Howl for the gargoyle, p.1
Howl for the Gargoyle, page 1
Howl for the Gargoyle
MONSTER SMASH AGENCY
BOOK TWO
KATHRYN MOON
Copyright @ 2023 Kathryn Moon
Howl for the Gargoyle, Monster Smash Agency Book Two
First publication: Dec 5th 2023
Cover Illustration by Sophie Zukerman
Editing by Bookish Dreams Editing and Jess Whetsel
Formatting by Kathryn Moon
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kathryn Moon
ohkathrynmoon@gmail.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Content Information
1. Hannah
2. Hannah
3. Rafe
4. Hannah
5. Rafe
6. Hannah
7. Rafe
8. Hannah
9. Rafe
10. Hannah
11. Rafe
12. Hannah
13. Rafe
14. Hannah
15. Rafe
16. Hannah
17. Rafe
18. Hannah
19. Rafe
20. Hannah
21. Rafe
22. Hannah
23. Rafe
24. Hannah
25. Rafe
26. Hannah
27. Hannah
28. Rafe
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Kathryn Moon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Content Information
This story was originally shared with chapter by chapter updates in rough draft form on my Patreon in starting in January of 2023.
The Monster Smash Agency series is sex positive and features sex workers as main characters. This does mean that the main male character has sex with other people during the timeline of this story, although it's more background information and there's no on screen scene of this.
Content includes some violence, past trauma, and consensual smut with light kink! You can find more information at kathrynmoon.com
CHAPTER 1
Hannah
"I was so resistant in the first year. It was like everything that was new to me, every part of me that had changed, I hated. I drank too much. I considered…" Frank wet his lips, as he did every week at this part of his story. I tensed on the uncomfortable metal folding chair, bracing against a speech Frank never made.
I considered taking my own life. I was afraid I would hurt someone, or worse, turn them into a monster like me.
"I considered cheating on my wife. I thought I was an animal, that I wouldn't be able to control myself. But my wife found this group for me," he continued, chin lifting, eyes glittering with just enough red around the rims to believe it might've been with tears. "And it was here that I came to accept what I am. Who I am now. Regardless of how it happened. I am what I am."
"I am what I am," the circle echoed. I mouthed the words a beat too late.
Frank's cheeks pinked. "And there are good parts. The animal in me keeps my wife happy, that's for sure."
I ducked my head, letting my dark hair hide my cringe as the men all chuckled and the other women shifted and sighed and pretended amusement. Every damn time, Frank. I wondered if his wife knew how much he liked to brag about fucking her in our support group.
"Thank you for sharing, Frank," said Diane, our leader with the patience of a saint, the voice of a soothing grandmother, and vivid yellow-green eyes that made it obvious to anyone on the street what she was.
Werewolf.
"Thanks, Frank," the circle intoned.
Frank sat, sighing with relief, even after telling the same exact story he shared week after week. He did it for the new folks, he said. I thought he did it for the punchline about his wife.
"Hannah," Diane prompted, and my spine straightened as those glowing, cautionary, beautiful eyes caught mine. "Is there anything you'd like to share?"
I wake up, drenched in sweat, from the same nightmare memory four times a week now instead of five. I'm ruining all my personal relationships because I can't control my moods. I nearly bit a man in a bar who fucked me behind a dumpster before the last full moon.
I shook my head. "Not this week."
Diane's lips pursed, but she nodded, her gaze flicking briefly to Theo, my mentor. Theo was tall, gangly, broad-shouldered, and studious. His eyes remained a relaxed brown, even as we neared the full moon. He was mild-mannered, friendly, almost timid, and best of all, one of the only men in the circle who didn't boast about his werewolf libido or how happy his wife was. To be fair, I'd met Natalie a number of times, and she was far more likely to boast for him, so maybe that was why.
Theo ignored Diane's glance and the circle moved on smoothly. This was our routine. Someone would stand and talk about their life, the ways being bitten had changed their routines, relationships, body, and diet. Eventually, Diane would turn to me, invite me to speak. And every week, I would answer the same: "Not this week."
What could I say that hadn't already been said? I didn't choose this. I didn't want this.
Ian had been a vegetarian when he was bitten, but he'd given into the cravings for meat and was happier for it. Good for him. Nancy had grown up in purity culture and struggled with the sexual urges, but now she was carefully and consensually discovering sexual pleasure and open relationships. Good for her. Ben's ten-year relationship with a girlfriend dissolved when he realized he was experiencing mating urges for his best friend, and now he was proudly queer, happily mated, and thriving with his newly and voluntarily turned werewolf fiancé. Good for them.
