Page 6 of Junk Magic

Things suddenly quieted down, while everyone remembered what that had felt like. Until Jace spoke up. “So, we’re like cave men.” He glanced around at the night, which out here was calm and wildly beautiful. “I could deal.”

“It wasn’t that far back,” the brunet argued. He looked at Cyrus. “More like four or five thousand years, right?”

Cyrus had been working on beer and bratwurst, and not paying much attention. Except to see how much sauerkraut he could pile on a single dog. It was a lot.

But at that he looked up. “What?”

“The first Weres. They were cursed by the old gods, weren’t they?”

“Naw, it’s a disease,” Noah said. “Everybody knows that—”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“—just the metaphysical kind. Like the vampires, you know?”

Colin nodded. “That’s what I mean. They can be cursed with vampirism, as well as get it through a bite. Just like we can with the Were strain. Right Cyrus?”

Cyrus swallowed spicy cabbage. “That’s one theory.”

“What, that we’re cursed?” Jace said. “I never heard that!”

“You didn’t have little werewolf school?” one of the others asked. “That’s what we used to call it,” he clarified, when Jace just looked at him. “You know, lore and shit.”

“I didn’t have school,” Jace said shortly, and turned back to Cyrus. “Is he right? Were we cursed?”

“I don’t know.” Cyrus chewed pork. “The ancient Greeks believed that. The legend goes that some guy named Lycaon got in trouble with Zeus—”

“For serving him human meat,” one of the boys said eagerly. “I remember that story!”

“—for trying to test his omniscience,” Cyrus said, without going into detail. Maybe because he was trying to eat. “But Zeus realized what Lycaon had done, and changed him and his sons into wolves. Which is why the mages call us lycanthropes sometimes—when they’re feeling suicidal.”

He grinned, showing teeth, and several of the boys bared theirs back.

I noticed that some were also wearing the same type of western shirt that Cyrus had about fifty of in his wardrobe. He could have lent them the clothes, but I didn’t think so. The shirts would have been a lot broader across the shoulder, if so. More likely there was a little hero worship going on.

I bit back a smile.

“But the legend doesn’t say anything about them turning back,” I said. Because I’d studied the lore, too. “So, they weren’t Weres, just wolves.”

“It’s a point,” he conceded.

“What do you believe, then?” Colin asked, shifting those gray eyes to me. “Who were the first Weres?”

I shrugged. The real answer was “nobody knows,” but I didn’t think he’d be satisfied with that. He was looking kind of intense.

“The Norse Volsung saga dates to the thirteenth century,” I said instead. “It recorded ancient stories, including one about a father and son who found enchanted wolf pelts that could turn them into wolves for ten days, after which they’d transform back. As far as I know that’s the first time anybody wrote about wolves turning back into people.”

“I heard dark mages can use our pelts in spells,” one of the other boys piped up. “They use magic to strip them off us, then sell them and the power they contain. Maybe that’s where the myth started.”

“It’s not a myth!” Colin said sharply. “We were cursed by the gods, and afterwards the strongest made the clans—”

“I don’t know about that,” Cyrus demurred. “Even if you believe the legend, it doesn’t say anything about—”

“It doesn’t have to! That’s all that matters—strength. We all know it!”

“There’s plenty of things more important than strength,” Cyrus said, with a frown. “Decency, kindness, honor—”

“Bullshit!” Colin suddenly stood up. He looked around the circle, and with the firelight splashing his face and leaping in his eyes, he looked more than a little feral. “If we were stronger our clans would have kept us! If we were stronger, we’d have homes! If we were stronger—”

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