Werewolf the Podcast: Werewolf Recovery and the Fellowship of the Zoom Call. (Episode 231)

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• 15:33 [Ad] The Podcast Inside Your House
• 16:21 (Cont.) Werewolf the Podcast: Werewolf Recovery and the Fellowship of the Zoom Call. (Episode 231)

Transcript

Wil 

When I woke up, I didn't really want to be awake. 

No, fuck being awake, everything hurt.

I was not used to it hurting like this. As my Werewolfy self, I didn't hurt a lot for long, and I had been a werewolf with Fen all my life. 

Something was different.

The pain was.

It was the sort of pain that lets you know you're not quite done with living yet — just being politely asked to reconsider it.

The room was dim and warm, the fire in the hearth crackling like it was enjoying a private joke about my suffering. I would allow that it was comforting in a way.

The room was the Professor's, definitely. The Professor liked his rooms like he liked his Latin: archaic, overcomplicated, and full of words nobody's used since 434 BC.

I wonder just how much money a man can acquire if he has lived eight centuries. This house, no manor, was something else. 

My mind came back to the room. 

There was the faint smell of lavender, polish and book dust, and the gentle clink of a clock that had been ticking so long it probably thought it was keeping time for eternity. 

I lay there, sheets heavy and soft against my skin. thousand-strand Egyptian cotton. Heavenly, and for a moment I thought I might actually be dead. 

There was a Grrr, not from the shadows but straight to my brain. At least Fenrir was here and, as usual, angry.

I laughed a little to myself, stopping as my ribcage told me in no uncertain terms to stop with its new moment of explosive agony.

I compensated for this by trying to breathe correctly, and the hurt in my ribs eased to a simple, unbearable ache.

'Still here then,' I muttered in my mind to the wolf soul.

'You shouldn't be,' growled a voice that wasn't exactly in the room — more like in the walls of my bones.

'Morning, Fen.'

'Morning? There is nothing of morning in this. You bleed still. You reek of holiness. And I will not forget what they did.'

As I have already said. That was Fenrir — Fen to me — my other half, maybe now my worse half, my wolf-soul. 

We've been together since I was a screaming bundle of mortal meat. It's an old bond, forged in something older than blood. I heal because he stays. I live because he refuses to leave. I sometimes suspect he only does so out of spite.

The angels had done a proper job on us. 

Five of them. Radiant bastards, glowing like they'd swallowed the sun and found it agreeable. 

You don't expect angels to fight dirty — that's more of a demon thing. Turns out, celestial beings are quite happy to stab you in the spleen if they think you've broken a divine parking regulation.

Michael himself had led the charge. You never forget the smell of ozone and burning feathers. 

They'd called me an abomination, and I'd had just enough breath left to call him a self-righteous glowstick.

He was right, though.

I am an abomination.

I do not fit into this world.

We do not fit into this world. Fen and I

We do not fit because we are Werewolf, and also because I have been at the doors of Heaven and Hell and been refused entry to both. 

I'm not sure who won thee... argument between me and the celestial... bastards. 

Well, that's not true. I definitely lost more blood. 

But it was not all one-sided. 

One of the God blessed turkeys will find it challenging to fly properly with the considerable amount of feathers and flesh I ripped from his wings. 

Angel wings are tasty.

I tried to move again, and the pain flared like bad jazz in my nervous system. 

My body heals fast, usually faster than the mind can keep up. But this time, the magic that feeds that recovery felt clogged. Gummed up like trying to run a miracle through a drainpipe full of holy water.

Something was not right.

'They burned the tether,' Fen whispered, his voice low and dangerous, recognising my ill ease. 

'They reached between us and struck at the binding. They wanted us apart.'

'But the bastards could not do it. My magic is older and not born of them.'

'But... they weakened the link.'

I didn't answer. He was right. I could feel it — that faint tremor where his essence met mine, frayed at the edges. It was like having your shadow threaten to pack its bags and leave.

The fire popped. A log gave up and collapsed into embers. Somewhere beyond the door, I heard footsteps. Soft ones. Too light for the Professor.

Then she appeared in an instant at the doorway.

