The Werewolf before Christmas Read online

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  By Charles Payseur

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  The Werewolf before Christmas

  By Charles Payseur

  Ray seems like the perfect boyfriend—he’s gorgeous, incredibly romantic, and has a mechanical suit he invented to become the dastardly MantaRay. For Alec, who also spends his nights making life difficult for do-gooders everywhere, it’s a match made in supervillain heaven. Except that Ray is a bit too into the hit soap opera All My Werewolves. When tempers flare during what’s supposed to be a quiet night out, Alec nearly ruins everything over a stupid bet with an alien gorilla.

  Desperate to prove his feelings to Ray, and with Christmas fast approaching, Alec decides the fastest way to Ray’s heart is to embrace the thing that threatens to divide them—a certain werewolf show with a certain actor who Ray admires. A simple kidnapping promises to do the trick, only fur (and fandom) fly when Alec’s romantic gesture leads to a very hairy situation. Can Alec prove to Ray how much their relationship means to him, or will his plans be ruined by the werewolf before Christmas?

  THE SINISTER Plan was packed, but most of the bar patrons were crowded around the big-screen television in the front, leaving the back a bit more open, except for those who were so large that they would otherwise block everyone’s view of the latest episode of All My Werewolves. And, of course, Alec Azam, who sat absently twirling his short mustache with one hand and drinking from a quickly depleting glass with the other.

  “I just can’t understand how you can watch this,” Alec said, rolling his eyes as the bar erupted in cheers as two of the characters embraced for a sultry kiss, only to be broken midway through by a slap, a round of shouting, and a subsequent werewolf battle. “The show isn’t accurate with regards to werewolves. At all. It’s not even a full moon out. It looks to be the middle of the day.”

  “These are science werewolves,” Ray said, his gaze not leaving the screen, “not magic werewolves. They were created by a secret government agency to be supersoldiers and then disavowed when they broke out and took refuge in the Rocky Mountains. Now they’re ski instructors-slash-superspies working for a secret countergovernment freedom front that fights against the exploitation of supernatural beings. They can shift whenever they want. Didn’t you pay attention during season two?”

  Alec watched as Ray took a sip from his Shirley Temple, the small drink almost looking comical when compared to the large pack on Ray’s back, which was nearly as big again as the rest of him and which, when needed, could be expanded even farther into his MantaRay suit. It was surreal seeing a man who had fought Gravity to a standstill and one time knocked Maxim into a cement truck daintily hold his nonalcoholic drink and watch a show that made a mockery of the supernatural.

  “I must have fallen asleep during that part,” Alec said. Truth be told, he had slept through most of the show he’d been forced to endure. Ray always got far too intent to pay attention, and after all of Alec’s attempts to steer their nights into steamier territory were rebuked, sleep seemed a more appropriate response than seeing if Ray would notice if he just started masturbating right there on the couch.

  “You should pay attention more.” The voice was new, and belonged to the man sitting at the table next to theirs. Or, rather, the gorilla sitting there. Gorilla-man? Alec pursed his lips, trying to remember exactly what Gorillord’s origin story was. Had he been a regular gorilla who had been hit by a potent spell? Or maybe experimented on? Wait, wasn’t he an alien from a planet of apes?

  “It’s no use,” Ray responded, and Alec’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I’ve showed him all the best episodes and story arcs, and he still refuses to get into it. Did you know he still gets Jacob confused with Jeremy?”

  “They’re, like, the same person,” Alec said, tightening his grip on his glass, and took a hasty sip to stop himself from saying anything more.

  “Nah, they’re just twins,” Gorillord said.

  “Evil twins,” Ray added.

  “They’re played by the same actor,” Alec said, putting his empty glass a little too forcefully onto the table.

  “But Jeremy has the slight limp,” Gorillord said.

  “Can we please talk about something else?” Alec asked, waving toward the bar for a refill.

