Nadia's Children

by Steven E Wedel

  “No signal,” she said.

  Shara leaned against the door, glad for the silence. Thomas put a hand on her shoulder, but Shara didn’t respond. The hand slipped down to her thigh and rested there, just making contact, not demanding attention. Silent tears ran down Shara’s face as she thought of the curse that kept taking her children away from her. She was almost asleep when the Hummer skidded to a stop.

  “What the hell is this?” Janice barked.

  Shara looked out the side window and didn’t see anything, then looked out the windshield and saw two white men fighting, oblivious to the lights of the vehicle. The bigger of the two was wearing a torn denim shirt and, as Shara watched, his face elongated into the snout of a wolf and he snapped onto the arm of the other man.

  Fenris

  Fenris flicked off the television when Gary Andersen entered the room. He watched silently as Andersen flopped down in a maroon art-deco-style chair. His fellow Swede was doing a decent job as lieutenant. He was efficient, intuitive, and followed orders. It was almost like having Hess and Kelley rolled into one package.

  “You have the arrangements made?” Fenris asked.

  “Yes,” Andersen answered. He studied the glass of red wine on the table next to Fenris.

  Smiling, Fenris poured another glass and handed it over. “Tell me,” he urged.

  “It’s a Columbian ship. The owner met with an accident in San Francisco.” Andersen’s eyes shone with mirth.

  “Drugs?” Fenris asked. “We do not want the DEA, or any other law enforcement watching us. I thought I made that clear.”

  “It’s okay. The guy was probably involved in trafficking, but that’s not what he was here for. It was a family visit. He left his wife with his in-laws and went to a certain district where the lights are red, but he didn’t want to pay for the favors he received.” Andersen made a shooting motion with his finger and thumb. “Gunned down by a Vietnamese pimp. Died with his pants down and his pecker hard.”

  Fenris grinned and raised his glass. “We should all be so lucky,” he said.

  Andersen returned the motion with his own glass. “DEA has been over the boat, but it’s clean. The crew was planning to sail tomorrow. The wife has decided to stay here in the States.”

  “The crew understands their mission?”

  “One stop somewhere between here and Argentina. Unload passengers, luggage, and pets, no questions asked.”

  “Do you trust them?” Fenris asked.

  Andersen shrugged. “I trust them to get us where we want to go, at least. From there, I trust nobody will ask too many questions if they never make it home.”

  “You’ve done well.” Fenris watched the man sip his wine. “It has been a long, long time since I last met Ulrik. I almost killed him, you know. Back during the Second World War.”

  “So I heard. You’ll get another chance at him soon enough.”

  “Yes.” Fenris turned his long-stemmed wine glass between his hands. “We leave the day after tomorrow.”

  “Is everyone here?” Andersen asked.

  “Enough. The ship will hold one hundred passengers?”

  “Yes. It’ll be a little cramped, maybe, but we’ll make it.”

  “Good.” Fenris drained his wine and didn’t look at Andersen again. After a couple of minutes, the smaller man got the hint, drank his wine and excused himself.

  Fenris sat alone, thinking. He hadn’t led such a large force into open conflict in a long time. Not since the months after World War Two, when he’d continued to fight the Allies, prolonging Hitler’s chaos long after the Austrian madman had killed himself. Eventually, though, the game had grown tiring and he gave it up. Since then, he had only made smaller assaults, and those were usually more of an assassination type than open war. Shara’s parents, for instance. He sighed. That one hadn’t been much fun. Two humans near retirement age with no idea who he was or what he was doing in their house. To make it worse, he hadn’t even learned the information he wanted.

  He would welcome a good fight.

  * * *

  Early the following morning, Fenris awoke to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He rolled to the edge of his bed and took the phone off the table beside him. He didn’t recognize the number. He punched the button to take the call and snapped, “Yes?”

  “Fenris, how are you?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Kiona Brokentooth. Remember me?”

  Fenris pushed himself to a sitting position. The sheet and single blanket slipped off his bare chest to settle in his lap. “I remember you well. I remember how you betrayed me,” he said.