Vaughnt.

The Professor's housekeeper, though that title undersold her in the same way, calling the ocean "slightly damp" might. 

All the years I had known her, she had looked twenty-something, with her skin as pale as candle wax.

Her hair was black and as sharp as a crow's wing. A perfect mohawk. I can honestly say I would never consider that a perfect style on anyone... but on her, it was not just perfect but... quintessentially necessary.

The Victorian-esque maids' outfit she wore was less a uniform and more a masterclass in strategic disclosure. 

A paradox of service and dominance stitched together in black. 

You should know, listening to this podcast, that I enjoy tailoring and fashion to a level that most would hold as obsessive. 

She was the genuine alternative to fashion, but so beautifully alternative that it worked so well.

Her dress was a truncated thing of ribbed black velvet, so short it seemed to be a mere memory of a hemline, a whisper against the tops of her thighs. 

Underneath, giving it an almost revealing volume were a number of short white petticoats. Ripped lace, tattered to perfection. On others, it would look ridiculous on her; it was... well, again, that word, perfect. 

The mock of a uniform was cinched at the waist by a corset of black satin, its boning a deliberate architecture that sculpted her torso into an hourglass, making every breath a visible, tantalising event.

I was what we in Manchester called gobsmacked. 

Speechless, just lying there and admiring her like I would some cliched sculpture of Micheal Angelo.

But the thing that got me. 

Or should I say the pair of things that got me? 

The anchor of the entire dizzying composition was the footwear: thigh-high Doc Martens. 

I know it doesn't seem like they should be the standout part of the outfit, nor... dare I say it, glamorous... or perhaps sexy, but they were.

They were polished to a liquid obsidian shine. 

They were brutalist and practical, these stomping pillars of leather and lace, rising to meet the fleeting shadow of the lace and velvet ensemble with a stark, authoritative presence. 

The gap between the top of the boots and the hem of the velvet dress was a mere hand's breadth of sheer black ripped stocking, a dark window into a mystery that was both offered and fiercely protected. 

It was the nexus of the entire silhouette, a focal point of devastating tension where softness met immutable strength, creating a pendulum of allure that swung with every step that she took. 

The jingle of the silver chains on her hips was the soundtrack to this beautiful, walking contradiction.

I had to look away as she walked. There are certain things even a werewolf can't control when things like her provoke it.

I struggled and won over my... erm... manhood, so I looked at her again. She had paused to allow me to see her in full effect. 

Unlike most supernatural beauties, this effect did not come from a glamour that is placed upon you. No, this was just her.

She knew what she was doing, and I both hated that fact and liked it. 

She gave me a slight twirl before turning back to meet my worshipping gaze with a coy smile, followed by a delicious bite of her blood red lower lip. 

'Jesus woman.' I said aloud.

She gave a silent knowing giggle, knowing her powers.

Fen was laughing and in good humour now at my discomfort.

That lip bite was a terrible weapon in her hands that should be banned by the Geneva Convention.

Let me wax a little more lyrical on the woman. No werecat. It is worth the next few musings to build her into the deserving monster she really was.

Her beauty was not of this century, but something excavated, a re-invention of Victorian mourning and alley-cat sharpness. 

Each side of her head, below her perfectly sharp hairstyle, was shaved and decorated with whorls and patterns of tattoos that I knew continued down her neck and covered her entire body from top to bottom. 

I had not seen them, but I knew. 

Her face was a pale, perfect oval, a canvas of alabaster upon which she had painted her own striking hieroglyphics. 

The kohl that rimmed her eyes was sharp enough to draw blood, elongating their shape into something distinctly, unnervingly feline. Of course, feline.

And her eyes—they were the true marvel. A luminous, moss-agate green, they held the same unblinking, knowing stillness as a cat's.

They were the eyes of a creature that saw the world not as a series of objects, but as a collection of shifting, half-hidden truths. 

They saw through me, not past me. They peeled back the layers of my injuries and my quiet desperation with a single, languid glance. 

A delicate silver ring, a tiny glint of polished ice, pierced one nostril, and from her ears, an assortment of black studs and silver chains dangled like occult charms. She was a sphinx in a maid's costume, and her gaze was the riddle.

