by Wen Spencer
Cameron was watching him, concern plain on his face.
"I'll---I'll keep it in mind." Seth was glad his voice didn't break. "Thanks."
33: Elise
Elise was going to hell.
She just knew it.
There was a long line of people who were going to send her there. There was the Wolf King who would tear her head off for taking Seth to Boston instead of somehow getting him back to New York City. (How she was supposed to do this with someone that could toss pickup trucks around, she didn't know.) There was her Grandmother Marion, who would beat her for getting involved with the wolves in the first place. Her cousins were going to kill her for putting Decker at risk. And Decker...
Decker wasn't going blame her. He was just going to stop waking up. He'd done it once before. His furnace had failed last winter and she'd had to break into his sleeping chamber to get him out of the house long enough for the boiler to be replaced. She'd thought it was just the cold that made him lethargic. Lately, though, she could barely get him out of the house to feed. He'd slowly gotten quieter and reluctant to do anything.
Decker had been at a laundry with the puppy. He'd been talkative and cooperative on the phone. Obviously the puppy had made him happy for the first time in a long time. Maybe even since her grandfather had died.
As they drove across Massachusetts, it dawned on her that Decker had been her only friend since she'd been assigned to Boston. He was the only person that she saw on a near daily basis. He'd been utterly dependable when it came to helping her hunt down and kill monsters. She never had to worry that he'd do everything possible to keep her safe. She'd discounted it all because he was the family's pet vampire. The truth was, he was a handsome, intelligent, and charming man, totally able to hold a conversation while looking at her. A highly embarrassing episode proved this was true even when she was naked. (Yes, she was covered in mud but that wouldn't faze most men. In fact, it would probably make things worse.)
The Decker she knew as a child wasn't the same as the one she found when she returned to Boston. He was like a brilliant light that was slowly dying. How do you tell if it's truly fading or if it's just your eyes?
She'd accidently given Decker something to love and now the wolves were going to take it away. Seth was going to drag his newly found brother back to New York where he would be safe within the Wolf King's Castle. Decker was going to be heartbroken. It was going to break him at last.
It was horrible to know that something was irreplaceable in your life only after you'd lost it.
* * *
It was like some nightmarish disaster moving at glacial speed. They'd left Albany after breakfast. It was a three-hour drive from Albany to Cambridge. They'd arrive before long before sunset. Decker wouldn't have a chance to say goodbye to Joshua.
She drove just under the speed limit watching the clock on her dashboard tick off the day. Sunset was at five-thirty. If she could delay the wolves a few hours, Decker might be awake before they took Joshua.
Despite her delays (one stop for gas, twice to use the restroom) they arrived before noon.
"How about lunch first?" she suggested. "Joshua is probably still asleep if he's keeping Decker's hours."
Seth closed his eyes and concentrated. "Yeah, he's asleep. Let's go through a drive thru."
Elise was hoping someplace sit down and slow service, but she'd take any delay.
Seth volunteered to fetch food from the McDonald's on Massachusetts Avenue since it didn't have a drive thru. He came back with five large bags of food.
"I got some for my brother," Seth explained as he handed one of the bags to Cabot. "Newborns are always hungry."
Elise noted that the prince had chosen the most possessive way he could to indicate Joshua.
"He's at the vampire's?" Cabot cried as she turned onto Garfield Street.
"Decker's house is warded," Elise snapped. "A Wicker wouldn't be able to spawn a construct into it."
There was a dumpster in Decker's driveway. She stared at it in confusion. Where did that come from? She backed up and went looking for a legal parking space. The nearest was two blocks away.
There was a pair of flamingos in the yard, wading through the dead leaves. There was also a new mailbox and house letters and a welcome mat. The coco fiber rug had little dog prints surrounding the words "Wipe Your Paws." There were new curtains on all the downstairs windows, shielding the view into the house. The doorbell was still broken.
"Ilya's asleep." Seth pointed up to the tower room. "Upstairs."
She found her front door key and let them in.
