Skin of the Wolf

by Sam Cabot

  Edward, striding past Lane with an armload of logs, recognized this chatter for what it was: a white man’s inability to bear an uncomfortable silence. Though he himself had never been sure which came first: perhaps that desperate need for talk was what made silences uncomfortable for them. The idea that moments not filled with talk were therefore silent was also an error. When the flow of words paused Edward heard footsteps, his own and Hilda’s. From the bare-walled living room he could make out the measured in and out of Katherine Cochran’s breathing as she prepared herself according to Abornazine’s instructions. Soft thumping came from another part of the house as Abornazine adjusted the heads on the drum, tried them, pulled their deerskin cords tighter. And on a night like this, the wind! The trees circling the mound of logs leaned and reached, now this way, now that, like people at a dance. The wind gave them voice, and they sang and howled, keened and whispered. Broken branches cracked, torn twigs whipped along the brown grass and scratched the sunroom windows. Lane’s blindness, his helplessness to be part of the preparations, Edward thought, contributed to his impatience. But a blind man filling silences with meaningless words, when so much more was available to his ears than to most people’s—the white world, Edward thought, pulling open the door and stepping once again into the wind and the dark, the white world, I could never live there.

  He arranged his logs and stood back, felt the wind push on him as though it were a friend inviting him to leave his chores and wrestle. The pile was complete. The low outer barrier around the fire site was laid, also. The fire would kindle and burn hot, just long enough for the Ceremony to be held. If Abornazine sang well and Katherine Cochran truly had the Power, she would Shift before the flames died down. About Abornazine, Edward had no doubts. The mask and the presence of a woman who claimed not just hope but experience, no matter how incomplete, had ignited his spirit as never before. Edward saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Abornazine would do the Ceremony as well as he ever had. If the fire faded and no Shift had occurred, the thing Katherine Cochran so desperately hungered for—the thing he and Abornazine wanted so badly, also—would not happen.

  If that was the outcome, so be it. They’d take the Ohtahyohnee with them and continue their work.

  Once the Ceremony started he himself would keep a distance from it, not looking directly at the fire or the dance, far enough that the howling of the wind would interfere with the drumming and the chant. And the mask, especially the mask. He’d had to struggle to control the sensations roiling within him at his first sight of the Ohtahyohnee, and that was within walls, among unbelievers, lit by electric lights. Under the moon, at a fire, with the chanting, to see the mask as it was intended to be used—no, the prohibition on the presence of an awakened Shifter at a Ceremony was ancient and wise. If the need arose for him to Shift he would do it, but he would control the time and place.

  A rectangle of light sliced onto the lawn as the back door opened. Bradford Lane, swathed in a thick down coat and a giant scarf, lifted his feet over frozen tufts of grass. Beside him, holding his arm in a vise grip, Hilda radiated disapproval into the night. Her disgusted scowl made Edward wonder if she should be barred from the circle. It, plus Lane’s cackling cynicism, created a sizzle of ill will like a second, maleficent fire. But no. The strength he felt in Abornazine tonight, the power of the Ohtahyohnee—what was mistrust born of ignorance against them?

  Hilda went back in and returned with two folding chairs, for herself and Lane. They sat; then the door opened again and Katherine Cochran emerged. Her feet were bare, her face hard and set. She hugged a thick blanket around her; under that, Edward knew, she was naked, but if the cold reached her she didn’t show it. Abornazine came out last, carrying drum and mask. At the sight of the Ohtahyohnee a flash of fear, of excitement, of yearning, raced up Edward’s spine. Katherine Cochran stepped into the circle and knelt in the place Abornazine showed her. The wind picked up in sharp gusts, as though impatient, now, with any delay.

