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Red Moon: Revolution

Chapter 2

It was now approaching two years. Two long years since Trevor McKenzie had returned home from his week-long trip to Russia. It was supposed to have been an adventure to a country that he had spent many years studying and it was an adventure and a nightmare at the same time.

Walking home, down the busy streets of Seattle, Trevor ran his hands through his heavy and thick red hair which had been brown at one point, but that was no longer the case. His hair along with many other things had to be explained to his friends and family with lies.

"Where did that scar come from? Why are you so built suddenly? Jesus! How did you heal so fast, that was a deep cut?" Only a few of the many questions that he had been asked and then answered with carefully planned out stories that would hold up under light scrutiny. Most of it could be blamed on genetics. Trevor's grandfather had red hair and saying that his hair just changed colors due to it was odd, but with the red hair to support it, people accepted it. The scar was blamed on an accident and it was easy to lie about him going out to the gym even though he hadn't needed to in a long time now. So many little details had to be memorized, but that was fine as long as there was never a question about a wolf.

Somehow Trevor had managed to avoid one thing, he hadn't changed once since leaving Russia. Ever since that one night in the hotel that Trevor had no recollection of, he had been especially careful to make sure that no one ever figured out that he was a werewolf now. Luckily he didn't have to do it alone. Every once in a while he would be visited by what would appear to be a stranger, but Trevor's fine-tuned sense of smell told him otherwise. Werewolves regularly checked up on him, he didn't know why, but they respected his wishes to be left out of the loop on what was going on since he simply wanted a normal life again and left him with tips on how to avoid turning at all.

It was a struggle to always keep his temper down and avoid any situation that would get his blood pumping and heart racing, but not impossible. Seattle was a laid back city and the drizzly, year-round weather helped as well. He would sometimes take a few minutes to just sit down and watch the world go by. There was no time for that now as Trevor began to pick his pace after seeing that it was already half past six. HE should have been home ten minutes ago, but some extra paperwork had held him up. He needed to get back and prepare a meal for the friends that he had invited over to the football game with. The Seahawks were in Dallas, hoping to make it to the Super Bowl again.

It was the thought of being able to just settle down and forget about everything for a few hours while staring mindlessly at a pig skin ball that excited Trevor the most. Even if he would never be normal again, he could still feel it every once in a while.

The thought of watching the game with friends kept Trevor distracted enough that when he did come to, he found himself already at his small two story house that sat far from the center of the city in a nice and old neighborhood that was known for being quiet. His neighbors minded their own business, never pried or asked questions and didn't mind when he did get loud like he was expecting tonight.

As Trevor came up to his door which was already unlocked and failing to hold back the noise of people inside hooting at the television, Trevor felt happy and walked in, unaware that those neighbors that minded their own business were more prying than he thought.

"Another fucking day where he did nothing." A tall man who had been hunched over, peering through a pair of binoculars leaned back into his chair, popping his back at the same time. He set down the binoculars on the small nightstand next to him which was covered in cigarette butts. At one point he would have cleaned them off, but that had long since gone.

Another, shorter African American looked up from the recliner he was sitting on and reading a newspaper from. "Relax a bit. This is probably the easiest assignment that has ever been given out in the history of the Inquisition. We keep reporting that he goes about his daily business as usual and command stays happy." It was the same answer he had given to his partner the week before and it would be the same one he would give the next time he complained about having to do nothing but follow a boring person around all day.

"Why are we even doing this, Banks?" The tall man rubbed his bloodshot eyes. "Even if he's a werewolf, he doesn't do anything."

Banks rolled his eyes. Another question he had heard too often. Setting down his story on projected market shares and financing, Banks crossed his hands across his lap and sat up, leaning slightly forward. "We're here in case he does do something."

"You going to report that he's watching football? Might be important."

