The Trouble With Hairy, page 20
part #2 of West Hollywood Vampires Series
“Etienne’s nephew, a child of about twenty-five. Name’s Louis. I met him a few times. Fine strapping young pup. He’s been arrested.”
“Arrested?” Sylvia was shocked. “Where? For what?”
“Murder,” came the grim reply. “In West Hollywood, of all places.”
“West Hollywood? Where Chris and Troy live? But why would he be living…?” She stopped as the reason for Louis’ outcast status became clear. “You’re joking.”
“I never joke.”
“Why do I believe that?” Sylvia murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
“Etienne found out the child wasn’t, well, normal. Quite a temper Etienne has. Still young. Hasn’t learned to adapt. Cast Louis out. Somehow, Louis made it to LA.”
“Well, at least he’ll be happy there,” Sylvia said. She was still trying to adjust to the concept of a homosexual werewolf. Such a thing was unknown to her six hundred-plus years of experience.
“Who cares if he’s happy?” Hercule said.
Sylvia finally allowed her temper to get the better of her. “Good God, I can’t understand your people! Neurotic, all of you! Always obsessing about the proper way to do things, the right way to behave. One little thing comes up, one thing that doesn’t fit in with your ideas of what’s acceptable and you throw the poor child out alone in the world. No wonder none of the rest of us can stand to be around you!”
“I didn’t cast him out,” Hercule growled. “Etienne did. And you can bet I gave him a piece of my mind. I don’t like the idea of a faggot in the pack either. But you don’t throw a pup that young out on his own. No matter what he’s done.”
“Well, there, I agree with you. What happened?”
“He was arrested last night as a murder suspect. Called Etienne, crying. Stupid cur hung up on him before he could get the details.”
“So, why call me?”
“Your friend in West Hollywood,” Hercule’s tone was ample evidence of his distaste. “Tell him to go over there and find out what’s going on.”
Sylvia laughed grimly. “I don’t tell Chris to do anything. You ask him. Nicely.” She paused for a moment.
“Hercule,” she began slowly, “If Louis is guilty…”
Hercule exploded. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, bitch!” he yelled. “He didn’t do it!” Sylvia was taken aback for a moment and then realized that “bitch” was a universal term used by the pack to describe their female members.
“What makes you so sure?” she asked, still a little flustered.
“I know a killer the minute I see one. Comes with the territory. Louis Chartreuse may be a lot of things, but not that. One more thing…” He paused. “Etienne’s got a sharp tooth. Rules his pack with a firm claw — too firm. A couple of the other pups are out of town. Adolescents close to adulthood.”
“Yes?” she encouraged.
“One of his sons, Guy, is a chip off the old fang.”
“Violent?” Sylvia was deeply concerned.
“A killer from the day he was born. Not quite right, if you know what I mean. Liable to take matters into his own paws.”
“Hercule!” Sylvia said with feigned surprise. “I do believe you’re asking for our help.”
“Not willingly,” he admitted with irritation. “I’m going out to Albuquerque to deal with Etienne myself. He’s strong but stupid. They don’t need that kind of leadership. I’ll try to talk sense into him but I may have to take the pack from him.”
Sylvia shuddered. She’d once been present at a lupine fight for pack supremacy. It hadn’t been a pretty sight. Hercule was old, but wise and strong with his years. She almost felt sorry for the misguided Etienne.
“As for Guy,” Hercule continued, his voice dripping with disgust, “if it’s him, you bloodsuckers will have to deal with it.”
“No,” Sylvia corrected, mildly, “we don’t have to deal with it. But we will. As a courtesy.” Her tone became stern.
“I’m warning you, Hercule,” she continued, “if we cooperate, there are going to have to be some concessions from your people.”
“Concessions?” There was warning clearly present in the word.
“Isn’t it time,” Sylvia chided gently, “for the werewolves to join the rest of us?”
The telephone was silent for a moment. When the werewolf spoke again, his voice sounded weary, resigned.
