Inhuman Heritage

by Sonnet O'Dell

  “I understand.”

  I saw a blur of movement on my left, a silver blur in the trees that I knew had to be the silver wolf from before. Had he beaten Farai and DJ? I turned my head to look back to see the brown wolf coming up behind us and a new wolf had joined it. He was a buff, pale yellow brown color that I knew immediately was Sphynx boy. They were catching up fast. The grey wolf overtook us skidding into the road ahead meaning we had to stop. We were close to some fields, turning so we backed towards them there was a hedge and a large tree.

  “Sorin, can you climb?”

  “Yes,” he said and his voice was a little stronger. I shifted my arms so I could peel his from around my neck and turning I pushed him up the trunk till he could grab a branch. He pulled himself up disappearing into the foliage.

  “Stay up there, don’t come down till I say, no matter what.”

  “Okay.”

  I stood shoulder to shoulder with LeBron as they slowed knowing they had us cornered for the moment.

  “If you got a plan then I would sure like to hear it right now,” said LeBron pulling his gun out and clicking the safety off.

  “How many bullets you got left?”

  He shot his clip out and looked through the side gauge.

  “Five and I hate to point this out again but not silver shot. I’d have brought more if I thought I was going to need it.”

  “I’d have helped you carry it if I would have known. I was promised that this would be a simple job. I should know by now that nothing in my life is simple.”

  “Isn’t that the main burden of human life?” I barked out a laugh that made LeBron stare at me and the wolves halt. I shook my head.

  “I’ll explain later why that’s so funny. Let’s get to later first.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We were surrounded by angry snarling teeth on all sides. I dropped to my knees pulling chalk from my sock and started drawing on the ground.

  “Anything that comes at me, shoot it,” I said frantically drawing out a spell on the road surface. I needed an effigy, a spell to help me channel my magic into a shape, a form that could attack our enemies. I chose a wolf to be ironic. I heard LeBron’s gun fire again but tried to concentrate.

  “Ignis canis.” I felt the fire spark in my hands rolling up my arms like pulling on opera gloves, and from the symbols I’d drawn on the tarmac rolled a beast made of the same flame. It rose up like it was being pulled from inside the road itself. It stalked in the space between me and the flesh and blood wolves, a dominant display like marking its territory. I slowly pulled to my feet, my arms out in a sustaining gesture. The flame mouth of the wolf opened in a display of its flickering red and orange teeth growling and snarling silently. LeBron looked at the flames that hung over my clothes not singeing them.

  “How do you do that?”

  “With great effort.” As the flame wolf stalked around my legs rubbing its flaming fur against me adoringly, I reached down a hand to stroke its head. “Good boy.” The real werewolves around us snarled at the facsimile I’d created with magic. LeBron was forced to edge away from me because of the heat of the fire. The flame wolf batted at my hand with its head almost playfully begging me to use it. I turned my hand palm up making a sweeping gesture.

  “I’ll give you a last chance. Take your friends and go.” I addressed this to the buff wolf judging that he was in charge of the rag tag band but there was something in my mind that told me there was someone above him pulling his strings. A puppet master who was staying in the shadows for now. Sphynx boy gave a derisive snort through his large wolf nose that blew up stray leaves from around his paws. I’d given him the chance. My flame wolf growled silently, its body rolling into a pounce. I pointed a blazing finger towards the buff wolf, if I took the head off the serpent the rest would be at a loss. My wolf charged towards him and his charge was echoed by the younger brown wolf who thought to catch me off guard. I hurried to defend myself but a large shape flew over my head. The only thing that let me know it was Farai was the flash of a red scarf flapping from where it was tied around his hind leg. He fell upon the young wolf tumbling with him into the brush.

