"Stupid Circe. No help Circe. The most useless witch on the planet Circe!"
Morgan was trudging up a hill alongside black paved road, grumbling put-downs with no one around but herself and the dismal barren trees to hear them. She was on her way to the viewpoint at the top, the place where it all started to begin an admittedly reckless search of the surrounding wilderness for her beloved boyfriend. But it was the only course of action she had left after Circe proved herself to be no help at all and questioning Benjamin had proved fruitless.
"I would've thought you'd know more about that than I would," said her future brother-in-law, when asked about places Roger would go to be alone or to feel safe.
Morgan was well aware that the wilderness had been combed many times already by those better equipped, better experienced and better knowledgeable than her. But there was always a chance that even their trained eyes might have missed something, a clue that could shine a light on where Roger might be, and she was counting on her own untrained eyes to find that something.
After a long period of walking, (at least one hour and twelve minutes according to her phone), Morgan reached the viewpoint where Roger had transformed. The car was gone, of course. It was towed away somewhere after the police had finished with their investigation.
She stopped to catch her breath, which had become ragged and heavy from that troublesome uphill walk, and took the time to look down over the railing. It was odd, she thought, that when she had last visited here at night, the view below was the most beautiful sight on earth with the sea of twinkling city lights in the vivid, black darkness, yet now stretched out before her depressingly gloomy beneath the pale gray, cloud-filtered daylight. It almost felt like seeing the world after it had already ended.
Morgan shivered and then furiously shook her head free of dismal thoughts.
"Wake up, Morgan!" she told herself. "Now's not the time to be daydreaming."
She turned to face the wilderness. At the forefront was the tree, still scarred from when the car door crashed into it. If anyone had taken a closer look, they would find traces of the car's red paint in the jagged edges of frayed bark. But the police never did, thinking the scar a natural part of the tree and did not look out of place. A few feet past the tree were the bushes that Roger dove into before disappearing out of sight.
After taking a deep breath and doing some stretches, Morgan took one step towards the trees, and then another. And then another. She walked past the tree Roger had scarred and snapped off brittle branches as she pushed aside the bushes.
Deeper and deeper into the wilderness, she went, quick to lose track of time. It was dead quiet, except for the crunching of leaves and twigs crushed underfoot by her boots. Her eyes roamed left and right, back and forth, but all she could see were trees, trees and more trees. There were short trees and tall trees, thin trees and fat trees. There were trees as black as night and trees almost as lightly gray as the sky over them. The only thing they had in common was that they were all completely bare of leaves. The viewpoint was completely gone now, and with it any trace of human civilization.
But Morgan was not concerned about that. She was too focused on finding traces of Roger. However, it should be no surprise that she found none. Her eyes, as mentioned earlier, were untrained. She was arrogant to think that she would have a better chance of finding someone lost in the woods than trained professionals. She didn't even know what she should be looking for.
Still, she persisted, too stubborn to give up. She continued to push her way through sharp, prickly branches, ignoring the biting cold on her rosy cheeks and the occasional snag and tear on her rather expensive winter coat. And she even sat down on the cold, wet mud whenever she needed to take a break to ease up her throbbing, aching feet.
Morgan was not ashamed to admit that she was never the outdoorsy type, so it surprised her how much she was willingly putting up with. She didn't mind enduring the discomforts of nature at all. Focus on her mission probably helped, but she also found the extremely quiet atmosphere pleasant. There wasn't even any wind blowing right now. It was just peaceful here. Just peaceful and . . . quiet?
Morgan frowned. From nearby, she heard crunching leaves and snapping twigs. But she was sitting down, mostly unmoving so it couldn't be her. That could only mean that she was not alone.
Morgan craned her neck and looked around behind her. She thought it was a rescue worker or a member of the search party looking for Roger. What she found standing behind her were one . . . two . . . three . . . five persons (three men and two women), with pale blue skin staring back at her with eyes that glowed with red light. For some reason, the way they looked at her reminded Morgan of a nature documentary she once saw. That nature documentary was heavily about lions on a hunt.
It was pretty obvious by their appearance that the newcomers were not human. But hoping they were the peaceful sort of not-human (there was still a chance they were part of the search and rescue operation), Morgan cleared her throat and asked, "Can I help you?"
