13 Moons: #2
February 24, 2005

There's a safe house in Baghdad. Quite a few of us gravitate to places like this, where it's easier to disguise our predations. Farouk used to be in the Mukhabarat - Saddam found that having staff that could eat their victims came in handy.

I've got a nice room, steel walls with solidly welded chains. There's a table bolted to the floor with some stains on it that indicate this room's been used for more than just housing transient skin-changers.

Farouk invites me to eat with his family - his daughter-in-law standing in for his wife, the victim of an American cluster bomb in the first days of the war.

"Joseph, my brother, you should stay. I have contacts with the government, and someone with your... talents... could be very useful to them. The Iranians are pushing hard, trying to get a firm grip on the ruling coalition so that when the American dogs leave they can control the oilfields. We need your help."

I say nothing, wipe my pita through the juice the lamb kabobs have left on my plate.

"In'shallah, you will understand what I mean. The Americans are losing their will to fight, and my people are growing stronger." He beckons to his daughter-in-law, who stands next to him meekly. He lifts her veil to show her scarred cheek. "Shrapnel. The infidels shelled her school, claimed a sniper was in one of the buildings. 3 of her students died. My son, her husband, he died when the Kurds attacked his unit in Mosul." Her eyes are empty, dull. She used to be pretty, I can tell. If her eyes had any life in them, she would be still, despite the scar tissue. "The Americans and the Iranians are fighting over the body of my homeland, and we cannot let either one win."

"Farouk, I sympathize. You have welcomed me into your home, a penniless traveller, one that suffers the same affliction as you, and I am an ungrateful wretch, but I cannot."

Farouk's face darkens as I speak, then breaks into a smile. "My brother, forgive me. This is a reunion, a meal of brotherhood. I have shamed you, by asking of you what you cannot give." He waves his hand and his daughter-in-law - why can't I remember her name? - retreats to the kitchen, then returns with iced fruit and a bottle of wine. Farouk notices me staring at the wine and grins. He pulls the cork, sticks his finger in the neck of the bottle and flicks a drop on the floor. "The prophet said a good Muslim should not drink a drop of wine. I am reasonably certain he spoke of that drop there." The wine is good, sweeter than I normally prefer, but it goes well with the fruit.

After we eat, we retire to the roof and smoke, scattered gunfire to the south and east staccatto counterpoint to the relaxed discussion.

"I do not understand, Joseph, why you do not control the beast as the rest of us do."

"I can't give in to it any more, Farouk - to control it, I have to feed it, and I can't do that any more." Unbidden, memories of my last visit with Farouk come to my mind - running through Iranian trenches, tearing into the cadres of young boys lined up for their next human wave attack, some of them not even holding rifles, just clutching papers with Koranic verses on them, their lips speechlessly cascading first prayers to Allah the All-Merciful and then blood as Farouk and I attacked. I shudder. "It weighs too much, I can't bear to remember any more."

"Come, brother." Farouk pulls me up, embraces me. "You should get ready to sleep."

February 25, 2005

I can't get the smell of Farouk's daughter-in-law off me. She came to my cell last night, locked the door as my change started. It came as no surprise that she was one of us, and we changed together. She was in heat, and I could no more refuse her than I could stop the moon from changing. In the morning, she dressed without a word, refusing to make eye contact. Farouk saw me out - I know he knows what we did, but he says nothing. Is he hoping she's pregnant? That he'll have help in his fight for a regime that's dead and rotting already?

Leaving Farouk's I am stopped by American soldiers. The headscarf makes me look like a native, and I am slammed against a humvee and barraged by questions. Who am I? Where am I going? What was I doing, leaving the house of a Ba'athist? Farouk has provided me with ID cards - according to them, I am a German reporter. I didn't ask what happened to the reporter that had them before me. The Americans push me around but ultimately let me go. The people on the street look at me with something approaching respect. If they knew I was an American, or that I was a lycanthrope, I'd likely find myself facedown with my throat cut.

I've got a little cash now - the advantage of knowing someone that helped stash Saddam's money. Time to move along, though.