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Chapter 25 - War

The water is already running as Ember walks up the stairs with Voigt sat on a chair at the side of the tub. He’s rummaging through a large green pack and setting some tools on a metal tray perched on the edge of the bath.

“Uh, hey,” the black wolf says, stepping closer and nervously eyeing the bent needle laying on a cloth.

“I’m not gonna bite you, pup. Check the temperature and adjust the tap to your liking. I’ve just been filling it with hot.”

Ember walks over and touches the surface of the water with the back of his hand, pulling it back quickly. He twiddles the tap to try and reduce the temperature and looks around for the bubble bath Cal mentioned.

“What are you after?” Voigt asks.

Ember blushes, expecting him to scoff at the idea of using such a thing. “Cal said I could use his … bubble bath stuff.”

“Cupboard over there.” He smiles and returns his attention back to the bag to pull out a few more essential items.

The water instantly starts foaming at the impact of the goopy soap. Voigt, with now a tray of instruments, goes over to the sink to start washing them and getting them sterile.

“So …” Ember starts, constantly checking the water and adjusting the tap appropriately. “Where’d you learn to do medical stuff?”

“The army taught me.” He responds, drying off the tools with a disposable microfibre tissue.

“So are you like … a doctor?” He presses gingerly, knowing the answer already but wanting it to sound casual.

“Sort of, but no,” he answers cryptically.

“Sort of?”

“Well, I was never a doctor, but I’m not anything anymore,” he responds sharply and carries the tray back to the chair and lays it on the bath’s tiling. “Get in so I can stitch you up.”

Ember, struggling to find ways to keep the conversation going, carefully submerges himself to the belly while Voigt slips on a pair of blue surgical gloves. He turns off the water and lays back under a shallow surf.

“I’m going to clean the area first,” the older wolf says, gently parting the matted fur to inspect the wound, “then I’ll numb it and close it.”

“OK,” Ember says quietly, wincing as the dried blood is removed with an alcohol wipe. “Can you tell me about yourself a bit? Since we’re here.”

“You really are a nosey wolf,” Voigt grumbles.

“I’m sorry, I just figured that … since I’m going to be living here a while … we should open up a bit more to each other.”

“Hmmm” the older wolf ruminates on this as he continues to clean the fur. He eventually nods with a sigh, “I guess you make a point.”

“Only if you’re comfortable with it.”

“I’ll never be comfortable talking about my past, pup. I’m a veteran.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I don’t know what it’s like being in a war.”

“I’ve been in two.” He pauses, thinking back on it before going back to his work. “Neither were happy experiences. But I saved a lot of lives, so I’m glad to have been a part of it. Some people wouldn’t still be around today if not for me, which makes me feel better whenever I have to remember those times.”

“That’s really cool of you, Voigt.”

“Hah, ‘cool’,” the grey wolf chuckles, amused by the use of the word. “Well thank you.”

“So what wars were you in?” Ember presses further, hoping he has a foot in the door now.

“You really want to know about my life huh?” Voigt finishes cleaning and starts applying the numbing fluid.

“I’d like to.” The wolf in the tub plays with his fingers under the water, feeling the eddies swirl through his fur every time he moves.

“Alright, but don’t expect it to be a happy tale.”

“I know it’s got a happy ending at least”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well you’re here aren’t you?”

Voigt smiles at this and decides to leave it to be rhetorical. He puts down the cotton with the topical analgesic and prepares his needle and thread.

“During the Second World War, in Germany, my father was a proud soldier and met my mother during some downtime. They got on incredibly well and could barely keep apart despite the efforts of the war. They would write to each other while he served and talk of all the wonderful things they would do when it was all over. But as you know, they lost, my father became a prisoner of war and wasn’t released until 1953. My mother, who was forced to stay at home, stayed single and worked as a teaching assistant. When finally reunited with his love, he married her the next day.

“By this time, Germany had divided into federal and democratic republics at the west and east respectively and it was becoming more difficult to travel between them. Thankfully for them, the French still owned a portion before it became part of Austria. So they both agreed to find a way out of the country and start a family away from the terrible history of their home and the increasingly difficult present times. They eventually managed to emigrate out of the country into France in 1955, where they then travelled to England.

“My father was an engineer and with my mother being a full school teacher by this point, getting citizenship wasn’t too difficult. But it was hard going for them for the following years, what with all the post-war anti-German attitude. In 1960, they were able to afford a child, and had me.”

“I did wonder about your name. I assume they wanted to keep some of their legacy through you.” Ember asks, interested in the story, and glad of the distraction from the odd sensation as his wound is slowly closed.

