Written by Britta Ventura, Sat 25/04/98 13:58
Chapter 6
Friedrich felt Gabriel’s increasing restlessness during the drive to Alfdorf, he sped his car up as fast as it was possible. The side of the road flew past them, snow whirled and it slowly started getting darker. Falling snowflakes reflected the lights of Friedrich’s car.
After several hours they reached the hunting lodge in Alfdorf. Friedrich settled them down in their bedrooms and lit a fire downstairs, he prepared some tea and asked Gabriel to join him at the fireside. He knew that the following conversation and action had to be a gentle one. All too well he remembered his first change and its results. It wouldn’t be Gabriel’s first time, but this time Gabriel was supposed to do it on purpose and control it. Friedrich wanted it to be a special occasion. Shortly after, they had settled down in front of the fire.
"Gabriel, how do you feel know?"
"Good of course. What do you think. Stop that psychiatric thing and leave me alone. Go and run a little if it makes you feel any better. I’m staying here."
Friedrich let out a little sigh, so far for the gentle way. Gabriel clearly wasn’t up to talk, so Friedrich decided to give Gabriel his way. If it was a fight he wanted, Gabriel could have it.
"Please Gabriel listen to me. It won’t help you to be stubborn. Let go off it! Let us go outside."
"No!!" Gabriel could hardly control his anger.
"You’re a spoiled brat, Gabriel. As long as everything goes your way, you’re fine, but as soon as you think differently everything and everyone has to follow you. You never cared about anyone but yourself, you sent Grace back to America, you order Gerda around and you always blame someone else for the worlds problems. That sickens me."
"You are a bloody liar Friedrich . You of all. You monster, you turn people into your kind and you never think of the consequences."
A stab of sorrow and regret hit Friedrich, but he had to let Gabriel shout out his fear and frustration.
"Gabriel, you have no idea what you are talking about, you American wimp. Oh, don’t take any risks, please no danger, something might happen to you, how terrible."
"Bastard, you bloody bastard. Leave me alone!" Gabriel fled the room, he was furious. What did that idiot Friedrich think. Once he was outside the house, he tried to calm down. He was shaking with rage, his blood burned in his veins and the full moon above him was calling.
The shaking and trembling of his muscles became tremendous. Gabriel slumped downwards to his knees and roared out his hatred and agony. Slowly his form changed.
He sat on his hind legs and raised his head. Everything looked so differently now, somehow like in infrared. The air smelled of wood, little animals and freedom.
His ears picked up a thousand different sounds.
Carefully he stood up and took a few steps to the woods. His soft paws hardly made any sounds, as he trotted on. He started to run. The snowflakes tickled his nose, the cold air brushed his dark-brown fur as he ran deeper and deeper into the forest.
Adrenaline rushed through his veins, it felt fantastic, glorious. His nostrils quivered as the smell of a small animal reached him. Hunger, he was so hungry. He changed track and tried to focus on this one smell, he had to have it. Fresh, alive and warm.
There, there it was. It tried to run and hide. Ha, the human inside of the wolf laughed, he knew rabbits were running zigzag, so he just had to keep a straight line and he would catch up with it eventually.
The rabbit had no chance as the powerful jaws closed around its neck, it never heard its scull crushing under the pressure. Gabriel felt the hot blood fill his mouth and the dying pulse of the prey touched his tongue. It tasted good, as he ripped the small body apart. He never noticed the pair of eyes watching him.
The remains of the rabbit still lay at his feet as he picked up another track. Mhm, something bigger, more of a challenge, more interesting, more difficult to hunt and kill.
But before he could follow that new track, something heavy hit his back. Angrily he tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t go. ‘Kill it, get rid off it’ were the only two thoughts that crossed Gabriel’s mind. He never had a chance to do so, suddenly the weight trashed him on his side and he saw the black wolf above him. The fangs of the black wolf opened and he ordered Gabriel to crouch before him. But the bloodthirst was too great for Gabriel, he tried to shake the other wolf off and escape, his senses still focused on his next prey.
The two wolves started to fight, claws flying, teeth biting thick fur, their growls echoed through the forest. Then the black wolf had Gabriel on his back, his jaws closing on Gabriel’s throat. Gabriel had no other choice but to submit, as the other wolf raised his head in a long victorious howl.
The early morning sun tickled Gabriel’s nose as he tried to bury himself deeper into his cosy pillow. He moaned at the stiffness of his legs. Distant sounds from downstairs kept him from slipping back to sleep, so he rolled onto his back and stretched, eyes still closed. He felt warm and comfortable, it must have been a good night yesterday ......the sound of the door being opened made him look up. Friedrich walked into the room carrying a tray in his hands.
"Good morning, Gabriel. How did you sleep?"
The smell of freshly brewed coffee quickly filled the room. Gabriel sat up in his bed.
