Changeling Dream

by Dani Harper

  “Want me to believe you’ll actually use that? You couldn’t pull the trigger that night when there was a werewolf right in front of your face. I told you to shoot. I told you, and you just stood there sniveling.” Roderick spat on the pavement. “Think I don’t know you haven’t picked up a gun since? All you can pick up now is a glass. You couldn’t shoot me if you tried.” He pointed his rifle then, not at Douglas, but at Jillian.

  “I mean it, Dad.”

  “It’s still the best strategy. You know that killing these two creatures will draw the rest out. There’s a couple over there already.” Roderick nodded his head toward the clinic. “More will come. We could get rid of the whole bunch at once if you helped me.”

  “I won’t let you do this again. Put it down, Dad.”

  Roderick ignored him, sighted on his target. There was a twin explosion of sound. And the old man was on the ground, his hands wrapped around his leg and a look of incredulity on his face. His own shot had gone wild, and his rifle had tumbled to the pavement. He made a wild reach for it, and Douglas fired again, placing the shot between his father’s fingers and the fallen gun. Roderick snatched his hand back as if it was burned and glared at his son. “You don’t understand. They won’t let you walk away. You’ll pay for letting these creatures go. They’ll make you pay.”

  Douglas simply walked over and kicked the rifle across the parking lot, threw his own after it. “Pay what? I’ve already paid for the ones you killed. Paid and paid, my whole life. I’m telling the story to the authorities as soon as they get here.”

  “You called the damn cops on me?” Roderick’s face turned purple with rage. “I raised you like a son. Even after your mother ran off, I raised you like my own son.”

  “She didn’t run off,” Douglas said quietly. “And the werewolves didn’t kill her, either, did they? I talked to Rosa and we figured it out. Maybe you didn’t mean it, maybe it was an accident. But afterward you had to make up a story you could live with. It’s too bad more people had to die just to feed your fantasy.”

  “It’s not a fucking fantasy. They’re werewolves, every last one of them. I’d never have hurt her if they hadn’t kept luring her away. It’s their fault.” Roderick pointed a shaking finger at Douglas. “Their fault that I . . . that I. . . .” He was silent then, holding his leg and rocking back and forth. He didn’t look at Douglas again.

  Bill had already knelt by Jillian’s side. He threw a beefy tattooed arm around her shoulders and gave her a surprisingly gentle squeeze. “Are you okay, lovey?”

  Connor was feeling the wolf’s head as if searching for a fever, and closed his eyes for a long moment. “He’s there, but barely,” he pronounced. “We’ve got to take him inside.” He didn’t even glance at Jillian, just gave instructions. “Bill and I will carry him, and you keep your hand right where it is.” He didn’t wait for an answer. She had to move fast to stay in position as the men slid their hands under the wolf’s body and lifted.

  Sergeant Fitzpatrick and two of his officers ran by them as the trio made their way slowly toward the clinic with the injured wolf. Jillian glanced back only once. Roderick was still on the ground, hunched over and clutching his leg. He seemed shrunken. Defeated. One officer was kneeling in front of him, talking into a radio, requesting an ambulance. Another was gathering up the rifles from the pavement. Douglas stood with his arms folded, talking with Fitz. Everything seemed under control.

  Jillian wished she had things under control. They were moving slowly and carefully, yet the crumpled sock she was using to put pressure on the wound was soaked through. She called for them to stop so she could kick off her other shoe and utilize that sock too. She folded it, packed it on top of the first sock and held it down tight. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “No you’re not,” said Bill. “You’ve got bare feet now.” He looked at Jillian and jerked his head toward the back entrance to the clinic, the one she had used only a short time ago. There was a sea of glass glittering on the pavement. The door itself was not only missing its window but was leaning outward and hanging askew, one of its hinges broken. It looked as if something had exploded through it . . . “And we’re not bloody likely to fit through that door all together-like.”

  Connor considered. “We’ll go in the truck bay and through the livestock wing. But we’ve got to move faster.”

