by Keri Hudson
“He… I never knew, and that’s the truth! I was passed out when he dragged me out of the sheriff’s office. Then I woke up out here and this monster was towering over me! It probably killed him, or he’s on his way to Seattle by now, how should I know?”
It made perfect sense, as it was born in truth.
“There must be security cameras in the station,” Jessica said, “haven’t you looked at them?”
“There wasn’t time,” one of the deputies said. “The fracas with your boyfriend here at the Gold Dust brought us here. And Deliah Davenport confirmed he was here.”
“I was,” Quinton said, able to speak a bit more clearly. “Rescue Jessica.”
“Then how’d you come to be naked, way out here?”
Jessica already knew from Quinton’s first shift in front of her that a shifter would normally change and have clothes waiting and ready, but in this case no clothes could be anywhere nearby.
He glanced at Red. “He sandbagged me on my way up the mountain. I got away in time, no chance to dress. He followed me, that’s why he’s here. He wasn’t after the beast or after Jessica…”
He didn’t have to say any more. Charlie and the other hunters and the sheriff’s deputies shared glances and an awkward silence.
Jessica said, “When Red came upon us, the creature killed him.”
“And who killed the creature?”
Jessica looked down at the blood on her own hands. “I did, with Red’s gun.” She glanced at the bloodied handgun in the snow nearby. “I’m sure you’ll find it’s licensed to him.”
The men turned their attention to the dead ursine. “What is it?”
“It’s a bear, dummy.”
“That ain’t no bear, Charlie.”
“Maybe it’s a chupacabra.”
“That’s enough, Charlie.”
By that time, police helicopter rotors were getting louder in the distance. The copters flew over the gully, one of the deputies talking into a walkie-talkie. The deputy said to Quinton and Jessica, “We’ll get you two to the hospital, don’t worry.”
Quinton looked up at Jessica, and she down at him. He’d been right all along. Not only was she the love of his life, not only was she truly the person of character and skill beyond any other woman he would ever know, she was the one to turn things around at the decisive moment, just as he’d suspected and hoped even more. They’d saved each other, fought for each other, and fought alongside each other. Nothing would ever separate them again.
The red and blue lights flashed, a single helicopter landing in the gully not far from them. The propellers blew the snowy powder up around it like a cloud, giving it a majestic air: rescue from above.
It was a hospital helicopter, and paramedics came out with two stretchers. They alone managed to carry Jessica and Quinton, draping Quinton in several blankets after laying him down.
He wasn’t accustomed to such treatment, but he knew he was in good hands. He and Jessica would be treated and released and united, and that was all that mattered. The area around Anchorage would be safely under his care, under their care. His parents’ deaths had been avenged at long last, the descendant of their murderer sent to the grave to join his putrid patriarch. There was nothing standing between Quinton and Jessica and the happiness they’d earned.
Or so Quinton hoped as they strapped him onto one side of the helicopter, Jessica onto the other.
The rotors started up again, a cloud of white snow powder kicking up around them before the big bird lifted them up off the mountain. They ascended straight upward, while turning a bit as the copter pulled them away from the mountains.
The worst seemed to be over, the mountain sinking away. It was loud and cold outside that copter, though he was safely strapped in and he knew Jessica was as well on the other side of the cockpit. Neither was about to fall out.
The helicopter gave Quinton a view even he had never had before, never having flown or having any need to fly. But beneath him, Quinton had an even better idea of how great the Chugach was, mighty and majestic. But even that great collection of crags, valley, and peaks were a small suggestion of the entire planet. It was and would always be an amazing museum of deserts, forests, snow-capped mountains and slow-rolling glaciers, wild oceans and rushing rivers. It was teeming with life, and with death. The whole planet itself seemed a living being, his true mother, a breathing creature of joy and despondence, anger and complacency. She needed him, she needed all the lupines, and she needed men and women like Jessica Hume.
She’s right to be so dedicated, he thought, she’s right in every way.
And she’s mine!
Anchorage stretched out in front of them as they flew toward the hospital. It was the place of the normalos, but it had harbored Walt his whole life. Quinton knew there were good people there, good and bad, as in every corner of the globe. There would be shifters in every city, walking among the normalos, and none of them would even know who or what they were casually chatting with.
It’s better that they don’t know, that they never know.
But nestled in that rugged landscape, Anchorage was more to Quinton than just a place to avoid, to resist. It had given him Jessica, after all. And a life in such a place, with her, seemed reasonable enough. They’d had pleasant evenings and rollicking nights there, and thinking of their children, it only seemed right that they not grow up isolated in the mountains. They should have friends, Quinton reflected, not just trips into town for school. They should have community, not merely the shelter of the mountains. I can teach them how to live among the normalos, and Jessica can teach me.
