Beware The Wolf: Pt11 - Good Intentions

(UPDATED WITH THE STORY UNNGGHH) Steven the Raven discovers that his monstrous avian status is good for business at his punk-fetish sex shop job. He also lays a plan.

---

Brutus once more woke up alone. He looked at his smartphone; Tuesday. Tuesday tuesday tuesday. Tuuuuuueesday afterrrrrnooooon… my old man used to listen to that stuff. I wonder what he’s up to.

Then he sat bolt upright. Shit Steven said he had to go back to work. He got up and looked around the apartment, The Chantry (his name for the upstairs), and the bar spaces. Nothing. No note, as usual.

Then as if summoned, his phone rang. Steven’s ‘don’t take a picture of me’ human face was on the call. “Where the-”

“Oh Brutus it’s glorious, I was so terribly afraid of showing myself to the world and you were absolutely, wonderfully correct that I work at a goth sex shop so of course everyone would love to see a fantastic raven giving them on advice as to which penis sound complements their pleather tutu!” Steven sounded legitimately giddy.

“Uhh. I was wondering where you went.”

“I just told you, I’m at work, earning money so that we can buy food.”

“Brad can just give us food.”

“Brad is a deer now.”

“Yeah well, he went somewhere too. Except…” Brutus looked at the bar’s staff whiteboard, which read, “Getting few things from home -B”.  “Oh. He’s getting stuff from home. Yeah, didn’t he say he has a house?”

“You have to come over. How about this. You come here, and I will buy you whatever you want. You can insult people and embarrass them. It’ll be fun if you’re not a regular human. I mean, I’d let a werewolf in scary leather shit insult me.” The door chime sounded over the phone, and Steven said half a word as the line went dead.

Brutus shrugged and headed out the back.

—

Steven had not exaggerated the situation in the slightest. In addition to the raven, two more employees were present: Melinda, a blue-and-green-haired overly-pierced walking stereotype; and Dalton Bennett, the famously arty-farty owner of the shop, whose pretenses had been shattered earlier as he’d been reduced to a blubbering gun-wobbling mess by Brutus. Steven himself was wearing an opulent steampunk wool coat, sleek black leather gloves, and a leather top hat.

Brutus stormed in the front door and swept his hoodie hood off, exposing all of his mostly-wolf head. Instead of garnering instant attention, two patrons and the employees were all watching Steven behind the cashier’s counter.

“Airhorn!” Mel said.

Steven opened his beak and a perfect sports-meet handheld airhorn sound bleated forth.

“YipYap airhorn sound effect!” She laughed.

Steven opened once more, and this time the thrice-retriggered computerized sample overused on the microvlogging website came out.

Mel squealed and clapped her hands; her chained-rings rattled slightly, and Brutus’ ears followed the sound even while he pretended not to watch the display.

Dalton looked less amused, even more so when Brutus came in. He was wearing a muscle-tank and black slash-pocket slacks with cowboy boots, his hair back in a ponytail. “That thing that plays on the phone when you can’t dial a number.”

Steven cocked his head several different ways in his ‘thinking bird’ look, then upbeaked. The ‘boop boop beep’ sounded perfectly, followed by the scratchy recording of, “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed.”

Dalton cocked an eyebrow. “The hold music from our phone system.”

Steven clucked and then once again opened his mouth. An appropriately low-fi recording of obscure 80’s goth song “Lindy’s Party” came forth, complete with the staticy fuzz that obliterated the sound whenever it got slightly too quiet.

Brutus walked up to the counter and tipped over the jug of complimentary branded lube packets. “Hey, how about a little customer service here, huh?”

Steven rolled his eyes and made a short croak. “I think not. The last time anyone serviced you, they turned into a fucking bird,” he said, and quickly slid the packets back into their fishbowl. “Also, these ladies are next in line.” He gestured a finely-gloved hand towards the two customers, who were similarly brackish like Melinda.

“This is too fucking cool!” one of them said, and then put the extremely punk-gory screen print halter top she was purchasing, up on the counter.

Brutus gruffed and then wandered into the vintage clothing area. Dalton immediately slid over. “Yeah, what? I need some new pants. I lost my codpiece. Don’t worry, I was doing something worth it.” Brutus hid the immediate rush of panicked guilt as he started to riffle through the racks. Yeah, I fucked a guy and left him in the woods. Don’t worry, I used a condom. Sure. The fucking werewolf guy used a condom. Said no one, ever.

“No freebies this time. You better have cash,” Dalton said.

“Don’t worry, Steven was ecstatic that he would buy me whatever I wanted. I don’t know what crawled up his ass and exploded in euphoria. He’s usually a little bitch.”

