Werewolf the Podcast: Eleanor Rigby meets the Werewolf (Epsiode 232)

The PhD student writing her thesis on the Surgut Werewolves gets her chance to meet one of them. Wil, the psychotic friend of the Professor. She discovers him at the Prof's Manor after a fight with some... angels. She has the dubious job of picking up the wolfy man from the Prof's residence and taking him to a meeting. He does not want to go.

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The Podcast Inside Your House

Weird Horror. Created by Kevin Schrock and Annie Marie Morgan. 

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Chapters

• 21:47 [Ad] The Podcast Inside Your House
• 22:35 (Cont.) Werewolf the Podcast: Eleanor Rigby meets the Werewolf (Epsiode 232)

Transcript

My name is Eleanor Rigby. 

Yes, I know painfully that's the name of a famous Beatles song. We will just get that out of the way now.

I loved my parents, but that was one reason why I disliked them ever so slightly. School was a song a minute. You can imagine.

I am twenty-five years of age, from a small village in Scotland called Fettercairn, and this monologue is starting to feel like the beginning of a job interview.

I have made some questionable decisions in pursuit of academic distinction, but none so questionable as driving my Toyota Aygo up the mile-long drive of Professor Simon de Montfort's estate.

My little car, Betty, bless its age-weakened tiny heart. Objected to the entire experience. It whined in every gear and coughed up the road like a chain-smoker on judgment day. Bless her.

The gravel beneath the tyres sounded expensive. 

The air tasted expensive. 

The house, well, it looked expansively expensive as it finally revealed itself at the end of a mile's worth of private road. 

It was a sprawling Victorian manor built on the sort of scale that made you feel either very small or very trespassy. 

From my own perspective, it hurt my skint student lifestyle imagining how much it would cost to heat that place. 

The baby castle loomed from the mist like it had been waiting for an excuse to appear in a gothic novel. 

I expected a murder of crows to float into the air above its roof. Sorry, I had to mention that a flock of crows is called a murder. Pretty nifty, eh?

The gardens — if you could call them that — stretched out like the fever dream of an overpaid landscape architect. 

Looking at these Gardens and the care taken of them. I was made annoyed and guilty about my lack of capable care for the spindly spider plant that hung on by some miracle of life in the corner of my kitchen windowsill. 

I somehow guessed that the Professor had someone who does for his garden. Or a small team of people who do, to look after this lawn alone. 

Knowing him, he probably had a crack team of Gnomes or something similar to work on things. 

I got closer to the manor and passed by a rose garden. Yes, a section of garden just for roses. 

Those roses were too red to be natural. 

I was sure I saw the flitter of something above them and a sparkle in the air. You don't get hummingbirds in southern England, do you? Fairies?

The hedges surrounding the rose garden were clipped into the shapes of things that may once have been human, and the fountain at its centre was shaped like some Roman god mid-existential crisis.

And through all this, I kept thinking excitedly: 

'This is where the Professor lives. The man who discovered the Surgut werewolf tribe, who catalogued the Soul Duality Phenomenon, and who has tea with entities that predate language.'

He was overseeing my own research on the Russian Werewolf tribe.

And now, he had sent me to meet my inspiration first-hand. Thee Wil. Thee psychotic killer of thousands and his wolf soul partner, Fenrir.

I parked in front of the double oak doors — the kind of doors that didn't open so much as make an entrance themselves. 

Little red Betty looked ridiculously out of context, parked in front of this... Englishnessnessness

I hesitated for half a second, rehearsing how a serious academic would knock. 

It didn't work. Eventually, I knocked like a nervous Girl Guide selling cursed biscuits.

The door opened instantly. I mean, as my knuckle hit the door. I physically jumped back.

She filled the doorway before I'd even processed she was real. 

Vaughnt. The Professor's housekeeper, assistant, and — if the academic rumour mill was to be believed — his one-woman supernatural defence system. 

She was the only known Werecat in... captivity? Erm, no, not captivity. Erm... in the Professor's house?

She was breathtaking. I mean, I am pretty dam hetero in my outlook. We've all experimented, but this woman was a test of being a cis white female.

She would have made Rihanna look... dowdy.

She was tall, slim, all black and white lace and impossible angles.

I could not speak. In fact, I could not breathe.

She wore a maid's dress — or something inspired by one in a fever dream. It clung to her like the night sky clings to stars. I mean, it looked like it had been sewn on to her. 

