I saw, if not the best, the most curious minds of my generation hungry, naked, and mad, looking for that fix when the moon was high and round and yellow as a dead man’s skin. Minds so curious and hungry they did what foolish young men and women have always done, and wandered into the unknown where some returned changed, and some returned no more. Most were unknown to me, and tragically, one was much too dear.
It was for the longest of times, nights filled with magic and joy and unbounded strength, wasn’t it, love? At least for a time. And yet here we lie you and I, in the bowels of Mexico City, you, running your fingers through my hair, and me holding a gun loaded with two silver bullets, and, God be blessed, Emily, safe in your sister’s home. What a long spiral road we took to get to this place. What a precipitous fall. But in the end, we knew, didn’t we, that this day would come? And we would have to pay, after all, spending more of our days as humans and not as the other.
Shhh. Don’t say anything. Just run your fingers through my hair and listen again to the tale of when I first saw you. It was in the woods adjacent to the family’s hunting lodge, where villagers dared not go, and yet, there you were, walking on that fateful, dreadful, wonderful evening. The moon was full, and I was in thrall to the hormones coursing through me. Even then, fur bristling and teeth bared, I knew I could not do what was driving me. You were the most beautiful creature that ever I had seen, dressed in a white silk robe, a cape billowing behind you in the breeze. Glowing as you were in the moonlight, I thought I was seeing a goddess. I watched you quietly from the deep grass as you bent down, picking mushrooms, placing them in the basket you carried, and oh, how I could see the red of your blood flowing through your veins, a ruby river calling to me, stronger than it had ever called before or since.
I have no doubts that had it been anyone else, I would have just leaped and gorged until I could drink or eat no more. How can one resist the thrill of the hunt, knowing that anyone in my path could be mine for the taking? That is how we are driven when the bloodlust is upon us, isn’t it, love? But as you went about your task, looking so pure and innocent and full of life that, even with the bloodlust upon me, I could not bear to bring that vitality to an end even though I was hungry. Oh-so-hungry and the cracks in my soul were crying for relief. I howled loud and clear, wishing to warn you, hoping you would run away, far away, and I could go seek my sustenance elsewhere.
But you, my love, did not run. Or cry. Or beg. Like so many before you had. No, you smiled. And walked. No, not walked—glided, yes glided—toward me, slowly undressing as you approached until, beside me, your chocolate-brown skin so naked, your human body, oh so perfect in the moonlight, you came right up to me and petted my head as if I were the family dog. I heard for the first time your voice like a church bell echoing through the mist.
And those words! “I have dreamed of you, and I am ready.”
Do you remember how I howled a second time, more silently, more happily? I was giddy, no doubt of that. I knew with certainty you were to be mine forever, and I yours.
Then you spoke again, in words as clear and pure as a nightingale’s song. “Do it!”
And I did, biting you deeply on your left breast. I still can hear the ecstatic sigh you made and can see your blood splatter like raindrops. You slumped to the ground, and I ran away, stalking the nearby farms and fields to find a less willing and attractive victim. I found a young man, a boy really, tending his flock and I attacked him with a viciousness novel even for me. God forgive me. Even now, especially now, I can see the frightened look in his eyes and can smell his blood as I tore off chunks of his skin in utter glee.
The next day, I joined the mob looking for revenge, because we are always hunted afterward. We are, after all, human most of the time, with different fragilities and wishes. We came upon a wolf and killed it. Poor, dumb, magnificent, innocent beast.
But that was the next day. After my kill, I returned sated to find you sitting near where I had left you, leaning against a large oak. I lay down beside you while you ran your fingers through my fur, slowly and sensually, much like you are doing now. You looked at me wistfully, murmuring, “I always wondered what form my nahual would take,” tying me to the ancient knowledge of your people.
We stayed that way, you with your hand in my fur and me lying contentedly beside you, until the sun rose, and I transformed painfully back into my human frame. You were still so weak and helpless that I had to help you put on your clothes piece by piece, covering your perfect body again with your white robe, embellished now by blood droplets.
Oh, how slowly you moved, tired from the change that was already growing inside you. I carried your weakened body in my arms to where I had left my clothes, and then dressed in the style of the day, I, a young man of wealth and position, carried you to my hunting lodge from where I would take a rifle and the next day kill a wolf.
From that evening until this sad, sad day, you have been my companion, my partner in life and in the hunt, blood of my blood, light of my soul. I nursed you, caressed you, as your body was wracked with pain, your mind full of sensations never experienced by mere humans. And you, like all our kind, slowly filled with the knowledge that we who are the hunters are the true hunted, that anyone we meet can be our prey, can be our killers.
