A lone wanderer, with no more time to ask you to talk about becoming a werewolf. He's on the run, now, and all his hopes are for escape.

Today’s story is the second and final part of “A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf” by Rob MacWolf, who would argue turnabout is only fair, and you can find more of his stories on his SoFurry gallery.

Last time, an eccentric werewolf preacher journeyed across a continent, spreading word that the way to save the world was for everyone to become a werewolf. He might seem delusional, but his faith is proven sincere, and has been rewarded. But can he stay one step ahead of the Bureau of Extrahuman Populace Management?

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You're listening to the Voice of Dog.

I'm Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and today's story

is the second and final part of

A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf,

by Rob MacWolf, who would argue turnabout is only fair play,

and you can find more of the stories on his SoFurry gallery.

Last time, an eccentric werewolf preacher journeyed across the continent

spreading word that the way to save the world was for everyone to become a werewolf.

He might seem delusional,

but his faith is proven sincere

and has been rewarded.

But can he stay one step ahead of the Bureau of Extrahuman Populace Management?

Please enjoy A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf,

by Rob MacWolf, part two of two,

Read for you by the author himself.

My soul has dreamed of slim grey ships that pass into the west.

My dreams have yearned for white shores on the cool dark forest’s breast. Oh,

to sink forever deeper

in that oceansful of rest,

But that is still tomorrow,

may tomorrow’s name be blest.

By the time he reached Chicago he was on the run in earnest.

It had been, well, years since he’d set foot in a city of any appreciable size.

He’d been taught, unless it was one you knew very well,

that big cities made for nervous,

irritable werewolves,

just a basic fact of who and what he was.

But in his arrogance he’d presumed

providence would be somehow between him and that.

It wouldn’t and it wasn’t and he was miserably on edge by the time he had reached the park.

To the east had been nothing but the lake.

He knew it wasn’t the ocean, but he’d never seen the ocean and so this was probably close enough.

The sight of anything that wasn’t the city—that wasn’t

loud noises and unexpected smells and crowds that meant he had no idea where to run if he needed to

—had been immediately soothing.

The people milling about among the grass and flowerbeds were the largest audience he was ever likely to get.

It was a little awkward at first.

He realized he’d never before tried speaking to more than one person at once,

but he hit his stride when he made himself see them not as they were,

but as they would one day be:

not a crowd of confused humans, each alone despite being together,

but as a pack. And talking to a pack was easy.

So he told them how a pack didn’t leave its members out in the cold.

Didn’t let them go hungry.

Didn’t make them pay rent.

A pack doesn’t force most to slave their lives away to build a mountain of wealth for the few.

Everything could yet be solved. Everything could yet be saved!

And just when he was about to mention the bite,

he saw the two B. of E.P.M. agents.

He stopped mid-sentence.

Wild panic, hovering overhead since he’d set foot in this necropolis of accursed humanity, took him.

He turned, he ran,

between onlookers confused by his sermon and more confused by its abrupt conclusion,

praying the agents would be too concerned with inconspicuity

to give earnest chase.

But then, they wouldn’t have to, would they?

They had him between them and the lake.

“Hey, this way!” He felt, rather than heard, someone say,

“Quick!” He didn’t know where ‘this way’ was, or who was telling him so,

but it had to be better than the agents.

So he ducked between two banks of low cherry trees, and-

-stumbled onto a gravel path

that hadn’t been there a moment before.

Have you ever seen, he remembered asking a trucker who’d given him a ride,

anything powerfully strange,

that you couldn’t explain, as if a wilder, truer,

more wonderous world

were just around the corner

if you could only find the way to enter it?

The first thing that hit him was the smell of onions.

Fresh, alive, savory,

and eye-wateringly overwhelming.

He was immediately grateful he had his human mask on, if he’d come here as the wolf

he’d probably have been knocked out.

The second thing he noticed was the buildings.

Gleaming white, so pale they seemed luminous,

all long graceful arcades and collonaded palaces.