  Edward stepped into the circle, also. He looked from his friend to the kneeling woman. Then he turned his back to them. He raised his arms and sang a prayer to the wind, to the moon, and last, to the fire that was to come. Finished, he knelt and put match to tinder. A gust made the flame shiver but he’d laid the wood so that the wind wouldn’t blow out the spark, but make it roar to life. He waited, not long; soon the center began to glow and fingers of fire cast conflicting shadows across the frozen earth. Edward stepped back, hearing the crackle, watching the dancing light. He met Abornazine’s eyes one more time, and the light was in them, too. Edward walked past Abornazine, past Katherine Cochran, over the barrier, out of the circle and away from the growing fire. He didn’t stop to watch Abornazine don the mask. Behind him the voice of the drum started to rise, and soon, over it, came Abornazine’s steady, insistent chanting, echoing through the Ohtahyohnee. The Ceremony had begun.

  61

  Michael hunched into his coat, staying in shadow on the curving Riverdale street. Blocks away he’d paid off the cab that had brought him here from Fordham. Better to approach on foot, taking stock.

  Riding across the Bronx, many things had weighed on his mind. He had no doubt the priest he’d found lifeless in the chapel was Father Maxwell; the cross and moon on the priest’s gold ring told him that. He had no doubt, as he knelt beside the body, that the man had only been dead a short time; if Michael had moved faster he might have saved him. And he had no doubt the open box on the pew nearby had once contained a mask. The true Ohtahyohnee? How, and why? And where was it now?

  And was the inert form of Father Maxwell, with its staring, frightened eyes, another disaster to lay at the feet of his brother?

  He wished he hadn’t called Spencer. It was weakness, his need for connection masquerading as a desire to keep Spencer from trouble. The same flaw had stopped him from leaving last night as he should have, as soon as he’d gotten Spencer home from the park and been sure he wasn’t going to die. It was a failing compounded of many parts: a man’s affection and a scientist’s curiosity, plus a researcher’s hope to be able to continue his work and, he knew, a Shifter’s arrogance. It seemed complex but it amounted to a simple thing: greed. A white man’s disease. Michael had wanted to have everything, to give up nothing. All his life Michael had denied his brother’s charge, but it was true: living in the white world had changed him.

  But now he’d do what he should have done already: he was going to disappear. If, first, he could confront Edward here, he would; if not, he’d go back north. He’d follow his brother and van Vliet until he found them and stopped them. After that, whatever path presented itself was the one he’d take.

  He wondered suddenly if the real reason he’d called Spencer was to say goodbye.

  A whisper in the dark: his name. Michael snapped his head up, sprang back ready. A shadow stepped from under a linden tree.

  “Relax. It’s me.” Lou moved into the light.

  “Jesus. Lou, I told you to leave.”

  “Fat chance. The hell good’s a recon man doesn’t pass his intel on?”

  “You already did that when you called.”

  “I have more. Tried to call again but you didn’t answer.”

  “I threw the phone away. I can take it from here, Lou.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. There are five of them in the house.”

  “Five?”

  “Didn’t know that, did you? The old man, his housekeeper—or maybe she’s his bodyguard, she looks it—your brother, that white wannabe he hangs out with, and a lady who just came.”

  “A lady?”

  “Short white hair, scratched-up face. In a hurry. Carrying something heavy in a deerskin sack.”

  “How big?”

  “Big. Like this.” Lou spread his hands.

  “Hell.” A shift in the wind brought the pulse of drumming. Michael listened: a chant began. Ice raced up his spine. “Oh, my God
.”

  Lou cocked his head; he’d heard it, too. “What?”

  “Nothing. Lou, I’m asking you, leave. It’s my problem.”

  “You have more problems. Two cops in an unmarked car, over there. Eyes on the same house.”

  Michael followed the direction of Lou’s nod. “Dammit.”

  Lou held up night vision binoculars. “I’ve been watching them. They must’ve seen Eddie go in but they haven’t reacted.”

  “I don’t think they’re looking for him.”

  “Then who?”

  “Me.”

  “You? Doc Bonnard, on the wrong side of the law? Give me a minute, let me call Pete. He’ll laugh his head off.”

  “It’s a misunderstanding.”

  “I think I heard that inside.”

  “But it would take time to unravel it and I don’t have time.”

