The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

  "What am I going to do?"

  "Do what makes you happy."

  "I don't know what that is."

  "I will throw away this turkey so it's not you throwing away food."

  "No! Then I would have eaten all the ice cream for no reason."

  "Then I'll put it in the freezer."

  "It won't fit!" There were two more pints in the way.

  "I will make it fit. Go sit in the living room and watch some Avengers, and I will take care of the turkey."

  So Joshua sprawled on the recently delivered leather sofa with his kitten and watched the old British TV show on the new eighty-four-inch screen. Whatever Decker did, he did it quietly and quickly, as he came into the living room before Mrs. Peel had affixed the red carnation on John Steed's jacket.

  "What did you do?" He didn't even bother to disguise the fact that the puppy wanted in Decker's lap. He scooted over until he was tucked under the man's arm. The wolf was instantly happy.

  "I took care of it," Decker said.

  "Did you throw away my ice cream?"

  "No."

  "The turkey? I wanted the turkey."

  "I made it all fit."

  "How?" Joshua had tried for ten minutes before realizing he would have to actually eat an entire shelf of ice cream for the turkey to fit inside.

  "Elves and magic," Decker said.

  They watched for several minutes while he dealt with the concept that somehow Decker had bent time and space to fit the fourteen-pound turkey into the crowded freezer. Part of him wanted to go see how and the other part dreaded finding out that something else---not ice cream or turkey---had been tossed in the name of ultimate happiness.

  "What am I going to do?"

  "Cook the turkey. Eat it," Decker said. "Isn't she wonderful?"

  "Yeah, Mrs. Peel is hot. Dr. Huff says I should call Seth and invite him to Thanksgiving."

  "That would be an excellent idea."

  "You really think so?"

  "I spent a long time thinking that I needed a good reason to be friends with anyone. In the end, I had no one. It was slowly killing me but I couldn't see any way out of the grave I climbed freely into."

  Joshua liked that Decker needed him as much as he needed Decker. It made him feel like he mattered. Perhaps that's why Decker was so patient with him when he was losing it to the wolf; Decker wanted to be needed too. That was a good thing---right? Or was it a sign of that bad relationship they called "codependence" that everyone talked about but never explained?

  Joshua wondered if he should look up the term or avoid enlightenment like the plague.

  "If you need a good reason to be friends with Seth," Decker said, "then remember he is the Prince of Boston. He will be living somewhere nearby in a few months. And he is, and always will be, your brother."

  "Right. Is it okay with you? Do you mind if I invite him over?"

  "This is your home."

  "It's your house. I just live here."

  "There is no 'just,' Joshua. It's our home. And if you want to invite someone to dinner; it's your right."

  "You bought the house. You've lived here for fifty years."

  "Yes, this was a house. A house I was dying in for fifty years. You are what makes it a home."

  If was really unfair of Decker to say something like that while Joshua was still feeling so raw. Without warning, he was a puppy scrambling into the man's lap.

  At least he didn't throw up the ice cream.

  * * *

  Joshua had had a brother for only two weeks now. He still wasn't sure how he felt about it. His relationship with his older sister---adopted older sister---had been extremely rocky. In fact, he was fairly sure that Bethy could barely tolerate him. She might love him---maybe---in some twisted obligatory way. But liked him? No. In the seventeen years that they'd been siblings, most of their conversations were as short as possible and conducted with growling and snarling on her part. (And she wasn't even a werewolf.)

  Joshua couldn't imagine calling Bethy on the phone and just talking. He couldn't remember a conversation that didn't start with a question like "where is" or "what did you do with," that wasn't seasoned heavily with insults, and that didn't end with a physical threat.

  What did siblings talk about when they weren't trying to beat the snot out of each other? Joshua had no idea.

  The weird thing about talking to Seth was that the moment the phone rang, he could feel Seth's presence, like his brother had stepped through the ether and was there in spirit. Which meant that Seth already knew how Joshua was feeling even without him saying anything. Which was really, really freaky weird.

  "Joshua! What's wrong?"

