Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 11: video games

"You think he's possessed?" Alex hunched over the edge of the Sigvard's sizable dining table, scratching at the back of his long swan neck. Fading sunlight washed in through the stained glass window and spattered the tabletop with a kaleidoscope of warm colors. "So in other words, Matt's not harboring the spirit of a wolf. He's harboring the spirit of Raven Neely?"

Matt stirred a cube of sugar into his black coffee, watching as across the table, Nadaline jabbed her monstrous claws into her well-cut chicken and sucked it off like a shish kabob. Her chubby face turned to Matt and the chewed chicken came rolling from her mouth and spattering to her high chair.

He prayed to God that Jess wasn't pregnant.

"Nadaline, no," Jay said beside her, wiping her greasy face with an open napkin. She squirmed and snarled until he was done, then she looked to Matt with a glare that turned his bones cold.

"Did you know Neely?" Alex asked Quentin.

"Met him once at Perigee. He seemed like a good guy."

Bailey rattled the beer in his bottle. "Maybe your intuitions aren't as good as you pitch them to be."

"Well, Raven saved you didn't he?" Alex asked.

"He didn't save shit. If I really wanted to, I could've turned. Wolves can swim."

Quentin rolled his fingers against the table, strong jaw in his palm. "Raven Neely..."

Matt still didn't know who he was, but the moment Bailey brought up the name Raven, everyone in the room seemed to recognize it—besides Jay, who was too indulged in homework to look up for more than half a second.

"It wouldn't be the first time something like this happened," Quentin said. "Stories of people receiving the spirit of a werewolf in lue of the spirit of a wolf date back hundreds of years."

"But that's folklore," said Alex.

Bailey tipped back his beer and grumbled against the neck, "We're folklore."

Matt couldn't take the bitter of his coffee anymore. He sat the mug down with a thud. "Can someone just tell me who the hell Raven Neely is?"

"He was a sentinel from Texas," Quentin said, an arm slung over the back of Jaylin's chair. "He resigned from his post and left to fight in Afghanistan." He must've been touching him—tracing the nape of his neck, cause Jay bristled and shook away a chill.

"He's kind of...notorious," Alex added.

When no one else went on to explain why, Bailey tossed back the last of his beer and slid the empty bottle towards the center of the table. It rolled on its base twice before steadying. "Murdered four of his own men in cold blood." He crossed his arms and tipped back in his chair. "The rest of his unit murdered him back."

Matt expected Raven's voice to come through then. He could sense him in the back of his skull, like someone watching—standing behind him, slouched against the back of his chair. His hair stood on end, but Raven never spoke.

"So I'm not a werewolf," Matt said. At first it was comforting—then a thought overcame him. "Wait a minute. This makes me a...wereguy?" Matt wiped his hands up his face with a groan. "That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard."

Jaylin looked up from his homework only long enough to laugh.

"I didn't know it was possible," Alex said. "I mean, there are stories, but...Maybe something got screwed up, y'know. You died and you transitioned at the same time. Maybe along the way something wrong happened."