DARKNESS CALLS Chapter Six
Joey's weird mood really bothered me. That's funny, when you think about it, because given all that had happened it was pretty understandable. But somehow it affected me even more than the grendel attack had. I'd taken the attack pretty much in stride. Maybe having a wolf side had helped -- it's all just part of life in the wild. But I needed to do something to help Joey.
So I called Fellers for another appointment. There wasn't much purpose in avoiding him now. He'd already had plenty of opportunity to ogle over whatever prurient images he'd lifted from my mind.
There was some repair work going on in the office building when we got there. They had that heavy quilted padding up in the elevator, and when we got off on Fellers' floor there was a sign on the wall that said WORK IN PROGRESS -- WATCH YOUR STEP.
"Hey, John." I nodded to the receptionist when we got into the waiting room. He was in his regulation oxford and khakis. Too bad; I'd love to get a better look at that ink.
"Daniel," he nodded back, "Joseph."
"What's with the work outside?"
"Maintenance stuff. Some electrical problems, I think. Can I get you -- "
"Something to drink? No, we're good."
Joey cleared his throat. "Could I have a Coke?"
John nodded. He brought it in a glass with ice. Joey set it down on the side table next to him, on a coaster.
After a couple minutes the door to the inner sanctum opened and Fellers came out. He was in his regulation Santa Claus persona.
"Welcome, gentlemen!" he boomed cheerily. "Good to see you both. Come in, come in!"
I stood up; Joey didn't.
"Daniel," he looked up at me, "I think you should meet with Dr. Fellers by yourself today."
"What?"
"I can wait here."
"What are you talking about, bro?"
Joey's feet shuffled a little like he wanted to run off, and he cringed back into his chair, but he didn't look away. "I think you should have a meeting with him alone today. That way you can talk about whatever you need to without having to worry about me."
Shit. What did he guess? What did he know?
I looked at Fellers. He smiled, his twinkly blue eyes as guileless as a summer sky. "That's fine with me, Daniel, if you're game."
I turned back to Joey. "What about you? Aren't there some things that you need to talk about, too?"
"I've a suggestion," interjected Fellers. "While you and I are talking, Daniel, why doesn't John schedule an individual appointment for Joey? Then you can each have your own time."
"Okay," said Joey.
"Fine. Whatever." I walked past Fellers into his office and took a seat.
Fellers closed the door and sat down across from me. He steepled his hands and waited.
I cracked my knuckles. "Okay, doc. Now what?"
"Perhaps we should begin with what is foremost on your mind. I have not and I will not tamper with your memory."
"How do I know that?"
"You have no way of knowing, other than my word. But I will add that the only memories I alter are those of the lightblind, and only in matters concerning Darkness."
"Why?"
"To protect the shadowkin and the lightblind from each other."
"See much of that as a shrink, do you?"
"You were given my name, yes?"
"As a trauma specialist."
"Most encounters with Darkness are, for the lightblind, traumatic."
I straightened. "That's your specialty, isn't it? I mean your real specialty. You keep magic hidden from the normal world. You remove the memories from people who've encountered it. Christ, what a perfect setup! You don't even have to go looking for them. The system sends them to you."
"Well done, my boy." Fellers beamed at me like I was his favorite front row student. "It isn't always quite as simple as that, but you've grasped the essence of it."
Fucking amazing. "Does Pegasus Shipping do much business?" I asked.
"It does enough."
"And your practice is full?"
"Full enough." He settled back in his chair, his hands nestled over his paunch, watching me.
I shook my head. "A couple of months ago I would have sworn that magic doesn't exist. Now it's like an ex-girlfriend who won't leave me the fuck alone."
"Obscurus obscurum invocat," Fellers said. The phrase rolled out like it was in his native tongue. "That's how it was once said, you know: Darkness calls to Darkness. Magic attracts the magical and the magical attract magic. It is one of the Dark Mysteries. Perhaps your father could have explained it." He sighed. "His death was a great tragedy."
It was a nicely empathic statement, although I'm not sure if Fellers was feeling genuine sympathy for me or a more personal regret.
