Chapter 130 – The Other Method

  “I think I am beginning to understand how things started but I will hold my speculation of how it ended until I have confirmation from the gallery.” – Kurt confiding in Val and Kristi after his vision.

  The grilled cheese and tomato soup did little to soothe Kurt’s frustrations. Well, they did at first but he was promptly upset once again when Jay began to explain his… complicated relationship with some gods.

  “Pump the brakes.” Kurt said after Jay had explained that he had fought with several notable deities. “What do you mean you sparred with Saraswati?”

  “Oh, she is one of those ‘knowledge’ gods.” Jay lazily waved the question away. “Likes to play the trivia game with the old man.”

  “Old man?” Kristi asked from her spot at the countertop. “You mean Odin?”

  “Yup, the ole grey-bush himself.” Jay sneered.

  Kurt didn’t know if Odin was the kind of god that went around smiting people, but he edged a few inched further away from Jay just to be sure. “How was he here? I thought the gods couldn’t descend?”

  Jay shook his head. “It’s not that they can’t so much as they won’t. Well, they will on occasion, but it breaks things when they do. That was an avatar.” He popped the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth and swallowed before answering. “You noticed that you couldn’t see his aura? You couldn’t feel much divine pressure? That’s because it was only an image of him or an avatar as the gods call it.

  “When one of them descends, they end up bringing all that mess with them. They also end up being massive mana-sinks that disrupt the local mana for weeks, sometimes years, depending on their activity. So instead, they us an avatar. Think of it like a puppet that they control and can make deals through.”

  “I will take your word for it.” Kurt said, still not convinced he was getting the full truth. He definitely felt some sort of pressure during the standoff. “Do I have to worry about other visitors now that he has recognized me?”

  “Probably, but it won’t be for a little while. Most gods act on longer time scales and only the young ones do anything quick.” Jay answered while bussing his dishes to the sink.

  “Next question,” Kurt began after the demon had returned to his seat. “Did I see a soul moving on to the afterlife?”

  That brought the demon up short. “You saw that, eh?”

  Val and Kristi also perked up, listening more intently as Jay explained more. “Yes, that was a soul. Likely the reason you could see it is because time was slowing for him to show up and because of your newfound divinity along with it being untethered. The other bits were the other parts of souls that you could interact with as well.”

  “What other parts?” Val asked.

  “The soul is… complicated.” Jay said after a moments pause while he fidgeted with his now empty coke bottle. “I used to make the comparison to a bunch of grapes growing on the vine. It starts small but grows into a larger whole, comprised of many parts.”

  They all listened intently as Jay continued the impromptu lesson, Kurt and Val paying particular attention. “Those with a little, shall we say, ‘extra’ going on, just have a bigger bunch with more grapes. Lycans, possessed, clerics, prophets and more all have some extra bits attached to their souls. Think of it as grapes that were hidden in the shade and grew differently than those in the sun. Sometimes, in extraordinary circumstances, those individuals can become so much more than what their soul would normally allow if certain requirements are met.”

  Kurt thought about that for a while, allowing the conversation to move past him as Val and Kristi asked follow up questions. Finally, he asked a question that had been weighing on him. “What would happen if we weren’t there to meet Odin?”

  “The base soul would likely still have passed on. Despite his predilection to collect the dead, he does respect the boundaries of faith. But I know what you are asking, that other part, the lycan part of the soul.” Jay once again stopped, thinking for a moment before responding. “He might have taken that with him, but you had the ability to absorb it.”

  “Like a soul vampire?” Kristi asked while making a face that showed what she thought about the concept.

  “Not quite. Kurt just absorbs the base essence of lycanthropy, not the immortal soul like some demons or other beings do.” Jay then smirked in that horribly annoying way he was known for. “And you shouldn’t be so quick to judge on consuming another’s essence until you have some more experience in the matter.”

