A Pack Of His Own (Ch. 07)

Chapter Seven

"You knew my father?" Will asked as the massive wall of a man sat down across from him in the Burger King booth. He was just a solid rectangle of flesh beneath the heavy cloth, and it made Will just a little bit nervous.

"Not knew, but know, young William," Pavel said. The man's voice had an eastern European or Russian accent, Will wasn't entirely certain. "Simply because your father is not around does not mean he has left this earth. You should know that he's still alive."

"Should? I certainly didn't know that he was alive before you told me. I don't know a fucking thing about him. Not who he is, not where is he, not how he is, not what he looks like. My mother wouldn't even tell me his name, she was that mad about him abandoning us."

"Well then, I suppose I should start there," Pavel laughed. "Your father's name is Ivan Kozlov, the youngest of three brothers. Your last name on your father's side, my last name, is Kozlov. You can use that if you wish, or let it lie. Your other uncle, Fyodor, died when you were just a baby, and is part of the reason your father abandoned you."

"Part of the reason? Was the rest that he was a selfish asshole who didn't give a fuck about anyone but himself?"

"As easy as it would be to paint your father in a poor light, you should realize he was distancing himself from you to ensure your safety, the safety of you and your mother," Pavel said quietly. "I was very sorry to hear of her passing. She was a fine woman, a strong and brave woman."

"How the hell would you know?"

"I saw your mother a few times every year," Pavel said so confidently that Will knew it had to be true. "And I've been keeping tabs on you in your father's stead."

"Why the hell can't he do it?"

"He doesn't feel as though it would be safe for him to be around, something I'm sure you will eventually be able to understand." Despite how massive and large Pavel was, Will was impressed with how calm and measured the man's deep bass voice could be. "Your father is a rather complicated individual, and has led a rather problematic life, which means he's constantly on the go, trying to stay one step ahead of all the complications of his life, both self-inflicted and external. I think he prefers to spend much of his time back in the old country these days, simply to avoid the encroaching powerful reach of technology and casual surveillance. He used to love London, but it's getting harder and harder to dodge all the cameras there."

"You make it sound like he's some sort of spy."

"It's... far more complicated than that."

"So why don't you uncomplicate it for me? There's got to be someplace easy to start, some way to get into it, to explain to me who my father is."

Pavel sighed, looking down at his hands before turning his gaze back up at Will. "You're going to laugh when I tell you. Laugh, cry, scream... I'm not really entirely certain what your reaction will be. This is... an unusual process for us. For us... as a people... either you are in or you are out, right from the start. We... we do not do this... this mid-stream bullshit. Not most of the time. But the idea of killing you as a child... your father would not tolerate such a thing, and I am not to anger your father, even if he is my younger brother."

Will got up and picked up his breakfast, setting it down on the table between them. "Sounds like everything's gone tits up by me being around, though, if you're talking about killing me as a child and my dad's against it." He couldn't tell if the giant man was being serious or just talking shit, but there was a certain level of implied threat behind it.

"We've been debating how you would take this for years, even since your father agreed to walk away from your family for your own good, so as to not argue with your mother. I told your father we should tell you much earlier, but he told me we should wait until it was starting to impact your life, and he is your father, so I had to respect his wishes, regardless of however you might react."

"Whatever I'm going to do," Will said, leaning back against the booth seating, unwrapping his breakfast sandwich, taking a big bite from it, swallowing it before speaking again. "I'd like to actually do it instead of just talking about it happening the whole time. C'mon, Uncle Pavel. What the fuck is going on?"

Pavel lifted his head up to look at Will, as if sizing him up, trying to pick his next words very carefully. "You're a werewolf."

Will tilted his head, waiting for Pavel to let him in on the joke, but when Pavel didn't laugh, Will felt like he had to, so he laughed and he laughed hard. It just might've been the funniest thing anyone had ever said to him. There couldn't be any possible way that it wasn't a joke.

And yet, Uncle Pavel still wasn't laughing.

"No, why don't you really tell me what's happening?"