He was certain those

hadn’t been there a moment ago either.

And then there was the sky.

Black as night, though the sun was fully out,

and full of stars,

but the wrong stars. Too many,

too many colors, and all smeared into faint circles around the north pole.

And finally the silence.

There was no one else here,

as far as eye could see or ear could hear.

But if he was alone,

who had just invited him? "Don't

worry," a crow landed on the marble balustrade, fluffed its feathers,

"They can't follow you here."

"Nobody can get in here,"

added the raccoon who climbed up the ivy spilling from the urn-shaped planter, "unless we let them in." There were a lot of questions going on here and he suspected most of them were interminable detours, so he just asked why, then, they had

let him in? “Cause those agents didn’t want us to!” The crow croaked a single harsh laugh. “We do this a lot,” The raccoon trundled

up to his ankle, sniffed him experimentally.

It was a little surreal that two animals,

who were able to be much more animal than he could be,

still talked with voices that

sounded more human than his

at his most human,

but then that was hardly the most unusual thing happening right now, was it?

“Like when the cops are chasing or harassing someone. Just open the door a crack, let em stumble in,

just till the cops give up and look somewhere else.”

“We don’t usually talk to em, though.”

The crow alighted on his shoulder.

It was heavier than he’d have expected.

“They get freaked out enough at finding themselves here.”

He leaned on the marble railing and let his eyes wander around the placid lagoon

and the snow-white colonnades surrounding it.

On the one side was a huge churchlike dome, on the other

an arcade through which came the sound of the sea.

A vine-trailing golden statue regarded him suspiciously from her plinth in the middle of the water.

And growing from

every patch of dirt, from every crack in the sidewalk,

were wild onions.

So what, exactly, he had to ask, was here?

“Well,” the raccoon said,

“You heard of the 1893 World’s Fair and Centennial Exposition?

See, the magnates who ran Chicago back in the day wanted to out-do Paris, and the Eiffel Tower,

and-” The crow raised a wing to hush what was apparently a long

and long-practiced lecture.

“They were gonna tear it all down when the fair was done. So we stole it.” “Put it all in a little eddy of sideways time for safe keeping, and we’ve been living here ever since!”

finished the raccoon, as if putting things in an eddy of sideways time

was something you just did.

To the west, a huge ferris wheel,

glittering with lights,

rolled slowly behind the artificial horizon of the city,

like a permanent electric sunset.

“Yeah, we didn’t get enough to get the wheel.”

The raccoon clasped its paws solicitously,

“We can see it, though, most days.

Anyway. You need some place to rest?

Are you hungry?” “I, uh,”

the crow added, “hope you like onions, if you are.

are.” “Everything ends up tasting like onions here.”

The raccoon stared dejectedly at the white colonnades across the water.

“You get used to it.

Assuming you stay?”

Wait, what? “I mean, we get occasional guests,”

the raccoon’s voice got squeakier the closer it got to pleading,

“but it’s been a hundred years and this is the first time another shapeshifter’s turned up!”

He had to admit, it had never occurred to him that he was

‘a shapeshifter.’ “It’s not so bad!”

the crow insisted.

“And we could make it a haven for shapeshifters!

Those like us, in the heart of the human city, but where no cop or agent can reach them!

I might not have caught much of, well,

whatever speech you were trying to give out there, but that’s basically what you were talking about, right?”

They both looked up at him like lonely pups.

Startled worry gave way to piteous empathy

like melting snow before a fire hose.

He told them thank you,

as politely as he could, thank you

but no. What they described was worthy,

and just, and for any other wolf it would have been, well, a godsend.

But he still had a holy calling,

out there in the world.

The Great Pack wasn’t going to call itself.

As weary as he was, as homesick as he was,

this could not be his home.

But he’d be glad to share a meal with them, while he waited for the coast to clear enough for him to be on his way again.

He didn’t mind, he promised, the taste of wild onions.

As long as, he didn’t add out loud,

it wasn’t forever.

