Nadia's Children

by Steven E Wedel

  Chris sighed, and suddenly he felt as if a load of bricks was settling on his chest. “I know,” he said. “I’m to blame for that. I let you think it. Even encouraged it. And Kiona …”

  “She really hates Mom.”

  “Yes. Kiona always wanted to be the first to give birth, to be the Mother of the Pack. She wanted you to be her son.” He paused, watched the highway and country slipping past, under, and behind the car, then he turned to face his son.

  “Your mom isn’t a bad person, Joey. She’s really not. I think it’s time we both realized that.”

  Cerdwyn looked over at Chris and smiled. “I am very proud of you,” she said. “Both of you. It is very important that you acknowledge that.”

  “I should have known what Fenris was going to do when he took my wedding band and shirt,” Chris said. “I was so stupid. I thought he was going to pawn the ring. As if he was poor or something.”

  Cerdwyn laughed. “No, he’s not poor.”

  “Mom tried talking to me when I was with her at Ulrik’s house,” Joey said. “I just remember being mad at her most of the time, though. I liked Ulrik. Until he sent Kiona away, then I was mad at him, too, but most of the time I still liked him better than Mom. I blamed Mom for Kiona being sent away, I guess.”

  They drove on quietly for a few minutes, then Joey spoke again. “Dad, will we ever see Mom again?”

  Chris breathed in deeply and held it for a long moment before expelling the air. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I hope so. I don’t think I would have said that last week, but now, yes, I hope we will.”

  * * *

  They stopped for lunch in Norman, Oklahoma, where Chris explained to Joey the rivalry between the University of Oklahoma Sooners and the Oklahoma State University Cowboys. A few people in the barbecue restaurant overheard him and gave them funny looks, like they couldn’t believe a kid Joey’s age didn’t know about Bedlam.

  “I grew up closer to OSU, so I was a Cowboys fan,” Chris explained. “Then, later, when I’d just made a name for myself as an artist, I was living outside of Stillwater. I’d go to the university library to do research on mythical monsters, and that’s where I met your mother for the second time.”

  “The second time?” Joey asked.

  “Yes,” Chris said, smiling at the memory. “We first met when we were undergraduates at North Central Oklahoma State University. Ulrik was working as a professor there at the time and he tried to hook us up.”

  Even Cerdwyn laughed at that. “Ulrik the matchmaker?” she asked. “And Shara wasn’t even …” she lowered her voice. “Wasn’t even like him yet.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” Chris said. “She was so shy, though. She didn’t even realize I was asking her out at first. I had to spell it out. ‘Shara, I am asking you for a date,’ I said. She got so flustered she couldn’t even talk for a minute. She … she had a hard time with guys back then,” he said, his voice sad. “She told me later how she’d dated the same boy for most of high school and he got her drunk and raped her on prom night.”

  The table was quiet. Finally Cerdwyn said, “I didn’t know that.”

  “The goddess didn’t tell you?” Chris asked, half-joking.

  “I knew Shara had a troubled past, but I suspected it was her father,” Cerdwyn said.

  “Oh yeah, I guess that means I have grandparents,” Joey interjected. “I’ve never really thought about that.”

  Both Chris and Cerdwyn tried to talk. She let Chris go first. “Don’t think about it, now, either. Your mother and her parents haven’t been on speaking terms for years. From what she said, they never really got along after she became a teenager. She told me a story once about going home and eating a raw roast and killing her mother’s dog. I don’t remember why, though.”

  “They’re dead, Chris,” Cerdwyn said. “Fenris killed them many years ago. Not long after you and Joey left her, actually. He made Shara watch it on a Webcam.”

  “Holy …” Chris began. He lowered his head and stared blankly at the half of sandwich still on his plate. “Why?”

  “He wanted Joey. Shara, of course, couldn’t have done anything about it even if she’d been willing to give you up,” Cerdwyn said, looking at the boy. “Of course, I don’t think she would have. When she wouldn’t promise to bring you to him, he killed both her parents.”

