Silver

by Rhiannon Held

  “Rory did this, then?” Andrew growled to distract him. He held the door open to bring Laurence into the entryway, shut it, and then crossed over to the man. He put a hand on the side of Laurence’s neck, to keep him still and calm, then ran a hand down the man’s side. Laurence winced when Andrew found the cracked ribs. If those were left, it meant the energy of healing had probably gone into something like a punctured lung.

  As Andrew kept his hand on Laurence’s neck, a corner of his mind noted how the man relaxed into the gesture. Dammit, he wasn’t part of Roanoke anymore, and he didn’t want the pack he had, never mind another follower. “Laurence,” he said sharply, reminding the man that he’d left a question unanswered.

  “I told you Rory was going crazy. Paranoid. I think he’s got the other sub-packs under control, but he’s feeling so unstable, he takes it out on me.” Laurence lifted his chin. “I came out to where I could follow someone sane.” His attention went again to John and Pierce, both watching silently. “Seattle?” John didn’t move, Andrew winced, and Laurence looked like he’d gotten his answer. It only strengthened his worrying expression of loyalty.

  Andrew let his hand drop. “That fact absolutely doesn’t go beyond this pack, understand? This is temporary, and I don’t want anyone riding in to beat me down when I have a killer to catch.” Only temporary. He was going to hang on to that with everything he had. “I’m not going to crawl back to Roanoke afterward. I doubt Rory would take me back even if I tried.” He sighed. “Come on. You need to eat and rest and heal up if you’re going to be any good to me.”

  21

  Silver put Death on watch for Dare as the Lady’s light gave way to sunlight the next morning. They brought her food down in the den, and she made sure to stay silent and cowed, avoiding Dare as much as possible. Death was right, he knew her too well. The others saw a weak, broken thing, and dismissed her.

  She kept her eyes on her food, and waited. “He’s out of sight,” Death said. “Chewing the same bone again with talk of plans, since there’s nothing new. Only the new one left to watch over you.”

  Silver stole a glance at the man she vaguely remembered from Dare’s not-pack. She hated to use his kindness against him, but she had little choice. She pushed to her feet. She wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t hard to find shivers anyway. Just thinking about the monster made her muscles feel weak and she courted the shaking. Weak. Weak and needing protection.

  “Are you cold?” the new man asked, concern settling onto his face. He came closer.

  Silver shook her head. “No. Just sometimes I can’t help but think about—” She drew in a breath, making that shake too. She lifted her useless arm to hug it across her chest, tight. She saw the idea of a hug enter his expression and prayed to the Lady’s clouded face it would continue to grow. She needed that protection, didn’t she?

  The new man enfolded her in an embrace to help damp the shaking. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Dare knows what he’s doing.” He was slight and hardly taller than her. It made her feel even more dishonest. She leaned into the gesture and took a deep breath. Death panted in amused anticipation.

  Silver slammed her knee into the new man’s crotch and ran when he doubled over. Up, out of the den and for the entrance. She could only pray speed was enough, combined with the others’ surprise. They’d hear her steps, but maybe they wouldn’t understand at first what had happened. Her legs weren’t injured. She could run fast enough. She hoped.

  Then she was through. They might still catch her, but at least she’d gotten that far. “And now we run again.” Silver didn’t let herself think about the monster, just concentrated on running as fast and as far as she could.

  “And now we run,” Death echoed.

  * * *

  Andrew pushed up off the couch at the sound of running footsteps. Those sounded light. Silver? But Laurence had promised to guard her. “Laurence?” he shouted as he ran for the front door himself, John following. It hung open, Silver already outside. A wheeze from the basement was the only answer he got. John thumped down to check on Laurence as Andrew strode out on the front step. No sign of her, just her lingering scent on the air.

  “You moron.” Andrew strode back to smack the back of Laurence’s head as he came up from the basement, still wheezing and hunched over. “I told you to watch her.”

  “But—she was so upset—” Laurence hung his head.

  “She does that.” Andrew scrubbed his face. All right. They still had time.

