Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd say it sounded like a...
“Wolf!” comes a woman's bellow from somewhere close by. “The wolves are attacking! Everyone, up, up! Grab a weapon! Stand your ground! Protect the children and the infirm! Now, now!”
The sound of a horn resounds around the encampment, for a brief moment louder than the sounds of the screaming people and the snarling of the wolves as I finally fumble into my coat and my pajama bottoms, hands shaking as I do up the buttons.
I'm out of the tent flap, standing in the middle of what looks like a war zone. There are shadows of people running everywhere; they're hard to see because there appears to have been a fire started. Hazy smoke hangs in the air, and at the edge of the encampment, it's too unnaturally orange in the sky. I can smell something burning, and it makes me cough, the smoke stinging the back of my throat, my eyes. Women run around me, racing past me, but they're not running in any particular direction. This is panic, pure panic, causing everyone to race every which way, trying to outrun something.
I stand perfectly still, holding my breath as my heart thuds against my ribs.
Because there, striding with a predatory gait down the center of the stone road, is a massive wolf.
Its shoulders are as high as my waist, and it prowls with a surety and savage grace that's breathtaking at the exact same time that it's utterly terrifying. I think there's something hardwired in all of us that makes seeing a wolf in the “wild,” uncontained and unstoppable, something that reaches back into the deepest instinctual parts of ourselves. Our oldest cavemen ancestors were the ones who survived wolf attacks, the ones who knew to run the moment they saw a wolf...
But as I stare at that wolf, a chilling thought freezes me to my bones. As the wolf prowls down the center of the street, I realize that it reminds me of something. Of someone.
It reminds me of Wonder.
“Wonder?” I call, terror making my word tiny. I try again, belting out her name as I turn away from the wolf. There are so many people running around me, so much smoke and chaos that it's impossible to make out anything but the shadows of running bodies racing past me, the shadow of the wolf as it pauses in its stalking down the street, pauses and lifts its snout, breathing in the chaos and the smoke.
“Wonder!” I call again, holding my coat tightly to me as I take another gulp of air and cough, the smoke stinging my lungs. “Wonder?” I crouch down, try to make out the shapes better in the increasing smoke.
“Josie,” comes my name, the word soft and sharp, and then I'm being pulled upright, Attis' fingers curling around my arm so tightly that when I fold into her embrace, the smoke is almost squeezed right out of my lungs. “Josie, the wolves are attacking,” she tells me, voice soft and low as she stares down at me with her warm amber eyes that are flashing with something I can't quite place.
“Attis,” I tell her, gripping her shoulders, eyes wide with fear, “I can't find Wonder.”
Attis glances down the corridor of tents and back to the main road—the main road where the wolf has vanished. Zilla dances in place on her picket next to our tent, swishing her tail, her nose lifted to the wind as she tosses her head over and over again nervously, making low snorts as she paws at the ground.
“Don't worry, I'll find Wonder, but we've got to get you to safety,” Attis tells me, her jaw clenched. “I need to help these people, too. There are more knights coming,” she says quickly. “I heard the summoning horn. But the knights have to take the back way out; they can't open the gate and risk an attack on the city. So they're not going to get here in time if we don't stand against them.”
Attis takes my arm with her warm, reassuring fingers, and then we move toward Zilla's side in the smoke.
“You'll have to ride her bareback. I'm sorry; there's no time to saddle her,” Attis tells me, and then she cups her hands and kneels down. I want to argue with her, want to tell her that I have to stay, but I saw the look in her eyes. I saw the past flicker across her face, how finding Hera dead destroyed her. So I step into Attis' hands, my world and mind spinning as the screams continue, as the smoke thickens. She tosses me lightly up onto Zilla's back, and there's a terrifying moment where I think I'm going to fall over Zilla's shoulder onto the other side; her fur is shiny and so smooth that it's hard for me to find purchase on her without a saddle, but I grip my legs around the mare's barrel and weave my fingers into her mane.