Dalton slid in close, to whisper in Brutus’s ear. “Whatever the hell you two are up to, it’s fucking genius. Within an hour of him getting in and someone taking a selfie with him and putting it up on Everywhere, we’ve had people coming in one after the other. It’s Tuesday! Tuesday is a shit day of the week!” Everywhere, the social network whose seemingly-innocent tagline of ‘You’re Everywhere’, had just barely managed to squeak by after being used to encourage genocide in the Russo-Latvian uprising.

Brutus wrinkled his snout and tipped his ears. “That cunt was giving me shit about going outside for the last week and now that he’s a bird, he’s flapping all over social media? Whatever.”

“This makeup and costume shit or whatever, is fucking nuts. Just don’t try stealing anything else. You get one free pass and that’s only because I had to wipe my ass after you and him showed up that night.” One of the customer girls headed back to the adult zone, and Dalton quickly turned away and headed there to play the ‘any questions?’ game.

Brutus pulled a pair of leather pants down and looked them over. Proper size; actually good leather; rugged motorcycle riding pants with armored zones but without the difficult bend of a riding suit. For a moment, he thought about taking his pants off right there and trying the new ones on, to see just what kind of disturbance he could generate.

Instead, Steven came up. “Ahh yes, pants. The foundation of a good wardrobe.”

“What the fuck is up with that hat? And I was wondering about maybe a utilikilt or something.”

“Brutus, you’re German.” Steven ignored the hat comment.

“Okay, then lederhosen.”

Steven put an arm around him. “You need to come back here with me and see something. Do you know those gauntlets you have?”

“Yeah, what about ‘em?”

Steven slid behind him and covered his eyes, prompting him to whine like a dog. “That is the most humiliating noise you’ve ever made. It’s a surprise. If you bite me, I’ll peck you a new asshole. Now, what did you think of that cape I had you wear? It obviously went to your head a little bit, as you let me suck you off against both of our good judgment.”

“I dunno, sounds like it worked out for you in the end,” Brutus grunted, and begrudgingly let Steven steer him around. “What the fuck are you doing? And yeah the cape was kinda cool.”

“Okay. Open your eyes.” Steven then took his hands away.

Brutus stood across from a mannequin wearing ornate dragon-scale black leather armor. The chest piece was formed leather to fit on a conventionally-attractive athletic male, while the pauldrons looked standoffish to anyone who’d wear them. The leather had been burnished expertly, and was not a single shade of black but patterned with hints of navy blue, red, and white highlights. The colored pieces were dyed and weren’t painted, but entire pieces carefully assembled into an intimidating collage. The mannequin wore a cape, made not of fabric but of Italian fragment-stitched lambskin, with a black faux-fur mantle collar.

“That’s pretty cool,” Brutus said.

Steven croaked loudly. “Pretty cool? Pretty cool!? That’s awesome!”

Brutus shrugged, mostly to annoy Steven. It was, in fact, awesome. It was also $1,500. “Sure. You gonna buy it for me?”

“Do you want to know why we even have something like that? Good, because I’ll tell you. The guy who made it died and left it to Dalton in his will. He was one of those leather crafters who sells stuff at the renaissance faire. And extremely gay and weird and kinky. This is the least weird and least intensely fantastic thing in his collection.”

“Steven, I’m not a normal customer. You don’t have to sell me on it. It’s a thousand and a half dollars. You help your aunt close up her diner sometimes for free food.”

“Do you realize,” Steven said, and rushed away, then returned with Melinda and a jar. “That it is completely unnecessary to tip the cashier of a punk leather store, and yet, we have filled this entire jar and it isn’t even three P.M? Look at these bills. Look at those twenties. Brutus, accidentally turning me into a bird was the best worst mistake you’ve ever made.”

Melinda cut in. “Wait a minute, what do you mean turned you into a bird?”

“Anyway, we’re going to split this because we’re regular employees and that seems fair, I can’t possibly just take the money, I’m only a small asshole. Also, we told Dalton you’d eat him dick-first if he made us give him any, since he’s the owner and doesn’t count as a regular employee. And even with the split… this is a lot of money.”

“Hey, hang on-” Mel continued to try to interject.

Brutus took the jar and rattled it. “Ooh, it’s full of coins, too.” He shook it again. “Shiny metal coins that rattle.” He jostled it once more. Each time, Steven ruffled his feathers up further until he squawked in Brutus’ face.

“Give me that! You don’t get the money, you just get that outfit! I want that outfit and there’s no way it’ll fit me because it’s entirely the wrong size so if I can’t traipse around in some dragon armor, you’ll do it so I can watch!” He clutched the tip jar to his coated chest.

