“All the way from America, they brought him, they did.” The keeper, a fat man with a suit official but too small, looks at you, hoping to impress you with his knowledge. “Fearsome beast, ain’t he? Tore a man’s heart right from his chest in a minute, he did.”
“Is that so?” you say calmly.
“Oh, absolutely! That’s the wolf for you. They’ve rid the continent of them a hundred years ago for that very reason. That’s why they had to bring this one over the ocean.”
The wolf glares at the keeper and growls low in his throat. Clearly he understands the meaning of the human’s words. His feral odor becomes sharp to your nostrils, betraying his fury.
The gray wolf of the timberlands stares at you, savvy to your understanding. The glint in his eye tells you that his wild nature has not been tainted by years in captivity.
“Name’s Berserker,” the keeper interrupts your thoughts. “On account of his being so deranged and all.”
“A fitting name,” you say, “for clearly he is not predictable.”
The wolfs ears prick in your direction, for he knows you speak of him and to him. He knows you know him deeply. The madness in his eyes is the spark of passion that aligns with your own.
Suddenly, the keeper reaches for a wooden pole. He jams it between the bars. Berserker growls low, and snaps at the wood, his large teeth gouging the birch.
“See what I mean?” the keeper says, jabbing at Berserker again with the pole. The wood slams hard into the animal’s furry side, causing him to yelp. Fear and fury claw the airwaves as his savage scent turns sharp with this provocation.
Patience, I tell him. Your revenge will be sweet.
“In Transylvania,” you say, distracting the keeper, “such beasts freely roam the forests still.”
“That right? Well, this one shoulda been shot long ago. He’s a menace, he is.”
You survived Europe’s encroaching civilization. Planned destruction forced these wondrous animals further back into the wilderness until their numbers became few. You know intimately of their habits, though, for you have spent centuries among them. They are not the werewolves of mythology, nor the killers of legend, but gentle, timid mammals, akin to the dog—indeed, you have kept them as pets on occasion. It is rare they kill anything as large as a man, and then only out of desperation. They nurture their young, travel together for protection, the strongest male with the strongest female, working in tandem to defend the pack and its territory.
The moronic keeper grabs up a slab of raw meat in his fist and slaps it through the bars. Berserker sniffs at the stale flesh, then licks it twice for the blood. He stops, raises his head, and stares at you, the insanity in him the result of incarceration. Soon, you assure him, you will have fresher flesh, and dine with a lost hunger borne of exertion.
Berserker nods. He bows his graceful head slightly, ears pressed back against his skull. His tail droops between his legs. Now, he haunches down on all fours, watching you, waiting.
“See the way it is?” the keeper says. “Let ‘im know you ain’t scared. Show ‘im who’s the master, ain’t that right gov’ner?”
“As you say,” you tell the stupid man, whose flabby throat you would tear out yourself were there not the crowds still littering the grounds.
Berserker is a noble brute. He is so much like you, frustrated by his fate. He longs to find purpose again. He longs for the hunt. He longs for revenge on the weak and the stupid, and to bring down the brazen. Given a fair altercation between the two, this keeper would not survive. All three of you know that to be true.
Berserker stares into your eyes, his yellow orbs speckled with hope and despair. You watch the pupils dilate then contract, and again. He bares his teeth, but just once, then you hear the whimper of submission as he bends his head even lower, muzzle resting on the floor of the cage, eyes still fixed on yours.
You laugh in delight, thrilled to find one unbroken here, amidst the tamed.
The keeper jerks his head around to stare at you, askance.
“A storm approaches,” you say. “One that will devastate this city of London, and this country, leaving dead and near dead in its wake.”
The keeper’s small eyes turn fearful. He follows your gaze to the blackened sky. Lightning cuts through the darkness, diving toward the ground near his feet, startling him. Thunder rocks the earth you stand on.
The mortals scurry for cover. The keeper turns to run, crying after him, “Best to find safety!” and then he is gone.
Every animal in this evil zoological garden responds to the elements. The pungency of their scents clog the air as the storm rampages towards you. You hear them screech and roar in terror and hope. The finches in the aviary fly hysterically, like bats. The larger animals pace and stomp, trembling. Berserker twitches, on his feet now; you have captured his soul. He and the storm become aligned in agitation. You see the ruthlessness in him and it cheers you.
These animals have more sense than the men fleeing for cover. They know where danger lies, and where it does not. The mortals have much to learn from what they deem inferior life-forms. But they are prideful, willful. And alienated. These traits spell their doom.
“We will stake our claim to their thin blood!” you cry, and Berserker throws back his head and howls in tandem.
Your laughter equals the explosion of thunder. Oh, how the dark rage buries the blinding sunlight! Berserker paces, races back and forth in his prison, excited, eager for freedom. His wild eyes are alive, brilliant with awareness of your authority. The earth trembles as if in awe, sensing he will do your bidding.
In the century in which you were born, the French deemed what lay above as the macrocosm, the greater world or universe, reflected here on this tiny earth as the microcosm. You are in touch with this reality that equates the inner with the outer, the small and insignificant with the grand and incomprehensible. It is the source of your strength and to draw from it is your right.
You contemplate the earth itself, so abundant with the flicker of warm-blooded creatures. Their metallic scent seeps through their wet pores, wafting along humid air in a tantalizing manner— the scent of steaming blood! In the blackness that has descended, you see them here and there, glittering stars with the added dimension of being aromatic.
You have always acknowledged nature. Respected her. You know you are her equal. Nature is, perhaps, all you respect, for you believe only in the natural order. You are the culmination of Darwin’s evolution. The one who has evolved over time to become the most advanced life-form on the planet. You are master of this terran universe. The English naturalist would have been thrilled to meet you.
These mortals would declare that such notions disease the mind, although you do not permit dis-ease to infiltrate your crystal awareness. Berserker is a worthy assistant because beyond all else, he is like you: adaptable and cunning, dominant traits imbedded in your genes as Herr Mendel discovered when he played with peas. Dominant traits which are the foundation of potency and preeminence!
The storm crashes around you, drawn to you, for you are the source of division. Berserker leaps at the bars that confine him, as if crying “Death or Freedom!”
Over 400 years of existence have developed your organic talents. You will adapt to England. But England will never adapt to you. You will infect these bleeders as the Frenchman Pasteur predicted. You will spread through the population like a germ, a plague darker than black, leaving them helpless, unable to resist. Imprisoning them in their own weakness.
Your laughter expands, drowning out the thunder, and Berserker begins to howl in earnest, bashing his body against the bars, drawing blood. The smell of it intoxicates you. The mortals for miles around tremble at the unfamiliar sound and scent of wildness that strikes a primal cord.