"I'm being entirely truthful with you, little William," Pavel said. "I know it might be hard to believe..."

"Hard? Let's try insane," Will said, his voice quick and choppy, coming in over the top. "Me. A werewolf. You know the necklace I'm literally wearing right now is a silver rope chain, yeah?" He tugged on the silver necklace for effect, pleased to feel it wasn't burning his fingers.

Pavel chuckled, shaking his head. "It is not a weapon. It is not inside of your body. It is fine. Is common misconception about werewolves. There are... many such misnomers. Letting such disinformation run rampant is an excellent defense."

"I have never once howled at a full moon," Will said before taking another bite from his breakfast, following it up with one of the hashbrowns.

"Another misconception, as is the one implying we cannot control our transformations, although I can understand where the origins of that one spring from at least," Pavel said. "During moments of intense anger or fear, we can occasionally lose control of our cohesiveness. When our kind is threatened or wounded, then our more primal nature can come to the surface. That's where that particular myth comes from."

"Yeah, I'm not buyi--"

Pavel's right hand uncurled on the table, suddenly growing larger, claws extending from his fingers and a sudden rush of hair all over that massive hand. The claws looked deadly, sharp and eager to draw blood. Then, almost as quickly as it arrived, the transformation backed away once more and his hand turned back into what it was before.

"If you require more proof, we will need to step somewhere less crowded." Pavel chuckled. "I can't decide if I want you to ask for more proof or--"

"Let's... let's put a pin in that for a minute," Will said, looking back up from his uncle's hand to his face, crumpling up the wrapper his now consumed sandwich had been in. His heart was racing, but his brain was already stitching pieces of information together that previously hadn't made sense, which, perhaps, was why he didn't feel total shock over this. "We're going to skip past all that normal doubt and chaos and bullshit that people always go through when they find out they're a long-lost superhero or ultra powerful weapon or whatever the fuck people go through when they're supposedly on the hero's journey and move straight to the part when I ask for you details and say that I believe you. What does that mean? Mean for me?"

"Both everything and not a whole lot," Pavel said to him. "Let's start with the obvious things - you've probably noticed that all your appetites have increased. Not only physical but sexual?"

"I can eat for five and fuck for just about as many," Will said, finishing off his orange juice. "Yeah, I definitely noticed that. It's not like it would've been easy to overlook, the fact that I go through like three to four thousand calories a meal, and I'm often still hungry."

"Just so," Pavel said. "And your s--"

"I've got three partners and they complain all the time that I'm insatiable, so to answer your question, yes, most definitely, it's overclocked."

"It's part of the reason our kind is usually one male and several females, something your mother didn't agree with. You'll need to keep a check on your temper, and know that if you're cornered, the wolf could come out. You haven't transformed yet?"

"No," Will laughed. "I think if that had happened, I wouldn't have laughed when you suggested that I'm a werewolf."

"If you remembered it."

That stopped Will dead in his tracks.

The silence held for a long moment, but then Will had to speak again.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Sometimes, if the rage or the fear gets... especially intense, our kind can have blackouts of sorts, where we're acting, but the animal in us is in control, and we don't remember what we've done. It's never intentional - it's a self-defense mechanism, and sometimes the things we do as wolves are... too intense for our human minds to be able to cope with. Have you had any black outs?"

Will's mind went racing through his life as fast as he could, trying to place any moments where he'd lost time. "Since when?"

"Usually sometime between the ages of eighteen and twenty is when the wolf side first begins to come to light, so you shouldn't need to think back too far," Pavel said.

"When I started classes this fall, I definitely noticed that women were looking at me differently," Will said. "My appetite started dialing up then too. Is the thing with girls related?"

"Absolutely," his uncle replied. "You became much more attractive to women because they could smell your new pheromones burrowing their way into their consciousness. You will find it's rather a wonderful gift, being one of most attractive men any woman has ever seen when she looks on your form, whether or not her mind would normally think that true or not."

"I'm brainwashing women?"