Brutus was still holding the pants he’d intended to try on. “I’ll do it if I also get these pants.”

—

A couple of hours later, the pair headed back to the bar, only to find a small commercial rental van in back and a hoodie-and-baseball-capped Brad unloading some things from it. “Hey, you two, help me with this,” he said, and slapped a queen futon frame.

“What the hell are you doing?” Steven put his taloned hands on his hips, leaving Brutus to carry all of the surprisingly awkward packaging of his newfound leather gear.

Brad cocked his head. There was really no avoiding the fact that he had a deer muzzle, although with the entirety of the rest of his body covered, he could just be wearing a strange mask. “I’m moving stuff into the building.”

“Into! Why? That’s a bed.”

The deer sighed. “Look. I don’t want to keep going back and forth between here and my house. It’s too much… going out for me. I feel like everyone can see me and is judging me and thinks I’m a freak. So, I’m going to front-load it. I’m going to spend today moving a few choice things in and then I should be good. You two got me into this, so you have to help.”

Brutus shrugged and pushed what he was carrying at Steven, hopped up into the truck, picked up the futon frame, then jumped down and carried it towards the propped-open back door. He turned sideways and stopped in the doorway, arms spread awkwardly, clawed hands spread wide and clutching at the wood parts of the frame. “What?”

“That’s heavy,” Brad said. “That had a ‘team lift’ sticker on it when I got the box. I live by myself so I had to take it out of the box in pieces to get it up the stairs to my old apartment.”

Brutus shrugged again. “Whatever.”

Steven picked up a box that was small enough it should have been included inside of another box, and perched it precariously on top of his bundle. “Look at me, I’m helping.” Then he mimicked Brad’s phone notification noise, and walked away while Brad was checking his phone. “Wait a minute, where are we going with this stuff?”

“The other side of where you guys are sleeping, I guess,” the deer called out, then loaded some boxes onto a handcart.

Upstairs, Brutus set the futon frame down haphazardly in the general vicinity of where Brad might possibly have wanted it. “He’s fucking industrious. I wouldn’t do all this shit. I’d make someone else do it.”

Steven clunked. “Of course you would.”

“Why do you make all those weird noises?” Brutus did not go back downstairs to help, and instead retreated into his open-door bedroom with the package from Black and Silver.

“Because I’m a raven and ravens make weird noises.”

“But why those?”

“I don’t know! Why do you growl at everyone? It just seems like the thing to do. I also have the urge to fly, which feels strange because I don’t have wings. It’s not like… if I got drunk I’d jump off of something, I just feel like I could easily fly up and perch on something.”

“We oughta go to your aunt’s restaurant. She’d flip out. You think she’d believe we actually were animal people? Dalton and that chick at your job didn’t seem to think we actually were. They just seemed to think we were wearing costumes.”

Steven bird-bobbed his head around. “Mmmh. Visit my aunt at your own peril. And yes, that’s interesting you say that. Dalton seemed to be horrified the other night. Perhaps he’s just in denial? A lot of the time, he seems very aloof. He’d make a fantastic cat.” Then he squinted. “Forget I said that.”

Brutus didn’t even seem to be paying attention, despite having asked the question. He was busy stripping naked, and then putting his pants back on, then boots, then the armor, then the cape. “Hey, this fits. Probably should have checked that when we were back there. You’ve got a good eye. Wouldn’t it be crazy if we had some kinda, I dunno, thrall or something? Like people wouldn’t freak out or do anything weird? Like vampires! Blood’s kinda disgusting to drink. At least that deer’s was.”

Brutus turned around to see Steven standing about looking at his phone, and Brad just coming up the stairs bumping the dolly on each step.

“You two asses sure helped alright,” he huffed. “Whoa. That’s some outfit.”

“All it took were the cash tips of fifty ogling brat girls and punk dudes,” Steven tilted his beak down and to the side, then adjusted his coat lapel as if preening his underlying feathers. “I suppose this means we’re all over social media. Which is what I’m checking on. Aaaand… well, aside from being slightly viral, no one seems to think anything aside from, ‘wow, cool costumes!’.”

“Check the furries. Brad, what are some furry places on the internet?”

“No. Did you really carry that up here by yourself? Go get the mattress.”

“Later. I just got dressed,” the wolf said. “Hey, so what’s it like being a deer? It’s fun being a wolf. I can do whatever I want, I can smell however I want, and Steven still hangs around me. What’s it like being a bird?” He slapped Steven on the arm.

