The Howls of a Spirit ( Discontinued )

🐺Chapter 35

✨Edmund Orpheus✨

"No!" Edmund Orpheus shouted as he saw the villagers forming a mob outside his house, their hands occupied with pitchforks and torches which glowed like fiery stars through the window in the darkness. He gathered his composure and marched outside with clenched hands and visible veins, his teeth gritted behind his mouth which was set in a straight, thin line.

"Werewolf! Monsters! The devil's children!" he hearkened the words that spilled from the villagers' mouths like poison, his anger only growing like a wildfire. Someone had revealed their true identities to the town.

"What is this!? The eighteen hundreds!?" he yelled, despite the situation he was still bothered that they had shops which sold pitchforks and torches which seemed too ancient to be true.

"You monsters!" The people yelled; the villagers who despised werewolves. They lunged forward towards him as he dodged their silver pitchforks and punched and kicked them. He did not shift into his wolf, just in case he could still convince them that he actually was not a lycanthrope.

"Edmund!" a female yelled. No, his wife. "Kalila! Get inside!" he shrieked, panic displacing his previous anger. One of the people took his short distraction to their advantage and pierced Edmund's right leg with a pitchfork, the open skin sizzling and burning due to the silver element it contained. He cried out in agony, the only thought in his mind; his children.

A villager then sprang at his wife who shifted and snarled at them. They screamed and flailed around like a flock of alarmed geese. She was about to come to aid her husband when a sudden bang cut through the ruckus.

The last thing Edmund remembered was his wife dropping to the ground as gore gushed out of her side, the silver bullet glittering against the deep crimson.

o----o

"Kalila!" Edmund awoke abruptly, his brash gasp startling his littlest child who ran towards him in a rush.

"Pa are you okay?" he inquired, his small hand checking his father's forehead for any signs of a fever. Edmund did not answer; he stared at his son's face while panting slightly as sweat dribbling down from his temples as if his skin was weeping. "I'm fine Nico."

"Where's your sister? It's still her birthday," Edmund said while examining the clock that hung on the fair wall, ticking away nonchalantly. It was late. Very late.

"She – She's in her room," Nico said hesitantly while looking down at his feet, his emerald eyes brewing salty tears.

"Maní what's wrong? Where is she really?" he asked, slightly leaning forward from his wheelchair, his large hands cupping his dear child's face in worry and fear.

"I don't know Pa," Nico wept and Edmund pulled him in for a hug while whispering reassuring words into his ears. "I'll go and find her. You have to stay here okay? Lock the doors and don't open it at any costs. If any trouble comes, you know where to go."

"The hidden room. Yes I know. But you can't even walk Papa! How are you going to move!?"

"Christmas miracle." Edmund attempted to stand from his wheel chair before falling to the floor on all fours. He put his palm out in a gesture which indicated a frightful Nico to stay back. He sucked in a deep breath and gritted his teeth, a distraction from all the pain and concentrated; his limbs cracked and twisted to be replaced by humungous paws from which protruded claws as sharp as samurai blades, his teeth sharpening and elongating to fit the snarl that was painted on his dark snout. Nico gawked at his father in awe.