Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

After Duccio finished his speech, he offered again to answer any question I might have, but I could think of nothing. It all seemed like an illusion; a dream brought on by the wine. The only thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want it to end.

When I thanked them for their hospitality, Duccio commanded his majordomo and footmen to return to the dining room and continue their service. The rest of the meal was devoid of any talk of lycan. I remained mostly silent, responding to direct questions, but concentrating on Duccio’s words.

When they served me a beef dish, I tasted the red wines at Dionisio’s urging and discovered another unexpected delight. His wines were nothing like the acidic swill I’d swallowed in Morbegno. I told him he made me feel as if I’d never tasted wine until that evening. The recognition obviously satisfied him, bringing out a youthful exuberance to his conversation, filled with humor and even small pranks to make the other’s laugh.

After dinner concluded, the party moved to a drawing-room where Dionisio soon brought me a small, clear glass filled with sauternes. Though it smelled heavenly, and though I had finished little of the three wines at dinner, I knew it would be a mistake to attempt another drop. Instead, I held the small cup graciously in my hand.

“I’m unsure of how to ask you about yourself,” I said, offering only a smile in gratitude for his gift.

“Whatever do you mean? You may ask anything you like,” he answered.

“Are you happy here?” I asked.

“Of course,” Dionisio smiled mischievously. “Whatever might make you think otherwise?”

“You’re different from the others. You reject them; their offer of... I don’t know what. Life everlasting?” I said, thinking back to words Father Piero once used to describe the point of Christ’s sacrifice. It was another life to come after death, but only if I stood before God with a pure soul and unconditional acceptance of his love.

Dionisio smiled generously, but he bowed his head to let me know that he understood my question. He gestured that we should separate ourselves in the room to speak just away from the others. I followed him to a corner where he seemed to give thought to his answer before responding.

“When I first came here, I was a boy,” he began, “younger even than you are now. Fourteen, perhaps. Don’t think for a moment that I misunderstand how this all seems to you. I don’t require our gifts to know how different it from the world in which you’ve lived.”

I smiled to hear the acknowledgment—to know that someone might recognize the sensation. I lifted the brandy to my lips without thinking.

“I came here after a childhood of abuse, most of which happened to me after I was orphaned. All of it came at the hands of men.”

He paused as if to consider his words, then shook his head mildly once resolved.

“I won’t show you the memories. They no longer harm me the way they did for so many years, but I still cannot stomach to allow others to witness them unnecessarily. Those men discovered something about me, a mannerism they felt invited their abuse. Some of it was incidental, even filled with the guise of warmth; most was cruel and violent. All of it, however, damaged my will to live.

“I found myself in this same room seated beside Duccio, sharing what they had done to me, the nightmare of their crimes. ‘Come with me now,’ he rose from his seat, ‘and guide me to them so I may destroy all of them for you. Let us destroy them together.’”

“The idea seized me, and I led Duccio to the home of a man in this very town who had once paid for the privilege of abusing me. I showed Duccio every second; the images drenched in each sensory detail kept by my mind; I let him hear the vile words spoken to me, then smell the man’s stench upon me, and feel the sharp pain between my legs I thought would kill me. These were but one night’s memory among dozens that tortured me daily. And though I usually did everything I could to lock them away and pretend none of it ever happened, I unleashed a potent, undiluted sip for Duccio and withheld nothing.

“Before my eyes, he changed. Anger seethed from his very skin, and his body transformed into the beast. I was terrified at first and tried to flee, but he stopped me. With his mind, he let me know that he was my guardian angel, come to rid the evildoer who harmed me from the world forever. When I was certain the hideous monster standing before me meant me no harm, I began to see him differently. He was beautiful in this form, and I smiled upon him, seeing this strength filled with devotion and love for me. And then, he did just as he promised.”

Dionisio again stopped to look at nothing, absorbed by the memories that swam through him.

“Duccio killed the man?” I whispered in time.

He looked at me with pain in his eyes.

“Yes. Duccio ripped him apart. More than that, Duccio made the man suffer. He showed this evildoer what cruelty could be, what was possible within the darkest reaches of one’s soul. And even when the man begged for death, that Duccio might end the pain and release him to Hell, my guardian angel gave him no such mercy. He kept him alive to suffer as long as his lungs drew breath.”

Dionisio’s eyes were full of emotion. I could tell the tears forming shamed him—that he wished he’d not let them come.

“The vengeance was just as painful as what those evildoers had done to me. Instead of making me whole again, it injured me in ways I’d never conceived. I became numb and silent as we left the bloody scene of my vengeance.

“Duccio was unprepared for this. He had only wanted to show me why I too should welcome the wolf; why I should take my place within his pack. Returned to his manly form, Duccio held me in his arms and whispered assurances, but I wouldn’t speak to him.

“In time, he brought me to Sempronio, at a loss to comfort me or draw me from my stupor. The master saw at once something his son could not recognize in me. The abuse I’d lived through had damaged me so fundamentally, I could find nothing in revenge, or violence, or perhaps even justice, but further suffering. That way was closed to me—an eternity that would only end when, in desperation for release, I would inevitably turn the violence against myself.

“And so,” Dionisio said finally, “at his urging, I chose a mortal life.”

The silence that followed the man’s last words was consuming. Only the sound of the wood burning in the fireplace behind me broke through it.

In time, I realize the others had ended their conversations to stare at us. They had each been listening to Dionisio’s words.

Duccio crossed the room and embraced him. He brought his hands to cradle Dionisio’s head and kissed him tenderly on the lips, wiping gently with his thumbs at the tears in the man’s eyes. Duccio held him until, breaking from the memories, Dionisio released a long sigh and smiled at his true father’s consoling affection.

Alone in my room that night, Dionisio’s words played again and again in my mind. I couldn’t escape the parallels between us, no matter how hard I tried. He had forced me to observe what the violence incurred as a boy had done to him as a man; what it was still doing to him. He was now incapable of considering any such thing as vengeance.

Still, revenge had never before been a tangible idea in my mind. The notion of retribution was fleeting at best. In all my suffering at the hands of Cecco or Ferrante Vervio and his men, or even Father Piero, whose mercy had come with the stain of detesting disapproval, I had never considered vengeance. There was no precedent for it in my life; there was no possibility of such a thing. I was a woman, and that fact alone made the concept of vengeance, in any meaningful way, a useless thought.

As much as Dionisio’s tale impressed me, the part that stood out to me most was what Duccio had done to the evildoer. Though they were the product of my imagination, I saw visions of the villain being ripped apart, limb from limb, until all that remained was his pitiful plea for mercy. The idea enthralled me, and in my heart, I recognized how I wanted this more than anything.

The consequences be damned, I would do what it took to see my rapists suffer for what they’d done to me, to rid them from the world, piece by piece. I decided I would go to Sempronio first thing in the morning to beg for his help. Whatever it took, I would have those men see my guardian with their last breath.