Free Red Hood: The Hunt by Erik Schubach

being a little faster, stronger, and able to heal.
    In his rage, he attacked the people of the village in his wolf form and found that if they survived his bite, his curse was shared with them.  He could control them, being the Alpha, the power over men that he sought.  So he went about trying to spread his curse through every man woman and child in the world.
    He found great joy in learning when they transformed in the moonlight, they were mindless beasts, and he was the only one who maintained his intelligence.  Just as it should be, they were cattle to him, dumb animals to begin with, so he took sadistic pleasure in watching them as mindless killing machines.
    Either the old gods or nature spirits took exception to this unnatural evil consuming the world and decided there needed to be a balance... parity.  So they enchanted the red stained cloak of the innocent who fell to a blade of silver, and that blade itself.
    The cloak called out to the world, to find the nearest innocent woman.  Rania answered the call and donned the cloak.  The power arced through her, giving her what Marcus had sought out.  Immortality and power without the curse of the wolf.  Rania became the first Red Hood, with the speed, strength, senses of the wolves... all of their attributes without the drawbacks.
    And because of the knife that sacrificed the first innocent, silver became the bane of the werewolves, the one thing that could end their lives by unraveling the curse in their bodies.
    Where the world had countless werewolves being created, the gods or spirits put on the earth one individual to balance the scale.  But as silver and the Red Hood can kill the wolves, so too can the wolves kill the Red Hood.  Then the cloak would call out to another to take up the mantle of the Red Hood.
    From what has been gathered through centuries of research and studying the rituals of the sacrifice, and the talismans of power, is that once the Red Hood kills Marcus, the wolf curse will be released and all infected will be free.  The only thing not resolved is the repetition of five in all the writings.  There was something about 'five' that was never explained.  It was speculated that it was possibly the five talismans of power used in the binding.

Chapter 6 – Breakfast
    Maireni finished staring off into space wistfully. “It is hoped that once the curse of the wolf is broken, so too would be the curse on the Red Hood.”
    I tilted my head at her as she shrugged, seeking my eyes for my reaction.  I said, “Your abilities don't seem like a curse to me.”  I grinned and wrinkled my nose. “Except maybe the enhanced sense of smell.”
    She smiled sadly then said in a soft voice, “To watch those you love succumb to the ravages of time over and over as you remain static, unchanging, never sharing their fate. It is a curse beyond all others.  It steals a little of your soul each time you have to endure it.”
    I hadn't really thought of that, the emotional aspects of it, and the true pain I could see in her eyes told me I would never want to have to endure it myself.  I instinctively reached a hand out and cupped her cheek again to console her.  She sort of rubbed the bottom of her jaw against my hand as she closed her eyes and growled contentedly again.  I smiled at being able to elicit this response and give her some measure of consolation.
    Then I thought about everything as she pulled reluctantly away from my touch.  “You think Marcus is here?”  She nodded with a predatory smile, showing her long canines again.  Good lord, I could almost see the joy the anticipation of ending the curse of the wolf was giving her.
    I prompted, “How do you know he's here, have you tracked him?”  Then I locked eyes with her, letting my unasked question hang in the air... was Marcus the wolf I had watched kill my family?
    She read that in my eyes and said instead, “There will be time to discuss that, but first I have shared my tale, now you