“Do you want me to stay?” Andersen asked.
Fenris waved his lieutenant away and fixed his attention on the woman.
“What is your name?”
“Rosalia,” she answered. She was a petite woman, at least partly Hispanic, with large, dark eyes and narrow shoulders.
“You saw Ulrik die?”
“No. I come later, after he dead. I translate Spanish for Shara, talk to villagers.”
“Tell me what you know.”
She told her story, and it was just as Doty had reported earlier. Fenris turned his attention to Santos Padillo. “You caught her running away from this house?”
“Yes. She was running northwest, as a wolf, and she was running as fast as she could,” the man said. Padillo spoke with a Mexican accent. He was a short, stocky man with thick black eyebrows and a hairy chest.
“Why were you running?” Fenris asked the woman.
“I could not do it,” she said. “Not what they wanted. It was no what Ulrik would want.”
“Not what who wanted?” Fenris probed.
“Holle. The Old Ones. They turn Morrigan into a monster. She always strange, but they make her cruel, especially after Shara and Thomas go. After they … escape.”
“Escaped?” Kiona asked.
Rosalia looked to the Indian woman and nodded. “Holle locked them up. Took all their weapons and would not let them see Morrigan. They leave almost two weeks now. Cheryl gone then, too. She probably help them. Janice and Merin go, too.”
“What do you mean when you say the Old Ones have made a monster of the girl?” Fenris asked.
Rosalia hesitated, then said, “There was sacrifice. A sacrament. No, a ritual. I never do anything like it before. A girl from the village, a virgin, was tied up. They killed her. Ate her. Everyone had to … to take a bite. Then the Pack ran to the village. They kill the people, I think. I could not do it. I ran the other way.”
Fenris studied her face closely. The woman held his gaze for a few moments before dropping her eyes toward her bare toes digging into the sand. She was telling the truth. He felt sure about that. Still, he looked to Padillo for confirmation. The Mexican shrugged.
“There was a big bonfire that night, and a lot of activity,” he said. “There were screams. When I caught her, I called your man.” He indicated Doty.
“The village is destroyed,” Doty added. “Everyone is dead. I had that confirmed after I talked to you on the ship. And, well, there’s more.”
“More?” Fenris prodded. Ordinarily, he knew, he would have snapped at anyone being coy with news. So much unexpected information, though, had left him almost lethargic.
“Yes. They are gone.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. The house of Ulrik is empty. Abandoned,” Doty said. He was a man who appeared to be in his 30s, with steely blue eyes, a blond cowlick and the face of a warrior.
Fenris nodded. He had told only Doty about the discovery of Ulrik’s secret house in Mexico. He knew the man from his days in Germany and trusted his loyalty. Doty had recruited Padillo to help with surveillance. Other than himself and Skandar, they were the only ones to know the location of the house.
“How long since you saw the house?” he asked them.
“Five days,” Padillo answered.
“This afternoon,” Doty said. “I myself stood in the house. It is empty.”
“Where could they have gone?” Fenris mused.
No one answered.
“Why would they leave?” Kiona asked.
“Shara and McGrath escaped,” Fenris answered. “They would not leave their child for long. They would come back for this girl. This … what is her name?” He looked to Rosalia.
“Morrigan.”
“Celtic,” Fenris said, nodding slowly. “McGrath’s influence. Arthurian, too.”
“An odd name for one they think is Alpha,” Doty added. “She was a traitor to Arthur, yes?”
“In later versions of the story,” Fenris answered. “She was always a magician. She was powerful. What do you know about her?” he asked Rosalia.
“Only a little,” the woman answered. “We were not allowed around her. They say she was born a twin, but ate her brother in the womb. She is strange. When she looks at you …” The woman paused and looked away for a moment. “You wish she would not. I always wished she would not. She could see inside you.”
“The Old One who is in charge now,” Fenris prompted. “What of her?”