  “Guys on the inside had nothing but time, never got theirs unraveled. Seriously, Doc, you in some kind of trouble?”

  “Go home, Lou.” Michael started forward.

  Lou grabbed his arm. “Not that way, for God’s sake. At least make them work for it. Come on, I can get us down to the house and they’ll never know we were here. Can city Indians climb a fence or you gonna need a boost?”

  Michael stopped but didn’t answer.

  “Doc, what’s it about? What’s going on?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “I think I know, though. Ivy’s dream.”

  “What?”

  “I think this is what she meant and I think you need help, whatever it is you’re supposed to do.”

  “Lou—” Then the words of the river came back: Accept the hand that’s offered.

  What if he sees?

  Then he was meant to see.

  Michael looked at Lou’s angled eyes, evidence of the blood of two continents carried in him, and his cocky grin, evidence of who he was in himself. “All right,” he said. “You hear the drumming? What they’re doing—it needs to be stopped. Disrupted. If they have a wooden mask, take it away from them if you can, but don’t damage it. Leave Edward to me. Do not go up against him.”

  “Eddie? Why would I? Ivy said to help him.”

  “Don’t go near him. You get me?”

  Lou raised his eyebrows, but just said, “Yessir.” He turned. Michael grabbed his arm.

  “Lou? Whatever you see, it’s real, you’re not losing your mind. But you can’t, ever, talk about it.”

  Lou grinned again and took off, leading the way.

  62

  Just those three,” the uniform in the unmarked sedan told Charlotte, as she leaned in his window. She read his nameplate: Petersen. “The two men, then the woman.”

  “Describe them.”

  “The men, they had some Indian thing going on. Both of them with long hair in braids. The young guy was big, wearing a leather jacket. The older guy was smaller. He had on some fringed thing that looked like what I had when I was a kid. I wanted to be a cowboy.” He laughed and nudged his partner but Charlotte’s look stopped him and he swallowed and went on, “The woman, short hair, white or blond, in a helluva hurry.”

  “And the thing the woman was carrying?”

  “Looked heavy,” said the driver, a chubby guy named Klein. “Wrapped in something. About this big.” He spread his arms wide.

  “Okay. Your captain says you’re our backup. Come on.”

  “On foot?” Petersen made that sound like an idea he’d never heard before.

  “I don’t want them to see us.”

  “They’ve got a locked gate. How’re you planning on getting in?”

  She scorched him with a look. “How’re you? Floor it and crash through?”

  “That’s not what I—” He stopped when Framingham shook his head. Grumbling, the two uniforms climbed out of the car.

  “And shut up,” Charlotte said.

  Half a block closer, she could hear drumming. The wind brought chanting, too, and the smell of burning wood. Big houses like the ones around here, a lot of them would have fireplaces; but that’s not what it was and she knew it. Another half block and she could look straight through an iron picket fence to a plant-filled glass extension on the side of the house. Beyond its foggy windows, on the lawn in the back, a fire blazed. A few yards from the fence she stopped. If the gate had a security camera she didn’t want it to find them. She edged around the fence to where she could see the fire. Two people sat in chairs; a blanket-wrapped figure knelt; and someone in a wolf mask sang and beat on a drum. Tahkwehso?

  “Holy crap,” said Framingham.

  “You shut up, too. Can you climb this?”

  “I—”

  “You,” Charlotte said to Petersen. “Come boost him over. You two, can you climb it? Oh, shit, forget it. Matt, Petersen, come with me. When we get inside, Matt, you come back around here and open the gate.” She took off at a run to the north side of the house, where they’d be hidden from the glass room and the fire.

  63

  Thomas sat stunned by the news Spencer had delivered. Father Maxwell, dead; and dead because he had, it appeared, been in possession of the real Ohtahyohnee. For how long? Why? Praevalere et veneror. Father Maxwell and Kateri Tekakwitha, with the same motto. Chance? Not possibly. A society, then, within the Jesuit order, stretching back to the time of Tekakwitha, for the preservation of the masks. Secret, unknown. Could such a thing be? Oh yes. From its founding, many circles had existed within the Society of Jesus, some deep in the shadows of the order and the Church. This could mean nothing else. The early Jesuits in the New World, the Blackrobes the nations had loved—they must have understood the power of these masks. Had they seen or just been told? Did it matter? They knew about the Shifters, the way the Church had known about the Noantri for so long. The members of Father Maxwell’s society knew. Father Maxwell had known.

