Chapter 9
The House on Briar Street
Chapter 9: The House on Briar Street
“She came after me while I was driving. I was literally on my way to the baby shower when her brother tried to run me off the road, and she attacked me with a crossbow. I had a Paddington bear plushie and lavender shortbread in my car next to me. Picking the glass out of Paddington’s fur was one thing. Trying to scrub my blood out was another,” Wendell said darkly. “Needless to say, I’m buying her a new one.”
“Hey, hey, you’re alive, Wen. You survived an encounter with one of the most notorious monster hunter families and a trip through the old silver mines on Hollow Road. That’s what matters most,” Cayden took both of Wendell’s hands in his and squeezed them. “Plus, I got Astrid a crib and some baby toys and put both our names on it. She didn’t question it.”
Wendell couldn’t hold back a smile and laugh at that.
“What? What did I say?”
“Nothing,” Wendell said, feeling a surge of love for how predictable Cayden was in the midst of all of the madness. “But the rest of what I’m about to tell you isn’t,” he warned.
He gave Cayden a run down on the conversation he had with Violet, his thoughts about being framed, and what happened with his therapist.
“The lone wolf had this on him when he was killed,” Wendell showed Cayden the taped note.
“Why was it ripped?” Cayden frowned.
Wendell shrugged. He wasn’t ready to tell Cayden about Odd Todd yet.
“Did Stevie give this to you?”
Wendell tried to keep his expression blank and neutral.
“Wen,” Cayden groaned, “He wants to play detective, but he doesn’t realize how dangerous this is. It’s not a game. Don’t indulge him.”
“Stevie gave this to me because he trusts me. He trusts us to keep him safe. Instead of lecturing me, please listen to me, Cayden. There’s an address on here. I have to check it out. And no, I don’t want to report it to DONHE first.”
As a purebred werewolf, Cayden didn’t experience DONHE the same way Wendell did.
“It could be a trap,” Cayden said immediately.
“Cayden, the lone wolf wanted someone, maybe Lupa or Dacian, to go to this address, and he might be dead because of it. This is all I have to go on. I have to see what he was trying to warn them about.”
“So you’re going with Aurora to check it out? Wen, I don’t think that’s–”
“No, actually. I’m here to ask you to come with me. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine. I’ll go alone,” Wendell asserted.
“No. Together. We’ll go together,” Cayden said, reaching for Wendell’s hand.
***
“And you’re sure that this is the place?” Cayden asked.
The house was at the end of the cul-de-sac. It had butterscotch-colored wood paneling and an explosion of flowers in the front yard guarded by a cheerful ceramic garden gnome. There was a welcome mat on the front porch and an American flag rippling proudly in the warm summer breeze. The neighboring houses were just as ordinary.
“What did you expect? A dilapidated cabin in the woods?” Wendell said, at the same time, expecting just that himself. He subtly rechecked the address. 77 Briar Street.
“Maybe we should’ve worn disguises,” Wendell said suddenly. “Especially if there are cameras.”
“Darn,” Cayden snapped his fingers, “I was looking for the perfect opportunity to bust out my collection of combination glasses-and-mustaches.”
Wendell groaned. “I’m serious.”
Cayden rubbed Wendell’s back, “I know. And we’ll be fine. I’ve been scoping this place out for cameras, and I’m not detecting any. We’re good to try to find a way in.”
“Let’s see if the key is where the note said it’d be,” Wendell led the charge, looking for the bird bath that was briefly described on the note. Wendell pictured a dramatic skeleton key hiding in the mossy basin, but instead, it was an ordinary bronze house key.
“What are the odds that it’ll open the front door?” Cayden asked.
“We’ll start with the back,” Wendell said.
The key fit the lock, and the door opened smoothly and silently until a snappy click rang out. Something small and sharp whistled and whooshed past Wendell, slicing across his arm. Wendell swore and jerked away.
“What the hell was that!?” Wendell yelped.
“Shit!” Cayden hissed at the slash across the fabric of Wendell’s shirt sleeve and the thin line of blood beading across his skin. “They rigged a snare trap to the door!” He yanked the wire down and snapped the device in his hands, breaking it. He tossed the sharp dart that grazed Wendell’s arm into the nearby bushes.
“Do you think it was meant for someone at DONHE?” Wendell asked, dabbing at the blood dripping from his cut arm.
“We don’t need to do this, Wen,” Cayden said, offering Wendell an out. “We can turn around right now and report this to DONHE.”
“No. We have to do this. We came all this way,” Wendell said, while at the same time wanting nothing more than to run for his life. “We need to take it extra slow and be ready for more traps.”