“It’s not actually my name, Voigt. I let people call me that because the English have a lot of difficulty with it.”

“Really? What’s your real name?”

“Germund Vogt.”

“That doesn’t sound so hard,” Ember says, repeating it.

“Maybe not when you hear it. But the amount of people who would say ‘jer-mund’ bothered me when attempting to read it out. People really accentuate the G in my surname too. So I went with Voigt.”

“I mean, it still has a G in it.”

“Yes but the English are already very comfortable with silent letters. If I tell them it’s silent, they’re happy.”

“I suppose that’s true. So what about you being military?”

“I’m getting there,” Voigt chuckles. “So, I was a bit of a war and history nut as a kid, revelling in my parents stories. I wanted nothing more than to join the army, and at 16, I was finally allowed to sign up.”

“Were your parents bothered that you joined the British army?”

“Not really, my mother resented Hitler for separating her and my father for so long, and by this time they were both English citizens. They were more bothered that I wanted to join the army in the first place, but it soothed them a little knowing I wanted to practice medicine instead of being front-line infantry.”

“Yeah I guess that’s a small victory,” Ember says, keeping his head still as the thread is tied and cut.

“Or so I thought. It wasn’t as glamorous as I expected it to be, the army don’t just train you to be a doctor.” Voigt gets up to throw away the gloves and wash his equipment and then slides the chair over more so they can face each other. “Don’t scratch it, and I’m going to give you a bandage to wear at night.”

“Thanks Voigt.”

“Now, seeing as I’m on a roll, and we still have time.” He relaxes in his chair and continues his story more expressively now he has his hands back. “So, I enlisted in 1976, a week after my birthday, and since you aren’t allowed to be deployed until you’re 18, I spent the next two years doing basic training, and learning how to be a combat medical technician. When I turned 18, I was sent to Northern Ireland to aid in The Troubles where we were sent to sites that were targeted by the IRA to provide medical assistance. Bombings, shootings, that sort of thing.”

“The what?”

“Oh, sorry, you probably don’t know a lot about human history, right?”

“I know a bit, but maybe assume I don’t.” Ember grimaces apologetically.

“Ha ha, ok pup. So, for 30 years or so, Britain was at war with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. This was called The Troubles, and overall had a higher civilian death toll than combatant.”

“That’s awful.”

“It was a brutal, especially for 18 year old me. But then in 1982, we had the Falklands War against the Argentinians which was my first real experience on a battlefield. I was terrified, the whole time. It was the most harrowing two months of my entire life.

“Most of my job was applying first aid and assisting senior nurses, but I would sometimes have to run out onto the front with someone else to ferry injured troops back to the field hospital or a helicopter. I can tell you now, nothing can prepare you for something like that. Running through a field of dead troops, carrying a critically wounded person in the hopes of saving their life and not dying yourself.” Voigt takes a moment to regain himself, trying not to get caught in the web of trauma.

“Once we got them back to base, they’d have a very high chance of survival, but we couldn’t always get to them; and even if we could, there’d be that constant danger of being killed. It was really awful.”

“I’m really sorry Voigt,” Ember says softly, “that’s terrible. Especially being so young too.”

“Yeah, it was a life changing experience. But despite it all, I recovered really well, mostly probably because I was still young and was just glad that I survived. I saved a lot of lives, and I’m proud of that, but it only lessens the sting of those I couldn’t.” Ember nods silently. “After that, we were all brought home and I was able to train to become a paramedic which is a very appealing title because it’s transferable out of the army, unlike CMT. So for the next few years I worked on getting that qualification and then was sent back to help with the NI conflict.

“Then we hit 1990 … Gulf War. But I’ll tell you now, I was not expecting this one to have such a similar body count to that of the Falklands, considering this one lasted over a year. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t always busy. I was definitely more seasoned by this point and had become more accustomed to seeing death, but you can never get used to something like that. It’s just …” Voigt exhales softly, thinking about those days, “every new patient chisels away a part of you and leaves you in that moment, so you never forget it.”

“I didn’t know it would be this painful for you. You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want.”

“It was a long time ago now, pup, but thank you, I’m fine.” He leans on the side of the bath and smiles at the younger wolf. “Anyway, there was this little tribe in Kuwait that we didn’t know at the time was populated by a group of beasts who transformed in the night. Our troops overran them, but only two survived and I was charged with treating their wounds. Two nights later they started to change. One of them died in the process, but the other survived, and in a fit of insanity, attacked me and burst out the building to be mowed down by the security detail.”