“Holle,” Rosalia said. “Do not trust her. She act like Shara’s best friend after Ulrik died. She help during birth and she take care of Morrigan as much as Shara. But she take over running the house. Shara not even notice it for long time because she upset over Ulrik dying and Joey gone.”
Fenris looked to Doty. “Is there anything to be gained by visiting this house?”
“No. I do not think so,” the man answered.
Fenris nodded. “Any indication where they might have gone?”
Doty shook his head. “There is none.”
“Then we might as well go home,” Fenris said.
Skandar
“It isn’t safe to be alone.”
The soft feminine voice startled Skandar. He had not heard anyone approaching him as he sat on a bench beside the towering hotel. Had it been anyone else, he would have found the interruption intrusive, but this woman, Cerdwyn, interested him. He looked over his shoulder at her; she waited a respectful distance behind, watching him, her hair glowing under the light of a lamp on a pole beside the bench. This was a woman who knew things.
“Will you sit with me?” he asked, then watched as the woman came over and settled onto the bench beside him.
“There are those who would kill us if they find the opportunity,” Cerdwyn said. “None of us should be alone.”
Skandar looked up and waved his arm toward a long passenger jet lowering toward the nearby airport. “These steel birds. So many people ride in them all the time? I have watched many come to the ground and rise into the air as I sit here.”
“Yes,” she answered. “They are the best way to travel long distances. They must seem very strange to you.”
“Much of this world is strange. All this.” He waved his arms at the concrete-and-glass buildings, the parked cars, the traffic moving on the busy street, and the glowing electric lights. “Your modern world stinks and moves too quickly. And many people live close together. There is no freedom. No communion with Orsel.”
“This is true,” she agreed. “Much of the old ways are lost to modern man. And wolves.”
“You are a priestess of Orsel?” Skandar asked, facing her again.
“Orsel the bear mother,” Cerdwyn mused, smiling. “In a sense, I guess that is true. I do what I can to serve the earth goddess. She has been personified as many things, including the great bear.”
Skandar sighed and watched a small blue car come to life, it’s headlights glowing like demonic eyes in the half-dark of the parking lot as it backed up, then crawled away like a cat on the hunt. “The gods and goddesses are silent in this city of stone and light. I do not find them in any modern city.”
“Holle would bring them back,” Cerdwyn said. “She would destroy cities like this and turn humans into sheep, or perhaps game to hunt.”
“She wanted power more than anything else and cared nothing for those who opposed her,” Skandar said. “But what of you? You cannot like this.” He motioned again at their surroundings.
“No,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t live in a city. My home is outside a small town far away from here. The town is built around a river and surrounded by forest, but it doesn’t seem to intrude so much on the natural world.”
“You do not hate these stinking cities?”
“Yes, I hate them. But it is up to the goddess to deal with them,” Cerdwyn said. “She will do so in her own time, in her own way. She always has.”
“And Holle?” Skandar asked. “Will she deal with Holle?”
Skandar grunted. “Too much time has been wasted. First with that white-haired one who calls himself Fenris, then walking back to the barren country, and now sitting here in this …” He cast an angry look at the hotel, then sighed. “What do you call it?”
“Hotel,” Cerdwyn said, smiling. “But I think you were going to say something else. Once, not even the temples could compare to this, and this is a modest hotel compared to some in bigger cities.”
“My people worshipped Orsel in a cave. We did not enter the cave, not until Orsel had taken back the spark of life. Our priestess lived in the cave. She …” He broke off, refusing to go on.
“Someday I hope you will tell me more,” Cerdwyn said, her voice like soft music. “We know so little of that time. We all dream, you know. We dream of dancers, and fires, and a witch who made the animal skins burn and melt onto the bodies of the dancers.”
“Nadia.” Skandar turned his face toward the few stars visible through the haze of city lights. “Nadia.” Tears ran from his eyes. “You are like her.”
“You knew her? She wasn’t your enemy?”
