I went upstairs and found Basil’s room, having only been there once before while running him a package. Large as any other room in the Covenant, Basil made it feel a deal smaller with the mess he kept it in. Clothes strewn everywhere, books and movies stacked in random piles on floors and tables, and the only clear spaces being a work area with book binding materials and a painting easel.
At the moment, the man was sitting at the workbench, hammering tools into the red leather of a large book as I walked up. A tall and almost unhealthily thin man a little older than me, his brown hair was pulled into a messy bun as he worked, and he wore a pair of jeans and t-shirt from some show I’d yet to watch. He smelled like leathers and paints, no surprise there, and from his natural scents and hasty behavior he seemed stressed.
“Knives said you needed help with fighting?” I asked, half-sitting on the desk as I looked down at the book he was designing.
“Yeah, I’m kinda bad at it,” the man muttered, frowning as he started putting tools away, “they said you’d be a few hours, everything okay?”
“My schedule cleared, and I could use something to focus on,” I said, not caring to say the desire to be punched a few times.
“Well, I’m at a good stopping point on this commission,” Basil muttered, furrowing his brow as he worked hastily sliding things around, “what’re we working on today? Forms, basics, just general exercise?”
That was a good question, and I hadn’t necessarily put much thought into how I’d train someone else to fight. Purists didn’t have structured routines, progress, anything like that, those held you back. There was only one real way to learn how to fight, and that was to do it, and I thought that might not have been fair on Basil.
It hadn’t been fair on me either, but it’d worked, and this was a man apparently struggling with his forms and fighting.
“I’m going to try teaching you a more traditional method, see how that pans out,” I said, trying to be a little vague. Better for him to not get too afraid, at least just yet, so he didn’t back out of this.
Basil nodded, and checking that I didn’t need anything else followed me back down the stairs and to the backyard. There we walked out a small distance and, partly hoping Sigyn wasn’t watching from a window, I asked, “what are you?”
The man looked at me in confusion, furrowing his brow as he asked, “what am I?”
“You have trouble fighting, you have trouble with your forms, so I ask what you are.”
“A man?” he asked, raising his hands in defeat as I stared him down, “a werewolf?”
“And what is a werewolf?” I asked, starting to slowly pace the ground around him, arms folded around my back in some mock of a drill instructor. The posture Chaser always used for these lessons and the voice Tracker used on me a few times coming back to me in some complication mishmash.
“A human that can turn into a wolf?” Basil asked, trying to turn to face me before I stopped him with a brief grip on his hair.
He stiffened in surprise, and I watched him shuffle in place before he started to keep himself focused on what was ahead. Rather proud he could learn some new tricks, I kept circling him with a smirk as I corrected the assumption, “you are a human and a wolf. Humans are half-ones because they are only half of what we are, less than half of what we may ever be. If you think of yourself as human you won’t be able to use the instincts of a wolf, and if you think of yourself as a wolf you won’t be able to use the intelligence of a human.”
“Mary,” Basil started, stopping as I turned to look at him, “this is…it’s starting to sound very Purist.”
I nodded, knowing it was true and deciding to explain it plainly, “modern methods failed you, so we’re going to try something more traditional. The Purists still use these methods, but they’re old as the werewolves of the past. This is how I learned to fight, and even Knives admitted I’m one of the best fighters at the covenant.”
The man nodded, looking ready to argue, and with a small sigh stopped himself from speaking.
Taking it as my queue, I continued, keeping up my slow circling as I explained, “we werewolves learned how to spar by intuition, instinct, each werewolf’s tactics and strengths naturally developed. An opponent can’t prepare to fight you if they have no way to know how your lessons prepared you. In order for you to learn we’ll duel, you’ll do everything you can think of to hit me, and for each hit I’ll give you advice from my experiences.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” I admitted, frowning as I watched him carefully, taking in every sign of nervous pain, “I’ll try hitting you too — sometimes attacking first, sometimes waiting for you to do so. The only rule is we must genuinely try to hurt one another, understand?”
“This feels dangerous,” Basil said slowly, and I lunged forward and drove my knee into his groin with all my strength. He let out a groan of pain and, falling forward onto the ground, hissed, “what the fuck was that for?” before following it with a torrent of vomit.