  "People keep giving me turkeys," Joshua said. "I have two now and I think I'll probably end up with a third one in the next week or so."

  There was a moment of silence and Joshua felt Seth expand his awareness, apparently scanning the house for living birds.

  "Turkeys?" Seth asked after a minute. "Are we talking turkey turkeys with feathers and stuff, or dead turkeys?"

  "Dead turkeys. Frozen turkeys. Big ones. They're kind of freaking me out."

  "Oh!" Seth made the connection. "The first Thanksgiving alone! Yeah, that's a hard one. I'll warn you now that Christmas is harder."

  Joshua whimpered.

  "So you have turkeys." Seth looped back to the start of the conversation and put it on track. "Can I come up for Thanksgiving dinner?"

  Joshua eyed the phone. He'd thought he was calling Seth instead of the other way around. "I don't know how to cook."

  "Neither do I. It will be an adventure."

  "In food poisoning," Joshua muttered.

  "Ah, the joy of being werewolves is that we don't get poisoned. We can eat five-day-old sushi and not get sick. The king hasn't returned from Belgrade but Isaiah finally went back to the Castle. With him gone, Ewan is safe. I'm packing up here. I need to get back to school. I've missed three weeks. New York is crazy on Thanksgiving Day with the Macy's parade. Do you mind if I come up the day before? It's a school holiday."

  "As long as we don't have to watch the parade on television."

  "God no. I'll bring some movies. Is Jack invited? It would be nice."

  Cabot probably followed the same love/hate algorithm that Bethy employed but what was Thanksgiving without a cousin to torture you?

  "Yeah. Sure," Joshua said.

  "Cool. I'll see you Wednesday after next."

  40: Seth

  Seth hung up his cell phone. He stood for several minutes holding tight to his awareness of his brother. At the time, he'd been so sure that leaving Joshua in Boston with Decker was for the best. It was nerve-wracking to sense how alone his brother was and how far, far away. Not another wolf for hundreds of miles. If something happened, it would take Seth hours to get to him. Decker slept all day. The Grigori wouldn't be able to control the wolf.

  Seth had been scared when Joshua called him. He'd been afraid that something had gone wrong. The feeling had deepened when Seth reached out and felt how rattled Joshua was. Over turkeys! He'd been thinking that since Joshua was seventeen they were on equal footing, but the call reminded him that the boy was a newborn. The months after being changed from human to werewolf, it felt like being strapped into a rollercoaster blindfolded. The wolf took you for an emotional ride that you were rarely in control of.

  Seth couldn't imagine dealing with the wolf all alone; it had been hell even with his parents riding curb on the worse of it. It was, however, the mess he'd left his brother in. He'd felt so guilty that he'd pushed Joshua into agreeing on a longer visit than just dinner. Judging by the way that Joshua was currently dashing in frantic circles about Decker's house, he'd only increased his brother's anxiety.

  After ping-ponging about Decker's house, his brother collided with the newly awakened vampire. Decker must have forgotten to announce his presence; he went flying across the living room. Luckily the vampire hit the couch instead of the television. Seconds later, puppy Joshua scrambl
ed into Decker's lap to be held.

  That was the other troubling thing. How was Joshua getting so small when he changed? Most newborns transformed into human-sized wolves. Pack wolves only grew larger after months of practice strengthened their connection with the Source. Joshua seemed to be able to change back and forth without any damage to his clothes. One moment he'd be fully clothed; a moment later he was a puppy. His speed of transformation was simply breathtaking compared to even the Thanes. When he changed back, he was clothed again. Where the hell were the clothes while he was a wolf?

  And could Seth do that? He'd been taught to strip down before changing. What if all this time, he could skip that part?

  Jack appeared at the door. "I've got the train tickets." He picked up the unease that Seth was radiating. "Are you okay?"

  "I got a call from Joshua."

  "Did something happen?"

  "It's just the normal newborn joyride overloaded by the very real problem that he's alone; without the people that raised him or us there with him."

