Fear Of The Dark

[[BRIAN]]

Yawning, I opened my eyes only to be met with blinding sunlight. Growling, I turned away, my eyes not willing to take the bright light so soon. I became aware of someone else in the room with me, and opened my eyes blearily to see the maid tidying the room up and laying out my clothes for the day.

"Master Haner, the other Master's told me to inform you they want to talk to you when you go downstairs," she informed me. I groaned and nodded, shooing her away. She bowed slightly and hurried out of the room, leaving me to climb out of my bed.

Heading down the stairs, I brought my hand up to my face, hissing slightly in pain as my fingers ran over the cut down my face, either side of it bruising now as well.

Walking into the room, Zack looked up and laughed at me, evidently enjoying the fact I had a deep red cut down my face, with yellowing bruising around either. I glared at him, before hitting his torso hard, resulting in a half growl half hiss resounding from deep in his chest.

He glared at me, and rubbed his chest. He'd got worse than me, much to my amusement. He'd gotten a lovely long cut all the way down his chest, and something had happened inside him, but we couldn't figure it out.

"Don't laugh at me then when you're worse off."

He merely hissed at me.

"What did you want to talk about anyway?" I asked, sitting down in one of the chairs. Matt was stood by the fireplace, which was already blazing, grey clouds looming outside and rain hitting the ground hard. I scowled at it, bloody English weather.

"Last night, after we ran the Ripper out, he went off remember? Well it seems in his frustration for not catching the girls, he went and murdered again. Twice. Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were his victims," he explained. I frowned, sighing softly. In our attempts to save Sarah and Kirsty, we'd left two other women to the Ripper's fury.

"We can't leave the girls alone now. Not when he got so close last night. We need to do something," I noted Johnny sat with us, and suddenly remembered something he'd said a while ago. "Why don't they just move in with us? They can't get much safer than that," I stated.

Johnny stared at me amused, "I was only joking when I said that before you know." I nodded at him, "Yeah, but it's a good idea. I mean, every time they go out then, they can have one of us with them. So they won't ever be alone. Nor do I think he'd try to attack them in our house."

They contemplated it for a while, and Matt looked at me. "Do you want to go over and ask them to come then? Zack you can go with him," I smiled and stood up, waiting for Zack to come along.

As we walked down the street, heading towards Kirsty's house first, as she was closer, I looked at Zack, and noted the smile he was trying to fight on his lips. I raised an eyebrow, before smiling.

"So, you pleased they're coming to stay?" I asked him inconspicuously. He looked at me and nodded, shrugging at the same time. "Yeah I suppose, it's better for them and easier for us," he said casually. I smirked, "Are you happy Sarah's gonna be near you?" He shrugged, but looked away, and as I peered at him, I noted the corner of his mouth was turned upwards.

He evidently didn't want to see the fact he was smiling at the mention of her.

"You so like her," I teased him. He glared at me, "No I don't, you know it's not allowed." I scoffed at this. "Oh please, quit with the damned rules already. Yes, the rules are there, but no, they don't control you. You quite evidently like her, forbidden or not."

He scowled and kicked a stone on the floor, not wanting to admit I was right. "Well what about you and Kirsty then? At least you two actually get on. All Sarah and me do is argue. It's not exactly a fantastic relationship builder." I frowned at this.

"Yes, but last night you two seemed comfortable with each other. And anyway, with Kirsty it's different." He rolled his eyes at me. "How is it different? You two get along far better than we do. At least you're civil to her. Sarah must think I'm an ass," he frowned at himself.

I laughed.

"An ass that's saved her from death twice. I think she can overlook your attitude problem." He merely shrugged as we came upon Kirsty's house. I knocked politely on the door, and a woman answered, eyeing us curiously. "Can I help you?" I understood immediately what Kirsty said about coming from riches, because this woman spoke like all the people do round our end of town.

"Yes Ma'am, we're here to see Kirsty. Is she here?" I smiled at her graciously. She nodded, shouting for Kirsty to come. Soon she came into view, smiling at us. "Hello, what can I do for you?" We smiled at her.

"Erm, do you think you could come with us? We must go get Sarah then ask you something," I asked. She nodded and closed the door behind her, setting forward to Sarah's house. We soon collected her and I noticed Zack's reluctance to do much of anything now. Sarah didn't really seem to be paying attention.

We got to the Thames, and I gestured for them to sit, and we did the same, making it a lot more informal between us. Kirsty stared at my face and frowned. "That's really bad," I rolled my eyes and shrugged.

"Not important right now, what is important, is, well...did you hear about the double murders last night?" Zack blurted out. They both frowned and shook their heads. "Well, last night when the Ripper didn't get you, he went after two other women. That's why we think it would be better if you, well, came to live with us. You'd be far safer," he explained. I nodded at this.

They both looked at each other for a moment, contemplating it, before both nodding. Kirsty smiled. "It will be nice to live in that house again," she said smiling. Sarah just smiled sadly, "It will be nice just to live in a nice house." I frowned softly at her. I glanced at Zack and saw his expression had fallen.

"Well come on then, we'll have to go pack your things to take with us." They nodded and smiled. We stopped by Sarah's house first, but she put a hand up. "I'll go in, you can just wait out here," she mumbled. We frowned at her, wondering why we had to stay outside. "She doesn't have that much to pack anyway. Plus, I think she's a little embarrassed," Kirsty explained. I sighed and nodded.

Kirsty lived closer to the nicer area. It was still slums, but, well, nicer than here anyway. And just as Kirsty said, she came out within 5 minutes, a bag in her hands. Zack took it from her, resulting in a raised eyebrow from her and an exasperated glance at me from Zack himself. I merely chuckled and carried on walking.

