Chapter Five

Helena glanced at the clock on the studio wall and wondered whether she should trust the time it reflected. Power outages across the city had set a lot of clocks back, and this was an old analogue ticker from 1973. It was the fact that it showed her as being late that made her decide to trust it. She always seemed to be running late. Time was just not her friend.

“Okay class, we’re just about out of time,” she said hastily, gathering a few last minute things from a duffel bag and taking them to the center of the wood-floored room. Her students moved in from where they’d been stretching or conversing around the studio and met her in the middle.

“Take a seat really quick; I want to go over a few last minute things before you head to that Valley of Shadow concert I know you’re all going to.” She smiled and looked over at the closest student, a girl of fourteen whose tee-shirt proudly proclaimed the upcoming weekend-long concert in Death Valley, with an opening act by the Marquis de Vaudeville.

The girl grinned ear to ear and looked at her friends. “We’re all going together,” she admitted. “Josie’s dad’s busing us over in the Mystery Machine.”

The Mystery Machine was what they’d fondly named Josie’s van because it was older, had been painted in kaleidoscope colors, and because the interior had been replaced many times over the years. It now simply sported rows of comfortable and safe seating, but once upon a time it had been everything from an emergency veterinary care vehicle to a delivery van for flowers. It was the flower job that gave the van its current name, as the paint design was left over from the days it had taken irises and carnations to mothers and girlfriends across Chicago.

“Well, I’m going to show you a few extra pointers for the concert,” Helena began. She turned to her right. “Ethan?”

Ethan James stood against the far wall, half in shadow, half in the light that shafted through the windows at one end of the studio. He was a tall, nearly painfully thin man with a lopsided haircut and a nose too big for his face, but he came away from the wall with a bright white smile and a step so graceful, it would give him away to a lot of people as something more than human. The girls in the class on the other hand simply knew him as Ethan: a thirty-eight-year-old somewhat geeky and tremendously lanky human male with brown hair and brown eyes who was a skilled sparring partner, excellent co-teacher, and very good friend.

“Ethan and I are going to show you a few ways to use what I have no doubts you’re going to wear to the concert – to save your life if need be.” Helena stood up, pulled out a pair of six-inch heels, unlaced her boots, pulled off her socks, and slipped on the red heels.

The girls let loose with cat calls and roars of approval as she did a quick model-esque turn, smiled, and faced Ethan. He chuckled. “Nice,” he said, and his voice was lower than one would have expected given his appearance. He also had a touch of a southern drawl from being raised in Louisiana, and the accent added points of charisma.

“Okay,” Helena said to the girls. “You’re at the concert, you’re wearing, well, basically nothing because the concert is in the desert. Everyone is high or drunk, and the guy who’s been scoping you out behind your back for the last hour corners you on the way to the restroom.”

“Come on, Miss D. We know better than to hit the can alone,” said one of the girls.

“Yeah it’s, like, the first thing you drilled into our skulls,” added another.

“Shut your pie holes and let her finish,” said Ethan good-naturedly. He pinned them all with a hard look that was just shy of serious. They shut up.

“He manages to corner you.” She gave them a narrowed gaze and continued. “You think you’re weaponless, but you actually aren’t. Don’t try running in the heels, ladies. In fact, do me a huge favor and don’t freaking wear heels like this anywhere, at any time. The reason they’re sexy to men is because they hobble you, and men are predators. They like picking off the weak in a herd. The more helpless you appear, the more debilitated, the more they’re interested. Because you’re an easy mark.”

“They’re right,” Ethan told her with a shake of his head. “You’ve been over this before with them.” He chuckled, but she shrugged. She never missed an opportunity to double-drill an important point into someone’s head.

“Okay, so you wore the heels anyway. Kill two proverbial birds with one stone by taking off your heels, grabbing one firmly like this.” She did a quick maneuver that de-shoed her in record time, then turned the red shoe over in her hand, showing them how to hold it with the heel forward like the barrel of a gun. The entire process took less than a second. “And it becomes a spike you can drive straight through your opponent’s eyeball and into his brain.” She mimicked attacking Ethan in such a manner, and he mimicked a bloody and admittedly exaggerated outcome. Apparently, if such a thing happened to a man, blood would go pouring everywhere and eyeballs would bounce.

The girls’ eyes widened. “Ouch,” said one of them softly amongst the nervous laughter.

“There’s more,” Helena said before she continued with the lesson.

Ten minutes later class was out, and the studio was empty but for Helena and Ethan. She finished packing up in time to see Ethan lifting his duffel bag over his shoulder. They met at the door, and she locked it behind them.

“How are Cass and the baby?” Helena asked as they made their way down the hall to the stairs.

Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets, lowered his head as they descended the concrete steps on the seventh floor, and blew out a heavy sigh. Cassandra was his sister, and she and her husband had finally managed to “get pregnant.” Until just recently, the werewolf curse that had presided over the werewolf community had prevented all but a tiny portion of their kind to reproduce, forcing them into a state of near extinction.

However the curse had been lifted, and now Cass and her husband were expecting. “Well, they’re how you’d expect a peanut sized zygote and the hormonally challenged woman carrying it to be. She wants to eat Nate. And I don’t mean in a good way.”

Helena laughed. “Then I suggest you tell your brother-in-law to start spending more time with her, buy her frequent treats and gifts, ask her constantly how she’s feeling, no matter how many times he has to hear the same complaint. While he’s at it, he can thank his lucky stars that he’s in the situation he’s in.” She stopped on one of the landings, and when he saw that she’d stopped, he halted as well and turned to her questioningly. “Because a year ago, he wasn’t, and he would have given his left leg to be.”

“I remind him of that every day,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Otherwise I think he would hit the Everclear every morning and not the Wheaties.”

Helena nodded, patted his chest just a little condescendingly, and said, “Good dog.” Then she brushed past him and started down the stairs again. “And you can tell him I said the same. Plus, give Cass a gentle hug for me.”

Ethan James was Helena’s oldest and truest friend. They’d met just before their fourth grade school year, on the crumbling tarmac that their cheap public school had substituted for a playground. The school itself consisted of nine mobile homes strung together in an orderly fashion – six mobile homes for the classrooms, one for the nurse’s office, one for the administration offices, and one for public restrooms. Lunch was held in a nearby hangar that had been converted into a kitchen separated by large sliding screens from rows of long tables lined with benches.

Helena’s father had moved to the southern town late summer, and taken her to the school to register her for the following year. As luck would have it, Ethan’s parents were doing the same with him. They met on the way to the “bathroom” mobile home and had been friends ever since.

It wasn’t until a month after they’d begun the school year that Helena would learn her new best friend was a werewolf. Fortunately for them both, she’d been no stranger to the supernatural, not for many years, and for many reasons.

Later that same year… Helena’s father would die. Bloody.

Ethan cemented his friendship with Helena early on and right then and there by being there for her through the thick and thicker of tragedy. His family adopted her into their own, making her a sister of sorts.

“I gotta get to the bank before they close,” Helena said when they reached the bottom step. “Thank you, as always, for your help today.” They pushed through the metal barred doors and stepped out into the busy Chicago street.

“You know better than to thank me,” said Ethan with a lopsided smile as he shoved the door shut behind them and made sure it stuck. “I’ll see you tonight at Hungry?”

Hungry was the name of a club she and Ethan sometimes frequented because it was a place where… well, where their kind congregated. The more-than-human kind. Especially werewolves, since it was owned and run by a couple of them. Hence, it was a place where Ethan felt relaxed, and Helena could catch a moment’s peace with no judgment whatsoever.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the –”

But her last word was cut off by the tremendous sound of crunching metal and shattering glass.