“We can handle whatever they have to throw at us,” Cayden said, squeezing one of Wendell’s hands.
Slowly, the two made their way into the house.
The stench hit them first. Lone wolves and lyc chasers weren’t exactly known for their cleanliness. It could’ve been a hoarder house in one of those reality tv shock docs. Avalanches of junk piled up in the rooms and made the hallways into narrow goat paths.
“We’re going to get murdered in here, aren’t we? Or contract some sort of disease. I’m pretty sure that was a hypodermic needle right there,” Wendell whispered and squirmed.
The kitchen and dining room especially reeked. Dirty dishes filled the sink, and fat flies buzzed around the remnants.
“They were living in here… maybe they still are,” Wendell observed.
“Then we need to be fast,” Cayden said, his lip curling at the disgusting kitchen. “Upstairs or downstairs first?”
“We still haven’t finished this floor. It might be more junk but it also might not,” Wendell said, eager to steer them away from the kitchen and into a less smelly part of the house. Unfortunately, the stinky odors surrounding the clutter and chaos persisted.
“How could anyone live like this?” Wendell asked, pinching his nose and hustling past the living room area.
“Whoa,” Cayden said, freezing in an instant.
“What?” Wendell nearly crashed into his back.
On the battered, half-broken living room table, among a scattered mess of cups and mugs with dredges of old coffee, tea, and soda, was a page. This one was torn out of a magazine. Cayden picked it up, swatting away a stubborn fly. It was a group photo of Wendell with his Boy Scout troop, along with an article about the tragedy he had survived.
Someone scratched the eyes out of each of the boys with dramatic Xs. Only Wendell’s eyes were untouched. In the same handwriting that warned Wendell he “wasn’t the only one” in the newspaper clipping left on his front door, the same messy, red scrawl demanded, “HOW MANY MORE HAVE TO DIE FOR HIM TO FEEL SPECIAL?”
“What the hell is this?” Wendell breathed.
“We’ll take it with us,” Cayden carefully folded it and slipped it into his back pocket. “Let’s keep going.”
Upstairs, it was eerily empty and in a state of disrepair instead of pure filth. Some of the ceiling lights and bulbs were pulled out and were dangling oddly.
The ground was an uneven mess of ripped up carpet, and the walls were aggressively stripped of painting with some patches of the ragged remains of torn wallpaper and fist-sized holes.
It was so empty of furniture in the upstairs part of the house that it had an echo. The sort of ominous one that opened a pit in Wendell’s stomach and made his hair bristle.
A bang from below made Wendell jump and shriek. He grabbed onto Cayden.
“It was probably just the ice maker in the fridge,” Cayden whispered, “But hold on to me as much as you’d like,” he cozied up to Wendell.
Wendell pulled away, but lingered close enough to grab hold of Cayden again. Eerie noises in the attic above and downstairs below got to Wendell, and he settled for holding Cayden’s hand. His sweaty palm stuck to Cayden’s dry, cool hand.
“Something is really wrong here. And it’s not just because this looks like some criminal or drug lord lair,” Wendell said anxiously. His blood ran cold, and his hair kept bristling. “It feels like something bad is going to happen at any second.”
“I feel it too,” Cayden agreed, walking them into a room with a TV placed prominently in the center of the room. There were tapes and discs discarded haphazardly around the room.
“Not sketchy at all,” Wendell said.
Cayden picked up one of the discs. It had initials and numbers written on it in black marker. He stuck it into the DVD player.
Wendell reclaimed his hand from Cayden and pulled both hands up to his face, peeking between his fingers at the screen. Cayden leaned ahead avidly, like a hound going after a rabbit.
It was worse than Wendell imagined. It was a video of a man in a prison cell-like room transforming into a werewolf with manic commentary from a male voice. For a moment, it sounded familiar. But Wendell couldn’t put a finger on who he sounded like.
It could be just one of those voices, Wendell tried to tell himself. I’m probably reading into this too much.
Once the captive lone wolf was fully transformed, a human, practically glowing with excitement, stuck her arm through the bars and was bitten. Blood gushed from the wound, but she grinned and spun in a happy circle.
“She has no idea what she got herself into,” Wendell said, horrified by the woman’s gleeful reaction. “These people are sick in the head.”
Wendell didn’t want to hurt Cayden, who was born into this life, but he couldn’t keep his disgust over the lyc chaser to himself.
