Empire of Wild

by Cherie Dimaline

  A crash from the direction of the fire distracted him, another part of the lodge falling in, and she took advantage of it, placing a small kiss on one knee.

  “There’s nothing more you can do for them here. Let me take you to my car. We’ll go get help.” She slid her hands up his legs to his thighs, then took his hands in her own. He allowed it, even squeezed back against the pressure of her fingers.

  As she stood, she pulled him up, and then they were still for a moment, leaning against each other in the dark of the woods. She held on to his hands for as long as he allowed it, which was another few seconds. Then he backed away.

  “Please, let me carry that.” He held his hand out for her bag and she passed it over.

  “Thanks.”

  Victor was always such a gentleman. But maybe so was the Reverend. She took out her phone and used it as a flashlight to light their steps. The farther they walked, the more she shook. So close, so close…Every part of her sang a song of absence and need. It was terrible to be this close, yet to be this alone. She wanted to drop to her knees again. Only this time, she would take him in her mouth, push her forehead up against his stomach. She would take off her panties and climb him like a fucking tree. She would kiss his beautiful mouth until his lips bled. She would remind him who he really was.

  “Is that it?” he said. A headlight was reflected in the beam from her phone through the trees.

  “That’s it.”

  “A Jeep. I love Jeeps.”

  “So does my husband.”

  “I think I know him,” he said, confused. She picked up his hand and they followed the path into the campsite, surrounded by its circle of pines. She released his hand to push the branches off the roof, unlocked the door and took her bag from him. And then, there he was—this Victor-looking motherfucker with Victor’s tattoos peeking out the top of his T-shirt, leaning against Victor’s Jeep. She dropped the bag.

  “Fuck it.”

  She pressed up against him, resting her head in the crook of his neck, the Creator’s spot. She put her arms around his back and felt all the good curves and angles of her love. She was shaking so bad. But it wasn’t all her. He was shaking too. She looked up into his face and he was staring off into the trees, still not quite Victor but not quite the Reverend either. She picked up his arms and wrapped them around her. When one dropped, she picked up that hand and guided it up under her skirt.

  “Wait…,” he stuttered.

  “No.” She held his fingers against the damp cotton of her underwear, then pushed the fabric out of the way so she could slip his fingers further in. She felt him respond against her hip. Oh God, yes.

  “Wait…” He was breathing hard; she was barely breathing at all.

  She wiggled against his hand, moaned just under his ear. But he was pulling away, pushing her off.

  “No!” He held a trembling hand up in front of him. “Heiser, just wait!”

  21

  REMIND HIM

  Joan turned and there Heiser was, hands in his pants pockets, a hard smirk on his face. She hadn’t noticed the black Town Car parked just up the gravel road. But the Reverend had.

  “So, Joan, you found him after all.” Heiser shook his head slowly. “There is just no keeping you away, is there?” His tie was crooked and the suit jacket was missing. He looked almost dishevelled.

  She stepped in between him and her husband. “Fuck you, Heiser.”

  “But I didn’t expect this.” He pointed back into the woods, shaking his head. The smell of smoke was everywhere. “I really underestimated you.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that fire.”

  He kicked at the ground, still smirking and shaking his head. “Right—you’re totally innocent.”

  “I did not do that. I came here to get my husband.” She pointed behind her. “My husband.”

  “And the lodge just happened to catch on fire right when you show up.”

  “Why don’t you ask Cecile what happened? She’s the one who told me where to come.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” He stepped forward. “And you’re not taking the Reverend anywhere. He is coming with me.”

  “She wasn’t there.” The Reverend stepped around Joan. “Cecile woke us all up. She discovered the fire. And she called Ivy back inside. They…they didn’t make it out.”

  Heiser paced a small circle in his thin-soled shoes. “Okay, okay. Eugene, you come with me. We’ll get you all tucked in and settled. And you,” he pointed at Joan. “You get in your car and you drive away and never trouble the Reverend again. Or there will be consequences.”