I hated being a werewolf, hated the monster who turned me, hated that I was now like them. Good for me.
"I am what I am," the circle recited, and this time I didn't bother moving my lips.
"Sorry," I said the second Theo joined me at the fruit plate. The big crowd was surrounding the charcuterie board, and I had this smaller platter more or less to myself.
Theo shrugged. "You know it doesn't hurt me if you don't want to talk with the group." He took a breath, and we said the next words in unison. "It hurts you."
Theo snorted and shook his head. "I'm getting predictable."
"I'm not ready," I said.
Theo nodded. "Okay."
He was twitching, leaving the pause between us, waiting for me to bite.
"But?" I cued.
"But the premise of the group isn't that you wait until you're healed to share. It's that we heal together by sharing. You might find more benefit if you…participated." Theo laughed at whatever he saw on my face, and I fought to smooth my expression as he raised his hands in surrender. "Fine. End of lecture. Natalie would like you to please come over and work whatever magic you have on our son."
My shoulders softened, and I smiled in earnest. Theo and Natalie's home was like a fairy tale to me, idyllic and comforting in its simplicity, a cozy redstone in Albany Park. Before meeting Theo, it'd been a long time since I'd spent time with a family like theirs, a world away from my father and his legacy.
"The magic is that Emmett terrifies me," I admitted to Theo, who grinned and nodded.
"He takes after his mother. Natalie loves a captive audience too. So you'll come?"
I nodded. I was greedy for time in the busy, loud, narrow little house at the edge of the city. Perhaps Theo knew, because he'd invited me after every weekly meeting this past month.
"Come on. I'll drive," Theo said, eyes lifted over my shoulder to wave at the crowd behind us.
Our meetings took place in a Boystown community center, with bright glass windows facing busy Clark Street. I pulled the hood of my coat up out of habit, ignoring the glare of the bright autumn sun. I didn't get recognized very often, but it was never a comfortable experience when it did happen.
"How's the band?" Theo asked as I followed him around the corner to the side street where he'd parked his car.
"Shit," I admitted. "The label is still pushing the tour, and I'm not ready."
"And the others?" Theo asked, a gentle reminder that there were others involved, as if I could forget.
My bandmates were dealing with their own fallout to my becoming a werewolf, their careers on hold while I tried to keep my head above water.
"Their patience is running out too," I said softly. "I think even Kiernan has started looking for other gigs."
"It bothers you," Theo noted.
"He has to work. I understand that," I said.
"You can understand it and be bothered."
"Fine. I am understanding and angry that he'd consider leaving the band," I said.
The doors unlocked, and we both slid inside.
"I should tell Diane how much better you are at her job," I muttered, pulling the seatbelt on.
"Diane was my mentor when I started attending the group."
I stilled, watching him turn the key over in the ignition three times before the Jeep finally roared to life. "You never mentioned that."
"I was really young. It's been… It'll be twenty years this New Year’s," Theo said, gaze distant for a moment before he started to maneuver his beast of a car out of the tight spot.
It was Theo's story, offered shyly on my second visit to the support group, that had convinced me to keep attending.
Theo had been sixteen when he was bitten. It was New Year’s Eve and he'd had too much to drink, so instead of calling his parents or risking driving, he'd decided to cut through the woods between his friend's subdivision and his. He hadn’t remembered that it was the full moon, and by law, werewolves were required to seek secure locations for their transformations. But the one who'd bitten him had been loose in those woods, another teenager taking chances, an unfortunate circumstance between two people too young to feel the weight of consequences yet.
I wondered about the werewolf who bit me. Were they young? Had they been newly turned, not understanding what would happen? Was it my fault for not noting the calendar better, for building a running habit that left me vulnerable on full moons, for trusting that werewolves would follow the law to find shelter and that those rare, unfortunate incidents of someone being bitten were too statistically low for me to worry about?
Or had my instinct that night been right—had I been hunted down in the cemetery, targeted, terrified, and turned intentionally? Had the shivers running down my spine been a warning from my subconscious? Had the barely audible snarls I'd heard under my own panting breaths been a teasing hint, meant to unsettle me?
Theo's thoughts seemed to turn with mine. "Any news from the police?"
I shook my head. "They're not really looking."
"They are," Theo said, glancing at me as he drove. "They are. Ray is looking."
