“I’d never even heard of Cerdwyn until Kelley found me in Colorado,” Jenny answered. “I always wondered why Kelley was with Fenris, though. I mean, most of the people he had around were mean and ugly, but she’s – ”
“Hot,” Joey finished.
“You think so?” There was a tone Joey didn’t recognize in her voice, but it felt like a warning.
“Yeah. You know, for an older lady.”
“Uh-huh,” Jenny said. “Anyway, she was the one reason I had for making myself believe Fenris’s story about Mom and Dad and Ulrik. What is Ulrik like?”
“He’s nice,” Joey said. “He’s a big guy. Not so much tall, but, I don’t know, thick. And something about him makes him seem even bigger than he is. He has an accent and a beard. He’s the kind of teacher who makes you feel like you’ve disappointed him when you can’t do what he tells you to. You want to do it, just to make him happy.”
“Do you wish your dad had left you with him?”
Joey shrugged. “I don’t know. I remember I was really mad at my mom when I found out Dad was still alive. I thought she’d lied to me so she could be with that other guy. Thomas.”
Joey’s phone buzzed. He answered it to hear his father’s frantic voice. “Where are you?” Chris demanded.
“In the restaurant.”
“Is Jenny with you?”
“Yes.”
“Joey, you have to stay with us,” Chris said, his voice relieved. “There are still people who want to kill you.”
“Well, Dad, when you grown-ups didn’t include us in your little meeting, we got bored,” Joey snapped back. “And Jenny was hungry.”
“Get back up here,” Chris said. “Make sure no one follows you. If anyone else is on the elevator, get off on the wrong floor. Understand.”
“Alright, Dad.” He hung up and told Jenny, “Our keepers are missing us.” They charged the food to Joey’s room and went to the elevator. Joey looked around to see if anybody was watching them, then realized Jenny was doing the same. Nobody seemed to be paying them any attention. They stepped into the elevator car.
“Afraid of being followed?” Joey asked as they started up.
“I know Fenris doesn’t like it when his people change sides,” she said.
Joey sniffed the air suddenly. Beside him, Jenny stiffened and did the same.
“What is it?” she asked. “I don’t recognize it.”
The car held the scent of a man that was familiar to Joey, but he it took him a moment to place it. Just before the car settled to a stop on the fourth floor, he remembered. “Thomas McGrath,” he whispered.
Morrigan
“Mom’s really not coming back?” Morrigan watched Holle as the Old One worked in the kitchen, making breakfast for the household. It had been two days ago that she had awakened to find that her mother and father slipped away in the night.
“I don’t think so, child,” Morrigan said
“Why?”
The Old One turned her head to look at Morrigan. She held an egg in her hand. “We have been over this,” Holle said. “We fought, your mother and father and I, over your destiny. She does not want you to be the Alpha. She thinks it is too much for you. For a girl. They said your half-brother should lead the Pack. I argued that you are the pre-destined leader, and that you have proven yourself capable. They resisted. Then, in the morning, they were gone.”
“Maybe Cheryl and the others kidnapped them,” Morrigan suggested. She liked Holle. She was like the grandmother in stories she’d read. Holle was old and wise and nice, and a good teacher. But Morrigan missed her mother.
“No, child. Your mother is the Mother. And your father is a big strong man. Two women and one old man couldn’t have kidnapped them.”
“If they got the drop on them they could have,” Morrigan argued. “Like in the old spy movies, or the cowboy movies. Maybe Cheryl held a gun to Mom’s head.”
Holle cracked her egg and drained the yolk into the bowl with nearly a dozen others. She dropped the empty shell into a trashcan, picked up a metal whisk and began stirring the eggs. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I never did trust Cheryl or Merin. Janice was a surprise, though. I have to admit that. I thought she was with us.”
Morrigan looked down at the picture she’d been drawing with crayons. It was a family picture in which she stood between her mom and dad and everyone was holding hands while a big yellow sun shown down happily on them. They were standing on brown dirt.
