7: Decker
Werewolves walked in their sleep.
Or something…
Normally Decker woke slowly with the setting sun. He gradually became aware as the light fled the land, becoming fully awake only when full dark had cloaked the land.
The evening that he learned that werewolves walked in their sleep, he had snapped suddenly, fully, awake.
There was something in his casket with him.
He jerked back in fear even as he realized it was someone, not a rat. The hairy thing that brushed across his face, waking him, was a head of hair. Who in the world was in his coffin with him? He could only think of one likely person.
“Joshua?” Decker measured off the intruder with blind fumbling. Strong shoulders encased in a fleece shirt. A short torso. Equally short legs tangling with his. Yes, correct size for his housemate, but what was Joshua doing in his coffin? The boy lay like a lead weight on Decker’s chest, breathing deeply. “Are you asleep?”
The only answer was a sleepy whimper followed by a deep growl.
Decker had a wolf in his casket. Still in human form, true, but Joshua wasn’t awake at the helm. Nor, technically, was the wolf. It was some gray area of joint slumber.
Joshua was in the loungewear that he called “sweats.” The teenager must have changed out of his school uniform, pulled on the comfortable clothes, and fallen asleep—someplace. Perhaps his bed or maybe the couch or even the kitchen island. Decker had found him asleep in several odd places in the last few days. Obviously, the wolf had taken advantage of Joshua being asleep to pick a new sleeping place. The question was, how had the wolf found its way down into Decker’s secret bedroom and climbed into the locked coffin with the vampire?
More importantly, how did Decker wake up just the boy?
“Joshua.” Decker sang the name. He had a fifty-fifty chance of ending up with a startled wolf who knew judo. Decker would rather not have a wrestling match with an insanely strong werewolf inside his coffin. It would most likely be very painful. Worse, it was also very difficult to custom-order superwide coffins and have them delivered to private houses. It made people curious. Curiosity killed the vampire.
“Jaaah-shuuu-ahh.” Decker sang the name a little louder.
It got him sloppy puppy kisses all over his face. The wolf snuggled closer and huffed into Decker’s armpit as it buried its head under his arm.
Decker could lie here until the boy woke up. It was pleasant. He always woke at room temperature and would spend the first hour awake freezing cold. Joshua was a little furnace of warmth. There was also something calming about listening to Joshua’s deep breathing.
No, the longer he put it off, the more embarrassed Joshua would be. He should wake the boy.
Or maybe carry him back to his own bed…
If Joshua was that deeply asleep, Decker might be able to sneak him back to his own bedroom without the teenager being any the wiser. Yes, that seemed the best course of action since Joshua might be sound asleep for another hour or two.
Decker freed an arm to push up his casket’s lid.
It was locked. Decker pushed on it a few more times to verify it. No. Locked.
His custom-built casket had a deadbolt lock on the lid. The throw latch was inside with him. Outside there was a keyhole for someone like Elise to unlock the casket with a key in case of emergencies.
The very literal part of “dead to the world” unnerved Saul even after a lifetime of association. Decker wanted to put off Joshua having to deal with it as long as possible. They had only recently come to a compromise on Decker’s need to feed on magical essence. If Decker carefully “sipped” power from Joshua’s connection to the werewolves’ Source, the act remained safely controlled—and more important from Joshua’s perspective—non-sexual. It meant that Decker didn’t need to hunt monsters daily to stay in control of his hunger.
Sooner or later, he would have to broach the whole undead aspect, but so far, he hadn’t. He hadn’t given Joshua a key to his coffin. He hadn’t even shown the secret stairs down into his bedroom to the boy. The lid hadn’t been forced open.
How did Joshua get into his casket?
Decker tapped the sides, checking them for large holes that the boy could wriggle through. No. None.
Maybe this wasn’t Joshua.
The casket was pitch dark.
Decker ran hands over the body snuggled up against him. It felt like Joshua. It was his wolf scent of sunlight through green foliage with the hint of dried leaves underneath. Decker focused his magical “finding” ability.