When next the moon was full, and the change complete, you and I went out hunting together for the first time, as joyous as pups, the bloodlust and the love-lust strong within us, running wild. You should have seen yourself, as beautiful in that frame as you are in human guise. Your pelt golden-red like your hair, sleek and shiny. Oh, how we ran, you in front of me, me barely keeping up with you. What joy! And oh, how your fur glowed in the moonlight. You were so wonderful, so alive at that moment. When we saw the herdsman, you leaped as he stood frozen by the sight, and you tore his neck as if you had practiced your whole life. I never had a meal that tasted so sweet. And then we went forth killing indiscriminately, as happy in our skin as the sea is blue.
May God forgive us.
Of course, the next day, I joined the hunt to find a wolf to pay for our happiness and for our sins. There always must be a reckoning, doesn’t there, my love?
My parents disapproved of my choice of mate, as I fully expected. They were, and are, bigots and snobs, blinded by their wealth and privilege. They accepted you begrudgingly later, only after Diego and then Emily were born.
Forgive me, love, his name just slipped out. Hold me. Hold me. Soon we will be at peace.
I think it was a relief to them that I agreed so readily with my father’s suggestion I take my mestizo woman, as he called you, and oversee the family interests in Mexico City. I have never forgiven them for the disrespect with which they treated you and our children, pure and innocent, when they were born. But in the end, Mexico City was the perfect place for you and me, near to your family and all that the place offered, awash in ancient spirits who still walked the land. It was a magical place in a magical time, rich in the history of our kind. A place where the past is only partly hidden, slowly sinking and rising from the debris of time.
Your mother and father greeted us with open arms, but your sister Juanita, having the second sight, looked at us in disgust and fear, always crossing herself when she saw us. I smile at her look, even now. When the children were born, she was adamant that they be baptized and wear the crucifix necklace she gave them. We had no qualms in doing so—such baubles have no power over us.
I said the words renouncing the devil, and why not? We are all God’s creatures, are we not, living our lives as He made us, or permitted us to be made?
I am glad for Juanita and her superstitions. Emily will be safe in her embrace.
Being the scion of the Garcia family fortune, we lived in style and moved into a spacious house in the aptly named Coyoacán district where, it is said, that nahual in the form of coyotes walk in the mist, snatching young children they meet on the way.
What a time it was. The dances, the parties, and you, so beautiful, truly the envy of every other woman in the city.
Mexico City! Such a perfect place it was for the hunt. Teeming with people, many without families of their own. A feast. When the moon was full and the bloodlust upon us, we moved through the shadows, sleek and quiet, until we came upon a solitary figure or two and pounced and ate until the sun started rising, and we two, our fur covered with blood and gore, made our way back to our casa.
The next morning, the cry of “Nahual!” rose in the streets and we joined our neighbors in hunting down any poor creature we found.
Always the hunter and the hunted.
But even in Mexico City, where the past is so present, and the spirit of the dead lies upon the land, the magic had to end. For us, you and I, love, it came with the birth of Diego and then of Emily. Yes, I will mention his name now. It is time.
How we nurtured them, protected them, kept hidden from them our secret lives, wanting for them a life where they would not be obligated to hunt, and then become the hunted
Do not all parents want for their children a life better than the one they lived?
We succeeded so well for such a long time, that even Juanita ceased her trips to the market for protective elixirs passed down for hundreds of years. Ah, humans, poor things, never know how those preparations cannot harm us or keep us at bay.
They were so beautiful, our children. So strong. And yet, they too had minds so curious and hungry that they did what foolish young men and women always have done and wandered into the unknown.
But why, oh why did they wander so on a night when the moon was full and our bloodlust so strong?
And why, of all the places they could go, did they go where we hunted?
God forgive us but when we came upon them, we saw only the blood moving through their veins calling to us and we did as we do when the bloodlust is upon us and our mind focused just on the joy of the kill. How we leaped and poor beautiful Diego lay on the ground with his throat bitten open, his head almost severed, his life bleeding away in the shadows of Mexico City. Slowly recovering our senses, we saw Emily, her eyes wide with horror, turn and run to your sister’s house for protection. At least we had the sense to not pursue her.
We, the hunters, must pay, mustn’t we? Always. And today is that day. Cry, my love, cry. I will join you. It is the time to mourn and to bring our memories of joy and the weight of our sorrow to an end.
There are two bullets in this gun. I do not know if we need silver when we are in our human frame, but you and I cannot take a chance that we will survive, and rise to kill and kill again when the moon is full, and the sky is red. Or take the chance, no matter how slight, that perhaps one day we might slaughter Emily, as we did Diego, as we mindlessly did with so many other innocent youths.
Farewell, my love. Think of me as I pull the trigger. When I turn the gun on me, I will dream of you dressed in a white silk robe, a cape flowing behind you in the breeze, and glowing in the light of the full moon, your pelt as golden-red as your hair, sleek and shiny.
Running, oh so swiftly and so free.
