A Pack of Two 2 (Patreon)

Wagner hated how it felt to be human.

Not that he liked being a wolf much either. Not for a while now and especially since the government took it upon themselves to lock him up every full moon. But he hated going back to being human, stiff and aching and feeling every inch that his bones and muscles and skin had shifted, going from human to wolf and back. His skin felt itchy with the hair it didn’t have anymore and his blood was like battery acid and a headache in his temples was a dark cloud that refused to rain during a dry spell.

If he drank half of Ireland’s distilleries, he wouldn’t feel as hungover as the change left him.

The bus hit a pothole. Already jangling on suspension with half-a-century on it, now an added crash hit Wagner’s system. He was nearly asleep, lulled out of his discomfort by the long ride and the vibration of the Cummins B6.7 diesel engine, but the shock went through his body. Reminded him that he was a river all jammed up with debris, nothing flowing freely. All his bones and muscles foreign entities cluttering up what had once been smooth and clear and lupine.

But he nodded off again, or felt like he did. Floating over the ground, absently seeing landmarks through the speckled window and recognizing a few, then more. Almost home. But it still came as a surprise when someone prodded him in the shoulder.

“Wagner! Bob Wagner! Need you up, we’re here. Ain’t got time to swing back around so you can finish your nap.”

Angry words jerked up out of Wagner like a geyser—scorching water from deep inside the earth. Did he know what it was like to spend three days cooped up in a padded cell? Three nights going from man to wolf, wolf to man, and being caged as both? Every bone cracked, every muscle torn, and at the end of it all, you didn’t even get to roam free. You just waited it out because you were dangerous. You were a threat.

But he kept his mouth shut. It wouldn’t do any good to scream and shout. There’d been plenty of proof of that over the years. And you had to be a little grateful for the bus service. Without them, there’d be thousands of drivers like him on the road. Overcranked, tired, beat to shit by their own bodies. It’d be a demolition derby.

Instead he was getting kicked off a bus.

Wagner made a series of movements—carrying them out like he’d follow the instructions on some esoteric bit of home repair. He clamped his hands onto the top of the bench seat in front of him… wrenched himself upward, and pushed down with his feet to make them take his weight. Slowly, haltingly, he forced himself out into the aisle and brought his body to its full height. Gleaning some satisfaction from the fact that he was a head taller than the transit cop there to shotgun him if he crashed out.

Standing there, Wagner took a long moment to stretch his limbs, arch his back. The pops were loud as a firing range and he was sure there were more kinks to be worked out. But he’d spent the last six months dealing with the kinda assholes who always needed to be the big man, who mouthed off and acted out just so they could always feel the main character. He had more professional courtesy than that, even if this glorified crossing guard didn’t.

Rotating his left wrist and feeling the tendons get themselves back into working order, Wagner carried himself to the front of the bus and trudged down the steps, out into another hot L.A. morning. It could barely wait to be a scorching L.A. day.

He cracked his neck again and turned his face up to the sun and let the light beat down on his closed eyelids. The colorful shadows in the darkness growing in intensity, until there was an orange-purple haze all over his pupils that he knew would stay after he opened his eyes.

Behind him, the bus door clattered shut and the vehicle shrieked its way into motion again. Wagner pushed off before it could pass him, spewing diesel. He felt sun, he saw sun… not moon. No wolves around here. Only men.

Scrubbing his face with his hands, smearing fresh sweat onto his fingers, Wagner walked to his house. Two-story Craftsman in the middle of Hyde Park. A nice neighborhood becoming not so nice. Already the block was a checkerboard: lawns mowed and unmowed, grass watered or yellowing. But the AC worked and no one had yet stolen any of his packages. It would do.

Except for the graffiti bleeding out of his garage door: “Mutt.” They’d mostly fit the letters onto the canvas, but the arm of the last T went around the corner, hit some leaves of the shrub that nestled in the corner of his porch.

Wagner took a sniff. Yeah. He could smell the aerosol, thick in the air, and leading like a flashing neon sign back to… okay. Later.

Through the front door. The house was still decorated to his father’s tastes: old-school machismo. Quiet, not brash. No pin-ups on the walls… no leather and chrome trying to play-act like some corporate empire builder. No lady-leg lamps like in A Christmas Story. Wooden furniture. Landscapes on the walls. Beer in the fridge. All that was missing was the cabinets of fine china, the rugs over hardwood floors, the family photos. The woman’s touch.

The stuff a family home would have.

Not for lack of trying on Hannah Tushingham’s part. The nurse was there, in scrubs that could’ve come from the same batch as Wagner’s. Only he was wearing his because he didn’t feel up to dressing himself again after the wolf-out. He hadn’t even put his keys and his phone and his wallet back in his pockets. They were all in the duffel bag with his old clothes, which he could just about manage to wrap his arms around and lug around with him.