You may have heard a mention of a place called Galilee

And the beauty of its lilies by the soft and stormy sea?

There is glory on that gallows

still available to me,

And if you make me take it, friend,

what will become of thee?

He fled north, through Wisconsin.

The crow had warned him when the agents were at the other end of the park.

On emerging back into the world alongside highway 41 he had left Chicago as quickly,

and gratefully, as he could.

If he could make the Canadian border, he’d be,

well, not SAFE, Canada wasn’t

really that much better,

but at least he’d be out of the Bureau’s jurisdiction.

But by the time he skirted past Milwaukee he was sure he was being followed.

Police cars were blocking the roads,

and he didn’t want to find out why.

He followed a railroad instead,

in the most wolflike shape he had,

and tried to look as much like a stray dog as he could as he trotted north.

He got farther than he had any right to expect, honestly,

before the agents caught him.

The first warning should have been the powerful vinegary, musky odor,

spread all over the road.

He should have guessed it was there to mask a scent, but he was distracted like a fool,

and assumed this was merely a nearby skunk.

Which meant the first actual warning he got was the weighted bolas,

fired by a sneering agent

who stepped out from behind a roadsign,

that wrapped around his ankles, bruised his shins,

and left him face down in the road.

His head spun when it hit the asphalt.

He was aware someone was speaking to him but hearing had deserted him as much as smell “...

“...being taken into detention,”

the other agent was saying as it came back, “under provisional authority

of the Bureau of Extrahuman-”

“Man, you don’t need to bother with that bullshit,”

the sneering agent set down the launcher.

“They’re either animals or monsters. Either way they don’t have rights!”

Maybe the friendlier agent had a comeback to that.

But maybe he didn’t.

Not like it made a difference either way.

Why would providence bring him to this?

Why lead him so far,

guide him so carefully,

only to leave him caught and collared here? Likely never to be heard from again?

“You should’ve stayed put.

Shouldn’t’ve made trouble.”

The tall agent was standing over him now.

His sneering partner had gone to bring the armored car they’d parked off the road, where it wouldn’t be seen

—would that he didn’t know the backs of those, bare steel and twisted wire,

built to say to the occupant

‘you are not a prisoner, you are a beast in a cage’

but to his shame he did, and would again, it seemed.

“You coulda just stayed quiet and safe in whatever

filthy hole you called a den,

and minded your own business.

But no, you have to drag us across twelve states,

causing incident after incident.”

Thinking of this one as the ‘friendlier’ agent had been a mistake.

“Your friend you talked into asking to

get turned? Asked an undercover cop posing as a werewolf to bite him!

The sheriff you escaped from in Vernon County?

That poor woman you harassed in Camdenton?

Yeah, we’ve got their statements too,

so we know what you’ve been up to.”

Isn’t this what you wanted?

whispered a treacherous, accusing corner of his mind.

You threw away your name and your humanity.

You try to give away all your money. You ignore food and sleep and danger.

Don’t pretend you’re not trying to sacrifice yourself!

Well, congratulations,

now you’re gonna find out what that means.

“You made us chase you two thousand miles,”

chimed in the agent,

“so now you’re gonna find out how

bad we can make it for you, mutt.”

Oh Father of all Packs

—he closed his eyes,

laid his cheek on the road

—never have I been in greater need,

let my work not have been in vain,

and if this be my day to stand before thee turn me not away,

all of my soul which is worthy, welcome,

all which is unworthy,

forgive- The sound of an approaching engine made it difficult to focus,

but what was left to him but persevering in prayer?

He clenched his jaw and concentrated

—let my road lead to thy house, where I may lay my boots at your door, my clothes at your hearth,

and need them never again.

Let thy howl lay all my griefs to rest, and call me to your...

wait, was there more than one engine approaching?

“You will get only one warning.”

The tall agent’s voice rang.

“Do not advance any closer!”

“You sure you want to be doing this?”

growled a new voice.

One that couldn’t have been made by a human throat.

