Nadia's Children

by Steven E Wedel

  But Holle had made it a place of honor in a way Ulrik never had required. Holle told Morrigan no one was allowed to eat until she said so. It was something Morrigan took to heart and the other Old Ones immediately adopted. Shara herself had been the last to concede, and had done so under the glare of all the Old Ones and Morrigan herself. Thomas had urged her to play along, humoring the child for a while.

  Morrigan was idly using her fork to move a pair of green peas through a tiny pool of brown gravy as she mentioned her dream. Her eyes were distant and her voice vague. The hand that wasn’t holding the fork propped under her cheek.

  Shara looked to Thomas, who only widened his eyes for a moment and looked back at her. “Don’t put your elbows on the table, Morrigan,” Shara said. Around them, dinner stopped. Shara felt everyone looking at her, waiting.

  “You had a brother,” Holle said, breaking the tension of that drawn-out silence. She deliberately placed her fork on her table and looked at Morrigan until the girl focused on her. “You killed him in the womb. You are the Alpha. The nutrients from your mother were yours by right.”

  “Did I eat him?” the girl asked.

  “No, child,” Holle answered as others at the table smiled and returned to their food. “You only chewed – ”

  “Enough!” Shara said, slapping her palm down on the table. “Don’t talk about it. It isn’t … decent. Not at dinner, especially.”

  Holle smiled, then gave Morrigan a quick wink that she didn’t bother trying to conceal from Shara.

  “Morrigan!” Shara snapped. “Elbow. Get it off the table. Now!”

  Slowly, glaring defiance at her mother, the girl pulled her elbow off the table and let her hand drop to her lap. “When I’m queen, you can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Hush, child,” Holle urged. “You already are the Alpha, but when in human form you should still use manners. Someday soon you will dine with powerful human leaders. You should show them how civilized you can be. Then eat them if they do not do as you wish.”

  Everyone except Shara and Thomas laughed. They looked at one another, both feeling angry and helpless. The meal was finished in peace except for the clinking of silverware against dishes. At last Shara pushed her plate away and faced her daughter.

  “Morrigan, how about if I read you a story tonight? We haven’t done that for quite a while,” she said.

  The little girl shook her head, her hair swinging around. “Holle tells me bedtime stories, and they’re all true.”

  “You like it when I read to you,” Shara urged.

  “That was before you said I shouldn’t be a queen,” Morrigan answered.

  “What will you do when you’re queen?” Thomas asked.

  “Tell people what to do,” Morrigan said.

  “Who?” Shara asked. “Werewolves?”

  “Holle says I’ll be able to tell everyone in the world what to do.”

  “What if they don’t want to do what you tell them, lass?” Thomas asked.

  “They have to. Because I’ll be the queen.”

  “How will you become the queen?” Shara asked.

  Morrigan looked from Shara to Holle, then to Thomas, then back to Holle, her face wrinkling with thought.

  “That’s enough,” Holle said. “You are causing unnecessary confusion.”

  “We’re making her think about the things you’re telling her,” Shara snapped. She turned her attention back to Morrigan. “Sweetie, Holle wants you to kill a lot of people. Innocent people who just want to live their lives like they’ve been do – ”

  At a slight nod from Holle, the massive Audric stood up across the table and, without warning, slapped Shara across the mouth with the back of his hand. Thomas was on him in an instant, jumping onto the table and leaping at the Old One’s chest, knocking him backward, toppling the chair and crashing to the floor. Thomas fell with him, still on top of him, and was lowering fangs to the Old One’s throat when two other men dragged him off, holding his arms and keeping him on his knees on the kitchen floor.

  Audric got to his feet, laughing softly. Still chuckling, he suddenly kicked Thomas in the gut, then in the head. The other men let Thomas fall to the floor.

  Shara pulled her bloody hand away from her busted lip. She held the hand toward Morrigan, the bright red blood dripping from her palm onto the dirty dishes. “Look at it, Morrigan. Look at how they’re treating your mother and father. This is what they want you to do to everyone. They want – ”

  Holle’s open palm slapped against Shara’s cheek, jerking her head to the side and sending a spray of blood spattering across the table from her broken lip. “Enough!” Holle shouted.