“We’re an old people, set in our ways. But the younger generation must adapt if we’re to survive, I suppose.” There was a thoughtful pause. “A gay werewolf.” Sylvia could almost hear him shaking his head in confusion. “Are traditions useful, I wonder, when they have ceased to serve the reasons that created them?”
“Philosophy?” Sylvia was amused.
“In a crisis? Why not? Besides, I’m French. Philosophy is our mother tongue.” He grunted as he arrived at a decision. “Perhaps we’ve been separate for too long. I’ll consider it. In the meantime, we need Louis out of jail. Away from the normals.” He paused for a moment. “How best to approach Christopher?” he asked.
“Well, you’ll have to wait until tonight to call.”
“Tonight?” Hercule exploded, “Ce n’est pas possible! By that time…”
Sylvia cut him off. “Look Hercule, he’s probably getting into his coffin by now. As I should be,” she reminded him. “There’s no point in being rude if you want a favor. Consider it your first lesson in social grace.”
“Very well,” he said, completely missing her sarcasm. “But I’m not going to be joyous about this.”
“No,” she mused aloud, “I don’t expect you would be. Hold the line,” Sylvia said. “I’ll get you Chris’ number.”
Three thousand miles away, just after dawn broke over the City of West Hollywood, one of the subjects of Hercule and Sylvia’s discussion had awakened and was preparing to start his day.
Guy Chartreuse was the runt of the litter. After his mother died, his Aunt Lucille encouraged him to overcome his physical weakness and to compete with his brothers and sisters. But Etienne, the pack leader, did not approve of coddling youngsters and quickly took over the training himself. He was a harsh taskmaster, punishing failure with fangs and claws that Guy, nowhere near as agile as his pack-mates, could rarely avoid. The memories Guy retained from his early youth were full of painful, deep scratches and bruised hindquarters and throat.
In adolescence, Guy determined to win Etienne’s approval and to best the other young werewolves at all costs by provoking fights. With each defeat, he was better able to endure pain stoically. Unable to best his siblings in contests of pure strength, he learned to sense weaknesses in others, weaknesses that he was quick to exploit.
Poor eyesight, a weakened paw, a stiff hind leg — Guy seized on any advantage he could and exploited it mercilessly. Once he’d forced each of his brothers and sisters in turn to submit, he made a private resolution. Some day, he would challenge the entire pack, including Etienne, and become its leader.
There was only one relative who Guy was unable to best in combat. Lucille’s son, Louis, was a strong, healthy lad who avoided fights even though he could easily win. The other young werewolves would tease and taunt him but Louis ignored them, even in the face of insults that would have driven any other werewolf into a frenzy. Eventually, Guy gave up, knowing that, when it was time for him to challenge for supremacy, Louis would opt out of the contest. Still, every time he saw Louis, Guy felt a passionate hatred for his gentle cousin growing deep within himself.
To add insult to injury, of all the Chartreuse clan, Louis was the only one who showed curiosity about the normals who lived in Albuquerque. The other werewolves made fun of him by calling him “Human Lover”; Guy’s insults were always the cruelest. Louis ignored them all and spent hours sitting on top of the hill overlooking the town, watching the humans going about their business and formulating more irritating questions with which to beleaguer his pack.
When the County Truant Officers demanded the children of the Chartreuse household be sent to school, Louis was the only one who looked forward to the experience. Once there, his pack-mates were miserable, refusing to learn from their human teachers and creating massive discipline problems. But Louis blossomed.
Guy did poorly and was the first Chartreuse to be sent home for fighting. Within two years, all of the Chartreuse children save Louis were expelled. The school officials debated the merits of Juvenile Hall and Special Education Schools and, finally, gave up trying. Perhaps, the Albuquerque school system would better survive if the children from that strange commune in the hills above town were not part of it.
Guy’s only regret was the loss of his music. Guy took a class called “The History of Rock,” at first thinking it had something to do with flushing ground squirrels from their warrens, and immediately fell in love with the driving beat of rock and roll. The first time he heard the music of the Doors, he was transfixed. Something in Jim Morrison’s pain-filled, moaning notes touched him deep within his soul. Morrison somehow understood him; his words were sung for Guy alone, to comfort and embrace him. Guy instantly became more than a mere fan; he became a Morrison addict.