  I turned my attention back to my flame wolf. Sphynx boy tried to defend himself but his claws were ineffectual against the flaming air. His fur singed and his skin sizzled with each swipe of my wolf’s flame claws. Its fiery teeth sunk into his shoulder and the flesh blackened and smoked. Sphynx whimpered in pain as he took all the damage in the fight. Concentrating allowed me to direct the attack, make him attack spots on the body that would cause the most damage without killing him. I didn’t want Sphynx dead, I wanted him to be able to talk. I had my wolf tear at his hind leg so that the burns forced him down.

  LeBron cried out. I turned sharply away from my flight to check on him. The grey wolf had him on the ground his sharp white teeth worrying at his ankle. He’d dropped his gun and was trying to reach for it through the pain. The second brown wolf was charging towards his head, teeth bared. My eyes widened and I broke into a run, sliding in on my knees and thrusting power into the concrete.

  “Wall!” The asphalt buckled flowing like a stone wave in a ripple of mass that cleared the wolf’s height. The wolf ran smack into it. I heard the crunch of his bones breaking as he’d been unable to stop. LeBron’s outstretched fingers wrapped around his gun turning it on the grey wolf and firing his last three shots into his skull. Grey wolf’s legs gave out but from the way his teeth kept grinding at LeBron’s flesh, he wasn’t quite dead. His blood was flowing sluggishly over the wound he’d made. I rushed around LeBron.

  “Shit, shit!” I cried and reached out my still flaming hands to his ankle. He cried out as the heat touched his skin. “Oh shit, I’m sorry.” I pulled my hands away and pushed it down, felt my power pull back till my hands were just flesh again. My flame wolf winked out of existence as well giving Sphynx a chance to fall onto his side in pain. I grabbed the grey wolf’s worrying jaw and started to pry it open.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said jerking so hard that I broke his jaw finally driving the last of the life from him. I pushed him away, the fur melting back into his flesh almost instantly. He looked like he’d been in his sixties and I didn’t recognize him, it didn’t help that he was naked. His blood seeped out of him curling into his grey chest hairs. I tried not to look at his face. I’d killed him and I’d feel bad about that but later when I was safe. I concentrated on LeBron’s leg. It was a mass of torn flesh and blood, like a dog had gotten hold of the Sunday joint. I could see the white shine of bone and couldn’t keep the fear off my face. LeBron could lose his foot.

  “Cassandra, please don’t look like that,” he pleaded, “that means it’s bad.”

  I put on a brave face, I had to be the tough one, get him through.

  “It’ll be alright, we’ll fix it, somehow.”

  I was terrible at healing magic, I’d never so much as gotten a cold, never really been injured until recently. Till the last six months or so I’d never even been injured badly, so I’d concentrated on learning other kinds of magic. I looked around helplessly for something to use as a bandage, I needed something to hold it all together, keep the blood pumping into his foot. Then I realized that the grey wolf had bled onto the open wound. Even if we could get help, save his foot, there was the chance we’d have another problem. That Lebron might have contracted lycanthropy.

  “So many thoughts crossing your face, you’re scaring me, Cassandra.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said and I really was although I didn’t like that he could read me that easily. “I’m so sorry. I need a bandage.”

  A little hand passed me a long red scarf. I looked at Sorin who was offering me the scarf that had been tied to Farai’s leg.

  “I told you to stay up the tree.”

  “You needed help,” he said sniffling. I took hold of the scarf, patted the boy’s head and did my best to fix LeBron’s leg. I got it so that it looked together but he’d never be able to stand on it.
>
  “Where the hell is DJ?”

  “He went back to the farm for help,” Sorin said. I looked at the little boy.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Farai told me.” I looked for the white wolf; he was nipping at the heels of the younger brown wolf. That made me look for the second brown wolf. There was a naked young man crouched at the edge of the trees cradling a broken arm to his chest. Sphynx limped towards him slowly and the two went slinking into the woods. I got my arm under LeBron’s shoulder and pulled him up. He yowled with pain as he tried to stand on both feet. He bent his injured leg up, he’d have to hop that would mean slow going. A howl went up and LeBron and I both turned to the sound.