  “I made a mistake,” she said.

  He knew something was up. This woman never sounded as agreeable as she was trying to sound right now. “How many years has it been since that last phone call?” he asked.

  “About eight, I think.”

  “I let you get away when I had you trapped because you promised to bring me the young Alpha,” Fenris reminded. “You and your Indian bear friend and Shara’s human.”

  “Yes. Things didn’t go as planned.”

  “Tell me about it,” he urged. Fenris looked toward his window. The curtains were drawn, but he could tell that it was still early, maybe seven a.m. There was a lot of work to do today. Why was Kiona Brokentooth calling him now?

  “We got Joey,” she said.

  Fenris felt the phone pressing against his head and realized he was pressing it there and that he was squeezing the little plastic device way too hard. “You did what?” he asked.

  “We got Joey away from Ulrik after you let us go,” she repeated.

  He was speechless for several heartbeats. Finally, he asked, “He is with you?”

  “He was. He has been for over seven years. We were hiding.”

  “From whom?”

  “You, for one. And from Ulrik, if he’s still alive.”

  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  “I’ve said too much.”

  “You want something.”

  “Of course.”

  “You think I would deal with you again?” he snarled. “Nobody betrays me. Nobody. I’ll have the hide off you and your two men for this.”

  “John Redleaf is dead. He died in the fight to get Joey. We couldn’t fly the plane ourselves.”

  “You made no effort to contact me, as you promised.”

  “You have competition, Fenris. Competition you might not even know about. Does the name Cerdwyn Imogen sound familiar?”

  “I know of her,” he said. “She’s a harmless crackpot with an occult store somewhere in the Northeast.”

  “That crackpot seduced Chris and now has him and Joey with her,” Kiona said.

  “You let the Alpha go with her?” he had to fight to keep his voice below a roar.

  Kiona’s voice sounded tight and controlled as she answered. “I didn’t just let it happen.”

  Fenris couldn’t stop his smug smile despite his anger. “Kiona Brokentooth bested in a fight with a Wiccan priestess.”

  “I was outnumbered and caught by surprise, not that it’s an issue you need to focus on,” she said, some of her customary anger seeping into her tone. “Do you want to hear my offer or not?”

  “I’m listening,” Fenris said.

  “I can tell you where Ulrik and his people are hiding.”

  “You can? Hmm. Just a second. Let me give a spin to the old globe here and see if I can magically stab it with my finger.” He paused as if he really had a globe anywhere near him. “Ah, could it be Las Sombras, Mexico?”

  It was Kiona’s turn to be speechless. Fenris grinned and waited.

  “You already know?”

  “I know. I’ve been there. Well, near enough. Now, what bargain were you going to ask for in return for that piece of information?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Never mind.”

  “Kiona, you still have information I want. Tell me what it is you want,” he urged.

  “I want Chris
Woodman dead. The woman, too. Cerdwyn. And I want Joey returned to me.”

  “He’s not a boy anymore now, is he? Did he decide to go with his father, or was he taken by force?” When she hesitated, he knew. “He chose blood. You raised him as a mother for all those years after Ulrik?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything more?” he asked. Again, she hesitated and he knew. “Ah. I see how it is.”

  “What of it?” she snapped.

  “I’m not judging. Just making sure I understand the situation. So, you want me to kill Woodman and our crackpot priestess? Woodman is already on my list, so your request doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “I want him to suffer.”

  “A woman scorned,” he laughed.

  “I’ve heard that you’re worse than a woman when you’re scorned,” she said, her voice full of anger.

  “You may find that out yet,” Fenris reminded. “I don’t trust you. Nobody can trust you. Next to me, you may be the most selfish shapeshifter currently alive. We’d be a perfect pair, except we would always be scheming against one another. What do you know about Ulrik? You said he might be dead. Why?”

  “I want to go with you,” she answered. “I don’t know for sure, but I think they may be going back to Mexico. I want to go with you and help kill them all.”