Once we had everything, we set off towards the house, and as we reached it, I looked over at them. Kirsty was smiling, whereas Sarah just looked awestruck. I laughed softly at her face.

Inside, I led them to their rooms, opening the door up to reveal a Queen sized bed placed in the middle of it, evidently cleaned by the maids. "Sarah this is you're room," I informed her. Her jaw dropped. "That bed's all for me?" She asked, confused. I nodded, looking at her strange.

"I've never even seen a bed that big!" I smiled at her, "Well now you have." We moved along to the next room, placing Kirsty's items inside as well. She didn't react as amazingly as Sarah did, but I didn't really expect her to.

"Come on, we're going downstairs," Zack said, gesturing to follow him. We did so, and ended up in the main room, in which the three other guys were already there. Upon seeing us they smiled. "Hello ladies," Matt smiled charmingly. They both smiled, and I saw Zack glare at him slightly, resulting in a smirk from me.

If he didn't like her then I don't turn into a dog.

They both sat down on the sofa, and smiled politely at us, resulting in a grin from me. I still expected them to be running around screaming at the fact we were werewolves.

"You know, you're amazingly calm to say you've found out we turn into rather large dogs," Jimmy pointed out, literally taking the words out of my mind. They smiled. "I've nearly been killed twice now, this isn't so much of a shock to me," Sarah pointed out to us.

Kirsty looked at Johnny.

"You little arse, you're one of them and never told us. I'm appalled. Although it does explain your strange behaviour," she frowned lightly; Sarah sniggered suddenly. "At least now I know he's not mentally insane!" Johnny's jaw dropped at this, resulting in laughter from us all.

"Although I do have one question. You're a werewolf, right? So, why did you turn into a dog in the day? I mean, there was a moon last night. But the first time we saw you, there wasn't, in fact, it was daylight. HEY! And on that note, you little liar, it was you! I wasn't going crazy!" Sarah suddenly pointed at Zack and scowled. He blushed slightly at this outburst and lowered his head.

"Yeah, werewolves only turning when the moon is full? Not true. Err, well. We can turn at will. We don't lose control over our brains when we turn either, we just don't really, feel human emotion as much as normal. In fact, the whole purpose of being a werewolf is to protect humans." They stared at us.

But I wasn't revealing anymore to them than that.

"So if you can turn, do it now. I wanna see," Kirsty smiled. I looked at the guys, and they nodded. "Go on Brian, and you Zack," Zack looked at Matt and scowled.

But I obeyed, and soon, my whole body was changing shape. Bones snapping and reforming to become shorter and smaller. And within seconds, a coat of black fur covered my body as I sat there, panting and wagging my tail.

I turned back within seconds, and looked at Zack expectantly. He looked back at me, and I saw an unusual reluctance in his features. Seeing all our expectant faces, he grimaced and began his transformation, but halfway through it, an unusual large snap and grinding noise resounded throughout the room.

Zack yelped in pain, and whined a long high whine, due to the fact his vocals had already changed.

Within seconds he was back to being human again, but now hunched over in his chair, holding onto his chest and his face contorted in pain. "Zack? What's wrong man?" I asked, looking at him confused.

He wheezed and gasped for breath, opening his eyes and I saw his usually bright green eyes clouded over in pain. "Oh my, my ribs hurt so much," he gasped out. Sarah looked at him, before looking at us all.

"You know, I think I should look you all over, to make sure you're all okay. I've seen my uncle do it enough times to know what to look for," she said. I nodded, as did Matt. It did make sense. She came over to me first, checking over my cut before nodding. "That will be fine, just let it heal on it's own, the bruising should go down too," she said, smiling.

"Anything else?" I shook my head. She headed over to Jimmy and Matt, checking them over, only to find out Matt had a gash down his leg that would require ointment. Then she came to Zack, and I noticed his reluctance to do anything. She stared at him.

"If you want, you can just keep going round with whatever it is that's hurting you, or I can tell you what it is so you can know what not to do."

He scowled and took off his shirt, and I winced at the purple bruising on the left side of his chest. "Ouch, what happened to you?" He shrugged and looked away. She prodded the bruising lightly, resulting in a grimace from him.

She then began to feel his ribs, and as she pressed down on one, a low growling rumbled from deep inside his chest. Evidently that hurt him a lot, otherwise he wouldn't have just growled at her. She stared at him, smirking.

"Don't growl at me boy or I'll press down on that," she pointed to him. He didn't reply, instead yet another low growl came from him, this time quieter, and most definitely from irritation of being told off by her.

I couldn't help but chuckle softly. He'd just growled at her, full on dog growled and yet she was threatening him. I noticed the smile on Matt's face too.

She carried on pressing on different ribs, before finally coming back to the one, which had hurt him earlier. Evidently this was the cause of his pain, and unfortunately for him, she had to. As she did so, she pressed onto a certain part.

Zack instantly flinched away, his teeth bared as his growl ran throughout the room. That was evidently the real cause of pain. Sarah and Kirsty stared at him, impassive expressions on both their faces. That growl hadn't been low; it had been loud and impressive.

"Well Zack, you have two broken ribs. And judging from the fact it seems like you're bones have to reform to turn, I wouldn't recommend trying to for a while. It looks like if you do, you're only going to re-snap the ribs. So, lay off the work," she explained. He looked at her for a moment before nodding.

The girls left us and I walked past Zack, not before whispering into his ear. "You enjoyed that and don't even think of denying it, boy" I teased.