  "Isaiah has spent the last two weeks proving you right," Jack said to soothe Seth's guilt. "He came here to harass the Albany pack out of revenge. He had the perfect excuse that he and the Thane were making the alpha more stable until Ewan was able to handle it. He knows that keeping you here was screwing up your schoolwork so he stayed until he got bored. You couldn't have protected both Ewan and Joshua. If you'd sent Joshua to the Castle, Isaiah would have found out, and then you would have had to choose which one to save."

  "I feel like I chose Ewan over my brother."

  "I hate to say this, but you had to. Ewan is marquis. If Ewan goes down in flames, he takes all of Albany with him. Joshua might be your brother but in the grand scheme of things, he's not that important."

  Seth could sense that Decker had gotten Joshua calmed down and back to human. They were sitting together, talking, while watching something on the television. It was a comforting tableau but it didn't erase the knowledge that, as Prince of Boston, Seth should be the one making sure that one of his packmates was safe.

  Only Alexander wasn't going to let Seth move back to Boston to live. While dealing with Joshua, Seth was starting to understand why. Seth might have all of Boston's power to tap and years of experience---but he also would be expected to face any emergency that cropped up while Joshua could run from the danger. ('Flee' seemed to be his brother's gut reaction.)

  Bringing Joshua to the Castle, though, was a recipe for disaster.

  Isaiah admitted that his jealousy was deep rooted in the fact that Seth had all that Isaiah wanted. Loving parents (ignoring that they'd been murdered.) A happy childhood (that went down in flames when he was thirteen). A close-knit extended family (who were all dead now.) Being a prince was simply icing on the cake. Isaiah would be jealous of any addition to Seth's supposed bounty.

  It would only be a matter of time before Isaiah hated Joshua for his own sake. The boy technically still had his loving adoptive parents. He could theoretically return to his happy childhood home. As Seth's heir, Joshua would be Isaiah's equal. Isaiah might grow to hate Joshua even more than he hated Seth.

  "How is he?" Jack broke Seth's silence.

  Seth checked again on his brother. A bowl of popcorn had been made but the scene was much the same. Joshua was leaning heavily on Decker's presence to stay calm. "Fine. I'll feel better once I see him."

  Jack cocked his head in confusion. He held up the train tickets to New York City. "You want to go to Boston?"

  "He invited us to Thanksgiving dinner," Seth said.

  "Did you call Belgrade?"

  "Alexander won't care." Seth hoped he wouldn't. "All the Wickers are dead..."

  "We think."

  "There's no active constructs in my territory. The Grigori haven't found any sign of survivors. I'll promise not to do any monster hunting or stick my nose into deep holes and what not. You'll be with me. Joshua's got a black belt or something in Judo. And there's Decker. So it's not like I'm going to be alone. Alexander doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving any more than he does Christmas or Easter. Cook will probably be making something like bratwurst and sauerkraut or haggis on Thursday instead of a turkey."

  "And Joshua is going to cook this turkey that we're going to be eating?"

  "Hopefully," Seth said. "We could always order lots of takeout on Wednesday night and have leftovers as a backup plan..."

  "...if we don't burn down the house."

  41: Elise

  Elise was sitting on her couch, staring at her ceiling. She'd taken the day off to deal with all life's little needs. Yes, there was evil that needed to be slain, but she was out of clean clothes, her toilet needed scrubbing, and the dust bunnies were approaching epic size. She liked that the world seemed safe enough to focus on herself, but it left her feeling hollow. It was the closest she got to a holiday. Shouldn't she do something fun? What did she like to do for fun?

  It left her floundering in the realization that when she became a weapon for God, she'd abandoned all that made her human. Her life revolved around killing. She did what was needed to strengthen her body, care for her weapons, and know her territory. Humans had interests and hobbies and things they did for sheer joy. What did she like to do?

  Joshua and Decker were doing superhero movie marathons. She didn't like the fake reality of movies since seeing Old Yeller as a child. She'd spent a week crying over the ending. Her mother finally pointed out that the dog was acting as much as the humans in the film. Elise looked it up. She discovered to her dismay that the dog's real name was Spike and had appeared in dozens of other movies and TV shows. All that crying over a dog that got up and bounced away after the cameras stopped rolling! Feeling betrayed, she resolved never to watch another movie. Maybe she should give them another try.