  “That’s a call for help,” Sorin said. A second howl came but it sounded more distant.

  “And that was?” LeBron asked.

  “Someone answering.”

  “Damn it,” I cursed. “We’re going to need to move, find a more defensible position.” I looked for Farai who was trying to catch hold of the young wolf so he couldn’t go regroup with his comrades. He spun on Farai slashing him across the muzzle, it staggered Farai and he escaped after his buddies.

  “Sorin, how well can wolves understand when we speak?”

  “Quite well,” he said smiling at me. I turned to look back at the white wolf who was pacing the tree line as if deciding whether or not to follow after them.

  “Farai!” He turned to me and his eyes were very dark in his white furred face.

  “LeBron is hurt bad. We need to get moving. Go get DJ and any help he’s found, they’ll be back.” The wolf turned back to look at the woods again, an angry growl curling his lip. “Farai! Go!” I said sharply. He looked back at me, nodded his ascent and ran back the way we’d come.

  “Sorin, you’re going to have to walk okay, but stay close to me.”

  The little boy nodded and wrapped his small hand around the end of my braid. Our progress was slow. I was surprised by how easy I found it to support LeBron’s weight. The strange strength I’d experienced before seemed to piggyback on the rush of adrenaline. LeBron looked at me, a self-deprecating smile on his face.

  “Why do the monsters always go for that leg?”

  I looked down at his injured leg and realized it was the same one that had been sliced by a goblin months ago. I gave a graceful shrug. I didn’t want to tell him that very soon he might be one of the monsters too. Like them. Like me. I shifted his weight, the adrenaline was fading and so was the strength.

  “Leave me, I’ll make you slow. I’m too heavy for you.”

  “Ha,” I said cheerily,” I can do the work of three men.”

  “DS Hodgeson says that all the time!”

  “It’s true. He can do the work of three men, Larry, Curly and Moe.” LeBron laughed but it faltered, he was honestly in too much pain to laugh but he’d given it a try anyway.

  Coming up to a bend in the road I saw a dirt track that led up towards the old barn we’d seen on the journey out here. LeBron didn’t look like he could keep going. I turned towards it.

  “This way.”

  We turned onto the dirt track and stumbled in some deep rivets in the dry earth.

  “What are we doing?” he asked.

  “We can shelter there. I can put up a shield that will protect us and you can get some rest.”

  “What good is that going to do us?”

  “If we can hold out till morning, we can get someone out here to help us.” I slid my hand into my pocket wrapping it around my locket, I was glad I’d had the foresight to bring it. With what I’d been experiencing lately I wondered if that wasn’t exactly what had made me bring it.

  “Think they’ll give up the chase by morning?”

  “I hope they’re smart enough to know a pack of wolves in a field in the middle of the day would look suspicious.”

  “And if they wait for us as humans?”

  “I’m hoping they’re smart but not that smart. I just need you to trust me.”

  “No problem.”

  I was glad that he was cooperating but some small part of me told me that I should be worried because he really meant that. He had no problem trusting me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The barn door creaked as I pushed it open, as if that wasn’t creepy enough it was completely dark inside with no electricity. My night vision is better than most so I could make out some bales of hay, dry and old and I led LeBron over to them so he could rest his leg. Once he was settled I wrung my hands trying to think what to do. Sorin was looking around the barn-his night vision must be good too I noted-like he had never seen one before.

  “Mother? What’s this?”

  I didn’t look in his direction till I heard a metallic clunk. I found Sorin dragging an old hurricane lamp by a metal ring along the floor. I took it off him part fearing he’d hurt himself and partly because it could be useful. I bent down to check to see if there was oil in the burner before using my thumb to light the wick. The barn was illuminated and I blinked with the sudden change. I found a hook sticking out from a beam above me and hung the lamp on it. It swayed gently. LeBron looked awful in the dim light, his forehead was beaded with sweat and he was panting like he’d been running but I knew it was because he was trying to manage the pain. I bent down to Sorin.