Steven opened his mouth, croaked and cawed, then made fifteen completely random sounds next. “Hello! Hi! Hey there!”, he barked, and then fished an errant pebble out of his pocket and threw it at Brutus. The wolf reared back and presented his chest and the rock bounced off the hard leather and rolled over to Brad’s foot. “It’s alright. The beak is much easier to get used to than I expected. So, really, what’s your take on being a deer for a day?”

Brad did not look particularly happy. He also didn’t look upset or sad or angry. Aside from his eyes, he didn’t make much of a facial expression at all. “It’s alright.”

“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Steven said, and tapped at his beak.

“Look. I have to do stuff, like figure out how to make money so we don’t lose this place. I can’t open the bar and work as a deer. I just… I just can’t do that. Maybe you guys could do that, but I’m not going to let you, because you’d pour too hard and Brutus would probably just end up butt-chugging everclear on top of the bar.”

“Werewolf sex club, I’m telling you,” Brutus said, and pointed a finger upstairs.

Brad sighed. “Didn’t one of you say something about a private club? Do you really think that would work?”

Steven bird-looked around. “Would people pay to join a private bar where they could have weird sex? I don’t see why not. People pay people for nothing on the internet all day long. Like giving spiffs to a streamer. What did they do for you?”

Brad started to go downstairs. “Hey wolf, come help me with the mattress for that futon.”

Brutus shrugged and, still wearing his newfound getup, went along. Down at the truck, Brad waited until Brutus had hopped inside, and cornered him. “What’s going on, huh?” The wolf tipped his ears.

“Something weird happened when I… transformed. I really thought you and Steven were nuts. I didn’t really believe you were a wolf, and then when Steven transformed, I thought I was just… hallucinating or something. But I’m not. And I’m not as scared of people seeing me as I thought I would be. I got this truck using one of those no-interaction services so I just used an app on my phone, but when driving around, I didn’t… no one seemed to do more than just give me a look or two. It’s weird.”

“Uh-huh,” Brutus said, and continued with his muzzle tucked and ears flat. Something weird is happening. Something is catching up to me.

“And all I’ve been doing, is thinking about… how we can get people to come here, still.”

Brutus let his hackles down. “Huh.”

“The first thing you did when you saw the third floor was go on about making it into a sex club. I swear I heard Steven going on about something, but now I’m not sure. And I… I think it might be a good idea. And I don’t even have regular sex with regular people.”

Brutus simultaneously listened and couldn’t focus. He looked around the rest of the inside of the truck, and spotted a pile of drumset shells and cymbals. “You play drums?”

“Yeah. Look, I actually need help with this thing,” Brad said, and tapped at the futon mattress with a tawny hand.

Brutus grabbed the mattress, folded it in half, then grabbed it and carried it out of the truck and into the building just like he’d done with the futon frame itself. “I feel weird too. I mean, I’m a fucking wolf. I feel stuff I don’t even understand. I think I think and feel wolf thoughts and feelings, and wolves can’t talk, so they don’t have words. So I can’t explain them to anyone else,” he said, as he carried the awkward payload upstairs. The cape made it slightly more awkward; his strength made up for the difficulty.

“I’m terrified of you,” Brad said plainly, following him. “I mean, the me I was before I met you as a wolf wasn’t. I guess you were kind of irritating. You seem awfully crass most of the time, and you make fun of Steven. And right now, I feel as irritating as I used to think you were. But the deer part of me is terrified of you.”

“I’m not gonna eat you. My lust for eating deer has zero intention for you. Trust me, or don’t, whatever.” Brutus tossed the mattress onto the futon frame. “And even if I ate part of you, you wouldn’t die anyway. I’m not kidding when I said I got shot the other night. Right through the heart. Felt it stop. Then… it just started again.”

Brad put his hand on his own chest for a moment. He was about to speak when Steven walked up, arms doing as much as a humanoid as they could to emulate flapping wings. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing! Nothing! I have a tremendous idea! Also, my aunt has been nagging me all day to see Brutus - well, Henry - again and I kind of said we were going to come over and have dinner at her restaurant tonight! Late! Like after closing, as a friend thing! And Brad’s invited, too! And I didn’t tell her we’re animals, la la la! Alright then, eleven-thirty it is! You’re not opening the bar tonight, right? I’ll put out a sign.” The raven then turned on a boot heel and stomped downstairs.

“His aunt?”

“She runs Aegyo, a few blocks away. The Korean diner kinda place.”

“For real? That place is so cute inside, it made my teeth hurt.” Brad chuckled slightly.

“Yeah, well, she’s a witch, so be careful.”

