A Stroke of Midnight-Chapter One-Harry

[``Constantine]

My name is Demara Maria Manoso, and I am the human servant of the Master of the City of Chicago. How I got to be that way does not matter. All that matters is that someone is trying to kill us all.

That itself is nothing new. People tried to kill me all the time. After all, I was a licensed vampire hunter. I killed vampires for a living. Vampires tended to not take kindly to that, and therefore tried to kill me on a semi-regular basis.

But this time was different. This time, the threat wasn't unhappy vampires. No, it wasn't that. This time, it was unhappy werewolves. Specifically, the local Ulfric of the Ardo Morte Pack.

Ardo Morte means 'Death Tree' to the werewolves. Literally. Their lupanar, their place of power, was centered around a giant, ancient elm tree. Their dead were hung from that tree, and the souls left to join with the spirit of the Lupanar.

I got where the Morte comes from. It means 'death' in French, but the Ardo? I've never really gotten the connection between it and 'tree'. But then, they were werewolves. Go figure.

Now, any normal person would ask me, 'Why do the werewolves want to kill you?' The answer, quite frankly, is because I'd shot and killed their Lupa, their Ulfric's mate.

Kataline had been one crazy bitch, pun intended, and the world was better of without her. However, she had been a crazy powerful bitch, and mated to an alpha male wolf, of who wasn't exactly stable himself.

I'd killed her because she had tried to kill me. I'm not exactly clear as to why. Maybe she hadn't had a reason. But she had been loco, and was trying to off me.

The upside to the whole situation was that I was alive, and that Kataline was dead. The werewolf pack was a lot happier, too.

The downside was that Luke, the Ulfric, was pissed. Beyond pissed. I suppose, somewhere deep down inside of him, he had loved her. Not something I understood, but it was something that I respected.

And he had declared me werewolf public enemy numero uno. Which meant, that me, mine, and ours was on the werewolf hit list. What a bitch.

Me, mine, and ours consisted of me, Constantine, the head honcho of the Chicago vamps, and all his vampy flunkies. The wererats, oddly, weren't included. Which went to show you just how weird the wolves were.

The werewolves were the second most powerful group in the area, and most certainly the largest. They seemed to have no qualms going against the vamps, but they left the rats alone.

Furry politics. You gotta love ‘em. The rats had a treaty with us, and were our allies. But they were also the allies of the wolves. Which made them safe from the wrath of the mad wolf.

It was funny, really. The werewolves were against us. And yet, right here before me, was a werewolf!

I was at work. Work is the corporate business, Animators 'R' us. No joke. My boss, Dave, had come up with it. Said he thought it was cute. Blech.

For those of you that don't know what an animator is, it's a person who can raise the dead. You know, zombies. They also usually are able to communicate with ghosts, and the ilk.

And no. I'm not an animator.

I was wearing my usual work attire: a long skirt and a tight tank top, both hot pink. My shoes of the day were these cute little red sandals that I absolutely adored. And I could tell that the man before me adored them too.

Harry Larson was every inch WASP breeding, from the straight blond hair to the fair blue eyes. He was tall, about five inches taller than me. And I'm five feet five inches.

He was dressed in a suit that made him look like some corporate lawyer. I knew for a fact that he drove a school bus, but the image was so real that I felt the urge to hide everything that might be used against me.

The only thing that ruined it was his name. Harry. Honestly, Harry the werewolf. Hairy the werewolf. I'll say, I personally find that very amusing; but, I’ve been told my jokes really aren’t all that funny. Hmmm.

"What do you want?" I said. No preliminaries. No dancing around. Straight to the point, that was me.

Harry gulped, and fidgeted. He wasn't a very powerful wolf. In fact, he was pretty damn low on the food chain. And he was sweating.

Now, I happen to know for a fact that I wasn't scary. I did the job well enough, but I wasn't scary. However, Constantine, and Luke, were very scary. Like, uber scary. A 10 on the scary-shit'o'meter.

If Harry had come to do and say what I thought he had, then he was going against his Ulfric's express orders. That was enough to earn the death sentance.

The Ulfric had ordered that if any wolf got near enough to kill me, they were to do so. The Ulfric's word was law, and magic, too. Harry was literally under a compulsion to kill me.

And if he harmed me in any way, Constantine would go in and slaughter the wolves. Talk about between a rock and a hard place.

"I want you to make amends with our Ulfric," Harry said bluntly. See, he got right to the point, too.

I blinked. "Amends. . ." I said. I had never heard of such a thing.

Harry nodded sagely. "Yeah, amends. Something that'll make him satisfied that the slight against our pack is rectified."

Okay. . .So Luke didn't care that his Lupa was dead - just that his pack honor had been slighted. That bore further thought. . .

"Are you saying that if I do something for him, he'll feel better, and will rescind his order to kill me?" That would be the best news I'd had all week.

"Yeah," Harry said, and you could see that he was relieved. It was etched in the lined of his face, in the way his eyes lightened, as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

"Why are you telling me this?" I demanded, suddenly suspicious.

I wasn't always suspicious. In fact, half the time, I was little Miss Sunshine, trusting everybody. In fact, there was a time before I came to Chicago where I was a little girl scout, and took everybody at face value. Funny, hanging with vamps made me more wary.

