Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2011 08:02:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bien Clar <bienclar@yahoo.com>
Subject: Council of Elders Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER

The follow story is fictional. Any resemblance between these characters and
persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.

This story will contain scenes of a sexual nature between consenting adult
men. Therefore, if you are under 18 (or whatever age is deemed as "adult" in
your country), if it is illegal to read this material in your country or
if you are offended by the idea of sex between two consenting adult men,
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.

The author cannot be held accountable for the decision you make after reading
this disclaimer and if you didn't read it then you don't deserve to be
reading porn. There, I said it, now bugger off. If none of the above applies
to you then feel free to enjoy and feel free to contact the author with
praise, criticism or just flames at bienclar@yahoo.com.

Sorry for the wait! I have been writing this since I got my first email
response but according to Nifty's immutable laws, one cannot publish a story
within two days of the last one.

I tried to inject a little bit of humour into this chapter, as the last one
was a bit heavy. It's hard to write 'funny' without going overboard. The
perspective jumps quite a bit, for which I apologise, but it's necessary for
the story to develop. I'm not entirely sure where the story is going because
I like to write as I think rather than plan, so it might seem a bit
disjointed.

I got quite a few responses and thus my ego is a little bit massive at the
moment. Feel free to bring me down a peg if you don't something or just
downright hate it.

Enjoy the show. XOXO

***

Time flashed past and before any of them new it; the baby boy had grown into
a man. On the dawn of his eighteenth birthday, he was awoken by clattering
noises from downstairs. He rose sleepily from bed and shrugged on a pair
of jeans and a polo shirt that stretched over his wide shoulders. His
bedroom was still dark, the curtains blocking out the majority
of the early morning sun. The gloom didn't impede his movements as he
walked to the curtains and pulled them wide, letting the blinding rays
fall into the cramped space.

The light came to rest on a typical teenager's room. It was messy with
clothes strewn over the floor. A small pile of dusty schoolbooks was laid
against a wall and next to those a vast array of CDs and DVDs stood on racks
piled to the ceiling. The carpet was a clean navy blue and it was warm under
his bare feet. Posters of his favourite musicians and films were dotted
around the yellow walls in a seemingly random pattern.

He padded softly into the corridor outside of his room and scratched at the
stubble on his cheeks. He slowly made his way downstairs, hearing the hushed
voices get close and closer. As he neared the kitchen, he stepped on a
squeaky board and suddenly the voices were silent. He continued to trot
towards the closed kitchen door and as he turned the handle, he readied
himself to pounce on any intruders.

"SURPRISE!" cheered the small crowd gathered around a large chocolate cake
with eighteen lit candles sticking out of it. "Happy Birthday Owen!"
His mother swooped down on him and began showering him with kisses that
bruised his cheeks. Through the haze of maternal embarrassment, he could
see his father shaking his head and laughing. They said it was his
birthday when in fact it was just the anniversary of being brought home
by his Dad, but no one else knew that.

"Come on Elaine, you're strangling the poor boy. Let him come up for air." He
said as he attempted to pry the mother away. His salt and pepper hair was
thinning and he had wrinkles around his eyes, but the lines on his face
were formed from laughter rather than tears. "I think he knows you love him."

Elaine had tears in her eyes as she pulled away. Her little boy was all grown
up and he was going to leave for university the next day. This was one of her
last opportunities to tell him she how loved him before he was hundreds of
miles away studying in the seaside city of Plymouth. As wonderful as it was
to see him moving into the world of adulthood, it was still painful for his
mother to let him go. Her inability to have children had made his arrival all
the more special and Elaine's catholic upbringing told her that he was a gift
from God.

In truth, he was just the opposite.

***

In a dark chamber deep beneath Vatican City, an ancient werewolf was
meditating. He was desperately trying to foresee the next great evil before
the other two had visions of their own. It was a secret competition they had
and Caesar was beginning to trail behind. The golem was so old and powerful
that he had snatches of possible futures lining up to wish him good morning,
and the vampire was so deeply immersed in shady dealings of his own that he
was more attuned to the darkness than either of his colleagues.

Just as Caesar was about to call it and go to sleep, he felt it. A tingling
that started at his temples and then intensified until it was burning his
retinas. He blinked slowly and the clouded-grey eyes were replaced by orbs of
shining white. The voice of the Creator flowed into his mind and shaped his
thoughts into images that flickered like old film.