  With that, their manager stood up and quickly made his excuses before leaving. He said he had things to do within the Order, chief among them was recording the encounter with the other god. As he left, he held the door open as Jade stepped inside looking very befuddled as her hand had been raised to knock.

  The team leader of Kurt’s local pack had the good graces to step inside and close the door before returning to her awkward demeanor. “Umm… I hope I’m not intruding, sire?”

  “No, it’s fine.” Kurt sighed, now accustomed to his boss’s particular brand of secret keeping. “Sup?” He waved for her to come inside and have a seat as he found a place on the couch in the living room.

  Jade slipped out of her boots and followed after him, looking unsure of what to do until she suddenly bowed deeply. “I must apologize for not attending you on the mission this morning. Please forgive us for our failure to-“

  “Jade, it’s fine.” Kurt said, suddenly lurching to his feet and lifting the woman up by her shoulders. “Seriously, I didn’t call you and that is on me.” He rushed to assuage her apparent guilt. He really didn’t like the tone the conversation was taking and the look of… he wasn’t sure what emotion on Jade’s face.

  “Be that as it may, it is our duty to attend you.” Jade insisted in an overly formal tone.

  Val, sensing her moment, jumped in. “How about this, we make a plan so we don’t have the same issue in the future?” She could feel the anxiety and unease that Kurt was experiencing through the necklace they wore and had a feeling he would appreciate the intervention.

  Kurt listened with half his attention as Jade talked with Val and Kristi. They made plans and even had some takeaways as to what they could do to prevent being left behind in the future. He wasn’t so interested, not because it wasn’t important but because he felt he needed other answers.

  After several minutes, Kurt excused himself and walked to the bedroom. He shut the door after entering and went to sit in the middle of the rug on the far side of the bed. Adopting the meditative pose that he was familiar with, he relaxed enough to allow his sense of the outside world to fade. He followed the trail of consciousness that he associated with his lycan and divine soul, sinking deeper into meditation until he opened his eyes in the forest.

  As he opened his eyes, Kurt saw that he was in the clearing once again. He could feel the slight breeze as it wafted over him and smelled his wolf nearby. The lingering scent of the Avatar was also carried on the currents, but he was forced to ignore that due to the rapidly building pressure in his chest.

  Lurching upright, only to double over onto all fours, Kurt began to growl. He felt a burning pressure in his chest, like a case of severe heartburn had suddenly begun to assault him. Out of reflex he retched, trying to clear his throat from the sensation. At the same time, he was trying to hold on to what felt like a part of his body being forcibly ripped out.

  “Let it go! Just let it be pulled out!” A familiar, though rarely coherent, voice spoke into his mind.

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  Trying to trust in the sane part of the Avatar, when it wasn’t talking in overlapping meanings, Kurt willed himself to relax. He heaved great breaths between the retching and forced his muscles to relax while straightening from his curled-up position. Slowly, he felt the strange bubble of pain begin to move as the sensation faded to a dull ache. He watched in fascination, while sitting on his haunches, as a blood red ball of energy gradually emerged from his chest.

  The orb drifted out from him, moving a few feet away before dissipating. It slowly expanded, going from a deep, blood red to a lighter shade of pink that he could easily see through. Eventually, it popped, shimmering and fading like a giant soap bubble as the misty remains evaporated.

  “What… the… hell… was-that?” Kurt gasped out his questions between breaths. His heart was racing, and he was still short of breath from the experience. He wasn’t sure how that was possible when he was only projecting his soul into the strange twilight forest.

  “That was the return of our essence.” His wolf answered, coming to sit next to him on the grass. “Normally it returns slowly, gradually filtering its way through the different realities until it returns to us. But this time, it came on a more direct route.”

  Catching his breath, Kurt turned and stared at the wolf. “That was what I absorbed from that feral-“

  “Fallen.” His wolf interjected with a growling undertone.

  “Eh-umm, fallen.” Kurt corrected. He knew that there was a certain taboo on some words that were common in the real world… or the other world as he was coming to learn. “That was what I had absorbed from the fallen wolf?”