—

Aegyo was set up like a traditional counter diner, with a bar counter and a long row of booths. The kitchen was directly behind the counter and instead of being hidden by a utility wall or with the cooks facing away, whomever was cooking got to face out over the room. At the moment, that was Julie Yun, Steven’s maternal aunt. She was stocky and round-faced and had her straight black hair in a pageboy cut. She also treated a griddle full of meat like it had made the mistake of wandering into a hibachi restaurant.

“Uhh, I’m not sure I should eat meat,” Brad said, as he sat at the bar counter with his hoodie up, looking as awkward as he felt.

“You don’t like my meat? What wrong with you!?” Julie squawked, though with a terrific grin on her face.

“I…” Brad started, and then Brutus reached over and planted a gauntlet-gloved hand on his hoodie, pulling it back. “Hey. What’re you doing?”

“Don’t you get it, old lady? He’s a fucking deer! Deer don’t eat meat!” The wolf said the first half in growly-face and the rest with a stupid grin.

Julie brandished a chef’s knife the length of Brutus’ forearm. “Don’t old-lady me, deoloun gae! Why you and Steven and deer-guy have such crazy costumes, anyway? And where is his antlers?” She then made eye contact with Brad, who continued sinking downwards until he looked like he was trying to melt into the counter. “Don’t worry, you get vegetables. Do you really not eat meat, like are you vegan? Lot of fish sauce and salt shrimp in the banchan.”

“I don’t know, I just, you know, ahhh… it’s…” He looked between Brutus and Steven, who had the bird and wolf versions of ‘yes, and’ improv facial expressions. “It’s method acting.”

“We are concocting a plan to reinvent Brad’s bar. Specifically, a plan to advertise,” Steven said, got up from his seat, and went around behind the kitchen. “I’ll get the stuff out for us.” He walked out of sight and returned moments later with a tray littered with small dishes and numerous disparate side dishes, the most identifiable of which was nappa kimchi.

“So, what is it called, a dog and pony show?” Julie flipped over everything, then reached underneath out of sight and brought up a large plastic container of various sliced vegetables, then dumped them on the griddle and splattered them with un-described brown and red sauces.

Brutus pulled his lips back and put on a wild canine grin. “Yeah, bird-brain, what’s your big idea that was so big you had to drag us out here? Brad looked comfy all curled up on his little nest of pine needles and stuff.” Brad kicked him in the boot.

Steven slid the tray in front of the other two. “First, I thought we could print up those little… I don’t know what they’re called, those little club advertisements. Like the handouts you get in Vegas. Then, we’d go to some other bar or clubs, and hand them out.”

Brutus had immediately grabbed a piece of wiggling marinated tofu and made like it was a worm, dangling it by his muzzle and batting at it with his tongue before crudely slurping it inside. “That’s it? That’s the fucking idea? You just wanted to show off for your fucking aunt. You know, he says you’re a witch,” he called out towards the griddle.

“Haha! You think that is insulting? I am a witch,” Julie said, and scooped an array of beef and chicken off onto two separate plates. The vegetables came off on a third and she walked around to put them in front of her guests. “Is why I’m friends with Steven, we are both totally out of the family. My sister is a fucking moonie and got mixed up with David when he was in Seoul on business and he got her knocked up and then they got married in one of those big things, and then he took her back to America. Back home, no one one wants a witch, and here, David’s family is all Christian, so fuck that.”

“Anyway,” Steven cut back in, as if preventing his aunt from continuing to talk, “It’s not going to be normal little ‘come to my hip club’ stuff. We’re going to use Brutus as a prop.”

“Yeah,” Brutus said, distracted by the array of banchan and his newly-deposited plate of bulgogi. “Wait, you’re going to what?”

“I figure we can get some big metal neck shackle thing, like hobbling chains, put his arms in front of him, and march him around. When people ask what we’re doing, we mention that he’s a fearsome werewolf and that he is also a sex golem, or something, I’m still working on the exact messaging. He can wear the really hot armor thing I just bought him. ”

Brad stared at the other two as if they were talking mushrooms. “You can’t do that. You’d get kicked out of most places. It’s not halloween.”

“Hmmf,” Steven turned his beak up, then started to eat his dinner.

The deer picked at his food with his chopsticks, then grabbed a bottle of table gochujang and squirted ribbons over the stir fry. He tasted it again, then grabbed for a bottle of soy sauce, and sprinkled that over it. “Also, you need ID to get into a club. With your actual photograph on it. None of us have IDs with photographs of our monster selves. For that matter, what if you get pulled over by the cops?”