"Great, thanks." To his astonishment he even discovered fresh Croissants on the tray as Friedrich sat down at his bedside. ‘How does he do it?’ Gabriel thought. As he reached for some coffee something struck him as odd. Did Friedrich only seem a bit fresher and younger than yesterday or was it just the sunlight? Gabriel stopped his move in mid-air, yesterday.......last night, suddenly he remembered their fight downstairs. He had run out on Friedrich and then he......good God. He had transformed into a wolf. He remembered little bits of it, his first hunt, the rabbit and after that ..... nothing.
Friedrich saw Gabriel’s face go pale and put a calming hand on Gabriel’s arm.
"What happened last night, Friedrich?"
"You changed. You didn’t want to but you couldn’t help it. In fact I provoked you to it. It had to happen anyway, but I thought it would be best with someone watching over you."
"Yes, yes. But after I changed. I remember a hunt, the taste of the kill. After that everything it very faint."
"You fell into a bloodthirst and I had to stop you. You were so obsessed, you never noticed I was right behind you all the time. You clearly were having fun but after your first kill you didn’t want to stop. It is the most important thing you will have to learn, you have to know when to stop. A small animal is an easy target, so you will look for something more challenging, at first it will be deers, boars or anything as big as that, but then you will find that a human is the most interesting target for you. That must never happen, do you understand. Never!"
"Did you bring me back here?"
"Well, actually you trotted home with me as you were supposed to, you behaved quite well after my little lecture. I put you into bed and you fell asleep the moment your head hit the pillow. Ah yes, and you started snoring right away too." A grin broadened on Friedrich’s face "But now you should get up and ready." With that Friedrich left the room.
Half an hour later Gabriel went downstairs to find Friedrich sitting in front of the fireside lingering over his cup of coffee. Gabriel joined him and shared a moment of peace and quiet. After a while he just couldn’t hold his questions back any longer. Especially one, for him, very important question.
"How was your fist time?" he asked.
A dark shadow crossed Friedrich’s face. "It is not a story that I like to remember."
Friedrich knew he would have to tell Gabriel sooner or later but it brought back a time he rather had forgotten.
"After your ancestor Christian Ritter had caught my father we, that is my mother and I, fled Germany. I was just four and a half years old. First we went to France, but six years later we left for South America. My mother had purchased a house there and life went on quite peacefully for some time. Then, shortly after my twelfth birthday, things started to change. I became a very difficult child. I used to throw around with things, hit other people and I screamed at them. My mother put up with it for some time, but in the end she left me in the capable hands of an educator, Senior Gomes-Rodrigues. Some weeks later I broke a plate during dinner, so I was sent to bed without anything to eat. As you can imagine, I was furious. In my room I started trashing around with my furniture. Later that night Senior Gomes-Rodrigues entered my bedroom to hold me a lecture about my behaviour, I guess. I hated him and my only wish was to get rid off him. I leaped at him, starting to attack him with my bare hands.
The next morning I found myself outside in the backyard of our house. I was naked and my arms and legs were muddy, I was startled and suspected I had been sleepwalking. Once back inside, I immediately went to the bathroom to clean myself up and dress, so no one would notice the state I was in. As I looked into the mirror I found dried blood on my face and also on my hands. Scared I started to look for injuries, but couldn’t find any. Later when I was clean and dressed in a dressing-gown I went back to my bedroom. As I entered the room, I could already smell the cold blood of the shattered body inside. I was terrified, but I lit a lamp to find out what it was. In the middle of my room lay Senior Gomes-Rodrigues, his face shredded and his throat ripped open, still clutching my pyjama-top in his lifeless left hand.
I never felt the change that night, nor was I aware of the consequences. It took me quite some years to figure everything out and to pretend to lead a normal life."
"Oh my god, so you never really had a chance to remove the curse. I’m sorry!"
"Don’t be Gabriel. I have come to terms with my fate and I like my life a lot. There are more treasures to it than you can imagine. Let me give you the chance to discover them."
"But there has to be a chance even for you, Friedrich. I for my part don’t want to stay a werewolf for all eternity."
"You know how you can end it. Stay out of trouble and kill me."
"I don’t want to kill you. You are my friend and it wasn’t your fault."
"Gabriel things are the way they are. Don’t bother yourself with my life. There is no way to help me. Maybe I don’t want any help."
"But Friedrich, I’m sure of it. We just have to look for a way. I promise I will find one. Don’t you want to grow old one day, have a wife, maybe children?"
"Oh, I had wives. And I am pretty old, don’t you think? 249 years sounds like a new record. As for children, I can have children, but that would be irresponsible, don’t you think? I have finally found a far more important thing in my life. That is you. Someone who calls me his friend and I can share the wonders of our existence with."
Gabriel gave up. Friedrich was right, he had to learn to live a different way now and somehow he guessed it was going to be an exiting way.
If you have any comments, you can email Britta Ventura at BuAVentura@compuserve.com.
In the meantime, return to the main Fan Fiction page...