“Not mine, no,” he said, still looking heavenward. “She knew the goddess better than Holle. She was favored by the Great Bear. When Nadia read the bones, you knew she spoke truth and you could believe her prophecies. With Holle, the bones could not be believed always. Too often they foretold events that led to death and her own increase in power. Then came the cold winter when there was no food. Holle sent us to Nadia’s village.”
“You stole their food?” Cerdwyn prompted when Skandar’s pause stretched beyond a few seconds. He nodded.
“We stole their food. And we took them away to use as food. All except Nadia.” He lowered his face and looked at his hands in his lap, the memory filling him as it spilled out. “She was round with my child. I knew she would leave the cave when she heard her people calling for protection, so I went to her and kept her there. I wanted only to protect her and our child.
“She came for us after,” Skandar continued, opening and closing his fists, remembering the feel of Nadia, remembering his hands resting on her swollen belly, feeling the life within, the life he had helped to create. The life he had … “She came across the mountain, through the snow, to our village, and there she … she …”
Cerdwyn put a gentle hand on his wrist. Skandar interpreted her touch as a comforting gesture, one that said he did not have to continue. But he’d come this far, he decided, and he would finish the story for Cerdwyn, this priestess of the new world who seemed to understand the goddess of the old world.
“Nadia laid a curse on the child she pushed from her body. My child. And then she butchered it like a goat and put the pieces in our cooking pots while we slept. We awoke to the smell of cooking meat. We ate. And she brought the beast curse down on us. I ate. I ate some part of my own child,” Skandar said, finally looking into Cerdwyn’s face again. “More than the wrong we did to Nadia’s people, it is this thought that has tormented me through the centuries. I ate my own child.”
Cerdwyn nodded. “This is the secret of your somber mood, then,” she said. “I wondered why, after so long as a beast, you did not seem happy to be a man again. Nadia was wrong to punish you. I understand that you tried to save her. You have suffered long enough, though, Skandar. You did not commit a crime. You did not know what it was you ate. Let the past die.”
“It is not so easy,” he said quietly. “I see that child in my dreams. Sometimes it is a boy, chasing me, asking me why I did that horrible thing. Sometimes it is a girl with the same question. Other times, it is a strong young man and he curses me, too. Sometimes it is a woman and when I give her to the man who would have been her husband the village falls on her and eats her alive. My past will not die, priestess. Not until I do.”
“It is a heavy burden that you bear, Skandar, and I am sorry for it,” Cerdwyn told him. “I will pray that you find peace.”
He nodded his thanks. “What are we to do now? They talk, but there is no action. I do not understand why the Mother brought us here, so far from where the Alpha is. We should have dealt with Holle in that barren land and taken the Alpha then.”
Cerdwyn shook her head. “Holle had too many allies. There were too few of you, and you did not have enough weapons. And the Alpha could have been hurt. They are discussing a radical plan, one that I’m not sure I like, though I see the logic in it.”
“What would they do?”
“They are talking about calling Fenris and joining with him.”
“The white-haired one?” Skandar asked. “I do not like that. His hair is white but his heart is black. He would kill the Alpha and the Mother.”
“That is my fear, too,” Cerdwyn said. “Did he tell you anything about the Alpha? Or about the one called Ulrik? You know the prophecy, I assume.”
“I know it. The knowledge came with Nadia’s curse,” Skandar said. “The one you call Fenris told me the Alpha must be destroyed. He believed it was a male child, though. He said the other one you named, Ulrik, would help to bring the Alpha to rule over all our kind and that we would be forced to answer to him.”
“Well, that is what will happen if Holle gets her way,” Cerdwyn said. “The thought is that we do not want Morrigan to come to power and rule based on what Holle is teaching her. Fenris’s worst fear would be realized if that is what comes to pass. He has many followers, and we may need his strength if we are to fight Holle. Most of our kind have waited too long for the coming of the Old Ones and they are likely to join Holle. Not because they’re bad, but because we have been told for eons that this will happen.” She paused, thinking. “By the time they realize what they’ve signed on for, it’ll probably be too late to turn back.”