Her hair, a sleek, sculpted mohawk, was the shade of midnight, and her eyes—Her eyes were... wrong.

Not in the sense of being monstrous, but in the sense of being too right.

They glowed faintly, predatory, intelligent. I felt like I was definitely being judged. That's cats for you, though. 

Feline eyes.

And when she smiled, she did it with teeth.

'Um—hello,' I stammered. 'I'm Eleanor Rigby. The Professor asked me to—' My voice was croaky and squeaky at the same time. 

In my mind, I was trying to think that being squeaky was probably not a good thing to be in front of this creature. 

She smiled a killer's smile again and tilted her head, looked me up and down the way one might appraise a mouse deciding whether it was worth the pounce, and smiled even wider. Those teeth really went ting.

She said nothing, of course — the Professor had mentioned she couldn't speak — but she stepped aside and gestured for me to enter. 

She did not seem to move. 

She was there, and then she was... over there. 

I had heard of the Werecats' speed, but to see it in the real world. The real world (laugh). Made it seem... real.

I nervously walked past her, her gaze never leaving me. 

I was sure she gave me a sniff as I passed, but I did not notice her move. 

All my animal brain was screaming rebellion at giving this creature my rear.

I tried to beat back the little prey version of me as a meek mouse and focused on the new sights I saw. 

The air inside the manor was thick with incense and old secrets. Somewhere, something barked. Not a dog. A... Who knows with the Professor?

There was a rumour that he had a Chupacabra called Dave. That had to be made up, though. Didn't it?

The noise made me shiver. It was not a nice noise, and I did not want to meet the thing that made such a noise if I could help it. Even if it was the Chupacabra.

I tried to start a conversation with Vaughnt because silence and I have never gotten along. I chatter when nervous. It's my thing.

'You're… the Vaughnt, aren't you? The Carpathian werecat? You were rescued by the Professor when you were six? I read about you in the Occult Anthropology journals—well, not you specifically, you're not exactly public record, but the reports of your kind are fascinating. Do you—'

She stopped mid-step and gave a silent sigh. Then was suddenly stood directly in front of me with one black-lacquer nailed finger on my lips. Again, I never saw her move.

The look she gave me said, in perfect silence: Stop. Talking.

I did instantly. Those eyes were not angry or cruel, but they were not to be argued with. 

Then she turned and walked on. 

I followed, chastened, because you do not argue with a creature who might eat you for your punctuation.

She led me through a hall lined with portraits whose eyes had long since grown bored of watching mortals. They did not follow you; they looked away in disdain.

The smell of old books and wood polish gave way to something heavier — smoke, perhaps, and something faintly… animal.

We stopped before a pair of ornate doors. From inside came voices — one human, one not... there?

'…you think I wanted this, Fenrir? You think I asked to be torn apart by angels? You think I enjoy feeling my bones knit like wet rope?'

Then a growl, low and furious, not from a throat but from somewhere deeper — a sound that vibrated the air itself.

'Don't you growl at me!' the man's voice snapped. 

'You left me when I needed you most! You let them—'

Another growl. Sharper. Closer. And then silence.

Vaughnt knocked once — soft but deliberate. Then she opened the door and gestured for me to go inside before following me in. 

The lounge was all warmth and firelight, rich with books and smoke. 

A great hearth roared at the far end, and shadows flickered across antique furniture and leather-bound volumes that might have been bound in things best left unnamed.

And there he was.

Wil, the sociopathic Werewolf that I had been studying and dreaming of for the past three years. I felt like a small child on Christmas morning sitting before all my presents, desperate to open them. 

He sat by the fire, shirtless, a faint shimmer of old wounds tracing his skin like ghostly ink. His hair was black with streaks of silver at the temples, his eyes a deep, unnatural gold that caught the light like molten metal. 

His looking at me made certain parts of my mind react in different ways. I will not share how I was feeling and thinking because such things are personal, and I like to keep myself to myself. Let's just say I was... impressed with the man. 

Every movement he made seemed a reluctant one, as he slowly turned to regard us. 

It was as though his body still remembered pain even if the wounds were gone.

'Professor's intern,' he growled, finally noticing me and using no superfluous words. His tone was rough, the kind that made apologies sound like challenges.

'You must be the courier.' He smiled.

It took me a while to realise he was speaking to me. I was just lost looking at him. He was...

