Nadia's Children

by Steven E Wedel

  Shara took another step back. Her voice caught in her throat at first, then she forced it out. “You think she would take Joey to him?”

  “We don’t know, Shara. They hadn’t. As far as we know, they didn’t make any contact with any of Fenris’s people, and there were no other wolves around the cabin in Texas.”

  “Double-crossed him?”

  “Anything’s possible with Kiona.”

  Shara realized her fingers had been digging into Thomas’s biceps as she stared at him. She relaxed her grip. He smiled at her and she shook her head. “How could Ulrik ever have associated with such a bitch?”

  “Rumor has it she is unique, that she ran with the wolves before she was ever bitten,” Thomas said. “He thought she might be the one.”

  “Yeah. I heard.”

  “She was just a girl when he gave her the Gift,” Thomas said.

  “Whatever. All I care about is getting Joey back. Dealing with her is secondary, but I want it done.”

  “We’ll take care of her,” Thomas promised. “She’s always been a loose cannon, but she’s gone too far.”

  “Did she tell Fenris where we are?”

  “I don’t know. We doubt it. She would have kept that bargaining chip as long as possible.”

  Shara let go of Thomas and dropped into Ulrik’s desk chair. Not Ulrik’s. It’s mine now. All this is mine. She shook her head. No, I’m not ready for that. It’s Ulrik’s chair. Ulrik’s room. “So, Kiona killed those people and stole their truck. Then what?”

  “Our wolves followed them out of the park, but she went to the highway and we lost them. It was unexpected. Stupid of us, I guess, but we thought disabling their truck would keep them in the cabin until we were ready to deal with them.”

  “Which way were they going?”

  “North,” Thomas said. “But they could have taken several other highways. We’re looking for clues.” He paused. “There’s something else.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Chris wasn’t able to walk when they left. Kiona was upright but mostly a wolf and carried him out of the cabin, put him in the back of the SUV while Joey held a gun, then they drove away. They say Chris was mumbling but seemed to be mostly unconscious.”

  Shara stared at him, not comprehending. “What? He was sick?”

  “They found blood in the cabin, Shara. None of our people made any kind of attack in any cabin.”

  She knew, somewhere, what he was saying, but wouldn’t admit it to herself.

  “We think she bit him.”

  “Chris?”

  Thomas nodded.

  “He wouldn’t allow that.”

  Thomas shrugged. “It could be a good sign. She probably saw his inability to shift as a handicap to her goals, which would mean she probably was planning to betray Fenris.” Shara didn’t answer. “Of course, the bad thing is that, if she was going to Fenris, we know where he is.”

  Shara grunted. “She doesn’t have any places she’d go to hunt?”

  “None that we know of. Like I told you once, she spent all those years watching you in Montana. She almost never left.”

  “I remember,” Shara said, and smiled at the memory of a lunch with Joey the day Thomas had confronted her with her real name and disturbing news in a Bozeman grocery store.

  “Ulrik had quite a network of people all over the world. Mostly here in the States. I was on the phone with Ben Vernon when you came in. He called to tell us about the news story. He’s a reporter in Kansas City. Ulrik had him monitoring some kind of international news feed. I can’t explain it all, but there are keywords or something that Ben looks for and they alert him to stories about … whatever. In this case, wolf activity. That’s also how we figured out Fenris is in California.”

  “Any news about Danvers?” Shara asked.

  Thomas shook his head. “We think he’s dead.”

  Shara nodded. “I smell like smoke. I’m going to take a shower. We’re agreed about including me in everything going on?”

  “Agreed,” Thomas said. “I’m glad of it, too. Glad to see the woman Ulrik must have always known you would become.”

  Shara smiled, thinking about how scared of Professor Ulrik she’d been as a sophomore in his class. “You could use a shower, yourself.”

  “I could wash your back,” Thomas suggested.