  “Yes.” His wolf confirmed. “Though it was unnecessary, it is good to have our blood returned faster than normal.”

  A pit began to form in Kurt’s stomach as he made a small mental leap. “What if I had absorbed the curse?”

  The wolf snorted. “Knowing you, nothing. Yet I do not advise doing so if you can help it, there is potential risk of corruption and the madness affecting you. Remember, that curse is part of us and it is only held at bay because it’s so divided. If it became over concentrated, well, then I might just be forced to take over regardless of our agreement.”

  Kurt was rather glad he got the warning and made a mental note to avoid messing with soul energy unless he was able to be very cautious about it. Movement at the edge of his vision caused him to flick his eyes over to the trees to his right. There he saw the looming shape of the Avatar, its giant body dwarfing many of the trees in the forest.

  “I thought I heard and smelled him around. What’s he doing?” Kurt asked, pointing his nose toward the embodiment of all werewolf kind.

  The wolf that acted as his guide looked where Kurt gestured. “Oh, you will be seeing him around more.”

  “Why is he suddenly hanging around?” Kurt was confused, he had previously only seen the Avatar on special occasions.

  “He is always present.” His wolf answered. “It’s only as you are growing closer to him that you able to see through the veil that separated you. In other words, get used to him lurking around as you gain power.”

  “That’s not at all reassuring.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be.” The wolf answered. “Everything is in balance. If it were only the Avatar here, then things would likely be a lot more painful, and you would make a lot more mistakes while learning nothing of our history.”

  “If it were only the Avatar, I wouldn’t have to worry about falling to the curse and you going on a rampage.” Kurt shot back in a fit of petulance.

  “OH? Is that what you think?” His wolf smiled like an insane person.

  Kurt got right up in his face. “How could I not? You literally told me you were trying to do it!”

  “Whereas I am a threat, the Avatar is a promise.” His wolf growled, somehow still holding its lunatic smile. “I have never lied to you so believe me when I say it is better this way.”

  “Is that so?” Kurt wasn’t sure if he did believe the wolf. Something in his being told him to, but he didn’t like the secrets, the gatekept information and the piecemeal history lessons. All of it grated on him to the point he didn’t notice what was right behind him until he felt the hot breath on his neck.

  “Yes.” The Avatar rumbled, once again in its sane tone just before it nipped his ear.

  Kurts’ world dissolved. The serene forest was replaced with another, much less tranquil one filled with lurking monsters and shadows that crawled under the trees. He was seeing the world through the eyes of others, while he was just a passenger. Short clips flashed before his eyes, a constant stream of information. They were filled with fur, scales, fangs, claws, pain and blood. So, so much blood.

  Smells of corpses and the disemboweled mixed with the scent of churned earth and splintered trees. The sound of howls, shrieks, words and roars echoed discordantly in his mind, coming too quickly while lingering too long to isolate. His mind was flooded in a rush of collective memories that sought to overwhelm him.

  All that was secondary to the pain. Kurt felt every wound, no matter how big or small. Every image was accompanied by the phantom pain of a wound received. Some were the instinctual retaliation of dying -prey while others were the killing blow dealt to one of the ancestral werewolves.

  For all the different scenes that flashed through Kurts’ mind, he scarcely saw it all. He knew that what he was experiencing at that moment was around the time of the first few panels of what he had seen in the gallery, a mere fragment of werewolf history. But what stuck out amongst all the jumbled sensations was a few flashes from just one viewpoint. They were mixed into the stream of images and seemed to last slightly longer than the other images.

  He was in the forest at night. There was a reason for it, but Kurt didn’t know what, just that he was called there for a reason. There was a flash of light and a terrible noise accompanied by a lurching sensation with the rush of displaced air. The warm night was replaced with a cold, empty nothingness, a void that was rapidly filled with the fear of a man he never met.