“Are there really places with green grass, like in the movies?” the girl asked.
“Of course,” Holle said, smiling at her. “Where I grew up, the grass was thick and green in winter and there were huge forests all around, and the trunks of the trees were dark and green with moss and the canopy was so thick that it was always dark there in the trees. It was a beautiful place. But, the world was young then.”
“Do you think Mom and Dad went some place like that? With green grass? It’s so ugly and brown here.”
“I cannot say, child.” Holle’s face turned sad and Morrigan knew it was because the conversation had returned to her own parents. “They went wherever your half-brother is.”
“I wish I could go somewhere else, like where you grew up.”
“I left that place a long time ago,” Holle said, her voice distant. “It probably isn’t even there anymore. Some modern people probably uprooted the old forest to build houses that are all alike. Modern people don’t understand the forest.”
“Will I ever get to leave here?” Morrigan asked. Almost defiantly, she drew sprouting green grass coming from the brown dirt around her feet in the picture.
“Yes, child. When you are the Alpha, the whole world will be yours. You can go anywhere you wish.” An electric skillet hissed as Holle poured the eggs into it.
“Can I make Mom and Dad stay with me?”
“You can make anyone do anything you want,” Holle answered.
* * *
Two hours later, Morrigan was in her room playing with stuffed animals when Holle knocked on her door, then opened it and stood looking at her.
“What?” Morrigan asked.
“I need you to come downstairs,” the Old One answered. “There is an issue that needs the attention of the Alpha.”
Morrigan slowly put down the tiger that had been stalking an unsuspecting rabbit twice its size. She had never before been asked to do something as the Alpha. She suddenly felt very important, but a little worried. She knew she was destined to be the leader. That had been told to her since before she was old enough to understand the words, but she knew she was still just a little girl, too, and not very strong.
“Come, child,” Holle urged.
Morrigan got up and followed the Old One downstairs and out the front door. Several people from the house were gathered around a group of brown people with shiny black hair. The brown people were on their knees and their clothes were dusty, like they’d rolled around in the dirt.
“What’s going on?” Morrigan asked.
“These people helped your mother and father,” Holle said. “They know where they went, but they won’t tell us.”
Morrigan looked more closely at the group of brown people. They were from the town. Morrigan had only been in the town twice in her life – her mother said she was afraid their enemies might be there – but she remembered that it was filled with people like these. There were three men in the group, one of whom looked very old, with deep wrinkles in his face. The other two men were younger, like Morrigan’s father. There was also a woman and a little girl, younger than Morrigan, maybe six years old. The woman and the little girl clung to each other and the girl’s face showed she’d been crying.
Morrigan went down the steps of the porch and walked up to the little girl. “Is this your mom?” she asked.
“They don’t speak English,” Holle said, coming up behind Morrigan and putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Ask her,” Morrigan urged.
A bronze-skinned man with short, curly black hair asked the girl something in another language. The girl answered, “Si.” The man turned to Morrigan and said in accented English, “She said yes, this woman is her mother.”
“Tell her I want my mother back and I need her help.”
The man translated and the girl answered in a high, rapid voice, then her mother added something that sounded like a plea.
“The child says she knows nothing. Her mother says the true leader of the wolf’s will kill her if she tells us anything,” the man said.
“What about him? The old man?” Morrigan asked. “Ask him where my mom and dad went.”
The translator put the question to the old man, who only shook his head and mumbled a response.
“He say he will not tell. He fears the boy who went away from here many years ago.”
Morrigan felt the anger rise up from her stomach, hot and red. “They’re scared of him? He’s not the Alpha. I am! Tell him that. Tell him I’m the Alpha!”
“Morrigan?” Holle interrupted, her hand tightening on Morrigan’s shoulder.
Morrigan turned her head to look at the old woman. “What?”
“They may need some persuasion. They are afraid of your mother and father and of your half-brother. Perhaps they need to see that those are not the werewolves they should fear.”