Where was Joshua? In his coffin.
It was definitely Joshua, but it looped back to the mystery of how he gotten into Decker’s casket.
Decker tried the lid again. Locked.
Maybe Elise gave Joshua a key.
Probably not, once Decker considered it. Elise saw the werewolves as allies, but she didn’t completely trust them. She wouldn’t have surrendered a key without discussing it with Decker first. Nor would Joshua steal her keyring and duplicate the keys in secret. The boy had a great deal of respect for private property; he asked for permission before making any changes or rearranging to the house. (Besides, even trying to steal Elise’s keys would get him knifed.)
How did Joshua even find his way past the secret doors? There was a trick to unlocking them. Did the wolf smash them open? He hadn’t broken the casket’s lid.
First things first. Get Joshua back to his room. Assess damage to doors later.
There was the small problem that the latch was currently under Joshua’s tailbone.
Decker was trying to slip his hand between Joshua’s butt and the pillowed silk side when the boy woke up.
“Hm?” Joshua sleepily prodded Decker’s chest. “Why is my pillow so lumpy? What the hell?” He sniffed, taking in Decker’s scent. “Decker? What are you doing”—he yawned deeply—“in my bed?”
Decker laughed. “I’m not in your bed. You’re in mine—so to speak.”
“Huh?” Joshua attempted to sit up and hit his head on the casket’s lid. “Ow! What the hell?”
Decker found himself crushed against the side as Joshua shifted into a large wolf.
“What? What?” The wolf flailed in the small space of the coffin. “What’s going on?”
Decker felt for the lock. “It’s okay, Joshua! It’s okay! Please don’t break my bed!”
“You sleep in a casket?”
“Yes. I thought I told you.” Decker might have avoided the subject.
Joshua became a boy again but hit his head again on the lid. “Ow! Why won’t it open? Are we stuck?”
“No. We’re not stuck. Just give me a moment. Be calm.”
It was harder to find the lock in the dark with a squirming body in the way.
“What are you wearing?” Joshua whispered.
“My nightshirt.” Decker wondered why he was whispering.
“Why is it so soft?” Joshua continued to whisper. Perhaps it because it was pitch dark.
“It’s cashmere.”
“Decker!” Joshua shouted when Decker misjudged where Joshua started and ended and accidently groped him. Abruptly there was a puppy burrowing into the space around Decker’s feet.
“I’m sorry! I’m just trying—there!” Decker flipped the latch and flung open the lid. Elise had set timers on the nightstand lamp, so it was always on when he woke up. It always made him feel like a reverse refrigerator.
“Where the hell are we?” The puppy leapt out of the casket.
“This is my bedroom.” Decker stepped out of the casket and closed the lid. There weren’t even scratch marks by the lock. The door across the room looked intact, the deadbolt thrown.
“What the hell?” Joshua said again. “Did you carry me down here?”
“No.” Decker pointed out the clock by his bed, planning to point out that he just woke up. The time surprised him. It was too early for him to be actually awake. “I went to bed first and I—I—shouldn’t be awake. Why am I awake?”
Joshua frowned at the clock. “It’s sunset, isn’t it?”
“Not for another few minutes. Normally I don’t wake up until the sun is totally down. It’s actually daylight…”
He hadn’t seen actual sunlight for nearly three hundred years. He started for the door.
“Decker!” Joshua transformed into a massive wolf and leapt between Decker and the door. “No. No. You can’t go out during the day. Bad things happen to you in sunlight. Right?”
“If I stay inside, away from the windows, I’m fine.” The first few months of life as a vampire had taught Decker the limits. At dawn, he’d collapsed where he stood until he came to recognize the signs. He’d awakened badly burned and dangerously hungry. The memory of the pain and near uncontrollable hunger that kept him from growing careless. “Please.”
“Oookay.” Joshua sounded as if he thought it was horrible idea but moved aside. “Be careful.”