“She's a trained warhorse. There is no way that she would let a wolf touch you,” says Attis, reaching up to brush her fingers across my face as I lean down to her. She clenches her jaw, takes a deep breath. “Zilla will take you away from here, keep you safe until the knights arrive.”
“Attis, I don't want to leave you,” I tell her, my heart in my throat.
“You'll be safe,” she says firmly, gazing up at me with unwavering golden eyes. “I love you, Josie,” she tells me then, her voice breaking, and before I can respond, before I can say anything, she smacks Zilla's rump hard. Zilla snorts, dancing sideways, and then bolts through the chaos of the encampment, angling away from the encampment and the castle, her hooves thundering over the ground.
I grip Zilla's barrel as tightly as I can, curl my fingers into her mane and hold on for dear life, adrenaline pouring through me as I slip and slide on her back, scrabbling for purchase and so that I don't go sailing through the air and hit the ground. We're racing through the edge of the encampment, passing falling tents and women holding sword. Fire is spreading through the tents almost as fast as Zilla can run.
Everything passes by in a blur as I cling to Zilla's neck, but then, as we race through a tent corridor, I see someone lying in the center of the aisle of tents, face down, and there, crouching over her, is a wolf...
“Whoa! Whoa!” I yell at Zilla desperately, and—surprising no one more than me—Zilla actually grinds to a halt, her back legs crouching under her as she stops on a dime, tossing her head in the air. Somehow, I manage to sit her abrupt stop, and with noodly legs slipping on her barrel, I make a very quick decision.
“Just...just stay right here, okay?” I tell the horse, my voice cracking from the smoke. I have no idea how I think I'm going to get back up on her, but I don't know what else to do, so I slide off Zilla's back, and then I'm running at the wolf with shaky legs and no plan whatsoever.
“Get away from her!” I scream, picking up the closest thing I can find—a skirt just laying on the ground. The wolf is crouching over the woman, snarl lifting its lips, viciously revealing about a million extremely pointy, extremely long white teeth, and I just have a skirt, of all things, to fight this creature with, but I wave the flimsy fabric at the wolf again, shouting as loudly as I can. They're unintelligible noises I'm bellowing, but adrenaline is surging through me, and all I know is that there's a woman on the ground, a hurt woman who needs someone's help—and that someone is going to have to be me.
The wolf takes one step backwards in surprise, the hackles on its back rising even farther as its snarl deepens.
“Are you okay? Hello?” I ask the woman on the ground. I'm worried that if I make the tiniest movement, this apparent staring contest between myself and the wolf will stop, and I'll have technically “blinked,” the wolf launching itself at me and burying its jaws in my throat. But I don't have to wait long. The woman lying on the ground lifts her head tentatively, staring at me with wide, terrified eyes.
“Please help me,” she whispers.
She's younger than me, with bright red hair and big blue eyes. She's very pretty, I realize, in the back of my head, but what I notice most is the fine white skin of her neck—and how it's torn open, blood pouring out of the wound onto the ground.
Like, a lot of blood. Oh, God.
“Zilla? A little help here!” I yell at the top of my lungs.
And, again—surprising no one more than me—Zilla actually listens to me and charges forward, stomping her massive hooves at the wolf as she sits back on her big, horsey haunches and stomps again
and again, bugling a neigh that actually sounds kind of terrifying. The wolf flattens its ears in response to Zilla's advances, and when Zilla stomps her huge hooves even closer to its head, the wolf actually bolts away, tail between its legs as Zilla chases after it, her teeth bared, her head snaking, and her ears slicked back, like she's going to kill the wolf herself.
“Come on,” I tell the woman, my voice shaking as I help her sit up, pressing the skirt in my hands against her neck to help staunch the flow of blood, the blood that's seeping down her skin, dripping onto her dress. “You need help,” I tell her quietly, as Zilla circles back to me, tossing her head and snorting in, what seems to me, at least, an air of triumph and self-satisfaction. “Zilla—come here, girl?” I ask the big, black horse, and she trots over to me, peering down at the woman with wide brown eyes.