She didn't speak. Vaughnt never did. The Professor said she'd lost her voice as a child.

He had found her somewhere in the Carpathians when a local village had gone on the hunt for her. 

He'd rescued her for that was his want. Or would it be collected her? Depends on your interpretation of her 'rescue.'

I tried to sit up, instantly regretted it, and decided I could, in fact, deliver any necessary heroics from a horizontal position.

Vaughnt glided closer. Fenrir growled inside me — a low, rumbling distrust that made my teeth ache.

'She smells of silver and moonlight. Be wary,' he hissed in my head.

'She also smells of antiseptic and coffee,' I returned. 

'Which means she's probably here to help.'

Vaughnt gave me one of her small, unreadable smiles and continued to sinuate her way towards the bed. 

She placed an espresso coffee cup delicately on the bedside table.

In her other hand, she held a basin, steam curling from it like ghostly breath, and a folded towel was slung on her arm. 

Without ceremony, she sat beside me, dipped the cloth into the water and pulled at the sheet covering my embarrassment. Me embarassed. What the f...

She met my eyes and reassured me. A silent giggle and then pulled the sheet hard revealing all of me to the room. 

I almost covered myself with my hands, but managed to turn the movement into me trying to get into a more comfortable position.

She knew. She shook her head and looked my body up and down, observing all of it, not in a seductive or sexy manner but as though she was a very competent medical practitioner.

She sucked her teeth, and her smile turned into a frown as she looked back at me and shook her head. Those eyes were full of concern.

She nodded at the towel she held. 

Oh, this was to get my consent to her procedure. I had to think of it as a procedure because if I just thought of her washing my skin dressed like that with warm water, then... well, as I said before, that would be incredibly embarrassing. 

Again, I never get embarrassed. What the Hell is going on?

I nodded my consent. She began.

'Think of naked Margaret Thatcher. That should keep you soft.' The wolf soul said, laughing in my head.

I ignored him but used Margaret in the precise manner he recommended. 

The warmth hit my skin, sharp and clean, and for a moment, all I could do was exhale.

Her fingers were deft, precise. She cleaned the burns and the stitched wounds with a surgeon's calm, ignoring the low growl that occasionally escaped from my throat — or maybe from Fen's.

Some of the wounds were still bloody.

I watched her work, half dazed, half aware of the thousand small things that didn't add up about her. 

The faint purring hum in the air when she moved. 

The way shadows seemed to linger around her shape.

The fact that she double winked. Never blinked. One eye would close and open, and then instantly, the second eye would follow. 

'Professor keeping you busy?' I asked because silence felt heavier than the excellent sheets.

She looked at me, placed the towel on my chest, pressed her index finger to my lips and admonished me with a shake of her head that set her jewellery to a pleasant tinkle.

The gesture said. You should be resting. Stop talking before you bleed again.

'Right. Got it.' I told her.

I let my head fall back against the pillow. The ceiling above me was cracked in elegant patterns, like a map of all the places I'd rather be.

Fenrir stirred again, restless. 'We should not be here. The angels will hunt again. They will come for the Professor next. He meddles in their theatre.'

'He meddles in everyone's theatre,' I replied to this internal conversation. 

'It's what he does. Besides, if anyone can talk an angel out of smiting him, it's Simon de Montfort. He once convinced a demon to pay rent.'

'Still. We should kill something soon.' the wolf was pissed. 

'Rest first. Revenge later. Priorities.' I told him.

Vaughnt wrung out the cloth, her movements neat and almost ritualistic. I noticed faint scars on her wrists — fine, silver lines that glinted when the fire caught them.

No, not the scars of self-harm or attempted suicide.

They were the scars of old magic. 

Binding runes. 

She must have seen me looking, because she gave me a slight, conspiratorial smirk — as if to say, we've all got our monsters, don't we?

I chuckled, which hurt, which made me stop.

When she finished, she placed a kiss briefly on my forehead — a simple gesture, but something passed between us. Not warmth exactly, but calm. A silencing of the storm inside my skin.