"But all this is not the focus of today's session," he continued. "We're here to talk about the integration of your human and beast selves. You've made some progress in that regard, but shame and self-blame continue to be a major obstacle."
He tilted his head. "Your identification with Wolverine is more apt than you realize."
Fuck you, Professor Xavier.
He gave me a closed-lipped smile and nodded pleasantly. "And not just in that way. A fully integrated werewolf is a powerful creature. Your reflexes are already at the limit of what is humanly possible. Eventually you could cross that limit. You will find that in a similar way your strength and your senses, particularly smell, can also be extended. And your capacity to heal is truly preternatural. If you can survive a wound or illness, during change your body will heal from virtually anything. I know of a case in which over the course of several moons an entire limb was regenerated."
That is, I must admit, pretty cool. "What about silver bullets?"
"Hollywood version. A silver bullet to the heart or brain will certainly kill you, but that's because it's a bullet. Yes, my boy, just as a stake through my heart would kill me -- because anything that has a heart will die when that organ is pierced."
Fellers paused and regarded me. "So you see, being a werewolf is not such a terrible thing. The process went smoother for you on your second transformation. This time you retained some memories of yourself in beast form. Keep up the journaling; it is an important part of the process. As you move forward, you'll find that you retain more of your human self through each change."
"But there's a catch, doc, isn't there?"
"I suppose that depends on what you mean by `catch,' my boy."
"Are you going to give me drugs to stop me from raping Joey each time I change?"
"No, because you won't be raping Joey again."
My laugh was bitter as a dry martini. "Doc, I guarantee that if he's around I won't be able to keep my paws off him."
"Certainly. But it won't be rape." Fellers leaned forward. "You have been given a gift of Darkness, dear boy. You have joined the ranks of the shadowkin. The laws and morality of the lightblind do not apply to us. There is no wrong, no reason for guilt, in your love -- or your lust -- for your brother."
"So I can do whatever I want? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Of course not. I am saying that Darkness has its own laws and its own morality."
I shook my head. "No. That's not right. Joey's not just a toy to be played with. That's how the demon treated him. Now you're telling me to go ahead and do the same."
"Your brother is undergoing his own transformation. What he is becoming I am not certain, but it is most definitely not a toy. Darkness came to you as a gift; for him it is a birthright."
Fellers tilted his head to regard me with a bespeckled gaze. "The sex you had with Joey was consensual. You are being obtuse because you do not want to acknowledge what is right under your nose."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember, the demon came to your brother wearing your form."
"I know, damn it! That's why I shouldn't have taken advantage of him. What the hell do you mean by consensual, anyway? He's recovering from a goddamn possession. He still doesn't really understand that he has the right to choose. The whole reason I scheduled this appointment was so that you could talk to him."
Fellers laughed. Thank god it was a normal sounding laugh and not some fucking ho-ho-ho. He shook his head. "Ah, my boy, I see I must spell it out letter by letter. To feed off of your brother's libidinous energies, the incubus selected from his fantasies the most sexually desirable form it could find. It became you because you were already Joey's choice. At the dawn of your brother's sexual awakening, he yearned for you."
I opened my mouth to protest, to deny, to argue. Then I closed it. Could Fellers be right? What if Joey was gay? What if he wanted me as much as I wanted him? Would that make everything okay? I didn't know. It still seemed so wrong.
Suddenly I was really glad that Joey had taken a pass on this meeting.
After the session I picked Joey up in the waiting room and we headed out. There was a longer line of cars than usual exiting the parking garage from the building. I checked my watch. Shit, it was noon: lunch traffic. As we sat in the car waiting to get up to the exit, my session with Dr. Bloodsucker kept running laps in my head.
I cleared my throat. "Hey, bro, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, Daniel."
"Are you gay?"
Joey didn't answer. I glanced over. His head had tilted forward to let the hair slide over his face.
"I'm not asking about happened the other day between you and me," I clarified. "I mean in general. Which are you more attracted to: guys or girls?"
"I know what you meant, Daniel. I'm just thinking. It's hard to answer, `cause he never let me feel attracted to anyone when I was awake."