  “I’ll go after her on foot. Easiest and fastest way to track her, and she listens to me slightly more than she does any of you. She might actually come back with me rather than making us drag her.”

  Andrew nodded to Pierce as he arrived from the bedrooms upstairs. “You and John follow in the car. We can take her back that way, and I’ll keep in contact in case I need backup. Laurence, you stay put here. Stay out of the others’ way.” Laurence whined in further apology, but didn’t otherwise argue. Andrew couldn’t really bring himself to blame the man for being fooled by Silver. She was good at that trick. Andrew paused to collect nods at his orders, and then pounded out the door.

  It gave Andrew a strange sense of having come full circle to be chasing Silver again. The background behind her scent was different, composed of evergreens and the nearby bodies of water and a particular tang to the air that made Andrew think of mountains whether they caused it or not. But it was her and him and the quiet noises of a suburban neighborhood as he tracked her.

  Her trail crossed a couple major roads at crosswalks, which stilled at least one of Andrew’s worries. He had to remember how much more lucid she was now than when he’d first found her. He reported the first couple intersections to John on his phone, but he moved faster when he didn’t have to hold it to his ear. After that, he called only when she made a major change of direction.

  Houses got closer together, then condo buildings got taller, and he started having more and more trouble following Silver’s exact trail. Her scent was on the wind, but that left far too large an area. Pedestrian traffic picked up as he grew closer to downtown businesses.

  He lost the trail entirely somewhere in the middle of a courtyard between several high-rises. A fountain splashed in the center and silver-colored concrete blocks marked a pattern of lines among the red brick. The crowd of people walking in every direction was thick, far too thick for it to do any good even if Andrew bent as if to tie a shoe and got his nose closer to the ground.

  It was hard to smell anything other than humans, their perfume and deodorant and sweat swirling together. Andrew paused to give John his location, hung up, and pushed toward the courtyard’s edge. He’d have to pick Silver’s trail up on the other side. He’d never find it in here.

  A blond man coming from the other direction jostled Andrew and caught himself on his shoulder. Andrew lifted a hand to sweep him aside, but froze when he saw what the man held shielded between their two bodies. A gun barrel and silencer flashed with a sliver of sunlight, and the smell of metal and acrid gunpowder drifted up to Andrew’s nose, sharp over the Were man’s own scent.

  “I’m so glad to meet you. I’m Stefan. You must be the delightfully protective male scent I found all over Selene’s trail in the east and in her home. These are silver bullets, by the way—I know, how clichéd, yes?—so you might want to come with me to discuss this somewhere else.”

  Andrew recognized the voice immediately. He stayed frozen for several seconds longer as his instincts screamed at him to pounce, and he overrode them. Not here. Not with a gun on him. If those were silver bullets, he’d probably be dead after the first shot, and who knows how many others after him when Stefan caught up with Silver. “Can’t say I return the sentiment. What do you want?”

  “Just to talk.” Stefan ground the silencer’s barrel into Andrew’s side. “Let’s go this way.”

  Andrew twisted to try to get a better look at the man’s face, to read anything more about his intentions. Now he was close, he had the
same poisoned, infected stench of silver metal that had underlain Silver’s scent at the beginning. Same as the scent of that lone in the east, so long ago, and that half-familiar scent at the Bellingham house, Andrew realized. How could he have been so stupid, and not linked the two before now?

  The man was fair in an Eastern European way, lank hair falling into his eyes, and gaunt to the point of emaciation. One arm dangled free. Like Silver’s. He was the other victim. Andrew gritted his teeth until he felt they would crack. As long as Stefan was here, with a gun on him, Silver was safe.

  Stefan jabbed the barrel again, into the center of Andrew’s back this time. “Faster, please.” He laughed, an even, pleasant sound with the same mad lack of context. He shoved Andrew into an access road between two buildings, Dumpsters along its length. Several cars and small delivery trucks sat at service entrances.