  “How …” Chris had to clear his throat, then take a drink of soda. “How do you know this?”

  “Kelley told me.”

  “This Kelley, she was a part of all this? All Fenris’s stuff? Is she really somebody we want to be with?” Chris asked.

  “Kelley was mostly a personal assistant. She booked his flights, paid the bills, cleaned the house, scheduled repairs, and those kinds of things. She very seldom was involved in anything else. Fenris is something of a sexist. He saves the heavy work for males.”

  Chris thought back to the redhead he’d seen in that house in Utah. She’d put on a good act. He had no idea she wasn’t completely loyal to her white-haired leader. She hadn’t been cruel. She really hadn’t done anything other than bring him some food and keep water in the basement for him to give Jenny … He stopped, reconsidered. Maybe that alone had proven she wasn’t as bad as Fenris.

  “We need to hurry and get back on the road,” Cerdwyn said.

  * * *

  They were cutting through the heart of Oklahoma City on Interstate 44 when Cerdwyn’s cell phone beeped. Chris was driving now, with Joey still in the backseat playing his handheld video game machine.

  “It’s Kelley,” Cerdwyn said, reading the screen. “She wants me to call her. Something urgent.”

  “Do I need to pull over somewhere?” Chris asked.

  Cerdwyn seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “No, I don’t think so. I’ll call her and see.” She dialed the number and put the phone to her ear. “Kelley, it’s me.” Pause. “No, I’m not alone. Chris and Joey are with me. We’re on the highway.” Pause. “Oklahoma City. What’s going on?”

  Cerdwyn was quiet and listened for a while. Chris strained to hear, but couldn’t distinguish recognizable words from the phone.

  “I see,” Cerdwyn said. “You’re sure about that?” She listened. “Do you believe it?” Pause. “Okay. Okay. That’s bad.” She listened again. “There’s nowhere between here and there where we can get a flight. Why don’t you meet us here in Oklahoma City? We’ll get a hotel room and I’ll make some calls to friends while Chris books a flight.” She waited. “Okay. Late tonight. Bye.” Cerdwyn closed her phone and sat quietly staring out the window for a long time.

  “What?” Chris finally asked.

  “We need to find a hotel by the airport,” Cerdwyn said. “Quickly. Fenris is on the move.”

  “On the move? Where?”

  Cerdwyn put a hand on his forearm. Chris dared a look at her and saw how her face was suddenly tight with worry. “He’s going after Shara in Mexico.”

  Shara

  Cheryl was out of the Hummer first. Shara was stunned to see the petite woman move so quickly. She was holding a huge nickel-plated Colt .45 she’d pulled from under the seat and she pointed it at the two fighting men. Her voice was high and loud as she called, “Stop it! On the ground! Both of you!”

  Shara followed Thomas out of the vehicle and they joined Merin and Janice in a semi-circle behind Cheryl and her gun. Merin, too, held a pistol.

  The men stopped fighting. The one who seemed younger, with longer hair but with eyes that seemed ancient and haunted, held the other, bigger man, by the throat, a fist poised to deliver a blow. The hand gripping the man’s throat, though, was too big and too hairy. The bigger man with dark hair had an elongated face, a muzzle, and his lips were curled back to show his curved teeth.

  “Shit,” Thomas muttered.

  “Do you know them?” Shara whispered.

  “No,” Thomas answered.

  Merin pointed with his revolver to the big man on his knees with his throat being squeezed. “T
hat one is Alex Draper. One of Fenris’s men. I don’t know the other one.”

  “He’s an Old One,” Shara whispered as the long-haired man released the other and turned to fully face her, his hand changing back to completely human.

  “You are the Mother of the Pack,” he said, his voice flavored with a strange accent similar to Holle and Audric’s. The man seemed to think for a moment, then said, “You are called Shara.”

  “Shit, man, you were right. They are down here,” the other man, Draper, said as he got to his feet. He stared at the group, especially at Shara.

  “What are you doing here?” Cheryl demanded.

  “I come to serve the Alpha,” the Old One said. “I have seen her before, with Fenris, and now I come to her.”

