Meanwhile, in Europe, a small boy was born. Unfortunately, that didn’t help Woeisme since was she currently was hanging upside down outside Jakob’s kitchen window.
Woeisme didn’t have any tracking ability. Bela was simply a terrible driver and had left a pretty clear trail of destruction in her SUV. Finding it parked in the radish bed outside of Jakob’s house, Woeisme heard voices from inside. Using the “Spider-Man’s Completely Safe Wall Crawling For Kids” play-set she got for her 4th/16th birthday, she scrambled up the side of Jakob’s house, and, with an exaggerated flourish that would send Michael Bay’s heart a-twitter, she dangled upside down outside the kitchen window, listening.
“What do you mean by that?” Woeisme heard her mother say.
“You’re the one,” Jakob said. “You have to push the numbers. I was on an island-“
“No, you weren’t!” Bela angrily interrupted. “You stole Disc 3 of my Lost Season 2 set from my house, ran home, watched it on repeat and sniffed glue for three days. Let it go already!”
There was a brief silence then Jakob slowly began. “I’ve… it’s been … difficult to focus. My were-abilities have been… unpredictable. I’ve gone from werewolf to were-vampire to were-tree to were-Ford Prius to to were-goldfish to were-Joss Whedon.”
“Were-Joss Whedon?” Bella asked, clearly confused.
“Yeah. I was convinced that the only way I’d get mainstream respectability would be a Firefly musical. It took me a few days to-”
“Hey, what the hëll are you doing hanging outside my house!” a voice yelled.
Startled, Woeisme let go of her web-line and landed in a rather undignified heap in the radish bed. She looked up and saw Jakob’s father leaning out a 2nd story window. He wasn’t looking down at her. He was looking straight ahead.
“And what are you doing on my lawn?” he yelled again.
Woeisme turned around. She wished she hadn’t.
A pack of werewolves were standing in the yard. They seemed rather aggravated. The lead werewolf stepped forward and bared his fangs. Suddenly, Woeisme was lifted upwards and found herself face to face with her mother and Jakob, who had ran outside to check on the commotion.
“Woeisme, why-” Bela began.
“We’ve come for your child!” the lead werewolf yelled at Jakob’s dad. “The freak. The shapeshifter! The Potato King wishes to… talk.” And he grinned. It wasn’t pleasant.
From the window, Jakob’s father looked down at his only heir. “Son, I’ve always said you’ll be the man of the house. That day is today. Wheels, don’t fail me now!” And with that, he back his wheelchair away from the window, dumped down to the stairs, out the backdoor, and sped screaming into the night.
Cradling her child in her arms, Bela turned to Jakob. “Well, what are you waiting for! Change into a were-whatever and save us!”
“But I don’t know what I’ll-” he began.
“Just do it!” Bela yelled.
Jakob closed his eyes, concentrated, and suddenly his form began to change shape. He screamed a howl to the heavens and then morphed into … a were-cow.
Jakob the were-cow mooed slightly menacingly. The pack of werewolves began to advance.
“Well, I’m glad I left the house tonight,” Woeisme muttered.
• 
I’m torn between checking my e-mail hourly for my cue and wondreing if I’ll be able to keep up this quality.
Were-Joss Whedon?
The were-cow mooed slightly menacingly?
Brilliant!
Nice! You get the award for coming closest to getting me to laugh out loud while reading this in the office.
BTW, with the “growling menacingly”, does that make Jakob a mad-were-cow?
Cows are hundreds of pounds of muscle. I’d take a were-cow seriously.
Cows are also female, so there could be some extra identity issues there.
Sorry to hijack a thread, but Peter could you possibly post something about the upcoming IDW 10 year book and the Fallen Angel story apparently contained within? Is it brand new? What era does it take place in? etc. Thanks!
It’s an original story that’s designed to be an introduction for newcomers to Bete Noire.
PAD
Yeah, glad people liked it, I tried to take a few ends (that Lost reference was a bit of a mind-bender) and knot it together into some sort of main antagonist (In my head, the werewolf pack work for the Potato King -I wanted to change that line of “The Potato King” into “Our Potato King” but I totally forgot -, and there’s something special about Jakob’s random transformations which yadda yadda yadda. Maybe Edwood is involved too. All of that spun out of a typo and PAD mentioning something about a Potato King/Red King the last chapter).
Also, I think were-cow is funny because … what the heck is a were-cow going to do? Moo? Chew it’s cud while it drools?
My Dad told me once that when he and my uncle were teenagers, my uncle got mad an hit a cow. That broke several of the fingers in his hand.
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The cow apparently didn’t notice being punched.
That reminds me:
.
When i was about twelve or so, i got Very Angry with a mule we’d been riding, after she managed to arrange forme to fall from her back to the ground on *my* back.
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She was tall, even for a mule, and it was a long way down and i literally spent a considerable time trying to remember how to breathe.
.
When i *could* breathe again, i walked over to her, gathered both reins just beyond the end of her nose in one hand, and, as she stood there looking at me like “So?” (If you can imagine a six-foot tall cat with foot-long ears that you just caught on the kitchen counter, that’s the look…), i carefully drew back my other fist, and slugged her flush between the eyes as hard as i could.
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I did think i *had* broken my hand, (i hadn’t) – but one of her ears sort of flopped over (and she may have gotten a little glassy-eyed) … but after that she and i had a perfectly amicable understanding.
Good to know this Tallest Fan, I took more or less the same themes you had, and ran with them in my bit. (Which I sent to Peter a little while ago.)
Udderly brilliant, a smooth mash!!!!:-P