"Shut it, Adornato." Banks said sternly and then reached down the side of the recliner to grab the small laptop that was there. Once opened he was met with the last thing that was there when he last used the computer. It was a custom email that the Inquisition used and anything that went through it was encrypted to ridiculous proportions. "I am going to report that he has returned to his residence which is currently occupied by three other males." With that, he began to type out the report which would be sent to San Diego which was where the American Inquisition headquarters was located. From there, any report that was considered high priority, would be sent to London.

Slowly the report was typed out, including everything that they observed their target doing. While Banks did agree that it was a large waste of time to watch a werewolf that seemed to have little interest in his own kind, unlike Adornato, he actually read the bio.

Trevor McKenzie. Born October 15, 1985 in San Antonio, Texas. Lived there for 13 years before moving to Spokane, Washington where he continued to live at for the rest of his childhood. He moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington where he earned a bachelor's in Computer Science. The report was mostly boring up until about that faithful trip to Russia where he was then marked a maximum threat werewolf due to an extreme reaction when an attempt to reverse the transformation process went horribly wrong. Now it was imperative that he be watched at all times since it was also known that they weren't the only one's watching him.

On multiple occasions, known locals who were either sympathizers of the werewolves or were themselves werewolves had made brief contact with Trevor. Each instance was recorded and then sent off in the daily report. Each time, a reply came back telling them to carry on normal duties and to avoid any and all contact. Banks was fine with that, he had never dealt with an actual werewolf, he merely worked intelligence. Before he went out to the field, he had worked a desk job for several years. Though, his current position wasn't that different, he just sat in a house instead of an office building. Adornato was the one that actually went out each day at noon.

"Done with your report?" Adornato asked. He was now in the kitchen which really should have been cleaned several months ago and was sifting through the small refrigerator that came with the house. "Wouldn't want for command to get it late because you know, it's all very important."

Banks ignored the sarcastic tone and then sent off the report. A reply usually came back within the hour. Banks had a growing suspicion that the reply was just copied and pasted or possible just sent by a computer since the only thing that changed was the date and time that it was sent off.

Shifting around in his seat which now had a perfect imprint of his rear, Banks was about to drink from his warm, half-empty can of soda when the computer chirped, indicating that he reviewed a reply.

"Maybe they want to know what the score of the game was." Adornato chuckled between bites from a turkey and tomato sandwich he found. "It's 32 to 24 right now for your information. Seahawks might be going to the Super Bowl again." He threw up his hands in mock jazz hands, spilling some crumbs onto the ground.

It was odd to get a reply so fast. Even the reports about meetings with other werewolves usually took about an hour to get replied to. This was highly unusually.

With a slightly shaky hand, Banks opened up the message. Eyes darting back and forth across the screen, he read the short, but to the point message. The blood slowly drained from his face as he read more and more into it.

"Fuck." Banks uttered the words and it was all he had to say to get Adornato's complete attention. It was instantly known that something was going down and it wasn't good.

"No no no no." Adornato spat out and quickly rushed over to see what the message read. "Don't say that." Now his eyes were reading the message and he didn't even get half way through before he knew exactly was going on.

The message explained that the London base was gone along with most of its personnel. All agents in the field were to go into lockdown and all facilities were now on high alert. Along with that, a team was being sent up from San Diego to "deal" with Trevor before he became an asset to the enemy. This was being done all around the world. Even though the Inquisition was hit hard, they planned on hitting back harder.

"They're going to be here tomorrow." Banks shut the laptop shut and set it down with no intention of picking it back up any time soon. "We should clean up since they're going to be using this location."

"They don't expect us to shoot or anything, do they?" Adornato asked. He had some experience shooting a 9mm handgun, but that was on a range where the targets were flimsy sheets of paper with human outlines on them.

"They expect us to do whatever they tell us." The words sank into Adornato and his shoulders slumped. Seeing how much his collegue didn't want to have to fight and how scared he appeared to be, Banks quickly corrected himself. "Though, if they're sending man power up, I doubt we'll do anything of that sort."

Adornato lightened up a bit and took a long hard look at the dump of a house they had been living in. "I guess I'll start in the kitchen." He turned and wandered back to the kitchen, the sandwich still in hand, but forgotten about until it was tossed into the garbage can with a thunk.

