A Blankie for Baby

Chapter 1

A Blankie for Baby

Chapter 1

My entire family is of the werewolf persuasion.  We’ve been that way since sometime in the mid-thirteenth century when my several-times-removed-great-granddaddy pissed off the shaman in a neighboring village by stealing his prized goat.  The shaman laid a curse on him that went somewhat awry.  He was trying to turn him into a gnat so he could easily whack him, but the guy wasn’t up to snuff on his curses and managed to turn many-times-removed-great-granddaddy into a wolf instead.

When he saw what he’d done, the shaman immediately started going through spells trying to get a-lot-of-times-removed-great-granddaddy to gnat-hood, but, as great-granddaddy was running him down at the time, he couldn’t quite get his act together, and as the story goes, he laid down so many curses that great-granddaddy suddenly found himself in human form again.  When the shaman - who was halfway up a tree by then with great-granddaddy snapping at his ass - saw that, he wiped the sweat off his brow and decided to quit while he was ahead.  At least the giant black wolf great-granddaddy had turned into was gone and wasn’t chasing him anymore, and great-granddaddy was so relieved to be back in human form he turned and high-tailed it for home vowing never to steal again.

But, many-times-removed great granddaddy found himself involuntarily turning into a wolf at the first full moon.  He changed back the next morning but he was so ticked off about it, he went back to look up that shaman so he could strangle him.  The shaman knew he’d made a huge boo-boo, and his change spells didn’t work so hot, so he’d begged for his life, promising great-granddaddy he’d fix everything if he just let him live.  And being the generous, reformed thief he was, great-granddaddy only roughed him up a little, then agreed.  And to his credit, the shaman worked his ass off, trying everything he knew, consulting with shamans from other villages, mixing up all kinds of gunky potions, until one day, he had one that he figured would work.

And it almost did.  Great-granddaddy still changed involuntarily at the full moon, but he could also change whenever he wanted to at any other time.  And he was much stronger as a human than he’d been before, and any injury he got was healed when he was in wolf form.  He didn’t like the involuntary changes but was cool with the other.  So he took to studying magic himself, hoping he could find a way to stop the moon changes but keep the advantages of his wolf form, and after he took a wife or two and had a crop of kids, he noticed about half of them could change into wolves after they reached a certain age, and they weren’t bothered with the can’t-help-it change at the full moon.

Well.  This made him very happy.  And he got even happier when one of his wolf daughters gnawed on a boy she was mad at one day and, lo and behold, the boy started being able to change into a wolf.  This made him think and seek different solutions to his problem, and somewhere in there, several-times-removed-great-granddaddy learned how to control his moon changes, and the rest is family history.  And another story.  Which several-times-removed-great-granddaddy will tell you if you ask him.  Yeah, he’s still around.  Us werewolves can live a loooong time – unless, of course, somebody or something kills us first.

Makes you kind of wonder why the world isn’t swimming in werewolves, doesn’t it.  Well, there are reasons for that.  One of which is a lot of us do get snuffed early on due to things getting highly exciting sometimes.  I almost went the way of the “lost werewolves” as my daddy calls them, a while before Sam and I got married.  Thus the wicked scar down the right side of my face.  It’s slowly fading, and if I can make it another ten or twenty years, it’ll be gone altogether.  I dunno.  I’m gonna kinda miss it.  Gives my face character.

If it hadn’t been for Sam, I probably would have bought it back then.   But that isn’t what this story is about.  Well, not totally.  I only throw that in because that’s when I met one of my now best friends, Pandra “Pan” Fontana – or two best friends if you count her husband, Azrael, or just “Az” as he prefers.  Don’t call him “Azzie”, though.  He hates that, and never, ever slip up and say “Ass”.  You wouldn’t want to piss him off.