  “Who are you?” Shara asked. She stepped forward, away from the protection of the group. Something about this one drew her to him. His eyes held secrets, and they were locked onto her, totally ignoring the guns pointed his direction. “Are you …?”

  “I am called Skandar. I am what you call an Old One,” he answered.

  “You’ve seen my daughter?”

  “Yes. I came with Fenris. He does not know the Alpha is a girl child. He thinks the Alpha is a boy. He did not see the boy he looked for, though. Is there such a boy?”

  “Yes. I have a son,” Shara said. “He’s not here. Do you know the mission of the Alpha?”

  “She will lead us,” Skandar answered.

  Shara studied him closely. “Lead us in what?”

  “Lead us in …” he paused as though searching for the words. “In the matters of the Pack.”

  “What are those?” Shara demanded.

  “I do not know.”

  “There are other Old Ones around her now,” Shara said. “Did you see them?”

  “I saw one,” he answered, his voice harder than it had been.

  “Who?”

  “Holle. That is what she called herself in my time.”

  “What of her?”

  “She … she is not good.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer at first. His expression did not change, didn’t harden into resistance, but for an instant Shara saw confusion flicker in his eyes.

  “Tell me,” she urged.

  “There has been much …” he paused, searching for a word. “Much deception. Fenris, he did not tell me things, and I did not tell him things. It has been hard to learn who to trust since I became a man again.”

  Shara stepped up to him and lightly placed a hand on the man’s arm. “You can trust me,” she said. “I want what is best for my child. My children.”

  “You are the Mother,” he answered.

  Shara nodded. “I am the Mother of the Pack.”

  Skandar took a deep breath. “Long ago, when the Old Ones were human, she was the wife of our leader. It was she who made him kill Nadia’s people instead of only stealing their food. She was jealous of Nadia’s people because of Nadia’s power. Nadia was a true seer. Holle wanted to be a seer, but what she said would happen never did.”

  “You are not a friend of Holle’s?” Shara asked, trying to make up her mind if she should believe him.

  “I am not.”

  “What about him?” Shara pointed at Draper. “Why is he here? Why were you fighting?”

  “Fenris was going to kill me,” Draper said. “Some kid got away from us and I was going to have to take the fall for it. So I left. Jumped out of the car I was driving for him and ran off. Left him and this guy sitting in traffic on the freeway.”

  “This is true,” Skandar said. “I went after him because I do not like the one called Fenris. Draper helped me get from the other country to this one, but then he questioned me about our destination.”

  “We’ve been walking forever,” Draper interrupted. “I was beginning to think he was full of shit about you being down here.”

  Shara looked back to her companions. “What do you think?”

  “I say we kill Draper right here and now,” Janice answered. “I don’t know about the other one.”

  Shara looked to Thomas.

  “I don’t know, lass. I just don’t know. We made the mistake of trusting Holle. Do we make the same mistake again?”

  “The Alpha is not with you,” Skandar said.

  Shara looked back at him for a moment. “No,” she confirmed. She turned back to Cheryl and Merin. “What do you think?”

  “Thomas makes a good point about Holle,” Merin said quietly. “I tend to agree with Janice about Fenris’s man.”

  “Wait a minute,” Draper protested. “I didn’t risk my life and come all the way down here just to get shot by you guys.”

  “Hands up!” Cheryl barked suddenly.

  Shara turned back to see that the man’s hand had inched toward his lower back. He stopped reaching for the gun that had to be there and stared at them, his face a working mass of confusion.

  “Up!” Cheryl repeated. “Or I’ll do what they’ve suggested.”

  Draper raised his hands. Shara looked to Thomas. “Let’s check him over,” she said. “I don’t think we should kill him. Not yet.”

  Together, she and Thomas frisked Draper, removing his handgun and a cell phone, plus a small pocketknife.

  “Strip him?” Thomas asked.

  “I’m clean,” Draper argued. “You got it all. Hell, it’s not like I had time to go home and pack. I jumped out of a car on the freakin’ highway, I told you.”