  “Mom …” Morrigan ventured.

  “Take them,” Holle ordered. “Confine them to their room for now. Post a guard.”

  The two men who’d held Thomas pulled him off the floor and supported his unconscious body between them. Audric looked to Shara and smiled. “Come,” he said.

  Shara held her head high, ignoring the blood that ran down her face. She walked around the table and, as she came to Morrigan’s chair, she held out her hand to her daughter. Hesitantly at first, Morrigan reached for the hand, then gripped the fingers and began scrambling to get out of the chair.

  “Stay, Morrigan,” Holle commanded.

  Morrigan stopped, looking from Shara to Holle.

  “You are the Alpha,” Shara said. Drops of blood sprayed as she said it and her voice was distorted because of the swelling. “She can’t make you, baby. Come on with Mom and Dad. Be with us.”

  “Think, Morrigan,” Holle warned. “Will you be queen? They gave you birth, but do not want you to be queen. They do not want what is best for the Pack.”

  Slowly, her heart breaking with each fractional release of pressure, Shara felt her daughter let go of her hand. Morrigan deliberately refused to look at her. The girl turned around to sit right in her chair, her dark head bowed. She sniffled once.

  Holle smiled. “So be it,” she said, then nodded at the others. Audric pushed Shara out of the kitchen and the other two followed with Thomas.

  * * *

  Night came. Shara and Thomas sat in their room, not talking, barely looking at each other. Shara sat in a chair near the window, staring at the floor, while Thomas sat propped up with pillows on the bed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Shara’s thoughts were on Ulrik, wondering if he had known this is what the Old Ones would want from Morrigan, trying to convince herself he would have acted with her, against them, if he had lived. Wondering if even Ulrik – thick-chested, smoldering-eyed, deep-thinking Ulrik – could have done anything against the Old Ones.

  The room became increasingly dark until Shara could no longer see the carpet beneath her. With a deep sigh she rose from the chair and, feeling her way with her hand, she made her way to the bed and lay down on top of the covers next to Thomas. She put her arm over him and he flinched when her hand came to rest on his bruised chest.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  He grunted.

  “On the up side, we’ll both probably be healed by morning,” she offered.

  “I felt so goddamned helpless,” he said, his jaw tight.

  “I know. I did, too. I thought I had her. When she … she let go of my hand …” Shara couldn’t finish it. She’d told Thomas how the confrontation ended when he’d regained his senses earlier. “Even when she saw how they treated us, her own mother and father, she chose them and their promises over us. How – ” She choked on a sob and stopped suddenly.

  They lay quietly, neither sleeping, neither speaking. Eventually, Thomas fell asleep, his breath coming in long, deep draws. Shara remained still, listening to him, thinking of the stillness of the house and remembering putting the torch to Ulrik’s pyre. After a time, she drifted to sleep, too.

  Not long after, she was awakened by the sound of voices outside her bedroom door. She’d missed the first words, but now listened intently. A man said, “Holle said no one goes in or out.”

/>   Shara recognized Cheryl Monroe’s voice responding. “The Alpha wants her mother and father to have ice cream. Holle said it’s okay.”

  The man snorted. “That kid,” he said. “Ice cream.”

  “I wouldn’t question the Alpha,” Cheryl warned. “Open the door for me, would ya?” she asked in her New Jersey accent. “This tray’s heavy.”

  A key turned in the lock, then the door opened. Shara saw two shapes silhouetted against the dim light from the hallway. The short woman with thick, curly blonde hair held a tray with both hands while the man pushed the door open. “They’re asleep,” he said.

  “You go wake them up while I put this on the table,” Cheryl said. “Morrigan wants them to eat it now. She wants to know if they like it.”

  The man walked over to the bed. Thomas still slept. Shara closed her eyes to slits. She could feel the man looming over her side of the bed, but couldn’t make out who he was through her lashes and the dark. Behind him there was the sound of the tray being set on a table. He bumped the bed with his knee. Shara opened her eyes as the man suddenly gasped in shock. His body went rigid, his back arched and his voice gurgled in his mouth as he slowly dropped to his knees.