  Elise's phone played Cabot's tone. She blushed as she thought of what she really would like to do for fun. There was small hope of that; Cabot was three hours away. Their relationship hadn't progressed beyond their first kiss, mostly from lack of being in the same state. She'd dropped the wolves off in Albany two weeks ago. Cabot and Seth were guarding the new Marquis of Albany from Isaiah and the Thane. She'd driven home to Boston to keep an eye on Joshua. (As a weird side-effect to babysitting the newborn werewolf, she'd gained five pounds. The boy had excellent taste in junk food. He always had the best pizza, donuts, pie and ice cream.) She picked up her phone to see what Cabot had texted her.

  The message asked, "What are you doing for Thanksgiving?"

  "The same thing we do every night, Pinkie," she muttered. Her family didn't take holidays because monsters never rested. Christmas was something she saw other people celebrate on television shows. It made her sympathize with Jewish children. Thanksgiving was the worst because every store and restaurant closed down while all of New England attempted to be someplace else. The highways would be gridlocked from New Hampshire to Connecticut, starting Wednesday and continuing until late Sunday.

  She texted back, "Saving the world."

  "Seriously? Need help?" was the immediate reply.

  For some reason, that made her grin widely.

  "I can't leave Boston..." She wasn't sure how to explain. "...because evil. I'm planning to just lurk in the shadows like normal."

  "Like Batman?'

  "Batgirl."

  "I stand corrected. So, no plans other than terrorizing small monsters?"

  "Why? Is this a trap?"

  "Want to do Thanksgiving with us?"

  She frowned at the screen. Us? Surely he didn't mean with the Wolf King. She typed in and erased "huh?" and "what?" and "who?" before sending "At the Castle?"

  "LOL. No. Decker's."

  Decker's? She struggled to pair "Vampire" with "Thanksgiving Dinner." Two weeks ago it would have been a laughable impossibility. The house had been a crowded tomb that smelled of dust and moldering newspaper. There had been embarrassing testaments to her boredom when she'd visited as a child. She built a book fortress in the library when she was
four. At five, she created a diorama of plastic cowboys tying Decker to a stake as their "Indian" counterparts built a bonfire of matchbooks. (At least she showed some restrain and hadn't used the matches to set the house on fire.) When she was six, she'd scrawled "Decker is a monster" in crayon on every scrap of paper she could find in the living room.

  It slightly freaked her out when she walked into Decker's. With the exception of the TV, the leather couch, and the two stools in the kitchen, the first floor was completely and totally empty. It seemed like she'd walked into the wrong home; a stranger intruding on someone's privacy. All she had known of Decker had been thrown away, along with all her childhood rebellions. What did Joshua think of the diorama? Did he even realize she was the one that made it? Its absence made her feel like she'd been forgiven of petty sins but slightly lost as to where she fit into Decker's life anymore.

  The kitchen now sported a huge double-oven gas range and a side-by-side refrigerator. The scents of Joshua's last meal always hung heavy in the air. Steak. Tuna salad. Hot buttered popcorn. Still, she couldn't imagine eating Thanksgiving at Decker's. Who was going to cook the turkey? Her? And where were they going to sit? On the floor?

  As if guessing her concerns, Cabot texted, "We plan to bring folding tables and chairs in one of the Land Rovers if Joshua doesn't get anything by Thanksgiving."

  She smiled at her screen. Cabot might be naïve but not an idiot. She loved that about him.

  There she went, using the "love" word so casually.

  "So, want to eat with us?" he texted.

  It would be a step toward fitting herself into Cabot's life and back into Decker's. "Yes."

  42: Decker

  The prince was coming early for dinner and staying the night.

  The statement filled Decker with quiet terror. He was careful, though, to keep his fear from Joshua, who was seriously not taking the holiday well. They sat on the sofa watching cooking videos, calmly discussing logistics, while Decker tried very hard not to panic.