And then she was gone, vanishing back through the door as silently as she'd come, leaving behind the faint scent of iron and lavender and secrets.

I lay there for a while, listening to the fire mutter and Fenrir pace inside my skull.

It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I might be the luckiest damned monster in England. 

I'd fought angels and lived, had a wolf for a soul, and a professor who collected lost creatures like this as curiosities in a cabinet.

But as the pain ebbed and the darkness crept in around the edges, I couldn't shake one thought:

If angels were hunting now, then something worse was already on its way.

And next time, I might not wake in a warm room with a fire and a cat-eyed nurse.

Next time, it might be the dark that found me first.

The Professor's Briefing

There are few circles of Hell more insidious than a Monday morning Zoom meeting.

And I say that as a man who has, on more than one occasion, been to Hell — professionally speaking.

It's much the same, really. Fire, brimstone, poor audio quality, and at least one participant whose camera is permanently pointed at their ceiling fan.

On my screen this morning were the familiar faces of Britain's least celebrated line of defence against the impossible. 

The Supernatural Defence Force, the Supernatural Police Department, and a scattering of independent contractors whose official titles ranged from 'Special Investigator' to 'The Thing That Cleans Up After Things.'

Front and centre was Detective Ben Johnson, looking as if he hadn't slept since forever, which, given recent events in Walthamstow, was understandable.

Beside him sat Detective Soula Abda, who had perfected the expression of a woman who'd seen too much and hadn't been impressed by any of it. 

Her mug — 'World's Least Shockable Detective' — steamed quietly. She always had a different musing on her mug at every meeting. How many mugs could one woman have? At least she took her coffee seriously. I respected that.

In the next square along was Wing Commander Montgomery Fortescue, resplendent in uniform, sunglasses glinting, I will tell you all about the reason those sunglasses are always needed at some point. 

His posture was straight enough to shame a lamppost. 

He had the look of a man who'd shot at dragons before breakfast and been disappointed with the quality of the sport. Which, In the case of Hitler's Black Attack Dragons of '42, he was.

The others — a smattering of analysts, field operatives, and what I think was a banshee consultant from the Dublin office — blinked back at me with varying degrees of caffeinated despair.

I cleared my throat.

'Right. Good morning, everyone. Or good whatever-time-of-day-you've-lost-track-of.' 

'I appreciate your attendance on short notice. We have, I'm afraid, several matters of considerable gravity to address.'

A pause. Someone's dog barked in the background. The banshee consultant sneezed and apologised in Gaelic.

'Firstly,' I continued, 'I am now in possession of a rather… unpleasant volume.'

Ben leaned forward. 'The book?'

'Yes, thee book,' I confirmed. 

'Given to me — and I use that term loosely — by none other than the Archangel Michael himself. It appeared in my study yesterday afternoon, unannounced and with no regard for personal boundaries or the structural integrity of my curtains.'

Soula raised an eyebrow. 'Michael. Thee Michael?'

'Indeed,' I said. 'Wings, glow, faint odour of divine self-righteousness. Very much the original article. He was quite insistent that I take possession of this tome. It is, he claims, designed to end the reign of Satan — and, rather disturbingly, to remove her from Hell entirely.'

That caused a small silence, which, on a Zoom call, feels like an eternity of pixelated blinking.

The Wing Commander coughed. 'Remove her, Professor? As in… delete her? I don't think she will allow that old chap.'

'She has already made her feelings obvious to me, Monty old man. She can do nothing but hope we help her.' Again, the rock classic came to my mind, 'Sympathy for the Devil.'

'If we carry out this ritual, it will cause her... eviction. Expunge her. Strike from the record. Which, given Satan's somewhat… resilient nature, is a task roughly equivalent to removing ink from the concept of paper.'

I gave all the watchers a moment as this sank into many minds.

Ben swore under his breath, emotively. 

Soula simply sipped her coffee, looking on blankly.

I smiled at the incongruency of them. Perhaps being opposites made them the team they are. 

'The book,' I went on, 'is written in a language I have not seen before, which is rather saying something, but I can read it.'

