Log InRegister
    Read Free Web Novels Online
    Chapter Index

    Mr. Kirst led us to a small dining room with a single window.

    “You’ll have to forgive me; the formal dining room is damaged beyond repair,” he said.

    The (informal?) dining room we were in was probably the nicest room in the house. There were very few signs of a hundred years without affection; in fact, it only looked like it had been abandoned for less than fifty years. It was practically in mint condition. If we had to sleep in the Manor for this storyline, this would be the room to do it in.

    There was a large round wooden table with place settings ready to go and little name cards for each of us, showing us where to sit.

    “I chose a round table because I want this to be a conversation. I don’t want you to try to defer to me just because I’m your host,” Mr. Kirst said. “And I hope you’ll notice that the silverware is genuine silver. There could be nothing less for a conversation like the one we’re about to have.”

    As we walked in, we were still On-Screen, but Kimberly managed to discretely elbow me and point to the painting on the wall of the dining room. It wasn’t quite the painting we had brought. It wasn’t The Omen.

    It was a larger version of The Omen. Where the one we had purchased at the flea market only showed the woman’s head and enough of her torso to display her necklace, this one was a full-body portrait of her standing next to a window with a beautiful watery vista.

    Still, the silver necklace was probably the most detailed and beautiful part of the painting.

    It had no inscription or title that I could see, and when I asked Mr. Kirst about it, he simply said, “Oh, yes, that came with the house. You’d be shocked to know that the looters actually left some good stuff. Perhaps the best home defense is a reputation for being haunted.”

    I had to give it to him—Mr. Kirst was funny, always ready with a quip. Throughout much of the dinner, he showed himself to be a very inquisitive and knowledgeable man who could keep a conversation flowing masterfully.

    He asked us about our experiences, and we told him to the best of our ability. Sometimes we were On-Screen, sometimes Off-Screen, as Carousel got its footage of the conversation and the charismatic, strange man who had brought us there.

    “So, in all of your travels, you’ve never found a cure?” Mr. Kirst asked with childlike intensity. “Not one potion, not one spell?”

    “The cure is silver,” Antoine said. “Preferably in the heart.”

    “But that kills the werewolf,” Mr. Kirst replied. “I can see why you’re not the doctor at the table.”

    “Like I said, it’s the cure,” Antoine responded.

    “Oh, I see. So you would never make an attempt to return an afflicted back to their human form? You’ve never even considered it?” Andrew asked, wine glass in hand.

    “Never had the time,” Antoine said. “Of course, I don’t study them in a lab. I’m usually running after them in the woods.”

    That got a laugh.

    “Of course, I know the legends,” Antoine continued. “To revert a werewolf to its human form permanently, you have to kill the wolf who turned them, but I don’t believe it. It can be hard to sort the chaff from the wheat when it comes to supernatural lore.”

    “No,” Hawk Kipling said. “Not the werewolf that turned them; you have to kill the pack leader. All werewolves are bound to their pack leader, and if you kill their pack leader before the curse has taken hold, they will be freed from it.”

    I didn’t know that. None of my videos had told me.

    “It didn’t take us long to get away from the scientific, did it?” Mr. Kirst asked Andrew with a laugh.

    “It rarely does,” Andrew responded. “Unfortunately, this space is dominated by folklore and very little study.”

    Kirst laughed. “To the contrary. Lycanthropy used to be studied with some rigor, back before the advent of modern medicine.”

    “There’s probably a reason for that,” Andrew said.

    “And what is that?” I asked.

    “If you go looking for a magical curse and find only a dreadful disease, you probably lose interest,” Andrew said with a chuckle.

    “It is interesting you say that,” Kirst said. “I cannot help but feel the reverse may be true.”

    Andrew took a short sip from his drink and said, “You believe the werewolf curse is really that, a curse?”

    Kirst did not answer at first, but for a moment, I saw a glint in his eye that I could not place. He wasn’t the flamboyant businessman for a moment. He was something else.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it’s taken without the author’s consent. Report it.

    “I have made my fortune by assuming that men’s pride is folly,” Kirst said. “The very suggestion that this force of nature could be dissected and understood reads as pure hubris. No offense to you, Doctor Hughes; I admire the dogged pursuit of truth. This is a force we do not understand, and I believe we can count on that to remain the case.”

    There was a moment of silence at that statement. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was we had gotten into.

    We were eating some kind of roast with carrots that tasted like honey while discussing werewolves at length. The conversation was quite riveting, actually, because everyone had been given different bits of lore, and we were all discussing them.

    As soon as we started, I had my tapes playing in the background of my mind, casually listening over and over. They were similar to the first tape, just interviews with folks who had lived long enough to have seen some things and heard some things—nothing hard-hitting.

    “Now, what say your people?” Mr. Kirst asked, looking at Michael.

    “We say the best cure is to never get bit, to never kiss strange women around the campfire, and to always wear silver around your neck,” Michael said, showing a necklace he wore with an unformed lump of silver dangling from the end. “That’s as close to a cure as you’re going to get unless you’re chasing fairy dust.”

    “What is it with silver?” Mr. Kirst asked, taking a large drink from his wine glass. “Why silver? Why does it have some interaction with werewolves? Does anyone have any idea?”

    “Silver does have antimicrobial qualities,” Andrew offered. “Perhaps the werewolf virus is particularly weak to its presence. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find an intact tissue sample from a werewolf.”

    0 chapter views

    0 Comments

    Note
    1 online