A story I wrote for a friend last year but never posted publicly until now. In the age of steam, a reluctantly retired adventurer stumbles upon a secret society, and finds himself forever changed by his discovery...

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The thick pea-soup fog blanketed the night sky, allowing only a few small windows through which the full moon could shine its light down upon the city. Thankfully, for the patrons of The Blue Crown—a local pub, popular among the middle class—the wondrous powers of steam and electricity provided a different source of illumination that served well enough for their needs. In the midst of all the laughter, japes, jests, and tales traded between friends and lovers alike, Alfred Forrester finished a small glass of cider and strode out the door. A tall and athletically-built man in his late thirties, he had tasted a great deal of life, more so than many his age. When he was little more than just another brown-eyed and chestnut-haired scamp in a farming community on the edge of town, Alfred had spent half his time dashing through the forests, dreaming of incredible adventures. By his teenage years, this habit had turned from childish game to genuine desire, and he found himself running off to much less fictional adventures; first, a tour or two in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, earning himself both an officer's rank and a reputation for bravery; then, after that, a stretch of work as a mercenary, during which he proved himself both reliable and respectable, taking on so-called “impossible” tasks while steadfastly refusing dishonorable work. It was a life filled with danger and lacking safety or stability... and Alfred was perfectly content with that.

Then, to his chagrin, the world began to shrink.

As it turned out, Alfred's days of adventure and excitement were little more than the final, wheezing, choked-out gasps of what was once the Golden Age of Exploration. The world which had seemed so full of wonder and danger had suffered the worst possible affront to both wonder and danger: it had become known. Codified. Catalogued. Explained away. There were no more uncharted lands, no more mysterious treasures, no more secret enclaves of villainy. Contracts that piqued his fancy dried up; who needed a master marksman and swordsman, with the world at peace? Who needed a hardy and fearless guide through rugged terrain, when one could simply take a train or an airship in perfect leisure and safety? With prospects increasingly dim, Alfred was forced to finally abandon his life of excitement, his wanderlust still unfulfilled. He tried to adjust—he truly did. But it seemed that there was no place in safe society that fit him. Due to his reputation, he was far too respectable to be welcomed in the rough and rowdy dives, but his common background meant that neither his reputation nor his hard-won treasures could gain him entry into more “respectable” areas. When he finally did manage to find work, it was as a clerk in a bank—where he would be spared the drudgery of physical labor in exchange for watching Lord Such-And-Such's dimwitted eighth cousin count his money all day. Two years of that had been more than enough for Alfred. With what he'd scraped together—and the treasure he'd managed to hold onto from his travels—he could retire early, and live a quiet life in a fancy house for the rest of his days. And so Alfred Forrester, former adventurer, still well within his prime, left the bank for the last time and walked straight down to the local pub to wait out the rest of the evening so he could wander home alone in the vain hope that some drunken fool or thief might decide to pick a fight with the well-dressed man wandering the streets after dark. Sadly, not even that appeared likely, as his stroll continued uninterrupted even as he passed through several dark alleys.

“Humph,” Alfred scoffed as an obvious hoodlum ran away at the sight of him, “Can't even give a man a decent row for old times' sake, eh? Bloody cowards.”

After a few more attempts to find some form of danger, Forrester began to wander home... when an eerie howl stopped him in his tracks. Something about the sound felt frightening... even dangerous. Sensations he'd almost forgotten. Out of curiosity as much as hope, he carefully followed the sound as it repeated several more times. A wolf, Alfred thought, in the middle of the city? Strange, but it'll have to do, I suppose.

As he traced the source of the howling to an old church on the very outskirts of the city—long abandoned by the looks of it, the gates chained and the doors barred—he heard several voices within, along with the growls of whatever beast was responsible.

“Quiet down, will you? It's just us!”

“Bloody hell, you'll let the whole city know we're here!”

“Idiot pups, getting loose before they even know how to control themselves...”

Crouching against the bottom of an old window, Alfred couldn't help but grin. He didn't know what exactly was going on, but he'd obviously stumbled into some nefarious gang, perhaps with trained attack hounds. As the voices and the growling receded into the depths of the building, Alfred made his move, carefully climbing through the window into the main room of the church just in time to see part of the altar slide in front of a hidden passage, sealing it shut.

Oho! A secret passage? Capital! Just like that time in Venice! With a rush he had not felt in years pumping through his veins, Forrester made his way to the altar and began to examine it carefully, looking for whatever mechanism operated the hidden door. Upon pressing a button cleverly disguised as the eye of some saint, he was rewarded with the grinding of stone upon stone as the altar slid back... just in time for things to go horribly wrong.

“DAMMIT, SILAS, NO!”

“HE'S LOOSE!”

“SOMEONE JUST OPENED THE DOOR, HURRY!”

AWROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Before Alfred could even react, a massive furred form—as large as a young man, but with the features of a massive black wolf—launched itself at him, clawing and biting at him with bestial fury. It was all he could do to avoid his jugular getting torn out right away; amidst the pain and the wounds, his instinct managed to pull through enough to land a solid blow to the beast's temple, knocking it out cold... just as his own injuries took their toll on him, his vision fading to black in time to see three similar creatures standing over him.


Some time later, Alfred felt himself return to wakefulness. Squinting his eyes and shaking the lingering dizziness away, he noticed two things which immediately disturbed him: One, that he was shackled to the wall by the wrists courtesy of what appeared to be the thickest, strongest chains he'd ever seen; and two, most worryingly of all, he was in some stony cryptlike dungeon accessible only by a single heavy door at the far end of the room, still in his ripped and tattered clothes but by some miracle not horribly injured. Remaining calm in spite of the situation, he began to mentally take stock of his surroundings. The room was quite tall, and semicircular, with the door on the flat end; to the left of the door was a massive velvet-lined throne, one that looked far to large to accommodate the average man. On the wall to Alfred's right hung a massive mirror, reinforced by a steel backing that looked about as sturdy as his chains.

Alright. First off, these chains are damnably strong; I'll have to either trick my captors—whoever they are—into removing them, or otherwise get a key from them when they get too close. Looking around, he noticed an odd hole in the ceiling immediately above him; the hole was not terribly larger than an apple, and yet from his position he could easily look straight up through it. To his amazement, the opposite side of the hole seemed to be at the bottom of a very deep and completely dry well. Wait... I think I saw a well near the church. I must be in the crypts beneath the church! But why put this chamber right underneath a well? Alfred's musings were interrupted by the door on the other side of the room slowly grinding open. And any further attempt at thought was quickly silenced by the appearance of his captors.

He had thought that the wolf-like people he remembered seeing earlier were just the side effects of unconsciousness playing tricks on him. But now there was no mistaking. They were indeed not unlike human wolves. But where his attacker had been the size of a young man, these were truly massive—each one somewhere around eight feet in height at the very least. Another thing that distinguished them was the fact that they, unlike his assailant, were wearing clothing. Two wore clothing that seemed similar to those of servants or clerks not unlike himself, and carefully moved the throne a few feet away from Alfred for a much better-dressed third creature to sit upon. The third carried itself with an oddly distinguished countenance despite its bestial appearance, and appeared much older than the other two—though no less a physical match for Alfred himself.

For a few moments, silence filled the air as Alfred did his best to comprehend what he was seeing. At last, the elder beast sighed—and spoke in a refined posh. “Forgive us, young man. None of us intended to bring an outsider into our affairs in such a manner. But circumstances have sadly forced our paws.”

This remark somehow struck courage back into Alfred's heart. If they could talk, then regardless of appearance, they were not monsters, but men—who could be reasoned with, or fought, or killed if need be. “'Circumstances'? Call it what it is. Abduction! I saw that which you wanted no one to see, so you set upon me and took me against my will.”

“Hmm? Ah, I see. My dear fellow, there seems to be a terrible misunderstanding,” Said the elder with a shake of its head. “You see, in spite of our appearance, we are—in all other respects—ordinary men and women. Indeed, during the day, we look no different than any other citizen. But the youngest of us... cannot yet control themselves when they change, as it is a process that overwhelms the senses and can send the unprepared into a frenzy. The little one who attacked you—a pup by the name of Silas—was not himself, or he would not have behaved as such.”

Alfred was about to retort when the full meaning of the elder's words struck home. “'The youngest'? 'Little one'? 'Pup'? You're saying that I was attacked and nearly killed... by a child?!”

“And somehow managed to render him unconscious to the point that when he awoke, his senses had returned to him—though his dignity will likely take time to recover,” the elder nodded, throwing in an a smirk that reminded Alfred of a grandfather amused at the antics of small children.

“That still doesn't change the fact that I'm being held prisoner!”

It was at this point that the elder gave him a look that spoke of genuine sympathy. “The chains... are not for keeping prisoners. They are part of the process of the first turning.” The elder sighed briefly before continuing. “As I said, the change is difficult to control for those unused to it. So when a pup becomes old enough that their first change is upon them, we bring them here so that they may change without breaking out and harming anyone or anything. Sadly, Silas—as so many little ones do when they are young and full of themselves—believed himself strong enough to resist on his own, and hid from those sent to collect him and bring him here, wanting to impress the whole community with his control. Instead, he nearly went on a rampage. We were in the process of bringing him back when you stumbled upon us. And then he bit you.”

“He...!” All the pieces were beginning to fall into horrifying place for Alfred. “You chained me up... because I'm about to turn?”