"Of course not," Pavel snorted. "If you are no good as a person, they will still leave you in the end. But you will find they will be much more open to getting to know you, much more forgiving and kinder and willing to work through things with you. And, naturally, they will want to breed. Women, nephew, they will not cause you much grief in life, except perhaps by having too many of them. A pack should never outgrow its ability to care for itself, but that can happen from time to time. You strike me as a smart boy, though. One who will know better than to spread himself too thin, too fast. Packs often run between five and eight females, although in some cases they can run a few more or a few less."

"Alright. What else?"

"What else?"

"What else do I need to be worried about?"

Pavel scowled, looking down at the Formica countertop. "Hunters, although it seems you've gotten rather lucky on that front. For the time being, it seems as though you have the Keystone Cops attempting to hunt you down, or perhaps the Three Stooges. They do not even know what you are, much less how to hunt you. It has caused me no endless amount of amusement these past few months. I almost feel sorry for them because of their ineptitude. I'm sure you've encountered them?"

"Let me guess, three people, all between the age of twenty and forty? Two men, one woman, all blonde?"

"You've seen them?"

"The younger man keeps spilling shit on me," Will said, almost amused by the entire thing, although there was an undercurrent of annoyance to his voice. "I think he's tried garlic water, holy water and maybe even shrimp cocktails. What kind of monster is threatened by a shrimp cocktail?"

"It might annoy some dragon with a crustacean allergy, but there are not many of those out there to worry about."

"I can't imagine there being any out there."

"One or two, but nothing to concern yourself with," Pavel said in a tone that was perfectly paced so that Will couldn't tell if he was kidding again. "Tell me about what you know about them, these hunters who are in your orbit."

"The young man is nervous, eager, panicked or spooked easily. I suspect he hasn't been at this long, and he's eager to make a mark by any means necessary. It's pissing off the older one, who's patient, who's more careful, who's always cautious not to get too close. I get the feeling that they're related. Father and son, maybe? Older brother, younger brother, possibly. Could even be like us, uncle and nephew. I'm not sure if the girl's also related, but I'm guessing that she probably has to be. She looks enough like them that it seems probable. She's about my age, maybe a year or so younger, and tends to keep her distance, like she's afraid of getting too close to me, unlike the younger male, who always seems to be rushing into me. They don't strike me as Colorado locals - they don't know the area; they're never prepared for the weather and the girl likes wearing clothes that are only going to catch her pneumonia if she's not careful. The older one's unhappy with the lack of progress they've been able to make with me. I saw the three of them arguing once, outside of a party, although they didn't see me. I assume I was what they were arguing about."

"I'm certain that it was," Pavel replied. "I do not know these hunters specifically, but I know their kind. They are tenacious, they are ruthless and they do not like to lose." The giant man sighed. "They also do not seem to care much about whether or not we deserve to be hunted. They see us inhuman and thus not to be permitted to live. That's obviously a problem for our kind."

"So, what, they're hunting us just for being... us?"

"They are," Pavel said. "They don't think anything of us beyond us being monsters because they do not know us, nor will they risk getting to know us. The stories and lives told by those who came before us have shifted from tall tales into reliable intel, as ridiculous as that seems. They think we can control minds or erase thoughts or some other preposterous nonsense along those lines. For a while, they thought werewolves were a militaristic arm of some sort of organized witch collective."

"Why the hell would they think that?"

Pavel chuckled, lifting his eyebrows for a moment. "My father, your grandfather, made a joke at one of the attempts to reconcile peace between the two sides, and the hunter organization seemed to think he was not jesting. And despite our constant protestations over the matter, they seem to have let that notion fester and rot. Now, a few generations later, it's all out war, their people against ours. Well, their people against anyone even remotely like us."

"What do you mean 'like us,' Uncle Pavel?"

