Chapter 6

After unpacking what was left of their belongings and taking turns showering, Alya and Ilana decided to visit Larry in his room before going to bed, as they found the raging storm a bit scary. Besides, the almost constant thunder was deafeningly loud.

They decided to sit in a beautiful relaxation area located one floor below their rooms, which had a small bar, a cozy seating area, and a flat-screen TV. Larry, Alya, and Ilana settled into a soft armchair. The chairs were so comfortable that they could have stayed there for the rest of the day and night. Larry's eyes focused on a beautifully varnished wooden side table. From there, he looked out the window and wondered how beautiful the view actually was. Ilana agreed with him because now it was ashen and gloomy due to the storm still raging through the area. Alya nodded in agreement and said that when the weather was nice, this region in southern France was very beautiful and rustic.

For a while, it was silent, all three friends lost in thought when Larry yawned.

"I'm exhausted from all the adventure of the past few days, I'm going to bed," he said. The girls could also use a good night's sleep, so they said they were going to bed too, wishing Larry a good night before returning to their own room.

Alya didn't have much rest that night because she had been plagued by very strange dreams for a while. This night was no exception...

She dreamed that she was in the Czech Republic with a school friend, they met in the mountains and walked through a semi-abandoned ghost town. Then they decided to go horseback riding in a coniferous and deciduous forest that resembled the Mastbos in Breda, Netherlands, a fairly large forest consisting of both tall and low coniferous trees as well as deciduous forest. After a while, the two girls wanted to go deeper into the forest, and just as they were about to turn onto a narrow sandy path, a huge she-wolf appeared on the corner, half hidden behind a tree. The beast was as big as a male lion, maybe even bigger. She had bright green eyes and a thick coat in various shades of brown. She had the same eye and hair color as Alya herself. The she-wolf was solidly built, like a lion, and had larger legs, claws, jaws, and teeth than an ordinary wolf.

The she-wolf stared at Alya as if she knew her well, and when they decided to take the path anyway, they noticed that the large beast was following Alya at a distance of about ten meters. Not as if she was hunting her or trying to attack her, but more like a dog following its owner. However, the she-wolf remained mostly hidden in the bushes, but even when Alya wasn't looking or listening, she knew she was still being followed. The horses were strangely not afraid of the huge wolf, and neither was Alya's friend.

So they rode on for a while, trotting and talking until they reached a huge clearing. The two young riders dismounted and walked to the edge of the forest. Although Alya had a bad feeling about it, they walked on and now saw very well that the moss of the clearing was completely littered with animal bones. Alya saw a few human skulls among them. There were so many bones that the ground was no longer visible. They looked pale in the sunlight, and the friends noticed that right in front of them was a kind of totem with a horned skull like that of a buffalo or bison on a painted stick, like the American Indians had. It was a sort of marker for forbidden ground where stepping on this land was taboo. Alya got scared at the sight because she recognized the place from a previous dream, so in response, she dreamed lucidly to remove herself from there. She looked around and saw the she-wolf crouched under some low-hanging branches, staring threateningly at the open mass grave as if she were also afraid of it. Alya noticed that she and the she-wolf had a certain connection, at least that's how it felt. The two had exactly the same emotions and facial expressions at exactly the same moments. The girls quickly got back on their horses and rode away quickly, Alya wanting to get as far away as possible from that eerie place.

After a while, they encountered another rider, with whom Alya and her school friend chatted about what they had just seen. Alya didn't know what the man replied, but she saw the she-wolf glance at her one last time before running back into the forest.

Alya woke up tired, she found that her dream had indeed been scary and weird, but she didn't see it as a nightmare. However, her bed was wet from sweat, and her throat was parched, so she got up to get a glass of water. Then she watched TV downstairs in the lounge area, but when she found that there was nothing interesting on TV, she went back to her room. She accidentally woke up Ilana, who asked what was going on. Alya didn't want to tell her anything yet and decided to go to Larry - followed closely by Ilana.