“Did that kill you?” I asked, crouching to the ground as I watched him carefully, “are you at risk of death? Is it anything that won’t be healed completely within a few minutes, maybe an hour at the worst to get rid of the soreness?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“A werewolf dies in limited ways,” I said, gripping his chin as I forced the man to look up at me, “decapitation, or the spine and vessels of the neck fully severed. Our heart eaten by one our cousins in blood. Silver and Fire and its holy burn, forced to heal as the half-one does, kills as well as anything else. Anything short of this, and we practically can’t die — without oxygen we last hours after falling to sleep, our bones mend and our organs regrow, a bullet to the brain causes no effect as long as a plurality of the brain remains functioning. You’ll survive and I’ll survive, so fight me.”
“Mary, this-” the man stopped half way, closing his eyes before he nodded and forced himself to his feet. Good boy.
I started to pace around him, and he did his best to remain looking forward at my command. After several seconds, letting the tension build, I announced, “Unguis,” and threw my first punch. It landed straight in the jaw, Basil not even attempting to block or dodge it, and he fell to the ground before spitting up a glob of red as I finished, “Sanguis.”
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“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asked, coughing a few times as he forced himself to his feet.
Right, he didn’t go through any sort of training.
Clearing my throat, trying to not look ridiculous as I felt, I explained, “Unguis means fang, it begins a spar. Sanguine means blood, it means a fight has ended: in this case because one of us was injured.”
“We need to do all this fucking bullshit just for you to beat me up?”
“Don’t get hit,” I answered, getting back into position as I announced, “Unguis.”
Basil struck first this time, throwing a wild strike from the side that was perfectly rehearsed. Too well rehearsed, and I dodged under it as I drove my fist straight into his sternum, knocking him back as I announced, “Sanguis.”
Unguis. He was still stumbling and didn’t expect me to trip him onto the grassy ground o for my foot to slam into his side, creating quite a nice crack of bone on the air. Sanguis.
Unguis. Basil was still on the ground, recovering, but managed to roll away from my attempt to grab him. He stumbled to his feet, blocked a blow with his forearms and attempted to jab into my side. I gripped his arm, pulled him forward, drove my knee into his stomach, watching him vomit. Sanguis.
Unguis. He took up a defensive stand; knees bent and arms raised, his body stiff and ready for my first strike. I paced slowly, knowing what he was attempting to do, attempting to wait him out, and he didn’t fall for it. I moved towards him, he raised his arms for a blow, I gave a light jab forward that he blocked. His elbow rotated, attempting to slam it into me, and I kept my momentum going past him. Basil let out a confused noise, attempted to swing around, and I drove my own elbow into the side of his skull. Sanguis.
I gave Basil a moment, he was bruised and bloodied, the eye on the side I’d struck red. He needed a moment to recover, even a Purist would have agreed to that.
This wasn’t giving me what I wanted.
He was too easy to kill, had I been like this?
Unguis. He lunged for me, he growled, he was learning fast, but had grown sloppy falling to instincts. My hand found his hair, and I pulled his head into my knee as he fell to the ground once more, spitting up blood and a tooth. Disappointingly, Sanguis.
Unguis. He was still on the ground, and I went to stomp him, not even registering his movement until the ground met my back. Basil scrambled over me, he let out a primal noise, and I let the wolf take over as I saw his fist come down. I twisted my body, let him hit the ground, I threw my own punch, and he threw his weight and caught it, pinning me to the ground. A growl escaped me, and I tried to knee him before realizing I had no angle, his fist raising to punch me. I thrust myself forward, swung my head hard, his nose cracked under my blow. Sanguis.
I laughed, I laid back on the grass and through madly cackling breaths told him, “Oh, you would have made a good Purist. It takes some weeks to learn to give into the wolf, you-”
“Unguis!” Basil snapped, and he attempted to roll over me for another blind punched I was forced to block with my forearms. He growled, I growled, I thrust my weight up into him to knock him off as I rolled to my feet, low to the ground for a pounce. My fur wanted to grow, my claws, and I let out a pleased growl as Basil came to his feet, looking ready to fight and not defend.
I lunged forward, going straight for him even as I prepared every muscle in my body to do otherwise. Basil moved to the side, and I slipped to that side as I dodged a knee he meant for me. My fist aimed for his body, and he gripped the hand and pulled me hard enough to almost knock me off balance. My fingers intertwined with his shirt and, not fighting it, I pulled him to the ground as I attempted to knee him the way down.