An old man stood in a doorway with tears in his eyes. A lonesome road curled
between the hedgerows of a country lane. A girl screamed in violent fury. A
knight in black-plated armour rode a steed of boiling shadows. A fire grew
and grew till the smoke blotted out the sun. A giant wave rose from the sea
and engulfed a small city. The earth was cracked by a light from the sky.

The light faded from Caesar's eyes and despite his horror at the flashes he
had witnessed he felt a moment of triumph. There came a thumping at the door,
but he was sure that nothing could ruin his mood.

"Enter." He called out to the noisy intruder.

"Lord Caesar" an acolyte burst into the room and began to breathe deeply as
though he had run a marathon. "Lord Oberoth has just received a vision of the
future! He says he has information regarding the new threat!"

Typical.

***

Owen's birthday was going off without a hitch. The guests laughed and sang at
all the correct moments, the gifts were thoughtful and the cake was
delicious. But there was something nagging at the back of his mind. He had a
feeling that someone else should be present at his eighteenth birthday. He
had often wondered who his real parents were. Had they died in the explosion
he had miraculously survived? Had they abandoned him? Were they, even now,
searching for him? His adoptive father held no answers for him as his efforts
to locate them had been fruitless.

He could not remember their faces but that was unsurprising, as he had only
just been born when the Police Chief found him. Sometimes he dreamt of voices
and faces that seemed muffled by shadows, but these dreams were just as
unhelpful.

At 6pm, the guests began to leave. The house felt strangely empty without his
friends making loud noises, he could finally hear his own thoughts but he
wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. His father clapped him on the back, looked
him in the eye, and in that brief glance he seemed to see the confusion his
son felt.

"It's okay to miss them Owen. Even if you never knew them, you won't ever
forget them." He said in an understanding tone of voice.

The problem was that Owen didn't want to be understood. He wanted his Dad to
shout, to tell him that he should forget about his biological parents and
move on. That he had a loving family and that was all that mattered even if
they weren't technically related. But the Police Chief was too kind to say
such things; he knew that Owen would have to come to terms with his real
parents on his own.

"I know it's stupid Dad, but I miss them at times like this. I don't even
know what they looked like but I miss them." Owen had his head in his hands.

"It's not stupid Owen. Just don't forget to stay in the present instead of
worrying about the past." His Dad smiled a toothy grin and mussed his black
hair out of shape. No son was too old to be irritated by his Dad. "Right,
your mother and I are going out for dinner. You should pack before we get
back so that she doesn't have a chance to persuade you not to go to uni."

"Okay Dad. See you later and don't be back too late. Wear your seatbelt and
check both ways before crossing the road." He hugged him and tramped upstairs
to find his clothes.

***

"You can't be serious!" cried Malus, the Vampire Elder, in outrage.

"He's got to be dead! Nothing could survive the Summoner's final attack,
otherwise we would have gone to deal with her ourselves." Agreed Caesar.

"Unless it was that final act that allowed the Pit to tear itself a hole in
the fabric of reality. The energy requirements would be so large I can only
think of one possible power source." Oberoth was certain of his conclusion.

"Raw magic." Caesar slumped back into his throne and bowed his head.

"But that doesn't explain why we never received the visions again. What
changed?" Asked Malus in confusion.

"We sent the two assassins after her. She was weakened enough that the child
did not have the entirety of its powers. It would have to wait until it had
matured sufficiently, that is if it even knows its purpose. The Summoner
would have tried to channel her power more efficiently had she not been
interrupted so the devastation may not have occurred but for our
interference. Perhaps she had an accomplice ready to train the child in her
absence?" This explanation was alarmingly rational and Oberoth's fellow
Elders were stunned into silence by the realisation that their actions had
done nothing but delay the inevitable.

"We MUST find the child!" shouted Malus in horror.

"But he won't be a child anymore. It's been eighteen years since that day. We
have only received this vision because he has finally matured enough to wield
his full power." Countered Caesar.

"We will have to send a Hunter after him." Said Oberoth.

"We can't do that! They're too unstable; they can't be trusted with something
like this. They are my kind and even I can't control them." Caesar, for all
his magic and wisdom, was wary of the Hunters. They were werewolves of
unimaginable skill and were nearly impossible to defeat one-on-one. Their
mountain home was deep within a silver ore mine and they had grown total
resistance to its ionising effect on werewolf cells.

