Excerpt from The Werewolf's Kiss

Three weeks after she had come to stay with them, the loups-garou decided to take their new disciple to Bayou Goula with them. "This is it, little one," Achille told Sylvie, "The loups-garou's fais do-do, the werewolves' ball on the bayou. Now, don't you expect to hear no Clifton Chenier music or nothing, no," he said, "Instead of fiddles and accordions, we got howling and moaning."

The werewolves were gathering in all sorts of ways. Some came by car, although they had to get out and walk a couple of miles. Most arrived in motorboats or skiffs, singly or in groups, and the young daughter of one of the oldest Cajun families in Louisiana piloted a traditional pirogue, a canoe made of a hollowed-out log. Achille and the other loups-garou set up a hoot of appreciation when she arrived.

            "Look at that," Achille told Sylvie, "The pirogue's the most treacherous form of transportation devised by man, and that little ol' gal handles it like she was drivin' a Mercedes down Carrollton Avenue."

            Another whoop greeted a noisy vaporetto, imported from Venice especially to tear along the Louisiana waterways without regard to life or limb. This one was filled with a half-dozen raucous revelers, some of them without a stitch on. If Sylvie had thought that the gathering of the loups-garou was going to be a solemn occasion marked by secrecy and silence, this group changed her mind at once. Nobody could be as rowdy as Louisiana natives out for a good time.

            "Ooo-WEE! Darryl Dozier, you ol' swamp gator!" Achille greeted the vaporetto's pilot, "You know, you ain't supposed to be naked 'til you get here! What you doin' outside of Baton Rouge, eh?"

            "Gettin' away from the legislature for a couple of days," the man said, tying up the boat, "Man, that Billy B's killing me," Billy was an infamous representative who, it was rumored, had gone far beyond the usual permissively corrupt political conventions. Everybody knew of his excesses, but a blue-ribbon committee couldn't seem to find any live witnesses. The man speaking was chairman of that committee. "Now Achille, you know how it is in Louisiana: nobody minds when a legislator gets a little richer than he's supposed to. But Billy B is just way outta hand. All the funds for that low-income housing just seem to have vanished into thin air, ain't that a coincidence? And besides, nobody likes him. He coulda got away with a hand-slapping if he'd had any personality at all."

            "Yeah, you right," Achille agreed, "Billy B sure ain't no Earl Long, I tell ya."

            "Well, he must be pretty tasty after all this fattening up at the public's expense."

            "Now, Darryl, you know you can't eat Billy B. He's got a whole term to go."

            "Yeah, but I can sure as hell scare some information outta him." Darryl's eye settled on Sylvie. "Whoo-EE! Now look at this here," he said, kissing Sylvie's hand, "Achille, I believe this is the first time we ever had a Queen of Carnival out here on Bayou Goula. I bet them gentlemen from the School of Design'd just plain shit if they'd known the queen was a loup-garou."  He kissed Sylvie on the cheek, "Sure good to meet you, little sister. I knew your grandaddy real well. Now, don't you eat no registered Democrats tonight, you hear?"

            "Holy shit," Sylvie said in an awed voice when Darryl had gone, "Wasn't that the lieutenant governor?"

            "Ain't life a bitch?" Achille agreed.

            Achille and Sylvie moved around, greeting people, introducing Sylvie.

            A petite brunette, stripped down to a peach silk teddy and Maude Frizon shoes, bent over to unhook her baby-blue stockings from her garter belt. Achille stepped back to admire the view. "Evangeline!" he said, impressed, "You hot tonight, babe."

            "I came right from the office," she said, "Oh, Achille, I saw another woman on the street wearing a fur coat. At this time of year, can you imagine? Timber wolf!"

            The other werewolves groaned in dismay.

            "Evangeline has her own 'Save the Animals' movement," Achille told Sylvie. "So Evangeline," he said a little louder, "What you do, daw'lin?"

            "Well," Evangeline said sweetly, "I'm sure the way she got that coat was to tell her husband that she'd been dying for a fur. And so that night, she did. I took the coat, too, and gave it a decent burial."

            The werewolves burst into laughter and murmured approval. "You oughta leave them coats on the steps of the Times-Picayune newspaper, for publicity," Achille counseled, "Make people think twice about buying those things."

            "Yeah, you right," Evangeline said thoughtfully.