The house was freaking spotless. The living room was not only cleared of all the rubbish, it was also freshly painted in a rich moss green. The wood floors gleamed. The house no longer smelled of dusty old newspaper. Pine scented the air.
"We used to come and stand on the sidewalk," Cabot whispered. "To see where the vampire lived. This isn't how I imagined it. I thought there'd be coffins and bats."
Seth bounded up the stairs. Elise went after him, feeling sick in her stomach. If Joshua had transformed Decker's life this much in such a short time, it was worse than she thought.
At the bedroom door, Seth paused and laughed.
The room was emptied, scrubbed clean, and painted. Joshua was sprawled face down on a queen-sized airbed, covered in sheets and blankets, with a ginger tabby kitten sound asleep on top of him. By his head were graph paper and Post-it notes detailing out an elaborate plan he was making with Decker.
Close beside the bed was an old leather-bound book: Les Trois Mousquetaires. Decker had been sitting and reading after Joshua fell asleep.
I'm so sorry, Decker.
34: Joshua
"Joshua. Hey!" Someone patted him on the head. "Come on, wake up."
He yawned, rubbed his eyes, turned his head and looked at his alarm clock. It read eleven-fifty-eight. Last time he remembered, it was seven in the morning. "Oh geez, I just got to sleep!"
Sunlight was seeping through the curtains. He started to pull his blanket over his head to go back to sleep when several things filtered in. First was that Trouble was pinning down the blanket and pulling hard would launch the kitten across the room like an orange nerf ball. Second, that the voice belonged to Elise. She was a crazy woman with many, many weapons, none of them off limits for making him aware of how pissed off he was making her by ignoring her.
Third, was she wasn't alone.
Trouble squeaked in surprise as he was launched across the room.
Showing amazing reflexes, the teenaged stranger caught the kitten before Trouble hit a wall.
"Ow! Ow!" the boy cried as the kitten latched on with teeth and claws.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Joshua tried to spring to his feet but the blanket wrapped around his legs and he went face down. "Oh damn."
Talk about great first impressions. Who the hell were these guys?
Joshua untangled his legs and went to rescue Trouble---or the boy holding the kitten. It was slightly unclear which one needed to be saved. "Sorry about that."
He pried Trouble from the teen's hand and it was like touching the Green. The kitten let go of the stranger's hand and climbed Joshua's arm with needle-sharp claws.
"Ow, ow, ow, Trouble!" As the kitten stood on his shoulder and hissed at the stranger, Joshua touched the boy's wrist again. Green.
He placed his hand on the boy's chest.
...he stood in a dapple forest, the sunlight shafting down through leaves far overhead...
Joshua lifted his hand. Put it back.
...ferns grew green and lush and there was a trickle of water someplace close....
He lifted his hand again. Put it back.
.... a dark beast moved in the shadows...
He jerked back to hide behind Elise. "Oh my God, Elise! They're werewolves!"
Elise pressed her hands to her face. "Yes, they're werewolves. You're a werewolf too. Remember? This is the Prince of Boston, Seth Tatterskein, and his cousin, Thane
Cabot."
"Holy shit," he breathed. Why were they here?
The prince lifted up a McDonald's bag. "We brought breakfast."
Somehow Joshua doubted it was going to be that simple.
* * *
Last year for homecoming, he had a serious crush on Judi Miller. He'd made the mistake of telling three of his best friends he was planning on asking her out to the dance. In his defense, he'd told them in order to ask advice on how to approach her. Most of the girls in their grade, he'd known since kindergarten. The phrase "familiarity breeds contempt" worked on both sides of the possible relationship. Judi had moved into the area when they were sophomores.
Mark tuned out the discussion because he was having a text fight with his own girlfriend. George wanted to know logistics---how was Joshua going to "take" a girl to the dance when he couldn't drive? Joshua honestly didn't see the problem since Judi drove a red Mustang. It turned out that there were dozens of weird traditions centering around the gifting of flowers, meeting the parents and taking pictures that Joshua hadn't been aware of. Lance said nothing but occasionally looked seriously pained by the discussion.
