The Night Has Teeth
Read The Night Has Teeth Online
Authors: Kat Kruger
Tags: #urban fantasy, #paranormal, #young adult, #science fiction, #werewolf, #werewolves, #teen, #paris
The Night Has Teeth
Kat Kruger
The Magdeburg Trilogy
Book One
Fierce Ink Press
The Night Has
Teeth
Copyright © 2012 by Kat
Kruger
All rights
reserved
Published by Fierce Ink
Press Co-Op Ltd.
Smashwords edition,
2012
This book is a work of
fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real
places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, locales, and
incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any
resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Allister
Thompson
The author recognizes the
support of:
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
away to other people. If you would like to share this book with
another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
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the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
8. Things Ain’t Like They Used To Be
22. A Girl, A Boy And A Graveyard
27. I Will Follow You Into The Dark
“
The night has teeth. The night has claws, and I have found
them.”
―Eyewitness account of the Wolf
of Magdeburg, 1819
Prologue: Devil’s Playground
O
n my first day of kindergarten, I bit a kid. Hard. In my
defense, he deserved it. During recess he tormented a small dog by
throwing stones at it from behind the long chain-link fence that
encompassed the schoolyard. When the bell rang and we were
corralled back inside, I confronted him about it. I didn’t know
better at the time. All I knew about justice was the kind I’d seen
in Disney movies and on TV. He threw the first punch. What happened
next is a blur in my mind. The only thing I know for sure is that I
bit him. Hard enough that in my memory the first thing that comes
to me is the metallic smell of blood. And, if I’m being honest, the
taste of it. I lost control. Whether it was for seconds or minutes,
I have no idea. I wasn’t just a little boy acting out. A wildness
took control. Something inside me was unleashed that day and left
another boy scarred for life.
After it happened, I just stood there watching
everything unravel around me like a new universe spinning into
existence. Somehow, I sensed the world as I knew it would change
once the stars finally aligned. By the time it was over, the other
kids were crying as the adults worried over the sobbing boy. I
remember feeling confused by the eyes staring at me ― glaring at me
― as though
I
was the one
who had messed up. Their long shadows colluded with each other in
the morning light that spilled into the classroom. My own
silhouette crept across the linoleum floor to linger amidst
patterns of blood. In the mix of scarlet swirls was a single red
handprint that made it look like my shadow had just signed a finger
painting.
My parents, mortified, pulled me out of the public
school system that afternoon. We never talked about that day. Not
that I can recall. They paid someone else to do that. The message I
got was loud and clear: little boys aren’t supposed to bite other
little boys. I was a freak. An anomaly of nature. For years
afterward, that’s how I felt. Like that dark figure of mine was
nipping at my heels, eager to rear its ugly head again. And all I
could do was keep running from it.
I have only vague memories of seeing a child
psychiatrist. For how long, I really couldn’t say. I guess we just
kept talking until she was sure she’d quashed whatever had risen
within me on that brisk September morning. What I can tell you is
that it didn’t happen again. For the rest of my childhood and into
my years as a teenager, it was laid to rest. Or so I thought. I
never imagined that first day of kindergarten would eventually come
back to bite me.
1. Put Me
Back Together
I
’m running late. I
hate
being late.
My parents get credit for that. I was always the kid
who got left behind ― on baseball fields, at music lessons or
whatever other extracurricular activity they enrolled me in to keep
me occupied ― finally to be picked up long after all the other kids
were packed into minivans and SUVs with their brothers and sisters.
My mom and dad’s clocks always ran thirty minutes slower than other
parents’ clocks. By the time I got to third grade, I learned to
deal and joined the ranks of latchkey kids who grow up with an
extra helping of self-reliance. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like
anyone should have called social services or anything. I mean,
they’re not bad parents. It’s just hard to fit me into their
already overbooked lives. I don’t hold it against them. Well, not
any more. Not now while I’m here in Paris, an ocean away from
home.
After my brief stint in the public school system, my
parents must have figured I was suffering from only-child syndrome,
so they made every effort to ensure I was properly socialized. Like
a puppy. Since my second day of kindergarten, I’ve been attending
the Lycée Français de New York, studying in the Bilingual
International Baccalaureate program. In English that basically
means I speak French fluently. And that I’m a geek ― not the chic
kind you see on TV or the math/science savant either. Just the
regular, manga-reading, online-gaming variety who is painfully
awkward in social situations. To fill in the rest of my free time,
my parents enrolled me in as many after-school and weekend programs
as they could find in the hopes that I would eventually find
friends, or at least other kids my age with similar interests.
Problem is, I’ve never been able to fit in. Not now, not ever.
That’s where studying abroad comes into play. For my
last year of high school, I landed a scholarship that my parents
would be crazy to turn down: full tuition and a home-stay with room
and board covered. It was a no-brainer that I’d go. I’d be
completely immersed in the language, thereby further improving my
chances of getting into a university like the Sorbonne. It’s not
like I’ve got anything going for me back in New York. I’ve got no
real friends to speak of, no girlfriend, and I’ve even given up on
most of the enforced hobbies of my earlier childhood. A year abroad
is the perfect opportunity to reinvent my identity — a task that
would be impossible to accomplish in the city where I grew up,
among all the people who grew up with me. The bigger the change,
the greater the distance required. That’s where, more specifically,
the Victor Hugo International School in Paris comes into play.
Clean break. Fresh start. That’s assuming, of course, that I don’t
miss out on life by being late. Somehow I managed to sleep through
the alarm.
I toss the suitcase that I’ve been living out of
for the last week at the foot of my narrow bed and rummage like an
animal for the least wrinkled clothes I can find: jeans and a Green
Day logo T-shirt. It’ll have to do. While trying to put everything
on at the same time, I stumble across the well-decorated flat. From
the antique furniture right down to the ancient-looking wall
hangings, the place has the feel of a museum of world history. The
host I’m staying with is nowhere to be seen. It’s just as well.
She’s nothing close to what I expected. What I imagined was
home-cooked meals and doting attention. After she tried to serve me
steak
tartare
for my
first supper, I discovered to my horror that there’s such a thing
as a raw food diet. We’ve come to a quiet understanding wherein I
get a food allowance in exchange for keeping quiet about the
arrangement. Technically, I am still getting the required three
square meals a day provided by my host.