  Who killed the priest, and why? Was this yet another death for which Edward Bonnard would have to answer?

  Where was the mask now?

  And how many other secrets, world-altering secrets, existed? And how many were known to, and shielded by, Thomas’s Church?

  Thomas chided himself for dwelling on questions when a man’s soul was in need of prayer. For the second time in twenty-four hours he began, “Eternal rest, oh Father . . .” This time he offered the words silently, but no less sincerely. He’d just finished when Livia spoke.

  “There’s an iron fence around the property.” They were driving down the curving street toward the Riverdale estate. “There’s a gate with a security camera, but I didn’t see any other cameras. Spencer, I assume you want to get as close as we can without being seen?”

  “Indeed, that’s what I was hoping.”

  Livia made a left and parked the car a block from Lane’s home. Everyone climbed out, including Father Carbonariis, who hadn’t spoken since Spencer’s news. “This way,” Livia said. “There’s a place we can get to the fence and not be seen from the street. It’s where I went over last night to get to my tree. It’s not a hard fence to climb, but someone might have to boost Thomas.”

  64

  Following Lou, Michael slipped through the trees at the edge of the frozen lawn. They’d come over the fence on the north side, away from the fire. The iron rods were high and smooth and Michael’s injury had made climbing them tricky. In the end he’d needed Lou’s help, which had come with a wiseass smirk.

  As they neared the fire Michael struggled to retain control. Even with the house blocking his view of the flames he could see their glow and the weaving shadows of the trees. And he could hear the chant. The Ceremony, he’d told Spencer and the others. Similar across tribal cultures, that’s why it’s effective. Van Vliet claimed he’d been taught by a Navajo. If so, he’d learned well. The drum called and the chant demanded. The howling wind whipped the sounds aroun
d Michael and drove them deep inside him. Chant and drum reverberated past Dr. Michael Bonnard, who lived in the white world, past Gata, who was born on ancient land, scorning both to reach the wolf-self within.

  No. No. Whoever was at the center of this Ceremony—the woman who’d brought the mask?—could not be allowed to Shift. She’d be destroyed. And van Vliet’s power would grow. Michael felt the ice and the heat start together within him. He fought them. As though on the side of the chant and the drum, a gust of wind staggered him, knocked his breath out as powerfully as a blow. Lou reached out to offer help, but his gaze snapped immediately to something else. Michael followed Lou’s eyes. A figure stepped from the shadows of the house.

  Edward stood, arms raised, lit by the half-hidden glow of the fire. Michael’s eyes locked with his brother’s. A moment of stillness, of silence; then Edward spoke, in the voice of the thunder: “No.”

  65

  Charlotte left Framingham climbing onto Petersen’s shoulders, which didn’t make either of them happy but why would she care? She crept around the house toward the fire, moving fast but keeping to the shadows. This bastard Michael Bonnard, was he here? Petersen and Klein hadn’t reported anyone who looked like him but those two weren’t the brightest bulbs. God knows how many people could’ve slipped past them.

  It bothered her that the woman had arrived carrying a bundle, but there was no reason Michael Bonnard couldn’t be working with a partner. In her mind it ran like this: Bradford Lane found out a second mask existed. What else could that box be for? He wanted it and sent his to auction, maybe so he could afford to buy it. But it wasn’t for sale. He saw his chance when Michael Bonnard killed Brittany Williams, probably in some lovers’ spat. How did Lane know about that? A detail; later. Lane blackmailed Bonnard into stealing the second mask for him. The priest at Fordham didn’t want to let it go, a fatal mistake. Bonnard passed it to his partner and let himself be seen leaving the church as cover for her.