The Seventh Sons

Chapter 1

Chapter 1It’s not going to be fun trying to explain this to Donal. Andre looked in the entryway mirror again, cautiously opening his mouth. “Yep, still there.”

“Of course they’re still there.” Mario came up behind Andre, looking over his shoulder. “They come with the territory.”

“But I don’t want to be a werewolf,” Andre protested.

Mario smiled, allowing his fangs to glint in the light reflected from the mirror. “Should have told that to your parents before they decided they wanted to try one more time to have a daughter.”

Andre turned to look at him, replying sarcastically, “I think it’s a bit late for that.”

“No kidding.” Mario patted Andre’s shoulder. “By the way, happy twenty-first birthday.”

“Say’s you.”

“Come on, it’s not all that bad. At least it happened naturally. Not like being chased down by the big bad wolf and bitten.” Mario snorted after he said that. “Talk about stupid myths. And as you found out, the shift was pretty much a breeze.”

“Scared the hell out of me when it happened though.” Andre managed a small smile. “Thanks for being here when it did.”

Mario shrugged. “It’s part of my job. We don’t want newbies going off half-c****d. It tends to frighten the locals.”

“Who is we? You never did say. All you told me was you were a friend of Donal’s and he wanted you to take me out for a couple of drinks to celebrate my birthday since he couldn’t be here.”

“About that, I sort of stretched the truth a little. I don’t know Donal. We set it up for him to be sent out of town on a job so he wouldn’t be here with you.”

“There’s that we again.” Andre leaned back against the table in front of the mirror, crossing his arms over his chest, one eyebrow raised in question.

“We call ourselves the Seven of Seven, for obvious reasons. We make it our mission to find anyone who’s the seventh son of a seventh son.”

“Like me. But how did you know?”

Mario smiled dryly. “In this day and age it isn’t hard to access records to find you and any others. Not that there are that many of course. I believe at last count there were thirteen born in the last twenty-five years.”

“What did you do before computers? Check birth announcements in the newspapers,” Andre asked with a momentary trace of amusement.

“Pretty much,” Mario admitted, “At least from what I’ve been told. I guess there are companies who do that sort of thing, like looking for any mention of a movie star in a news story, or randy politicians. We probably missed some that way even though seventh sons or large families in general, tend to make the news at some point along the line.”

Andre thought back to what Mario had said. “Thirteen in twenty-five years means there aren’t too many of us around.”

“Very few actually. This isn’t the movies or a paranormal novel. We’re not running around randomly attacking the humans to change them so we can take over the world. As a matter of fact, in general we live very normal lives. No one can tell we’re any different from the average human.”

“Except for the fact we have fangs,” Andre said, running his tongue over his.

“They become less prominent within an hour after a shift. More like slightly longer eyeteeth.”

Andre touched his tongue to his fangs again, realized they had gotten shorter and nodded, saying a bit morosely, “I guess they do. So I’ll look more like a vampire on the prowl.”

Mario laughed. “Not that bad.” He nodded toward the sofa in the living room. “Why don’t we sit and I’ll explain the facts of your new life.”

“God, please do. Now that I’m over the initial shock this is downright frightening. Interesting, yeah, but still…”

“Beyond scary, too, I know.” Mario took a seat at one end of the sofa, leaning back casually as he waited for Andre to join him. “All right,” he said when Andre was settled, “for starters you now have total control over when you shift. You’re not going to turn into a raving beast at the full moon or anything as inane as that.”

“So if I wanted, I’d never have to shift again?”

“Technically, yes. However, when you go too long without shifting you’ll start to get restless and somewhat short tempered. Think of it as trying to quit smoking except you can’t stop being what you are. If you don’t eventually shift you’ll drive yourself insane. Make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess. So when the urge gets too bad I take off for the bayou and…Will I want to hunt in my wolf form?” Andre shuddered. “Somehow chasing down a rabbit or a deer doesn’t appeal to me in the least.”

Mario chuckled. “Then be sure to eat before you shift. If you’re not hungry you won’t feel the need to hunt.”

“Got it. Umm, what about clothes? I mean this time I tore them to shreds when I went from me to my wolf form.” He waggled a finger at Mario. “You might have warned me I should strip first.”

“That would have gone over well. You’d have thought I was after your body.” Mario smiled. “After all, if I’d said, ‘You should undress now because in a few moments you’re going to turn into a werewolf,’ you’d either have thought that was the worst come-on line since forever, or that I was certifiably crazy.”

“You better believe it,” Andre admitted with wry amusement. “That means I should undress, stash my clothes somewhere safe and get dressed again afterwards. What happened to the idea I can make them appear and disappear at will?”

“In fifty years or so, when your abilities are much stronger, that might happen. Right now you have to do it manually.”