He twisted around to look up.

Three motorcycles had pulled up, clearly as close as they could.

Dismounting from each was a wolf,

defiantly shifted, human masks disregarded.

A smaller one to the right, a thick-furred and dour one to the left, the biggest front and center.

The tall agent was standing between him and those who had been sent, clearly, to save him.

The sneering agent had drawn a gun.

“Because it looks to me,”

the big wolf continued as if not staring down a loaded gun,

“like you’re illegally arresting a man who hasn’t broken any laws,

and doing it close enough

to my pack’s home

that I feel like I want an explanation.” “I wouldn’t

say we’re arresting a man,”

snapped the sneering agent.

“That’s none of your business,”

the tall agent tried and failed to cut his partner off. “After

you spend a whole day crowing to every cop in Wisconsin,

Minnesota, and the Upper Peninsula

about ‘dangerous werewolves?’ So none of my pack can show our faces?

Even though YOUR bureau

says we’ve got the ‘right to secrecy’ not that we asked for it,

now you’re the ones

blowing it?” The big wolf’s growl was the same note as his bike’s motor.

“Yeah, I think it’s my business.”

“Look, mutt, this guy’s disruptive,”

the sneering agent said.

“He’s offered to bite people!”

“There’s no law against turning someone consensually.”

“He let himself be seen as a wolf!”

“Also not illegal.”

“He made us chase him for weeks!”

“Which is your job, agent,”

the big wolf planted his fists on his hips, took one step away from his bike,

“and which you shouldn’t’ve been doing over someone

who hadn’t broken any laws!

You got any other reason I should let you proceed with this abduction? Cause that’s what it is if you don’t have any charges,

which we all know you don’t!”

“Howabout:” the sneering agent sneered,

“that I loaded this gun with silver bullets.”

There was a long pause.

The wind moved the trees

and began to clear the acrid musk laid down to trap him,

replaced it with the smells of forest,

of idling engine,

and of wolf. “This kinda shit,”

growled the big wolf, arms still akimbo,

“is why you’re not qualified to manage a youth group,

never mind any extrahuman populations.

You don’t know what you’re doing.

Silver’s not poison.

It’s not kryptonite.

It’s not fatal, agent,”

he huffed, “it just means I’m not invulnerable

to that shot!” “So,” to his credit, the agent did not falter,

“I just need to put it right

between your eyes.”

“You could try.” The big wolf shrugged.

“If you do, you know it’s the only shot you get.

And if it misses,

you know you won’t just have one werewolf you just tried and failed to kill.

You won’t just have three.”

The hedges to either side of the road rustled, clearly on cue.

The big wolf grinned.

“How many of you are there?”

The tall agent said.

It still didn’t seem to occur to him to tell his partner to lower his gun.

“Like we’re gonna tell,”

scoffed the smaller wolf.

“So you consider your options, agent.”

Impressive how the big wolf could threaten without threatening.

“You take a shot at me,

and then what happens, happens.

And then, if you make it back to your bosses,

you’ll have to explain

why a single vagrant

was worth starting a war

with every wolf in the country.”

Now the agent did falter, just a little.

“You seem really confident you’d walk away to tell them.”

“I am.” The big wolf nodded toward the bushes.

“But I don’t have to walk away.

We’ve got phones, agent.

Been recording this whole time.

Maybe you drop me.

Maybe this is my last stand.

But if it is, every wolf in the country is gonna watch you murder me.

And not just the wolves.

The Nain Rouge, we’re not far from their turf.

All the Sasq’ets.

Las Lloronas. Least two congregations of Mothfolk.

Every goblin in Kentucky.

Those vampire families in Utah

you think we’re not on speaking terms with.

And who knows who they’ll tell?”

The big wolf leaned forward,

bared his teeth.

“You better hope you miss, little man.”

It was at this point the agents remembered that bureau policy

was to let him off with a warning.

He rode behind one of the wolves who had emerged from the undergrowth.