The demon. "What about him? Were you attracted to him?"
"Yeah." He shuddered.
"And he looked like me?"
"Most of the time. Not always."
"So, are you attracted to me?"
He smoothed his hair back and raised his head to face me. His pale gaze caught mine. "I was always attracted to you, Daniel. You're beautiful. Everybody thinks so."
I broke eye contact. The car in front of us had moved up; I followed. "Before the demon came -- no, make it before Dad died -- were there other people, like other boys or girls, who you thought were beautiful?"
He thought some more. "I think so. Some boys. I don't remember any girls."
"Okay," I nodded. So Joey was probably gay. That was good to know, I guess. Maybe what we'd done wasn't as repulsive to him as I'd feared.
We advanced to the exit and I paid the parking attendant, then pulled out into downtown traffic.
"So," I kept my gaze on the road, "what do you think about what happened between us?"
"What do you mean, Daniel?" Out of the corner of my eye I could see him looking at me.
"We had sex. And we're brothers. A lot of people would think that's pretty warped."
"Oh." He shrugged. "I don't care. Why should it matter what anyone else thinks? We aren't doing anything to them. It's like you said, Daniel: what's important is what we choose."
Right. What's important is what we choose. What about what we can't choose? I can't choose to stop being a werewolf. I can't choose to stop lusting after my brother. I can't even choose to restrain my lust when the change comes over me. What choices did I have, really?
"Daniel, can I ask you something now?"
Shit. "Sure, Joey. Anything." I braced myself.
"Can we get hamburgers at JJ's for lunch?"
I don't know whether he meant it to be funny or not, but I laughed so hard I nearly pissed in my pants. Then I drove us to JJ's for burgers.
After lunch I dropped Joey off at home and drove to the dojang. Two afternoons a week I attended black belt class with Master Quan. The format for each class was always the same: an hour of forms, an hour of sparing and an hour of advanced techniques. I breezed through the forms like I was taking a stroll in the park. Everything flowed smooth as glass and my balance was perfect.
For the first sparring round Master Quan paired up a couple of the newbie dans. One was okay; the other looked more like a first brown. Damn grade inflation. Then Master Quan called up Jeff and me, which was unexpected. Someone must have tattled about our practice together last week. That had been a couple of days before the full moon and I'd been pretty amped up. I doubted I could match that performance.
I didn't match it. This time I did better. After fighting the grendel, sparing with Jeff was like a joke. It wasn't just that I was anticipating and reacting to his moves faster than I ever had before, although I was. Now my whole attitude was different. It didn't even feel like sparring anymore, and I wasn't really seeing him as an opponent. It felt like I was hunting him, that he was prey.
I think Jeff felt it too, because after a couple of minutes I started to smell his fear. Part of me really got off on it.
"Break!" Master Quan called sharply.
I shook my head, realizing suddenly that this was the second time he'd called break. He'd said it five seconds ago and I'd been so focused that I hadn't heard.
I stepped back from Jeff and we bowed to each other. He was dripping sweat. The circle of students sitting around us was staring at me. A couple of them looked scared.
Master Quan stood up. "Choose partners and practice paired forms. Daniel," he beckoned, "come walk with me."
"Master." I followed him through a side door out onto the covered breezeway. We strolled side by side.
"What has happened to you, Daniel?" he asked. His voice was mild and slightly curious.
"I ... nothing, Master."
He shook his head. "Not true. Your chi has undergone a great transformation. The last time I saw a change such as this was many years ago, before I came to America."
He raised his hand to forestall my response. "The transformation you have undergone can be a great blessing, or a terrible curse. It is most important that you master it. I would prefer silence to lies, but if you can answer tell me this: have you a teacher? Is there one who is guiding you toward self-mastery?"
That's one way to look at what Fellers was doing. "Yes, Master."
"Good." Master Quan nodded slowly. "Then you are my student no longer. What you must learn I cannot teach you. You must leave my school."
"What?" I was totally unprepared for this. "I can still train here, right?"
I had stopped walking. Master Quan pivoted to face me. His eyes were filled with sadness, maybe even pity.
