by Sam Hall
“Not what we called it in the old country, but it will do for now.”
“And the thing that attacked me?”
“Yep.”
“Your parents, Shaun, Slade…”
“Yep, all of them. Some, like Nerida, are genetic hybrids. It can be hard to do, most humans are instinctively repelled by us, but when we live in human communities and raise our kids there, that repulsion seems to lessen. There have been instances of humans having children with us. You are the result of that.”
“I’m going to turn into that…thing.”
“That’s why we wanted to wait for the full moon. You either would or wouldn’t, and then we’d know where you fit in the community, what your strengths and weaknesses are.”
“So what, if I didn’t turn, I’d be given my marching orders?”
“No, but like Nerida, you wouldn’t do any of the frontline jobs. The stronger wolves keep the weaker members safe at the Sanctuary.”
“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t have these lovely scars to show for it,” I said, thrusting my wrists at him.
“If you turn, you’ll lose those scars. But that wolf, it wasn’t one of ours. It attacked you because of your value to us. An unattached female is worth more than her weight in gold. He would have taken you through the gate, to his community. I can’t tell you how you’d be treated there, but based on the reports from the others, not well.”
“So, I’m a scrap of meat to be fought over.”
“No one thinks of you like that. If we did, you’d be caged and raped repeatedly, like in some of the fucked up communities. But part of the urgency for us guys in finding you mates comes from a protective urge. Mated wolves emit the same kind of repellent vibe to other wolves as we do to humans. It certainly can be overcome, some sick individuals relish pushing past it and assaulting women, but they are few and far between.”
“So if I’d decided I wanted a relationship with Shaun or Slade, that’s it, everyone else would find me a turn off?”
“For as long as the affection and commitment lasts. That’s part of Phyllis’s paranoia, that at some point one of her pack will start becoming attractive to others. If that happens, she’ll know that the love has died.”
“I don’t want this,” I said, almost in a whisper. I’d thought my words had been drowned out by the sound of the engine, but Brandon’s hand snaked over and took one of mine, giving it a squeeze.
“I know,” he said, and on we drove.
We pulled over at the first petrol station we saw and got some food and drinks and some clothes for me. My stomach was just about turning itself inside out from hunger. Then I remembered Doc’s words, I was supposed to take antibiotics to keep my wounds from getting infected. I looked over the rows of stitches raking down my body in the toilet mirror, and they all appeared healthy and pink. If Brandon knew about the medication, he would turn the car around, no matter what I said. I yanked on the clothes and stuffed the hospital gown in the bin. Feeling better now with a belly full of food and drink, we drove away and kept on driving, further and further from the Sanctuary.
The next major town was five hours away, but there were a few smaller places that had a pub, a petrol station and a shop a little closer. We stopped at one, Gordonvale, three hours later. “Feel like a beer?” Brandon asked, pointing to the pub. I nodded, glad for anything that might make me feel a bit calmer about today. We stepped inside, Buddy at my heels. I worried that they might not let him in, but saw other people’s cattle dogs lazing under tables or under their owner’s feet.
“What’ll it be, love?” the barmaid said on automatic, looking up at us and then flinching slightly before recovering her professional smile.
“Two beers thanks,” Brandon said.
She poured the beers and expertly started chatting to us, obviously pushing herself to be polite. “So, you out here seeing the sights?” I thought back to the endless plains of scrub and wondered what she was talking about.
“No, we’ve come from the mine down the road,” I said.
She frowned at this, “The mine? There’s no such place, not for 200k of here.”
“Yeah, there is,” I insisted. “It’s about five hours away, northwest.”
She shrugged. “I’ve lived here my whole life, never been a mine nearby. Must be a new place. Been bloody quiet about it, haven’t heard anything about hiring.”
I nodded, wanting to end this weird arse conversation. We took a seat away from the other punters in one of the corners. “So, what the hell was that?”
Brandon sat on one of the stools and took a long sip of his drink. “The Sanctuary operates in a weird space.”
“Of course, it does.”
“The way I had it explained to me, is it’s like a membrane. Only those things that have permission can see it or go in or out of it, anyone with some wolf genes. Everyone else just sees dirt and trees.”
