Inside, Shara groaned.
“Shara?” Thomas called. “Shara? It’s Thomas. Can you let me in?”
He heard her footsteps unevenly approaching the door. There was a gasp of pain, then her hand was fumbling with the lock.
“Come on, Shara. You can do it,” Thomas whispered.
The locked clicked. Thomas pushed the door open and found Shara doubled over on the other side. She looked at him with large, scared eyes as she sank to her knees on the carpet. She bowed her head and her dark hair hid her face. Thomas closed the door behind him and dropped to his knees beside her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I think …” She rocked and moaned. “I think it’s time. My … my cycle.”
Thomas studied her for a moment. “How long has it been since you last changed?”
“Eight years.” Shara looked up, tears running from her eyes and a sliver of drool hanging from her mouth. “It … hurts. So bad.”
“Eight years,” Thomas repeated. “Do you remember how to make yourself change?”
Shara shook her head. “It isn’t that. I … I don’t think I can,” she said. “The serum. Oh God!” She doubled over again, moaning as the pain wracked her body. Thomas put his arm around her shoulder and pressed her side against his. The spasm passed and Shara raised her head a little. “I think the serum, it’s still in my system, fighting the change. That’s why …” She grunted, her face reddening for a moment as her eyes squeezed shut, forcing out more tears. “Why it hurts so bad. Trying to change, but can’t,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Ah, lass, I’m so sorry,” Thomas said, not knowing what else to say. “Let me get you to the bed. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
He helped Shara to her feet. She was unable to straighten and stand upright and she leaned against him as he walked her to the closest of the two beds in the spacious room. She gripped a night table as Thomas pulled down the covers, then he helped her to sit down, untied her hiking boots and pulled them and her socks off her feet before tucking her legs under the covers. She was crying openly now and clutched at his hand as he stood beside the bed.
“Don’t leave me,” she gasped.
“No,” Thomas said. “I won’t. I’ll just get a chair.” He pulled a wooden chair from its place at a small writing desk and placed it next to Shara’s bed. “How long have you been hurting?”
“It started yesterday evening,” Shara said, then paused and grimaced as another spasm took her. She was beginning to sweat. “I thought it was the food. Meat, then Mexican food. Maybe the water. It kept getting worse, though. Today – ” She stopped suddenly and raised her free hand. “Oh my God.”
Her hand was no longer human. It was a larger-than-average wolf’s paw, covered in black fur that reached past her wrist and feathered off to her human arm.
“It hurts,” Shara said.
Thomas saw black hairs wriggling from the pores of her forehead and cheeks. They appeared, then fell away as her face returned to fully human form.
“Owww!” she shrieked, sitting up suddenly in the bed, pulling her hand free from Thomas’s as she clawed away the covers. Her feet that had moments ago seemed so small to him were now deformed, not wolfish, not human, not even the in-between state, just thick clubs at the end of her legs. Then the lower part of her jeans ripped suddenly, filling the air of the room with a sharp tearing sound as her calves thickened. Thomas saw the bulging muscles of Shara’s lower legs, covered in ropy veins and long, thick black hairs. Even as he watched, though, the hair fell away, the muscles receded and her legs and feet became human again. “It’s going to kill me,” she said, and now the sweat was running down her face.
“No, lass, no,” Thomas soothed, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt. He took her hand again as she lay back on the bed.
“I hurt,” she whispered. “There’s Motrin in my purse. Will you get it?”
Thomas grabbed the black leather bag from the pile of stuff he’d carried in, unzipped it and rummaged around until he found a white plastic bottle. He opened it and shook out two reddish caplets.
“Four,” Shara said.
Reluctantly, Thomas shook out two more and handed them over. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
Shara took the caplets and chewed them before Thomas could get up. He started to say something, but there was a sudden knock on the door, then Adam’s voice asked, “Is everything all right in there? I heard a scream.”
Thomas looked at Shara, but her eyes were closed and her face was contorted in pain as she battled another spasm. Her neck was corded, her cheeks covered in thick black hair and several of her fingers had turned to hairy claws. He decided he better explain what was happening. He opened the door for Adam, noticing that the man had dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt; Kiona followed him without waiting for an invitation.