“Stand still, okay?” I ask the horse, and then I pull the woman to a semi-standing position with a grunt of effort. All I can think about is what Attis told me, how blood attracts predators, and then what Virago told me, how defenseless things will attract predators, and how there are many, many predators around, and how I have to get this woman to safety right now.
“I'm going to help you get up on the horse, okay?” I say to the woman, but her head is lolling back—probably from the loss of too much blood. She's losing consciousness. “Shit,” I mutter to myself. “Shit,” I mutter again, glancing around. There's no one in this corridor of tents, though I can hear screaming and yelling coming from very close by. I gulp air, coughing from the smoke. “Zilla, come closer,” I tell the horse, the horse who probably doesn't understand actual words, my voice catching as I sob out in frustration, the woman falling against me.
But Zilla bows her front legs down, and miraculously, she's a lot lower. “Remind me how many carrots I owe you,” I tell the horse, gritting my teeth as I lift the woman up onto Zilla, the woman's stomach pressing against the horse's back, her arms dangling over the other side of Zilla's shoulder.
I'm about to climb up behind her onto Zilla, very, very ready to get the hell out of Dodge, when I stop, a chill racing through me.
I thought I heard...
“Wonder?” I yell out, turning and peering as best as I can through the smoke. I thought I heard a very soft meow. I could have sworn I heard it. “Wonder, are you there?” I yell again, taking a deep breath and shielding my eyes from the smoke, frantically trying to find my cat in the chaos.
And, blessedly, miraculously, my beautiful, crazy gray cat darts out from the flap of a tent, her tail so large, and all of the fur on her back standing straight up, that I know—for once in her life—my cat is actually terrified.
“Oh, my God, baby, come here!” I call to her, dropping to my knees and holding out my arms so that she can make a beeline toward me.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a shadow looming to my right, but I don't want to break my eye contact with Wonder. When Wonder tackles me, running straight into my arms, I turn, letting my breath out in a great whoosh.
A few feet from us is a wolf.
Zilla snorts, stomping her right front hoof, but because the woman is now unconscious on top of her, Zilla can't move too much without the woman falling off and possibly hurting herself worse. I stand quickly, holding Wonder tightly to me, holding the wolf's gaze as I hold my hand up to Zilla, trying to calm her and steady her.
The wolf has a massive, hairless scar across its snout, making it look even more vicious as it raises its lips in a snarl, hackles on its blackish back raised. I stand my ground, taking another step back. I somehow need to climb up onto Zilla's back and get out of here. I have to do this. I don't have a choice. I dig deep and find a scrap of courage and strength inside of me to try just that. I'm going to make a running leap for Zilla and climb up behind the unconscious woman, somehow holding her and Wonder on Zilla's back as Zilla runs out of the encampment. I think I can do it. I think I can do it—as I take a deep breath, ready to turn and bolt and leap up onto Zilla...
But that's when the wolf moves.
The wolf is impossibly fast, faster than I could have imagined. It launches itself into the air as I turn, and I feel its massive, muscular bulk hitting me squarely in the side. I don't have time to stop its lunge. I skid into the ground, hitting it squarely, the big wolf right on top of me.
Wonder gets knocked out of my arms, and she bolts for safety. Zilla rears up a little but remains with her four hooves on the ground, tossing her head nervously as she dances out of the way, picking her hooves up high as she tries to keep the woman on her back.
I stare up at the wolf who stares down at me, its wide eyes mad, its snout flecked with blood and spittle...
And somewhere, in the back of my mind, I realize...its eyes?
They look human.
The wolf rolls off of me when a force hits it very, very hard, force in the form of a woman rushing it. Attis. She's here. The wolf rolls end over end as Attis reaches down, grasps my hand and, in a single, fluid motion, pulls me to my feet. She holds her sword up, horizontal to the ground, as the wolf rolls, stops, shakes itself briskly and rounds on her, snarling, lips up and over very long teeth.
“I've got you,” Attis whispers, glancing back at me with flashing golden eyes.
