with a knowing look. "Stockyards that sold children as food?”

“Yah,” the naga said, lowering his eyes. “I mean, what sort of parent would sell their child to become someone’s meal?”

“I know what you mean," John said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. "My parents adopted hundreds of children from such places. Also, I’m taking care of a girl who had been sold to one, though her story is much more complicated than that. Thankfully though, this city’s stockyards were destroyed yesterday, by someone who could be on our side.”

“Yah I heard about that," the naga said. "Some sort of giant white wolf wasn’t it.”

“Yah that was what the creature was,” John said, being careful to not show too much emotion about what he had done.

“Well, let’s see what forms you have," the naga said. "So that I, and my wife and son, can rent a home here.”

“Alright," John said. "Just follow me to my office and we’ll get you started.”


As the group walked in, John shifted back into his human form.

“Sorry about my behavior at the door,” he said. “About the only people that show up here around this time of day happen to be salesmen trying to sell me something and priests trying to get me to convert to their religion. Now, if I had known that you were only interested in renting a home when I opened the door, I would have just been in my human form.”

“Are you a werewolf?” the boy asked, getting off of his mother’s back.

John looked at the boy and smiled.

“Well, you are partway correct on that,” he said. “Father was part werewolf, so I got my werewolf form from him. However, my mother was part giant, and I can easily turn from being a tall ‘human’ into a decent sized giant. Also, I can also grow to my full height and turn into a werewolf at the same time, making me a giant-werewolf, and I can become any combination in-between. Personally though, I prefer to either be human sized, a werewolf, or a giant. My fully combined form terrifies me at times, especially when I look at my reflection.”

Then he chuckled, as if it was something that was funny, but for him it wasn’t. His giant-werewolf form was more prone to be far more dangerous than his werewolf or giant forms alone. He would only use that form briefly, because he could loose control of himself very easily while in that form.



Then John looked at the naga and dridder and said, “Your son can go into the living room and play with Julia and some students I have over. I know how kids can get board when adults are talking about things they have no interest in or do not understand.”

“Well, what are these students of yours like?” the dridder asked, with concern in her voice.

“Let’s just say that they now know the pain that the three of us have, and currently have it now,” John said, as he looked into the living room. “They broke a rule in my class, shortly before I ‘confiscated’ Julia from a student who was about to be late to class. They tried to eat a couple of classmates of theirs, so I gave them some very convincing threats, and they let the kids out of their stomachs and I put the two of them under one week of being under my supervision, and they were to follow my rules, including being vegetarians. They also had to take care of Julia when I wasn’t able to. Also, I assigned them with one very important question for them to answer for themselves, about whether or not one race is superior to another. Of course, by now, I think they know the answer, at least partly anyways.”

“And what would the answer be?” the naga asked.

At this John just smiled and said, “That all are equal. Everyone, from the tallest of the tall, to the smallest of the small, has the same feelings, the same sorts of dreams, you know, get through school, go to and get through collage, get a job, have children, and maybe grow old enough to see the first of their great-grandchildren. I know that that was one of my parents’ dreams, which they lived long enough to see. Then again, my oldest stepsiblings are about fifty years older than me, so it is likely that they are great-grandparents themselves. Makes for a somewhat complicated family tree and sending out invitations for family reunions, weddings, and funeral notices a bit of a chore trying to get everyone related to that sibling, so that they can come, but I don’t mind. Besides, those guys are more my family than my blood relatives are anyways.”

“Your biological relatives give you problems?” the dridder asked, in a polite manner.

“I haven’t spoken to them in five years," John said. "Then again, my mother and father were kind of illegitimate, in that both were born due to a sexual relation between their human parents, who were slaves, or pets, and their non-human masters. To say that my blood, non-human, relatives were very pissed at their wealth and success would be mild in saying. As for my human blood relatives, well, it’s hard to track down those who are a slave’s relatives, due to changes in a person’s name, looking through previous owners, and so on. However, I think that some of them might be pleased that they have a non-human relative who supports their rights.”


A little while later, the three adults were in John’s office, looking over the forms.

“Interesting rules you have here, Mr. Wolfstone,” said the naga. “You have in here that, in order for a person, or a family, to rent a home from you, that they basically have to be, or become, ‘vegetarians’. I don’t know if that is something that you can enforce.”

“That’s why I have some very good plumbing to make sure of that," John said. "I had special sensors placed in the toilets and garbage disposal units. If they detect certain things, which I am not going to say as to what those things be, an alarm will go off in this room, alerting me that someone in one of the houses, as well as which one, had violated the terms for living here. After that, I’ll go to the residence and confront the violator. However, if you have a guest, let me know, and tell him the rules. If you have to, tell the guy I’m a bit of a money grubber who would be upset if I lost any part of my investment, which is, in a very small way, somewhat true.”