Wendell had firsthand experience with just how manic and unstable lyc chasers could be. His sophomore year roommate at his original college was a lyc chaser. His name was Benji, and he was seriously mentally ill with self-esteem in tatters.
His fixation with werewolves and becoming one himself led to an accident of astronomical proportions, where he nearly died, DONHE rushed in, and Wendell had to leave the college immediately without the chance to even go to his dorm room one last time to retrieve his belongings.
The second college Wendell transferred to was where he met Cayden.
The second, third, and fourth videos Cayden played were just as appalling. The imprisoned werewolf in each of them was different.
“Stop, stop, stop,” Wendell croaked. “I’m going to puke, Cayden.”
It was atrocious and vile. Even for lyc chasers, these videos were taking it too far.
“There’s one more,” Cayden held it up, “If you want to wait for me in the other room, I understand,” he rubbed Wendell’s back.
“No, you’re right, we came here for a reason,” Wendell said faintly, feeling queasy and lightheaded.
Cayden put the final video in and pressed play. Immediately, it was different. The camera panned out the window to the night sky. The moon was a crescent.
“See now the powers of the Super Blood Moon. The powers that can be yours!” the manic voice promised.
The camera pulled away from the moon and onto a different cell-like room this time. Inside the cage was the lone wolf who tried to warn Wendell.
Wendell gasped and lunged for Cayden. “It’s –”
“Him,” Cayden said. “Yeah.”
Both men watched the screen with wide eyes as the man speaking in the video continued his narration.
“And with these words, see how the wolf within him emerges without the full moon! See how he, who was bitten on the night of the Super Blood Moon, defies the confines of the three night moonset ensnaring us all!”
“Can he be more dramatic?” Cayden muttered.
The unseen man directed a trio of robe-wearing followers, probably lyc chasers themselves, to draw runes on the ground and light candles arranged into a star shape. He chanted gibberish words in an increasingly manic voice.
The lone wolf in the cage screamed and writhed. His whole body began to shake and tremble. He collapsed and seized on the ground.
In horror and fascination, Wendell and Cayden watched as his human body transformed into his wolf one.
His werewolf form looked just as starved and ill as his human. He raged at the bars holding him in, gnawing at them and breaking his teeth.
Wendell winced and turned away. The sounds were horrific enough. He didn’t need to watch another second. Cayden shut the video off.
“They’re lying,” Wendell said, “Whatever culty game they’re playing here, it’s all a lie. I was bitten during a super blood moon, and I can’t transform into a werewolf at will.”
“The ritual was bogus, too,” Cayden added, “The shapeshifting ritual doesn’t call for candles, robes, and pentagrams. I was there when my parents went through it. There’s no pageantry. Whoever is behind this is treating it like a game. They’re either a complete idiot or they know exactly what they’re doing. It didn’t look like the lone wolf wanted to be a part of it either. They probably suckered him in by promising him a place in a new pack unlike any other.”
“And they’re promising all of these lyc chasers something they’ll never be able to deliver,” Wendell said solemnly. “These videos are convincing enough. Especially if they already want to believe it’s true. But what I don’t understand is what they want with me. Who is framing me as their leader, and why?”
“Could it be your ex-college roommate? What was his name, Benji?”
“Benji had no clue I became a werewolf during a camping trip when I was twelve. The last thing I heard about him was that the witch and warlock division of DONHE performed the legally highest grade memory charms on him. He might not even remember his own name, let alone me,” Wendell said heavily.
“We should go,” Cayden said, “these people could be back any moment. We’ve already been in here way too long, Wen.”
“We need to check the basement first,” Wendell said, hating it as he said it.
“Yeah. That’s a good idea,” Cayden agreed.
No, you were supposed to drag my ass out of here, Wendell thought to himself in despair.
Hand in hand, they backtracked through the house and made their way down to the basement.
The basement felt like a labyrinth. It was gloomy and damp and had freakishly long, narrow hallways. Tarps hung in the doorways, and they had to fight through the loud, scratchy plastic.
Wendell gasped as the same cell that was in the videos came into view. It was empty, but it still smelled like the lone wolf.
“How the hell did he make it out of here on his own?” Cayden asked, examining the cell from every angle.
“What if the lone wolf didn’t escape?” Wendell asked as the realization dawned on him. “What if he was deliberately set free?”
“You’re saying the lyc chasers wanted him to talk to us?” Cayden frowned. “What would they have to gain from that?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Wendell sighed. “Lately, that’s all we’re getting. Question after question with no answers in sight.”
“Well, there’s one thing that there’s no question about. Your innocence,” Cayden said firmly. “Their shoddy frame job won’t convince anyone who really knows you, Wen.”