  “Did we get everything he has?” Shara asked Skandar.

  “That I have seen,” the man answered. “You will do the same to me?”

  Shara thought about it. “What if I trust you?” she asked.

  “I would be glad.”

  “I feel like I should.”

  He only stood there, returning her gaze, letting her decide for herself.

  Shara nodded. “I’m going to trust you, Skandar.”

  “It is good,” he said. “You will take me to the Alpha?”

  “No,” Shara answered. The man’s face fell. “It isn’t safe right now.”

  Skandar’s face puckered for a moment, then cleared. “Holle?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Shara answered. “She’s taken Morrigan, the Alpha, away from us. From Thomas and me, her parents, because we won’t support her plan to make Morrigan a werewolf queen who uses humans only as food for the Pack.”

  Skandar nodded slowly. “That is Holle’s way. I am not surprised. We should not leave the Alpha with her.”

  “I know, but they took our weapons,” Shara argued. “We were being held as prisoners in our own home. We left to get help so we can go back and get Morrigan.”

  “Morrigan,” he said, turning the name over on his tongue. “I will help.”

  “I know,” Shara said, nodding. She reached out and touched his arm. “Thank you. Now is not the time, though. There are too many of them.”

  A buzzing noise sounded at Cheryl’s hip. She handed her gun to Janice and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. Flipping it open, she said, “Hello? Cerdwyn?”

  All eyes were on the small blonde woman as she held the phone to her head. “No, it’s fine. I’m not in the house. No one can hear me use your name.” Cheryl looked at the group and grinned kind of sheepishly. “The Old Ones took control of the house, and Morrigan. We got Shara and Thomas out, but couldn’t get to Morrigan. We’re about a hundred miles south of the U.S. border.”

  She paused and listened, then said, “I see. They are? Oklahoma City? Okay. Yes. Okay.” She hung up.

  “Well?” Shara asked.

  “Fenris is on the move. He’s planning to attack, coming by ship. I guess Skandar here was right in saying he and Fenris found the house,” Cheryl said.

  “Did you know that?” Shara asked Skandar.

  “I did not know he planned to fight you,” he said, shaking his head.

  “What do we do?” Janice asked.

  “There’s more,” Cheryl said, staring hard at Shara.

>   “What?” Shara asked.

  “Cerdwyn is in Oklahoma City. She’s waiting for …” she paused and looked at Draper for a minute, then back at Shara. “Waiting for friends. But she has two people with her right now.”

  “Who?” Shara demanded.

  “Chris and Joey.”

  Kiona

  Kiona smelled him several seconds before the knock came at her hotel room door. She pushed her long black hair behind her ears, then pulled the slide to cock her semi-automatic pistol. Her hands did not tremble, though she couldn’t be certain the man outside the door was alone. She had only been near Fenris a couple of times, but she distinctly remembered his alpha odor. He was a dominant male, aggressive and sly, a male who led by force in a way Ulrik had never needed. In short, he was not one to mess around. He would kill her if he deemed her useless.

  Holding the gun loosely at her side in one hand, Kiona opened the door with the other.

  Fenris’s presence seemed to waft into the room before he himself entered. He stood there, framed by the doorway, looking at her with his cold, calculating eyes, his long white hair hanging over his shoulders. Despite the warm temperature outside, he wore a light black leather jacket.

  Did he take time to buy a gun after the plane landed? Could he have bought silver bullets already?

  She couldn’t answer those questions. She knew his flight had arrived just about one hour before. He could have bought a gun on the short drive from the airport to her hotel, but silver bullets? Those would have been harder to come by. Could he have brought them with him? Maybe?

  “Fenris,” she said. “Come in.”

  Maybe he believes he doesn’t even need a gun.

  “It is good to see you again, Kiona,” the man said as he stepped into the room. “The Glock wouldn’t be my first choice, but to each her own.”

  Kiona closed the door and quoted one of her favorite songs. “You have a nasty reputation as a cruel dude.”

  “I am ruthless and cruel,” he agreed. “But do we have anything else in common?”