Nadia's Children

by Steven E Wedel

  “Fenris here,” he barked.

  “It’s Langham,” came the response from Andrew Langham. “Can you talk?”

  “I’m on the phone, aren’t I? What do you want?”

  “You had a call here just a few minutes ago.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Andrew,” Fenris demanded. “Who was it?”

  “Kelley Stone.”

  Fenris thought about that for a second. “What did she want?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me, but she said it is urgent that you call her right away. She said it’s the same number. Do you have it?”

  “I know it.”

  “Okay.” Langham hesitated, obviously considering something. “So, umm, did you have a funny dream last night?”

  Fenris sighed into the phone. “Yes. I think we all did.”

  “And do you feel funny now? Like something is pulling at you?”

  “Yes. Are people staying put?” Fenris asked. “Don’t let anyone leave. We are on our way back. If anyone tries to leave, kill them. Understand. I wish I’d left Andersen there.”

  “Yeah. Sure, yeah, I understand,” the man answered, but his voice was less than convincing. “I can handle it.”

  “If anyone leaves, I will hold you personally responsible, Andrew. Do you understand that?” Fenris kept his voice low but menacing.

  “I understand you, boss,” Langham promised. “So, you’ll be calling Kelley?”

  “Is that all you needed to tell me?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s all.”

  “Good-bye, Andrew.” Fenris hung up the phone. He looked to Kiona and shook his head slightly, then turned to the captain and, in Spanish, asked, “Do you have another phone on the ship where I can call to shore?”

  The captain explained that there was a phone in his office below the deck and summoned the wiry little man to take Fenris there. It was a tiny room nearly filled by a table that held a laptop computer and a telephone, along with some charts and maps. Fenris sat in the chair behind the desk while Kiona leaned against the door. He told her what Langham had said.

  “She’s the one who left with the girl?”

  “Basically, yes,” Fenris answered. “She was one I trusted. She knows better than to ask to come home after betraying me. Something is up.” He picked up the phone and punched in Kelley’s cell phone number. She answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?” her voice was alert, guarded.

  “Hello, Kelley.”

  “Fenris. Thank you for calling me back. I’ll assume you experienced the same vision everyone else had last night, and that you’re now feeling something that compels you to move northeast.”

  “Perhaps,” he conceded. “Did you call to ask me about my dreams?”

  “No. We’d pretty much decided to call you today, anyway. The vision just proved we made the right decision.”

  “Who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”

  “You know of Cerdwyn Imogen?” she asked.

  “I have heard the name,” he admitted, his mind racing to pull up everything he know about her. Something about candles and Mother Nature.

  “I’ve been working with Cerdwyn for years, Fenris. I worked for her the whole time I lived with you.”

  Fenris felt his grip tightening on the telephone handset. “Go on,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Shara is here, too, as is Thomas McGrath, Chris Woodman and Joey, and a few others. We have discussed the situation and it seems that we share the same goal regarding the Alpha taking power. We don’t want it, not as it stands now, anyway.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  “Joey isn’t the Alpha. Shara – ”

  “I know this part already,” Fenris cut her off. “There is a girl. A child. We saw her. We just discussed the dream. What is your point?”

  “An Old One named Holle is poisoning Morrigan’s mind,” Kelley said. “She is grooming Morrigan to become a tyrant and raise a werewolf army to take over governments of the major countries. It isn’t just about the Pack.”

  Fenris saw where the conversation was going. Still, he played it out. “And what do you want from me?”

  “We thought since we share your main goal of preventing an Alpha from taking control of the Pack, that you might join us in preventing it,” she said.

  “I see. You thought I would join you. Are you sure you’re not calling to beg for my help because you fear what you’ve worked so hard to achieve now that’s come about? I’m reminded of Frankenstein and his monster.”

  “Whatever, Fenris. I’m not going to play your yes man anymore. We have information you don’t have. We have advantages you don’t have, and you have advantages we don’t have.”

  “What is your plan for the Alpha?”

  “Get her away from Holle and the other Old Ones and try to reprogram her,” Kelley said.

  “No,” Fenris said flatly. “We kill her.”

  “No,” Kelley answered just as firmly. “She’s a little girl.”

  “Her age and gender do not matter,” Fenris said. “It is what she is that matters. That must be crushed.”

  “You’ll never get to her without us,” Kelley argued. “They already outnumber us and that’s only going to get worse. We think Shara can get Morrigan to listen to her. We get her away, then we deal with Holle and those she controls.”

  “And what is your plan for the Alpha?”

  “Cerdwyn believes the role of the Alpha is more as a shaman. Sort of a pope for the earth goddess,” Kelley said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Fenris said, but he said it quietly, suddenly not sure he believed his own words.

  “Will you meet with us to discuss it?” Kelley asked.

  He thought about it. “Meet with who? How many?”

  “Umm, well, I hadn’t thought about the number. How many would you feel comfortable with?”

  “How many of you are there?”

  Kelley laughed at him. “Still playing your tricks. I won’t tell you that.”

  “Five,” Fenris said. “I will meet with five of your party, and I will bring four of my own.”

  “No weapons,” she said.

