Page 6 of Dark Cravings

I blew a puff of air through my nostrils. "The other hunter poisoned you with bullets laced with wolfsbane. We sedated you, and considering where you are, poisoning you doesn't seem necessary, does it?"

"I guess not…" He trailed off, not quite meeting my eyes. I wasn't sure if he was ashamed of his nakedness, what he had done, or a combination of both. It was a surprise that such a merciless and wanton beast could feel any shame at all.

"When someone enters your cell, it is because they are trying to collect your blood," I told him. "Which is, incidentally, the only reason I didn't kill you out on the street."

"My blood?" he echoed, his eyes shining with confusion. "What for?"

I wasn't fond of the idea of explaining myself to a dog, especially not one as feral as he was, but it seemed like he might actually be possible to reason with in this form. That, and I was admittedly curious.

"You've been down here for several days,” I said. “I imagine you've managed to piece together something about who and what we are?"

"You work for the Catholic Church," he said carefully. "And you hunt monsters."

"You're half right," I told him. "Aesthetics aside, we are quite a few schisms separated from the Catholic Church, at least as you know it. I'm a priest of the Sanguine Church."

"Sanguine? As in blood?"

"So you do have a few brain cells rattling around in there, after all," I sneered. "Like our distant predecessors, we, too, partake in certain blood rites, but for very different reasons. As you correctly assessed, we do hunt monsters such as yourself.”

“But you don’t kill them?” he asked doubtfully.

“Not always,” I answered. “Over time, the scholars of the Church have discovered that certain traits of beasts can be transmitted to a human vessel through small quantities of blood, as long as it’s been carefully distilled to preserve its essence while removing the contagion that passes their condition on."

"So… you bleed us to get our powers?" he asked.

"That's more or less the gist of it," I said, watching his reaction closely. Usually, a particularly brutal wolf would at least be partially as aggressive in his human form. For there to be such a dramatic difference between the two natures was unusual, to say the least.

"But that other hunter was just going to kill me," he said, tilting his head. "Why?"

"He belongs to another sect of hunters called the Order of the Rose," I explained. "They are a clandestine society operating under the umbrella of the Anglican Church. They view the practice of Infusion as heresy, and they wish to exterminate all beasts, regardless of how destructive they are or are not."

"But you don't?"

"What I personally think is irrelevant," I said. "The official position of the Church is to intervene where necessary to protect humanity, and there's more than enough work to go around without worrying about beasts who keep to themselves and police their own. You, of course, are not one of those."

To my surprise, he hung his head in shame. He wasn’t even willing to offer an argument on his own behalf. "Earlier, you said something about me being an alpha. I keep hearing that word. What does it mean?"

I stared at him for a moment, trying to decide whether he was stringing me along. "Are you serious? What pack are you from?"

"Pack?" he asked in what seemed like genuine confusion. "I don't have a pack."

"So you were turned, then." When I saw his confusion intensify, I added, "You were born human."

"Oh! Yes," he said eagerly. "The whole ‘turning into a giant monster’ thing is new."

"I see. And who was your sire?"

"The one who turned me? I… don't know. I don't really remember much about it."

"Try."

He swallowed again, although his lips were so dry and cracked, I doubted it was anything more than a nervous impulse. "I was on a camping trip with my family. We were in the woods. We went deeper than usual, but everything was fine until I went to get more firewood," he said, his brow furrowing as if he was just beginning to piece together the memories himself.

"And how long ago was this?"

He started to answer, but hesitated. "I don't know. What month is it?"

"October."