"It's not just werewolves they hunt. They'll hunt anything supernatural. They hunt vampires. They hunt witches. They hunt faefolk. They hunt trolls. They even try and hunt sorcerers, although that's rarely worked out well for them. They tend to go after mages as a last resort, simply because mages are usually the best trained to defend themselves. It is one of the only things on this side of the veil that requires actual skill and training to become, as opposed to birth or circumstance. If it were up to me, I would give no fucks that they are hunting young vampires, but I suppose it is monster unity, you know. All of us against all of them. After all, one does not simply stop being what they call a monster. It's also possible for a hunter to retire and leave that life, though."

"Oh yeah?" Will joked. "Anyone I'd know?"

"Your mother, for one," Pavel said. "Thought I cannot imagine she told you at all about that life while you were growing up."

"Bullshit," Will snorted. "There's no way my mother would've been a hunter."

"Oh, she wasn't for very long. Your father was her third assignment, and in an effort to try and learn about him, she ended up falling for him. It's a danger for hunters, which is why most werewolf hunters tend to be male, just as most succubus hunters tend to be female. You know, if you wanted to, you might be able to convert that female hunter that's after you now to be part of your pack if you tried. You'd probably need to show mercy to her fellow hunters, though, which is rarely a good idea. Still, it is an option, one you should not disavow lightly. It's how you're here. Your father agreed to spare the rest of your mother's hunting party, even though they weren't her blood kin."

"Seriously? My mom? A hunter? She couldn't hurt a fly."

"You may find you do not know some people as well as you think you do, young nephew. I should go," Pavel said to him. "You should get food to take home to your women, discuss this with them perhaps and give all of this some thought. I will return again within a few months' time, when I have dealt with my own particular hunter problem. As it turns out, it is feast or famine in terms of the hunters' abilities in this region. While your hunters seem incapable of defeating a rabbit, mine are remarkably deadly. I would not want them to get on your trail, otherwise I would stay longer and answer more of your questions."

"Two quick ones then?" Will said, standing up to move towards the counter so he could order food for the girls. "I promise, they'll be short."

"Alright," Pavel said, standing up from the booth, and Will got to see exactly how overwhelmingly large the man was again, practically a linebacker in massive black clothes. "If they are short and to the point."

"Do I need to worry about the girls turning into werewolves now that they've been with me?"

The hulk chuckled, shaking his head. "Either you're born with the trait, or you are not. There is no 'turning' or 'becoming,' nephew. Either you are lycan or you are not, and they are not, although they could bear lycan children. Thus, how your human mother bore you. And your second question?"

"When I... what's going to cause me to transform into a wolf?"

Pavel shrugged. "Most likely, you will be threatened, cornered, trapped. It's almost always under threat. But even in our darkest hour, my nephew, we do not harm those we care about. The beast within is a wild and savage thing, but it respects the bonds that we have made and will not cross those lines, so you can consider your partners safe from its wrath."

"Is that when I'll gain the ability to control my transformation?"

"The first time is always involuntary," Pavel said to him, patting him on the shoulder. "If you haven't had it hit you within a few months, I'll force a transformation upon you to kick start it, like we would if you'd grown up in a wolf enclave."

"That how it normally is?"

Pavel smiled, offering a tiny shrug. "Do not go comparing your life to others, little nephew. It never ends well for anyone."

"Am I ever going to meet my father?"

"Give it time, little wolf. He'll find you, when he's ready, and when you're ready."

Will watched the hulking man step out of the front door and within a handful of steps, he had disappeared into the whiteout void of snowstorm that whipped and blew outside. It was remarkable how little distance his uncle had travelled before he was totally obscured from sight, consumed by the weather, vanished into storm.

Walking home was going to suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, he thought to himself.

Will turned back to the counter and ordered five breakfast sandwiches, one of each kind except for the ham, egg, and cheese croissant, which he ordered two of, because he was pretty sure if they didn't eat them both, he'd have one. His engine was running hot already, despite it being ridiculously early, a byproduct, he suspected, of all the snow. He also told them to throw in four orders of hashbrowns, although he didn't bother with orange juice - it would've been a popsicle by the time he got it home, he knew that for certain.