It turned out Lance knew that Judi was a lesbian because he'd caught her making out with his sister.
Joshua ate the Big Mac meals (Seth bought him three for some reason) lost in a horrible wave of déjà vu.
Cabot seemed fascinated by the house. He kept opening doors and peering at what was behind them. Since some of the doors triggered avalanches of Decker's belongings, the conversation kept getting derailed with unburying the Thane.
Seth wanted to know about Joshua's SAT scores, what clubs he belonged to, if he'd been an officer in any of the clubs. That was what started the déjà vu feeling. Seth was stuck on logistics related to school---but to what end Joshua couldn't figure out.
Elise was acting like she had a lesbian sister.
"Why---why are you asking me about my high school? Shouldn't we be talking about the barn? The wolf that attacked me? Daphne? Why was she there? Who was the wolf?"
The werewolves glanced at Elise.
"We know most of that," Elise admitted slowly. "The wolf that changed you was one of the Wolf King's Thanes. He and Cabot were sent to your school to find you. They'd split up. Samuels went to the barn, Cabot to Daphne's house. The witches that were part of Daphne's coven---she was a witch---nearly killed Cabot."
"Wait---wait---wait." He was completely right. It was one of those conversations. "Me? They went to my school to find me? Why?"
"Because you're my brother," Seth said.
"What?" Joshua said.
"Because you're my brother," Seth repeated.
Joshua turned to Elise. "What?"
"You were adopted."
"You're my brother," Seth said again, like it was the sanest thing in the world.
Which it wasn't.
"And my cousin," Cabot added.
Joshua sputtered for a minute as his entire world was rewritten. He'd asked his parents hundreds of times if he was adopted. They'd always said no. He didn't want to believe that they'd lied his whole life but it had been impossible to ignore the he was the only short person in his family.
Speaking of which, both Seth and Cabot towered over him too.
"How the hell did I end up so short?" Joshua asked. "Was my mother a midget or something?"
"She was short but not that short. You probably weren't fed enough meat as a youngling." Cabot opened the big hall closet full of eBay items. "He has a Partridge Family lunchbox. Why does a three-hundred-year-old vampire have a lunchbox?"
"Hey!" Joshua leapt to rescue the lunchbox. "That's the eBay stuff. Those are going for a hundred dollars. Don't mess it up!"
Elise winced again.
Joshua carefully put the lunchbox back into the closet. "If I eat a lot of meat now, will I get taller?"
Seth glanced to Cabot, who shrugged. "Maybe. Normally we do have a growth spurts after being changed, but we usually go through the ritual at thirteen."
"Ritual?" Joshua asked. "There's a ritual?" If there was, he was still missing a lot of his memories.
"It's like getting married," Cabot said. "You can do the whole three-hour Catholic wedding or you can go down to the justice of the peace."
"What?" Joshua cried.
"What he means is," Seth said, "the bite is the only necessary part of the change. We've made it more elaborate. Think bar mitzvah."
"We're Jewish?"
Elise rubbed at her face. "We woke him up and dropped a mountain on him. It's going to take a while to sink in."
"It would help if people would just tell me straight out instead of talk around the issue. I mean, if the girl is a lesbian, just tell me instead of saying I shouldn't get my hopes up."
"What?" they all asked.
He turned to Elise. "What are you not telling me?"
"They want to take you to New York City," she said, "to live with the Wolf King."
He was out the back door before he even realized that he was going to bolt.
* * *
Joshua had spent most his life running from bullies. He'd gotten very good at it. Mapping escape routes was essential and he did it without thought. He was out the back, up the garage wall, across its roof and into the neighboring yard with a high fence in a flat out run.
Any escape plan was always weighted by the seriousness of the beating that the bully was probably going to deal out.
Being chased by the girl's lacrosse team because you walked into the wrong locker room? (Yes, reading while walking had its dangers.) It depended on if they grabbed their sticks or not. No? Take the beating in the most private place you can reach. Being chased by the three Roberts brothers and their five friends, all of whom will probably end up in jail on manslaughter charges someday? Run like body organs were at risk---because they probably were.