“So my place of work plays Jedi mind tricks?”
He grinned, “From what I heard it’s witch mind tricks. Cost a lot of money back in the day.”
“So that’s how they knew I was one of you, when I found the Sanctuary.”
“Ah, no, that was confirmed when you saw the ad.”
“Seriously, magic wanted ads?”
Brandon got up and walked over to one of the other tables and picked up an old newspaper there and passed it to me. “Take a look.”
I opened the classifieds and there it was, over and over, the same offsider job advertised in every space. “So why didn’t they tell me what was going on?”
“Because everyone runs, just like you did. Kelly thought it would be better to wait until we know if people can turn, so there’s less time spent chasing after people and making sure they’re OK. If it turns out you can’t change, and don’t want to stay at Sanctuary, no harm no foul. If you do, well they deal with that when it happens, rather than freaking people out about something that might not happen. I meant what I said, the full moon was never going to hurt you.”
“We should get a room for the night,” I said. I just wanted to climb under the covers and shut out the world right now.
“Ok, one or two.”
“One should be fine.”
The beer had hit me pretty hard, I realised as I got to my feet. I was feeling kinda drunk already, but I guess getting bitten by monster beasts took it out of a girl. The room was dark and smelled musty, but I dropped down on the bed as soon as we got in the door. “Are you OK, Jules?” he asked, but I only heard his words dimly.
“Hot,” I said. “Turn the aircon on, will ya?”
A hand was placed on my forehead, and I knew Brandon had something to say about that but I missed it, dropping almost immediately into sleep.
17
“She’s burning up! She should have taken her damn medicine. I told Kelly to leave the explanations until she was out of the woods.”
“What are we going to do, Doc?”
“Get her back to the hospital. What else can we do? You all need to be prepared to lose her. I’ll put her on the strongest antibiotics I’ve got, but I don’t know if they’ll help much against the lycan strain. If I was in a major hospital with more resources at hand…. Get her in the van. I’ll hook her up and do my best.”
I slowly came back to consciousness, and wished I hadn’t. “Unh!” I mumbled, it came on me so fast. I whimpered ineffectually as it felt like someone was smashing into my skull with fists of iron, my heartbeat sounding like a bass drum being pounded at 100 decibels, and I burned. As my awareness of my body grew, so did the feeling. I was so, so hot. I’m burning! I thought, fear clogging my throat. I needed to get up, to run, but I was made of lead. I cried as all I could do was shift restively. Nothing helped, nothing provided any respite. If anything, moving exacerbated it, sending slashes of pain through my body as I did. But I couldn’t stop. My skin felt like it was surely beginning to crisp and blacken. “Uh…uh..uh..” I felt the hysteria rise, I couldn’t escape this, I couldn’t get
up, leave, kill whoever was doing this to me because this was me. My body had betrayed me, turning on me, threatening to crush my awareness like a bug. My back curved into a harsh bow, the muscles trembling with the effort and unable to stop.
“Fuck! She’s regaining consciousness. Up the tranqs, 20ml!”
“Is that wise? What if this is the change? She’s been here for days, the full moon is coming…”
“She’ll be dead before then if we don’t get her sedated! She’s knocked the fucking line out. You two, hold her down, I don’t care if you bruise her, just keep her steady. I need to get this back in, and I don’t want to rip a hole in her vein.”
“Arrrgh!” I shrieked as bars of iron were wrapped around me. I needed, had to move, to somehow get away from what was going on. My throat felt like it was scraped with glass, but I screamed and screamed. It was the only way, either that or let the pain take me whole. Something cold and hard was shoved in my arm, I tried to yank it from the harsh grip but instead, was forced to fight for breath as I was squeezed inexorably. I panted madly and moaned, then felt the spread of a cold heaviness inside me. I whimpered, not yet willing to believe that there was a way out of this hell, that I might not have to endure this agony.