“So, if we told a guest that you’d kill them if they ate one of our neighbors, because you’d lose money if that person got eaten, that would give them a good reason not to,” the naga said, with a bit of a chuckle.

“That would be close enough," John said. "Although, if you really want to scare him or her, tell them I’d do it in front of their families and that I wouldn’t eat them, no, I’d tear them limb from limb, then I’d take their family to be my personal ‘toys’ as it were.”

“Oh, that’s nasty,” the dridder said, glad that her son wasn't with them then.

“Yah, I know," John said, agreeing with the woman. "But that would give them a very good reason to follow my rules while they are under your roof. Of course, this place does have one small problem-”

At this, the doorbell rang.

“Speak of the devil,” John said, getting up and walking out of the office.

The naga and dridder only heard a few words of the conversation between John and the visitor.

Some muffled words.

“No. I’m not interested.”

Some more muffled words.

A thawap is heard followed by someone shouting, “You broke my nose you fucking asshole!”

Then John saying, in a low deep voice, with a growl, “Be glad I don’t take your head and add you to my supper.”

Then there are the sounds of someone running, a motor starting, screech of tires, crashing of mettle and wood, followed by an even faster revving of an engine and spinning tires, as a vehicle quickly drives off.

A while later, John comes back into the office, with a wolf-like appearance, and a set of six inch claws on one of his hands.

“Traveling salesman,” he said, holding up a package of pills.

He then shifted back to his human form.

“Let’s see what this packet says,” he said. “Let’s see, ‘Pleasure Enhancement. Ladies; your man will be like a giant. Men; your lady will squeal like a piggy. The two of you will pleasure each other all night long.’ It doesn’t look like I’m going to have the need to use something like this. If a lover of mine wanted a giant, I’d become one. If I wanted my lover to squeal like a piggy, I’d take a pig-woman as my lover. These sex-enhancement companies get more and more ridiculous each year.”

He then tossed the packet down on the desk.

“Maybe I should have told him a couple of renters of mine would have been interested,” he said. “Not only would they have taken care of him, I think they would have appreciated the thought of me sending them a gift, or two, and a meal.”

“I thought that you wanted your renters to be vegetarians,” said the naga.

“True, but I might make an exception, especially when it comes to traveling salesmen and priests that don’t take a hint," John said, with a chuckle. "Seriously, sometimes those guys can be worse than a horde of locusts. While they don’t eat your crops and food, they certainly eat up one’s time.”

Then John chuckled.

“To be honest, they would be about the only humans that my parents would eat, especially if they didn’t get the hints that my parents were not interested in what they were trying to sell, and if they didn’t get the idea that they should have run instead of staying to argue with my parents,” he said. “Of course, they wouldn’t eat them in front of me and the others. About the only reason that I knew they did it was because I once saw my father burning some clothes and muttering something about how many salesmen and priests organizations could afford to lose. When I asked him about what he was talking about, he had talked about cooking instead, but I had seen the clothes, and knew that they were not some clothing that I and my siblings had outgrown, because these had looked like suits. Also, the only people that I knew wore suits were businessmen and salesmen. When I asked my mother if some people had been trying to rob the house recently, she told me that some people had been trying to steal something important from her and my father, time with each other. Needless to say, I kind of came to the conclusion that some salespeople had interrupted my mother and father while they had been having sex. Then again, they tended to be the only ones in the house, because everyone else was either at work or in school, between the hours of 8 am and 3 pm. Then again, I was seventeen at the time and had taken sexual education by that time. Ugh, hated those classes, same with human hunting, only passed them because the teachers didn’t try to force me to rape some human girl. In fact, the only way I’d have sex with someone was if the other wanted to do it with me. If she changed her mind, I’d respect it, no matter if I had just kissed her, started to take her clothes off, had taken both hers and mine off, or even if my manhood was already in her womanhood, the moment she said stop, I would stop and pull out, as it were. If she said to continue, I would. When I handed my report in to the teacher on it, when she asked me why it took me so long to get through the whole thing, I said it was because I wanted to enhance my partner’s pleasure, which was true.”

“Well what about the human hunting classes?" the naga asked. "How did you pass them?”

“Well, I would hunt the human down, say hi and walk to my class with them," John said, matter of factly. "When the teacher would ask me why I didn’t eat the human, I’d tell them that I was using the catch and release tactic. If they tried to force me to eat the human, I’d give that teacher a quick history lesson on why it was best for them not to force me to do that, cause I’d tell them about how my fifth grade teacher died, in great detail.”

“Well, how did he die?” the naga asked, worried about if the man was a murderer or some such thing.

