Eternal Moon

Chapter Four: A Wolf at the Door

Sorcha opened her eyes very suddenly. She had had a dream. Normally that would not be cause for much concern but the dream had been about him, and her dreams about him always meant he was up to no good.

Her back ached as she lifted up out of her recliner by the hearth. She had engaged with various forms of technology over the years - Netflix was a particular favorite - but she still enjoyed nothing more than sitting in the faded, purple recliner by the stone hearth while her very special concoctions took her through dimensions of which mortals could only dream. The recliner was relatively new; she had purchased it in 1969. But the journeys were not. Over two thousand plus years of living she had gone on many treks through the annals of time and space. However, time was starting to catch up. She was not immortal as some of her brethren had chosen but she did age much more slowly than the average human. She had just entered her seventies physically this past year, and even then she had many spells to combat the wear-and-tear of age. Still, she noticed that removing herself from the recliner was not as easy as it used to be.

Sorcha made herself a cup of tea as she mentally backtracked through the dream she had had about Kane Murdock. The handsome devil had not shown up in her dreams for centuries. She had believed that he had gotten used to his cursed existence and given up on any chance to end it. After he had initially begged her to lift it all those centuries ago, he stopped bothering her after he realized his pleas would get him nothing. She paid him no heed. Even his beast had stopped coming near her home years ago. It could sense the power she had had, the ancient magic that encapsulated her cottage like a womb. Besides, she had not squandered all of her years in rainy Scotland. She had gone out and seen the world. Unlike poor Laird Kane.

Why then had he appeared in her dream? Nothing in Gealach Lán ever happened. Most of the townsfolk had left and the rest that remained were too daft or simple to do anything other than drink. Plus, she had seen an unknown female face in the dream. Young. Lovely. Definitely not from here. In the vision, Sorcha had seen the young woman approach Kane in his beastly form but instead of running away in fear, the female had stroked the monster's nuzzle. This would not do.

Sorcha made her way downstairs to her basement, the underground hovel that she had built on top of half a century ago. The rain was too thick to look to the clouds for answers. She had to use other methods to ascertain what Kane Murdock was up to.

Tunneling deeper into the hovel, she came to the darkest part of the lair. Magically-enforced steel locked away a few souls who some might have referred to as slaves but she thought of as... pets. Some moaned or begged as she passed by but she ignored each of them until she came to her weapon of choice. He huddled in the corner of his cage, facing the wall. The broad muscles of his back moved just the slightest at the sound of her arrival but he did not turn around.

"Colin, my dear," she cooed as she reached into her pocket and removed the corpse of a small mouse. She threw it through the cage bars and watched as he turned his head towards it. She had not fed him for weeks.

"I have great need of you, my pet." She threw another dead mouse for good measure. "I need you to hunt for me."

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Kane was already on his way after Jamie when he heard the distinct howl of another werewolf. For a moment, he had frozen. He had never heard another werewolf, but the sound was distinct enough that he recognized it. He knew the sound of his own only too well and had never expected to hear that horrible bay from another being. Instantly, he set off, reaching inside for his beast's strength to run as fast as possible. Jamie was no more than two miles away, maybe less, but another werewolf could cross that distance in no time. Just the thought of what would happen to her pumped his legs even faster and he sprinted through the woods oblivious to the scrapes and scratches of tree limbs and roots.