Banks sat in his chair that was suddenly not so comfortable anymore. He didn't want to fight either, he had never shot a gun or even held one. Whatever happened, he just hoped it happened quickly and that he was nowhere close by when the bullets started flying.

A knock at the door got both heads to turn. They looked at each other quizzically. No one ever stopped by for any reason.

"That can't be coincidence." Adornato whispered and reached for a nearby drawer where a small hold out gun was stowed. It wasn't much and it sat awkwardly in his hands, but it was something.

Another set of evenly spaced knocks came from the door. They were gentle, but the noise traveled easily through the house.

"Should we answer?" Banks wasn't sure. Protocol dictated that they act natural, as if they belonged there, but it came too soon after receiving the message from command to lockdown and make the house appear abandoned. Orders were beginning to contradict each other and Banks didn't know which orders to follow.

A third set of knocks came from the door, these ones were harder and rattled the hinges slightly. Whoever was on the other side wasn't leaving anytime soon.

"Do something?" Adornato hissed. The barrel of the gun was wavering, but was aimed towards the door.

"Do what?" Banks snapped back in a hushed tone.

"Why don't you open up?" A deep and heavily accented voice came from the door. "This is a nice door and I would hate to ruin it by knocking it down."

"I think we'd rather stay in here." Adornato shouted now that it was apparent that they were known.

"Suit yourselves." The voice replied in a bored tone.

There was silence and for a moment Banks thought that the person had simply left. A jiggle at the door knob casted away any hope of being left alone.

The two of them simply watched as the jiggling became more erratic until with a simply and clean pop, the door knob popped off and hit the floor. It rolled several feet before coming to a stop. A few more seconds of silence and then the door seemed to just pop off its hinges with little to any violent noise that could alert anyone nearby of the break-in in progress.

Adornato didn't even fire his weapon, he was so shocked when he watched the door get set aside by what appeared to be a man in his sixties. He had graying hair that was cropped short, his face was stern, but soft around the edges, giving him a sagely look.

When he gently set the door aside, he took off the expensive scarf that he was wearing around his neck and draped it across his arms before facing the two stunned and entirely harmless Inquisition agents. "Sorry about that." He gestured to the door. "I did warn you."

Able to collect himself for a moment, Banks finally pulled himself out of his chair and faced the mystery man. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"It's quite simple." The mystery man said as he appeared to be smelling the air. Banks didn't blame him, no amount of febreeze was going to cover up the smell of the place. "My name is Erwin Rommel and I need you two to help get the young man next door out of here."

"What do you know about him?" Adornato got his gun back up, aiming it directly at Rommel's head.

Raising an eyebrow at what would be a fatal mistake, Rommel gave a slight chuckle, putting both of the human's on edge. "I know more about him than you've learned in the past year. I can assure you of that."

Both Banks and Adornato gave a quick look at each other, trying to figure out what to do. It was obvious to both of them that the old man was a werewolf, there was no chance that any ordinary person would have been able to so simply lift the door off its hinges like that.

"What... What makes you think we'll help you?" Banks asked slowly, not trying to provoke Rommel. Neither of them had any in-depth training on how to deal with werewolves. They were never meant to make contact, only observe. The gun that Adornato had wasn't armed with silver ammunition either, that was reserved for those who were most at risk of an encounter.

"Just like how you were watching Mr. McKenzie over there." Rommel waved a hand in the general direction of Trevor's home. "I've had people watch you two and they report that neither of you have any strong connections to the Inquisition."

What Rommel said to them wasn't false. It was a job to them. They were just people who, simply by chance, knew someone who had connections to get the job in the first place.

"Now before you go and ask more questions," Rommel cut in right before Banks was about to ask how all of this was known. "I am short on time so I will need an answer. Work for me and we all go home tonight. Refuse and..." Rommel let the silence do all of the talking for him and judging by how the two looked, he had his answer.