The Werecat next to me put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a gentle shake, which brought me out of his eyes and back into the room. 

I looked at her. 

She rolled her green orbs at me, before turning me to face her, placing her other hand on my other shoulder and giving me another shake. 

The man I could not see gave a knowing laugh in the background. 

There was a pause as my brain rebooted.

Once Vaughnt thought me ready to return to conversation, she turned me back to face the man and patted me gently on the back a couple of times. It was considerate of her and incredibly reassuring. 

'Ahem.' 

'I—yes.'

'He... erm, he sent me to bring you to the University,' I managed, trying not to sound as if I'd just been handed a live grenade. 

'He said you're needed for a meeting.'

Wil gave a small, humourless laugh. 

'He would.'

Then, to the empty air beside him, he said: 

'What do you think, Fen? Should we go let him poke and prod at us again? Maybe he'll find a cure for divine evisceration this time.'

He was talking to his wolf soul. His invisible other. I had dreamed of seeing. Erm... not seeing him. 

I stared at the space. 

There was nothing there — and yet the air rippled, the fire guttered, and something vast and invisible shifted in the room. 

I felt Fen before I could imagine him — a wolfish presence, heavy with rage and grief. It pressed against my mind, curious and disdainful all at once.

Even though I could not see him, I could feel him. I really could.

'Small human,' he seemed to whisper. 'You reek of questions.'

I could hear him. I could. The training I had done with the Professor had worked. I could sense him. This was incredible. Maybe one day, if I kept up the work, I would see the soul. 

That idea was beyond exciting. 

This was a dream come true. I wanted to run. I wanted to write. I wanted to kneel. I wanted to pee. All at once.

Wil sighed. 'Ignore him. He's in a mood.'

'I noticed,' I whispered. I had noticed. Amazing.

Vaughnt stepped forward, then placed a gentle hand on Wil's shoulder. 

He didn't flinch, but the growl that had been building in the air vanished.

She looked at him with something that might have been pity. 

Then she looked at me — and though she said nothing, her eyes made it perfectly clear: Be careful. He's not healed. Neither of them are.

I nodded.

'Tell the Professor,' Wil said finally, 'that I'll come when I'm ready.'

And then, more quietly, almost to himself:

'If I ever am.'

The fire cracked. Vaughnt turned to leave. 

Had I just been dismissed?

I started to follow. My pulse was blazing. I was told to come and get him. What was I going to do?

Behind us, I heard him murmur — not to me, not to her, but to the thing that shared his soul.

'We're not done, Fenrir. Not yet.'

We left the lounge in silence, though silence in that house was never really silent. 

The walls whispered the kind of things walls only learn after decades of listening to secrets. 

The portrait's eyes now followed me. 

They had developed judgmental gazes that suggested they'd all been minor deities in their day jobs.

Vaughnt led the way down the hall, her stompy boots not being stompy but delicate against the old parquet like punctuation marks in an ancient language.

I trailed behind, trying not to breathe too loudly, trying even harder not to think about the invisible wolf that had been watching me from inside Wil's head.

Halfway to the grand staircase, I stopped.

I don't know what possessed me — courage, stupidity, or academic ambition, which is often a combination of both — but I found myself blurting out:

'I can't leave without him. The Professor said it was urgent. He has to come with me. Now.'

Vaughnt stopped mid-step and turned. The movement was smooth, deliberate — feline. Her head tilted slightly, and her expression… shifted. 

It wasn't annoyance, exactly, more like the slow, amused realisation that the mouse had decided to make a stand.

I swallowed. 'Please. He's… important. The Professor needs him. You understand, don't you?"

For a moment, she just looked at me. Those strange, emerald eyes studied my face with a predator's patience, and I was suddenly aware of how loud my heartbeat was. 

Then she nodded, once — a small, graceful motion that somehow carried both agreement and command.

Without a word, she turned on her heel and slipped back toward the lounge.

The door closed behind her with the softest click.

And then—

Raised voices.

Wil's, low and growling. Vaughnt's silent, but I could feel her sign language. I know it's impossible, but it wasn't impossible. The air was thick with her wordless, signed reproach.

I couldn't make out words, only the pulse of tension, the back-and-forth of something older than language — irritation, duty, something like resentment.

A chair scraped. Then the door opened again with a bang.

Wil stormed out.