“What the hell?” Adam asked as he saw Shara on the bed, panting, pale and sweating.
“Her cycle,” Thomas said. “She’s not taken the serum she’s been using these past eight years. Her cycle is due, but the medicine is trying to fight it off.”
“Ooooh!” Shara’s left arm erupted in hair and muscle, then quickly shortened to become the full-fledged leg of a wolf before reverting back to something closer to human but still clawed at the end. She lashed her long nails across her chest, tearing open her shirt and leaving bloody trails across her exposed flesh.
“We have to bind her,” Adam said. He went quickly to the other bed and stripped off the covers. He tore the top sheet into strips and tossed two at Thomas, then grabbed Shara’s right arm and lifted it over her head to tie her wrist to a post of the bed’s headboard. Then he tied her ankles to the footboard. Slowly and gently, Thomas did the same with her left arm and leg.
“Get her out of here,” Shara moaned, her pain-filled eyes on Kiona.
Thomas found Kiona standing near the foot of Shara’s bed, her arms crossed over her breast, a smirk on her face. “Oh, the great Mother of the Pack,” Kiona cooed. “Look at her suffer.”
“Get out!” Thomas lunged at the woman. Kiona jumped back like a cat, but it was the claw of a werewolf that barely missed his face.
Adam grabbed Kiona in a bear hug and squeezed until she stopped struggling. “Will you be all right?” he asked Thomas.
“I’ll be fine,” Thomas said, nodding. “Just get her out of here.”
“Ulrik will be here soon, I expect. Maybe he’ll have morphine or something for her pain.” Adam lifted Kiona’s feet from the floor and carried her out of the room. Thomas closed and locked the bedroom door after them, then returned to his seat beside the bed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the bindings. Shara didn’t answer, only looked at him with sad, watery eyes dazed with agony. “Did the medicine help?” She shrugged slightly, then her face contorted again. Blood was staining her shirt. Thomas looked up and noticed a door in the room. He went to it and found a bathroom, and beyond that an adjoining room. He wet two washcloths and returned to Shara, folding one and holding it to her forehead while he dabbed at the wounds beneath her torn shirt with the other.
“Sometimes I miss my mom,” Shara said. “Most of the time she wasn’t a good mother, but when I was really sick she would sit beside me and …” She paused and fought off another wave of pain, then said, “She’d sing to me.”
Thomas put the bloody cloth on the night table and sat back down. “Would an Irish lullaby do?”
Shara smiled and nodded. Thomas sang softly. Shara kept her eyes on him for several minutes, then turned her face to the ceiling. Over the next hour several more waves of pain washed over her and her body contorted and partially changed shape many times, but eventually she slept, or simply passed out. Her body continued to convulse for a while, then stopped, leaving her with her human face, one human arm, but with wolfish legs and another arm that ended in a thick paw, the entire arm covered in dark hair. Thomas watched over her for another hour, then
felt his head nodding.
He snapped his head up and blinked several times. How will I do this? He thought about calling for Adam and asking for help, but decided against it. Instead, he went to the bedroom door and opened it. He looked out and found nobody in the hallway. He stepped out and looked over the rail to the downstairs, but still didn’t see anybody. There was no sound of movement from anywhere in the house. Thomas scanned the downstairs until he felt reasonably sure he knew where the kitchen should be, then he closed Shara’s door, leaving it unlocked, and hurried down the stairs and toward the kitchen.
There was no coffee made. He quickly rummaged through cabinets and canisters until he found a can of ground coffee and filters for the Mr. Coffee machine. He loaded the machine, then left the kitchen to check the upstairs hallway. There was nobody moving and nothing to hear. Thomas hurried back into the kitchen and found a ceramic cup. He stood over the dripping machine, cup in hand, ready to snatch the pot as soon as there was enough of the aromatic black liquid to fill his cup. His eyes strayed toward a window and he saw Adam Schurz sprawled in the yard, his sandy hair streaked red with blood. The man was struggling to get up.
Thomas ran for the stairs, taking them two and three at a time as he raced back to Shara’s room. He heard Kiona before he made it to the door.