  Thomas jerked up, his eyes wide. “What the hell?”

  Cheryl stood behind the man. She pulled a knife out of his back and he slumped over the bed.

  “Be quiet,” Cheryl hissed. “We’re leaving. You can’t take anything with you. No boots,” she said when Thomas sat up and reached for the boots he’d left beside the bed. “Too loud. Come on.” The short blonde woman motioned with her arm that they should follow her.

  Shara and Thomas did as she instructed. Quickly and quietly, they closed the bedroom door and slipped through the hallway, down the stairs, through the kitchen to the back door, where Cheryl stopped them. In a whisper, she instructed, “We’ll take off our clothes on the porch, change shape, and make for the woods. Follow me, and be quiet.”

  They threw their clothes under the porch, then three wolves slunk along in the shadow of the house until they were on the north side. The yellow wolf paused, looked around and scented the air. Shara and Thomas did the same, then Cheryl led them away at a run until they entered the deeper darkness of the forest surrounding the house. They stopped and listened, but no alarm came from the house. Shara knew, however, that getting through the patrols prowling among the trees would be much more difficult than getting out of the house.

  And Morrigan …

  Shara’s gaze lingered on the house for a while. Cheryl seemed to sense the reason for her hesitation and nudged Shara’s face with her own nose, a very soft whine coming from her throat. Shara looked from Cheryl to Thomas. His eyes were sad, but resolute, and she knew he was thinking it was a temporary retreat, that they would return for their daughter. Shara sighed and turned away.

  About twenty yards into the belt of trees, the trio encountered the wolf patrolling the area. To Shara’s surprise, Cheryl did not make any attempt to avoid the sentry, but walked right up to him and nuzzled his neck. Shara studied the new wolf and determined it must be Merin Weir, the perpetually sad-faced older man who seldom talked. Merin turned around and took the lead. Cheryl let Shara and Thomas know it was safe to follow, and the three trailed after Merin. They didn’t encounter any other guards in the woods, but Merin stopped them at the outside edge of the trees, where he sat down and let his shape transform into that of the old man Shara didn’t know the man well, but he had been a friend of Ulrik’s and, when he talked, he often spoke of time on the American frontier with her old mentor.

  “Janice should be just over the rise, waiting,” Merin said to Cheryl.

  Quickly, Cheryl became a woman squatting beside Merin. She reached out and put a hand on his bony shoulder. “Come with us. They’ll know you helped us.”

  “I do not like what they plan,” Merin admitted. “Would I not be more useful close to the little Alpha?”

  Shara sat down and was ready to change her own shape, but Cheryl stopped her. “There’s no time, Shara,” she said, then turned her attention back to the man. “You’re more useful alive, Merin, and they’ll kill you for helping us. Come on.” Cheryl turned herself into a wolf again and started forward before Merin could protest.

  Thomas stepped up and pushed at Merin’s back with his nose. Shara joined him, both of them urging him after Cheryl. Finally the old man’s grizzled cheeks split into a grin – the first Shara had ever seen on him – and he nodded, changed his shape, and went after Cheryl. Thomas and Shara followed close after him. Once they’d caught their leader, Cheryl picked up the pace and the four slipped across the hard, hot earth like ghosts.

  At the top of the rise they looked down into a shallow valley where an orange Hummer was parked without any lights on. As the four stood at the top of the ridge, the lights mounted on the roof of the vehicle blinked twice. Cheryl started toward it at a quick trot, the rest following. Halfway down, a short black woman with a huge afro got out of the driver’s seat and waved them closer with frantic gestures. “Hurry up!” she hissed. They ran. The woman got back in the Hummer and threw the passenger door open, then the engine started. The four wolves jumped into the passenger seat; Shara, Thomas, and Merin crawled over the console and took places in the back of the vehicle. The massive machine’s tires dug into the dirt and shot forward.

  “They’re awake in the house and know who’s gone,” Janice said as she turned the truck to head north. They picked up speed, going over the desert, not angling toward the only nearby road. Janice turned to look quickly behind her.