  “I can’t,” the Reverend, not quite the Reverend, said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I can’t go with you, Mr. Heiser.” He slumped to the ground and leaned back against the Jeep.

  Joan moved in front of him again, blocking Heiser from making direct eye contact. “Yeah, fuck off, Rogarou.” She said it like a curse uttered in church, half whispered and with a lot of venom.

  Heiser stopped pacing, lifted his chin and seemed to gaze over the treetops.

  “Yeah, I know what you are,” Joan said. “And I know you’ve made him into one too. But you can’t have him back.”

  Heiser laughed so loudly it echoed around the campsite. “Rogarou? Oh, you know everything, do you? Such a smart girl. Smart, smart girl.”

  He came toward them now. “If you know everything, I am surprised you want him back at all.”

  “I saw the picture you sent me. I don’t care what he did while he wasn’t himself.” Joan was growing frantic. She had to get Victor up off the ground and into the Jeep and away from this dangerous creature.

  “The picture? Ah yes, well. A minor thing.” He slid around her so quickly she couldn’t stop him and laid his hand on Victor’s head. “Come now, Wolff!”

  Joan threw herself on Heiser, hitting out wildly as they tumbled to the grass. She couldn’t come this far, be this close and be widowed again. She’d sooner die.

  Strong arms pulled them apart. The Reverend or whatever the hell he was right now pushed Joan behind him and held his arms out to keep Heiser back.

  The man got to his feet, brushed off his pants and straightened his tie. Joan reached into the pocket of her sweater and opened her small blade. Now she was ready to use it.

  Heiser said, “I see you really are not listening anymore, Wolff. Never mind, we’ll soon fix that.”

  “Just get in your car and go back to Germany or wherever the fuck you came from,” Joan hissed. “You know what, before you go, I have a question for you.”

  “Anything.” He smiled wide.

  “Why? That’s my question—just why. Why would you do this to him? To us?”

  “That’s what you want to ask? Really?” He paused, then began to giggle, and was soon doubled over in laughter. “I didn’t do this. That’s what you don’t get. I can’t turn anyone into anything.” He pointed to the sky. “I am not God. Only He decides what creatures to set padding across the Earth. I merely inherited a set of talents.”

  And as he said that, she saw him change, grow taller, grow colder. “Joan, my dear,” he prodded. “Don’t you have another question? One I can answer. How about this one: Whatever happened to your grandmother?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She died, yes?” Heiser lifted his shoulders. “But how did she die?”

  “Shut up. You shut up now.” Rage boiled up her spine.

  “Did she pass away quietly in her bed?” He smiled and clapped his hands together, giving them a congratulatory shake. “Ahh, that’s the dream, isn’t it? To meet your maker surrounded by loved ones. No stress. No violence.”

  He mimicked the horror on her face. “Oh wait, I can tell by your reaction that’s not the case. What happened to your beloved granny, then, Joan? Was she attacked?”

  “Stop it.” It was the Reverend.

  “Was she maybe even murdered?” He lifted a hand to his mouth in fake sho
ck.

  It really had been Heiser. She should have known there was no way a random wolf had attacked Mere. Wolves around the Bay were few and far between.

  “So tell me how it feels to stand so close to her murderer.” He put a finger under his chin, in mock contemplation.

  “It was you, you son of a bitch. Why Mere?”

  “Me? Oh dear me, no.” He laughed again.

  “Stop it now,” the Reverend said, his voice shaking.

  “What’s wrong, Wolff? Why don’t you want me teasing your poor wife?” He clucked his tongue at him. “Okay then, I won’t. Here’s the truth. Joan, it wasn’t me who ripped your poor old grandma to pieces. That’s not my style at all. It was the man you came here to rescue.”

  She stepped back and bumped into the Jeep. “No, that’s not true.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid it is.”

  “Why would he do that?” She looked into her husband’s face. He refused to meet her eyes.