“I am afraid so, dear boy. And though you may not be a pup, you have no experience resisting the change. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to control yourself. For your sake, and the sake of others, this is how it must be done.”

Fear and horror gripped Alfred's heart. Not in the exhilarating manner that he had felt in the past, and had learned to harness; no, this was a deep, primordial fear, one that chilled him to the bone, and it set him writhing and flailing and tugging fruitlessly at his chains. “There has to be a way, some sort of cure, I just need to—”

His words were cut short as, in mid-flail, he looked up through the hole above him, and his eyes caught something. Something beautiful. Something silvery and filled with light that captured his soul... and filled him with PAIN.

“Awrgh... wrrruuuught?! HrrrrngngNOOOOOwrrr!” The light—which had only just registered in Alfred's mind as the full moon shining down through the well above—had triggered the first bits of the change that he now knew was inevitable. It was like fire, like acid, like pins and needles dipped in burning tar and piercing every inch of his body.

“I am so very sorry. I know it hurts. It always hurts the first time. But you will grow used to it.”

But Alfred could not hear the words of comfort the elder spoke. The burning, piercing, searing pain built up to unimaginable heights... and then, at the very apex, something released the pain for the briefest moment, giving him just enough time of respite to see waves of fur bursting out across his body. As the newly-grown fur sprouted, a brand new wave of agony swept over him, this time signaling the shifting and stretching of bone and muscle. It was at this point, when the tattered remains of his clothes began to rip apart from the strain of the continuing changes, that Alfred felt his mind begin to waver and simplify, his thoughts seeming to slip like sand through his fingers even as a horrible rage started to snuff out what semblance of rational thought remained. “Hrrrrr.... grrrwwrrlllhgh...”

Confused.... angry... pain pain pain...

Somehow, in spite of the changes increasing in rapidity as the base of his spine stretched and grew fur of its own, Alfred managed to fight back against the process turning his mind into pure animal instinct devoid of intelligent thought. No... not beast... not a wolf... “GGHGHROWWWFFF!!” He grit his teeth—no, his fangs—in pain as his shoes could no longer hold back the immense pressure, exploding off of him to reveal massive digitigrade paws. The release of pressure gave no respite from agony, but at the very least provided less distraction to his equally-trying mental struggle. Hurt... me hurt—no, I hurt, but I am not an animal! The searing pain only continued to skyrocket as his muscles rippled and expanded; bending forward and pressing his shoulder blades out, the back of his shirt began to split down the middle as his suspenders snapped free with the force of his increasing height and frame. Then, with an astounding effort, he focused all of his will and thought in a last-ditch attempt to drive away the feral instincts that threatened to leave him a raging beast. I am strong... stronger than this! I won't break! “Arrrgh... wrrrroonnght.... BRRRKKKH!! AIIGHH WOOOORNT BRREEKH!!”

Unbeknownst to Alfred, the elder and his fellow werewolves nearly stumbled in shock at the nearly-audible words, a testament to the former human's mental fortitude.

In the midst of all the agony, Alfred felt his mental battle winding down, the intellect of his human mind finding some form of common ground with the beast underneath, the bestial urge to howl becoming the almost worshipful desire to sing to the moon. As his trousers and shirt neared the end of their limits, the seams nearly gone, Alfred felt his muzzle forming, his ears settling into place, his massive forepaws flexing. And with one, powerful burst of energy, greater than any he had ever experienced before, he arched his back, nearly tearing the chains out of the wall and turning what was left of his clothes into little more than threads flying off of him as he unleashed a sound from deep within his soul:

“HAWROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! HROWROOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

With that, the pain finally ceased, leaving Alfred panting and trembling in the aftermath.

“Young man,” whispered the elder, astonishment painted upon his face, “are you with us? Is your mind your own?”

“I... yes. I am myself. I—Dear GOD.”

The words died on Alfred's lips as he turned his head and saw the mirror. Or rather, what looked back at him from the mirror. Where a human man once stood, an 8-foot tall werewolf with massive bulging muscles and jet-black fur crouched. Staggering to his feet—no, his hindpaws—Alfred moved over to get a better look at himself... and felt something he hadn't felt in years.

He felt alive. Truly alive.

“I... this is incredible,” Alfed stammered. Turning to his host, he smiled and nodded. “Forgive me, good sir—”

“Haventon,” said the elder, “Or 'Elder Haventon'. But formality is not needed within the pack, mister...”

“Forrester. Alfred Forrester. And I'm quite happy to engage in formality for now, Elder Haventon. Would it be alright if I remained among you, at least for the time being?”

The elder smiled warmly. “You are now of the pack, young Alfred. There is no need to ask.”

Taking Haventon's outstretched paw, Alfred embraced his new life, eager to explore the new and wondrous world he had discovered that night.