“Oh wow, were you badly hurt?”

“No, but because of his injuries, there were enough fluids to transfer and …” Voigt gestures to himself, sitting back in the chair.

“So were werewolves not much of a thing back then?”

“They were, but not as widely known. The Hunter sects were established in the 1700s.”

“I had no idea.”

“To be fair that is mostly the point. I don’t know how long people have been able to transform, but I know it’s a lot older than that. But back then, I only knew them as fairytales.”

“So what happened after you contracted lycanthropy?”

“Well, the army being better informed than me as a whole, knew there was no known cure for it and sent me home so I didn’t become a danger to other military personnel or civilians. I was evacuated immediately and medically discharged with lots of NDAs and other contracts to sign to protect why I was released early. I was prescribed suppressants, so I could try to regain a normal life and sent home, never to return to service. This was early 1991.

“So, being no longer part of the army, and stuck turning into a werewolf every so often when the pills couldn’t hold it back anymore, I became a bit secluded. In that time I busied myself with manual hobbies, woodworking, DIY, gardening etc and working part time in a hospital as a triage nurse. Which is where I met Jessica. She’d been in an accident, nothing major, but I got her better and found out we had some things in common. German, similar interest in books and TV shows, just enough to get the conversations going, you know? We dated, got a place together and married in two years.”

“Woah, you’re married?” Ember asks naively, bolting his ears up.

“No pup, I’m divorced.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“You see, as it turns out, when you’re a werewolf, your sperm carries the gene, and it becomes very dangerous for human women to grow a beast baby inside her. Our child had to be aborted 3 months in, and she left me.”

“That’s really sad.” Ember looks down at the dwindling number of bubbles floating around on the top.

“Yeah, I didn’t take it well. I started … taking it out on guys. Being jealous that they could have a normal family life. Granted, gay guys, rarely have kids of their own, but I wasn’t so morally dysfunctional to start raping straight guys.”

“Well I hope you didn’t rape anyone.”

“No … but I made myself feel like I was by needing to be in full control. I don’t know if it was because I knew my sperm would die uselessly inside them and was glad to waste it, or if I felt I was tormenting men for making them waste their own. My actions were very misguided, but it became a habit.

“Then one week I’d run out of meds and started shifting while fucking this guy. He screamed and escaped me, but not before I scratched him. Thankfully that wasn’t enough to cause it to spread, but word got out what I was and that’s when I was picked up.”

“Wait, how long were you doing this?”

“Nearly ten years.”

“Holy fuck, that’s a long time.”

“My anger dwindled over time, and I started actually enjoying having sex with men. Women were always so much harder to court, at least for me anyway.”

“Oh, heh. I wouldn’t know.”

“Being around so many men growing up, I realised that seeing them naked was more natural to me anyway. I think I still prefer sex with women overall, but boy, men can take it way rougher …”

Ember flusters and looks down at the bubbles, moving an island of them around with a thumb. Voigt smiles down at him, letting his gaze wander down the surface of the water.

“Thanks for telling me. It probably wasn’t easy for you, but I appreciate it.”

Voigt nods and pulls his eyes away with a smile. “It’s alright, pup. It’s troubling to think back on in detail, but on the whole, I’m glad of what became of me. This is better than any retirement home I would have ended up in, not that I’m anywhere near the age for it.”

“Still got lots of life left in you, Voigt.”

“I know, but I didn’t feel like it at the time.”

“How did the master capture you anyway?”

“There’s another story I’m not proud of, but only because I managed to hurt him. He lured me into a hotel, got me to show him I was a werewolf for his pleasure, and collared me. But in the rage of someone collaring me, I flipped the bed and he hit the bedside table.” Ember gasps. “Cracked a rib, but was fine overall. I instantly went from rage to ‘oh no what have I done?’ and helped him up. Cal burst in, pushed me back and took over the situation.”

“Yikes, that could have been really bad.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t, and I’m glad of that. I nursed him back to health here and was just so overwhelmed with guilt that the induction barely took any time. It helped of course that I was already used to a chain of command, and in a way, I was kind of excited to know that my sperm has a real use here,” he laughs. “I’m earning more money selling my cum than I ever did in the army. How sad is that?”

“Pretty sad,” Ember titters.

“Look I’d better go, and you should get yourself all dried off in the shower.” Voigt stands up from the chair and puts the medical bag on it. “Remember, no scratching.”

“Yes sir.” Ember smiles and watches the older wolf carry the chair out of the bathroom, leaving him alone with his thoughts.