            Achille waved to a young couple who had come on the vaporetto with Darryl. The man, Jan, was a tall, blonde Dane; his wife was a pretty girl with enormous eyes and an obvious streak of mischief.

            "Now, see these two?" Achille said to Sylvie, "Just proves that everybody gets down to the Bayous, sooner or later. Jan and Lisa are a pair of visiting Yankees. What's the prob, Jan? You tired of them sushis and lobsters?"

            "Nah," Jan said, "We got the urge for spicy food."

            "So," Lisa said, giving Achille an arched eyebrow, "we thought we'd eat Creole, if you know what I mean, babes."

            "That right?" Darryl Dozier put in, overhearing this, "C'mere. Lemme tell ya how ya can do the State a' Looziana a big favor. Are ya'll Democrats?"

            Achille moved off to greet other friends, while Sylvie sat back under the tree. It was going to be a long night.

            "You're unsure of your place in all this, aren't you?" said a voice behind her.

            She turned and there was her mysterious friend, sitting on the opposite side of the tree. Lucien Drago, the composer. Sylvie was confused. Lucien Drago was a loup-garou?

            Knowing that Lucien was a loup-garou instantly cleared up several things for Sylvie. This was why she felt she knew him so well, why he had carried her home the night she wandered away from Quentin and her friends. He'd been protecting her.

            She noticed him staring intently at her. Then he got up and moved to sit beside her.

            "So you've made your way to Bayou Goula," he said pleasantly.

            "You're the one Achille told me about," she said slowly, "The one who first felt me calling for help, the one who was trying to come to me."

            He only stared at her with those intense green eyes. He looked wonderful. He was dressed in the traditional young conductor's uniform: jeans, Nikes, and a black cotton turtleneck that made his blonde hair look all that much lighter. The shirt, Sylvie couldn't help but notice, was a little tight around his biceps and chest, arrogantly so. This was a man who had no doubts about how handsome he was.

            Achille, walking back to Sylvie, seemed delighted to see him. "Lucien!" he said as Lucien stood up to embrace him, "Welcome back to Bayou Goula. Do you plan to dance with us?"

            "I don't know." He turned to look at Sylvie. "Will you dance with me, Sylvie?"

            Sylvie wasn't sure what he meant.

            "You know she can't do that," Achille said, a little sternly, "She hasn't decided."

            "Sure she has. Did you really have a choice, Sylvie? Would you go back to your old life now, after what you've learned? Can you see yourself married to a pillar of the church, wearing a little white apron, serving cookies and tea to the Altar Guild ladies?" He leaned a little closer to her, and the look in his eyes made her feel confused and disoriented. "Are you really going to be happy sitting in the Rex Room with all the faded ex-Queens of Carnival, reliving every tiny detail of your debut? Do you want to fill your days with shopping and your nights with card parties? Is that the kind of life you want, Sylvie?"

            In one quick motion that took her off guard, he pulled Sylvie to her feet and held her close. "Even now," he whispered to her, "You feel the excitement out here on the Bayou, the flow of power, the sexual tension that we all feel on nights like this. You can't lie to me. Of all of us here, I know you better than you know yourself."

            Without a trace of shyness or reluctance, and oblivious of Achille's slight scowl, he swept Sylvie up into a long, hot kiss that made her dizzy. When he was through, he eased her back to her seat under the tree and smiled.

            "The werewolf's kiss," he said, leaning over to brush his lips seductively over her ear as he spoke, "When the time comes, make sure I'm the one."

            Then the moon started to rise. The voices hushed and the werewolves grew still, expectant. Some stood straight and upright, their faces raised to the silver of the moon; some spread their arms to embrace the light. Then a single voice rose in a slight cry, almost inaudible, growing slowly louder. Sylvie could make out the name Hecate in a hundred whispers. There were gasps, like the gasps of lovers caught in expectant ecstasy, as the moon rose.

            One by one, the loups-garou began to moan as the transformations began. Each loup-garou changed in his own way, at his own speed; on some the claws grew first, some sprouted hair immediately, for some the bones lengthened and hardened before anything else happened. But the thing that stayed the same was the look of pleasure, as in a prolonged earth-shaking orgasm. Some changed alone and some made love as the transformation progressed, some did nothing but hold hands or hold each other in the strongest tie of companionship and trust. For all of them, this moment was what made their lives meaningful, and they reached out in joy and rebirth to their brothers and sisters.