The blue people all bared their teeth and hissed, "Werewolf!" They all had pairs of long fangs hanging downward like curved stalactites.
"Vampires!" Morgan immediately realized. Her mind raced. Didn't that shop lady, Daisy, say that vampires and werewolves hated each other, or something like that? And for some reason, these vampires think that she's a werewolf. Wait, werewolf-hating vampires thinking that I'm a werewolf? "Oh, that can't be good."
She immediately turned and sprang into a run, only to stop a second later when she found her way blocked by one of the women and one of the men.
How'd they get ahead of me? Morgan wondered. It's like they got superspeed!
She turned to run right, but there was a vampire there. She turned to run left, but there was a vampire there too. And, of course, there was a vampire on the way back as well. Before Morgan knew it, she was surrounded.
"Pretty slow for a werewolf," said the woman at the back, nose up while she regarded Morgan coolly.
"Now that I got a closer sniff, she's got more human than wolf stench on her," said the man to Morgan's right.
Morgan was afraid. Of course, she was. She was surrounded by freaky blue people with freaky fangs, and freaky glowing, red eyes. But she was able to muster enough courage to speak up and said, "That's because I'm not."
"But the wolf stench is strong," said the man at the left. "If she's not a wolf, she must be close with one. And going by the smell, the wolf is a strong one. A really strong one. I'd put it on the same level as Jim, if not higher."
"A prime suspect then," said the second woman. "What do you think, Boss?"
All eyes turned to the first woman, apparently called, "Boss". She was tall, with a narrow, gaunt face and curly, flaming red hair cut to the level of her chin.
"I have no idea what you guys are talking about," Morgan said, which was only partially true. Her heart raced fast at the mention of a wolf's smell. It could only be Roger's. But the stuff about levels and a suspect went way over her head. "But whatever it is, I've got nothing to do with it. Neither does Roger."
Boss smirked. "So, the wolf's name is Roger."
Morgan clapped her hands over her mouth, cursing herself. Damn it, Morgan! You spoke too much!
Slowly, the boss of the vampires approached. Morgan backed away but stopped when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. The other vampires were closing in on her.
"You and I are going to have a little chat," said the boss.
"About what?" Morgan asked, eyes wandering around her.
"Namely about your wolf friend," was the vampire boss's answer. "Roger."
At the mention of Roger's name, a fire lit in Morgan and she shouted, "You leave Roger alone! He has nothing to do with you! Or your feud with other werewolves!"
"That," the vampire boss said, still ever slowly advancing towards Morgan, "remains to be seen."
Morgan swallowed and shrank but put on a brave face and lowly said, "You won't get anything out of me."
The vampire boss's fingernails burst in growth and curved into sharp points, like the claws of a tiger. "That also remains to be seen. Hold her."
From behind, the woman vampire grabbed hold of Morgan's right arm, and the man vampire grabbed Morgan's left arm.
"No!" Morgan cried. "Let go!"
She yanked her arms as hard as she could, with all the strength she could muster, but the vampires held firm and felt little resistance at all.
"Let go! Let go! Let go!"
"Oh, hush!" went the vampire boss. She was now just a few inches from Morgan. "I don't want to hear another word out of you unless it's an answer to my questions. And it better be an honest one, because I would hate for anything to happen to that pretty little face of yours."
Morgan could feel something pointed brush gently across her left cheek. Her eyes rolled down to the blue, clawed hand near it. She dared to say nothing but breathed loudly through her nose.
"Now tell me," the vampire boss said in a low whisper, "where is Roger?"
Morgan hesitated to speak but then answered honestly while glaring fiercely into the eyes of her captor. "I don't know. But even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."
The vampire boss coldly glared back, unmoved in anyway by Morgan's show of defiance. She was as cool-headed as ever, and said, "I see." She backed away a few steps and turned her back to Morgan. "So, you won't tell me what I want to know. That's fine."
"It . . . is?" Morgan was a little relieved at getting some personal space back, but she was also a bit confused. She didn't expect the vampire to give up so easily without doing ANYTHING.
"Oh, sure," said the vampire boss, smiling. "Because even if I can't get you to talk, that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to get anything out of you."
Faster than Morgan could blink, the vampire boss whirled around like a spinning top. Her claws whistled as they sliced through air towards Morgan's neck. Then came the sound of loudly tearing fabric.
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