The Unholy Triptych.

 
Dogfire:
 
 
I'm not much of a party goer, despite helping my brother reopen the old bar 
in Old Town, on the hill overlooking the New Bay in Seattle.  It's a quaint 
old bar, brick and wood, and there's a house on the hilltop nearby. It 
survived the great Earthquake and had the usual rumors of it being haunted. 
 
The party was going full tilt, most of my brother's friends, the weather was 
a bit too drizzly, even by Seattle standards and kept the crowds down. That's 
when I opened my big mouth about the house and took a dare. Guess I had one 
too many beers. I'll sleep in the 'Wolf House' I said. 
 
While the music played, I took a sleeping bag and trudged up the hill to the 
old house, passing brick's and old conduit poking out of the hillside, relics 
of the Great Quake from seventy years ago.  
 
Two of my brother's friends followed and watched me roll out the sleeping bag 
on the porch of the old house, ancient even in a young city like Seattle, 
clapboard with a porch, the inside floor had too many rotted holes in it. 
Folks did claim to see lights, gray objects and unearthly howls there. I 
crawled in, waved to my brother's friends as they snickered and wandered down 
the hill, flashlights bobbing and fading in the drizzle.  The only lights 
were the lights from New Seattle and the dim couryard bulbs of the Bar just a 
quarter mile away.
 
Having lived in Wenaachi, I figured it was mostly feral domestic cats as they 
can be unearthly yowlers and scare folks. It did'nt take too long for me to 
drift off to sleep in the chill away, only the mists and drizzle to tickle my 
nostrils.
 
It was the odd smell from the house and the cold, made me toss and turn. 
That's when I heard a voice, warbly in tone, "And why on earth...are you 
here?.."
 
A low scraping noise woke me, I did'nt see anything. But I heard something. 
My eyes closed and when I opened them, I found myself being watched.
 
 
Lobowolf:
 
 
I looked at my watch.....by the tiny light I could see it was half past two 
in the morning.  I had indeed slept, for a couple of hours, anyway, but I 
awoke to the feeling that I was being watched.....from all sides, really, but 
from one direction in particular, it felt like a laser beam was pointed at my 
skull....I couldn't see anything, but I could feel the pull.  I turned, and 
almost soiled my sleeping bag.
 
The creature sat in the corner by the broken window.....the waning moon shone 
through the jagged panes of glass, and a slight breeze blew, ruffling the 
creature's......fur?
 
Suddenly a deep throated voice surrouned me....it wasn't like it was actually 
reaching my ears...more like it was patched in directly to my brain.  I sat 
up, groggily, thinking this most certainly be some kind of Guiness-induced 
night terror.  Suddenly, the voice rang clear..."Why have you come?"
 
What.......????  I looked around to the corner where I had seen it....it was 
gone......which I thought was probaby a good thing....except there was still 
the voice.  And the hot breath on the back of my neck.  Now I soiled the 
sleeping bag in earnest.
 
Suddenly, I felt a bony paw on my cheek, and was treated to a look directly 
into the creature's eye..it was gaunt and bony....human sized, but with the 
head of a wolf....strong, agile, but obviously undernourished, and I think it 
had mange.
 
"Why have you come?" the creature asked..almost plaintively..."I've never 
seen a human close up before.  They do not come here."  He studied my face 
some more.  "You have no fur.  Is that normal?"
 
Well, what do you say when a werewolf asks you why you have no fur....I 
didn't know...."Uh...no, I don't have any fur....."  For whatever reason I 
felt compelled to reach out and feel his pelt.....it was rough, and worn in 
spots......and hair was falling out.
 
"I will not hurt you" he said, talking directly into my head "But I can't 
promise the others will feel that way.  Tonight they hunt, and you are safe, 
but you are human...you don't belong here."  I nodded in agreement, thinking 
I must be terribly drunk still....but I wasn't.
 