  “But now I don’t need you to show me the way.”

  “How did you find it?”

  A sudden thought came to Fenris and for a moment his heart stopped beating. “Tell me, Kiona, where have you been hiding for the past seven years?”

  “Arkansas,” she answered. “In the swamp.”

  How can that be? Skandar led me to the Alpha. He was sure the Alpha was there in Mexico.

  “If you’re lying to me again, Kiona, I will send everything I have against you. I will hunt you down and skin you alive. Do you understand me?” he asked.

  “I understand.”

  “You have been in Arkansas for seven years? The boy, the Alpha, has been with you all the time?”

  “Yes.”

  Fenris was silent. This is not right. “Tell me about Ulrik.”

  “It’s not enough,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That information isn’t enough to ensure my safety.”

  “Not telling me is enough to ensure I’ll be sending someone to Arkansas to track you down,” Fenris answered.

  “Don’t play stupid. You know damn good and well that I’m not in Arkansas now,” she said.

  “You have information I want,” he admitted. “You may know more than you realize. Come to my home and we’ll talk.”

  She laughed at him. “Not on your life,” she said. “You come to me. Alone.”

  “Where?”

  “When you get to Bismarck, North Dakota, call me back at this number,” she said, then hung up on him.

  Fenris dropped the phone onto his bed. “Damn you, bitch,” he muttered. Then he snatched the phone back up and punched the speed dial for Gary Andersen. When the sleepy man answered, Fenris barked, “Change of plans. Cancel the ship, but see if you can hold it in port, or find another leaving in a week. Book me a flight to Bismarck, North Dakota.” He hung up and dropped the phone again.

  Trusting Kiona Brokentooth was a dangerous thing to do. Even what she’d said now could be all lies, but Fenris doubted it. She was a treacherous whore, but she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have called him unless she was desperate.

  What of Ulrik? Why did Skandar believe the Alpha was in Mexico if the boy was in Arkansas?

  The last seemed obvious. There had to be another one. Shara had birthed another child.

  “McGrath,” Fenris whispered. “A werewolf father and mother. Now it makes sense.”

  The Old Ones had not returned to their human form when Joey was born. It had been the birth of this other child that triggered that change. How could he have missed it?

  Does Kiona know there is another child? Does she know Joey is not the Alpha?

  Fenris didn’t think so. She hadn’t corrected him when he’d referred to Joey as the Alpha.

  What about the other one, Cerdwyn?

  That was hard to say. He couldn’t fathom what her role in this drama might be. He had ignored her for decades. Now he wished he hadn’t.

  He pondered for a while, trying to decide if Kiona really was likely to have any information that would be useful to him. If she did not know about another child, or that Joey was not the Alpha, Fenris knew he was ahead of her there. If Cerdwyn had said anything about her own plans, Kiona could provide that. And explain what she’d meant about Ulrik possibly being dead.

  “Killing you was to be my personal honor, you old fool,” Fenris said.

  He threw off the covers and began packing the few items he would take with him to South Dakota.

  Chris

  Chris pushed his head back against the arm rest of their new car. On Cerdwyn’s advice, he’d sold the Jeep for cash at the first car dealer they came to in Texarkana, then walked a couple of blocks to another dealership to buy a two-year-old SUV. Kiona might find the Jeep sitting on a lot, but not buying a new car there would make it at least a little harder for her to find out what they were driving and where they were going. Chris sighed. Cerdwyn was driving, moving them northwest, toward Colorado.

  “It feels really weird not having her around,” Joey said suddenly from his place in the back seat, behind Chris.

  “Yeah,” Chris agreed. Life without Kiona was certainly different. She was never a very likeable person, but her absence was definitely felt. “Just the three of us for so long, it’s like having a tumor removed after you’ve gotten used to feeling it under your arm.”

  “She wasn’t a tumor,” Joey said. “You just didn’t understand her.”

  Chris started to disagree, but Cerdwyn interrupted the conversation. Deliberately, he guessed, to change the topic.

