Aurora Wolf

The Skin Changer’s Victim

by Mike Phillips

A Story of the Crow Witch

Smoke coiled like serpents, circling protectively around the Coach’s head before dispersing into the air. The ash glowed red at the end of the cigar as he took another long drag, holding the smoke in his lungs as the cards were dealt. Picking up his hand, he released his breath in a great plume and he showed his teeth to the other men seated at the table, suggesting the luck of the draw had turned in his favor.

“Thank you sweetheart,” the Coach said pleasantly to the waitress as she brought another beer.

The pretty young woman made no reply as she set down the bottle, just hurried away as if she feared her bottom might be pinched. Experience had taught her to be wary.

Ignoring the girl, the Coach made a quick assessment of what mattered to poker, the reactions of the other players, the amount of money left on the table, how his luck ran. Only then, when everyone else had a chance to see what fate had brought, did he look down at his own hand.

Opening bets were made. The Coach discarded two and was pleased to see that the cards were with him. Three Jacks and two Sevens, it was a good hand with no wild, and if he played his chances right, this would be the last one before going home. It was time to go all in, to put the smug little b—–d across the table in his place.

Eric Patterson, the man across the table, was a difficult man to read. He was full of guile, unknowable as the depths of the ocean. Every time the Coach thought Eric was bluffing, he had come up with the goods.

Now Eric had an Ace face up on the table. In his typically annoying way, he had just left it there after discarding the other four. There was no way the draw could give him a decent hand now. The Coach smiled just thinking about it.

Putting the cigar down, intent upon a little divination of his own make, the Coach sniffed the air, tasting the nerve or resignation of the others. No one else at the table had anything to worry about, he knew, used his unique abilities to tell him. Over the course of the evening, he had earned himself a neat pile of bills, if not too many to arouse suspicion. Now he was certain this was his chance to make a killing.

The only problem was Eric Patterson. Even after discarding four of the five cards he had been dealt, the man didn’t twitch, didn’t blink, didn’t look down at his cards. He made no indication of what his hand might be.

Eric had the habit, which also annoyed the Coach, of looking at his cards only once before setting them face down in a neat pile in front of him, as if he thought he was the coolest character around. He had been like that as a kid too, cocky and superior. The Coach hadn’t liked Eric when he was in his Geography class in High School, and he liked him even less as an adult.

The betting began, much stiffer than the Coach had expected. The guy from the County Garage was trying to bluff. He stank of fear and indecision. The Coach didn’t mind the competition. It was all for the better. The more money that went into the pot, the more there was to win.

 “Why didn’t you ever go out for football?” the Coach said to Eric, thinking the question might jar a show of emotion.

“You cut me,” Eric said impassively.

“That’s right, that’s right,” the Coach mused, snorting laughter to the appreciation of the other players.

“Not much into sports, are you?” the Coach went on, making a certain insinuation that everyone at the table understood.

“I stay in shape,” Eric said, not needing to defend himself. He wore a short sleeved shirt and the muscles of his arms and shoulders bulged from weeks and months of hard labor.

“What is it that you’re doing now?”

“Pottery.”

The Coach snorted his laughter again, the drunks appreciating the turn of the conversation. “That’s right. I heard about that. You’re an artist now.” He had made the word “artist” sound like an insult.

“That’s right,” Eric said as the bet came to him. He raised a small amount, worthy of an average hand but no better. One of the other players folded just the same.

“Got lots of artist friends too, I’d bet.”

“I suppose.”

“And you all get together to do art. Is that right?”

“I don’t collaborate much.”

“Oh, is that what they call it now, ‘collaboration’? In my day we had another word for it.”

The other players burst into laughter. The man from the County Garage had been in mid-swallow when the comment was made, beer spraying from his mouth and nose as he got the joke.

“What?” Eric snapped.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” the Coach egged him on. “I’m just yankin’ your crank, that’s all.”

“Hey guys,” said the dealer, “this is a friendly game. Knock it off, okay?”

“No trouble,” Eric said, the bet returning to him. Looking the Coach in the eye, he pushed everything he had, a substantial pile of bills, to the center of the table.

Pleased by the gesture rather than intimidated, the Coach totaled the amount on his fingers, took a swallow of beer, then checked his wallet. “I can’t cover that with what I got on me.”

Smiling in that annoying way the Coach hated most, Eric said, “I’ll take a marker, no problem. I know you’re good for it.”

The others folded, leaving just the Coach and Eric.