 
Terrycloth:
 
 
"Why have you come here?" he asked again. I stammered. "I just wanted to -- 
to sleep here... for the night... um... my friends..." I trailed off. "So, I 
should leave, then. Before they get back."
 
A bony, clawed hand gripped my shoulder tightly, keeping me in place. "No... 
stay. I haven't seen a human before, not up close. Your hair is so beautiful..-
. may I have it? I could give you much in trade..."
 
"Um..." I stammered, a chill running over me. "Sure. Take whatever you want. 
Just please don't kill me."
 
"Ahhhh..." the creature sighed, and a cloud of darkness spread from behind 
its back, enveloping me. "Then I will take your hair, and your no-fur, and 
your shiny eyes and flat teeth, and clawless hands. And in return I give you 
my place among the brothers. You will be safe when they return, and can stay 
the night as you desired."
 
I think I passed out again, there. But it might have been something he did to 
me. When I came to, I was lying on a bed of moss in a cavern of some sort, 
lit by free-floating purple-glowing lights. An entire pack of the creatures 
was gathered at the other end, gathered around something. Something they were 
eating, messily. One looked back at me as I stirred, and nodded.
 
I nodded dumbly, and glanced down at myself... skeletal, mangy furred... it 
was pretty obvious what the creature had done. But now what?
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
The hunt!
 
~The hunt!~ a dozen voices responded as each muzzle dripped with the blood of 
the unwanted. 
 
~The dark places were good to us tonight.~ 
 
~Good good~ more voices joined and the pack leader quinted his eyes shut. 
 
The pack bowed their heads to the feast and ate their fill. Then the alpha 
turned the the new wolf sitting on the other side of the room. "Join us young 
one. Join us in the feast. The blood is warm tonight from the unwanted. Join 
us.~
 
Gill looked at the wovles accross the room and could feel them all in his 
mind. There was little but blood and hunger on their minds. "I don't know. I 
think that I might stay over here."
 
The alpha leaped to the new wolf and his rank breath played over Gill's 
nose.. ~All Nyads must eat at the feast. Always use mindtalk.. never your 
voice. Do this or die.
 
Gill backed away from the other wolf and lowered his tail between his tail. 
~I will hunt.~
 
 
Dogfire:
 
 
I tucked a tail in, and walked, padded out. Despite the growling in my lower 
ribs, and out the cavern entrance. What I saw caused me to pause...and gawk, 
jaws agape.
 
Huge trees, a hilltop...and a view of a bay. Almost like Elliot bay, except 
there were no buildings, no traces the new Hexaganal Bubbles of the New 
Seattle skyline. Just the hilltop, bare of trees. I turned. The cavern...it 
had a faint ghostly outline to it. The house...I could see it against the 
cavern entrance!  I turned, smelled smells, forest, trees, things I could'nt 
name. As if I was shown dizzy images of art and asked to identify it in an 
instant. All i could do was reel and howl.
 
A nose bumped against me, I whirled, but instead of growl, I found myself 
whining and cringing at a gray muzzled Nyad. She was the beta and her look 
was disdainful.

I heard a speak, -Your still ill, but now you have eyes of someone else!-
 
The Beta growled, she was intimidating, -What have you done with him!-
 
I must have tried to bolt, only to have jaws and a long, bony set of padded 
hand claws grip me, the teeth gripped my ruff as I was shook like some pup. 
It was then that I saw down the hill, another set of buildings, shimmering 
and ghostly...a bar, a parking lot with lights, glimmering ghostlike in the 
twilight.
 
The shaking stopped as my voice echoed out of my jaws, "It's just a dream!"
 
The Beta's voice echoed in my head, -Ah ha! His illness has opened the 
pathway back to the Sleepers!-
 
I was whirled and had a set of yellow eyes bore into mine. Teeth agape. So 
my little pup has gone adventuring and borrowed a Sleeper.
 
I squirmed, thinking of wolf creatures invading and snatching humans and 
their bodies. My 'mouth' gaped open as I whined.
 
