Revelations

140 58th Street in Sunset Park was one of the most irradiated places in New York, a cyst inside a tumor. This was due to the dark and heavily irradiated clouds that covered that area and some few others. Brooklyn and Manhattan had suffered incalculable damage during the war. Moscow no longer existed, but that was small consolation for any survivors who had had to live with the fact of food poisoning thereafter. It was not the heat that killed the most people during nuclear war - it was the effects of the radiation simply hanging there, desultorily.

The Alpha looked around this area of their operation - all was going according to plan. A light and effeminate hand reached up and over his shoulder and caressed the fur on his shoulders. Instant loathing and instant craving flooded through him. "So Growl the Alpha is, in fact, still alive," said the voice of the hand's owner. The Alpha chuffed, unable to speak any human tongue in this form, which meant that he would never again speak any human language, as he was forever stuck in his werewolf form. The petting continued as the speaker again spoke. "What do you plan on doing about it, my precious?" The Alpha turned his head towards the speaker and growled. "Yes, yes, we all know you as Snarl Alpha... but you are also my precious, are you not?" The werewolf whimpered softly and hung his head in resignation.

A smaller werewolf pulling a cart by made the mistake of staring Snarl in the eye one second too long. Snarl reached out with one arm and choked his smaller lupine subordinate, snapping his neck in the process. Then he brought the body close to himself and proceeded to eat the brain of the dead and twitching werewolf. Work in the warehouse suddenly ramped up as previously curious werewolves and faerie demons found they were behind schedule. (They were not, but a visibly irate Snarl usually put some pep in the step of the irradiated workforce.)

Larger than human sized vats of nauseously toxic and inimical liquids were being placed at some remove from one another and all around the available floor space of the warehouse. What appeared to be some sort of breathing tubes snaked out of all of the vats and onto the floor. From time to time, the liquids in the vats sloshed and heaved - there were all sorts of creatures in these vats, but predominant faerie folk creature was the werewolf.

An army of irradiated werewolves. Back when Snarl could turn into and think like a human, he had found the idea laughable, disdainful. But in his full Alpha form, further protected by all sorts of wonderful armor provided by his longtime... associate, he realized what a wonderful idea he had been missing out on all along. This new world was a hazardous place, even for werewolves. Alphas could survive in this new world, but Alphas could also die in this new world. Finding allies was the key to lengthier survival.

In his human form, Snarl was known simply as Bjorn, a heavily muscled, fabulously wealthy and silently eligible Nordic bachelor who owned several shipping freighters and international shipping companies. And was a hermit. Bjorn had been turned by a herculean specimen of werewolf in the frigid forests of Greenland. Most turnings by werewolves were notoriously painful memories and so he pushed those dim and simpler days back into the deeper recesses of his mind. He know Growl; they had crossed paths several times as centuries had come and gone, not as enemies but certainly not as friends. Growl had reached his Alpha State, a heightened state of maturation for werewolves, much sooner than Snarl, but Snarl was easily his equal in brute strength. And after Snarl's recent irradiated baths, however, he knew he was stronger than Growl. Green tendrils of bioluminescence streaked up and down his luxurious ivory pelt. It took a long time for werewolves to get sick, and an Alpha's healing ability was superfluous to that of many other faerie folk.

As explained to Snarl by his... close associate, he would be enjoying the beneficial effects of the radiation treatment long before it got him sick, by which time, theoretically, his body would have had enough time to either adapt to the radiation or have found a way to fight the side effects of the radiation. Very few illnesses could affect him now. He was just over two hundred years old, approaching the prime of his life in the Alpha State. Instead of sitting down on the throne his intimate ally had provided him with, placed on a raised podium overseeing the large floor space, Snarl flopped in front of the throne, deceptively at ease.

*

"I know that werewolf," Growl told the small crowd of vampires and werewolves immediately around him. "His human name is Bjorn Sveldtstar and he's from Finland or Iceland... one of them places!" When the restrained werewolf had awoken, that was all about it for conversation. Apparently, irradiated werewolves could not even speak the lupine language. Besides which, the beast was trying to bite everyone that came near. Jacqueline got nothing mentally, so Growl rapped the crazed beast on its head and it promptly fell unconscious.

"Growl Alpha, do you not notice something... different about these wolfkin?" Jacqueline asked, making a sweeping motion with her hand that set her ample ivory breasts jiggling. Growl focused and looked around. The wolfkin were still twitching violently as they died, still a threat as their bodies refused to succumb to fatal wounds the mortal trauma to which their brains had already bowed out. So what else-

"Oh, shit!" Growl exclaimed just above a whisper.

"Indeed!" Jacqueline concurred, levitating to his other side, where the irate Nyx was not. "It must be a very strong spell to keep them in their lupine forms after death." She sounded disgusted. "This is a violation of the natural course of things." Growl nodded, completely in agreement. A werewolf's identity was revealed upon death, for a befitting burial and closure with the family. But if they were not changing back to their human forms after death, it was a clarion call for alarm. The White Shade, as Bjorn had been called in ancient times, was out of line and would likely have to be put down. When the eyes of certain werewolves crossed, each knew who was likely stronger or if the balance of power was too fine to delineate superior strength. From the beginning, anytime Growl and Snarl had crossed paths, the former had known, with a single glance, that he was far superior to his younger... "colleague." However, the irradiated monstrosity Snarl Alpha had become, in Growl Alpha eyes, was too close to him in power rankings for Growl to assert his superiority. "You did not even see the vampire to his side."

Growl was genuinely surprised. No, he had not seen... There had been a movement in the air of some sort, the same way how space was dispersed whenever Jacqueline was about to appear out of nowhere. So, there was a way to discern an invisible vampire. He would keep that piece of information to himself, for the moment, and keep his eyes peeled. "You're right. I saw nothing."

Jacqueline glanced at him, wondering. "Well, I'll take care of that abomination when the time comes. Even though I did not see the vamp's face, I caught a glimpse of his hand. I'm certain I know him." She suddenly glanced over her shoulder at her governing council that itched to speak with her and sighed. Humans and their meetings and their need to be debriefed, blah, blah, blah. "There will most certainly be a change in our security after tonight." Growl nodded, also mentally noting that his people's security would have to be beefed up and better armed too. "Guns obviously do not work well against the faerie folk, so, the humans are simply fodder-"

"Until the cavalry comes," Growl finished. Jacqueline nodded. "It seems like even the silver bullets fired at these creatures barely slowed them." Growl picked up a bullet. Fortunately, silver had ceased being a threat to him as time had passed. Unfortunately, he had found out the hard way.