“Julie, our friend Brad is a wet blanket,” Steven clucked, and continued eating by picking up a piece of sliced stir fry, grabbing it with his beak, then tilting his head up and chomping it several times.

“You eat like a fucking bird,” Brutus gruffed, and kicked at Steven’s leg.

“You eat like a wolf. You’re drooling into your food while you talk to me about it!” Steven cawed.

Brad just sighed and continued slowly but steadily picking at his food, after sprinkling some salt on it. “I just get the feeling you two are being reckless. Like suddenly you aren’t part of society any more so you don’t have to follow rules. And you’re part of society! You,” he pointed a chopstick at Steven, “Went to work. And you go out riding around town on your motorcycle.” He pointed to Brutus.

“Don’t forget someone shot me while I was stealing it back after they repo’d it from me, which is fucking legal stealing. And I killed and ate a deer while doing it.” This got the intended reaction of a sigh from Brad. “And you fucking rented a truck and drove around town moving stuff from your house into the bar! Into the bar! The bar you seem to kinda hate to be fucking honest. Like you thought oooh it’d be fun if there was a leather bar in town, I’ll start one! Waaaah, bars are hard because they have rules and are expensive and are full of drunk horny people!”

“You three are so childish,” Julie tutted. “My advice, don’t do stupid things and don’t let society push you either. Do balance. Look at restaurant here, too cute, right?” She gestured to the incredibly garish pink-pepto color scheme and miasma of pan-Asian cartoons decorating the dining room. “And look at kitchen around me.” The kitchen area looked as if a bomb had gone off and the resulting chaos had been moved around just enough to technically allow cooking to happen. “I can work in the kitchen like this just fine. And people come eat because it’s crazy inside. If I made dining room boring or bad messy, then it’s just another Korean cafe. If I made kitchen orderly, all I do is make kitchen orderly, and not make good food for everyone.”

“Julie, there’s such a thing as health code.”

“Pfft, I’m not going to poison anyone, I know what I’m doing. Korean food is all fermented anyway.” As Brad was reaching for the salt container, she snatched it away. “Don’t eat so much salt! You’ll die!”

After their meal, the trio got up and went asked permission to go out through the back alley, just in case. Brad looked worryingly around the kitchen, and just before stepping outside, reconsidered. “Hey. Uh, you guys wait a bit, I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Don’t be rude!” Julie scoffed.

“I just ate! That’s normal!” he retorted, and ducked into the small bathroom. However, Brad was not sick and did not really have to go to the bathroom, though he did make himself pee a little. He also regarded himself in the mirror. I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe those two idiots did this to me. And to each other. And I can’t believe Steven’s aunt doesn’t freak out. There’s something going on. After regarding his tawny face for a few more moments as he washed his hands, he rubbed at his face with the wet cloth and smoothed the pelt down. Actually. This is pretty awesome. I look better than I thought I’d look as a deer. Ooh, are my antlers coming in? His antler bumps were growing small fuzzy nubs already. What the fuck am I going to do with antlers, they’re huge! I don’t have a convertible!

Still thinking about his antlers, he walked back out of the bathroom to find Julie mopping the floor. “Don’t slip, hooves are slippery on wet tile!” Then she laughed halfway between a giggle and a squirrel chitter.

“Hey, uh, I know I’m just like, some random guy you’ve never seen before, but I’ve known Steven for a while from college. So don’t take this the wrong way… but are you actually a witch or is just a joke because you’re kind of pushy?”

She knocked her mop handle against a counter and put her hands on her hips. “Why does that brat always tell everyone things about me! I’m not his mother. She is a bad witch, like when you say witch you mean awful woman who does things. I am a good witch. I am good witch glenda from Wizard of Oz.”

Brad looked around. “Okay. Well, I hate to just ask again but, are you actually a witch? Because I mean, look at us. And look at you. You fed us korean food, for free. I’m a deer. Brutus is a wolf-”

“Why he change his name to Brutus? Is Henry not good enough? Brutus sounds so mean, like he’s a guard dog with a spiky collar or something.”

“That sounds about right,” Brad laughed. “And Steven’s, well, a bird. And this doesn’t bother you? This isn’t costuming. I’m not wearing a deer mask.” He grabbed his own muzzle and pulled it around hard enough that it hurt. “I don’t think Brutus is joking about what happened the other night, either, because he came back home smelling like blood and guts and had a scar that didn’t look too good.”