Morrigan nodded. She understood. It was a lesson Holle had told her many times, and had shown her in books how other great leaders had used fear to get what they wanted. She looked the group over and decided one of the younger men looked more defiant than the others. She pointed to him. “That one,” she said.
Audric looked from Morrigan to Holle, who nodded, then he chuckled cruelly. As he stepped toward the kneeling man Audric called up the wolf. His already broad shoulders became wider, ripping his gray cotton shirt as his neck thickened and hair burst from his skin. He reached for the man with massive wolf-hands. All the captives were screaming in fear and trying to get away from the wolfman, but the people surrounding them formed a barrier. The man Morrigan had singled out faced her and babbled in his own language. Morrigan couldn’t understand the words, but his tone was clear enough.
“Is he telling us where my parents are?” she asked.
“No,” the bronze werewolf answered. “He says only that your father threatened him in the same way.”
Audric had paused, waiting. The man was on his knees again, his hands clasped before him, praying or begging.
“Do it. Make him talk,” Morrigan said.
Audric tore off the man’s right arm first. All the humans screamed. Blood erupted from the empty shoulder, then sprayed in rhythmic squirts as Audric held the man on his feet. The wolfman lifted the Mexican man higher and slashed at his belly with his long canines. Cloth gave way as easily as the soft flesh beneath. Audric reached in with his long, deformed hand and pulled out intestines that spilled onto the brown dirt under the man’s feet. The dying man’s screams were something less now, more like whimpers. Audric held him there for a while, until the blood spurting from his shoulder had slowed, then he tore out the man’s throat with his teeth, shook him once, and cast him aside, where he fell lifeless and limp onto the hard dirt of the yard.
The other humans continued to scream in panicked terror. Except for the little girl, they were all on their knees again. The girl stood beside her mother, and they clutched at one another. The older ones were spattered with blood and looking to the sky and praying.
Morrigan watched them. She looked at the dead man, then back to the praying brown people. It had been so easy for Audric to kill that man. She wondered if she could have done it. She was stronger in that in-between shape Audric had used, but that was a full-grown man. He’d be heavy.
“They are so much weaker than us,” Holle said quietly, close to Morrigan’s ear. “They are like the deer of the forest or the cattle of the farm. They can be useful, but in the end they are only food.”
“Food?” Morrigan asked. “We eat people?”
“There is no flesh better than human flesh,” she whispered. “Only we who have this Gift are worthy to eat it. It is our right, given to us by the great goddess.”
Morrigan looked at the brown people again. They wouldn’t tell her where her parents had gone. She could understand killing them to make other people talk, to make other people tell her what she wanted to know. But she had never thought about eating them.
There was something, though, some memory. She remembered talking to her mom about a twin brother who had been born dead.
“Eat them?” she whispered.
“It is our right,” Holle promised.
Morrigan held her left hand out before her and watched as it corded with muscles, then become hairy. She let the change spread over her body. Her jaw lengthened and her teeth – her deadly teeth – became long and curved. Her thin white dress became tight, so she tore it away.
The people continued to scream and scream and scream. The little girl was screaming and staring at Morrigan with wide brown eyes. Streaks from tears stained her face and she tried to climb on top of her praying mother.
Morrigan took a step toward the girl, the stopped. She looked back to Holle. The Old One nodded. “It is our right, given to us by Orsel herself.”
Morrigan took the girl by the arm and pulled her away from her mother. The girl resisted. Of course she resisted. She fought, but her strength was nothing to the small wolfgirl. The mother tried to hold her, but suddenly she was dragged away by at least four misshapen hairy hands.
Morrigan didn’t know where to start. She lifted the thin brown arm to her mouth. The skin parted easily, but the bone was close to the surface. The blood, though. The blood was hot and fresh and salty. She wanted more.
All around her, her Pack feasted. Morrigan threw the girl to the hard earth and jumped on top of her.