“She’ll be out in 3…2…”
Somehow, I was standing on a plain of grass. It spread out towards the horizon until it shifted into some bluish coloured hills. I heard a slight hiss and looked down to see the grass ripple as a light breeze swept through it. Where the fuck am I? I heard something move behind me and spun around to see another of those smoke wolf beasts standing before me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said, jerking back from it and ending up on my knees. I scrabbled away but it merely stood there, watching me with curious glowing green eyes. When it became apparent it wasn’t going to chew me up right now, I stopped where I was and took a closer look.
It seemed to have the body of a normal wolf, just much, much bigger. Its fur was indistinct, though. In places, I could see the strands of grey ticked fur clearly, and in others, it looked as if the fur was made of smoke, wisping away and dissipating into the air. It didn’t have the usual greenish yellow eyes of a wolf, instead it regarded me with eyes that seemed little more than glowing lights. Noticing that I was no longer retreating, the wolf settled down onto the ground, eyes on me.
“What the fuck are you?” I whispered.
I didn’t see the wolf’s mouth move but I distinctly heard someone say, You.
“What’s happening! She’s fitting again!”
“Febrile convulsions. She should have taken those fucking drugs! The antibiotics aren’t working, we need some of the little used ones they save for resistant strains, but god knows if they’ll sell them to us, or we can get them in time. There’s every chance she’ll go septic.”
“We need to keep her alive until the full moon. It will take care of it.”
“Forgive my concern, but you don’t know that. I can’t plan her care assuming she’ll turn.”
“She’ll turn. I feel it.”
“Are you sure what you are ‘feeling’ is real? Or is it just wishful thinking? How the hell did the dark one get past the guards anyway? She should have had a guard on her at all times.”
“We haven’t had a serious incursion for years. That’s what convinces me that she’ll turn. They know, we know. Just keep her alive, nature will take care of the rest.”
18
“Hello,” I said to the creature. This was a dream, I’d worked out. Every time I fell into REM sleep, I came back here and the wolf was waiting.
Hello, it replied, sort of. I never caught its lips moving or anything like speech from the wolf, but it replied nonetheless. Its voice sounded kind of hollow and echoey.
“So, I’ve never tried to have a conversation with an animal before. Well, I’ve never expected a response. That usually means you’re crazy. Maybe I am, maybe that’s why I never wake up… Anyway, what are you?”
Tirian, it replied.
“And what’s a Tirian when it’s at home? Or is that your name?”
It tilted its head to look at me and then said again, You.
“OK, I get it, you reckon you’re this hitherto unknown part of me. You’re not human, you don’t look like an actual wolf so…”
I am Tirian.
“Oh great, circular logic. Look what is a Tirian? Any Tirian?”
It chuckled, the fucking smoke monster chuckled. Tirian is… smoke wolf beast? Its green eyes scanned mine, as if pulling my mental image of it directly from my brain. Not accurate.
“I get that, that was my placeholder description until I got an accurate one. You obviously know and are supposed to be part of me, so how about you explain?”
Yes, I will show you. The ’Tirian’ got to its feet and looked over its shoulder meaningfully.
“You want me to follow you?”
No, ride.
“She’s looking better.”
“God almighty… She’s not better, she’s sedated as much as I dare, just short of killing her. She screams whenever she regains consciousness, the entire time. This is why I went into veterinary science, this is bloody cruel. She’s not improving. She’s not going to improve. We need to discuss amputation. Her hands, and one of her feet.”
“That’s not going to happen. The full moon is only days away.”
“I’m not sure if she’ll make it. Can’t anyone force the change on her? If I have to bury this girl because of this… consider it my last act of employment. This is not what I signed up for.”
“I understand. We can’t force the change. The one that could… he’s not on our side of the gate. He would take her with him once she was healed, and we’d never see her again.”
“I get the importance of females to your kind, but seriously, at this point you don’t think this would be a better option than what’s happening now? She’s dying, and we’re letting her.”
“A lifetime of rape and forced child bearing? If we’re wrong and the change doesn’t happen, then we can look at more desperate options. You have your instructions, Doc, follow them.”