The engine sputtered, rotors fluttering a bit above the helicopter. Quinton’s reverie was shattered to look into the cockpit, open sides and glass front, to reveal the pilot looking around, holding the joystick with one hand and fiddling with the controls with the other. The big metal bird started to spin. Quinton looked out to see the mountains and the city swirling around him, one replacing the other in a quickening cycle until they blended and became as one.
Quinton’s guts turned, his body alive with fear. In his human form, he lacked the fast-healing properties of his lupine self, so he couldn’t break out of the straps without shifting. That would throw the copter into a lopsided crash that would kill everybody on board, himself included.
Quinton had never felt more human, more vulnerable. He was subject to the elements in a way he’d never been before. He was a prisoner of the frail machines and contraptions of the normalos. He’d lived by the simple tools of the hunter: rifle and knife, a strong mountain cabin, and a wooden meat smoker. The motor sled had been his major concession to civilization.
But in the end, the complexities of normalo life seemed to be overwhelming him at long last, once and for all. The copter spun, descending fast, the pilot struggling to keep them aloft and alive.
Quinton flashed on Jessica, strapped down as he was on the other side of the helicopter’s cockpit. She must be terrified, he realized, crying, wishing she’d never come to Alaska. She’s right. I’m so sorry, my love. I wish you’d never come here and made my life complete. I’d live in lonely misery forever if it would restore you to the life you had, the life you deserved.
Then he heard, in the back of his head, No, my love. I don’t regret a thing. If we die, we die together. Up here, down below, in Anchorage or anywhere, what difference does it make? We have each other now and we always will.
Quinton had never had such a clear connection to a normalo that they could communicate on that level, and it would have worried him had she not already proven herself a most extraordinary person and their connection not proven stronger than any connection between any two others, even his own parents.
Smoke started pouring from the engine, the rotors slowing as Anchorage rose up to meet them. The tops of the buildings were close, too close, but the copter avoided them, weaving and tilting as cars honked and swerved out of the way. The black concrete came up fast from below and Quinton coul
d only brace for the landing.
Hold on, Jessica!
I’ll never let go, Quinton.
Closer… closer…
Ka-rrrrunnnnch!
The copter hit the asphalt with terrible force, the crushing conflict of speed and steel, momentum and stillness, man’s folly crashing against itself. The wave passed through Quinton’s body from the bottom up, his body bracing against the impact.
The wreck finally came to rest, the rotors spinning idly above him as the pilot climbed out to free Jessica first.
Good, he thought, good man, get her out of here!
The smoke got thick around the copter, black and heavy, the spinning rotors pushing it down and into Quinton’s face. It burned his eyes and filled his lungs, hot and heavy. He struggled with the straps, but couldn’t find the buckles. He coughed and sputtered, his wounded throat still barely functioning.
Then the flames started licking up out of the engine. Sirens leaked in from the distance, but Quinton knew they’d never get to him in time. The heat was incredible, and Quinton knew he’d be burned alive strapped to that wreckage.
As long as Jessica got out, he thought, and she must have by now. She must have!
Smoke filled his lungs, heat surrounding him, an explosion coming to end him once and for all.
But hands reached out from the black heat as the sirens got louder. The straps loosened over his chest and legs, a man’s strength pulling him off that stretcher and away from the burning copter. His legs were weak, arm draped over the paramedic’s shoulders as he led Quinton away from the burning helicopter, the heat receding as they limped away. Quinton’s burning eyes still could not focus clearly, but he could see that red hair, he knew the pale, pretty face beneath it. Jessica had made it out, she was safe, she would survive. And Quinton would also—
Ka-boooommm!
The helicopter blew up behind them with a deafening boom. The wave of heat and pressure hit Quinton from behind like a great, fiery fist. Both he and the paramedic fell forward, Quinton’s brain suddenly aching as he fell facedown to the ground.
In the corner of his ear, he could hear Jessica scream, “Quinton, no!” He was once again immobile, committed to the Earth, and everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The pastor’s voice rang out over the congregation, most of Anchorage gathered around the First Baptist Church. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the Earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”
Everybody had learned the truth of what had happened, of Quinton’s heroics and Jessica’s great courage, of the legendary love they shared. She was the beauty who killed the beast, Quinton the brave knight errant, just as if it had happened in a storybook. Nobody in Anchorage could stop talking about it, or the sacred day which would be a solemn observation of that love—all they’d found and all they’d lost.
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.” Jessica was gorgeous, everybody had to admit. She’d survived almost unhurt, but she had a softness to her loveliness which reflected everything she’d been through, how her life had changed and would never be the same again.
“God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the Earth melts.”
The words couldn’t help but settle over Jessica’s mind and heart. They reflected the purposes which brought her to Anchorage and the forces which kept her there. She knew of the coming shifter apocalypse, after all, and all that was at stake.