“Thanks for leaving the door unlocked,” he told Hannah. The transplant, the woman there to take care of his father because no one would do it if they weren’t paid…

Hannah wasn’t a bad-looking woman. Late thirties, almost six feet tall, well-built—not that L.A., yoga-abs built. Built to lift a patient from his wheelchair into a bath. Strong thighs, thick arms, and he couldn’t not notice the full breasts, the plump hips, the luster of her wheat-colored hair that took some early gray like it was highlights.

Wagner was smart enough not to need that movie moment where he saw her in a swanky dress to know she was beautiful. But what of it? He was also smart enough to know that she was too old for him… or, more accurately, he was too young for her.

Twenty-two. Still in his probational year at the LAPD. The shaggy hair and patchy beard he’d grown over the three days of the full moon probably only making him look more immature. Like when Leonardo DiCaprio tried to look less boyish by sporting a moustache. Sorry, man, you’re still Jack Dawson. But if you didn’t like it, why’d you get the bite?

The bird chirped. Pushing Wagner out of his thoughts. They took a long time to get going when he was this out of it and he got pulled along pretty far, sometimes. He tried to keep things terse.

“How was Blackbeard?” he asked.

“Missing you,” Hannah said, setting down her book and going to the birdcage to take the army blanket off him. It made Wagner think of his mother’s quilts. Another thing this place lacked.

Woken, Blackbeard preened and squawked and stretched his wings to give Wagner a welcome home.

Wagner went and put his finger through the cage bars. Blackbeard knuckled his closed beak against the joint. “And how’s my father?”

“He’s fine. Comfortable, sleeping well—” The way she changed the subject, Hannah might as well have been twisting a big dial. “I’ve been feeding Blackbeard. I let him out so he can get a little airtime in the afternoon, but he always seems a little depressed when you’re gone. Three days is a lot of time to be away.”

“They’re not going to let me pop out for a check-in with my codependent bird.”

He noticed Hannah eying him. And despite everything, she was still a beautiful woman and he still felt like a frozen caveman that’d just gotten out of the microwave. He pinched his sinuses between his fingers. “Hey, uh, did you notice someone spray-painting the garage door last night, or any time after I left?”

“Last night? No, I… haven’t been out much. I don’t want to be where I can’t hear Mr. Wagner. And when I need some fresh air, I go into the backyard. How would it look, me being over here all the time, standing out on your porch…”

“Worried someone would tell my wife?” Wagner joked. Thought he joked. Not much was funny when you were an unfrozen caveman.

“You’re not… oh… I mean… if you can afford a nurse, then you must be rich, and then someone would… not that you’re poor, of course. But I understand the financial difficulties of hospice care, of course. Not that, oh, you’re using up all the… Mr. Wagner has said he hopes the inheritance—"

Wagner held up the hand not trying to grind his sinuses away. “Hannah, I don’t think I’m up to one conversation at the moment, let alone twenty.”

“Right. Bugger all. Yes. Have you considered marijuana?”

Wagner dug the heel of his hand into his eye socket. “Twenty-one conversations…”

“For your discomfort. You come back and you’re generally rather… out of sorts. I’ve heard very good things about medical marijuana for reducing the strain the body is under.”

“Hannah, they give me piss tests.”

She held her hands together. “Right. Yes. What about acupuncture?”

“If you wanna stick needles in me, you’ll have to get in line. Is there coffee?”

“Yes, I just put on a pot.”

“Excellent. I’m going to shower and do something about…” He moved his hand about his unruly facial hair. “All this.”

“Shave?”

Wagner would’ve snapped his fingers if he had the dexterity. “That’s the one.”

“I’ll fix you some breakfast as well. Bacon and eggs or hotcakes?”

“There’s a steak in the fridge.” He shrugged, knowing there was no explaining lycanthropy to a British expatriate. “The stomach wants what it wants.”

“I will get on that. Medium rare? Oh, that’s a silly question—and should I call the police? About the spray-paint?”

“Hannah…” Wagner groaned as he forced his joints to bend and take him up the first step on the staircase. “I am the police.”

On the second step, he decided fuck it and sat down in his father’s old stair lift that he’d installed last decade. It took him up while Wagner rested and prepared for the trek to the bathroom.

After that, he’d be okay. The shower had a stool in it he could sit on for as long as it took for the hot water to get him human again, then he could dress and eat and deal with the spray-paint and hopefully have a conversation with Hannah that didn’t make him feel like an ogre for making her feel like… what was the Britishism for it? A git? A nob? Something bad. And British.