  Pain burst in Andrew’s back and his legs collapsed beneath him. He didn’t register the sound of the silenced gunshot until after the pain, though it had come first. He’d been shot before. He knew what it felt like, or at least what buckshot in the flank or leg from rednecks taking potshots at “coyotes” or “stray dogs” felt like. This was worse, but not so much worse. It didn’t burn like silver.

  Stefan grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dragged him into the shadow of a compact car. Andrew tried to summon breath to call out and attract human attention, but the pain made it hard to breathe. How far was Silver? Could the others find her before Stefan did? The pain swelled up again as Stefan hoisted him up into the trunk. When he had his hand free, Stefan pulled out a crowbar that had been tucked at the front of the trunk. He smashed it into Andrew’s temple. Darkness.

  22

  Silver stopped to drink at a small spring that bubbled up when she leaned her weight on the soil around it. She raised her head to check the wind. Was the monster on her trail? She couldn’t find his scent. What was taking him so long?

  “The trap falls apart if he doesn’t take the bait,” Death said in her brother’s voice. She could almost see her brother’s frown in her mind, so caught up in the thinking of a thing that he forgot about its why. The why was all Silver could think of. The trap was to save Dare and her mother’s pack. If she failed in this, she failed them.

  She hesitated a long time, until the spring’s water built up and dribbled over her fingers, painfully cold. “We’re going back,” she told Death. “Maybe the warrior was right. The monster’s too smart for such a trap. I need to warn my mother’s pack.”

  Death dipped his head that he had heard, but his manner was too bland for Silver to tell if he agreed. “If you think you can find them in time.”

  Silver snarled at him. “If I didn’t think that, I’d give up. I’m not giving up.” Her next breath twisted into her throat and choked her. The monster was here. Closer than she’d realized, hidden as it had been under the forest’s normal scents. Lack of breath made her weak, which was good. She couldn’t just run, she had to think. Had to strain her nose to find Dare’s scent, or those of the pack. She had to go to them.

  She found the former alpha first, strong and solid. The thought of that loosened her throat, let her breathe again. He was circling around toward the monster, which let her move away from the monster. Thank the Lady.

  The former alpha tackled her when they intersected, and she let him have that feeling of victory. Now it was no act that she needed the grounding of strong arms around her. Dare’s would have been better, but she couldn’t smell him any longer. Perhaps he’d ceased to follow her and now followed the monster, as had been her first intention.

  “Where’s Dare?” the former alpha asked her, settling his fingers as a tight band around her good wrist. “He said he’d lost you and we haven’t heard anything since. I’d have thought I’d find him coming around this direction, not you.”

  “I was looking for you. One of you.” Silver twisted to look back over her shoulder. Death padded behind alone. Where was Dare?

  * * *

  Andrew drifted into consciousness as the car slowed to a stop. It felt like the bullet hole in his back had healed, but it was still hard to focus his thoughts. Silver. Was she all right? He should … should do something. More than just lie here. Then the trunk lid lifted and the sunlight blinded him.

  “Welcome back.” Stefan smirked down at him, and manhandled Andrew from the trunk once more, ending with him sprawled facedown on the concrete of a sidewalk or path. Andrew’s thoughts moved faster as each moment healed more of his concussion. Silver wasn’t here, but he’d been unconscious. Stefan could have done something to her, left her somewhere else. He had to warn the pack. His phone. He curled up to hide the motion from Stefan with his body. John was on speed dial. He just had to get to a couple buttons—

  Stefan slapped Andrew’s hand away. He patted Andrew’s pocket until he found the lump of the cell and jerked it out. “Now, now.” He dropped the phone on the path, retrieved his crowbar, and smashed it down. “We have no need of interruptions.” The metal glinted in the sunlight, like silver instead of steel. Silver-plated? But Stefan held it in his bare hand without apparent pain.

  Andrew pushed to his hands and knees. “Where’s—Selene?” Wherever they were smelled familiar. He recognized the scent as that of the Bellingham house a moment later.