  “Do you know any good stories?” I asked. He nodded and started to tell me one but I put my finger to his lips. He looked at the finger then wide eyed at me. God it was cute. “Go tell a story to LeBron for me while I get us safely sealed up.”

  I was still going with the theory that if we could last till morning, the wolves would have to go away or risk being caught. I closed the barn door thrusting down the wooden beam that would lock it. I started drawing a spell on the back of the door with chalk. Virginia had taught me this spell as a precaution but I’d never used it. I’d never felt the need. It was a ward. A ward was like the little shield I did for myself but it was for buildings. Remembering the symbols was most of what taxed me because basically it was two circles, a larger one with a pentagon and a smaller inner circle. From each of the side points needed to be a line that encircled the area. Virginia had a spell exactly like this painted onto the walls of her home circling the foundation, but she had several smaller circles so that it could be activated from several points. This place was so simple that one main spot would be fine. I drew the line across the boards making sure it never broke right back around to the door. LeBron watched me do this but was soon scolded by Sorin for not listening to him. I found a sickle hanging from a post and took it with me towards the door. It felt a little rusty as I ran my thumb over the round edge of the blade but I came away bloody which had been the point. I hoped my tetanus vaccination was still good if I could even contract it in the first place. I wiped my thumb over the inner circle coloring it red and the air was suddenly thick with magic. I held my thumb up and watched the cut close. It was just a pink puckered line after a minute. I rested the sickle against the door and joined the boys.

  I dropped to my knees slowly peeling the makeshift bandage away. LeBron stiffened and I felt myself tearing up. Although I was calmer, tears were all too ready to come recently. I had gotten him hurt bringing him along, I’d gotten his foot nearly clean bitten off. I exposed the wound once again to the air. LeBron seethed with the pain and I found myself apologizing over and over again. Tears ran down my cheeks as I held my hands above his wound trying to remember a healing mantra.

  “Cassandra, what are you doing?”

  “I’m trying,” I said and my voice was a little shaky, “to take the pain away.” The tears fell from my face, splashing on his wound and under each drop the skin knitted itself back together. The wound began to look less like a ravaged piece of bloody meat and more like a human leg with a particularly nasty animal bite. I wiped at my face till my eyes were dry. I looked at the wet liquid on my hands. Did my tears have healing properties or was it just a coincidence because I’d been trying a healing mantra to help
him? I rewrapped his injured leg and he took my hand giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “It does feel better, thank you,” he said and the smile I’m pretty sure was meant to reassure me but it didn’t. Neither did the soft pat on the head that Sorin gave me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and I lifted him up into my arms. He seemed tired and I expect he was, he was so little to be up so late. I stroked his hair softly and looked around the barn to see if there was somewhere I could lay him down for a nap but there wasn’t much in this place that I could use to make it comfortable again. Then it happened again, the world was over laid with sepia and I could see the outside of the barn as from all sides the field was stalked by giant wolves. I blinked and it was gone. I tucked Sorin in next to LeBron.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “We’re about to be surrounded. This is not good.”

  “How do you...” he started to speak but his words were cut off by snarls from the other side of the wood. I could feel the presence of a man among the wolves, he was coming closer, walking behind them until they were in position then I felt him move past them. His power was immense, I could feel it coming at me in waves. He kept advancing till he hit the edge of the ward and he stopped. The ward hummed as he tested it. I sidled close to the door and I could feel as he pushed against it, it felt intimate, like he was pushing up against me. It was because I had used my own blood to seal the spell. In most wards blood was needed but dead blood worked best because it didn’t forge a connection between the ward and either the spell caster or the living donor. He stopped testing its strength and moved on to its dimensions. He stroked along its edge and it was like his hands were running over my skin. I let out a shuddering breath. I knew he heard it because the sensation suddenly halted.

  “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”