  “Well, you see, a newly minted rogarou is like a big puppy, very hard to control. Sometimes they try to go home. This puppy had a really strong sense of smell and made it back. Lucky for you, but not so lucky for your grandmother, he ran into her before he made it into the house.”

  Joan leaned on the hood, trying very hard to breathe. “I don’t believe you.” He had found her softest spot, her rawest wound. She put her hands over her ears, but that didn’t stop the feeling that she was being invaded. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Don’t you? Doesn’t it make sense?” Heiser clasped his hands behind his back and paced a bit, showing her his ease, his sense of command. “I mean, I found him before anything too drastic happened and I probably could have stopped him, but why?” He shrugged. “The old bird had been kicking up quite a commotion in the community about one of the projects I’m working on. So I just let nature take its course.”

  She looked at the creature wearing her husband’s body. He was slouched in the bones that normally did not slouch, small in the muscles that did not contract that way. He was holding his own shaking hands.

  And she knew in that moment that this creature—whatever he was right now, whatever he had been over the past year—had been capable of it, had ripped Mere apart. Vomit bubbled in her throat and she retched up a mouthful of bile. Once the nausea passed, the rage in her spine spread across her back, into her lungs, into the tremble of her thighs, her calves, into her fingertips cold against the knife in her pocket.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Afraid not.” Heiser’s response was lilting.

  She looked then at the Reverend, this shell of a man she once knew, watched his back curve into a question mark, watched his knees buckle. He crouched there on the balls of his feet, rocking himself, holding his face. “The blood on my hands. The fingernail in my mouth…” His words were slimy with snot and tears.

  In that moment, two different voices reached out from her memory to speak to her. One was Ajean’s, from the day she met the rogarou out on the road. Remind him he is a man under it all. You can do it by making the thing bleed. And the other was Victor’s, from the night he came home with a broken tooth. If you’re gonna fight, then fight like hell. Otherwise you’re just dancing. And nobody ever defied death with a waltz.

  And then she raised her knife, watching the ladder of his ribs expand and contract under his thin shirt as he began to pray. A Catholic prayer from his childhood. “Holy Mary, Mother of God…”

  “Wait now, Joan. Is this really what you want to do?” Heiser took a step toward her.

  Joan was trying to understand, to remember that Victor wasn’t Victor, that he was something else entirely, but her anger was making it difficult to comprehend. She told herself, “It isn’t him. It isn’t him.”

  Her first blow was a slash, cutting him deep and red like a zipper unzipped. That one was for Mere. It was shocking how he opened up. Before she could truly consider it, she raised the knife again and stabbed him, then dropped the knife, her mouth opening in a silent cry. The Reverend had not stirred from his crouch as she struck him, had not cried, but only bled into the grass, filling his wife’s wool socks with sticky red, as Heiser watched. She dropped to her knees beside him and pulled him to her until his head rested in her lap. He was so still. Someone had died. Someone had been killed. The sounds of murder leaked into the woods.

  “Oh, Victor.” She rocked him slowly and kissed his forehead, his nose. She looked up at Heiser through tears and asked, “Why? Why would a rogarou need him?”

  Heiser leaned down to her. “You really are slow, aren’t you? I’m not the rogarou. I am the Wolfsegner.” He held a hand out to her to shake, once more mocking her. “Nice to meet you, finally.”

  “Wolfsegner?”

  She was so intent on Heiser, on her bleeding husband, she didn’t hear Robe stealing up behind them. She didn’t see the rock in his hand. And then the blow came and she folded over Victor into the dark. She didn’t hear Heiser laugh as he walked toward his car, confident that it was he who had killed two birds with one stone. Didn’t hear him say to his driver, “I barely had to aim.”

  22

  LOSING CONTROL

  The ministry tent was filled with candles, like an illuminated belly bloated against the sky. The sound of a thousand small tongues of flame licked the inside of her ears. She was dressed in her wedding gown, standing alone at the bottom of the aisle. She turned in a circle, the ivory layers spinning with the movement.