"No, Daniel," he shook his head, "you cannot."
"But why? I understand if you don't want me to spar with anyone, but can't I just do the forms? Can't I still help teach the lower belts?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Daniel," he paused, searching for words, "the path I teach is a human path. What you have become offers no instruction for my students. You can offer inspiration, as a tiger or a thunderstorm may inspire, but that is not instruction. For my students to understand this, they must know what you are. Otherwise they will confuse one for the other, which will cause disharmony and impede growth. Are you prepared to tell them what you have become?"
I didn't answer.
He nodded. "You must go."
"Sir ... can I at least come back to visit?"
"Of course. You are always welcome as a guest. But your training must be elsewhere. You now walk a different path."
Master Quan bowed. It was deeper than a master's bow to a student. He held it until I responded, bowing just as deeply to him. Then he turned and walked back into the dojang.
I stood alone on the breezeway. I could hear Master Quan inside pairing up two students for another round of sparing, could visualize the others forming a circle and sitting down to watch. They were my companions, my brothers and sisters in training. Some of them I had known for nearly ten years. Now, abruptly, I was no longer one of them. I was an outsider. I was a monster.
I grabbed my stuff and left while the class was still in session. Didn't even bother to change. Master Quan would figure out for himself how to explain my absence to the others.
I drove home and came up the stairs to find Joey lounging on the couch in a white tank top and grey sweatpants, watching the news. A crescent of slick latte skin was smiling at me between the bottom of the wife-beater and the sweats.
"Daniel," he looked up, "you're early."
"Yeah." I veered into the kitchen.
"I haven't started dinner yet." He got up and followed me. "Why are you home so soon?"
I pulled out a beer from the fridge. "Master Quan expelled me."
"You got thrown out of class? What did you do?"
"He didn't just throw me out of class." I leaned my forehead against the refrigerator door and closed my eyes. "He expelled me from the school."
Shit, I wanted to cry. I'd started tae kwan do lessons my freshman year in high school and earned my first black belt just a month before Dad died. I still remember how kind, in a totally low-key way, Master Quan had been during that time. Over the years he'd become almost like a surrogate father to me -- a really strict one who could kick my ass. Now I'd lost him, too. It was another part of my life that the Darkness had taken from me. The moon gift was turning out to be one hell of a fucking present.
Joey came over to stand behind me. His hand rested on my back. "Why did he do that, Daniel?"
"Because I'm a friggin' werewolf."
"How did he know?"
"No idea," I rolled my head back and forth. The fridge felt cool and hard against my forehead. "Some Eastern chi thing. I think maybe he's run into a werewolf before. He definitely knew something was up."
"I'm sorry." The hand began to rub gently.
"Yeah," I lifted my head, pushed back the tears. "Me too."
Joey was running his hand around the middle of my back in small soothing circles, like he was rubbing a dog's belly. I turned my head slightly and caught a whiff of Joey-smell. Oh, yeah.
"Look," I turned away, "I left the dojang without cleaning up. I'm gonna go take a shower."
Joey stepped closer; I caught another whiff. "Can I take it with you?"
I turned back. He was staring up me, his gaze unobstructed by hair. He had a scared, determined expression on his face, like he was daring me to refuse. The world had circled in tight and close, with a diameter of two. Joey's eyes were golden pools, and I so needed a bath.
I licked my lips; my mouth creaked open. The words emerged like they were crawling out of a deep cave, blinking in the light.
"Yeah, Joey. Sure."
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Obscurus obscurum invocat. Yes, Doctor, that's the way they used to say it. But there's another way it was once put that might speak more clearly to Daniel's heart: Abbyssus abbyssum invocat. Hell calls to Hell. We monsters do like to stick together.
Interesting that his teacher recognized Danny-boy for what he is. Smart of the old guy to get away. Here in the New World you lightblind know nothing about Darkness; in the Old World they are wiser. I like it here much better.
I do find it amusing how protective Daniel is of his baby brother. He thinks little Joey is so naive. There's a quite few things about my sweetness that his big brother doesn't know. Maybe someday he'll find out.
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