“Come and see what the Lord has done,” the pastor read on, from Psalm 46, “the desolations he has brought on the Earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.”
Deliah Davenport sat in the front row of pews, wiping the tears from her eyes. But she smiled to recall the good times, the past, and to savor a new hope for the future. Even Jessica’s parents came in all the way from Florida, huddled together in love and respect. Everybody treated them with the greatest respect and welcome, like visiting royalty. Jessica had become the Princess of Anchorage, and they were her king and queen. Only a moment of such import would bring luminaries of their status such a long way.
The pastor read on, “He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’”
Quinton stood in his new sheriff’s uniform, next to Jessica in her wedding whites. She was a vision of the angel he’d first seen, a thin veil failing to disguise her radiance. His survival had been a miracle, his election to sheriff by overwhelming demand, his marriage to Jessica a dream come true.
“Do you, Quinton Williams, take this woman, Jessica Hume, to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”
Quinton could hardly believe he was hearing the words, or his own. “I do.” He slipped the gold band around that frail, pale finger, quivering and delicate.
“And do you, Jessica Hume, take this man, Quinton Williams, to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”
Jessica looked up at him, the picture of beauty, inside and out, the woman meant for him.
“I do.” She slipped the bigger ring onto his finger, fumbling just a bit.
The pastor went on, “Is there anybody here who has any reason that these two should not be wed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
Quinton kept his eyes on Jessica. Nobody in Anchorage was going to stand against the famous pair. But there could still be another shifter waiting, even a full ambush and slaughter at the crucial moment of their bond.
A cold silence passed.
But no monstrous outburst interrupted them, no angry declaration of revenge. They were free at long last to love and to lead, a couple sure to be pillars of Anchorage life for generations to come.
“Then, by the power vested in me by the Great State of Alaska, and by the Lord Almighty, I now pronounce you… husband and wife. You may kiss.”
Quinton removed the veil to reveal the face of pure love, her smile telling him everything he needed to know. They kissed, a silent salute to the promise of life and the glory of love. Her lips were soft against his, but her energy was strong, a vibration they shared and they alone.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, never wanting to let go. Their tongues touched, warm and wonderful, her body perfectly matching his. The pastor cleared his throat and they finally pulled apart, his eyes locked on hers.
They turned, joined hands, and walked down the aisle as man and wife, their friends and community on both sides. They walked into the future, their future, the future of Anchorage, of Alaska, of the entire nation and of the entire world.
There were troubling times coming, but on that day God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. They would have a celebration in town that would close off much of downtown, citizens partying in the streets.
They looked out over the rollicking party, all of Anchorage celebrating their union, their love, their presence in their lives. A band played on the corner nearby, double-bass, banjo, guitar, and fiddle. Businesses volunteered their foods and even beers and wines. All of Anchorage was eager to celebrate, and for good reason.
Their new sheriff and his beloved were united, a new vitality brought to the town with the exhibition of the felled beast. People were flying in more and more, staying in the hotels and eating in the restaurants, drinking in the bars and hearing the stories which had spread across the country. They brought in just the prosperity which Jessica had predicted. Together, she and Quinton were a mighty force fo
r renewal, a vision of the future.
Rumors among the tourists persisted of a mysterious creature sometimes found in the mountains, a great wolf of some sort, but nobody could ever be sure. The remains of the ursine inspired all manner of rumor and wonder. But only Quinton and Jessica knew the truth, or would ever know.
Quinton turned to Jessica as they surveyed the festivities. They shared a smile, not needing to speak. But Jessica did take his hand and slowly bring it to her lean, tight belly. She pressed his hand flat against it, her hand over his. She smiled, her eyes glistening, and he knew what she was telling him. He could already feel the energy, sense the future brewing within her.
But he couldn’t help but ask, in a way they’d come to know well.
Is it true?
She nodded, adorable. I’m certain it is, I felt it only this morning.
Quinton felt ready to burst into tears, and at the same time to pull a mighty black spruce out of the ground with his bare hands and then hurl it into space.
I love you so much, Jessica.
And I will always love you, Quinton. I told you I would give you children, and you’ll have everything I can ever give you, everything you will ever want or need.
My angel, you are all I will ever want or need.
They clung to one another and surveyed the kingdom that was theirs, a place where they were both welcomed and revered. Two lost souls had found one another, by luck or fate or necessity, or by the very work of the Earth itself, which had turned just so to throw them together.
In any case, they would stay together, there could be no doubt about that. Some may yet try to stand against them, but they would never come between them, until death would them part. And with a man of Quinton’s particular powers, that wasn’t going to happen for a long, long time.
Until then, they would reign in peace and sire in abundance, and for a long while at least, all would be well. As long as Quinton could look into that face and inspire that loving smile, he knew that it would.
