James’s Note: A big inspiration for the Witcher Man character is my love of people cheating their way out of no win situations. So, of course, Daniel always thinks he can come up with a clever way out, no matter what. Kind of like that Tony Stark line from avengers. the question is, will his solutions create more problems than they solve?
I knew Calvin from my past encounters with hunters. Hunters are of the world’s immune response. When the supernatural start throwing their weight around too much, people get fed up and strike back. For the most part, it helps keep a balance, but you have to keep an eye on hunters. If you can’t figure out why, ask anyone with an overactive immune system.
Calvin saw me and immediately sliced through the chaos like some kind bullshit cutting laser. In no time, I was standing by the bedside of the dying hunter with everyone standing around me and staring like they were waiting for me to do a trick. Which was, in point of fact, exactly what they were waiting for.
My messenger bag was open on the bed and I was examining the bitten hunter, whom I was told was named Reese. He was delirious from a ludicrously high fever, which was both good news and bad news. It was bad because it meant the virus had spread throughout his entire body, but good because it meant his body was still fighting back. That meant he was still firmly alive. That also meant the crazy shit I had planned would probably work, and hopefully, not get me killed in the process.
Calvin looked at me gravely. “Is there anything you can do for him, Daniel?” he asked, “I know the virus is fatal as a rule, but I thought if anyone can break the rules, it would be you.”
I smiled my best smile at him. “Try to keep that whole breaking the rules thing in mind for the next five minutes or so.” I said as I took Reese’s arm and injected it from my hypodermic needle. He lay there unchanging for almost a minute, then he began to thrash in a truly apocalyptic seizure.
It took all of us, hunters, Witcher Man and Werewolf, to hold him down and keep him from snapping his own spine. Thank God no one tried to put their hand in his mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue. A bite at this point would have screwed my already slim chances of making it through this without a body count.
Every mouth in the room was hanging open as I examined Reese again, his convulsions dieing down. I checked his pulse and eyes, doing a field blood test I had in my bag. When I stood up, Reese was unconscious, but breathing steadily.
“He should be stable for a while now” I said.
“Are you telling me he’s going to be fine? Just like that?” Calvin asked skeptically.
I smiled resignedly, being pretty sure what the next few minutes of my life were going to look like.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not going to be fine. He’s going to be a werewolf. That was a werewolf blood I just gave him.” I kinda wished I had a microphone to drop.
As it turned out, my prediction about my future was pretty much spot on. The “You did what!” was truly deafening and came from all directions, followed shortly by every gun in the place being brandished at someone. They were mostly pointed at me, but I think some of the hunters were confused as to what was going on and just wanted to be included, so were pointing theirs at each other.
Damien looked like he was about to take the Irish position and just beat everyone in sight. My gun remained safely in my holster, my hands held up in the universal sign for “Don’t taze me, bro”. Luckily, I was able to get Cal to let me try explaining before this devolved into a very bloody three stooges routine.
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Gray Matters: The Works of Sharon and James Gray 
Wes, thanks for posting this one – I was curious to see how this episode would turn out. Good one.
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