“Sean, WAIT!” The second the words left my mouth the Lycanthrope snarled and lunged at Sean, and he fired. The creature fell, but not before I heard a pained gasp leave Sean’s lips. 

“Sean!” I screamed, scrambling over to him. He pushed the giant, lupine corpse off of himself and rolled onto his side, his hand pressed tightly against his shoulder. 

“Oh fuck,” he said, as he lifted his hand to stare at the blood coating its surface. 

“It didn’t… It didn’t…” 

“Yeah, yeah it got me,” he choked out, interrupting my stuttering. I gasped and couldn’t help my hands from flying up to cover my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, my job is to take care of situations like this, but there’s a few things people don’t seem to understand about the condition. It’s not a gift, or a super power. It’s a curse, an incurable disease. I never wanted that for anyone… but it happening to Sean had been damn near unimaginable. 

“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” I whispered shakily, kneeling beside him. “We’ve handled this stuff nearly our entire lives, we can figure this out.” 

“Olly,” he interrupted. “It burns.” 

“Oh shit, yeah of course, let's get you inside.” I shook my head to clear it before positioning myself under his good shoulder and helping him up. He grunted and stumbled, but eventually steadied himself. 

 He tensed and his eyes snapped shut in pain. “We have to move the body. It’ll turn human by morning.” 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. Let’s just get you inside,” I chided, carefully draping my sweatshirt across his shoulders to hide the wound from any onlookers or curious kitchen staff. He visibly flinched as the fabric grazed it. 

By the time I got him up to the room he was sweating bullets. His dark hair hung limply over his eyes, his back hunched over as if an anvil had been placed on top of him. I sat him down on the bed and rummaged through my bag to find the necessary supplies to patch him up.

You know you won’t need to. I quickly drowned the thought in foolish hope. And yet, the second I removed his shirt, I was met with the exact image I had been dreading. The wound was completely gone, leaving only the previously escaped blood and a pale pink scar behind. He glanced down and let loose a groan when he saw, or rather didn’t see, the bite. He lurched upright and stumbled into the bathroom, bracing himself against the sink. He retched, dry heaving, his entire body arching with the effort. At first, nothing escaped his mouth besides the sound of retching, but that quickly transitioned into a sound I’d grown far too used to over the years. A growl. 

“Sean?” I hesitantly placed my hand on his bare back. The skin shivered and twitched beneath my fingers, and I flinched away. He froze and stared at himself in the mirror, his spine stiff as stone. I stood behind him and looked on as well. The reflection in front of me, the body I knew better than my own, shifted before my eyes. Sharp brown eyes, often soaked in sarcasm, turned a luminescent amber, pulsing like a bonfire. His lips peeled back to reveal fangs as sharp and white as ice. His nails grew long and black, scratching jagged trenches in the porcelain of the sink. 

I gasped aloud. I’d never seen the transformation myself, nor had I ever wanted to, but it was far, far worse than I’d ever had the misfortune of imagining. Sean stumbled and fell, his back ramming into the rim of the bathtub with a sickening thud. I stood there, my feet frozen on the linoleum for a moment too long before falling to my knees beside him. 

“Fuck, are you ok?” I asked. 

“Do I look ok!” he shouted, his eyes burning a hole through me. I noticed blood running like a red ribbon from his lower lip, as if his teeth had pierced it. He collapsed in on himself, hiding his face. His back rose and fell, his breath sounded pained and reluctant. As I watched, his skin seemed to ripple, as malleable as liquid. 

“Sean?” I finally asked, after too many seconds of silence. No reply. 

“Babe?” 

“Stop,” he wheezed.

“What?” I stuttered.

“Get out.”

“What? No, I…” 

“Olly!” he choked out. “I’m barely holding myself together. You have to go.” 

“Sean, no. We can work this out, we’re trained to handle it.” 

“We’ve never been trained to handle this! We’re trained to kill monsters. Olly, look at me.”

“No, Sean, we’ll find another way,” Even I could hear the doubt in my voice. We both knew there was no cure. 

“Olly, I can’t control this… It hurts, fuck it hurts so much.” The agony in his voice made the tears collecting in my eyes spill over, clouding my view of him shaking before me. For that I was almost grateful. 

“I’ll find something, there has to be something.” The sob building in my throat cut me off. 

“I love you, Olly,” Sean whispered, laying his clawed hand over mine. I interlocked my fingers with his, but before I could reply his skin seemed to explode from his shoulders. 

Standing before me was a giant black dog, a beast that would scare most people shitless, but I’d faced creatures like this countless times. Its hackles rose, and it snarled menacingly at me, its red tongue rolling behind its teeth. Its eyes held no knowledge of what it once was, who it once was. It was entirely composed of carnal instinct and desire. All it wanted was to kill. To taste the iron in its mouth, to stain its coat red. And I was the only prey in sight. I lunged to the side just in time, its claws only grazing my chest. But even that was enough to send white hot pain shooting through me. 

I ran out of the bathroom and into the open bedroom. The beast followed, a growl rumbling in its throat like an earthquake. However, as I watched, its attention seemed to tear in two. Half trained on me and the other half glancing at the window at my back. 

“Sean, don’t,” I whimpered, but he was already rushing past me, pushing me aside, before crashing through the windowpane.
I fell to my knees, my eyes staring emptily after him. The full moon seemed to taunt me, reflecting off of the glass scattered around the room, and glinting off of the blood staining the antique carpet, the blood slowly creeping across my chest. 

**

It’s been four years since that night. I told the Lupinotuum Pectinem Sean had been killed by the Lycanthrope when I delivered its body, saying he’d managed to kill it with a shot before going down. He’s considered a hero, and many still tell stories about him and our time together at the L.P. I had to tell his parents. The knowledge that both of their children had been killed by these beasts was nearly enough to break them, but it was better than the truth. 

I still keep an eye on the B n’ B in Colorado, but there’s been no sign of him. No sightings, no property damage, no deaths anywhere in the area. Sometimes, that’s enough to make me wonder if there’s still a part of him alive in there. A part that’s still human, a part that wishes I would look for him. But I can’t, I won’t, not unless he hurts someone. Because finding him would mean putting him down. Finding him would mean losing him all over again, for real this time. So frankly, I’m okay with merely wondering. At the very least that’s far better than any alternative. 

Agent Oliver Weinstead of the Lupinotuum Pectinem signing off. Stay safe out there.