“Thanks for that, Cayden,” Wendell smiled. “It’s nice to know that I don’t need to fight to clear my name around you.”
“Not even for a second, Wen,” Cayden said fiercely. “They’re trying to paint you as a monster. But do you know what I’ve seen?”
Wendell shook his head.
“Your humanity, Wen,” Cayden said.
“Cayden–” Wendell started.
Cayden urgently held a finger up to his mouth, his eyes wide. Wendell froze.
He didn’t need to use his superior hearing to pick up on the car that pulled into the driveway above them. Seconds later, the voices and footsteps of the people who were in the car entered the house.
“They’re human. The lyc chasers,” Wendell whispered.
They’d need to be as stealthy as possible getting out of the house.
Through another tarp covered doorway, they found a storm door that led to the outside.
Cayden eased it open. It shrieked and groaned. To Wendell, it sounded thunderstorm loud in the empty basement. Wendell didn’t let himself speculate about how loud it sounded to the lyc chasers in the house. He and Cayden bolted up the stairs and out.
There wasn’t a lot of tree coverage on the street. Together, Cayden and Wendell sprinted for what was there.
The neighbors unknowingly planted some trees and bushes that were capable of masking some of the scent of a werewolf, and Cayden posed them to hide behind them.
It was a small space though, and Cayden and Wendell had to smush their bodies together. Cayden stood behind Wendell, practically spooning him where they stood.
The silver car in the driveway was so familiar that Wendell’s jaw dropped. “That’s,” he started to gasp, when another car pulled up to the house and parked.
Wendell’s heart pounded in his ears. His mouth dried, and his stomach twisted and knotted. This wasn’t good.
“Those are the cars that tried to run Dirk off the road on Hollow Road!” Wendell whispered.
“Both of them?” Cayden whispered back.
Wendell nodded.
The passenger was the woman from the first video they watched in the house.
Cayden inhaled behind Wendell. He was so close his breath tickled Wendell’s skin.
“The bite worked. She’s a lone wolf,” he whispered so quietly into Wendell’s ear, he could barely hear the words.
The driver got out of the car next. Wendell’s jaw dropped. It was the fake DONHE agent, Gideon Crow, except this time he didn’t have the blue hair or triangular sunglasses.
“Stevie said he was dead!” Wendell frantically whispered.
“Maybe someone else was pretending to be an agent,” Cayden whispered back.
“But what are the odds?” Wendell challenged.
“Maybe Stevie was wrong,” Cayden tried.
“I can’t believe boss man wants us to do that,” Gideon scoffed to the girl.
“Yeah, do we seriously need to go all the way there just for him to make his point?” the girl agreed.
“He’s so dramatic,” Gideon rolled his eyes.
“Don’t let him hear you say that. He’d probably tear your tongue out,” the girl warned. “He’s a fucking psycho.”
“But he knows what he’s doing, and he’s made good on all his promises so far,” Gideon said, “so we have to –”
He was cut off by his phone ringing.
“That him again?” the girl asked.
“Who else?” Gideon snorted. They walked into the house as he answered the phone.
“Let’s go,” Wendell whispered, and together they hurried out of the bushes and sprinted for the street where he parked his rental car.
They were nearly back at the town Wendell lived in when Cayden finally broke the silence.
“We need to call DONHE,” Cayden said resolutely. “We need to report this. I know what you’re going to say, Wen, I know you’re going to say–”
“I have a dead DONHE agent in my garage,” Wendell said weakly.
“That… that’s … not what I knew you were going to say,” Cayden said lamely, the color draining out of his cheeks. “What do you mean you have a dead DONHE agent in your garage? You didn’t think that was important to tell me sooner, Wen? Like right after it happened, sooner?”
“I didn’t… I wasn’t… I was hoping his ghost would tell me … more,” Wendell cringed, “But he hasn’t … come back.”
“Not everyone who dies becomes a ghost, Wen!” Cayden cried. “I can’t believe you’ve had a dead body in your garage for all this time.”
“It’s Odd Todd,” Wendell admitted, bracing himself for Cayden’s reaction.
“The DONHE agent from the Werewolf Registry assigned to your case? Oh my god, Wen. Babe, you have to realize how bad that looks!”
“I know how bad it looks, Cayden! Wh-what would you have wanted me to do! DONHE could’ve arrested and killed me! I … I never wanted this! I never wanted any of this,” Wendell pulled over and sank in his seat, hands grasping and yanking at his hair. “I just want to have a quiet, boring, normal life. I don’t want to become another dead werewolf. I don’t want my life to end in tragedy.”