Decker got as far as the front hallway before needing to stop. Sunlight poured through the lead glass of the front door. It shimmered and danced on the polished wood floor. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The massive wolf sat down behind him. It wrapped paws the size of dinner plates around him, keeping him back from the deadly beauty. Together they watched the sunlight die into darkness.
* * *
“How was school?” Decker asked once the house was dark.
“I’m not sure,” the wolf muttered.
“Not sure?” Decker repeated, mystified.
“It was weird.” The wolf pressed its face against Decker’s back. “Everything was so different from my old school that I felt really lost. The food was amazing at the cafeteria. It was like going out to eat at someplace nice in Utica.”
“I thought you packed a large lunch.”
“My wolf kept trying everyone else’s food to see what it tasted like,” Joshua said in disgust. “Everyone was like ‘let the wolf try it’ like it was no big deal.”
Decker doubted that Joshua actually fully transformed into the wolf, but it certainly sounded like it. “They knew…?”
“Yes, they all knew. Well, not everyone, just the Goths. The citizens of Unpopular. Although they didn’t seem like they were all that unpopular. Everyone seemed nice to the Goths. Maybe it’s because the school will always side with the nerds instead of the jocks, unlike what they did at my old school. They don’t turn a blind eye to the football team acting like they’re untouchable gods…”
Joshua trailed off. The Wickers had used the football team of his last school as puppets, setting up a situation where one of the Wolf King’s Thanes would have to transform Joshua into a werewolf to save his life. None of the team had survived being used as tools; their lifetime of being petty bullies had ended in a massacre.
It was the main reason that Joshua hadn’t contacted his parents. He knew that they would insist that he return home and finish his senior year at his old high school. (Bethy confirmed this, so it wasn’t just Joshua being fearful.) As a minor—and as a good son—he couldn’t say no. Barely able to control his wolf at the best of times, he wouldn’t be able to deal with any petty resentment the students at his old school might have that Joshua survived the massacre.
Decker searched for something safe to say. “It sounds like you had a good day—all things considered. The people were understanding, and the wolf was well-fed.”
Joshua snorted. “Too well-fed. All I seem to do is eat. I’m not sure if the wolf is actually hungry or if it’s just eating to eat. I’m not even sure where all the food is going to. I’m not putting on any weight. If anything, I’m about five pounds lighter than just before Halloween.”
That didn’t seem possible. Joshua had been inhaling food since they’d met. Decker only had a Virtue’s normal appetite to compare it to, but it seemed like an excessive amount. Yes, the Thane had eaten a great deal while visiting over the holiday weekend, but Cabot had been recovering from wounds inflicted by silver knives. Cabot was also a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Joshua. More than once, Seth had lain on the floor, too full to eat more, while his brother and cousin continued eating.
Joshua made an impatient noise. “I wonder if there’s anything to even pack for lunch tomorrow. My lunch seemed to be everything in the refrigerator.”
The wolf let Decker go in order to check the contents of the refrigerator—and probably eat something. All the talk about food probably was making it hungry. Joshua made annoyed grumbling noises as he realized that the wolf had taken control of the body. “Oh geez, what a mess! What did you do while I was asleep?” Joshua howled at his other half when he reached the kitchen. “Did you eat everything? Dude, what did you do with the eggs? Did you swallow them raw? Oh, gross!”
“Do we need to go shopping?” Decker called as he stood up.
“Yes,” Joshua called back. “He cleaned out the fridge! Stupid wolf! There’s nothing in here but empty food wrappers. But not now, I have a ton of homework.”
Homework? That was a term that Decker didn’t know.
Decker drifted into the kitchen. Joshua was still a very large wolf, grumbling loudly about the mess that his other half made. He was picking up torn packaging with his teeth and dropping them in the trash can. The inside of the refrigerator was indeed remarkably bare considering how full it had been just days ago.