I was riding a wolf across a fantastic landscape. It was a blur as we moved, but I saw more things shift as we travelled than was normal. It was like we were bounding from one realm to the next, and each time the wolf’s paws hit the ground there was something different: icy tundra, an old growth forest, a field of sunflowers, a rocky mountainside. Then finally, we stopped. We stood on the crest of a hill, looking down at the valley where a village had been built. It was a small cluster of houses, smoke curling from the chimneys, chickens pecking the soil around them. “Watch,” the Tirian said. As if on fast forward, I saw a rapid flicker of movement, people coming out and going inside the houses, hunters bringing home meat, farmers bringing home crops, children playing, women hanging out the washing. Then it drew dark, and I wasn’t sure if it was because it was night time, or because of what happened next. Great armoured men swept into town, crushing everything in their path. Thankfully I only saw glimpses, but children’s throats were slit, women were raped and men slain, fighting hopelessly with spades and hoes. Afterwards, there was a smoking ruin and a tiny group of tattered people, standing lost in the wreckage. Slowly, I saw the town get rebuilt. Houses grew from shelters, crops were planted, cows and chickens returned, children were born and families grew. Then the sky became dark.
“Oh, no!” I murmured, hand going to my mouth. Another group of men, different armour and with different colouring, came through and did the same. The view of the village sped up until I saw the cycles, rebuild, rape and pillage, rebuild and rape and pillage. Until one day, the raiders who came looked different. Taller, they didn’t wear armour but the skins of wolves, the skulls perched on their heads like helmets. They slashed at the inhabitants with curious spears made from a crystalline material that had been knapped to a series of razor sharp points. They killed the children and the men, and left them lined up in a gruesome tally of their days work, but they
left the sobbing women alive for a different purpose.
I wish this part went faster, the constant grinding rape. I saw flickers of it only, yet it was too much. Mouths stretched in screams as man after man took his fill. I saw blood and semen running down the legs of the women when they staggered to their feet, only to be knocked down again. The women grew big with child, huddling in rudimentary structures against the cold, the men now slower moving, less interested in brutality as they had achieved their goals. They then left en masse, weapons shouldered, disappearing like smoke into the forest beyond, leaving their victims to survive the winter alone. Their limbs became thinner and thinner as their bellies grew, many just resting listlessly for hours inside a primitive lean to, staring glassily into space. One woman struggled to her feet, staggering over to the fire to put more kindling on it, the fire fighting to survive in the whipping wind. The extra wood only smothered the remaining flames, and it died away to a wisp of smoke. She looked at it, completely aghast, unable for the moment to believe this bad luck. She dropped to her knees, her face a mask of despair, the pain so raw there I wanted to shut my eyes and pull away. The Tirian, forgotten, pushed me with its muzzle to pay attention. I didn’t want to watch her die, her pain reminded me of…
Her hands clasped together as she emitted a heartfelt prayer, tears sliding down her cheeks. I didn’t know what she was saying but I watched her lips move rapidly, like she was pouring out her soul to her god. I expected that to be the beginning of the end, for her to slowly starve or freeze to death. But instead, a woman appeared before her, tall and wearing a gown of faded grey green, with long reddish brown hair. She dropped to her knees, her dress unsullied by the ashy sludge and surrounded the woman’s hands with hers. The pregnant woman’s eyes went wide, she babbled something, then moved her hand to her mouth as if to stop more from coming out. It didn’t work, soon she was gesturing to the village, to the other women and then to her belly. The red-haired woman bent down, touched her stomach for a moment and then shook her head. The pregnant woman’s gestures grew wider, more desperate, her fingers stabbing in the direction of the other women, but the redhead shook her head again. Defeated, the pregnant woman’s head dropped down and slowly she collapsed in on herself. The red-haired woman looked the village and the victims over critically, and then tapped her finger to her lip. The only sound I’d heard since we came here, a wolf howl, sounded in the distance. This seemed to give the redhead an idea, and she swept her arms out in a great gesture, turning to make sure she included all of the women in it. Every single one of them shifted into a smoke wolf beast, sorry, a Tirian, though their bellies remained swollen. The Tirians shifted restlessly, taking in the changes for what felt like a second, and then the far off wolf howl called again. Now a pearly white Tirian, the praying woman’s head jerked up, then she yipped at her pack mates, and they left the ruins in a flowing mass.