"Let's just say I'd rather not die," Harry said.

Well, that clicked. I totally understood not wanting to die. Hell, this whole thing had started because I hadn't wanted to die.

"When would be a good time?" I asked. I wanted to get this done with. I had wanted to get it done yesterday.

"Tonight would work. Our Ulfric will be in the Lupanar tonight." A Lupanar was, as I had said before, a place of power for weres. It was also a place where they could be themselves, away from the confines of human society.

The Ardo Morte pack Lupanar was a large clearing in the woods outside of Chicago, about three hundred feet in radius, a full six hundred feet long. A big fricking clearing. And smack dab in the middle was a giant, ancient elm tree, which I knew to be older than any of the surrounding woods.

"Tonight," I said, more a comment than a question.

"The sooner the better," Harry confirmed.

Now I was really torn. On one hand, I really wanted to go. I wanted to live. But on the other hand, I wasn't allowed to bring guns into the Lupanar. Which, I thought, was really unfair. Let's see: four hundred plus angry werewolves that could easily bench-press elephants as long as they didn't wiggle too much, versus lone human with a few knives. . .Even Vegas wouldn't take those odds.

"I'm bringing a few people," I said. There was no fucking way I was going in there alone. I was going to bring back up. See, no grass growing up here.

"That's fine. That's great." Harry was looking positively euphoric. I guess I'd made his day. Fine by me.

I stood up, and Harry did so too. Without a word, I escorted him across the ten feet to my door. The door was shut, and he opened it and walked out into the lobby.

"Thank you, Harry," I said, smiling. I was going to pretend that it was just a business transaction. It wouldn't do for the other humans to know that the local wolves wanted me dead. That would be bad.

Harry, who had already started walking towards the front door, did that thing where you sort of wave from behind, and kept on walking. And then he was gone, the gentle click of the door a testament.

When his blonde form vanished, I looked to the chairs that were by the receptionist's desk. Empty. Instead, Jaced and Nathan were standing upright, their hands clutched in front of them, at the groin. Classic bodyguard pose.

The two were wererats, and my bodyguards. If you're wondering why such beings would even deign to stoop down and guard one as small and insignificant as me, the answer, quite frankly, is that they really didn't have much a choice.

Constantine, my master (I gag at that thought), was also the master of the rats. Yep, that's right, his beast to call was the rat. Incidentally, his Animal to Call was Joe, the Rafe of the rats. The rat king. Jaced and Nathan's leader.

Jaced was big, tall, and mysterious. He had an ethnic tilt to him, but he looked otherwise white. His hair was dark and short, conservatively cut. He also had a MRI Desert Eagle .44 Magnum pistol hung inside his left shoulder holster.

And I knew that because I had asked him earlier if was armed, and he had flashed me. It was a nice view, and it told me a few things: yes, he was armed; Desert Eagles looked nice against black tuxes; and he still wouldn't talk to me.

Nathan was different than Jaced. He was short in comparison to Jaced, five foot seven to the other man's six foot two. Two inches taller than me, and just as American.

His hair was cut short, as well, but it was spiked, and dyed an outrageous shade of green.

He grinned a lot, and teased me incessantly. He also carried a gun, only his was a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. It, too, was concealed in a shoulder holster.

"Hey, there, little lady. Still alive?" He drawled out with a phony Southern accent. I knew it was phony because I had family in the South, and they didn't talk like he did.

Nathan was grinning, and I could see his chipped tooth. He had gotten it before he had become a wererat, and it had never healed.

I liked it, actually. It was cool to think that I'd be able to recognize him in whatever form, because he'd be the only rat with a chipped upper right canine.

"No, he jumped me and ate me for dinner," I said sarcastically.

"Did he leave anything for us?"

You know, for a moment, I had to stop and think about that. As I looked into Nathan's grinning face, I thought about what he was. The wererat in him probably wouldn't give a shit if it ate me.

I wasn't worried, though. Nathan had perfect control, and was one of the most powerful rats in the area.

I just shook my head and rolled my eyes.

"Anybody feel like dancing with the wolves, tonight?" I asked instead.

The only reason I asked was because they were my bodyguards. They had a right to decide whether or not they wanted to put themselves in danger.

Besides, if they refused, then I'd have to ditch them, and I didn't want to do that. That'd get them in trouble with their Rafe, and, yeah, I admit it, I liked these two. Despite that Nathan teased maybe a little too much and Jaced gave me the silent treatment.

Nathan's grin widened, but, surprisingly, Jaced was the one who answered. Maybe he didn't hate me, after all?

"If we clear it with our Rafe, then we will," He said, and it was maybe the tenth time I'd ever heard him speak. The first time that it was directed to me. It was a genuine miracle.

And hurrah! I got to keep my bodyguards!

"Then call him," I said, and turned around, ready to back to my office. I had a ton of work to do, and was getting behind. Angry werewolves and scary men not-withstanding. Life goes on, right?

I felt, more than saw, the rats move to protect me. It was coming, a big, angry typhoon of power. Totally wicked scary. And I knew who it was. I'd felt that suffocating aura before, but had never been the object of its rage as I was now.

Moments later, my ex-boyfriend, Derrick, burst through the doors.