He moved like a man reluctantly alive — shoulders broad, steps heavy, face set somewhere between a snarl and a sigh. He reeked of beast.

His t-shirt was half on, caught at the collar, his hair tousled, and for some absurd reason, it all worked for him. He looked like a myth dragged kicking and screaming into modern fashion.

Behind him, Vaughnt appeared almost instantly, holding a black leather jacket that looked far too expensive to have been bought by anyone with a conscience. She slipped it around his shoulders before he could protest — quick, efficient, almost tender.

He rolled his eyes. 'You're worse than the fucking Professor.' He said at the young woman.

Vaughnt smiled — a small, knowing curve of her lips that somehow managed to be affectionate and mocking at once. 

She grabbed one of the man's shoulders and spun him against his will to face her. 

He stopped talking and focused his attention on those green eyes. 

She returned his stare and smirked before she adjusted his jacket collar like a mother tidying her son before a funeral.

He stood like a... a... naughty child while she fussed. 

Was this Wil the psychotic killing machine? 

Really?

It did not seem to be a scene that this horrific creature should be part of. 

Vaughnt looked at him again before her fingernails became claws. She stroked them carefully through his hair to bring it under some kind of control.

He made to speak. She stopped him with a look.

Finally, she smoothed a wrinkle from his sleeve with those talons withdrawn back into... somewhere. 

These two were terrifying predators, you could just feel it. 

But they were being... playful predators.

'And you can fuck off to.' Wil said, aiming his vitriol at an empty space to his left, which then gave me the impression that the space was... laughing. 

I stood frozen, clutching my phone before me like it might offer protection from the entire supernatural hierarchy currently arguing around me.

Wil looked at me then, with eyes that flickered between gold and amber as if the wolf inside him couldn't quite stay quiet.

'So,' he said. 'You're the Professor's new errand girl.'

The way he said it made 'errand girl' sound like both an insult and a warning.

'I—yes,' I said, attempting professional composure and landing somewhere closer to flustered intern. 

'He said he needs to see you. Something about the ritual. And the… angels.'

At that, something flickered behind his expression — pain, anger, maybe both. Ah, those eyes now showed the monster inside. It made me shudder before it sank again below his gaze.

'Fucking Angels again.' He grumbled before he exhaled slowly, tugging his jacket into place. 

'Of course he does. When there's divine fallout, call the monster to clean it up.'

'You're not—' I began, then realised maybe correcting a werewolf with trust issues wasn't in the job description.

Vaughnt, meanwhile, leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, watching him like one might watch a wayward husband heading to confession. 

Her expression said she'd seen this performance before — and that she wasn't entirely convinced he'd make it back in one piece.

Wil rubbed the back of his neck, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse, and started down the hall. 

As he passed me, I caught the faint scent of musk, pine, and something wilder — the smell of fur and blood and frost. 

Specific reactions occurred in me. 

My inner beast this time was not scared. It purred a different want at his passing.

'Well, intern,' he said, not looking back. 'Let's go find out what the good Professor wants this time. And pray it's not another apocalypse.'

Vaughnt's hand brushed his arm as he passed — a silent gesture that said be careful.

For a moment, he hesitated. Then, without turning, he said softly, 'You too... cat.'

Again, I took a personal note. The Psycho seemed to care? What? Not...

And just like that, he disappeared down the corridor, leaving the faint echo of his boots and the lingering weight of something unspoken.

Vaughnt watched him disappear into the misted morning beyond the doors, then turned to me.

She shook her head and offered a faint sense of mirth. 

Her lips curled into a small, silent smile. And before I could say anything — before I could thank her, apologise, or ask what exactly I'd gotten myself into — she simply winked, and vanished back into the shadows of the manor.

I exhaled and followed the Werewolf into the world.

The Professor's driveway was the sort of thing that could make lesser people develop imposter syndrome.

A mile of gravel so immaculate you could eat your dinner off it, flanked by trees that looked like they'd signed an NDA. 

The morning mist hung low over the lawns, curling around marble statues of figures that might have been Greek gods or, possibly, just very muscular demons.

And there, in front of the grand old manor, stood my 2008 Toyota Aygo Betty.

She was red. Well, it had been red, once, in the way that blood dries brown. 

It looked like a Matchbox toy someone had accidentally left on the set of Downton Abbey. 

The juxtaposition was so absurd that I half-expected the car to start apologising for its existence.