  Stefan kicked him viciously in the stomach. Andrew’s head swooped and swam from the concussion and he retched onto the concrete. “You’re keeping me from her, it’s true. But I thought it might be best to pause and teach you a quick lesson.” Stefan bent to snarl into Andrew’s face. “Selene is mine. She knows that, too, she’s just lost her way a little. I’ll have to remove the obstacle, that’s all.”

  Then he laughed. His face cleared like a switch had been flicked to a pleasant, smiling manner. “But you’re lucky.” He stepped back and Andrew made it to his knees again. So Stefan didn’t have her? He needed to stall, then. He took a deep breath to calm his roiling stomach, fanned his rage to make it to his feet. How could this psychopath claim Silver as his?

  Stefan took out Andrew’s knees with a sweeping kick before Andrew’s head could clear from the change in elevation. Back to hands and knees again, palms abraded against the concrete. The futility of it stung like the acid left in his mouth. He had to get up. Had to do more than stall, had to take this man down, so he couldn’t return for Silver. Maybe humans would notice the disturbance if they were out on the path long enough. Call the police. He remembered the house and driveway as all too wooded and obscured from the road from his first trip here, though.

  “Help—” Andrew raised his voice, getting barely a word out before Stefan kicked him in the stomach again, stealing all his air. Any humans on adjoining properties were probably still too far to hear anyway. It still all came down to him. His muscles spasmed from the recent kick and his head swam, but he gritted his teeth. No way he was going to give in.

  “You know why you’re lucky?” Stefan’s voice was poisonously smooth. “Because even if you tried to steal my mate, I’m going to give you a chance to repent before you die.”

  “She’s not your mate.” The words bubbled up before Andrew could stop them, soft from his lack of breath. But maybe he could distract the man, giving Andrew time to heal a little more, and stay on his feet the next time.

  Stefan laughed. “What, you don’t believe me? It’s true, she might not remember our … time together. She was a little out of it, once I helped her purify herself in God’s sight.”

  The anger this time was so white-hot it obscured Andrew’s vision. It wasn’t true. The man hadn’t done anything of the sort to Silver. He couldn’t have, and Andrew was going to torture him with his own silver before he killed the bastard. He panted, pushing back the anger to summon words. He had to find words to keep stalling. “Purify? Is that what you call it?”

  Stefan swung the end of the crowbar like a pendulum. “God’s favor does not come without a price for those such as us, it is true.” Stefan shrugged.
Only one shoulder moved, making the resemblance to Silver not perfect, as she retained some control of those muscles. “The taint has to be burned away.”

  “How could you do it?” The need to keep talking had him speaking his thoughts out loud before he could reconsider. “How could you have that done to you and then turn around and do it to anyone else?”

  Stefan slid the crowbar under Andrew’s chin and lifted it. Andrew could smell the silver on it and tipped his chin so it wouldn’t touch skin. “You think faith is supposed to be easy?” Stefan rolled the muscles on that side and failed to move his arm again. “This taught me what was important. Made me value what I’d gained. Repent and forsake the false Lady and He can save you too.”

  Andrew spat at him. He’d always thought religion was poison, but this was beyond anything he could even have imagined. Humans had tainted his mind with the worst of the religious evil as well as their silver. This was why Andrew didn’t believe. Look what it gave people the excuse to do, encouraged them to do. “There is no human God. There is no Lady. You were tortured in the name of a myth. That’s all gods are good for, torturing people.”

  Stefan brought the crowbar up so it sizzled against Andrew’s skin. “There is only one true God. It is the refuge of the weak, to blame Him for their problems. To say that if He does not directly intervene, He does not exist. It is not His place to protect us from every pain of this world. It is ours to have faith.”

  Stefan sighed, and turned, letting the crowbar fall. “They didn’t want to listen to me at home either. Some just aren’t willing to allow their souls to be saved. So I had to leave, and find someone else to save. This pack was so kind to me, you know. That’s how I knew they deserved purification. They took me in when they saw what I had suffered, because they didn’t understand how that suffering had been necessary.” He paused as a thought occurred. “It was such a shame about the children.”