It missed, we hit the hard dirt like a rock, Basil’s full weight going full force into me, and the man did not even attempt anything else before slamming his head into mine.
My head rang, a burst of pain radiating through me, and even as Basil let out a wave of curses he slammed a fist into my nose as well. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think, another blow came down, another, and another. The fists turning into brief bursts of pain in the fog and fire he’d already sent me into as a noise escaped my throat.
A groan, a wheeze, and then a laugh.
Basil stopped, the man’s fuzzy silhouette completely still over me as I laughed, the taste of my own blood on my tongue, the feeling of teeth regrowing. I laid limply under him, not even wanting to move from the bliss he’d given me, and eventually the man moved off me as I was left alone.
After what must have been several minutes of laughing my voice grew hoarse, I was coughing, I ended up vomiting. I held myself close, and I started to be able to see fully again as I got a new look at Basil. Still healing, so bruised and hurt it would take at least an hour to get back to normal, he finally looked like a real werewolf.
“Takes some werewolves a week to get in touch with the wolf. I still took a full day of this to get there,” I muttered, still shocked how few spars it’d taken him. Fuck he was going to give me a run for my money one day.
“I didn’t feel like a wolf, I just felt angry,” the man countered, practically spitting the words, and I had to laugh at that. Almost delirious as the words felt like the funniest thing in the world to me in that moment.
Shaking my head I sat up on the dirt, resting an arm across my knee as I asked, “why do you think you beat me? You gave into instincts, and you trained your instincts with your intelligence. That first growl you had no human intellect, this fight you used both and you got a lucky hit on me.”
“I feel disgusting.”
“Give yourself some credit, fist fights might not have been my best place, we get to claws I’ll really give you a hard time, but you’ll be beating me regularly in no time,” I said, forcing myself to my feet as I spit up a glob of blood of my own, laughing as I realized how much better I felt. Fuck, this was better than sex for clearing up the bad thoughts. Basil looked disturbed, and I shook my head as I asked, “ready for some advice?”
He looked conflicted, and all the same after a moment he nodded and looked away.
“You started catching on, but don’t block with forearms and shins unless you don’t have time to do anything else,” I said, coughing up a glob of what might have been the tip of my tongue, “half-ones do it because they’re getting fucked up if they don’t, but we can heal from anything not a silver weapon. Deflect a fist with your hand you’re closer to a punch or claw, catch an arm or punch you pull them off guard, let a knife go through your hand and twist the wrist you have their weapon.”
Basil nodded, not saying a word until I helped him to his feet and he told me, “I think I want to call it for the day.”
“Fine,” I said, my pleasure quickly souring as I realized I’d gone too hard on him. I was an idiot to think the Purist techniques were the way to go, and he was probably rightfully hating me. Not sure what else to do and trying to salvage this lesson, I asked him, “Anything else you need?”
“I think I’m just going to lie down for a bit,” the man grumbled, gripping his side as he started a rough limp towards the building, “I’ll talk to you later.”
I watched after him, and sighed as it start to set in just how badly I’d actually just fucked up the day. First I had to tell Sigyn the truth and now this, what was wrong with me? They were all going to fucking hate me at this rate, and I probably fucking deserved it.
With a sigh I went back to my room, pulling out a backpack I started to quickly pack as I called Allie and put the phone on speaker. It rang a few times and, finally answering, the woman asked, “everything alright, Mary?”
“Yeah, just need a hand,” I lied, not wanting to explain the truth, “you know that gas station by the Covenant? I need to get picked up there, I’m going to be spending a few nights with a friend of mine.”
“Um, yeah, sure?” the woman said, sounding on the verge of having too many questions, “I had a few hours before I had anything planned, would like thirty minutes from now be good?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s perfect,” I said, and I hung up before immediately calling Vergil.
He answered, rather surprisingly it was him and not Calliope, and he almost immediately asked, “everything okay there, Mary Cherry?”
“Yeah, of course,” I lied once more, stuffing a few clothes and supplies in the backpack, “you mind if I stay at Dante’s Inferno for a few nights? I need some silence while I work on this case, everything’s so busy here.”