“Well shoot. It would be fun to be dressed one minute, and naked in bed the next. In fifty years I’ll be seventy-one and won’t care.”

“But you still look and feel as if you were in your twenties, if you shift fairly often.”

“No s**t? So there are some myths that are true?”

“Yep. Your shifting regenerates your body each time.” Mario grinned. “Do I look like I’m ninety?”

“Not even. Thirty, maybe.” Andre frowned, rubbing his temples between his fingers. “And that brings me back to my original problem, trying to explain all this to Donal.”

“How long have the two of you been together?”

“Three years. Okay, more than that, but I didn’t move in with him until after I graduated high school. He didn’t think it was a good idea for us to be cohabiting as he put it until I was eighteen, since he’s four years older than me.”

Mario tapped a finger to his lips. “You know each other very well then. Is your relationship solid?”

Andre c****d an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be with him if it wasn’t, and vice versa. I might be young, but I do have some common sense. Besides which I love him, and he loves me.”

“Then why not come right out and tell him?”

“Because he’d freak and think I’d gone off the deep end? He’s the sort of man who thinks fairytales and myths are for people who need to escape from real life because they can’t handle it. The same goes for most movies and fifty percent of the books out there. He’s a realist to the nth degree. Face your problems and deal with them rather than escaping into a fantasy world to avoid them.” Andre chuckled softly. “Or hire him if you can’t. That’s why he works for a private investigation agency.”

“Andre, he can’t deny what you are if you show him.”

“I suppose. But it could blow his whole preconceived idea about reality into a c****d hat.”

“You don’t think he could handle it?”

Andre sighed. “Maybe, but what if he can’t?”

“If he loves you, and you love him.” Mario pointed a finger at him. “This is something too big to keep hidden.”

“So your girlfriend or wife knows you’re a werewolf?”

Mario shook his head. “Since I don’t have either one, that’s a moot point.”

Andre looked at him in disbelief. “But somewhere in the past, umm, seventy years since you turned twenty-one you must have had.”

“Yes, nosy one,” Mario replied with a smile, “I’ve had lovers, for a night or a week or two, but nothing more so the issue never came up.”

“That’s sort of sad.”

Mario shrugged. “It’s how I want my life to be. But that’s beside the point. I really suggest you tell him sooner than later. It’s not something you can hide from him for long unless he spends all his time going out of town on jobs. Even then it would be difficult to say the least.”

“And he doesn’t. So yeah, confession time coming up, after I’ve had a good stiff drink or three. I mean, I can do that legally now.”

“Unfortunately,” Mario said with a laugh, “you could have ten stiff drinks and they wouldn’t affect you. Another perk, if you want to call it that, of being a werewolf.”

“You are so kidding.”

“Nope. I suspect it has to do with keeping secrets secret. You can’t get drunk enough, or doped up enough, or anything else like that, to spill your guts to someone.”

“Shoot, there goes my hitting the bars on Bourbon to celebrate my birthday when Donal gets home. Although…” Andre paused then nodded. “I could get him totally sauced before I break the news that I’ve gained a few extra fringe benefits.”

Mario shook his head. “Not smart. Just sit him down and tell all. Since he loves you, he’ll accept it, in time.”

“It’s the in time that scares me.”

Standing, Mario squeezed Andre’s shoulder. “It will work out.” Taking a card from his wallet, he handed it to Andre. “You need to stop by Seven of Seven sometime soon to introduce yourself to Jacob. He’s the coordinator and will fill you in about everything you need to know. More than I have.”

“You’re serious? There’s more?”

“Yes, and he wants to be sure you’ve gotten the whole picture. After all, at some point he might have to send you to help a newbie, the same way I’m helping you.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Not that I’d be much help right now in getting someone else through this.” Andre chuckled, albeit not too happily. “Can I tell him to give me fifty years before he sends me out in the field?”

“Don’t worry; he knows you’re far from ready. He’s been doing this for over two hundred years. My number’s on the back of the card. If you need to talk, give me a call.”

“Or drop by and cry on your shoulder?”

“That could be a bit difficult. I live in New York. The state not the city.”

“Oh. I guess I figured you lived here since…Yeah, I suppose with so few of us we’re pretty much all over the world? Wait a minute, this Jacob is here?”

Mario nodded. “He has a few homes, but he loves New Orleans since he grew up here, so he spends as much time as possible in the city.”

“At least I don’t have to go to Timbuktu to check in. That would be really hard to explain to Donal.”

“Indeed. All right, I have to get going. As I said, feel free to call anytime.”

“Thanks. And, well, thanks for being here for…all this. Now I just have to wrap my head around it and figure out how to explain it to Donal.”

Mario smiled. “Words of one syllable and a demonstration should do the trick.”

“God, I hope so!”