  In the truck bay they were met by Culley and Devlin, who took over carrying the wolf while Connor ran ahead to the Small Animal Surgery. Bill offered to take Jillian’s place but she shook her head. She was using both hands and dared not move either of them, not yet.

  They laid the wolf on the biggest table in the surgery. It would have been on the small side for Cujo, Ruby Ferguson’s ill-tempered dog. The wolf’s body covered the stainless steel surface completely, his broad head hung over one end, and his long legs draped limply over the side.

  Connor had a wheeled tray of sterile instruments laid out. He came around and stood by Jillian. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Gingerly, she removed the socks, unrecognizable now. They were just wet red wads, little distinguishable from the damaged tissue itself, surrounded by blood-soaked fur. She sucked in her breath as she took a good clinical look at the wound. It was huge. Jillian didn’t know what kind of gun Roderick had used, only that while the entrance wound was relatively small, the exit wound was a gaping hole. As far as she could tell, parts of the shoulder had been blasted clean away, bone, hide and all. Connor darted straight into the gory mess with fine instruments, seeking to clamp the blood vessels. Jillian blotted the welling blood with gauze pads, then started an IV.

  They worked together, taking turns stitching the terrible mess as best they could. Connor’s sister, Kenzie, had slipped into the room somewhere along the line and proved herself a capable nurse, keeping both vets supplied with whatever they needed. Jillian checked the vital signs frequently. The wolf was still alive, but barely. Finally she took Connor’s arm.

  “This isn’t going to work. The damage is just too great. There’s no way to fix it.”

  He didn’t look at her, just continued to work. “We’re fixing it.”

  “But there’s so much missing. The socket’s gone, the attachments for the muscles. This animal is going to be permanently crippled and in pain, even if it survives. It’ll have to live in captivity for the rest of its life.”

  Connor appeared to ignore her. She became aware then that not just Kenzie was in the room, but Culley and Devlin. Bill and Jessie were in the hallway, looking in. They weren’t paying attention to her. In fact, no one appeared to have heard her. All eyes were on the wolf.

  What was going on here? She’d never seen them all together in the same room, and none of them had been in this room. Had they all been here visiting at the clinic when the situation erupted? Everyone seemed so intense, as if it was a family member in a hospital emergency room. Was she not the only one the wolf had visited? Maybe all of them knew about the wolf, had a relationship with it just like she did. After all, James seemed to be familiar with it . . . And just where was James? She hadn’t had a moment to notice before, but his absence now seemed very odd. If all his family and friends were here, if it was important to them, it would be important to him as well. And surely someone had called him to mention that a lunatic had held her at gunpoint. If he couldn’t get here, he would have phoned, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. Likely had, several times, but she’d been a little busy. And who knew if anyone was answering the phones? It was long after hours and Birkie was safely home. He’s probably on his way right now, she thought. He’d be mad as hell that he hadn’t been there to protect her and even madder that he couldn’t get through to her.

  “I need you, here.” She knew Connor was talking to her. “Right here, your hands are smaller.” She turned her attention back to the wolf, took another turn putting fine stitches in a seemingly futile effort to reassemble what wasn’t there.

  Connor lifted the lips of the wolf. The gums w
ere pale, almost white. Connor swore, ripped open a drawer and rummaged through it. Pulled the wrapper off some transfusion tubing. There was an IV insert at both ends and a squeeze pump in the center. It was used to take blood directly from donor to recipient. It made perfect sense to Jillian. What Connor said next did not. “Devlin, you’re up first.”

  What the hell? She stopped what she was doing and watched incredulously as Devlin pulled off his shirt, as Connor swabbed the inside of his elbow. “Wait! What are you doing?”

  “We need blood. He’s fading fast.”

  “Connor, have you lost your mind? You can’t give human blood to a wolf. Are you that tired? You’ll kill him.”