”It won’t,” Cayden gently turned Wendell’s head to face him and kissed him on the forehead.
“I don’t want us to get DONHE involved,” Wendell insisted. He knew what he had to say next but the nervousness make his voice tremble, “But maybe Violet can help.”
“I can’t believe that you’ve not only been harboring the dead DONHE agent assigned to your case in your garage for days but you’re also palling around with a hunter from one of the most notorious monster-hunting families. Who are you and what happened to Wen?”
“I like your whole Katniss Everdeen look,” Dani told Violet.
Wendell, Dani, Aurora, Cayden, and Violet all congregated in Wendell’s living room.
Violet was kitted out in all the monster-hunting regalia she wore when she first went after Wendell. Her hair was even braided the same way. She didn’t have her crossbow, Freya, but Wendell could smell a knife, a small pistol, and silver bullets on her.
“Cayden, if there are enough lone wolves and lyc chasers around, could they crowd hellhounds out of their territory?” Aurora asked.
“Absolutely, Aurora. And I knew whatever was going on, it had to be lyc chasers and lone wolves together,” Cayden said disgustedly.
“And someone is framing me as the leader of it all,” Wendell said wearily, holding up the freaky magazine page they swiped from the lyc chaser house. “Violet, I’m still trying to figure out how they could’ve gotten a hold of one of your silver bullets.”
“The last werewolf I killed was Becca Blake in London, and I retrieved the bullet,” Violet said.
“So you didn’t kill any local werewolves?” Wendell asked.
“No, but Dirk did,” Violet said thoughtfully.
“Could he have left the bullet?” Wendell asked.
“If he did, he didn’t tell me,” Violet said sternly.
“Somebody’s in troooouuuble,” Dani said.
“Watch it, werecat,” Violet said.
“So we have an explanation for that at least,” Wendell said in relief. “Something still isn’t adding up, though. It’s the lone wolf. What if he wasn’t a lone wolf by choice? Could he have been ousted from his pack? Is that why he was with the lyc chasers?”
“If he was, how would that help at all, Wen?” Cayden asked gently.
“I don’t know, Cayden,” Wendell said honestly, “But I’m missing something there and I need to know what.”
“Wen, are you maybe… are you maybe trying to get closure for yourself?” Cayden asked in the same gentle voice. “Aurora just put you through retrocognition a week ago, and you relived that night with the lone wolf that saved you.”
“That bit me, you mean,” Wendell said bitterly. “And speaking of him, Cayden, do you know anything about a werewolf pack that might’ve been living in that abandoned fun park?”
Mary Shelley jumped into Cayden’s lap and sprawled her fluffy body out.
“They might be the Wolfeiler-Strohm pack,” Cayden said as he scratched Mary Shelley’s neck. “If they are, they might not be there anymore. From how you described them to me, it seemed like there were a lot of older members.”
“Could the pack have split?” Wendell asked. “Could any of them still be there?”
“Maybe, but probably not, Wen. Once the older pack members died out, the younger ones probably left the state for their own grounds. Relocating, especially in very remote territories like that one, is common. I’ll ask around and see if I can find anything else out.”
“Speaking of asking around, I need to talk to Lupa and Dacian. They might know more than we do right now,” Wendell said heavily.
“Yeah, Wen, but they’re, you know, locked up,” Aurora winced.
“I know,” Wendell said. Paying a visit to DONHE, let alone their werewolf containment unit, wasn’t something one did for shits and giggles. “I need a way to get in and talk with them.”
“You can pretend you have a tip?” Aurora asked.
“It wouldn’t be pretending, and that’s what I’m worried about. If I slip up, they can hold me there. They can lock me up just like they did Stevie’s parents,” Wendell shuddered.
“You won’t slip up,” Cayden said firmly, “You have us.” He put his arm around Wendell and hugged him close to his body. Wendell let himself melt into the warm, comforting touch.
“But wait I don’t have you…” Wendell said, stiffening as the idea hit him. “I’m divorcing you…” He said slowly, “and I don’t want to keep spending my moonsets in a mini moving van… I need somewhere safe to transform for the next full moon in July… I need to rent out one of their cells, and I want to choose it.”
“Yes, Wen! You have an in!” Aurora clapped.
Did you enjoy journeying with Wen and Cayden through the creepy lyc-chaser and lone wolf house on Briar Street? Consider clicking the heart to “like” this chapter and leaving a quick comment! I LOVE to hear from my readers! 🤗 Let’s make this a community space!