He prowled record stores to get every one of Morrison’s albums, shoplifting when he couldn’t afford them. Without access to the school’s record player, he resorted to stealing money from sleeping campers and the occasional hunter until, one glorious day, he emerged from a small thrift shop, proudly bearing a battered, second hand phonograph.
The first time he played one of Morrison’s albums at home, Etienne went ballistic. With mindless rage, he attacked and it was only at the expense of several broken ribs and the flesh of his right arm being laid bare to the bone that Guy saved his precious phonograph from destruction.
He’d heard that Morrison was a fruit, but, frankly, Guy didn’t believe it. No one could dare accuse his hero of being anything less than perfect — even if he had been only a human. Yet, the few times Guy had been lucky enough to catch a Doors video at local music shops, he could not help noticing there was something about the way Morrison moved, and the way he looked deeply and soulfully into the camera lens, that was almost feminine. Once, Guy caught himself growling, softly, deep within his chest, while watching. He was aghast to realize he was making the peculiar sound of the Alpha male just before taking a mate. He stopped himself immediately, embarrassed and ashamed, and by the next morning, had suppressed the incident utterly.
When the discovery was made that his despised cousin Louis was also a fruit, Guy’s hatred burned even hotter.
Etienne caught Louis with his pants down — literally. The older werewolf, suspicious of his nephew’s nightly absences from the lair, tracked him to a men’s room at a truck stop near Interstate 10. At the sight of Louis, with his head buried in the lap of a truck driver, the senior werewolf’s mind reeled with the implication of what he was seeing and, for a long moment, Etienne could do nothing but stare in disgusted horror. Then, Etienne Chartreuse lost, not only his temper, but also all thoughts of discretion. He’d grabbed Louis by the scruff of the neck and hurled him from the washroom, returning a moment later to quickly and violently dispatch the terrified trucker.
Louis was dragged back home and locked in the cellar, without food or water until the murder was covered up with a convenient traffic accident.
On the evening of the third day, Louis was cast out.
Guy spent the following morning trying to quell his disgust at Louis’ actions by playing his Doors albums. But Morrison’s voice had become discordant to him, irritating. With a snarl of rage, Guy’s claws sprouted and, before he could stop himself, he’d slashed his precious albums into vinyl ribbons. When he calmed down and realized what he had done, he doubled over in agony, crying silently at destroying something which had once been so precious to him.
Before his tears had dried, Guy had planned his vengeance. The stain his cousin had left on the pack could be remedied in only one way — by destroying him.
Figuring out where Louis had gone was relatively simple as he had last been seen heading west on I-10, toward Los Angeles where all the fags lived. Five nights later, Guy was in LA, baffled and slightly frightened by the city’s size. Without an inkling of how to track his cousin through the masses of humanity, Guy had a stroke of luck.
His obsession with Morrison served to find him lodgings and, inadvertently, bring him to less than a mile from where his cousin was staying. One thing that stuck out in his memory was that the singer had made the Holloway Motel in West Hollywood his temporary residence while in California. It was one of the only places in Los Angeles that Guy knew and he took a secret delight in following in his hero’s footsteps.
From the moment he moved into the Holloway, Guy was certain that it would only be a matter of time before he spotted Louis. The motel was located in the middle of a city that was largely populated with queers and fairies. There were entire packs of them roaming the streets, flaunting their perverted selves. Several times, Guy had to restrain himself from becoming physically violent and attacking one of them, firmly reminding himself that an arrest for assault would keep him from accomplishing his purpose.
He immersed himself in the homosexual culture, visiting their bars and reading their newspapers but, although he knew Louis was close, he couldn’t seem to catch his scent. Finally, loping down an alley parallel to Santa Monica Boulevard one evening, Guy spotted him engaged in conversation with two other young men. Hidden behind some garbage cans, Guy watched Louis as he bid his companions goodbye and walked away. It seemed, Louis had further disgraced the pack by actually befriending some normals! Guy seethed and a new idea came to him.