I ducked my head. Ray was the single werewolf officer assigned to my case, a fifty-plus-year-old silver wolf all set for retirement until I'd landed in his case files, bloodied and bitten and baffled. Theo was right—Ray gave a shit about me, about my case. He'd scented my torn clothes and the bite marks on my shoulder and ribs and hip. The sheer quantity of wounds was stronger proof that I'd been turned intentionally. He'd spent weeks digging through files. There simply wasn't anything to find.
"He calls to check in more than my dad," I admitted, flashing Theo a half smile.
"My parents didn't adjust until I was living on my own, really," Theo said.
I wasn't sure that sounded like they had adjusted, or if they'd just had the burden of a werewolf living with them lifted from their shoulders.
"It's not that. It's just how…Virgil is," I said.
Virgil Darwood. Lead singer of The Knock 'Em Deads, one of the world’s most enduringly popular rock bands—Dad said the greatest rock band—style icon, rebel to all things domestic, and somehow…my dad. In the ways he managed to be.
"But he calls too, and that's big for him," I continued before Theo might express concern or sympathy. Dad called to talk about the reunion tour, to let me know when he'd be passing through or stopping in Chicago, to ask me how it was going with the label I'd signed with—a small label, one that hadn't seemed curious about my father or our relationship or any potential collaboration. And at the end of the conversations, he would check in, in his small way.
"How's it going, howling at the moon?"
There was no view of the moon in the safety cubbies provided at the shelter.
We reached Theo's house, the drive passing in easy silence, and Natalie was already standing in the doorway, a sticky handed Emmett banging on the glass, sobbing.
"It's not too late to turn back. She's going to pass him to you the second you walk in," Theo warned me.
I laughed and slid out of the front seat, Emmett's wails audible from the sidewalk. "I signed up for it."
I knew Theo and Natalie both had siblings, but I was aiming for the role of Emmett's best auntie, and if that meant getting peanut butter in my hair, so be it.
"Hammah!" Emmett screamed as Natalie opened the front door, his short chubby arms straining for me.
"I made the mistake of trying to bribe him with the promise of you coming over," Natalie said. "He doesn't like waiting."
I managed to catch Emmett as he dove out of his mother's arms and latched his surprisingly strong arms around my neck, still weeping, as I followed Natalie inside.
"Sorry, buddy, your dad drives like an old man," I said.
Natalie snorted and shot me a grin over her shoulder. "I told Theo we were having mushroom risotto, but I didn't tell him he was making it for us. I need wine on the couch, and Emmett needs to show you every single one of his toys."
Emmett grunted in what might've been agreement, and Theo called to us from behind.
"Like I didn't know what your plan was all along!"
Natalie groaned as she stretched out on her couch, and upstairs something thumped heavily from Emmett's room. I glanced up at the ceiling when Theo came racing down the hall.
"I'm on it," he called.
Natalie opened one eye and smirked at me, her hand trailing down to the floor to find her wine glass. "He knows he's on duty, don't worry. And I've got the monitor on," she added, flashing her phone to show Emmett digging around in his trunk of toys.
"Long day?" I asked.
Natalie shrugged. "Actually, it's been this week. Toddlers have nothing on prima donna clients who don't know what they want but love to make demands. Theo's making me mute my emails until Monday morning. He's a good mate."
I stared at her, sipping my wine and chewing over a question I'd been wanting to ask. She stared back and raised her eyebrows, silently daring me.
"Do you want Theo to bite you?" I asked.
Natalie smiled. "Sometimes. But it's a big adjustment, and Emmett's still really young. And then if we had another baby, they'd be a werewolf by birth, and that might… I dunno, kids are never on equal footing anyway, but that just seems like it would complicate dynamics. Theo knows we're mated, so I know we're mated. I'm okay being human until the timing feels right."
I didn't know any other mated couples, not both parties, but it made sense with Natalie and Theo. They had a harmony I'd never seen in a relationship before, although I hadn't grown up around the best models. My parents had never been more than a brief fling, and my mom had decided that raising me was going to be her entire life until suddenly, in my teens, she died in a car crash. And then I'd been Dad's problem. He'd had plenty of marriages and relationships, but none of them remained harmonious for very long.
"Is it my turn to ask a personal question?" Natalie asked, a dangerous gleam in her brown eyes.
I laughed and reached for the wine bottle. "Wait, I need this first."
Natalie scooted back against the arm of the couch, pulling her black braids over her shoulder and staring at me like a predator who'd caught sight of prey.
With a full glass of wine in hand, I nodded for her to continue.
"Theo won't ask, but I will," she said, and I tensed. "How are you dealing with the full moon hornies?"