  “Of course,” Fenris agreed. “Where and when?”

  “As soon as possible. We don’t care where. Other than not at your compound.”

  “Naturally. It will be three days before we’ll be ready.”

  “Three days?” Kelley said. “Why so long?”

  “I’m currently enjoying a Pacific cruise,” Fenris said, smirking at Kiona, who waited more patiently than he would have expected.

  “Fine. Three days. Reno, Nevada. You can make it there?”

  “We can make it,” he agreed.

  “Alright. We’ll book rooms at the Eldorado Hotel. I’ll let you take care of your own lodgings.”

  “You were always so good at taking care of those details for me,” Fenris said, and he meant it. He did miss that about Kelley.

  “I’m sure you’ve replaced me,” she said.

  Fenris let that comment go. Neither Gary Andersen, nor Andrew Langham was a suitable replacement for Kelley Stone. “I’ll call you when we arrive,” he said.

  “Fenris, remember, fighting between us is useless now,” Kelley reminded. “No weapons. We share an overall goal. If we can agree to work with each other, fine. If not, we go our separate ways.”

  “If I insist your little Alpha be killed, are you telling me Shara will just let me walk away?” he asked. Kelley didn’t answer immediately. “I thought as much. But I won’t concern myself with it if you give me your personal assurance none of your friends will be armed.”

  “I promise,” she said.

  “So be it. Three days.” He hung up.

  “So?” Kiona asked.

  “As soon as we get into port we’re going to Reno. We have a meeting with the Mother and her new friends.” He saw Kiona grimace at his mention of Shara’s title, but he ignored it. Fenris picked up the phone and called his home.
He gave Langham specific instructions about booking a flight for five and lodgings in the designated hotel, then stood up.

  “Let’s go see if we can coax the captain into getting more speed out of this tub,” he said.

  Holle

  Fir trees reached high above her into the night sky, their branches moving only slightly in the gentle breeze. In the distance, nocturnal animals called to one another. An owl warned them to be quiet or be dinner. And then a wolf howled.

  Holle raised her head, her ears perked up, but someone else in camp answered the call before she had to.

  They are coming. They are answering the call of the Alpha.

  It was as it should be.

  Beside her, Morrigan, also in the shape of a wolf, stirred softly in her sleep, no doubt hearing the wolves singing to one another. Holle put her head down, back into the nest of dried pine boughs she shared with the Alpha.

  The Superior National Forest in far northeast Minnesota was the best place she could think of for the Pack to gather. With its network of lakes, rivers, and streams, it was remote and, in places, nearly inaccessible to anyone who could not travel as a wolf. Also, it was one of the few remaining habitats of natural wolves in the United States, so any increase in wolf activity in the forest wouldn’t necessarily raise immediate concern.

  She sighed, suddenly unable to sleep. So much time had gone by as she waited for this reckoning. Centuries. Lifetimes. Ages of human history had come and gone, and she had witnessed them all, remaining as close as she dared to humans, remaining ready for this day when the Pack would gather around a natural leader.

  She remembered, some decades after the curse was laid on her village, how she had found a tribe not so unlike her own living in the mountains nearby. She watched them for weeks, stealing their food, leaving her tracks in the dirt around their fires and lodges, but never hurting any of the people, not even the weak children. She worked it until eventually she would allow the women and children to see flashes of her as she slipped out of camp in the mornings. At first they had had thrown things and called to the men, but Holle had persisted, returning daily, until soon the children were leaving scraps – little offerings – out for her. Then some women began to do so. Eventually, Holle allowed the men to see her. One day, as the sun sank and the leader of the village sat alone outside his home sharpening his stone spearhead, Holle approached him, her head low, her tail between her legs.

  The man spoke to her, but she didn’t know his words. The tone, however, was not angry or threatening, so Holle moved closer until finally she could lie at the man’s bare feet. He continued to talk to her as he worked on his weapon. At last, he put the spear aside and sat looking at her, his full attention on her. He was a huge man with dark eyes and shaggy black hair. His bare chest, arms, and legs bore the scars of many battles or hunts.

  Tentatively, he reached a hand toward her head, the other on a club beside his spear. Holle waited. Would he grab her and try to kill her with the club? No, the club was for his protection. His hand came down before her face. She sniffed the fingers, then licked them.

  It had galled her to do so, to be submissive before this man who she could so easily tear apart. But she had needed him. It was a resentment that would grow as time flowed past her.

  The man moved his hand to her neck, where he patted and rubbed, then moved up to scratch her behind the ears.

  From that day she was the man’s constant companion, protecting him from enemies and helping him hunt. Everyone in his village revered her as an emissary of the gods.

  Holle, however, concentrated on listening to them, paying attention to every word, until she was confident she understood their language. Of course, as a wolf, she could not speak it, but at last she was able to understand the humans when they spoke to her. This amazed them and only furthered their belief she had been sent to them by gods.

  The man died. By the standards of his village, he was a rich man and much respected because he had been chosen by the gods to receive the wolf. Holle had been beside him when he breathed his last, wrapped within animal skins in his lodge, a fire burning in the center of the dwelling. His hand moved toward her one final time, touching her head.