The other had gone straight to the big wolf and demanded he never do

‘anything like that again!’ “Nobody got hurt, pup!” the big wolf had objected, sheepishly.

“We got

tipped off that all the local cops were arresting werewolves on sight,”

explained the fast-talking wolf,

“so we started making calls.

Heard about you from other packs all over,”

his progress was being talked about?

“mostly about how this guy Curtis got arrested for trying to get turned,

and when the cops let him out the next day

went right back and found someone to bite him!”

Curtis was even now turning,

was part of the pack!

And that was joyous news enough that he missed most of the details about how they’d found the place the agents meant to ambush him,

had ridden out to his salvation,

but he didn’t need to understand it to be grateful.

Since he guessed they might not understand if he said God or Providence had sent them, he didn’t.

He’d never been on a motorcycle before,

and as far as he was concerned he need never ride one again.

Luckily it wasn’t far

to Sault Ste. Marie, and the Canadian border.

“No!” said the wolf he’d ridden behind, to whom he tried to give his wallet,

“that has your I.D. in it!

You’re going to need that

when you go through border control!”

The worn and ragged leather lump was forced back into his hands.

“Tell them you’re a werewolf, say you’re claiming sanctuary under the Montcalm Act,

and that my cousin

Ian is waiting on the other side of customs to take you to my

parents’ pack in Caliper Lake, Ontario.

You got that?” He consented to repeat the info back,

but made a stubborn point of taking his ID out

and leaving the wallet on the road.

They rolled their eyes, but didn’t try to stop him,

and eventually one of them scooped it up off the parking lot cement.

He thanked them, from the bottom of his heart.

He would never again have

any pack but the Great Pack,

but if it were yet his to have one, he told them,

he would that it were one like theirs.

And had anyone ever told them, he asked, that they were part of something holy?

“I don’t know that I’d put it like that,”

said the big wolf who had stood down the agents,

“but I’m not gonna disagree.”

He watched them turn to head back across the long bridge to Michigan,

and sent every prayer he had after them.

Whatever he had been meant to do on this pilgrimage, it was complete.

Time to see where providence needed him next.

He took his place in the customs line, and wondered if the tired-looking man standing in front of him

had been told there could be a place for him

in the Pack. So, my mind has heard a rumor of the coming of the Lord

And his coming, it is coming,

of that am I assured.

Glory glory, alleluia.

Can it be you have not heard?

That we do not wait forever, brother,

better get aboard.

“That guy,” Greg said, when they stopped for gas,

“was crazy, right? He’s gonna drive my parents nuts, right?” “I dunno,” Dan said, “if I’d call anything nuts compared with ‘threatening to start

a war with the Bureau!’”

“I wasn’t threatening to start a war!” Miles protested,

“I was warning them they were about to!

Anyway, even if that guy was nuts, he was still one of us.

If wolves don’t protect eachother, who’s gonna?”

“Yeah, that sounded like the sorta thing he was talking about.”

Ryan fiddled with the wallet the strange man had left behind,

“It made a lot less sense when he said it,

though. Whoa! Guys!” he barked, shrill and incredulous. “There’s

like a thousand bucks in here what the fuck?!”

“We’re still telling everyone, right?”

Owen, voice hard and serious, ignored him.

“We’re still showing people those videos, right?

Even if nothing happens,

every pack, every lone wolf, needs to know that the Bureau’s not like it was when we were kids.”

“Just for their own safety!”

Martin agreed. “Now who’s gonna start a war?”

Miles sighed. “Alright.

You’re not wrong. Let’s

talk about it when we get home?”

They turned homeward.

And if providence,

its former favored son

seen safe to journey’s end,

then pricked pointed ears,

raised a night-colored muzzle,

turned a headlight beam gaze to follow them,

they paid it no mind.

This was the second and final part of

A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf,

by Rob MacWolf

Read for you by the author himself.

As always you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog or find the show wherever you get your podcasts

And thank you for listening

to the Voice of Dog.