"How will we contact them? They are too secretive to come out of hiding, even
in the face of the Apocalypse." Malus asked, though he thought he had an
inkling as to Oberoth's plan.

Sure enough, the golem held a silver dagger behind his back. He struck with
the impossible strength of tectonic plates and Caesar was thrown onto the
floor. The silver in the blade reacted to his werewolf DNA and began to
release toxic radiation that killed his cells one by one. He died slowly and
in agony and he stared into Oberoth's eyes with sadness and confusion.

"I am sorry my old friend. But this is the only way to reach the Hunters and
save the world. I will miss the times we spent together, but I know your
death won't be in vain." The golem held his dying friend even as the
werewolf's body began to burn with the white heat of magic.

Oberoth released him and braced himself against the wall of the chamber.
Malus was not quick enough and as the magic in Caesar's body escaped, he was
thrown against the wall with enough force to crack every bone in a human
body. The worst was yet to come however; at the moment of the Elder's death,
his power of foresight was also released. A mental shockwave rushed out of
his lifeless corpse and crashed over the whole world at the speed of thought.
For one agonizing moment, every mentally attuned creature the world over had
the psychic equivalent of a blue screen of death. Their minds shut down to
protect them from the forces attacking them.

The message was received by every werewolf the world over, even the Hunters.
Caesar was dead; they must go to pay their respects to their former leader.

Unknown to the other two members of the Triumvirate of Blood, Caesar had seen
his death already and had long ago enacted a curse that would be the downfall
of his murderers. At the moment of his demise, his consciousness screamed
through the sky and lodged itself inside the mind of one of the Hunters.
Unfortunately, his aim had been a little off. So instead of inhabiting the
mind of the Alpha he was suddenly sharing the same head as one of the Alpha's
offspring. He was disconcerted by the sensation of having another's thoughts
swirl around him and he almost lost his mental grip.

***

Fenris McAgnus was the runt of the litter. He knew it, his father knew it,
his brothers knew it, and everyone in the underground network of Krakarov
Mountain knew it. His position as Angus McAgnus' son made him immune from
most of the bullying he would have received otherwise, but it didn't make the
pain of being such a disappointment any less intense.

He knew his father despaired of him and he knew that he was butt of many a
joke by the members of the pack. He didn't know why he didn't just leave.
"Oh, now I remember!" he thought. It was because they were in the middle of
the Siberian Tundra, miles underneath the ground and living in a dormant
volcano. There was literally nowhere to go.

Why couldn't he be more like his brothers? They were tall and strong and they
were born leaders. He was barely 6'5" and only 240lbs, which was nothing
compared to them. He was also severely let down by his werewolf form. His
nine-foot fully transformed werewolf body was as a child compared to the
majestic altitude enjoyed by his father and siblings.

When he had been young his mother had always told him that he would grow up
to be bigger than all of his brothers, but as the years progressed he
realised that there was no way he would ever even hit seven feet as a human,
and he could forget about being a giant werewolf like the rest of them. He
would just have to settle for being called "short-stuff" "half-pint" "hobbit"
and "pup" for the rest of his natural.

Fenris was the runt of the litter in all but one sense. He could out-think
the lot of them. He was the cleverest wolf in the mountain and had at least
40 IQ points on everyone. Despite his embarrassing stature, he could cling to
that lifeline for the rest of his life. Fenris' brain was a shining beacon to
all that felt his psychic presence outside the mountain.

This was probably why, hurtling through mental subspace and unable to see his
target's unfortunate lack of height, Elder Caesar had thought that he was the
pack Alpha. The wonderful mind he had caught a whiff of had to belong to
someone important in the pack. So it was that, while everyone else in the
entire mountain was clutching their heads in pain, Fenris McAgnus suddenly
felt better than he had in years.

"Pa? Pa what's wrong?" he asked fearfully as he watched the great and
powerful Angus McAgnus writhing on the floor. Psychic attacks always fell
hardest on those with weak minds, and Fenris' family were some of the biggest
knuckle-dragging brutes in the known universe. It was the medical equivalent
of ten epileptic seizures happening at once, so it was no wonder that they
were brought to their knees.

"You can't help them boy," the voice seemed to emanate from within his own
mind. "It won't last long, but it'll hurt like fuck till it's over."

Caesar was surprised at himself. Where had that come from? He thought for a
moment and realised that the strength of the mind he was cohabitating was
such that his own essence was being altered. He was in no danger, he was not
fading away or losing his memories, he was just becoming more and more like a
grumpy teenager.