Wil was standing beside it, arms crossed, head tilted, wearing an expression of such pure disbelief that I could almost hear the words forming in his mind: You expect me to get in that?

He glanced at me, then back at the Aygo.

Then at me again.

'No,' he said flatly.

I blinked. 'No?'

He pointed at the car. 'That's not a vehicle. That's a crisp packet with wheels.'

'It's fuel-efficient!' I protested in the defensive tone of someone who has spent too much of her adult life explaining her car to men who name theirs.

'It's tiny,' Wil said, crouching slightly to peer through the window. 

'I've fought trolls bigger than this. I've eaten things bigger than this.'

I tried to smile. 'I'll have you know it's the sports edition.'

He turned those amber eyes on me — eyes that said he'd once watched civilisations burn — and said, perfectly deadpan:

'Was the sport the part where you see if you can survive being inside it?'

Before I could come up with something clever (or even coherent), there was a sudden, soft movement beside me.

Vaughnt.

She hadn't walked up. No gravel had been disturbed by those thigh-high boots.

She hadn't called out. She had simply appeared, as though the air had gotten bored with being empty and decided to make a statement. 

One second she wasn't there, the next she was — black uniform immaculate, mohawk still sharp enough to be classified as a weapon, her golden green eyes faintly amused.

I jumped so violently I nearly fell.

'Oh—! You—you scared me!'

Her expression didn't change, but one corner of her mouth twitched, which, I had already learned, was her equivalent of a full laugh.

In her hand dangled a keyring — black leather, discreet Bentley logo glinting like an expensive secret. 

She extended it toward me with a graceful flick of her wrist, then inclined her head toward the stables and garages off to the left.

I followed her gaze.

Parked in front of them, half hidden by the morning mist, was a Bentley, apparently. I had... heard of them.

It was the kind of car that made my Aygo look like a hamster's chew toy.

'Wait—' I said. 'That's for us?'

Vaughnt nodded once, feline poise radiating smugness.

Wil, predictably, grinned like a wolf who'd just been told dinner was optional but still complimentary.

'Now that,' he said, 'is a car.'

'Of course it is,' I muttered. 

'Of course, the supernatural community's top Werewolf travels in a Bentley.' I muttered under my breath.

He shot me a look that might have been teasing, or might have been a warning. It was hard to tell with people who occasionally sprouted fangs.

Vaughnt stepped closer — so close I caught the faint scent of jasmine that seemed to cling to her. 

She pressed the key into my hand, her touch cool and deliberate, then tilted her head as if to say: You drive. Just you, and try not to crash it.

I opened my mouth to thank her, but she was already turning away, her movement so smooth it was like watching mist decide it had better things to do. 

She paused at the top of the manor steps, glanced back at Wil, and made a small, sharp gesture — one I didn't quite understand but that clearly meant something between behave yourself and don't get dead.

Wil's grin faltered.

'Yeah, yeah,' he muttered. 'I'll be good.'

She didn't answer. She just gave him that same enigmatic smile — full of secrets and quiet threat — and disappeared back inside the manor, the door shutting behind her with the solemn finality of a church bell.

For a moment, the gravel drive was silent except for the soft sigh of the wind.

Then Wil clapped his hands together. 

'Right. Let's go see what the old man wants before he decides to start another apocalypse without me.'

I glanced down at the key in my hand — black leather, silver emblem. It was probably worth more than my entire car.

'Should I—drive?' I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face.

'You can drive a Bentley, can't you?'

'Of course I can,' I said. 'It's just a car.'

He smirked. 'Just a car. Wow!' and paused.

'Good,' he said, climbing into the passenger seat with the ease of someone who'd done this far too many times. 

'Good'

'Because if you scratch it, you'll be paying for it. In instalments.'

'Over several lifetimes.'

The engine purred to life beneath my trembling fingers, the car humming like a content predator. 

As I steered down the long gravel path toward the iron gates, I caught a glimpse of the manor in the rear-view mirror — grand, ancient, and watching us leave.

Beside me, Wil reclined in the seat, eyes half closed, one hand resting casually on the hilt of the knife tucked under his jacket.

'So, intern,' he murmured, voice half-amusement, half-warning. 

'Welcome to the real world. Try not to die on your first field trip.'

I smiled nervously. 'I'll do my best.'

He smirked, settled into a comfier position, and closed his eyes. Before.

'Oh, you better stop. You forgot Fen.' He laughed.