“Attis!” I yell, as the wolf attacks, launching itself and its wide, gaping jaws full of wickedly white teeth at her. It grabs her arm, and because she's not wearing her armor, when its teeth sink into the leather of her shirt, the teeth go through. All the way through.
Attis swings her sword down, but the wolf has the upper hand, dragging her backward as it twists to the side, the sword slicing past its body but doing no damage at all, because the wolf pulled her off balance. I step back, my heart in my throat, as Attis is pulled so far off balance, so quickly and viciously, that she doesn't have time to correct herself. She falls to her knees.
And the wolf lets go of her arm and darts forward, bloody teeth aimed at her throat.
I react instantly. I run at the wolf, and then I hit it hard with my hands and arms. The wolf hardly budges, but its trajectory is slightly off because of my impact, and when the wolf snaps its jaws close to Attis' neck, it doesn't get her neck in its mouth, only a gulp of air beside her face.
Attis holds the sword up, blood dripping from her arm into the ground below us, but she still wraps her injured arm around me, holding me tightly to her.
“I love you,” I tell her breathlessly, bracing myself as the wolf shakes itself, as it narrows its eyes, snarls, crouches in front of us.
Attis presses her mouth to the top of my head, grits her teeth, raises her sword, and the wolf charges.
And everything seems to...slow.
There's a flash of silver light, silver light that falls around us, like starlight. The light is so intense that it's all I can see for a long moment as my breath catches in my throat. I blink furiously, rubbing the back of my hand over my eyes.
But when I can finally see, I gasp.
The wolf is no longer in front of us.
It's...gone.
Starlight continues to fall like glitter from the sky, drifting gently toward the ground. This isn't the stars of earlier, falling to cobblestone streets and bouncing like light rubber balls. This is dusty light, pouring down, falling over everything. Powdered light that glows as it hits the grass and dirt.
Ahead of us, down the corridor of the encampment, I see something massive and silver, moving gently between the tents.
It's her. The bear. I take a deep breath as she gazes back at me with brilliant blue eyes. I don't know why, but when she gazes at me, I feel her in my heart, and I know that she saved us somehow.
“She saved us,” Attis whispers. She gulps down air. “It was never the Ursa,” she says then, voice soft. “It was the wolves who took Hera. I know that now. She's been helping us all along.”
I turn to look at Attis, to kiss Attis, to hold her tight and tell her over and over again, as I sob out the adrenaline, that we did it. We survived.
I want to tell her again that I love her, love her so much, and that I'm so happy that—across worlds—we managed to find each other.
But Attis isn't there. Nothing is there. Suddenly, everything is black, and the world around me fades away.
And I'm falling forward into complete darkness.
Chapter 14: The Beginning
I hit the ground so hard the breath is knocked out of me.
I lie there for a moment, shock soaring through me, my breath stuck in my throat. Then I gasp, breathe out, sit up, pressing my palms to the...
...to the concrete.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper, taking in another deep, ragged breath as I push up, sitting up, staring around me.
Overhead, the single light bulb swings back and forth, back and forth. My suitcase lies open next to me, dirty clothing spilling out of it and onto the concrete floor. The washer sits in the corner, my laundry detergent perched on the lip of the washer.
Outside of the building, I can hear the familiar honking and screeching of brakes, the music of traffic in Boston.
I'm...home.
“No...” I whisper, standing up unsteadily, turning around. “No!” I yell, taking another deep breath and racing on unsteady legs toward the dark part of the basement.
But the dark part of the basement is smaller than I remember it being. There are small holes in the wall, but they're only about a foot across.
There's no hole in the floor. There's nothing but standing water, and—out of the corner of my eye—a rat scurries past, diving into the nearest cavity in the wall.
I take a deep breath, staring down at myself. I'm wearing the Scooby Doo shirt, my leopard print bottoms. They look dirty. They look like they did when I left the tent. But I'm not wearing the werewolf coat.
I crouch down, bury my hands in my hair, try to breathe, try to understand what just happened to me.
Forever and a Knight Page 25