  Ray smiled lazily, and part of Alec’s frustration slipped away as if melted by a stream of magma fired from a rampaging cyborg. They hadn’t been going out long, but Alec had to admit that Ray was a huge step up from his normal dates, which tended toward the melodramatic. No, Ray was solid, thoughtful, fun, and gorgeous, with dark hair, dark eyes, and light brown skin stretched masterfully over a powerful frame that made Alec forget that more often than not, he was wearing a giant mechanical manta ray suit. If only he wasn’t so obsessed with this show….

  “How about… do you two have Christmas plans yet?” Gorillord asked, raising his eyebrows.

  Damn alien gorilla.

  “Well, er—” Alec began, unprepared for the sudden shift.

  “Oh, I’ve got big plans in mind,” Ray said, finally turning away from the television. Alec cursed the commercial break.

  “Bigger than Thanksgiving?” Gorillord asked.

  “Definitely,” Ray said.

  Alec froze. Of course the details of his love life would be the stuff of gossip. He glanced around the bar and saw that many of the men and women seated nearby were glancing over now that the show was on break. Typical meddlesome supervillains.

  Thanksgiving, though. It had been special. Ray had liberated five hundred turkeys from a massive meat farm using an evolvoray to make them capable of sustained flight. Then he and Alec had a gorgeous picnic on the back of his MantaRay suit as they led the flock through the air to one of Gorillord’s animal sanctuary islands in the Caribbean. There was nothing quite like making love on the back of a giant flying manta ray while surrounded by the bizarre sight of hundreds of migrating nearly butterballs. And now Ray had something better in store?

  “I don’t know why you waste all that effort on him,” Gorillord said.

  Alec’s face flushed hot. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

  Gorillord shrugged. “Just that we’ve all heard what Raymundo has done to show you how much he cares, but you can’t even pay attention during his favorite show.”

  “Hey, now,” Ray said, leveling Gorillord with a hard look, but Alec didn’t need his boyfriend fighting his battles for him.

  “For your information, Gorrilad,” Alec said, “I have huge plans for Christmas too. Enormous plans. Plans that could blot out the sun and destroy the concept of love itself with how thoughtful and sweet they are. I might not be able to tell the difference between Jeremy and Jason—”

  “Jacob,” Ray interrupted.

  “—but that doesn’t mean that I don’t care.” Alec stood and adopted a dramatic pose, stretching his black cape out and glaring through his domino mask.

  “Prove it,” Gorillord said.

  “I really don’t think that’s a good—” Ray tried to say, but Alec wasn’t about to be outdone now.

  “Name your terms,” Alec said.

  Gorillord smiled, the long canines poking out from the corners of his mouth giving him a predatory edge. “Simple,” he said. “Go forward with your plans as normal. If you can top what Ray here did for Thanksgiving, I think it will be pretty obvious. National news–level obvious. Front page write-up by Liang Lu–level obvious.”

  “Fine,” Alec said, “but if I win, the bar has to stop playing All My Werewolves.”

  Gorillord’s smile
slipped a moment before returning even fiercer.

  “And if you lose, then you have to break up with Raymundo,” Gorillord said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his massive chest. “He’s too good for you, anyway.”

  It felt like Alec’s stomach had just been possessed by a frost spirit, and for a moment, his entire body went cold. The whole bar was watching now, though, and he couldn’t back down, couldn’t refuse. He looked at Ray and saw the shocked horror on his face. Alec looked away, back to Gorillord.

  “Deal,” Alec said.

  “YOU SHOULDN’T let him get under your skin like that,” Ray said. They were sitting on the edge of the MantaRay suit, its engines whisper-quiet as they glided over the streets of Metro City. Every now and then, Alec would take his wand and point it randomly at a stretch of sidewalk, transforming garbage cans into giant chickens or benches into fire-breathing unicorns. Just a normal night, but somehow, regardless of how many lampposts Alec made look like the Eye of Sauron, Ray never cracked his world-brightening smile.