"Who's there?" Fenris asked out loud.

"I'm not out there, I'm in here." This baffling statement was accompanied by
a sharp stinging near his temples. "In your mind, as it were."

"You're a figment of my imagination?" This time Fenris thought the words
rather than said them.

"Yes and no. Yes in that my presence is being changed by your imagination,
but no in that I am very much real." Caesar tried to simplify but the science
behind the magic was too complex.

"Great. So now that there's no hope of me becoming of any use to anyone, I've
gone crazy." Fenris mentally rolled his eyes.

"I saw that! Honestly, kids these days have no respect for their Elders. Huh?
I just made a joke. I haven't made a joke in four hundred years." Caesar
focused for a moment.

Suddenly there was an old grizzled werewolf standing in front of Fenris. His
fur was pale white and he was muttering to himself. He seemed very short, not
like any of the werewolves Fenris knew.

"Well I would wouldn't I. Not everyone's a giant you know. I'm considered
quite tall where I'm from. Or I was, before my physical body died. Christ!
They grow them big where you're from." Caesar had a direct connection to
Fenris' thoughts and could hear them as clearly as a voice.

"How are you standing in front of me? You just said your physical body... Oh!
You're projecting an image of yourself through my eyes, that'll make
communication easier I suppose. But won't I look a bit odd talking to
myself?"

"I thought of that." Caesar grinned smugly. "I've done a teensy bit of
rewiring of your perceptions. When you 'speak' to me, you're actually just
thinking. Don't worry it won't affect anyone else. You'll just
have to be careful not to keep looking at me during conversations."

"What's happened to all of them?" Fenris asked.

"Unfortunately, I happened. A side effect of me vacating my mortal shell is
that all of my considerable magic escaped my body; it's causing some...
difficulty for the psychically inclined." Caesar gave an apologetic shrug and
held up his hands in a show of 'mea culpa'.

"Why didn't it happen to me?" Fenris asked in a more curious voice.

"Not entirely sure. At first I thought that I was somehow shielding you, but
they started having fits before I landed in your head. You must be powerful
to stop such an attack. Either that or..." He trailed off and started
muttering. Fenris began to get irritated; it was unfair that the sharing of
thoughts could not be a two-way street.

"It is. You just have to focus on the part of your mind that I inhabit. Think
of your mind like a big multi-storey hotel. I'm in one of the rooms. Try to
picture the room."

"What does it look like?"

"Well..." Caesar began. He turned around on the spot where he was standing in
front of Fenris. His body seemed to become more translucent than before. He
regained opacity and grinned with one eyebrow raised. "Well... I'm not sure I
should say."

"You don't mean..." Fenris' eyes widened both externally and internally. He
flushed red with embarrassment.

"Yes, that room. You could probably move me to a different room if you like,
but I quite like it in here and you might dislodge me from your mind entirely
if you try. Besides, at least now I know you've got some imagination."

"Okay, I'm coming in."

It was as if he had stepped into another world. He was standing in front of a
red door floating in darkness. He groaned as he saw the room number on the
door. XXX. Hopefully that just meant room 30. He opened the door and he was
pulled inside by Caesar. He clamped his eyes shut.

"It's not really to my taste. But, whatever floats your boat and all that.
Maybe if I spend enough time in here I'll start to like it." Caesar had an
expression of sheer enjoyment on his lupine face.

Fenris turned as he opened his eyes and was half expecting to see some sort
of leather harness or handcuffs or ball-gag hanging from the ceiling.
Instead, he found he was looking at a small table on top of which was a
bottle of wine and a half melted candle sticking out of an empty balsamic
vinegar bottle.

"Not much of a deep dark fantasy really. Seems a bit tame to me. So your
deepest sexual desire is romance?"

Fenris muttered darkly about "interfering old men" and "perverted ancient
dogs". Then to his surprise, he found that he wasn't really upset, it was
nice to share his secret with someone, especially someone who could never
tell anyone else. He waved his arm and one of the empty seats by the table
was filled with the silhouette of a man. First, he was tall and broad
chested, and then he was petite and slim. The silhouette seemed to shift and
change, never taking one form over another.

