Book Five, Chapter 69: The Werewolf Curse

When I awoke, I found myself tied to a chair inside the main hallway of the manor.

At first, I was groggy and didn’t understand what was going on, but as I came to my senses, the horror of what had just happened took over me.

The relief that we were still in the storyline—that we were still alive—was little solace. We were still at the very beginning of the Party Phase; this was just the setup for the story.

That would explain why Kirst had such high Plot Armor. He needed enough Moxie to ensure he could lure us in.

I looked around at the others. They were tied to chairs the same as me, and the thick ropes used to bind us did not look like the kind you could cut through quickly, and certainly not the kind you could muscle your way out of without a lot of Mettle.

Heck, this whole event might have been scripted so tightly that it couldn’t be avoided, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t see the script, and our only ally with access to it had not made her appearance yet.

Kimberly was panicking—or pretending to panic; I couldn’t tell which. Antoine and Michael were trying to break the ropes with pure strength, to no avail. Hawk Kipling was awake but kept his cool. Andrew was trying to reach the knot in the ropes behind him, but he had no success.

I wished that I had brought my Escape Artist trope, but I suspected that it wouldn’t matter just yet. We were Off-Screen. I doubted any of us were getting out of our bindings unless the audience saw it.

So, I relaxed.

“This looks scripted,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but keep your wits.”

“How do you know this isn’t a game over?” Antoine asked.

I didn’t, but if it was, there was no use in panicking just yet. In my experience, emotions like that had a way of gaining momentum, so it was best to delay them as long as you could.

It wasn’t much longer after I woke up that our host, Egan Kirst, entered the room.

On-Screen.

We screamed at him and yelled to be let go, and all of it was useless, but we had to say something. He ignored us as he went into his monologue.

“I suspect you’re wondering why it is that I called you here, although you are probably more specifically worried about why it is that I gassed you and tied you up. So, I’ll make you a promise: from this point forward, I will not lie to you. Of course, I don’t expect you to believe me, but it is true. I need you to know the facts so that I can best utilize your skillsets.”

He walked toward us slowly, with no trace of anger on his face despite what he had done to us. He was almost, friendly, but resereved.

“A month ago, if you had told me that werewolves existed, I would have laughed in your face. Oh, how jealous I am of my past ignorance. I digress… As a man of means, I’ve been able to give those I love everything they have ever asked for. And last month, my son asked to take a trip here to Carousel for a camping experience that he said would be like no other. It had a brochure and everything. I would never deny him his happiness; after all, one day, he’s going to need something to think back to when he’s sitting behind a desk making adult decisions, wouldn’t you say?”

He paused as if we were going to respond in kind.

None of us responded. Perhaps we should have, but the truth was, even though all of this was a show, there definitely was an aura of fear in the room because none of us knew what to expect, and we desperately wanted there to be good news somewhere buried inside his exposition.

“Well, it would seem that on that camping trip, my son and his friends were attacked by creatures that could not exist—werewolves. If I had not seen him transform after acquiring the curse, I would never believe it, but I have seen it. In the ensuing weeks, I have gone from someone who did not believe in werewolves to someone who knows everything there is to know—except for how to catch one. No, it would seem that such knowledge is passed down from hunter to hunter and is written about rarely in the texts I was able to acquire. For much of human history, the idea of purposefully going out and finding werewolves would have been seen as folly. But here you are, hunters of the howling shadows, defying all logic and common sense. I believe that you have the abilities and knowledge required to help me.”

“So hire us,” Hawk said. “Cut it out with all the theatrics. Give us money, and we will do the thing we do for a living. Why are you overcomplicating it?”

Kirst walked around us in slow circles, occasionally weaving in between us to examine our faces.

“I know the nature of men and the nature of tradesmen more so. And I know that no amount of money could ever buy a man’s entire heart, his entire mind. At most, you get 50%. The rest is saved because, in truth, the employee always resents his employer, and he will either subconsciously or purposefully withhold his true potential.”

“What are you talking about?” Antoine asked. “Your kid got bit by the curse, and you want us to kill the pack leader. That’s what we do for a living. 50%, 100%—it doesn’t matter. A dead wolf is a dead wolf. In the heat of the hunt, we will do what it takes to survive.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Yes, a dead wolf is a dead wolf. Unless that wolf is twice as large as any other and is able to shift in daylight at will.”

That comment sucked the air out of the room. I didn’t have the complete account of the lore because my character was, in many ways, an outsider—not a true hunter, but someone who had stumbled into the world of the paranormal.

From the videos I had watched, I knew enough to know that being able to shift in daylight was a sign of a very seasoned, mature wolf and that the size of a werewolf was determined by its rank in the pack, not only by the size of its human form.

“Sounds like you got quite the wolf problem,” Hawk said. “But all the same, I’ve killed old wolves and young wolves. Ain’t no matter. Just pay me my money and untie me, damn it.”

“It isn’t quite that simple,” Kirst said. “I already tried that. Finding a hunter was one of the first things that I did. You see, I don’t lack for resources, and it took me almost no time to discover the secret underworld of paranormal investigation. In fact, I had purchased this legendary estate within a week in hopes that it might hold clues to the curse. Money gets people talking; curiosity gets them talking faster. As tight-lipped as you hunters are, you sure like talking when people believe you. I found a gentleman that liked to talk. He had a scar on the right side of his face and said that he could take care of my problem easily. I sent him and four of my men into the woods to hunt down and kill whatever pack of wolves was terrorizing Carousel, and that was the last I saw of them. You see, he took one look at our wolf infestation and hightailed it out of the state. I found out about his departure by post. My men were nowhere to be found.”

“A scar on his face?” Antoine said. “You’re not talking about Tin Gun McAdoo, are you?”