  “He didn’t get under my skin,” Alec said. The sun was down and the city was lit up like one enormous Christmas tree, full of the promise of the season. The MantaRay suit provided a small bubble of warmth for them, but the air was still crisp, and for Alec the cold seemed to reach through the suit’s protection and touch something deep within him. “But you heard him. He doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s like a brother to me, and we’ve only been going out for a few months,” Ray said. “He’s protective. What’s your excuse?”

  Alec looked over to find a fierce expression on Ray’s face, a mix of anger and disappointment and the strain of holding back from something. Alec could feel the cold tighten in his chest even as his face flushed with heat.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alec asked.

  “It means you’re putting me in a really crappy position,” Ray said. “If you win, I lose watching my favorite show in my favorite bar. If Gorillord wins, I lose you. Tell me how I’m supposed to feel about that. Seriously, do you want to break up?”

  The words were like a slap, and Alec spoke without waiting for them to really sink in.

  “Of course not,” he said. “I l… like you a lot and want you to—”

  “Then why did you make the bet?” Ray asked.

  “Because he was implying that I couldn’t show that I care about you.”

  “Show who?” Ray asked. “What does it matter what Gorillord thinks? Or what anyone else thinks? Are you going to consult with the Syndicate of Supervillains before asking if we should go out on our next date? Did you secretly ask them before going out with me the first time? Before our first kiss? Before that time you teleported us into the White House and we did it in the Lincoln Bedroom?”

  “Well, I might like a little support from my boyfriend when our relationship is being questioned in front of a bar full of our friends and peers.” Alec could feel himself shaking, the world shrinking to just the distance between him and Ray. There was no city now, and no MantaRay suit. Just the air that felt suddenly too confining and vast at the same time.

  “I wasn’t the one who was trying to provoke a fight by making fun of my favorite show when I could have just been having a good time with me.”

  “But it’s boring,” Alec said, hating how his voice sounded like a whine. “I mean—”

  “Look,” Ray said, cutting him off. “I don’t need you to love All My Werewolves. You can like it or not—I really don’t care. But I love it. And if you can’t respect that I love it, then you can’t really respect me. And if you can’t respect me, then there’s really no reason that we should keep this going. I’m not a kid, Alec, and neither are you. If we’re going to be together, it needs to be because we want to be. Now, I like you. You’re fun and you’re cute and you’re literally magical. But liking you doesn’t mean I’m going to put up with your shit. I don’t care if you’re Sharkmageddon herself—if you can’t accept me for who I am, then I am dumping your ass.”

  Alec rocked back, the prospect of breaking up with Ray suddenly very real. His mind found the patterns immediately, with every split he’d ever had with a partner before. All the men he couldn’t talk to anymore, that he had screamed at as they walked away and now wouldn’t even look at him when they were in the same room. He had seen Ray talk to his own exes, men and women who he was still friends with, who still cared about him. But Alec? He was toxic. Poisoned. Every good thing he had, he’d ruined.

  Alec tightened his grip on his wand and took a deep breath. He knew what was down the road his mind was taking, and it would be a night of snapping every DVD of All My Werewolves that Ray had left at his apartment, drinking, and then probably doing something stupid enough to get him thrown into the Metronome. And when he got out, he would be alone. Again. Suddenly the heat in Alec’s face was gone, leaving only the cold in his chest.

  “I’m an idiot sometimes,” Alec said, deflating.

  Ray sighed and moved closer. He draped an arm over Alec’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he said.

  There was a small spur of offense that stuck into Alec’s mind, but he shook it off, let it go. It was only the truth.

  “I have a theory,” Ray said, and something in his voice made Alec look over into his deep brown eyes, nearly black in the twilight. “You want to hear it?”

  Alec couldn’t speak just then. Ray’s face was haloed by the faint lighting of the MantaRay suit, his expression almost wistful, all of his attention directly on Alec. He was beautiful, with wide features, a subtle smile, and a mysterious scar running down the side of his face. Alec thought of kissing him then, just to relieve the pressure that seemed to be building inside him, but instead he nodded, waiting for Ray to continue.

  “We’re supervillains, right?” Ray asked.