Shara
“You have the room number?” Thomas asked again.
Shara looked at Thomas, studied him closely. “Yes,” she answered. “What’s wrong? You’re acting weird.” The car was parked in the lot of an Embassy Suites hotel. The lot was full and people were moving in and out of the sliding front doors of the building, most wearing suits or dresses. Shara guessed there was some kind of convention going on.
“Nothing,” Thomas said. He was staring fixedly at the front door of the hotel.
“Shara?” Cheryl called from the middle seat. “I think maybe Thomas is nervous about meeting your former husband.”
“He’s not her former husband,” Thomas said, his voice harsh. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. Yes, I am worried about this meeting.”
“It’s been a long time,” Shara said. “I don’t think … I don’t think Chris will think of me as his wife anymore.”
“Do you think of him as your husband?” Thomas asked, and now he looked at her, his black eyes burning with the need to know.
Shara shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Are we going in or what?” Alex Draper barked from the back seat of the SUV where he sat scrunched between Skandar and Merin.
“Yes,” Shara answered. “Let’s go.”
“You go ahead,” Thomas said. “I’ll come up in a few minutes.”
“Why?” Shara asked.
“I think it will just be better. Let him see you, get over that, and then I will come in.”
“I think that will be fine,” Cheryl urged. Shara looked behind her and found that Janice was nodding in agreement with Cheryl. She gave in.
“Okay. Room 442. Don’t be long. I don’t like the idea of any of us being alone.” Shara opened her door and stepped out. As the others followed, she stretched until her back popped. The drive from Mexico had been extremely tiresome as she, Thomas, Cheryl, Janice, and Merin took turns at the wheel and trying to sleep in various seats. “I want to get a room and a bed,” she said as they came around and met in front of the SUV.
�
�And a shower,” Cheryl added.
“I want a bloody steak,” Draper said. They all looked at him. “What?” he asked.
“I’m still not sure what to do with you,” Shara told him. “I’m not sure we can trust you.”
“Well, you’re stuck with me,” he said, trying to laugh but failing. “Fenris would kill me on sight now. I ain’t gonna be alone out there.”
“How are we going to divide up the rooms?” Shara asked, directing her question mostly at Cheryl.
“For now, let’s just get a couple of rooms, then let it play out as we figure out what’s what,” Cheryl answered. “Hopefully Kelley and Cerdwyn can help us plan our next move.”
The heat and humidity was making Shara sweat and she was very aware of her own body odor. She didn’t want to meet Chris and Joey stinking, but there was no time to shower first. She nodded her agreement to Cheryl, gave a final wave to Thomas, then led the group inside, Skandar bringing up the rear of the party. She explained to the desk clerk that they had friends on the fourth floor and were able to get rooms nearby.
“Are you nervous?” Janice asked as they rode the elevator up.
“Yes,” Shara answered. “It’s been so long. And there was so much that was messed up there at the end.”
“It will be okay,” Cheryl soothed. Shara smiled at her. The woman had always seemed so wise, so composed. Her green eyes and mass of curly blonde hair spoke of youth and vigor, while the crow’s feet said she possessed wisdom.
“Yeah,” Shara agreed. Still, when the elevator door slid open, she had to force her feet to move her out of the car and into the hallway. Then she stood still while the others looked around to see which way they should go. Someone touched Shara’s elbow. She turned to find the Old One looking at her with deep, understanding eyes.
“You are worried,” Skandar said. “No need. You have your Pack here.” He waved at the others. “We will protect the Mother. They love you. I think it is not just because you are the Mother.”
Skandar wasn’t much taller than she was, Shara noticed. And yet his presence made him seem much bigger. His face was thin, almost pinched looking. His shoulder-length hair was a dirty blond, wavy, and dirty from his long walk and fight with Draper. There was emotion in his eyes, probably respect for her position, Shara reasoned, but otherwise he was completely unreadable.
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