Joshua ran as he tried to figure out the risk level here. He wasn't even sure why he was running. He was fairly sure they didn't want to hurt him. Seth was being friendly in a "dog at the shelter who really wanted to be adopted" kind of way. Which was kind of sad. Cabot? Cabot seemed to be there because Seth was there in a bored older sibling kind of way. When the older sibling was Bethy, that kind of setup usually ended badly for everyone. So Cabot was the dangerous one.
And since Joshua was a werewolf now, Cabot could beat the snot out of him without fear of doing lasting harm.
Avoid Cabot at all cost.
Like now.
Joshua jerked to a halt, caught Cabot as the man reached for him, used Cabot's momentum and flung him with everything Joshua could summon.
Cabot went impressively airborne.
He came down a wolf.
"Oh shit! Now he's mad!" Joshua took off running. He might have accidently triggered the dog and ball response; Joshua ran, so the wolves were now chasing. Maybe he should have sat and talked his way out of this. Talking, though, had never been his strong suit, hence his vast experience at running.
He was running out of known escape routes and he'd lost track of Seth. When escaping bullies, it was always important to know the location of all possible attackers. Maybe Seth wasn't chasing him. Doubtful. The whole dog and ball thing.
Speaking of dog, Cabot was closing on him again, snarling.
Joshua jerked to a halt, turned and yelped. Cabot was freaking huge as a wolf.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Fear sent Cabot flying even further this time.
Out of known escape routes and running blind on the campus of Harvard---which was all open lawn and little walking paths. Lost, lost, lost---and the wolves had grown up in Boston. Not good. So not good.
Where the hell was he going anyhow? He was in his pajamas and barefoot. He needed to loop back to Decker's for clothes and Elise was probably still there. She had that "I don't want to get involved in this mess" vibe going on. From what he could tell, she didn't like him either.
Wolf!
Airborne wolf!
Was tha
t still Cabot? Or had that been Seth?
What was he going to do? Bullies were normally not physically fit. Flat-out running usually got rid of most of Joshua's attackers within a half-mile. Lacking that, reaching a teacher or his house normally ended the chase. There was no teacher. Home was no longer safe. A police station would get him sent back to Utica.
Cabot suddenly slammed into him from his side. He didn't see the wolf until he was pinned to the ground. Massive jaws flashing toward his face.
"Cabot!" Seth roared.
The wolf yelped and jumped off Joshua.
Seth pointed at Joshua as he scrambled to his feet. "Sit!"
Joshua's body sat.
He sprang to his feet.
"Sit!" Seth pointed down.
Joshua's body sat again.
"Stay!" Seth growled.
"I'm not a dog!" Joshua snapped.
"No, you're a wolf." Seth sat down beside him. "A Boston wolf. And that makes you my responsibility. I know what it's like to be jerked out of your home. I fought the Thanes that Alexander sent to fetch me. I didn't want to go. But going was the right thing to do. I would have died with my family, and Cabot would have gone feral and countless humans would have died before Boston was fixed. If it could have been fixed. Even with me alive, the city isn't safe."
"And New York is? I've heard the stories about the Wolf King and his Thanes. The king scares the shit out of me! Look at me! I'm a bully magnet. You want me to go live in a house with a bunch of macho buttheads with fur? I'm staying here."
"With a vampire?" Cabot slunk back. Somehow, he seemed smaller than before. At a glance, he would have passed as a big black dog.
"Yes, with Decker. I like him. He likes me." Decker needed him. "I feel safe with him." Joshua pointed at Cabot. "You do not make me feel safe."
Cabot growled at him. "You have no idea what's going on. The Wickers kidnapped you once. You're coming with us to..."
"No," Joshua said.
"You don't have a choice!" Cabot snarled.
"I'm not going!" Joshua shouted.
"Cabot," Seth snapped, and his cousin---their cousin---sat back down. "He's dominant enough to talk back to you. Isaiah would hate him even if he weren't my brother. He'll try to kill Joshua first chance he got."