Joshua’s backpack and textbooks were scattered across the island. It appeared that he’d fallen asleep while trying to study. He’d spent the whole weekend reading over the schoolwork that he’d missed since he’d fled his hometown. This seemed much more like marshalling for war than what he was doing before. His laptop and his iPad were both present. Calculator, pens, pencils, and paper were all gathered and strategically positioned.
“It’s going to take me hours to get everything done,” Joshua grumbled, head in the refrigerator. “I might not have to take the final tests for the AP classes but there’s a ton of homework involved to keep up with the class.”
“What is homework?” Decker asked since it was going to be an important part of Joshua’s life going forward.
The wolf turned to stare at him. After a minute of silence, it asked, “You didn’t have to do homework when you went to school?”
“Schools were very different back in those days,” Decker said. “When I was first taught my letters, we would practice them on sand tables—which were trays of sand so high that you could stand and draw with your fingers or a little stick. Later we were given slate tablets—squares of stone about the size of your iPad, surrounded with a wood frame. We had little slate pencils—which were like chalk but not quite. You could write on the stone and then use a damp cloth to wipe the words away.”
The wolf stared at Decker more. “Are you making that up?”
Decker laughed. The world was so different now that even he could barely grasp it. “No. Paper was much too dear to be used by children. Books too were very rare and expensive. I owned just one book as a child, and I loved it well.”
“Just one? That had to suck. What was it?”
“The Faerie Queen.” The title obviously meant nothing to the boy, which wasn’t surprising considering the book had been written over four hundred years ago. Decker had lost his beloved original in the Philadelphia house fire. He might have bought a newer copy when Saul moved him to this house. He wasn’t sure; he hadn’t seen it while digging through the overflowing stacks in his library. “It’s all about knights fighting monsters and righting wrongs and finding their one true love. My favorite part was the third section, which is all about this lady knight, Britomart, who wins jousts while disguised as a man.”
“So, it’s like Lord of the Rings?”
Decker considered the movie that they’d watched recently. “I remember there being more armor involved but basically of that vein.” Something buzzed in the kitchen. Decker thought he’d learned all the odd sounds that life with Joshua generated. This was a new buzzing. It bothered him more than it should. It had an odd quality, as if it wanted to be noticed. “What is that?”
“Ah, sorry, I left my phone on vibrate; we’re not allowed to use our phones in class.” Joshua shook off the massive wolf form like a dog shaking off muddy water. He always seemed very short when he returned to human. He pulled from his backpack the impossibly small, magical square of metal and glass that the phones were now. “It’s Seth. He wants to know how school went. Oh geez, he’s texted me like thirty times since the end of school. Something has him excited.”
Joshua cocked his head as he scrolled down through the texts his brother had sent him.
“Is something wrong?” Decker said.
“Seth wants to rent a condo as a temporary base until the Court is rebuilt.” Joshua’s voice inflected both on “condo” and “the Court,” making them questions in the middle of his statement.
Decker knew that Elise lived in an apartment that she sometimes called “my condo” and other times “my loft,” but he didn’t know why she used those terms to describe it. The bed area—he would not call it a room—did remind him of a hayloft.
Decker addressed the unspoken question that he knew the answer to. “Court is the name that werewolves use to indicate homes that are either connected or very close in proximity that make up the pack’s main living space. The Boston Court was a set of brownstone town houses near the Commons. I’m told that originally the pack had a cluster of log cabins on the site, back when Boston was founded. The town houses were partially destroyed when your father was killed, so the king set them on fire to act as a funeral pyre.”
Joshua scrolled down the texts from his brother, shaking his head. “Oh! Yeah! Winnie said something like that when we were at the Frog Pond. I was distracted by the whole talking frogs being real statues thing.” He made an odd noise. “Seth wants to know if I need more money. He gave me four thousand dollars in cash last Friday. Why would I need more money?”