“Well?” Eric said.

After a moment enjoying what remained of his cigar, the Coach exhaled, ready to make his play. “You bet, let’s go. Let’s see what you got, sweet cheeks.”

Next to the Ace already sitting face up on the table, Eric turned the cards over one by one, revealing a Queen, then an Ace, then another Queen and another Ace. “Full boat,” he said with a pleased look on his face.

The Coach stood up, the chair toppling over behind him, tossing his cards down on the table and saying, “You’ll get yours some day, pottery-boy, you just wait and see.”

#

Failing to get the waitress to leave with him, Eric decided it was time to go home. He had a large order of plates to fill, and if he could get his old kiln working again, he just might finish in the next few days.

With his earnings from the poker game, he knew that he should probably hire someone to come and have a look at the kiln. He certainly didn’t know what was wrong with the thing, was lucky he hadn’t burned his hands off fooling with it.

The air outside the bar was warm and calm. The frogs sang in the trees, calling out for love amidst the shadows. The mosquitoes were biting, but the black fly season had ended, the bite of mosquitoes seeming only small torment in comparison.

It was the first night of the full moon, the white face hanging high up in a cloudless sky, magical in aspect, mysterious. Eric wondered why so few artists tried to capture the night. It was a time full of possibility. Of those who had tried, Van Gogh was the only one who had really done justice to the night, and he was nuts.

Kicking a dirt clod in the parking lot as he went, watching it break apart as it rolled, Eric made his way to his old pickup truck, not believing what he saw when he got there. All the glass was broken, windows, mirrors, headlights. All four tires were slashed.

Whoever vandalized the truck had emptied his ashtray of its collection of change and taken his gym bag. If they wanted his dirty underwear so badly, Eric thought with small satisfaction, he would have gladly given it to them. There was also a present on the seat. It looked like a dog of some size had been allowed to defecate there.

The beer helped Eric take it all in stride, making him feel resignation rather than anger. He looked up at the full moon, thinking about what the Coach had said, wondering if the old man had anything to do with it –probably so.

It was one in the morning and Ernie Sanderson the tow truck driver would be on call. Ernie and his wife had a newborn barely three weeks old. There was no way Eric was going to wake the whole house just to get a ride home. And if he did call the tow truck, he might also be expected to file a police report. That was a job better done sober. It was only a few miles to home, so in the end the decision to walk wasn’t altogether a difficult one.

#

The basalt tailings from the surrounding copper mines were used as aggregate in the asphalt of the county road, and it gave the paved surface a reddish hue rather than the ubiquitous mottled gray. Under the scant lighting of the parking lot, stepping from the dirt lot of the bar onto the right of way, seemed to Eric in his drunken haze like taking the first step toward some kingdom of fantasy. The night was fine for walking, and the pleasure of the act only grew as Eric left the parking lot and found himself in a world brightened only by the celestial light above.

About a mile down the road, he was taken by a strange feeling, as if he were being singled out as prey. Eric stopped, trying to peer into the forest gloom, but he could only see a few feet before all within the forest became dark and unknowable.

Something in the part of his mind that hadn’t yet been civilized warned of danger, telling him to run away or to grab a branch from a nearby tree. He did neither, telling himself that he read too many horror stories, that his imagination got the better of him. He began walking again, wary, but unwilling to let his fear take control. Something rustled in the trees. He stopped.

The noise had only been momentary, probably a squirrel or maybe a possum. It was too small a noise to be made by anything dangerous. There were plenty of bears and wolves in the forest, there had even been several local sightings of cougar, but animals of size usually had the sense to stay away from people. Then he saw what it was.

A bird had landed on a tree only a few feet away. It was small compared to an eagle but big compared to a finch, with black feathers that shined in the moonlight. The bird ruffled its feathers and cawed loudly and for some strange reason it seemed to Eric that the bird was trying to tell him something, to give warning.

“That’s weird,” Eric said aloud. “Crows aren’t night birds, full moon to see by or not.”

To the crow, Eric spoke to reassure, “I’m sorry if I woke you. Go on to back to bed now, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Much to his relief, the crow didn’t reply, but Eric’s feeling of apprehension did not go away. The crow cawed and turned its head to look at him. Then it was gone. The bird hadn’t flown off. It just disappeared.

“Signs and portents,” Eric said to the darkness, “signs and portents.”