Larry was standing by the window, gazing out at the raging storm. It felt as if the storm was giving him some kind of energy, but it wasn't real positive energy, nor did he know since when he could draw energy from natural violence. Let alone how or why. But it didn't fit into the whole picture, something was going on or something was about to happen.

Through the thick blanket of clouds, he suddenly saw a few groups of stars. He quickly grabbed pen and paper and made notes because he felt that something strange was going on. The stars were trying to tell him something, but what? He wanted to tell the girls, but Larry thought they were still asleep, so he decided to wait until the next day. He hadn't seen Alya and Ilana standing in his doorway because they didn't feel like asking questions right away when they saw him standing by the window, so they went back to bed.

The next morning, Larry was already downstairs for breakfast when Alya and Ilana woke up. When they noticed that Larry was already up, they quickly got dressed and went downstairs too. Once there, they saw that their friend was already waiting with breakfast.

"Hey, have you noticed how incredibly beautiful this area is?" Ilana remarked, looking out the window. Alya and Larry walked to the window to take a look too.

The sky was clear blue, and the sun was already quite high. Remarkably, the natural beauty of the surroundings had hardly been affected by the storm of the previous day.

"It is indeed beautiful," said Larry, "but hurry up and sit down, otherwise the coffee will get cold."

Just as everyone sat down, Alya told her friends about what she had dreamed that night. Larry, in particular, listened fascinated because he knew a thing or two about dream symbolism and would try to analyze Alya's dream. He tried to connect every detail to ideas, hints, or a certain explanation, but he didn't know everything right away and decided to keep it in the back of his mind for now and focus on the pleasant morning - because according to Larry, a good morning starts with good coffee, a good breakfast, music, and friends with whom you can share everything. Ilana

had given a neutral reaction to the story, but Larry became somewhat suspicious - especially when he saw Alya fidgeting with something in her pocket. He didn't know what it was, and honestly, he didn't want to ask. However, it felt like a kind of bond between them, like the Code but different.

Ilana saw through Larry, so she began to curse in her mind because she also had something in her pocket - a silver pendant in the shape of a Celtic-style wolf's head. Alya had one in bronze, and she knew Ilana had one too, but neither Larry nor Ilana knew anything about her pendant. She preferred to keep it that way until Larry had one too. Larry's pendant was yet to arrive, and Alya thought he also knew that Ilana already had hers. She felt a bit sorry for him being the only one without anything.

During breakfast, an awkward silence prevailed, no one said anything because there was nothing left to tell. The nice thing about the service here was that you could order your breakfast so easily. There wasn't even a real menu, you just asked if they could make scrambled eggs for you, for example, and if they could, they would make it for you. Once everyone had what they wanted, Larry couldn't contain his curiosity any longer and suddenly asked what Alya had in her pocket. Alya didn't answer right away because she didn't really want to come out with it yet. So she avoided Larry's question by answering with a counter-question about whether everyone else had slept well. Ilana mumbled that she had slept well, although it was almost unintelligible because she was still busy chewing on a bite of omelet. Larry decided not to inquire further and said he had slept poorly. Alya didn't ask any further either, since she hadn't answered Larry's question. This led to another long silence until they had all finished eating.

Once finished, Alya and Ilana slathered themselves in sunscreen because they had seen through the window that the sun was shining brightly and that there was a large forest a few kilometers away, where they really wanted to go to burn off some energy. They dashed downstairs, out of the hotel, heading towards the forest. Larry effortlessly kept up with them.

They were soon in the forest, and Alya and Ilana ran and cheered with joy. Larry hid behind a tree when the girls didn't notice. He thought this was a suitable moment to show his friends his wolf form and tease them a bit. While Alya and Ilana were still happily running and jumping, Larry quickly got rid of his clothes and tried to shapeshift for the first time willingly. He concentrated very hard on his goal and eventually it worked. It wasn't even particularly difficult to keep the wolf under control, now that there was nothing to trigger or scare him.

Larry might have been identical to an ordinary gray wolf, but he was still impressive. He was eighty centimeters tall at the shoulder - the maximum size of a wolf. This made him slightly larger than most European wolves, and he had a fairly thick coat with a color pattern of his original dark blond hair color, black-gray, and white. He had penetrating golden eyes and four long, sturdy legs.