  Several flashing scenes later he was lying on his back and looking up into the reflection of a familiar man laying on a stone slab, bindings of pure light holding his body in place. The reflection showed a much clearer image of the Origin. He was older, his dark hair going grey in more than a couple of places. For all that he was worn down, his body was still strong, but it was incredibly weak compared to the restraints holding him against the cold table. But for all that, Kurt could barely feel the chill of the slab over the fear he felt.

  The scenes flashed by until he was looking up at a figure haloed in light, its face out of focus and obscured by a small obsidian-like blade plunged downward, biting into the Origin’s throat but spilling no blood. Despite it not cutting his flesh, a wave of pain and coldness swept over him.

  More scenes passed until once again the Origin was lying on the slab. This time a canister was hovering over him. It was filled with a dark red substance which ran down a tube that was suddenly jabbed into the ephemeral incision. The painful coldness was replaced by a pressure, like someone was pushing a red-hot ball of metal down his throat.

  Random scenes flashed passed, each one showing a snippet of the struggles of his inherited ancestors. Finally, after what felt like years, he was once again in the operating room, a familiar sensation overcoming him. The mysterious backlit figure still watched impassively as Kurt experienced the first werewolf transformation ever through the lens of a scared and brutalized man who couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

  This vision held on for a few moments longer as Kurt lived through the Origins’ transformation. For everything he had imagined how the Origin was, how he built the man up in his mind, in truth, he was just a scared, confused man who was trapped in a nightmare. He felt the rage, the madness, clawing at his mind as his body swelled, changed and eventually broke its bonds.

  The watching figure lunged forward, attempting to restrain the Origin. In a horribly familiar turn of events, Kurt experienced the Origin lashing out, snapping his fangs and coming away with a tiny fleck of blood. A tiny fleck of blood that was tinged with an amber-gold aura.

  That scene ended and Kurt was subjected to another random assortment of the previous generations of werewolves doing things. He was moderately thankful that he was getting more of their day-to-day lives but thought he could do without the bathroom routines of people over 4000 years prior.

  The last he saw of these random visions and experiences was of the Origin. He found himself lost and alone, stranded in the wilderness at twilight as a bright white portal winked out of existence. His body was a mess, covered in blood from his shift and dirt from where he had ben tossed to the ground and thrashed in pain. The entire time he laid there, his only company was the instincts now whispering in the back of his mind to get up and claim his territory.

  He felt the tiny mote of divinity begin to slowly break down as it was absorbed into the Origin’s body. There was a slight swelling in his soul that Kurt remembered from when he had been given the mantle of Lupus Rex.

  The pain was excruciating and it was all he and the Origin could do to not go mad. They fought together through the shift to a werewolf, eventually becoming numb to the sensation of their shared body rearranging. Then once more they shifted, the lupine body swelling and growing to an alpha variant where it finally stopped.

  A bass howl erupted from their muzzle as they lifted their head to the moon above. The breeze stirred, wafting a familiar scent through the forest, the scent of a fire, of people. Eyes dilated and his head swinging, he loped off through the trees.

  They ran through the night until they reached a small rise at the edge of a clearing. Kurt could see the crude shelters clearly in the flickering light of the fire. He could smell the bodies of the dozen people that made up the camp. He could feel the desire of hunger rising up only to be squashed by a deep seated loneliness that had risen on a wave of fear.

  Fear that was born from their abduction, from being alone, from being discarded. A fear that turned into a desire to never again be alone, to never again be discarded to live as a pack… forever. A new desire rose, this one being to spread his lineage far and wide. A desire that soon became a plan for vengeance as the Origin stalked toward the camp of humans.

  A moment later, Kurt was ejected from the sequences of visions, waking up in a kneeling position as his wolf stood nearby. “You’re right, your way is much better.” He said after taking a few moments to reorientate himself. The Avatar was nowhere to be found but Kurt knew he was lurking nearby in the replica of the forest where he had originally been cast aside.

  “Told you.” His wolf said with a snort. “Now, about your little meeting earlier today…”