Julie looked towards the back door, which was open part way and allowed in the sounds of Steven and Brutus bickering over the alleyway garbage. She then looked to the front door, as if actually suspicious of someone coming through it despite the closed sign. She then flicked off the dining room lights, as if to signal ‘yes it is truly closed, I don’t care if people are standing in here’. Then she smoothed down her hair as if preparing for something. “I am a witch. There is long history of witchcraft in… everywhere, I guess, Korea of course. I am not that kind of witch. I am just… I am different and I don’t know how to describe it. I can feel when things are out of place. I can feel when there is a bad current or a good one in the… in air, in space around, in floors, in walls.”

Brad nodded. He was unsure whether to accept what she said or think she was crazy. He decided to do both.

“Sometimes, I feel people are wrong, or different, like not regular people. I feel you three are not regular people. Not wrong. Just not regular. Before, Steven and Henry, they were fine. Now, they are different. I feel that the world is swirling around as they walk around and move in here and talk. When a boat moves through water, the water moves aside, and then comes back together at the back. The wave. It spreads out.” She tried to make a gesture describing this physically and instead looked like she was doing the breast stroke in a swimming pool. “I think the coming back is interesting, regular people do not make a wave. You make a wave. The world is parting for you and coming back together.”

Brad rubbed at his head. Not only did he not have any idea what Julie was talking about, his antler nubs actually felt strange, not exactly painful. “Huh.” He looked back out to the alley; the other two were still busily arguing and not calling for him. “What do you think it means?”

Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. I keep this stuff to myself most of time. People think you’re crazy if you talk about the world leaving waves around them. I’m not stupid. I get enough shit for being Julie in America. I know you aren’t wearing costumes, deer god.” She then grinned.

Brad grinned as well, which felt strange to do on his muzzle, and he realized he hadn’t been making any such facial expression since his abrupt and gory transformation. “I should make sure those two aren’t eating your trash. They’re up to something out there.” He nodded to Julie and headed out into the alley.

Steven and Brutus were standing in front of a dumpster. “I don’t care if dumpster diving is a hobby. I don’t care if there are websites and forums and social media groups and whatever about it. I don’t care if you can find really great stuff in here. We are behind two restaurants and a beauty salon. You are going to find disgusting food trash and hair.” Steven was telling Brutus off and simultaneously staring at the dumpster.

“I bet there’s something great in there. Like a piece of odd wire, or a bit of broken electronics, or a fucking bunch of pebbles,” Brutus said, and unlike Steven’s staring and curious raven eye, he looked hungry.

“Brutus, I’m not stupid. You want to eat what’s in that dumpster. Either that or you want to roll around in it, but you’re drooling. You just ate! How can you want to eat more? If my aunt found out you were eating trash after eating a meal she made, she’d whack you over the head with a broom.”

“Is that cuz she’s a witch?” Brutus said. “She’s a witch. I can tell. I don’t care if you say she’s a witch, or she says she’s a witch, she is a witch, she is on the fucking level with us, I can feel it in my bones. And witches have brooms.”

Brad spoke up. “Hey, guys, knock it off. No one’s rolling in the trash or collecting any of it. It’s gross out here.” It was indeed smelly and unkempt and the garbage truck clearly did not come as frequently as the dumpster needed emptying. “Anyway. Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, Brutus and Steven went along with the idea.

—

The next day, Brutus went downstairs to the bar in the afternoon and found Steven and Brad scheming in the bar’s business office. The usual attempts at organizing had been erased and were replaced by “The Idea”, written in red marker at the top. They were mind-mapping, or more correctly, bickering over how to mind-map correctly and occasionally writing down actual ideas.

“What the fuck’s going on here? Don’t you have to open the bar later?” Brutus had no real idea what that involved, just that Brad probably should do it.

“No!” Steven cawed, and opened his beak to produce a game-show wrong-answer buzzer. Instead, he wrote ‘Don’t Open The Bar’ and circled it several times. Brad nodded.

The wolf lifted his shoulders and wrinkled his snout, then shrugged. “Alright, alright.”

“Your idea seems to have more merit than we originally thought. Partly because of something that Brad said. It turns out instead of going to the bathroom last night, he was using it as an excuse to talk to my aunt about her weirdness.”

Brad looked pained, although most of it was around his eyes. He still did not make much of a muzzle facial expression. “When you put it that way, it sounds bad.”

“Julie has some sort of ability that she doesn’t understand that lets her visualize something about people that she also doesn’t understand.”

“That sounds useless,” Brutus grunted, then adjusted his leather jacket.

“Ahh, but it isn’t! It hints at something I noticed! It is very easy for me to convince people I’m wearing a costume. Or rather, they’re very easy to be convinced. When explaining I’m actually a raven, they act surprised, maybe even alarmed, only for a few moments. Then, it just seems to go away. I think that we are somehow different and the world is trying to… what was the word you used?”

