It was an old house, years of use and weather marked its façade like wrinkles on an old man‟s face. He struggled with the ancient lock while balancing his cargo, finally turning the tumblers and shoving open the ornate, wooden door.
Struggling down the long hallway, Adelmo staggered into the large, airy kitchen and groaned as he set the bags onto the counter, wincing at the sound of eggs breaking on the bottom of one of the poorly arranged bags.
“Geez.”
He looked at the groceries, briefly considered whether to put them away, decided against immediate action, and walked into the living room and turned on the TV. The noise would be distracting, he felt less isolated when he could hear voices in the other room.
He spent a mindless yet oddly satisfying few minutes channel-surfing, then tiredly padded back into the kitchen to prepare his dinner.
As he cooked, his mind drifted back to the strange customer and the stories his grandfather told him as a child – crazy, frightening stories about terrible things. Things that reminded him about what the man was raving about in the store.
Now he wished he‟d brought the strange book home with him, but at the time he left he was still too shaken to want to think about it. Adelmo had no idea how the book got into the store and was almost afraid to find out. Was it possible the crazy guy had brought it in with him?
“No way.”
The sound of his own voice echoing in the empty kitchen startled him, and he had to laugh at his own skittishness.
“Dude. Get a grip.”
He laughed again, but his thoughts once more returned to the man in the store. There was something about his eyes, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
They looked...familiar.
Adelmo went to the cabinet, retrieving paprika, black pepper, and olive oil. He massaged the oil into the steak before sprinkling the pepper and paprika on top. He turned the flame up under the skillet, carefully adjusting the blue flame.
Il caut pe lup.
The skillet started to smoke, and he threw the red meat into its center.
I seek the wolf, he thought.
His grandfather used to say that.
As he watched the blood-red steak turn gray, the smell of meat filled the kitchen and his thoughts drifted once again to his grandfather and those strange bedtime stories.
“The wolf was chasing me, breathing down my neck like the Devil himself,” the old man whispered, his good eyes ablaze in the dim light of his grandson‟s night-light. His other eye was glass, glinting crazily as the old man moved his head. He'd lost it in the Great War, or so Adelmo had been told, and it seemed to take on a life of its own the more excited his grandfather got.
He always got very excited when he told stories from the old country.
“The wolf had eyes of yellow ringed in blood and his fur was as sharp as a thousand knives!”
Little Adelmo‟s eyes grew even wider than before as he imagined such a creature chasing him.
“I was almost out of breath, but I forced myself to keep running. I could hear him salivating in my ear, imagining what it would feel like if he were to tear the flesh from my bones and swallow great chunks of me whole!”
Adelmo wanted to close his eyes but his grandfather's held him fast. He was mesmerized by the awful words.
In the story, the pursuit lasted for hours, his grandfather nearly succumbing a dozen times over, until finally, just when the werewolf was about to prevail, the old man whirled around and cut off the creature's head with a single blow of his mighty sword just as all hope appeared to be lost.
That was always the scariest yet most enthralling part of the story, when his father's father had managed to finally lead the wolf to the place where it was hidden.
The wolfblade.
The wolfblade was a sword, but it wasn't just any sword. It was a special sword, a sword with special powers, powers which were available only to certain men. The men who were chosen to wield the weapon, and then only for a very particular purpose.
The Wolf Blade was hidden, its location revealed only to those whose blood was pure, those who sought the wolf.
Adelmo's grandfather was a chosen one.
Though the story scared him deeply, Adelmo never believed it to be true, but as he remembered the ravings of the man in his shop, it suddenly seemed all too real.
The book, the quote, the look in the man's eyes and all of this coming on the anniversary of his parents‟ mysterious death was just a little too much for Adelmo to take.
He suddenly felt hot, as if the skin on his face was searing into his skull. His eyes burned, but closing them offered no relief. The searing sensation followed him into the trance of darkness. He felt as if his entire body was on fire.
“What's happening to me?” he screamed, his voice bouncing off the walls like a ball bearing in a clothes dryer.
He opened his eyes but couldn't see.
He felt hot breath on his neck and whirled around, blindly flailing in the haze.
The steak was burning.
Adelmo grabbed the red-hot handle of the skillet, burning his hand. He turned off the gas and thrust his hand under cold water. The kitchen was filled with smoke.
“What the hell's happening to me?”
Adelmo laughed in spite of himself as the pain in his hand began to subside.
“Still talking to myself. What a moron.”
He looked at the charred meat, its pungent odor oddly comforting in its reality, and marveled at how his grandfather, who hadn't told him a bedtime story in many years, could still mesmerize him even in his waking hours as an adult.
His grandfather.
One of the chosen ones.
The seekers of the wolf.
“Maybe the time has come to investigate my family history.”
Adelmo didn't even notice that he was talking aloud again as he stared at the redness of his hand, thinking instead about the disappearing bite marks from earlier in the day and wondering if his burn would disappear as well.
When it didn't, Adelmo turned off the water and said aloud once more, “I need to know more about my family history.”
He walked into the living room, forgetting all about dinner, feeling instead ravenous for answers. He turned off the TV and retired for the evening.
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