“It’s possible that Seth does not know the truth worth of money.” Decker certainly didn’t. The official currency when he was a child in the British colony of New York was the English pennies, shillings, and pounds. They were, however, rare as hen’s teeth as England didn’t supply sufficient coin to its colonies nor would it allow them to create their own. The area had once belonged to the Dutch as New Amsterdam, so there was still some pennings, duits, stuivers, and guilders floating around. The most common coins were Spanish dollars, which could be broken into pieces of eight to make change. Any transaction was a complicated affair, especially when it involved paying for a service like dowsing. Then Decker became a vampire, and the colonies became a newborn country with currency problems that took decades to solve. At some point, Decker gave up trying to keep track of money and let the Grigori deal with it. It wasn’t hard to guess that the young wolf prince was in the same boat. “Seth moved from Boston Court to Wolf Castle. His needs have always been met without touching a single dollar.”
“Oh my god!” Joshua shouted. “Seth’s wife is coming for a visit!”
“When?” Decker asked the most important question.
Joshua frowned, scrolling up and down. “He doesn’t say. He just says it’s one of the reasons he’s looking for a condo is so that she has a place to stay while she’s visiting. Huh. Visiting. That’s weird. You never hear of a wife visiting her husband, but I guess she’s just fifteen or sixteen. Oh! He wants to know if she can stay with us if they don’t find anyplace before she shows up.”
“Yes,” Decker said instantly. If the wolves camped elsewhere, chances were good that Joshua would go and stay with them. “She is your sister-in-law. She’s more than welcome to stay.”
Joshua cursed.
“What’s wrong?” Decker was afraid that he’d been too transparent with his instant acceptance.
“He wants to give me a car!” Joshua shouted. “He wants to know what kind of car I would like! What the hell am I supposed to give him for Christmas?” Joshua picked up a handwritten list and held it out to Decker. “I was going to get him Caddyshack. Caddyshack! And he’s getting me a car!”
Indeed, next to Seth’s name was written “Caddyshack” but Decker didn’t know what it was or how much it cost. Next to Cabot’s name “Exploding Kittens” had been crossed out and “drone” replaced it. Decker wasn’t sure what a drone was, but it seemed much more appealing than cat bombs. He wasn’t even sure why Joshua thought that his cousin wanted kittens that exploded. Certainly, Cabot didn’t seem to get on with Trouble well—but perhaps that was the point. Bethy had “text and ask her” written next to her name.
“Shit! Don’t look at that!” Joshua jerked away the list before Decker scanned down to his own present. Joshua buried the paper under his schoolbooks and returned his attention to his phone. “I think its freaking weird. Seth never mentioned his wife once when he was here for Thanksgiving. I don’t even know what her name is. The vet told us about her. I think she lives in California someplace. Oh! Seth is planning to drive up from New York with Cabot on Friday night to look at condos Saturday afternoon. He wants to stay here. He says he can stay at a hotel if it’s not okay. He would like it if we could pick out a Christmas tree first thing in the morning at Bog Hollow Farm. He says it’s a Tatterskein tradition. I still say the place sounds like the site of a horror movie.”
The name did sound vaguely familiar. Perhaps it was one of the businesses that the werewolves owned, which would explain why they always got their Christmas tree from it.
“It is fine if he stays here.” Decker tackled the easiest of the problem. “Tree and all. When he is here, you can sound him out about a present. It is possible he has all that he needs and will treasure anything you give him as long as it’s given with good intentions. If not, perhaps that is why he’s giving you more money. Perhaps he wants something that the king will only allow him to keep if it’s gifted to him—like a kitten. One that doesn’t explode.”
Joshua didn’t seem to be paying attention. He was swiping at the surface of his phone. “I probably should pick up lights and ornaments and such before they drive up—that way we can decorate the tree Saturday night. I think Seth is really excited about this whole ‘family’ Christmas thing.”
Joshua paused to look up at Decker expectantly, as if he wanted an answer to some question that Decker hadn’t caught. They were talking about Christmas trees—maybe. What did Decker know about Christmas trees? Not much. They didn’t become popular until Godey’s Magazine published the photo of Queen Victoria with her tree in 1850s. When he lived in Philadelphia, he’d let his servants put up decorations. Surely after a hundred and fifty years, Decker had learned something useful about them.