  All eyes were on her then, and it was uncomfortable. Their expressions seemed a bizarre mix of patience and pity, as if she were a small child who had just said something embarrassing. She automatically dismissed the odd impression as ridiculous. “There’re no bags of canine blood left in the fridge until the supply truck gets here tomorrow—that amputation on the Great Dane took all we had. We could check with Sergeant Fitz if he’s still here, ask if we could use his big Shepherd. Or Dalin Boyd has a Rottie and he lives just down the road. Maybe both.”

  Connor rubbed a hand over his face. “There are things here you don’t understand and there’s no time to explain them.”

  “I understand that donor and recipient have to be genetically close.”

  “Trust me, Devlin’s close. In fact, he’s a perfect match. We’ve done this before.” He stopped talking to her, and instead, instructed Devlin to hop up and sit on the counter by the sink. “We need some height here or it won’t flow properly. Hold your arm like this. That’s right.”

  What? What? Jillian stood open-mouthed, her bloodied hands arrested in mid-stitch. “You can’t do this! I care about this wolf very much. I don’t think we can save it, but I’m damn well not going to let you experiment on it.”

  Connor inserted the IV into Devlin’s arm, taped it down. “I care about this wolf more than you know. I need you to either trust me or leave.”

  Bill came up behind her and put a huge hand on her shoulder, and Jillian was immensely relieved. “Tell him, Bill, something’s wrong with him. Stop him. Make him understand.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about this creature, lovey. And a lot you do know. It’s not really a wolf, you see.

  “It’s James.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The sun came up. It was almost a surprise, considering the whole world had gone insane the night before. At least her world had. Jillian hadn’t slept, but lay on her bed with a pounding headache that had nothing to do with the fading remnants of her concussion, and everything to do with launching herself at Connor when he tried to put the IV into the wolf’s leg. She’d gone in swinging, determined to save the white wolf, and suddenly everyone was holding her; she was the one being dragged from the room. She’d struggled and screamed until her chin connected with someone’s elbow. She hadn’t knocked herself out, but it had stunned her. Long enough for them to barricade the surgery door against her.

  She’d shouted and banged on the door to no avail. She ran to her apartment and phoned Birkie but there was no answer. She called the RCMP, the SPCA, and any other authority in the area she could think of. It wasn’t office hours for anyone but the police, but she knew the individuals, found their home numbers in the phone book. Called long distance and got her old genetics instructor, Ian Craddock, out of bed. Told them all what her boss was doing and every one of them had the same reaction—they laughed. Connor’s reputation was far too solid for someone like her to shake in any kind of a hurry, especially with such a bizarre story. If only James were here. He’d believe her. He’d make his brother see sense too, would save the wolf.

  Would have. Past tense. If he’d only been here. Hours had gone by now.

  The wolf, her wolf, the beautiful white wolf that had saved her life and shown her such affection, that had come to symbolize hope and all things good, had just saved her life a second time—this time at the cost of its own. If it survived the surgery—which was doubtful—it wouldn’t have survived the cross-species transfusion. And there wasn’t a single blessed thing she could do to change that. Grief welled up and spilled out, and she cried as she hadn’t in years, cried even harder that James wasn’t there to hold her. She had no idea where he was, only that she needed him. Her world had been turned inside out, and the only place it could ever make sense again was in his arms.

  Where was he? She thought for sure he’d show up in the night. Or call.

  Damned if she wanted to ask any of his family where he was. Or his friends. If what Bill had said was meant to be some sort of weird comic relief, not only had it fallen flat, it was in bad taste. Yet no one had said a word. Was it some sort of strange family joke? What kind of reaction had they been hoping for? It made no sense. They made no sense. She thought she’d gotten to know these people a little, thought they liked her. She had liked them a great deal, felt affection and acceptance from them. She’d started to feel that she could belong here. And now James was missing and his family and friends had somehow turned on her.

  There was a knock at the door. “Jillian? Jillian, honey, can I come in?”

  “Birkie!” Jillian hurried to the door, pushed away the table and chairs she’d angrily shoved in front of it. That hadn’t served any purpose except to retaliate in kind—they’d blockaded her from the surgery? Fine, she’d make sure they couldn’t get in here. Except no one had tried to get in. No one had come at all until now. Not even James. She nearly pulled Birkie into the room, hugged her thoroughly, cried some more although she thought she’d finished.