  “Over here, my girl.”

  At the top of the aisle, in front of the stage, backlit by the illuminated cross, was her grandmother.

  “Mere!” She dropped the bouquet she didn’t realize she was holding, grabbed the front of her skirt and ran. But in that obnoxious dream way, it took hours to get past the first row of chairs, empty of worshippers or guests.

  Mere watched Joan with an indulgent smile, raising her hand to wave her on, her lips shaping words that had no volume. After a while, when Joan made no progress, she shook her head and turned her back on her.

  “Mere, wait!”

  The old woman walked to the side of the stage and began climbing the stairs, lifting one foot onto each step and then the other, turning back once to smile at her granddaughter.

  “Mere, don’t go up there!”

  Mere waved back at her and carried on. When she reached the stage, she moved toward the cross.

  Blood pounded in Joan’s head. Her ears began to ring like church bells.

  “Wait!”

  She yelled it so loud she woke herself up.

  “Oh goodie, you’re back.” The voice was Heiser’s.

  * * *

  Joan was in the front seat of a moving car. She tried to turn toward the voice but not only was she restrained by a seatbelt, her hands were zip-tied and so were her ankles.

  “What’s going on?” She struggled to shake off her grogginess, the bells still knocking together.

  “We’re just going for a little drive,” Heiser said.

  In the driver’s seat was a man she’d never seen before, a dark Native man with shaggy black hair and a gently lined face, a serrated slash healed to keloid on the side of his neck. She swivelled as best she could to glance in the mirror, and finally made eye contact with Heiser, sitting in the back seat behind the driver. He wiggled the fingers of one hand at her.

  “Where’s Victor?”

  “Don’t worry about him,” Heiser answered. “He’s right here beside me, resting for now. We’re going to get him patched up and then he’s going to kill you.”

  “What the fuck?” She was having a hard time putting the pieces together. Outside the trees were a solid wall, the road a black ribbon unfurling in their headlights.

  “You were the one who cut him,” Heiser went on. “If our man here kills you himself, the magic might stick. Also, you won’t be skulking about our tent meetings anymore. As fun as it’s been, Joan, I have to tell you, I won’t miss it. I wanted to take care of you in the park,
but with all the commotion and sirens…”

  She was crying now, the tears running off her chin and into the folds of her neck. Victor was responsible for Mere’s death, her horrible, horrible death.

  “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him. Just as we were doing before you showed up. He’ll be fed and adored and maybe even married.” Heiser was silent for a moment as Joan sobbed. “Yes, I think that’ll be the first order of business—to marry him off. Though I guess since the prime candidate for Mrs. Wolff is dead, we’ll have to look around. What d’you think, Robe? A winter wedding might be nice.”

  “Yes sir.” The driver’s voice was deep and graceless. When he smiled, Joan saw the brown outline of a snapped front tooth.

  “Everything is going to work out just fine, Joan,” Heiser carried on. “Sure, we lost some people, but people are easily replaced. Rogarous, on the other hand? Those don’t just show up on your doorstep every day.”

  “What are you?” she whispered.

  “I told you, I am a Wolfsegner.” She heard pride in his voice.

  “What the fuck is that?” She lifted a shoulder and wiped her face on it.

  He laughed. “Oh, where to begin? In Bavaria, back in the old days, my ancestors were burnt at the stake along with the witches. Like your own people, Joan, we were persecuted for what we were. We are the carriers of wolfssegen.”

  “Wolfssegen?”

  “Charms.” He leaned toward the front seat so that his voice easily cut through the steady ringing in her ears. “We control the wolves.”

  He settled back in his seat. “Back then, wolfsegners were wealthy men, revered, even. We were the ones who could bring prosperity to the right farmer by culling the stock of his rival. A useless power, I thought, until I discovered the rogarou.

  “I’ve come to learn that if you can control the darkest part of a community, you hold the key to the entire thing,” he said. “No excep—”