Read Online Immortal Lycanthropes by Hal Johnson, Teagan White - Free Book Online Page B

Nine Unknown Men?” Myron asked. The woman stopped dead in her tracks.
    “I suppose that’s correct,” she said after a moment, and began walking again. Her lips were pursed disapprovingly, probably because Myron had said
aren’t I
instead of
am I not.
    “Actually, I’m not that old,” Myron said. “I’m only thirteen.”
    “You can’t be thirteen,” Sukumarika said. “None of your kind has been born in millennia.”
    “Maybe I was just born, maybe I’m the first of a whole new set. Did you ever think of that?”
    “This is impossible. The lycanthropes are a dead branch; a dead branch, like the Illuminati.”
    Myron said, “I don’t know what you mean. I was thinking maybe I was more like the chosen one.”
    At that moment Sukumarika threw a bag over Myron’s head. Myron was small enough, and the bag was large enough, that it went down to his waist. He tried struggling, but several pairs of hands had seized him, and, mostly from fear, he lost consciousness.

2.
    Myron finally found himself in front of a giant metal head, about eight feet tall. It was a woman’s head, the color of bronze. The eyes glowed, and the mouth was on a hinge, so it moved, laboriously, when she spoke. She was speaking.
    “Myron Horowitz, you have already told one lie today,” thundered the brazen head.
    “What’s happening?” asked Myron, who vaguely assumed, incorrectly, that he was hallucinating.
    “Tell another,” the voice echoed as it spoke, “and you will face the web of silver.”
    “I didn’t lie, Gloria really sent me.”
    “This is not the incident to which we refer. Earlier today, in a library, you told one lie. Above all else the Nine Unknown Men demand absolute truth.”
    “What’s the web of silver? Are you one of the Nine Unknown Men? Am I wearing ice skates?”
    Myron felt a hand on his shoulder. Only then did he realize that Sukumarika was standing behind him. He had been looking down at his feet. He was wearing not his normal clothes but rather what appeared to be white pajamas, belted at the waist. On his feet were strange boots that looked like skates: to the sole was attached a hook of metal shaped like a sideways U. As soon as he realized how precariously he was balanced on them, he began to wobble.
    Sukumarika was whispering in his ear, “Don’t be disrespectful. The web of silver is a monofilament mesh at the bottom of a deep pit. The monofilament wire is invisible, except when moistened with dew, whereupon it glistens silver in the light. Anyone who disobeys is dropped in the pit, and at the bottom, he passes through the slicing of the web . . .”
    “The experience can be quite straining,” the head thundered again. Myron turned toward it, but it gave no indication, by smirk or wink, that it was joking.
    “O puissant Meridiana,” Sukumarika said, addressing the head for the first time. “Lord Hanusa, whose name is Wrath, is far from us, on secret tasks. Give us your council, most revered one, for before you stands one who claims to be an ancient representative of the lycanthropes.”
    “Actually, I’m not so ancient, I’m only thirteen. My thesis is that I am some kind of chosen one, the first to be born in a thousand thousand years.” Myron, unsteady on his skates, was just the right height to look directly into the head’s glowing eyes, and they seemed to him to blaze dangerously as he talked.
    “Speak of what you want,” Sukumarika hissed in Myron’s ear.
    “I’m looking for Arthur the binturong, and Alice the red panda,” Myron said. “Or even just what to do. Someone wants to kill me and I’m so confused.”
    “First, you must give the test of the riddle!” intoned the brazen head.
    “I must what now?” Myron asked.
    “It means,” Sukumarika hissed again, “you must face the test.”
    “If I lose, do I get the web?”
    “No,” said Sukumarika. “Something worse.”
    “I’m ready,” said Myron, mentally preparing himself.
    A faint whirring sound issued