“Mine!” Kiona yelled. “You’ve always held him back. You would deny him his heritage. You would deny me the son that should have been mine. You can’t even – ”
Thomas burst into the room and found Kiona standing over the bed, one wolfish hand poised to strike. Shara’s face was bruised, one eye blackened and nearly swollen shut. Thomas roared and tackled the woman, dragging her to the floor, his body slamming down on hers. He grabbed her by the long black hair and smashed her face into the carpet over and over again, then pulled her to her feet and threw her out of the room. Kiona staggered and fell. By the time she was up again, Thomas was pointing Shara’s .357 revolver at her.
“Come near her again, you filthy bitch, and I’ll blow your head off,” he promised. It’s Ulrik’s house. It’s not my place to kill her. He glanced quickly at Shara, then pulled the hammer on the revolver.
With the grace of a ghost, Kiona rose and slipped out of the room. Thomas slammed the bedroom door and locked it, then went to tend Shara’s new wounds.
Ulrik
Adam Schulz was sitting at the kitchen table, holding an icepack to the back of his head, glowering at Kiona as she ate a heaping plate of spaghetti, oblivious to the man. She paused for a moment, the fork halfway to her mouth and, without turning to face him, said, “I know you’re there, Ulrik. I hear you panting. I smell you. And I smell my son.”
Ulrik seldom wished for his human form during his cycle, but at the moment he wanted desperately to grab Kiona with human hands and shake her. He was contemplating how he would discipline her when Joey changed shape beside him.
“Hi Aunt Kiona,” the boy said. “Is it true my mom’s here?”
Joey started forward and Ulrik stepped between him and the Indian woman who turned and opened her arms for the boy. Ulrik growled deep in his chest, baring his fangs at Kiona. He saw that the action startled her more than she wanted to let on. She turned back to her plate. Ulrik looked up at Adam and whined, looking from the man to Joey and back again.
“She’s here,” Adam said. His eyes flicked between Joey and Ulrik. “She’s very sick. McGrath said it is her cycle fighting against the residue of the serum she’s been taking to hold it off. She has a high fever, convulsions and can’t control her shape. She’s …” he faltered and looked away from Joey. “She’s in a lot of pain.”
“There’s no escaping karma,” Kiona said just before she shoved another forkful of spaghetti into her mouth.
Ulrik ignored the remark, his mind racing as he tried to think what could be done for Shara. I could help her … but not as a wolf.
“Where’s my mom?” Joey asked.
“I … she …” Adam fumbled with the words, looking to Ulrik for help.
“Upstairs,” Kiona said. “Third door on your right, Joey.”
The boy raced from the kitchen. Adam flung his icepack at Kiona, hitting her in the face. She dropped her fork and lunged across the table at him, but despite whatever injury he’d suffered, Adam was faster, and stronger. He grabbed Kiona and slammed her onto the table. The plate of spaghetti flew off the table and shattered on the floor. Adam held Kiona pinned to the table by the throat as he spoke to Ulrik.
“Don’t let the boy find her,” he said. “She’s tied to the bed, half naked, scratched up and out of her mind with pain.” He looked up and met Ulrik’s eyes. “And McGrath is there with her. Anyone can see they … they care for one another. The boy shouldn’t see her yet.”
Ulrik ran from the kitchen, up the stairs and found Joey just as the boy knocked on the bedroom door. A man’s voice asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s me. Joey.”
There was a long pause, then the man’s voice repeated, “Joey?”
Ulrik came to the boy and tried to nudge him away from the door. Joey resisted. Ulrik pushed harder and Joey shoved at the wolf’s shoulders. The door opened and Thomas McGrath filled the doorway.
It had been many years since Ulrik had seen the man. Other than the haggard look – bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair – McGrath had changed very little. He still looked too much like his dead cousin, but Ulrik guessed he couldn’t help that. He watched as McGrath looked from the boy to the wolf.
“I remember you,” Joey said. “Aunt Kiona fought with you. I thought she killed you. Is my mom in there?”
“Aye, lad, she is. She’s very sick, though. She’s sleeping right now.”