  “Have either of you been to Colorado?” she asked.

  “I did a show there once,” Chris said. “In Colorado Springs. Didn’t really leave the hotel, though. I don’t think Joey’s ever been.”

  “No,” the boy confirmed.

  “It’s a beautiful state, but I doubt we get to explore it very much,” Cerdwyn said.

  “What’s the plan once we get there?” Joey asked.

  “Kelley has Jenny with her now,” Cerdwyn said. “She texted me that much from Gunnison. They were heading for Pueblo, and that’s where we’re supposed to meet them.”

  “Then what?” Joey asked.

  “First, Kelley will tell us what she knows about Fenris and his plans, then we’ll plan our next move,” Cerdwyn said.

  “Who are Kelley and Jenny?” Joey asked.

  “Kelley Stone is an old friend of mine,” Cerdwyn said. Chris had his eyes closed, but he felt the woman looking at him to answer the rest.

  “You remember Jenny Brown, from your grade school in Montana?” he asked.

  “Jenny? The girl I – ” Joey stopped.

  “That’s the one,” Chris said.

  “She didn’t die?”

  “No. She was close, though,” Chris said, remembering the girl burning up with fever and thrashing on a ragged mattress in the basement of a house in northern Utah. “You know, Fenris and his wolves killed her parents and several other people at the hospital where they were treating Jenny after you bit her.”

  “I didn’t know,” Joey said, his voice very soft. “I didn’t know anything then. Didn’t know what I was. I sure didn’t know biting her would … Cause all that.” He paused and the only sound for a while was the hum of tires on asphalt. “Why did you and Mom hide it from me? Mom lied to me every month about those shots she gave me. Why?”

  Chris opened his eyes and watched the dividing line of the highway race past. “You were too young,” he said at last. “Don’t blame your mother. We made the decision together. I was the worst, I guess. I refused to even think about you being a werewolf. I wouldn’t acknowledge it. S
o we made up the story about the serum to suppress the change being an allergy shot.” He stopped, remembering the fights with his wife. “Shara – your mom – said when you were old enough we’d have to let you make your own decision about it. I didn’t even want that. I wanted her to find a complete cure.”

  “You wanted Mom to do that?” Joey asked. “What, is she a scientist?”

  Chris smiled. “No. She’s smart, though. She figured out how to make the serum. It wasn’t easy for her. She didn’t have anything to test it on, really. Other werewolves weren’t exactly stepping up for experiments. It was a total crap shoot that first time. But after Tony Weismann tried to kill you, I made her try it.”

  Chris had to stop. For a moment, as clear as if they were back in their Montana home, he saw her in front of him, sitting at the dining room table as she stared intently at one of her books, a vial of the serum she’d made in her left hand. She was rolling the glass vial between her thumb and fingers, her raven-wing-black hair tucked behind her ears and that small straight line creasing her forehead right above her nose. In his vision, she turned to look at him, and that’s when it broke apart.

  The memory was almost too much. His love for Shara had been a burning passion then, topped only by his love for Joey. But he just couldn’t face a life where he knew they’d always be hunted. He’d told Shara – and he’d made himself believe – that giving Joey the injection was for the baby’s own good.

  “Your mother locked herself in a bedroom with you,” he said. “We didn’t know if the serum would work. There was a good chance it would kill you. Shara wouldn’t let me in. She told me that if the serum killed you, she was going to take it, anyway, so she could die, too.”

  “She did?” Joey asked. “She really did that?”

  “Yes,” Chris answered softly. “She did. She injected you. It was horrible. It was horrible for me, standing outside listening to you scream and growl and cry and … everything. I can’t imagine how it was in that room for Shara, watching you go through it. But then it stopped. You were quiet, and she told me you were all right. Then she injected herself.”

  “I guess I stopped thinking about Mom that way,” Joey said. “All these years I’ve only thought about her being with that other man, Thomas, and telling me you were dead. I guess I’ve kind of hated her.”