  There was really no point in Alec responding, so he just waited.

  “It means we’re addicted to losing. That’s, like, the whole point. You want to win, you become a hero. Because even if one of us has a great day, punches Gravity in the face, makes the Achievers look like the fools they are, steals the crown jewels, or something—even when we seem to win, it doesn’t last. Some other hero shows up, or the one we just beat gets back up thanks to some sacred amulet or inspiring pep talk, and we still lose. It’s not like it’s this great big secret. It’s not like we villains don’t know that.”

  The night became suddenly quiet, like the city was holding its breath for Ray to continue.

  “But we do it anyway. Not because we’re evil. At least, that’s not why most of us do it. Don’t get me started on some villains, but for the most part, we’re not out to really hurt people. We want… we want the romance of it, the freedom of it, the defiance of it. And maybe because we feel that, given everything, we deserve to lose. That maybe we’re not good enough to be heroes, even if we’re not really bad either. We self-destruct. We sabotage ourselves. Our plans suck. Sometimes we’re just idiots.”

  Ray’s grip on Alec’s shoulder tightened, and Alec realized he was trembling slightly, like Ray’s words were shaking something loose inside him.

  “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t win. Just that maybe we’re afraid of it, that we try to protect ourselves from it because we don’t know how to handle it. And I’d hate to see that happen with us. I like you, Alec, and I know you like me. This thing we have—I don’t want it to explode like a malfunctioning Tornadotron. But I need to know that I can trust you, and that you want this too.”

  Alec swallowed, the cold inside him gone. Instead, he felt a warmth radiating from every place where Ray touched him, from the lack of distance between them.

  “I’m not dropping out of the bet,” Alec said. “I made it not just to shut Gorillord up, but because I do want to do something for you. I want to give you something that you’ll love. And… and I’m sorry that I screwed that up. I still want to try. To win. Because even if we’re all addicted to losing, I feel like, with y
ou, I can break that habit. And I won’t make them stop playing All My Werewolves. I just want to prove to everyone that I can do this. And maybe I want to prove it to myself too. Because I l—like you a lot and I don’t want to lose you.”

  Ray smiled and leaned in, and the heat of their kiss banished what cold remained in Alec’s chest. Everything in him concentrated to that one point of connection, lips on lips, then tongue on tongue, like he had been hit with a spell that erased everything else from existence. Until, of course, a voice broke through the spell, shattering the intimacy of the moment.

  “How many times do I have to freeze you two before you take the hint and stopping messing with the streetlights?” the voice asked, and Alec’s eyes shot open to see Jaq Frost hovering in the air in front of them. A beam of energy streaked into the sky just feet from the MantaRay suit, and Alec looked down and saw Eye Sore standing on the street below, most of the fixtures he had brought to momentary life dormant again and smoldering or encased in ice.

  “You want to deal with them right now?” Alec asked in a whisper as Jaq stared icicles at them both.

  “I’d much rather deal with you, back at my place,” Ray said, and Alec felt the heat return to his face as he blushed.

  “Alec-AZAM!” he said, giving his wand a quick turn upward, and just as Jaq reached out her arm to attack them with her ice, the two of them—MantaRay suit included—were suddenly somewhere else.

  Magic wasn’t always the most reliable of methods of transportation—which was one reason why normally they just took the MantaRay suit wherever they needed to go. So instead of ending up on the landing pad on the top of Ray’s building, they materialized next to it… and upside down.

  Alec always wondered if the feeling of falling brought with it different experiences for people who could fly. Did those villains and heroes see the quickening descent as merely an interesting sensation, the ground rushing up to meet them pretty, perhaps, or novel in the same way walking through a mirrored street feels, where everything was just a little bit off? Or was there something more universal about the falling, some bit of fear that never really died away regardless of how invulnerable a person was, regardless of how they could fly through space itself without worry? For Alec, who was without any ability to fly unless he had prepared the right spell, there was certainly not a calm detachment from the sensation, from the sight of the street growing closer and closer. He screamed.