The Lycan Amulet pt2

The Lycan Amulet

Part 2: Grey Wolf

A few weeks later, back in Florida, Kimberly was sitting in her back yard with her friends, Trish and Wolfie. Kimberly had met them both through an Internet forum devoted to her favorite actor David Hewlett. They had already admired Wolfie’s latest fanfic story based on the movie Iron Man and Trish’s latest photos of her two daughters, Allie and Erin. Kimberly decided it was time to show her friends the artifact she had brought back from Egypt.

She pulled the small piece of enameled bronze out of her pocket and showed it to her friends.
 
“So how old do you think it is?” asked Wolfie.
 
“Well, I don’t actually have a date for it, but the pottery I found it with was from around 2000 BC.” explained Kimberly.

“Do you mind if I have a look?” asked Trish.

“Of course not.” replied Kimberly, handing over the artifact. Trish turned it around in her hand, studying the markings intently.

“That’s interesting, the markings really do look just like gate symbols. This one is the one for the Tau’ri, and I’m sure this one is…”

Kimberly and Wolfie exchanged smiles. They were used to Trish’s tendency to take anything to do with Stargate seriously, as if she believed it was actually real.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to send some pictures of this to Kassandra.” Trish asked politely.

“Oh, you mean the goat farmer girl?” said Kimberly. “Go ahead, but I don’t think she’ll be able to find out anything new.”

Trish routed round in her bag for a few seconds before finding her phone. She took a new pictures from different angles, then started to dial Kassandra.

“While she’s doing that, could I have a quick look?” asked Wolfie, who was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

Kimberly picked up the bronze fragment and placed it into Wolfie’s outstretched hand, face down.

The artifact felt warm in Wolfie’s hand. No, not warm, it felt hot, almost to the point of burning her. She felt the heat bleed into her palm and spread up her arm and onwards. Her skin started to feel itchy and tingly, and she felt strangely dizzy. The next thing Wolfie remembered was the look on Kimberly’s face as she stared down at her. Wolfie tried to ask her what was wrong, but for some reason it came out as a low growl. Puzzled, she scratched behind her ear with her left paw. Hang on a minute, since when did she have paws, and gray fur, and suddenly it occurred to her that she wasn’t human anymore, she was a wolf.

Kimberly looked on in shock as she watched Wolfie transform in front of her eyes. For a few minutes, it seemed that both the human and wolf shapes inhabited the same space. There was nothing gory about it, but it made her brain twist into knots, like looking at one of those pictures that can either be a candle or two faces. Then her friend was gone and all that remained was a large gray wolf. The small brass jewelry fragment had dropped to the floor. When Kimberly picked it up it was surprisingly cool in the hot Florida sunshine. The wolf looked at her and suddenly growled. Kimberly took a couple of steps back, nearly knocking over her chair. Then suddenly, the wolf sat back on its hind legs and tried to scratch the back of it’s ear with it’s paw. Kimberly wondered if the wolf understood what had happened.

For some reason, Trish did not seem to be surprised by the turn of events. She had been on the phone talking to Kassandra, mostly talking in yeses and nos, but Kimberly caught a few words that sounded oddly familiar. Words like amulet, shape shifter, puddle jumper, Area 51. Trish hung up the phone and turned to Kimberly.

“Don’t panic, Kassandra’s coming to pick us up. She knows someone who can help.”

“That’s ok then,” Kimberly let her body slide bonelessly into the waiting garden chair and wondered what on Earth they were going to do.