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Eric decided that he needed to get home. What he was feeling was utter foolishness, of course, but he needed to get home. He hadn’t gone ten paces when he heard a crashing sound behind him. This time it had been a loud noise, certainly something as big as a dog was out there.

Telling himself that it was a dog, that no predator of the wild would make such a noise, especially while stalking prey, Eric decided to take a detour through the woods. Cutting across his neighbor’s land, he could save about a mile of walking, and he might just save himself some trouble in the process.

As he stepped from the road, Eric thought he caught a flash of gray, the shiny coat of a wolf in the forest on the other side of the road. He turned, again unable to see a thing for the darkness under the trees. Whatever it was, he thought it certainly must have been a dog, it was gone now.

“Get!” he shouted angrily, seeing a large branch that had broken off an old maple tree only a few yards away. “Go home.”

Hurrying to the fallen branch in the hopes he would find a suitable weapon, Eric was relieved to discover a thick length, dry and easily broken from the larger branch. He made some noise snapping it off the rest of the way, a show of bravado perhaps, and he nearly fell over due to his drunken state. Laughing at his clumsiness, Eric sat down on the larger part of the fallen branch to catch his breath.

“It’s just your imagination,” he said to himself. “Some poor deer is halfway to the lake because you got no more sense than to be scared of shadows.”

Behind him, unseen, a shadow made its way to the place Eric sat. Shaped like a large dog but with a wilder aspect, the form of the animal began to change. It stood erect, its shoulders broadening, its head contorting. When the animal finished its transformation, it stood as a man, white skin gleaming in the light of the moon.

Eric turned, saw the Coach standing naked behind him and reflexively lifted the branch to defend himself. But the Coach was too fast, taking the stick from Eric’s hands. Before he could react, faster even than he could understand what was happening, the Coach brought the branch down on top of Eric’s head and his world went dark.

#

“Ouch!” Eric shouted.

A sharp pain in the arm woke Eric from sleep. But the stab of pain was little compared to the throbbing that quickly grew on the back of his head, the wound from the Coach’s blow. Unable to open his eyes for the brightness of the sun and the pain in his head, Eric rolled protectively onto his side.

“Get up,” a woman’s voice insisted. “Terrible plots are being realized. Your assistance is needed.”

“What?” Eric said irritably.

A pain as sudden and fierce as the one that had awoken him struck Eric in the thigh. Scrambling away, Eric at last looked up to see who the woman was, expecting someone carrying a pitchfork. He saw no one, just a crow taking its ease a few feet away, hopping about as it searched for heaven knew what.

Confused, Eric rubbed his leg and tried to get an understanding of what was going on. The crow cawed and hopped toward him. He marveled that the bird did not fly off, but it was said that crows know well how to judge danger. Some of the old timers at the hardware store even suggested that crows might be invested with a sixth sense, an ability to see events before they happened.

“Where are my clothes?” Eric said to himself and the crow, looking down.

He vaguely remembered nights and days gone by, the sleek shapes of animals running in a pack, feeding on a kill, sleeping in the shade of an old maple tree in the depths of the wilderness. But it all seemed like a dream. He felt the back of his head, finding crusted blood, trying to remember what had happened to him.

“The Coach did that,” the woman said.

Covering his nakedness, Eric looked everywhere, but still could not find the source of the voice. “What?”

“It is a bad bit of skullduggery, I’m afraid, but he has done more harm than yet you realize.”

“Lady, can you speak English?”

“I am and I do, rather well. Perhaps you have taken a harder blow than I suspect. Are you able to stand?”

“No offense, but I can’t even see you. A stick is rammed halfway up my be-hind and my head aches so bad that I can barely stand it.”

“Nonsense, you are a wolf now. You are experiencing the effects of the change, the transformation. In time you will learn to tolerate it better.”

“What?”

“A fact that’s difficult to accept, I’m sure, but you will have to come to terms with your new life rather quickly if we are going to save the young girl.”

Silent, incredulous, Eric stared at the bird. “The bird is talking,” he said in disbelief.

The crow spoke in clipped sentences, as if instructing an imbecile or a teenage boy, “You are a werewolf. The Coach made you thus. I am a talking bird. There is a young lady in grave danger. The Coach is trying to entrap you as the culprit of the girl’s pending murder. We must stop him. Any questions?”

Remarkably, Eric said, “No.”

“Good. We must take immediate action.”

After an expectant pause, Eric said, “You mean now?”

The crow let out a long breath. “That would be best.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Eric replied, saying each word carefully.