  Shara, freshly transformed, brushed black hair off her bare arms and legs. Beside her, Thomas did the same. Merin had jumped over the middle seat and was now sitting in the center of the back row.

  “I’m Janice Cofey,” the driver said. “We have something in common, Shara, but that’s a story for another day. We’ve gotta make some tracks. Merin, I’m glad you decided to come with us.”

  “Thank you, Janice,” he said from the back seat.

  “Cheryl, what’s going on?” Shara asked.

  “A jailbreak, I guess,” the blonde woman answered, turning in her seat and smiling. “There should be a bag of clothes back there somewhere. Holle, Audric, and the other Old Ones disarmed almost everyone who was around the house. That’s when we – well, when I figured out that I hadn’t seen you or Thomas with a gun for a while and that you were spending too much time away from Morrigan. I asked Holle about it and she told me you no longer were serving the best interests of the Pack. Or however she said it. So we worked this out. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but so far it’s working.”

  “Why?” Shara asked. “Why help us instead of the Old Ones?”

  “What they want to do is … unthinkable,” Cheryl said.

  “It’s some barbaric shit,” Janice added, keeping her eyes on the desert. “I’m more into peace and love, unless I got something against an individual. World domination? Not for me.”

  “So, what is your plan from here?” Thomas asked.

  “That kind of depends,” Cheryl answered. “I have a friend who can help, but she … Well, she’s kind of a third party in the dispute between Fenris and those who were following Ulrik.”

  “What do you mean?” Shara asked.

  “Her name is Cerdwyn Imogen,” Cheryl said. “She is a priestess of Gaia. Mother Earth.”

  Shara knew her face gave her away.

  “She’s a unique individual, but she’s not a kook,” Cheryl said, smiling at Shara. “I know what you’re thinking. I met her through my occult bookstore in Jersey. She really does have some mystical powers. There’s a lot to it, Shara, but basically she is in touch with the earth in a way that most humans haven’t been since the time when the Old Ones were still human.”

  “What’s her interest in all this?” Thomas asked. “She doesn’t want the Alpha to come to power like Ulrik did, but she doesn’t want to kill her like Fenris?”

  “Right. Cerdwyn thinks the Al
pha will be a high priestess, a benevolent ruler.”

  “She’d help us get Morrigan away from Holle?” Shara asked.

  “I can’t speak for her,” Cheryl said. “But I believe she will. She is absolutely against the war and slaughter Holle wants.”

  Shara sat quietly for a moment. She stared at her knees, fully aware that both Thomas and Cheryl were watching her, waiting. The Hummer bounced over the rough terrain, taking them further away from Morrigan and those who were corrupting her. Shara nodded. “We don’t have anyone else to help us,” she said at last.

  “Good!” Cheryl beamed at her. “I was hoping this would work out.” She turned to the driver and asked, “Janice, did you bring a cell phone?”

  “Of course. In the glove box,” Janice answered.

  Cheryl took out the phone, talking as she did. “My heart has always been with Cerdwyn and her beliefs, but at the same time I was always loyal to Ulrik.” She rolled the phone in her left hand. “I haven’t been able to send any message to Cerdwyn in almost two years because it seemed Holle was always around me and, even before, I never completely trusted her. But … I never told Cerdwyn that Ulrik is … gone. When I called to tell her about Morrigan being born, she already knew the Mother had given birth to a girl.”

  “How could she have known that?” Shara asked.

  “Auras. Vibrations in Nature. I don’t fully understand it,” Cheryl admitted. “She’s so much more advanced in the ways of Gaia than me. She knows, so I never really felt guilty for not telling her about Ulrik, and didn’t worry so much about not keeping in touch. When I saw things were getting bad, I sent her a text message. She said she was about to do something, but wouldn’t say what. Then I destroyed my phone, just in case.”

  Cheryl paused. Shara waited for the woman to get to her point, or make the call, or something. She just wanted to sit quietly and think for a while. Finally, Cheryl flipped the phone open and punched in a number. After a moment she lowered the phone, closed it, and shook her head.