“What does the Mother say?” Skandar asked.
“Shara wants to sneak back in and try to get Morrigan out by herself. She thinks Morrigan will come with her because of the maternal bond. I do not think so. The goddess tells me the bond between Morrigan and Holle is already too strong.”
“The goddess speaks to you? Even here?” Skandar looked at her in amazement, wondering how anyone could hear the voice of the goddess in a place of concrete and steel, where most of the stars of the sky were hidden behind artificial light.
Cerdwyn smiled at him before answering. “She and I have been talking for a long time. Her voice comes to me as if she lives within me.”
“In all my time as a wolf I prayed to Orsel, but she never answered. She never comforted me. She did not take away my pain or my curse or my dreams. I prayed to the spirit of Nadia and she ignored me, too. You are blessed.”
“Yes, I am. I have learned something else, too. Something I have not told the others yet,” Cerdwyn confided. “Holle has moved. She has taken her followers and gone north, I think. I haven’t sensed where yet. Can you sense it?”
“Yes. That is why I came out here,” Skandar admitted. “I was drawn to the Alpha. I led the white-hair to the place where she was, but he turned us back. My heart, too, is pulled to the north star now. I am drawn to walk in that direction.”
“It is settled, then,” she said. “We must tell the others what we know to be true.”
“They do not feel it?”
“Most of them are young with the Gift,” Cerdwyn said. “Shara, I think, would feel it if she would take time to be alone, to meditate and commune with the goddess.”
“Gift?” Skandar said. “I have heard Nadia’s curse called that by others. Who would think it a gift to have his body twisted into another form once every moon cycle? Who would welcome that loss of power over his own body? Who would take pleasure in a thing born of such an evil curse?”
“No one knows, Skandar. Perhaps the other Old Ones know how the curse was made, but none of us know the details you shared with me tonight,” she answered.
“Still, they must know the thing is a curse.”
“Many see the tr
ansformation as a way to be closer to the goddess, or nature as they sometimes call her, thinking the trees and rocks and rivers are not part of the goddess’s body. The beast they become offers them freedom from this world we are sitting in right now.”
Skandar sighed and shook his head. “An escape from this place would be welcome.”
“We will move soon, I think. They must make a decision about Fenris.”
“I would not trust him with the safety of our Alpha,” Skandar said flatly.
“I would agree with you, Skandar. My head says you are right. But the goddess speaks to my heart, and she tells me Fenris has some part to play. We will not share that, though. We will leave it for the others to decide if we make an alliance with Fenris. If we do, you and I will take especial care to keep Morrigan out of his hands until the alliance is finished.”
Skandar nodded his agreement. “What of these others? Are those inside the only ones who do not follow Holle or the white-hair?”
“No, there are others,” Cerdwyn said. “But most will choose to follow Holle because of the prophecy. It was to our advantage, maybe, that she did not allow them to stay nearby in Mexico. However, that was probably because many would have been loyal to Shara because she is the Mother and because of her relationship with Ulrik. With Morrigan in her control now, Holle may summon all her supporters to her.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds.”
“How many are loyal to the white-hair? To Fenris?”
Cerdwyn shook her head. “I’m not sure. Dozens. Kelley can tell us more about that.”
They sat quietly for a while. Traffic on Meridian Avenue had decreased considerably, making the night somewhat quieter, though airplanes still roared overhead from time to time. Skandar felt restless. The confinement and unnaturalness of the city still oppressed him, but there was also that sensation he had confessed to Cerdwyn, that pull at his insides, compelling him northward, where the Alpha was now. His feet itched to move that direction and he considered simply standing up and starting the walk. It would be a long walk. He felt that much, but he feared madness if he stayed here much longer.
Nadia's Children Page 24