  Fenris

  Clouds passed beneath the streaking jet like the rags of a shroud ripped apart by the wind of the upper atmosphere. The Rocky Mountains, like his California ranch, were behind Fenris and the other passengers. Below, the flatlands of central Texas showed beneath the cloud fragments, green grass with the occasional belt of darker green trees. Fenris didn’t see them, though. He sat in his first class seat, the shade closed on his window, his eyes fixed on the open pages of a Jack London novel he’d read many times, not really reading now because he couldn’t help but listen to the steady roar of the airplane’s engines, trying to detect any alarming irregularities as they pushed the airplane along thousands of feet above the earth.

  Walter Hess had phoned at about 4:30 a.m. Texas time to report a battle outside a cabin in another part of Texas. Fenris pondered what was going on at that cabin. Something … something probably important since Ulrik’s people had been there, but they hadn’t been inside the cabin. He’d ordered Hess to go there and take charge of interrogating a man they’d captured. Hess had gotten his name, David Schultz, before the shapeshifter had put up enough of a fight he’d been killed.

  Walter is a ham-fisted idiot.

  That was sloppy. Fenris had warned Hess to try to keep anyone captured alive, but the man was a brute, regardless of his shape, and couldn’t be trusted with the more delicate work. He sighed just as the Southwest Airlines captain announced they were about to make their descent into Dallas.

  Thirty minutes later, Hess greeted Fenris near the baggage claim. The big, hairy imbecile was actually grinning.

  “Where’s the car?” Fenris demanded.

  “Outside.” Hess didn’t stop grinning as he led the way toward the front of the sprawling airport.

  “I should rip your balls off for what you did,” Fenris hissed as they walked.

  “Calm down, boss. Yeah, we lost him, but he left us a gift.” Hess reached into a pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a cell phone. He flipped it open, pushed some buttons, then handed it over. Fenris read the screen: ULRIK. Below it was a series of numbers with a New Mexico area code. He stopped walking.

  “You’ve called it?”

  “Of course not. We left that for you.”

  “Maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought,” Fenris said, but the words came with a smile. He slapped the phone closed and put it in his own jacket pocket. “I have an idea. We’ll need some computer equipment.”

  * * *

  At 3 a.m. Fenris, Walter Hess, and two accomplices picked the lock on the back door of a house in Enid, Oklahoma. Inside, they located and bound the middle-aged couple living there, closed the curtains all over the house, and made a phone call.

  The man who answered was not Josef Ulrik. “Who is this?” Fenris asked, though he suspected he knew from the accent.

  “This is Thomas,” the man answered.

  “McGrath?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would like to speak with Ulrik.”

  “He …” There was a long pause. “Who is this?”

  “An old friend.”

  “Is David dead?”

  “All three of them are dead,” Fenris answered. “Put Ulrik on the line.”

  “He isn’t available right at the moment,” McGrath said. “He’s left me in charge. What do you want?”

  “I assume you have a computer,” Fenris said, lowering himself onto what appeared to be a new sofa. McGrath answered that he did. “Does it have a Web camera?”

  “A what?”

  “A camera,” Fenris said. “Still living in 1917, are we? I think the younger people call it simply a Web cam.
Do you have one.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out. I’ll call back in an hour.”

  Shara

  Ronnie Hipson was from Kitchener, Ontario, in Canada. He’d only had the Gift for a couple of years, and was one of the youngest werewolves living on the Mexican compound. Lycanthropy had not dampened his enthusiasm for the latest technological gadgets or video games. Not only did he know what a Web cam was, but he had a digital camera and USB cable in one of the bags he’d brought with him when he came south with his mentor and lover, Marcia Fields.

  Shara watched nervously as Ronnie pushed his long blond hair behind an ear with one hand while plugging a cable into the back of the computer in Ulrik’s old room. “He’ll be able to see us?” she asked, although Ronnie had already explained it.

  “Yeah. I assume he’ll have one, too, so you’ll be able to see him. It’s like talking through the television.”

  “Why?” Shara asked. “Why would he want to see us?”

  “He has David’s phone,” Thomas reminded. “He’s probably more interested in us seeing him.”

