The manor house was a foreign piece of civilization in an intentionally uncivilized place. Electric lights illuminated a few windows, but mostly fires in braziers or torches lit the way. Thirty-six cars were parked in the dirt clearing beside the front porch. Two more than last week, Calvin noted.
An older woman in a red dress and her young trophy husband in a tuxedo followed the torches to the back of the house. He’d seen them before but had never bothered to learn their names.
When Calvin exited the car a bearded man in a turtleneck averted his eyes and bowed slightly before scrambling away in badly disguised panic. Calvin frowned.
“Why do they always do that?” he asked.
“Be nice,” said Sharon.
“It’s just goddamn annoying, that’s all. I don’t see you doing that kowtowing nonsense.”
“And it’s a good thing I don’t. Someone has to make sure you keep your appointments.”
They circled to the back porch, a sprawling alcove of stone columns with twisted, inhuman figures carved into them. Most of the figures were hidden under overgrown creeping moss. Just enough effort had been made to keep the invading wilderness at bay. A small gathering place was cleared, large enough for the guests to mill about a table of cheese, wine, and caviar.
They were a varied group. The Chosen made no distinction among age, race, or gender. Greg’s need to be liked held no prejudice or preference.
The Chosen studiously avoided looking at Calvin. He thought about getting something to drink, but as soon as he stepped over there they’d bow and scrape and kiss his ass.
He was so sick of this.
Sharon read his mind. “I’ll get you a glass. Why don’t you have a seat?”
“Thanks. What would I do without you?”
He turned toward the marble throne at the top of the steps. It was hard and uncomfortable, but he’d gotten used to that. Greg, a smirking, sycophantic dullard decked out in that ridiculous lavender robe, stood beside the chair. Calvin glanced over his shoulder at Sharon for rescue, but she was already involved in a conversation with another guest.
“Might as well get this over with,” mumbled Calvin to himself. He pushed forth a smile as he approached the throne.
“So good of you to join us, Lord of the Wilds,” said Greg. “We are unworthy of your presence, much less your gifts.”
“Yes. Don’t suppose we could speed this up?” asked Calvin. “I’m not really feeling it tonight.”
Greg smiled. His smile, either by design or incompetence, was a smarmy, counterproductive achievement. Maybe it was only Calvin who saw it as such. Greg never had a lack of friends.
It was always this kind of asshole that Calvin found himself associating with. He sometimes wondered what it said about him.
Greg looked into the night sky. The design of the alcove and the strange magic of the estate made every star closer and brighter. The half moon glittered like a polished nickel.
“The stars are almost right,” he said. “Let them wipe away the corruption of civilization from these frail mortal shells.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Calvin sat on the throne. A charge tickled his elbows, and the moon and its pursuing god whispered its secrets. If only he could hear them clearly…
Sharon appeared with a plate of cheese and two glasses of wine. “Hello, Greg. Lovely night, isn’t it?”
Greg nodded in that familiar, rehearsed, faraway manner. It was meant to be wise and thoughtful, but came across as ponderous and slow-witted. As if his brain were a rusty collection of gears that had to simultaneously process the question and crank his neck.
“I think the McKinneys were looking for you,” she said. “Something about another donation to the temple, I believe.”
With a hasty adieu, Greg scurried off in search of more of the material wealth he spent most of his life acquiring and condemning simultaneously.
“Thank you,” said Calvin. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“I do what I can.”
They tapped their glasses together and waited for the alignment. When it neared, the catering staff moved away the table, and the guests—everyone but Calvin on his throne and the staff hiding away behind locked doors—stood nude in the alcove. They formed a half circle, fell to their knees, and prostrateht="0emelves before Calvin, their lord and master.
Greg, toned and tanned, his skin smoothed by lasers and obsessive waxing, a paradox of the natural world and humanity’s obsession with grooming away his links to it, began to preach. Calvin didn’t listen. He knew the gist of it. The new world was coming. Civilization would fall, replaced by something purer, more worthy. The strong would rule. The weak would perish. Glory, glory, something about beautiful chaos, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The crowd writhed and moved with the rhythm of Greg’s words. There was always that moment near the end of the ceremony when Calvin considered just getting up and walking away. They’d just track him down again. They always did. Or someone like them.
A ray of silver moonlight shone down on the throne. Calvin felt the crackle of extranatural powers pass through him as if he were a prism. It filtered into the crowd, triggering the change.
Greg was the first. His body hunched over as patches of brown and black hair sprouted. A second pair of arms grew from his shoulders. The legs bent and twisted. And the head became a giant pair of jaws, filled with pristine white fangs. The beast clawed the marble, raised its head, and howled.
It turned and stalked toward Calvin as the other guests finished their transformations. Nostrils flaring, the creature studied Calvin with beady yellow eyes. Frowning, Calvin looked right back into its eyes until the monster cowered before him.
“Piss off, Greg.”
The whimpering beast retreated. It joined the pack. Snapping, snarling, the wild creatures ran into the darkened forest. They wouldn’t be back until morning, when the exhausted, naked humans would slink back to the manor with blood on their lips.
Somewhere in the darkness an inhuman monster bayed at the moon.
Calvin went to the small guesthouse. A beast waited for him, curled up on the couch. It raised its head at him and wagged its tail.
“Hi, Sharon.”
He scratched her behind the ears, and she clawed the couch to shreds in her pleasure. She lowered her head.
He smiled. “It’s all right. It’s not my couch.”
He sat beside her. She set her head on his lap. He turned on the television. The Wolfman was playing.
Sighing, he changed the channel and waited for the dawn.
CHAPTER TWO
“Third rule is don’t pet the dog,” said Mr. West.
A sad-eyed puppy sat in front of one of the three doors in the hallway. It was white with brown and black spots and big floppy ears, and it whined as they walked past.
“Does it bite?” Diana asked.
“No.”
“Whose is it?”
“It belongs to Number Two,” said West, “but he lost control of it about a year ago. Now he’s lucky if it lets him out on the weekends to pick up groceries.”
He wheeled and stared at her with tightly narrowed eyes. So much so she wasn’t sure they were even open.
“Mark my words, Number Five. Bad things happen to those who don’t follow the rules.”
His long mustache twitched and he scratched his shaggy head, then turned back, walking up the six steps to Apartment Number Five. He fumbled with an overloaded key ring. As far as Diana could tell there were only seven apartments in this small building, but he must’ve had at least three dozen keys on that ring.
“This’ll be yours,” he said.
She wasn’t so sure. The rent on this place was remarkably cheap, but if a creepy landlord came with the package, she’d have to think it over.