The Wing Commander did one of his famous British huffs at this statement. Not a noise of irritation, a noise of confusion. He was a bright chap, but lived in a modern world that confused him.

It hums, very faintly, when you touch it. And I am not ashamed to admit that it made the mirrors in my study whisper for nearly ten minutes before I could shut them up.'

'Michael wishes me to perform the ritual contained within it. He believes that doing so will finally end the war below.'

'And will it?' asked Soula, her tone straightforward and seeming not to care.

'Oh, it most certainly will,' I replied. 'The problem, my dear, is that I am not entirely convinced which side it will end it for.'

There was a brief interruption as the Wing Commander attempted to unmute himself.

'...nable contraption— ah! There we are. Professor, might I ask what this has to do with our little supermarket tragedy in Walthamstow?' (dog barks)

'Binky! Put Maramduke back in the kitchen, dear. He's bothering the Postman.'

'Ah, yes,' I said, warming to my subject. 

'Detective Johnson here was kind enough to brief me on the matter. Four victims, ritualistic mutilation, and what appears to be a summoning of no small ambition. What particularly concerns me is that among the detritus of that ritual — the blood, the sigils, the faint smell of regret — there was found a single angelic feather.'

Now that caused a stir. Even on a digital screen, you could feel the shift. Faces froze, eyes widened, someone whispered something unprintable.

'Yes,' I said grimly. 'A genuine article. Ben assures me he examined it personally. Which raises a rather chilling question: what in God's name — quite literally — was an angel doing participating in a ritual designed to breach the veil? And more to the point, why was it left behind?'

Soula frowned. 'Could it have been a trap? Something meant to draw us in?'

'Possibly. Though I'm inclined to think it was part of the ritual itself. You don't use angelic matter lightly. It's the magical equivalent of detonating a nuke to light a candle.'

The Wing Commander grunted. 'So we've got angels, devils, and ritual murderers all mucking about in North London. Marvellous. Anyone bringing biscuits to the apocalypse, or shall we just starve in an orderly fashion?' He smiled as he crunched on a Hob Nob.

No one laughed.

I adjusted my glasses. 'I am, as you might imagine, rather disinclined to perform the ritual Michael requested until we understand precisely what the consequences will be. I had hoped one of you might have some insight.'

Blank faces. A few shrugged shoulders. Someone's connection dropped.

'Utterly splendid,' I sighed. 'The fate of cosmic balance rests in our hands, and not one of us has a theory. Ben, Soula — you've both seen more supernatural horror than most libraries. Nothing?'

Ben shook his head. 'Professor, whatever happened in that supermarket wasn't human, and it wasn't demonic either. It felt… off. Like something divine trying to play by infernal rules.'

'That,' I said, 'is precisely what I was afraid of.'

We lingered in silence. The fire in my office crackled softly, the only honest sound in the world.

Finally, I nodded. 'Very well. Keep your teams on alert. If there's even a whisper of celestial interference in your cases, I want to know. I'll continue examining the book. Perhaps…' — I hesitated, just for a moment — 'perhaps I'll consult an old friend.'

The Wing Commander tilted his head. 'Ah. You don't mean Ernest?'

'I do,' I said. 'If anyone knows the etiquette for telling an Archangel to sod off, it's Ernest Wainwright.'

That earned a few smiles.

'Give him my best and tell him Knight to Bishop four for our game.' Said Monty.

I smiled and nodded. My thoughts already elsewhere.

I ended the call with the gentle click of a mouse and the faint echo of digital farewells. 

The screen went black, and for a long while I simply stared at my own reflection — the tired man who stared back looking rather too much like someone halfway to becoming one of his own case studies.

The book lay open on the desk before me. Its pages shifted faintly, as if stirred by a wind that wasn't there. The symbols moved when you weren't looking, like shy insects.

'Ernest,' I muttered, reaching for the phone. 'Let's see what you make of these shenanigans.'

The line rang once. Twice.

Then a voice — rich, amused, and just faintly dangerous — answered:

'Simon, my dear fellow. To what do I owe the pleasure — or the warning?'

I smiled grimly. 'Both, I'm afraid, old friend. We appear to have an angel problem.'