  “Seeing what he does to David,” Shara said. Thomas nodded. “Bastard. Okay, so, who stays in here and who doesn’t? We don’t want him seeing too many of us.”

  “He wanted to talk to Ulrik,” Thomas said again.

  “Well, let’s let him think Ulrik is still alive and just unavailable. Anything to confuse him is good,” Shara said. “He’s talked to you, Thomas, so you’ll stay. Ronnie, you should stay in case there are any more technical things. I’ll stay.”

  “I would like to stay,” Holle said. The ancient one’s voice was low, but demanded attention. Her deep eyes and long gray hair were outward sides of her wisdom.

  Shara nodded. “Okay, but stay out of sight of this camera. We don’t want him guessing who you are.”

  “You assume he doesn’t know the Old Ones are being drawn here,” Holle said.

  Shara looked at her, thinking. “Do you think he does?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I cannot believe any of us would go to someone opposed to the coming of the Alpha, so maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “All right. You stay. That’s four staying. That’s probably enough. Ronnie, is there a way to turn that thing off in case we want to do something he can’t see?”

  “It depends on the program he expects you to use, but yeah, it can be done. You’ll just have to remember that sometimes turning off the camera isn’t turning off the sound.” He pointed to a curved plastic stem he’d just plugged in. “This is the microphone. Maybe he’ll talk to you on the phone and not use a computer mic, but just in case.”

  Shara shook her head. “I took a computer class in high school. It seemed like high tech stuff to make the outline of a car move across the screen and make little puffs come from the exhaust pipe. This is like something out of Star Trek.”

  Ronnie grinned. “It’s pretty cool. A lot of people are getting rid of the modems like in this computer and going with DSL, which is super fast. We should get a new computer with a faster processor and DSL modem. We might get some lag with this.” He was far from finished with his lecture on modern technology, but the cell phone lying on the table beside the computer began to ring again.

  “Everyone not staying, get out,” Shara ordered. “Ronnie, get the computer ready.” She nodded at Thomas. “Go ahead and answer it.”

  “McGrath,” Thomas said into the phone, then punched the keys to put it on speaker.

  “Where’s Ulrik?” Shara recognized Fenris’s smooth, languid-but-accented voice.

  “He’s not available,” she answered. “This is Shara. I’m running things while he’s gone. What do you want?”

  “Shara.” She could hear the grin in his voice. “I’m so sorry our last meeting was so rudely interrupted. I felt like we were just getting to know one another.”

  “What do you want?” Shara asked. She remembered the meeting in a Utah motel room, when Fenris gave her Chris’s wedding ring and a ripped and bloody shirt, saying her husband was dead.

  “I want the boy, for starters. Then we’ll talk about you and that fertile womb of yours.”

  Shara instinctively put a hand over her abdomen. Did he know? Could he know? If he does, he does. We’ll see. “You’re not getting Joey,” she answered.

  “Hmm. That’s a shame. You have your computer ready?” Fenris asked. Shara looked to Ronnie, who nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Log in to Yahoo and open the Messenger program. Make sure your Web cam is on. I want to see you. You’ll get to see me, too.”

  Ronnie clicked some icons on the computer and the screen changed. The modem dialed, making its loud, painful sounds of connection.

  “Dial-up?” Fenris said. “That’s a shame.” Shara ignored him.

  Ronnie turned to her and mouthed a word, “Username?”

  “Username?” Shara asked.

  “Fenrislovesyou,” answered the voice from the phone. “All one word, no underlines or anything.”

  Shara watched as Ronnie sent a request to the username they’d been given, then a small frame in the chat window filled with color, focused, and she saw Fenris smiling at them, his long white hair neatly brushed, his face composed.

  “You’re as lovely as I remember,” he said, his screen image mouth moving a fraction of a second after the words came from the computer speakers. “I see McGrath is still in the room with you.” His eyes flicked to the side. “And that must be DoRonRon running the computer. Very retro username. I wasn’t a Shaun Cassidy fan, myself, having never been a teenage girl.”

