| “ | Try and stop me. That lady was my dang hero. Cousinhood's finest, absolutely unhinged. Rest in chaos.
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” |
Shrike is a character in Paranatural. She is a former elite member of the Cousinhood of Man, Jean Garcia's former mentor, Dave Jones's ex wife and Cody's mother. Currently, she is stuck permanently in her werewolf form; Mayviewers know her as a local legendary figure, dubbed the West Hill Horror.
Appearance[]
| “ | (...) she was loud, her laugh especially, with hair like clouds and eyes that looked like mine.” He opened just one baby blue to glance sideways at Hijack. “Er... at least one eye that looked like mine. I’m pretty sure she wore an eyepatch? And she had this gnarly scar—(...)
— Cody Jones describes his recollection of his mother to Hijack (Chapter 8, Page 47
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” |
She wore an eyepatch.
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Her werewolf form is gargantuan, with fur as pale as the moonlight; only one blue eye remains on the gaunt face, the other sealed by a scar. The ears are pointed, the limbs gangling, and the fingers are long, with razor sharp claws.
Personality[]
She has been described as "absolutely unhinged"[1] and "wild".[2]
- This section is incomplete. You can help out by expanding it.
Background[]
Shrike's werewolf footprints overlapped over the traces Forge left in the mud.
Press reports of sightings of the West Hill Horror.
Shrike used to be the "Cousinhood's finest", the apex of the Raptor Sect in her time. She mentored Jean Garcia in his training to become a member of the Cousinhood of Man. In the past, 13 years prior to the beginning of the story, she formed a "strange alliance"[3] with Agent Summers and the Consortium while she and her pupil were in Mayview. Her mentorship was cut short when she was believed dead by her collaborators.
At some point in the past, at least 12 years prior to the beginning of the story, she married Davy Jones and the couple bore a child, Cody; however, she had to abandon him a few years later, when she became unable to control her curse of lycanthropy.
As a werewolf, she had been rumored to stalk the woods on West Hill's shore for years, the place she had taken as her hunting ground. Evidence of this fact were the enormous footprints found in the forest, the huge gashes on the cabin walls at Camp Lakeside[4], and the devoured fauna that were her meals.[5] Six years before the beginning of the story, she mangled the two cop thralls that Davy sent after her.[6]
Paranatural[]
Chapter 7[]
Jean Garcia goes out at night armed with his old Cousinhood crossbow, as is his wont, to look for a woman he once knew.[7] Later information suggests he has been looking for Shrike in her werewolf form.
In a flashback that takes place 6 years before the beginning of the story, during the camping trip, Garcia brings up his fond memories of Shrike and of his shared past with Richard Spender and Mina Zarei.[8] Shortly thereafter, the group and a young Isabel Guerra hike through the campsite woods at night to follow up on the challenge of debunking the West Hill Horror alleged hoax, suggested to them by the Delinquent Trio. The hidden motive behind the three vampires' dare is that Davy Jones has ordered them to "take care of" of the "loose end" that is the werewolf[9], but since they are too weak to defeat the beast, they have decided to outsource the task to Spender and his friends.
When Garcia and the rest hear a terrifying howl, they recognize it as a werewolf's call, and prepare for the attack. Spender and Isabel take shelter atop the hawk watch[10], but they are surprised by the arrival of a gigantic white werewolf with a sole blue eye, unexplainably transformed even without a full moon. After a brief confrontation, Spender and Isabel manage to escape unharmed thanks to intervention of the Ghost Train, piloted by Sockpuppy; the werewolf is thrown in an arc high hundreds of feet, away from the spectrals. Nonetheless, Garcia is certain that the werewolf was Shrike, and that she survived the fall. Jean is shocked at the implication that Shrike, whom he believed dead, is alive, and that he must have been the one to bite her many years prior, thus infecting his mentor with lycanthropy. He resolves to keep looking for her.
Chapter 8[]
Cody explains to the two halves of Hijack that he has discovered that his mother is still alive[11], despite his father's best efforts to keep him in the dark.[12] While he remembers little of his mom, he is determined to find her and reunite with her. He reveals that he was able to piece the puzzle together thanks to newspaper clippings and to Shrike's old journal, which he found in his dad's vault; the notebook was meant to be a personal compendium of useful details about monsters, but she annotated also details on Cody's growth, and on Garcia's and her own lycanthropy.[13] From her notes, it is clear that after she feigned her death she was able to fight off the werewolf curse for a while, and that it worsened day by day until it become too much to handle, and she started searching for a cure. Cody speculates that the cure was for Garcia; he also mistakenly deduces that Shrike killed her apprentice, and that his mother only turns into a werewolf on full moons. Additionally, he thinks that his mom keeps trying to reach him every full moon, and that it is his dad who is holding her back.
The Cousinhood of Man warns Shred to not repeat Lady Shrike's mistakes.[14]
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Cody Jones - She left him when he was a baby for his own good, due to her lycanthropy getting increasingly hard to control.
- Dave Jones - When they first met, she held him in contempt[15], since she was a successful vampire hunter; however, they later fell in love with each other, as evidenced by the "gross mushy love letters" they exchanged that Davy still saves in his vault to the present day.[16]
Other[]
- Jean Garcia - Jean was her apprentice in the Cousinhood, but her mentorship was abruptly interrupted during Jean's junior year, when she was believed dead. It is known that she hid Jean from the Cousinhood when he was bit by a werewolf, and that after she disappeared she continued to keep an eye on him unbestknown to the kid, writing of him in her journal. According to Cody, Shrike must have really loved her apprentice, enough to sacrifice everything to spare him from the Cousinhood.[17] Jean used to idolize her, and now he holds great fondness for his old mentor, still remembering her lessons with nostalgia. On one episode, Shrike flipped up her eyepatch up and showed him her scar to prove a point.[18]
Abilities[]
General[]
Her weapon of choice in combat were swords.[19] She was the best monster hunter of the Cousinhood in her time. She knew how to fight with stakes, chains, crossbows, firearms, nets, and other weapons, too. [20]
Werewolf[]
Shrike is stuck in her werewolf form even when the moon isn't full. When trasformed, Shrike is unusually large, reaching twice the height of a regular werewolf[21]; nonetheless she is capable of moving in complete silence, despite her massive size.[22] Her howl is described as "a horrible, animal cry, somehow lament and threat together, neither tone defanged by each divergent feeling's depth. Trees shuddered like frostbit bones, leaving in the great wave's wake a silence even light seemed to retreat from."[23]
Trivia[]
- Shrike's journal is titled "NOTES ON MONSTERS + the MURDER THEREOF".[24]
- According to Cody, her handwriting is terrible.[25]
Gallery[]
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)References[]
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 51
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 57
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 67
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 54
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 49
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 60
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 2
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 51
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 61
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 63
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 46
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 61
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 49
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 80
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 63
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 47
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 49
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 51
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 51
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 47
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 65
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 64
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 59
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 47
- ↑ Chapter 8, Page 49