It would be his sworn duty to eliminate, not only Louis, but also all of the young men with whom he had — perish the thought! — sex, thereby relieving the world of any normals whose mere existence taunted Guy with the knowledge that they’d engaged in perverted activities with one of his pack. He gleefully planned to destroy the witnesses first and then wipe out his cousin. He followed Louis back to the cheap apartment house where he lived. Then, with his cousin’s scent and location firmly imbedded in his brain, he’d returned to the Holloway, pleased with the merits of his plan.
Unfortunately, the task of tracking down the people Louis had fucked proved a longer process than he’d anticipated. Los Angeles was huge! Louis’s bedmates could live dozens of miles away. Further, to Guy’s horror, his cousin seemed to be paying his rent by actually selling his body to strangers who drove into West Hollywood to buy sex! Guy was shaken to his soul at the discovery and was forced to reconsider his plot.
Of necessity, Guy would confine himself to only those of Louis’ whores who lived in the city of West Hollywood. They would be easier to track and killing the ones closest to home would still whet Louis’s fear.
Surprisingly, the number of local men Louis had slept with who lived within the city’s environs was rather small. Guy became fairly certain that there were only three. He’d dispatched them with pleasure, hoping to leave the bodies in such a state as to alert Louis that he was the subject of a Hunt. Terror would wear Louis down and give Guy the edge he’d need to finally best his hated cousin — this time for good.
But circumstances foiled Guy’s plan. He’d howled in anger when the roaring flames forced him to abandon the body of the antique dealer; his frustration knew no bounds when Jeremy Lucas toppled off the building into the path of the moving van. So, when he eliminated the cop, he’d been careful to do it while the deputy was on duty and his partner was nearby. The newspapers would be sure to pick it up; his cousin couldn’t escape discovering that another werewolf was in town, stalking perverts. Hopefully, Louis would make the connection between the other two deaths and begin to quiver with the knowledge that his own was imminent.
But, just when Guy was about to begin the eagerly anticipated stalking of the Outcast — Louis vanished.
Guy spent the hours from dusk until dawn waiting in a copse of bushes across the street from his cousin’s apartment, prepared to give him a series of good scares before starting his final attack, but Louis never came home.
Slightly after three in the morning, Guy was no longer able to control his impatience. He crept across the street and up to the door of his cousin’s apartment. Opening the lock was the work of less than a minute. His right hand changed and, with a thrust of his claws, he punctured the wood surrounding the doorknob and ripped it free. The noise was sharp, but brief.
Louis had been there, Guy could tell, but not in at least a day. The scent was cold. In a rage, Guy allowed himself to change more fully and vent his anger. In moments, the place was a shambles. The couch and small kitchen table, the mattress, Louis’ few items of clothing, even his cousin’s prized framed photograph of Lassie, were all destroyed.
Standing amidst the wreckage, Guy paused for breath. Slowly, his anger gave way to a sense of panic that his quarry might have escaped him. Perhaps the very public murder of the cop had backfired. Perhaps Louis, always one to avoid a fight if possible, had simply run away.
The fear overwhelmed him and he changed fully into lupine form and rushed from the apartment. He paused by the curb with nose held high in an effort to catch a whiff of Louis’ scent. He growled softly and retreated into the bushes as headlights from a white Volkswagen convertible just missed catching him in their glare.
Darting across the street, he turned back toward the apartment, prepared to give vent to a full-throated howl of rage and frustration. He reigned himself in as a tall, well-dressed, black man and a short, fat woman, carrying a cardboard box, got out of the convertible and started climbing the stairs, going directly toward Louis’ apartment.
Guy felt an almost overwhelming impulse to leap on the unwanted intruders and rip them apart. Undoubtedly, they were friends of his pervert cousin, probably perverts themselves. What better way to prolong Louis’ agony than to destroy those close to him? He drew breath for a truly terrifying howl and grinned wickedly, anticipating the attack, when the driver of the car emerged — a slim young man with chestnut brown hair gathered into a small pigtail, tied with a black ribbon.
