Wicked Hungry

Blaine looks down at Gary, then looks right at me. “Wow, Frumberg. You took him out, huh? Are you still clanless?”

“Can’t you see there’s three of us?” I say.

“Three do not a clan make,” he says. “And three as different from one another as you kids? You shouldn’t even be together. It’s dangerous. Almost as dangerous as being alone, like Frumberg here.”

“Well, we are together,” Jonathan says. “So deal with it.”

Blaine shakes his head. “Look, Connor and I need to get out of here. Those ghouls aren’t too particular, and this place is filled with their reek. So what about him?” Blaine asks, pointing to Frumberg. “Have you claimed him?”

“What do you mean, ‘claimed him?’” I ask.

“Stanley, you need to quit pretending you don’t know the rules,” says Blaine.

“But we don’t,” I say.

“Yeah,” Jonathan says. “We really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You expect me to believe that?” says Blaine. “I think you just want to keep Frumberg for yourself.”

“What do you want to do with him?” I ask. “He’s no friend of ours.”

“Well, that makes things easier.” Blaine says, licking his lips. “If he’s no friend of yours, then he’s up for grabs, isn’t he?”

Blaine reaches down and, with a slight grunt, picks him up.

I look over at Enrique and Jonathan.

“I think you just said the wrong thing,” Jonathan says.

“What did you do to him, anyway?” Connor asks.

“We didn’t do anything,” I say. “He was casting some spell and he sacrificed a dog.”

“He sacrificed a dog?” Blaine asks. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Yeah, where’s the dog?” Connor says.

“You didn’t see it bounding off toward the gateway? A doglike beast around your height? It kind of expanded, came back to life, and ran off. Some demon called Rewsin,” Jonathan says.

“He’s making this up,” Connor says as we walk through the gateway. “That kid couldn’t control a demon.”

“Who said anything about controlling the thing?” Jonathan says. “Does it look like Frumberg controlled it? The demon knocked him out and was about to eat us all until it heard the horn, and then it took off.”

Blaine stops and growls. “If this is true, we can’t touch him. He’s the demon’s, and we don’t need any more problems tonight.”

He moves to lay Gary down on the ground right outside the gate.

But Connor shakes his head as he closes the gate. “I don’t believe it,” he says. “And besides, he took off. He relinquished his claim. Let’s just take him — what do you say?”

What are they going to do with him, anyway? Eat him? As much as I hate Frumberg, he doesn’t deserve to be anyone’s after-dinner snack.

“No,” we say all together, and the smell of wolf, jaguar, and fox musk rises over the ghoul stink.

Blaine and Connor growl, and then they’re changing, too, ripping off their clothes as they grow.

The change comes faster this time. Am I gaining skill? It sure doesn’t hurt any less; the pain doubles me over as long sharp teeth erupt from my gums, my nose expands into a snout, my ears grow, hair sprouts all over my body. My bones stretch, strengthen, and my hands—the pain of the claws ripping forth through the tips of my fingers makes me want to scream.

Instead I howl up at the moon.