“Changing yourself back into your wolf shape would be a good starting point.”

“Okay,” Eric said. “How do I do that, exactly?”

Thinking for a moment, the crow said, “When the moon is full, I expect it is all rather automatic. However, I have pursued the Coach before and know that he has the ability to summon the wolf at will. Perhaps you should try thinking what it is like to be a wolf, which is much in the way I make my own transformation.”

“Then you’re not a talking bird?”

“Perhaps with me it is the other way ‘round. I change into a human to enjoy a good book or an occasional slice of pie.”

“Okay, okay, you have a right to your privacy.”

“I do and thank you. That is most understanding.”

“Wait a minute,” Eric said. “I recognize the voice. You’re that librarian. Let’s see, you had a funny name. Oh yeah, Weigenmeister.”

“Certainly not.”

“Oh come on, you can’t fool me. Don’t worry, one good turn deserves another. It’s like you have a nuke and I have a nuke and no one is going to use it because we know we can blow each other to bits.”

“Charming, an Arms Race reference,” the crow said dryly. “That is not at all comforting.”

“I’m as good as my word. It’s a promise.”

The crow said, “This all is a concern for some other time. We must now get you sorted out. Go ahead, give it your best.”

“Oh, yeah,” Eric said, trying to do as he was asked.

What had been the dream of the forest, hunting with the pack, the light of the full moon, all began to run wild in his mind. He remembered vaguely the changing of form, how remarkable it was to grow a tail. Thinking himself a wolf once more, he opened his eyes to find that nothing had changed.

“That was good,” the crow encouraged him. “Just a bit more, try focusing on one aspect of the change, hand to paw or the look of the fur upon your arm, but let it come naturally. If you think overmuch, you will change right back.”

Eric closed his eyes, knowing that things with the girl must be growing desperate, that every moment lost might be that much closer to her death. He tried doing as Miss Weigenmeister suggested, but it still didn’t work. His mind was awash with conflicts, worries. It was all just too much to accept in so short a time.

“Relax, things will all work out as they should,” said the soothing voice of the crow, a power within the words seeming to carry a gentle command.

Eric thought back, trying to remember his time as a wolf, a pleasant memory rising to the surface. There had been a stream in the forest, not much more than a trickle of water coming down from the mountain peaks. The waters were refreshing in the balmy summer night and the wolf pack had stopped at a waterfall to drink and to rest. The others began to play in the waterfall, splashing, barking, nipping at each other’s flanks, rolling in perfect bliss in the water’s coolness. Eric had joined in the fun, finding a happy female to share in the game.

“That’s it!” called the crow. “Come quickly now, follow me. Run with the swiftness of the wind.”

#

Leslie was singing with the radio, on her way to meet friends at Sunset Park when she saw something on the side of the road, what at first sight might have been an old tire. But as she approached, Leslie could tell that it was an animal. It looked hurt. Pulling onto the shoulder of the road and slowly coming to a stop some distance from the animal, Leslie got out of the car.

“Oh, poor doggie,” she said. What Leslie thought of as a dog, likely some sort of husky mix, she really didn’t know much about dogs, whimpered pitiably and crawled away from her, its back legs limp behind it.

“Don’t be scared,” she said in calming tones. “I just want to help, that’s all.”

Still the dog dragged itself away from her, making horrid sounds of pain as it went. There looked to be some kind of mark on the animal’s backside, like mud from a tire track, like it had been run over by someone driving a motorcycle. That was just the sort of thing her brother or one of his friends would do, hurt a poor animal like that and then leave it to die.

Even as Leslie went after the dog, following it from the road into a nearby meadow, she knew that she should go get help, have someone come out from animal control. But those people would see a dog like that and just want to kill it, she knew, having heard about that sort of thing from her friends. If those people were willing to put down puppies just for the sake of some food, then this poor wounded animal would have no chance at life at all. If someone was going to help, Leslie finally decided, it would have to be her.

A crow cawed loudly from the top of a tree. “Go away, you can’t have him,” Leslie shouted at the bird. The crow cawed again, swooping low as it left its perch, but then flew off.

“Maybe you want some food,” Leslie said to the dog. “Wait right here. I’ll be right back.”

She raced back to her car, looking into a small cooler only for a moment before pulling half a sandwich from its wax paper wrapper. “This will do the trick.”

Running back to the meadow, she found the dog had traveled some distance in her absence. It was a marvel at how the animal clung to life. It had crawled down into a ravine and was hiding under a bush.

