AWAKENING I- All Aboard

Let’s see…

Bike? Check.

Hotel keys? Check.

Pay-as-you-go cell phone? Check.

Hello, folks. Sorry if I’m not paying attention to you right now. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.

I’m just a little busy at the moment…

Flashlight? Check.

Beach towel? Check.

Messenger bag? And check.

See? This is me, ruffling the bird-like mat of dirty brown hair suffocating my scalp with one youthful, knobby hand, thinking hard, thinking seriously, as if my life depended on it. If only my mother could see me now. The other hand is scratching my scrawny lower back, the combined gesture making me look like some seriously-impish, gangly little monkey.

And the sun outside’s fading, the glowing lights playing against the rusty tin sheets of the moldy shed’s main door. And I don’t have much time left to get going. I’m not playing any games here. Serious.

First-aid kit? Check.

Crumpled-up old map? Uh, check.

Pistol made by, uh, Glock? Check. Like I know how to use a gun.

I’m just making sure I have everything Abeni asked of me, ok? This is how I think.

Insanely-modified dog collar? Annnnnd check.

My name is Jason Argyle. I used to be a teenage runaway and worthless bum.

Tonight? I’m in New Orleans.  And I'm going to see blood.

And...GO.

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You know, you can only go so fast on a clunky, rusty old blue bike. I’m trying through. This is me, wobbling wildly through the unfamiliar streets at dusk, ignoring the rush of traffic on the nearby highway. I’m not really sure if that smell is piss or beer or both. I’m not sure if that’s screaming or singing I hear, either.

The rattling of my bike shudders and stops as I let a foot down, rubber sole skidding on concrete, and I’m sure my mouth is hanging open a little. Not necessarily because I’m seeing anything horrifying or shocking, mind you, but because I am expecting it. Just a little. I want it. Come on, now, woman! Where are you?

This is a corner lot and an adjacent alleyway, just removed enough from the music and bars to seem creepier than it should be. There’s just a few people lying about near one of the alley doors, out cold, totally oblivious, some covered in a dry-ice sort of fog, others smothered in odd-looking, purple-and-green “bruises,” and some are drooling spittle or blood, or something. I'm really not sure what exactly is oozing out of those mouths, to be perfectly honest.

My friends, that would have to be the mark of a rather powerful, aggressive, unpredictable, and generally-dangerous rootworker.

And where the hell is she?

Then I hear a grown man bellow in anger inside the adjacent building. There’s a crash, the sounds of shattering glass, and a snarl. The next moment, the bellow’s reduced to a shrill wail of pain and the heavy crumple of a large body against furniture and concrete.

As if on-cue, out stumbles a golden, medium-sized dog with its back and head splashed in blood.

It looks kind of like a young German Sheppard, but wilder and more ragged-looking, with the most piercing-luminescent-green eyes staring right down the alley, at me.

Oh man. Oh shit. Oh man oh man.

I’m not sure whether I should be piss-scared or horribly, horribly excited.

I mean, it’s just a little dog. A cute dog. A cute bloody little dog.

I’m a little messed-up that way, you know. Thus the whole homeless bit. In fact, why don’t I know how to use a gun by now?

Annnnd THUD.

In my excitement the bike falls to the ground, and wouldn’t you know? The bag with the first aid kit spills everywhere on the dirty street. And now here I am scrambling to pick up all the bandages and herbs and bits of metal just a room’s-length away from a potentially-rabid stray, close enough I can hear and almost taste its rank, humid breathing.

After realizing the sheer B-movie-horror-flick stupidity of my move, I look up.

It’s still watching me, and it appears just a little indecisive. The dog seems to be analyzing me, sizing me up, figuring out to what degree am I a threat. Its eyes fix warily on the gun that fell out of the bag with the kit, and its nostrils flare visibly. I stop gathering the random material and tenderly, slowly, recover the Glock, and I’m starting to slide it back into the bag but then I’m hesitating, wondering if I’m doing the right thing here, watching the dog, groping with my fingers for the trigger.

Then, PUFF. It’s like a spell is broken.

The dog blinks. Those green eyes, they wander. The tail droops. As I quickly finish picking-up the med kit, I see something rubbery and bloody drop from the dog's mouth. Now it’s walking around, staggering, bumping into everything, growling at shadows, snapping at its own shaggy, black-tipped tail. BAM. It just head-butted the dumpster. I’m not sure if it’s growling or whimpering now. The poor thing looks so pathetic, so confused!

“What a dog!” I say, grinning and trying to control my shaking legs as I stand back up.

“What dog? I don’t see a dog.”

And as if on cue, Madame Abeni’s coming out of that alley doorway, grumbling at the royal mess made of her clothes and popping her neck and tying-up various leather satchels and bags with her freakishly-deft fingers.

“Dude, the dog! Right over there? You blind? Uh,” I say and I’m waving my arms at her, realizing too late that my voice is a mixture of anxious and condescending.

The setting of the sun and the twinkle of nearby streetlights illuminate her smooth, almost flawless olive complexion and, don't you know, it makes her seem utterly beautiful. But oh, I think she's taking my attitude the wrong way.