  Shara saw Ron’s lips tighten, but he didn’t say anything. She made a note to commend him on that later.

  “So, we see each other,” Shara said. “Technology is great. What do you want.”

  “The cord connecting my camera to the computer prevents me from giving you a complete tour of my surroundings, but perhaps you’ll recognize where I am if I just pick it up and sort of pan it around this one room,” Fenris said. In jerky, pixilated movements he approached the camera, then was out of frame. The camera was lifted and moved slowly around in a circle.

  At the sight of the staircase, Shara covered her mouth. The camera continued to pan, showing an opening that led to a familiar kitchen, then a fireplace, where the camera moved closer so she could see a picture of herself standing beside a brand new Ford Mustang she hadn’t seen in several years.

  “Oh God,” she moaned into her hand. Thomas put an arm around her waist and leaned in to whisper something, but she didn’t hear him.

  Next to the fireplace, tied tightly in two chairs from the kitchen table sat her parents. Her father was wearing pale blue pajamas and her mother was dressed in a thin white nightgown. They both looked scared and old. Why did they look so old? It hadn’t been that long, Shara remembered, since she’d visited, shown them she was a wolf, ate an entire raw roast in a few bites and killed her mother’s yappy little dog.

  The camera settled into place and Fenris appeared again. He walked over to stand behind Don and Sue Wellington, where he leaned over them, his eyes on the camera as his head melted, elongated, and became that of a white-furred wolf. Shara watched her mother scream. Her father struggled against the ropes that held him. Fenris turned and ran his long pink tongue from Sue’s exposed shoulder, up her neck, over her cheek and into her open, screaming mouth. She gagged and spit as he pulled away and became human again. White hairs floated away from him. Many settled on Don’s blue pajama top.

  “So, here we are, Shara. Your son, or your parents,” he said.

  “Shara? Is that you?” Don called. Beside him, Sue sagged forward, crying, her head and shoulders shaking with her sobs.

  “It’s me, Dad,” Shara answered, her voice soft and cracking. I have to be strong. I am in charge here. She didn’t feel it, but she cleared her throat and said again, “It’s me, Dad. Are you okay?”

  “Shara, what’s going on? You have a son? Who is this ma
n?”

  Before Shara could answer, her mother raised her tear-streaked face and screamed at the camera. “How could you do this to us? We gave you everything. We spoiled you, and this is what we get for it.”

  Shara found Thomas’s hand and gripped it so hard she almost expected to feel his bones break. She fought off the urge to cry, to apologize, to promise Fenris whatever he wanted. After all, she couldn’t give it to him. Instead, she kept her voice calm and controlled.

  “What would you do with Joey?”

  “Maybe I’ll adopt him,” Fenris said. “Oh, he can forget that Alpha stuff. We won’t have any of that. I’ll show him that things are better as they are.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Shara said. “I think you’ll kill him.”

  “Shara, I’m disappointed,” he said, still standing over her parents. “I haven’t killed an innocent child in centuries.”

  Thomas spoke up. “Dora?” he asked.

  “Ahh, yes. Ulrik’s whelp.” He shrugged. “I made an exception since Ulrik is such an old friend.”

  “That hurts your credibility,” Shara reminded.

  “Perhaps. But then …” he trailed off, but patted his captives on their shoulders. “I do have a couple of aces. What do you say? Two for one?”

  “You’re crazy,” Shara said.

  He laughed and his white hair fell over his face, then he stopped abruptly, looked shocked, then let his eyes dart from side to side. “Mad, am I? I’m not mad.” Then he laughed some more before stopping just as suddenly and becoming serious again. “Where is he?”

  The sudden shift and blunt question startled Shara for a second. “Who?”

  “The boy. I want to see him.”

  “He’s … He’s not here,” Shara said.

  “With Ulrik, I suppose.”

  “No!” Shara puckered her lips in frustration over her own slip. She felt Thomas squeeze her hand reassuringly.