The Beta howled, more in amusement at my terror. -Why should we? He's only 
borrowing it for the night. And he'll feel the effects worse than you 
Sleeper.-
 
She bumps her nose against mine, -And why on this Earth should the Nyads 
subdue what is already sleeping?-
 
She pointed down the hill towards the shimmering buildings of my brother's 
bar. 
 
Yes I can see them too, not all of us can. But on occasions the gap opens 
and the young want to see what lays beyond. The wiser amongst us know 
better.-   She growled with contempt at the ghostly bar. 
 
Somehow I turned and stammered, more like a whine with a long mouth with 
teeth, "I live there! That's my world you're talking about! It's filled with 
things you don't understand and can only marvel at!"
 
The beta snorted. "The garish images of human War, tragidity and sad love 
tysts? The unholy Triptych of human civilization neither excites nor dismays 
with it's rude banners and trumpets.- 
 
She sat immobile watching the glowing lights below. - Soon he'll return and 
bear his grace upon us soon. And you may go back to your dimness.
 
I looked down the hill and saw, approaching something gaunt and white, almost 
skeletal, wearing my clothes.
 
The figure climbed up the hill, wobbling and breathing fumes fowler than a 
septic tank. 
 
"Hic! Erg, so that's what beer tastes like."  A face, grimaced at me and the 
Beta.  I thought myself a looker, but I thought what looked back at me had a 
look that could be only called pustical.
 
 
Lobowolf:
 
 
I looked at the horrible figure stumbling amongst the grass, tripping over 
stones.  "Hey, those are my good jeans!" I thought...but then I realized I 
had more serious stuff to worry about.
 
The Beta looked at me again and lowered herself.  "You don't look like an 
intellegent creature, that's for sure, but I can sense it in your mind.  
Perhaps you can keep the awareness alive.
 
She pointed a foreleg toward the bar and whined...."That place there...it's a 
fissure.....a crack in the barriers between dimensions...it's the Nyad's job 
to guard it.
 
I looked at her, still not having a clue in the world what she was talking 
about.  She looked at me sternly, and a sat and listened some more.
 
Many turns of the moon ago...many more than I have been alive for, this has 
been a place where the dimensions crossed.  Your dimension, and another that 
is unnamed.  Each night, they cross over....the evil ones from the other 
side....the unwanted.  They escape through the crack in dimension, fueled by 
your human hate, gluttonly and lust.....the house where men drink.......
 
That is what we hunt...the unwanted.....we need to hunt to survive, but we 
also keep the unwanted from escaping into your dimension.  It's a hard job.  
That is why we exist.  Now do you understand?
 
I nodded solemly, suddenly understanding what the beta was talking about.  
The bar was haunted, and apparently a constant source of threat to this world.
 
I noticed the ungangly skeleton trip and fall, knocking his head against a 
rock.  I winced.......if I ever got my body back, that was going to hurt...for
a long time.....
 
The Beta snarled "Greyfang, you idiot.......we're not supposed to borrow 
'sleepers,' much less injure their bodies.  The ghostly figure got up and 
came over to me.  "It's time for me to return" he said.......I didn't have 
time to react.....I felt a sudden rush of energy and passed out.
 
My next awareness was the sun rising slowly over the hills, and could hear 
the gulls crying over the bay.  I rolled over....my clothes were in tatters..
and I indeed had a nasty bruise on my skull...I looked like hell.
 
Gill?   Gill!!!!  For cripes sake, where the hell have you been?  I found 
your ripped up sleeping bag in the wolf house.  What the hell are you doing 
way up here on the hill?"  My brother spotted a bottle of tequila the Nyad 
must have dropped during his drinking binge.  "Come on, let's get you back to 
the house.  You must have had a tough night.
 
You should know better than to go stumbling out here drunk among the 
rocks...you could have killed yourself.....plus, there's wolves out here...

I know" I said......I thought about telling him, but he'd never believe me.