Smiling, Leslie went after it, saying “Oh, come on now, nice doggie. Have some food.” The dog growled weekly, whimpered, and then put its head down on its paws.

#

Eric howled wildly, thrilled by the hunt, the rush like fire in his blood. He was set upon the trail. The smell of the Coach was so strong in his mind that it was like seeing the man standing next to him, maybe better. Shortly after Eric had transformed into a wolf, the crow had flown off, saying something about going to help. Even without the bird shouting directions from above, now that Eric had picked up the scent, he would have been able to follow the Coach blind.

“How can she help?” Eric wondered as he ran. “She’s too small to do any good.”

Screams in the distance, he raced on, following the smell and now the sound, focused solely upon finding the Coach and tearing him to shreds. The trail led him down into a ravine. There at the bottom where a creek turned over red rock like broken teeth, was a pretty young girl. Eric could smell in her the change that was taking place, a girl becoming a woman.

By her scent, Eric could tell that she was ripe, though not completely matured, able to bear young. The smell filled him with longing, to mate with her and start in her a new line of his own. The girl was struggling with her back toward Eric. He barked loudly as he came and she turned, horrified by what was happening to her.

#

The Coach had Leslie by the pant leg. The denim of her blue jeans was tough and did not tear away, holding her captive, keeping her from getting away. The Coach had been careful not to bite her, not to spoil the young woman for his intended purpose. She was for vengeance, to place blame on Eric Patterson for her death.

Just downstream, not even a hundred yards away, lay a campsite where the Coach had put the things stolen from Eric’s pickup. That was where the rest of his plan was to unfold, but things were not going as planned.

A crow cawed from the heights above, swooping down through the trees. The Coach had been bothered by a crow before. He wondered if this was the same bird and if it was another enchanted creature like himself. Either way, it was an enemy that must be eliminated. The crow dove straight into the Coach’s face, tearing at his wolfish features with her boney claws, striking a painful wound below the Coach’s eye.

A dog barked in the distance. It was not far off, much too close for comfort. A dog might mean people nearby. The Coach’s was unraveling quickly. He must do something.

Letting go of the girl, the Coach fought back against the crow. He rolled over onto the rocky creek bed, trying to force the relentless bird into the water. The Coach slammed his head into a rock, hoping to dislodge the wretched bird, but he missed, cracking his skull so hard that he momentarily lost his senses.

When the pain dulled, the crow was gone. Where, he did not know. Looking up, the Coach saw the girl reach the top of the ravine. She had escaped. In the next moment, something big struck him from behind.

Everything was clawing, turning, biting, a bitter struggle with life as the stakes. Practiced in the way of the wolf, the Coach was soon able to turn the fight, raking Eric with his claws, turning his lithe body to grip Eric’s neck with his maw. His teeth pierced flesh, closing upon Eric’s windpipe.

Struggle though he may, Eric could not free himself. He could not breathe and he soon grew weak and tired. Black spots littered his vision. Finally he could not fight back at all, and he could feel himself slipping away into nothingness.

The Crow lit upon the Coach’s head, grasping the thick fur with her claws, sinking her beak deep into the Coach’s eye. Unable to hold onto Eric for the pain and alarm, the Coach let go and tried again to shake the crow free. His head whipped back and forth and he rolled wildly on the ground, but he could do nothing to free himself from the nightmare bird.

Eric leaped into the fight. Having learned well, he went straight for the neck, sinking his teeth deep into the Coach’s exposed throat, holding on until he felt life no more. Exhausted, Eric let go. The Coach was dead.

“Eric?” the Crow said pensively as she landed on a rock. “Are you well?”

“I feel terrible,” replied Eric, sitting up, licking his teeth disgustedly.

The crow studied the wolf for a moment, noting the deep wound at his throat, but finding that Eric was not too badly hurt. “Only a flesh wound. I doubt you will even need medical attention now that you’re a werewolf.”

Laughing, Eric said, “Is that all the thanks I get?”

“Doing the right thing should be thanks enough.” The crow flapped her wings, flying off into the windswept heights.

“What now?” Eric called to her.

“The girl is safe,” the crow replied. “The Coach is dead. I’d say it’s a job well done. Congratulations. Not bad at all for your first time.”

“But what about me?” Eric shouted. “I’m a werewolf. What’ll I do?”

As the Crow disappeared, she said, “I’ll let you know when you’re needed. In the meantime, do try not to get into any more trouble.”