“Guy tried to fail me, and a student I had been assigned to catch for a hunting class," John said, as the memory came to his mind. "Something about being in that guy’s stomach triggered something in me. Now, I could always turn into a werewolf form, ever since I was born, and I had tried clawing my way out. However, I became somewhat desperate, and wished I could get as tall as my mother, so I could escape, along with the human, which I was holding onto, so he wouldn’t die. Somehow, for some reason, I started to grow, filling up my teacher’s stomach. However, I didn’t stop there, and I grew quite rapidly, and when I was done growing, not only had I caused the teacher to split open, and splatter on the walls of the room, I filled up, at least, half the classroom, which was twenty feet tall, fifty feet wide, and one hundred feet long. Needless to say, that was the last time anyone tried to fail me in that manner. Then again, practically every teacher feared me. The moment that they tried to ‘discipline’ a problem student, I’d get out of my desk and quickly grow a few feet, so that they knew what I was capable of, and then claim the student as my ‘pet’. No one dared to argue against my claim. However, there was one teacher who never feared me, Mrs. Janus Clawfoot. She was one of my seventh grade teachers, and works at the school I work at. She had had the job for only a year when she met me. When she first saw me, I was in a losing fight with a senior by the name of Joseph Redblood, a blood-thirsty vampire who wanted me for his meal. He had grabbed me while I was in my human form and dragged me to the roof, so he could ‘enjoy’ his ‘meal’ in ‘peace’. At first, Janus didn’t do anything, but when she saw my eyes, she saw my mother’s eyes. My mother had been her teacher when she was in high school. This recognition caused her to gasp, which distracted Joseph long enough, as he looked at her, probably to ask if she wanted some of me to eat, for me to push him off of me. That was when she grabbed me, to protect me from him. Well, he attacked her, and broke one of her wings; the woman’s a harpy you should know. He beat her pretty badly. However, I pulled him off of her, and forced him to try and finish me off before he switched targets. I had tossed him near the edge, but he recovered and charged me. Well, I hit him once, with a roundhouse kick, straight to the chest, and sent him, quite literally, into the lobby of the nearby hospital, a good four miles east of the school. Guy was in a full body caste for over a year. Unfortunately, the Redblood family is very powerful, both financially, and politically. They demanded that I be turned over to them for a proper punishment. However, just as they were about to take me away, my mother and father showed up, with all of my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and so on. Well, my father worked out an acceptable compromise; my parents would pay all of Joseph’s medical expenses, as long as only the school took any disciplinarian actions it felt were appropriate to the situation. Well, the school wouldn’t dare punish Joseph, and anger the Redblood family, so they punished me. I was sentenced to be placed under the direct supervision of one of the teachers, to be their slave until my time was up. However, no teacher would dare take me, they all said that I was too dangerous for them to handle. That was when Janus showed up, broken wing and all. She said that she would be my warden, as it were. Well, that shocked the entire school, that a relatively new, and somewhat crippled, teacher could handle one of the most troublesome students in the entire school. Well, all I can say is this, she may have kicked and scratched me in public, but when we were at her house, it was almost as if I was back at home, without my siblings or parents of course. Her husband, a dragon, was a pretty nice guy, never really forcing me to do something that I didn’t want to do, especially when Janus told him that I had saved her life. Of course, after I served my time, I still caused plenty of trouble, protecting students from others, as well as over zealous teachers, which kept on placing me on various peoples’ preverbal hit lists, though Mrs. Clawfoot was the only one that carried out any disciplinarian actions against me. To be honest, she was my inspiration to become a teacher, and I tend to use her disciplinarian tactics on troublesome students, threats, the occasional beating, and of course, placing them under my direct supervision.”

“So, do these Redbloods still cause you and your family problems?” the naga asked, relieved that his landlord wasn't a murderer.

“Not directly, they wouldn’t want to do that, considering that the heir to the Redbloods’ fortune is one of my students," John said. "They make a move against my family, and I’ll claim him faster than one could say ‘leash law’. Then, if they tried to take me to court, they would lose, financially anyways.”

“Just how wealthy are they?” the dridder asked, worried that this group of vampires could threaten her son in some manner.

“They are wealthy enough to bribe several dozen of this city’s politicians anyways," John said. "They controlled many of this city’s stockyards, before they were destroyed, as well as several of the restaurants that served humans as meals. That was where they made most of their money at. My parents though, they ran orphanages, shelters, and various other such places. In fact, there has been a financial war between my family and the Redbloods, ever since my father purchased a dozen boys and girls from a stockyard that they ran. That was over fifty years ago. Nowadays, I hold the upper hand in our personal feud against each other. All I have to do is claim James Redblood as my personal pet and I’d own them. Of course, I could use a more suitable approach and place him under my direct supervision for a month. Boy’s racked up enough detentions that he hasn’t served to warrant it. Now that would be better, might make him half-way decent to.”

After some more talking, the couple picked up the forms, said their good-byes and left, the dridder having their son ride on her abdomen. After that, John served supper to the young ones, asked Julia what she thought of the boy, and a while after that, all four went to bed.