You know, I never once imagined a hardcore voodoo priestess would dress so much like a washed-out Goth-punk rocker, but it kind-of makes sense. I would think she should look like an incredibly-fat old lady with missing teeth, a dress from one of the previous centuries and actual skulls laced through dusty, dreadlocked hair, but Abeni is younger, skinnier, and fresh-looking (except for her ancient and unsettling gaze). It all rather suits Abeni, too, especially if you knew her.

Believe it or not, her family's actually mostly uber-conservative Christian Louisiana folk and they really hate it when other people automatically associate them with voodoo. They are also usually wary of any outsiders, such as myself. But that's not Abeni. It’s like she’s constantly flipping the whole world the bird, everyone and everything in it, of course out of respect and with the utmost affection. And that doesn’t exclude her own Creole heritage.

And that’s exactly what she’s doing now, heading my way, stubby knife in the crook of her arm, reaching for my bag with a ridiculously-bloody hand.

“Hey!” I defensively clutch the gun and fabric of my bag.

“Let go, Jase,” she says in the lowest, calmest, most forceful voice I know of. Her eyes fix on mine as her hand pinches mine, and it’s no use. I easily drop the whole bag into her hands and within moments, it’s on the ground and she’s wrapping her bloodiest hand up in rags and gauze from the kit.

I'm scratching my head again. It's only after she's almost done wrapping her hand that she sheathes the knife at her waist.

"Wow, hey," I say, finally putting two-and-two together, "did you cut your hand like that on purpose?"

"It was worse than I thought it would be," Abeni mumbles through her teeth as she uses her mouth to tie a knot in the cloth. She gives me a look that says that's the only reason why I even considered calling you in to help, you little twerp. Duh.

"With... the dog? The man?"

"What dog?"

"The one slowly stumbling towards Dino's right now," I say, gesturing in the general direction of the dumpster. We both hear a crash and see shadows move over there, the shape of the dog lost in the diminished early evening lights.

"Oh," she says, "yeah. She isn't a dog."

"She isn't?" I say, following her through the alleyway towards whatever it is we're following.

"She isn't. I mentioned that before, you know. And she's just a pup."

"Well that's nice... IS THAT AN EAR?!" I say, observing the bloody chunk of something the animal dropped near the dumpster earlier.

"Oh," Abeni says. And now she's picking the thick piece of cartilage-and-skin up in one of her small leather bags and muttering, "there it is."

I'm just a little confused now and I'm quietly freaking-out. We're heading right towards a very disoriented dog-like creature that's getting nowhere fast, the same animal that ripped off a grown man's ear about, oh, just five minutes ago. Just saying.

We walk up to a quiet, still, crumpled heap of golden fur on the other side of the row of dumpsters.

"Meeeeerde. She's not doing so hot," Abeni says as she squats and stoops over and feels the animal's ribcage with her cleaner hand.

"Murder?"

"No. Shit, you gadje. Give me that phone. I need to send a text."

The fur shudders, and the ribcage starts to rise and fall under Abeni's slender hand, as if by the magic of her touch. The creature starts to whimper and stir. Abeni tosses the phone onto the ground.

"I need the collar now, please," Abeni says, not looking up but holding her free hand out to me.

I hand her the modified dog collar and she clamps it around the beast's neck, and then the device sparks and I can't help but say, ”What the hell, is it going to electrocute the thing?"

She's ignoring me, fixing the collar, shifting her weight on her legs, and muttering.

After a moment, she holds her hand up to me again.

"Towel now, please."

And as Abeni's carefully wrapping the towel around the creature, the fur seems to melt away. Instead there's pale, soft-looking skin. Abeni stands up, oh-so-gingerly, and I what I see now hardly surprises me. In her arms is a blond human child.

"She's a little werewolf! I KNEW it!" I say, utterly excited and practically flailing.

Abeni glares at me, "No."

"What?"

"Grab your bike and follow," she says as she starts to walk out of the alley towards the riverside a few blocks over.

"What? Why?" I stumble after her, my old bike rattling, clicking.

And then she stops under a light by a dock, and the soft light falls on the skin of the child. It's then I notice the child looks feverish and she's sweating profusely. The girl's head sways limply, her eyes shut, and she lets out a slow, garbled moan.

"Is she sick?" I ask.

A boat's whirring engine is heard, and I hear a thud at the dock. Abeni's on the move again and it's all I can to do to follow.

"Yes, and no."

Abeni's on the boat, nodding at the driver, and then she's looking at me as I hesitate, still standing on the dock.

"If we don't help her now," she says to me, "she will become something like what you may call a loup garou, or werewolf, and then we'll have no choice but to put her down. So throw your bike on that side and get the hell on already."

And I do what she says.

My name is Jason Argyle. I’m what used to be a teenage runaway with months to live at-best, recently lost in the bayou and taken-in by an apparently experienced medicine woman. We’re in the New Orleans area right now on business, rescuing a kidnapped child and saving the kidnappers.

You know, nothing out of the ordinary.

And here we go.