“I want to see her.”
McGrath looked back to the wolf. “Ulrik?” he asked. Ulrik nodded his wolf head. McGrath said, “Shara is very sick and not really in the best condition for certain company.” The man looked quickly at Joey and back to Ulrik.
“I want to see my mom!” Joey shouted.
“Joey?” Shara’s voiced called from inside the room. Ulrik could hear the stress and pain in her tone.
“Let me in,” Joey insisted, trying to get around McGrath.
“Wait,” McGrath said, reaching down and putting his hands on Joey’s shoulders. Joey resisted, but McGrath held firm until the boy calmed down and faced him with a pouty look. “I’ll let you come in, lad, but first let me cover your mother and wash her face. She wouldn’t want you to see her all sweaty. Will you give me a minute for that?”
Joey’s brow wrinkled as he contemplated whether or not he was being tricked. Finally, he gave a curt nod.
“Ah, that’s a good lad,” McGrath said. He patted Joey’s shoulder, then closed the door. Inside, Ulrik heard him asking Shara, “Will you be okay?” The concern in his voice ran deep. Shara made no vocal response, but Ulrik heard the rustling of blankets. A couple of minutes later and the door opened again. McGrath invited Joey inside and stood out of the way as the boy and wolf entered.
“Mom!” Joey ran into Shara’s outstretched arms and she hugged him tight.
Ulrik watched. He saw the red rings on Shara’s wrists where she’d been tied to the bedposts. Black wolf hairs coated the pillow and were liberally sprinkled on the blankets and floor. Her face was drawn and pale, with a sheen of perspiration that had reformed as soon as McGrath wiped it away. There were also swollen, purplish marks on her cheeks and around her eyes, as if she’d been hit repeatedly. She burst into fresh tears as she held her son. When her eyes opened they fixed on Ulrik as she looked over Joey’s shoulder. She didn’t speak at first.
“What’s the matter, Mom?” Joey asked without letting go.
“It’s the wolf,” Shara answered. “My body wants to change, but I’ve taken my medicine for so long that I can’t go ahead and do it.”
Ulrik saw that she was fighting with the pain even as she spoke. One bare forearm crossing Joey’s back quickly sprouted and shed a coat of black hair that drift
ed toward the floor, clinging to the boy’s bare back and buttocks on their way down.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” Shara said. “But I’ll be okay. I’m so glad to see you again, baby.” She hugged him hard.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Mom. Aunt Kiona is downstairs.”
“Stay away from her.” Shara’s voice was sharp. She gripped Joey by the shoulders and held him away so she could look in his eyes. “Stay away from her, Joey. She’s a very bad person. Do you understand me?”
“No she’s not,” he argued. “I like Aunt Kiona. She’s nice to me.”
“She is not your aunt,” Shara said. “Stay away from her, Joey. I mean it. Promise me.”
“I don’t want to,” he said, trying hard to look at anything other than his mother’s face.
“Joey, you – ” Shara’s face contorted suddenly and she gasped in pain as she flung herself back onto the pillow. Her back arched. The blankets slipped down to reveal her torn shirt stained with blood. She screamed in agony as her jaw lengthened and her teeth shifted, some becoming long and curved while others withdrew into the gums. Her ears lengthened and slid toward the top of her changing head.
Joey stepped away and bumped into Ulrik. The boy looked around at the wolf, the strange man who had opened the door, his screaming mother, then he ran out of the room, crying. Ulrik listened to his retreating footsteps, noting that the boy was running toward his bedroom instead of back downstairs to Kiona. Down the hall, Joey’s bedroom door slammed shut. Ulrik sat down and lowered his head as McGrath worked to restrain Shara’s hands again.
Shara fought the change for several minutes, then became still. Her head remained that of the wolf-woman. Her neck and shoulders were thick, coated with black wolf hair and heavy muscles. Her ragged shirt had torn even more as her upper torso expanded and was now just strands of rag stretched over her heaving, hairy breasts. She looked at Ulrik, an accusing expression in her eyes though she was too weak to talk. Ulrik left the room, went down the hall and lay before Joey’s closed door.
Ulrik Page 21