“Yes, I think getting some lights and ornaments beforehand would be good,” Decker said cautiously. “We’ll need some kind of stand and perhaps a sharp wood saw—just in case the trunk needs to be evened out.”
Joshua blew out his breath. “But I’m not going to have time to shop, not with all the homework I have to do. Not with my stupid wolf eating everything in sight.”
“I don’t suppose there’s time to do a Sears and Roebuck order.”
“A what?”
“It’s a catalog. A book with things you can order…” Come to think of it, Decker hadn’t seen a Sears and Roebuck catalog for years. It was such a staple for nearly a hundred years. It was surprising that it had vanished without him noticing. “It’s a bigger version of the magazine-looking clothing catalogs. I still get those. It had all sorts of things from toys to dishes.”
“It sounds like Amazon. Oh!” Joshua leapt toward his laptop. “Seth gave me a credit card! Maybe I can order groceries to be delivered!”
It seemed like something out of a fairy tale, a cornucopia of food summoned out of thin air. The most amazing thing was that Joshua seemed to know exactly what was needed to be done. Decker could only sit and marvel as Joshua found the correct “website”—or was that “web sight” since they were seeing it? Joshua set up an account using something called email. He then searched through seemingly endless menus for the things that he wanted. Beef? Joshua scrolled down through a long list to pick off a “family pack” of ribeye steaks. Deli meat? He changed the “quantity” indicator on the sliced roast beef to five pounds. Fruit? A bag of oranges and another of apples were searched out and selected. Desserts? “Bakery” was ignored in favor of “frozen desserts.” A half dozen pies were selected while Joshua muttered darkly, “Maybe he won’t eat them if they’re raw and frozen.”
There was so much Decker needed to learn.
The total cost seemed extremely high but anything over a penny for a loaf of bread seemed high to Decker.
“This is another reason I can’t move back home,” Joshua said as he entered his credit card number. “It would bankrupt my folks trying to keep my wolf fed. Nor would they let Seth pay for my food. My dad thinks of himself as the great provider. Probably because his parents are so sure that he’s not. He’s not a lawyer. He doesn’t make the big lawyer bucks. We’re not poor—or at least I never thought of us as poor.”
Joshua paused to eye the credit card. “Suddenly being able to buy anything I want makes me realize that we were probably on the low end of middle class. My mom always made food shopping like a video game: how cheaply can you put food on the table? What’s on sale? What’s the special of the week? Never steaks. Always things made with ground beef. Meatloaf. Tacos. Sloppy Joes. Chili. Spaghetti and meatballs. I liked her cooking, so I never thought about the fact that we never had anything more expensive.”
He put the credit card back into his wallet. “The thing is that my entire family is weird about money. Period. I don’t think we’ve ever had a family holiday that didn’t end with a fight over money. Who had it. Who didn’t. Lease or own. BMW versus Ford. It always starts out sane and ends crazy. I’m sure it would begin with ‘we can’t take money from a poor orphan who probably isn’t really your half brother,’ but then it would end up someplace crazy even before they found out about the werewolf angle. Probably they would end up convinced that the king got all his money from drugs and prostitution. Rich man living in New York City with a bunch of enforcers? Mafia. Definitely Mafia. You wouldn’t be able to convince them otherwise. Tell them about the werewolves and it would be Werewolf Mafia. Darn, they don’t have any delivery slots open until tomorrow night.”
Decker had gotten lost in the logic. Was mafia a type of bread like matzah or miche? Joshua’s parents would think that the king’s werewolves were bakers? Decker wasn’t sure how Joshua’s parents would even find out about the king—unless of course Joshua himself confessed somehow—which he could see Joshua doing. And what exactly was the wolf bakers going to deliver? Oh! Joshua meant the supermarket.
“I’m still going to need to go food shopping after I get done with my homework,” Joshua said. “But if I can set up a big food delivery for tomorrow night, I’ll only have to grab a few things tonight.”