  “There, there, hon, everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Oh, it’s not fine. Nothing’s fine! The wolf is dead, my beautiful wolf. You didn’t see what Connor was doing, you don’t know—”

  Birkie patted her arm. “Your wolf is still alive, hon. And reasonably stable too. They’ve got him recovering in the livestock wing—”

  Jillian bolted for the door. She was prepared to take on anyone or anything that got in her way, but she encountered no one. The doorway to the livestock wing was wide open. The wolf had been bedded down in very human fashion, resting on a wide mattress and covered by blankets. Jillian stopped her headlong flight at the sight, approached slowly, almost hesitantly. Was it real? The rise and fall of the blankets was faint, difficult to discern. It looked like the wolf was breathing, but was that just what she wanted to see? She knelt and listened to the animal’s muzzle, fingered an eyelid open with her gentle but shaking hand, and her heart caught at the sight of the familiar blue eye, rejoiced when the pupil shrank with the sudden light. She couldn’t help herself. She placed a hand on each side of the animal’s broad skull, touched its forehead with her own. And sobbed out her relief.

  It was some moments before she could sit back, several more before she caught her breath and quit hiccupping and sniffling. She wiped her face on her shirt and perched on the edge of the mattress, hugging her knees and rocking a little. Peace was here. The world had gone berserk but peace was here with the wolf, just like always. After yesterday, she wasn’t sure where she belonged anymore. Except here, with the wolf. Watching over him the way he had watched over her.

  “So how bad is it, bossman?”

  “The glass for the back door will be here this afternoon. The contractor says he’ll have to replace the entire doorframe, but it’ll all be done by the end of the day so we can lock up tonight.” Connor rested his elbows on the top rail of the clinic corral. Sighed. “Good Christ, he kept asking what happened to tear out the steel hinges like that. I had to lie through my teeth and tell him a steer escaped from the livestock wing and rammed through it.”

  “Well, you could hardly tell him that your brother went through it. But that’s not what I was asking about. I want to know how bad things are with Jillian. Culley says things got a little tense around here.”

  “Jesus
, Birkie, that’s the understatement of the century. It was a tough surgery, an impossible surgery. I was trying so hard to forget it was James because I couldn’t afford the distraction. Well, I forgot all right, and I also forgot I had a non-changeling in the room. She thought I was trying to kill him.”

  “Well, you have to give her credit for determination. You wouldn’t believe how many phone messages you’ve gotten this morning from agencies and people she called to try to stop you.”

  He groaned. “I have a lot of those on my cell too. Thank God I know most of these folks. I’ll have to call them all back eventually, although I don’t know what to say. They already think she must have a screw loose—except her teacher, he wanted to know what I’d done to her—and it’s not fair to her to agree with them. But I can’t tell them the truth either.” He rubbed his hands over his face, held them there for a minute. “God, Birkie, I can’t believe this is happening. What are the chances of James getting shot again? It’s even the same damn shoulder. And Fitzpatrick took me aside this morning and told me this is the same murdering bastard that shot James before.”

  “And killed our Evelyn. Yes, Fitz came by and told me. The son confirmed it.”

  “The whole thing is just uncanny, it’s twisted, it’s . . . it’s just damn fucking wrong, is what it is.”

  “It’s a chance for things to turn out right this time.”

  He groaned. “Fat chance of that.”

  “You’re worried for James and Jillian both, aren’t you?”

  “Christ, yes! He’s hurt bad. If he makes it—”

  “He’ll make it, Connor.” Birkie’s voice was firm.

  “You haven’t seen the damage. It’s going to be weeks—maybe months—before he’ll be able to Change. And what kind of hell will that be for her? Not knowing where he is. Not hearing from him. No matter what excuse we made up, it wouldn’t account for it. If he was called away to visit a sick aunt, I would be too. And he could still phone. In fact, if he was in a coma in Timbuktu and couldn’t phone, someone would still notify us and she’d be on the next plane.”