To scare the girls a bit, Larry silently stood behind some bushes near them. At the right moment, he jumped out at them and growled loudly. But just as Alya and Ilana turned around, he had disappeared behind the bushes again to play the same prank again. This time, however, the girls had caught him, and they turned around just as Larry emerged. They were all completely surprised now, Alya and Ilana because they now saw Larry in wolf form, and Larry because Alya and Ilana had been too quick for him.

Once everyone had recovered from the surprise, the two girls burst into laughter. Larry didn't laugh along because suddenly he smelled something. He raised his nose and sniffed the air a few times. Then he turned in the direction where the smell was coming from and let out a long howl. Then he lowered his head, the hair on his back stood up, and his lips curled into a fierce growl. The girls first wondered what was going on when suddenly they heard gunshots, not twenty meters away from them. Larry stopped growling and rushed back to where he had left his clothes. Quickly, he hid behind the bushes, transformed back into his human form, and got dressed.

Larry had barely rejoined the others when Martien, the old man from Rochegude they had interviewed the day before, came rushing towards them from the dense undergrowth, with his double-barreled shotgun in his hands.

"Are you guys okay?" he asked, concerned. The three friends nodded and said they were. Martien then continued his story:

"I heard howling coming from here, and I saw you guys walking into the forest when I came back from town. This is dangerous territory! You're in the territory of the werewolf."

"The werewolf?" Ilana and Alya looked at each other questioningly, then they looked at Larry to see if he knew anything about it, but he gestured and shook his head "no".

"You seriously didn't hear that howling? The werewolf was right near you!" said Martien, somewhat surprised.

"We heard it, but we couldn't see it," Alya replied.

"Good thing I was here in time, otherwise that monster would have had you for lunch."

The three didn't say anything at first. They felt hurt by Martien's words. Werewolves aren't monsters, they thought, at least not all of them. Most would never just attack a human unless they were threatened. Alya and Ilana quickly looked at Larry to see if he wasn't going to lose it again. Fortunately, Larry kept himself under control now. They thanked Martien for saving them and said they were off. With those words, they left the forest and returned to their hotel.

Almost strangely, they hadn't seen anything more of Martien. They were talking about whether there was something wrong with that man, and they all agreed. However, their conversation was abruptly interrupted when they heard gunshots again...

"It's coming from the hotel!" Alya exclaimed.

"The place might be under attack, let's hurry there!"

The three wolves rushed back to the hotel. Once at the revolving doors, they stopped and went inside. They looked around, something was clearly wrong, but they didn't immediately notice anything that could indicate an attack. They were shocked when Martien suddenly stood in front of them with his gun in his hands. "What are you doing here?" was the question.

"Uh, we happen to stay here, we have two rooms," Alya replied, in a brave and somewhat bold tone. She, like her friends, didn't trust this whole situation. And certainly not that strange old man.

"Right," Martien laughed, and he walked out of the hotel. Larry saw him get into his car and drive away quickly, and all three smelled that the scent of gunpowder still hung in the air. But Larry also caught another smell: the smell of blood.

Larry sniffed the air and followed the scent to the reception desk, followed closely by Alya and Ilana. Very carefully, Larry leaned over the counter. Alya and Ilana decided to look behind the counter, but they were shocked by what they saw. Ilana let out a scream and stepped

back, and Alya completely shut down, pulled a frightened face, and turned around. What they had seen was the receptionist dead on the floor, in a pool of blood.

Still not entirely conscious, Alya called the police and explained the whole situation haltingly in French. Not much later, they saw a gendarmerie car, and another car from which a detective stepped out. The police examined the crime scene, took photos, placed ribbons, and no one was allowed to leave or enter the hotel anymore. Everyone was questioned. Larry, Alya, and Ilana had to each lay an eyewitness statement and it was made a whole scene, something that strongly resembled an episode from a crime series. It was clear that the friends wouldn't be able to continue their travels for the time being...