"Ah... so that's why you've buried your romantic side in here. I know
werewolves aren't the most accepting of critters out there. But it's much
better than it used to be. Why, in my day, you'd be castrated and every male
in the pack would fuck you till he came in your ass. That was the punishment
for the sodomite, provided of course that the Alpha remembered to castrate
him. They forgot that bit sometimes you know, quite often in fact. More often
than you would..." Caesar stopped for a moment and seemed to consider what
he'd just said. "Now I think of it, it just sounds like an excuse for a bunch
of randy dogs to fuck someone for free. I expect the 'victim' was in on the
whole thing."

"Um, can we go? I feel a little uncomfortable being stuck inside my own
head."

"Yeah sure. You need to make some sort of phrase, something powerful, that
will bring you back to a conscious level. Your body goes into a sort of coma
when you come in here so you have to be careful."

"Uh... Okay. How about 'There's no place like home'?"

"I guess you are a friend of Dorothy." Caesar laughed raucously. "It should
be fine. Just concentrate."

"There's no place like home. There's no place like home." Fenris tapped his
heels together as he said it, much to Caesar's delight.

***

Owen packed the last of his luggage into the car he had rented for the drive
to Plymouth. It was a good five hours, but the drive would allow him to think
clearly about what he was going to do when he got there.

The decision had been an easy one for him. The city was on the coast, it had
the largest aquarium in Europe and it was the centre of Marine Biology
research in the country. According to his former Plymothian friends, it was
also a sty. A bad one. But he could look past that, the real reason for going
somewhere so far away was that he had been planning to do something for a
long time. Something he could only do far away from his parents.

Owen had known he was gay for four years. Ever since a mix up at a hotel on a
school trip had left him sleeping in the same bed as the school's seventeen-
year-old rugby captain for two weeks, he had known that there was no going
back. Andrew had been good to him and hadn't laughed at him when he had woken
up to find Owen snuggled cosily into his strong chest. In fact, he had been
the one to hold Owen as the young boy cried for the loss of his ignorance.
Andrew had never touched him sexually, but the brief moments of contact had
meant more than words to Owen's fragile heart.

Owen was intending to come out, in a big way, when he got to university. He
knew where the gay bars were. He knew when there were LGBT meetings, gay film
nights, gay coffee mornings. He was well prepared for joining the "gay
scene". Which was, while relatively compact in Plymouth, still thriving well.

He returned to his house to wish it and his family goodbye. He would come
back, of course, but it would never be the same. He bent down and stroked the
neighbourhood's stray cat under its neck.

"You won't miss me one bit will you?" He asked it while scratching behind his
ears. "Not so long as you get fed by some poor Granny who thinks she owns
you."

The cat gave him a reproachful look and dug its claws lightly into the skin
of his hand. He went back to stroking its back fur and it purred loudly.

"You ought to wash that scratch Owen. You'll get rabies or something." His
father called from the front door. He and Elaine were holding each other
tightly and both had proud smiles on their faces.

"You don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm out of the house now." Owen
laughed.

"We have to worry. It's our job these days. If we ever stopped worrying then
what we would we do all day?" Elaine asked with a similar laugh.

"We'll always worry about you son. Because we love you. We love you so much
that we thank God every day for sending you to us." The stoic bravery of
Owen's father was beginning to crack under the emotional strain.

"Your Dad's right Owen. We love you. We really, really, love you." Elaine's
face was beginning to drip make-up and tears as she sobbed.

"Don't cry Mum. It's all alright. I'll be back by Christmas. Calm down Mum."
He tried to placate her but it was no use. He swept over and pulled the two
people who had raised him into a hug.

"I love you too Mum and Dad. I'll miss you a lot, but I'll still send you
emails." This earned him a harsh look from his mother. "Okay, okay. I'll
write you a letter every week."

Elaine smiled warmly at him and turned to her husband. He was still holding
in his tears, but barely. He stuck out his hand and Owen shook it. Then Owen
turned to the car and got in. He waved comically to them and started the
ignition. The car drove away and left the old couple standing on the
doorstep.

"Do you think he knows we know?" asked Elaine as she turned back into the
house

"No." Replied her husband. He remained standing in the doorway for a moment
then followed her inside.

He walked up the stairs and opened the door to Owen's room. The posters were
all gone, the bookshelves empty but for a few Penguin Classics, the wardrobe
was bare and the messy desk was too. Owen's father stood in the doorway of
the empty room and wept.

The first sign of seven had come to pass.

***

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Feel free to give me your comments at
bienclar@yahoo.com.