  “You who never grow old, take me to the goddess,” he whispered. His hand kept moving in slow circles on her head and neck for a few minutes, then stopped. One final breath gusted from his mouth and his spirit left him.

  Holle left him, too. She trotted from the village, moving west, answering an instinct from the goddess. It was to the west where she would find what she sought.

  Over the following centuries she repeated this process many times. She had known she would need to be able to speak the language of humans when the Alpha finally came and released her from the curse.

  Gods came and went. The goddess was broken up, her attributes reassigned to other deities, and the focus of worship moved to warlike gods as men multiplied and came into contact with others who didn’t share their beliefs and needs. The war god Woton was in the twilight of his cycle, being replaced by the Christ of a desert land, when Holle was finally able to get herself aboard a dragon boat bound westward to establish a colony over the salt water that could not be drunk.

  They settled on what was now called Greenland, a barren, cold place that did not satisfy the internal tug Holle felt pulling her west. However, the humans continued west on several expeditions for timber and food. She went with them on one of those trips to what they called the “land of forests” and there she abandoned the white-skinned Europeans.

  The brown-skinned people of the new continent had their own religious beliefs that fascinated Holle in their difference from any of the European practices she had known. It was easy enough for her to become accepted by these people who already revered so many animals.

  Holle listened. The incoming wolf continued to howl and receive answers from the camp. From the west, another wolf was doing the same. How many? How many would come? How many shapeshifters were there? That was one thing she had never been able to determine.

  There will be enough. We will surprise them with our presence, suppress them with our savagery, and our power will radiate out in waves, one epicenter here, another strategically placed elsewhere, and another and another until the humans were made to cower and grovel as I did for all those ages.

  White men were not part of her existence for a long stretch of time after leaving the ones history calls Vikings. Eventually, however, they returned and mingled with the natives. The results usually were not good, and the new Europeans had completely abandoned the goddess and worshipped only the Christ and his ill-tempered Father. They feared wolves and spread disease to the brown-skinned people. So Holle continued moving west, learning the tongues of every people she chose to live with for a while.

  When she reached a high, snow-capped mountain range, the internal pull had stopped. She stayed there, living with the natives, for many, many winters. Then came white men trapping the beaver. Holle took up with a pair of those men, following them from camp to camp as they caught the rodents and skinned them.

  And the goddess was silent within her.

  So it was for almost one hundred seventy years. At last, Holle had wandered into a sanctuary for wolves, most of which had been raised in captivity. She remained there for several years until, finally, the goddess awakened and sent her southward, where she at last stood before the Mother and her swelling womb.

  The wolf that had been calling to them all night at last made it into camp. Holle watched the big gray to see if he was bound by his shape or if he had assumed it for travel. When he was greeted by Ronnie Hipson and his mate, Marcia Fields, in human form, the wolf quickly transformed and stood up, brushing away loose hair as he shook hands with the younger man and woman.

  “The Alpha is here?” the newcomer asked.

  “Of course she is,” Marcia answered. “She’s asleep, though.”

  “And Shara?”

  “We’ll leave that explanation to Holle
,” Ronnie said. “She’s sleeping with Morrigan.”

  Holle rose from her bed, stepped away from the younger wolf, and called to her human side. It still seemed remarkable to her that she could so easily switch back and forth between the forms after so many centuries as the wolf. She approached the three.

  “Here’s Holle,” Marcia said.

  “You did well, Marcia and Ronnie,” Holle said, nodding at them. “Why don’t you go find the other that is howling and guide her into our camp while I greet our guest.”

  The two hurried away, dropping to all fours and transforming into playful young wolves as they ran.

  “I am Holle,” she said, turning to the naked man.

  “My name is Ben Vernon. From Kansas City,” he said, extending a hand. Holle shook it lightly.

  “Yes. I remember your name from Ulrik’s records.”

  “I helped him out by finding news stories he was interested in.” The man smiled a little as if flattered that she knew his name.

  “Very good. He was a good man. He is missed,” she said. Ben nodded his agreement. “Have you come to swear allegiance to the Alpha?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that what we’ve worked toward forever?” he said.

  “Some of us longer than others,” Holle answered dryly. She glanced over in the early dawn and saw Morrigan sitting up, watching them. “You may go to her.”

  Holle watched the man approach the black wolf. He stood before her, pawing the ground with a bare foot, unsure how to proceed. It was a simple enough thing, but so many of the younger ones did not understand what it meant to become a servant to one better than them.

  “Kneel,” Holle called. “Kneel and pledge yourself to her.”

  He did so, going down on his right knee and bowing his head. “I…I am yours to command, Morrigan. I came because you called.”

  The wolf sniffed at his ear, his neck, then licked his face and whined.

  “You have been accepted, Ben Vernon,” Holle said as she came to stand beside him. “You may stand up.”

  He got to his feet and faced Holle. “Her cycle?” he asked.

  “Yes. It began yesterday,” Holle answered. “Our camp is meager. We hunt and eat mostly as wolves. You must share your kills. We do not want the humans who manage this forest to become suspicious of too much wolf activity. Not until we are ready to act.”