“Route around us,” Brad said. “She said it looked or felt or was perceived like…. Like a ship’s wake, and how the ship pushes the water out of the way and then it comes back together when it’s passed. I spent a bunch of time trying to find any sort of indication that we’ve caused a disturbance by being seen in public. I can’t find anything, except for the curiosity about how Black and Silver has a weirdo dressed like a raven working at the shop. Even then, people just seem to think it’s cool.”

Brutus sniffed, not a reaction but actually to sniff at the air. “You two are really wound up.”

“Wound up? Are you saying we’re horny?”

“No, just excited. So what, you were really being a fucking dick when you were keeping me from doing anything?”

“I suppose, but more importantly,” Steven drew a line from ‘don’t open the bar’ to ‘reinvent the bar’. “Your idea is less stupid than I originally thought and my brainstorming last night actually seems to make sense. My idea is that we get people to come to a new, private club, like I said, based on what you said when we first got here. We use you as a prop, because werewolves are the most badass out of us three. Sorry, Brad. We get into clubs to advertise because people aren’t going to stop us from getting in. We’ll just confound them-” He made more circles and wrote in them, “And then we’ll get a roster of some goth weirdos who will pay a fee to come and… I suppose… do gothy nightclub things, in the presence of a snarling leatherclad werewolf, a dapper raven, and…” The raven looked towards Brad.

The deer looked between the two. “Oh. Uh.” He looked down at himself; he was dressed as if he was about to tend bar, in his leather vest and pants and wrist cuffs. “Not like this. I’ll have a robe or something. I’ll be a deer god. No, I’ll be a dark priest. Like in a doom metal band.” For the first time in a very long time, he seemed to brighten up intensely. “Yeah! I have an outfit already, I was in a doom band for a while!”

“Huh. Every day I learn something new about you,” Steven said, and continued making bubbles on the whiteboard. They weren’t interconnected in a particularly useful way; he was just writing things down and drawing circles and lines so they weren’t just words. “And I know exactly where we can go do this. Metropolis.”

Brutus perked his ears straight up. “That fucking sketchy place in Detroit? I hear people shoot up in the fucking bathrooms.”

Steven looked undeterred. “What’s a goth club without heroin? Besides, I’ve been there, and it is definitely full of the kind of people who would pay to… go somewhere like the upstairs here, and be introduced to their night by a trio of animal monsters who then encourage them to drink and I think this is the most important part, fornicate. Fetishistically fornicate. We can even help! I’m a fierce top. Brutus looks like internet werewolf porn. And Brad… well, you don’t have to help.”

“I can set up stuff. I like fiddling around.”

“Yes! Perfect!” Steven giddily clapped his fingerless-gloved hands together, clacked each of his talons together, then made a series of sounds that were best described as a doorknob falling onto a floor and rolling up against a metal bucket.

Brutus sniffed again. “Brad, I can smell you. I can smell your antlers,” he said, and stuck his head next to the deer’s and nosed around one of the nubs. Brad smacked him in the face. “Don’t do that! I’m sniffing! This is crazy. Your antlers smell male. And like blood. And like fur.”

“Hey, stop it!” Brad groused. “Wait, what do you mean male?” Then he went wide eyed. “You can… you can smell it?”

Brutus licked his chops. Steven clunked, then spoke. “Smell what?”

Brad’s ears turned hot, and Brutus sniffed at them. “I’ve been feeling weird since this whole thing happened. I mean weirder than being a deer around a wolf and his raven jester. I’m… uhm. I’m. I’m really horny. For uhm, I’m not sure. I don’t ever feel like this.”

“Oh! It must be whatever it is that makes deer grow antlers. Maybe it’s like heat. I don’t think male wolves are ever in heat, they just fuck female wolves in heat. I’m not sure about ravens. Maybe they’re the same. I certainly am the usual amount of horny. Is it odd? I thought you said you were asexual.”

“I don’t know,” Brad said. “However, I’m really excited over this idea. I almost can’t control how I feel. It’s really weird. It’s like I just know it’s a really good idea. And it’s making me feel extremely virile. We need to go upstairs and plan what we’re going to do where. We need people to come in and immediately have somewhere to do whatever they want. They can’t be waiting around for stuff. This is not an emergent activity. This is not a risky playground. This is a facility. This is a…”

“Sex chantry! Oooh that’s almost the right way to put it!” Steven clacked his talons together again.

Brutus, while paying attention, took another chance to sniff Brad’s antler nub and got rebuffed with an elbow to the shoulder.