Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3)

by Tina Smith

  “Sure you did,” she teased, evidently enjoying having the upper hand. I was silent.

  “He won’t tell will he?” I finally asked, thinking how he had kept quiet about her parental disobedience before.

  Caroline stopped running in the darkness. “What did I just see?” she asked, a strange sense of bemusement coating her tone as she looked up at me. I noticed she was wearing eyeliner, as I slowed up. I wondered what was with the new look.

  “I thought he was on their side.” I turned and met her eyes directly. “He was out past curfew wandering around your house.”

  She had to admit I had a point.

  I decided not to feel intimidated by her amusement. “He’s lucky I didn’t shoot him,” I said, chuckling under my breath.

  A smile started to break over her pouty expression. She scratched her tightly ponytailed head, and I noticed her nails were painted dark as she followed suit with a small chuckle.

  “You could have told me he was a weed addict who likes to lurk in the bushes,” I insisted in a severe whisper. I paused and sighed quietly in disbelief under my breath, amused at myself and unwilling to admit it. She laughed loudly and then following my alarmed look she reined it in. Her laughter made me realize just how wired I was. I felt a deprecating sense of bemusement fade. I changed the subject, lowering my voice, aware again of our surrounds. “What kept you tonight?” My intense expression calmed, waiting for her reply.

  She ran her darkly painted nails over her head. “I think my parents are getting a divorce.”

  “Did they say that?” Maybe the family turmoil explained her new look.

  She shrugged, twisting her lips. “When they see I’m gone, I’ll be in the shit.” She addressed me. “You’re annoyed?”

  I thought of her parents' muffled yelling and winced. “No I just…We fucking have to fight the Cult and here we are dealing with stoned teenage spies and arguing parents...” I knew I had quite possibly blown it. “We have training to do,” I rasped. She looked sadder then and placed a hand on her mouth. I leant my back against a smooth tree mirroring her. I knew it wasn’t her fault, anyway. I sighed, “Just go home Caroline.” Nothing was going to happen tonight.

  She stared.

  “Caroline,” I said, raising my voice harshly.

  “C.J,” she corrected me with an angry glare.

  “Just go back home,” I repeated, but she pushed her glasses back along the bridge of her nose, something that had annoyed me all week. “Do you even need those glasses?” I scoffed. If she was going to go the Goth look, she might as well go all the way. I soon softened my expression in the silence when I saw her pout. “We can train when they cool down.”

  Her silence said everything. “Convince your brother whatever happened back there was ... I don’t know?” I pressed my lips together. “We’ll train tomorrow, the last thing I need is you being grounded.” Or causing a divorce. I already had one of those on my conscience. I scuffed the sandy dirt.

  She nodded like a scolded child and turned to walk slowly back to her house, not bothering to use a different path through the trees. I had upset her and I knew it.

  I called low after her. “Don’t tell your brother anything.”

  And I was left to my own thoughts, to the sound of crickets and birds, the rumble of thunder in the distance and the bristle of leaves in the trees - wondering if I had really stuffed up. Thinking and hoping that Aaron wasn’t the nosy type. I dusted the dry grass that had stuck to my clothes off my back.

  I went and checked the graveyard. For what, again I couldn’t be certain? Tormey was there under the statue of an angel. I passed the recently disturbed dirt over what I knew to be Sky’s empty coffin. I came to stand before Tormey’s weathering headstone. I touched the stone, and thought about the river and her hand pulling me from the water as I pressed my palm to the angel’s cool cheek.

  Lightning was flickering overhead. She could have taught me so much about what was out there. I wore her clothes, I lived in her home. I even protected her daughter as she had once done. I looked up and opened my eyes to the wide night sky.

  I knew that Caroline wouldn’t have many nights left with her family; they would dry up. One way or another, being a hunter seemed as bad a curse as being bitten. This was a profession without a choice made certain the day the crescents appeared - and they would appear in her eyes soon enough, they had already lightened. I hoped Apollo’s curse wouldn’t befall her too. That she wouldn’t fall for a creature of the dark, the insidious curse that had infested my bones. For all I had become, I was still pathetically weak and vulnerable; no wishing would make it go away. It flew in the face of everything we stood for. The lines weren’t as clear as they once were for my kind and theirs. But just maybe Caroline could change that.

  Sky shouldn’t have left. I wondered what it said about us - and what it said about him that he had abandoned me. It bothered me that it didn’t bother me. My hand resting on the cheek of the weathering stone angel, I asked for help. I knew she knew more than I did, but I wouldn’t find the answers here.

  Somewhere inside myself I had a feeling that this quiet time was coming to an end. This moment of peace sat on the edge of turmoil, on the cusp of a cyclone. On my way back it started to drip rain, the sweat on my body began to wash away to be replaced by the chill of water. This had been a wet summer and the Artemis was swollen and had turned a creamy mud colour as it roared where it usually rippled, fencing us all in. Tisane said when this happened that Artemis was closer.

  I don’t know if I fully understood her meaning, but she seemed to see the world as a magical place, through eyes that saw what others could not. She seemed closer to the Gods than any of us. Yet she was not a wolf or a hunter. But maybe she was just more accepting of the Goddess. Shade was ruled by Zeus, somewhere up in the billowing clouds, where time meant nothing.

  She had taught me to use another sense and right then, it was alerted. Someone was following. I stopped mid stride in the trees and my hand again readied for the gun. It was close. The wind rustled the leaves. I steadied my stance readying for an attack, muscles tensed.

  The ground was soft and I realized it could have been watching me for some time. But instead of appearing, I heard the creature retreat rapidly in the distance. I instantly knew that I had to catch it. My legs automatically gave chase. I raced in the same direction, narrowly avoiding trees as my heart pounded. Lightning flashed and the powerful rumbling roll of thunder erupted over me.

  I ran faster as the trees whipped my ears until I caught sight of a tail and I increased my speed, gaining on the wolf. A wild wind began to lash; we were rapidly approaching the river. The trees began to clear and I could hear the rush of the water. I stopped as my shoes padded the gravelly sand. I turned looking for her, the grey white wolf. She was on the edge of the trees.

  I aimed the gun, momentarily wondering if the petite creature was Cres, when suddenly she phased, staring toward me in human form, standing rigid, a thin blonde with long wavy curls. Her stillness alarmed me. I was about to squeeze the trigger when she spoke.

  “Please! You are the huntress. I saw you at Tormey’s grave. Don’t shoot me. I can help you,” she whispered loudly as her hair wavered in the breeze.

  I didn’t answer, gritting my molars hard, unable to believe what I heard.

  “Please. I knew her,” her ghostly face urged.

  “Sure you did,” I affirmed stiff lipped, staring determinedly through the light rain.

  “No, Paws has brought us in from the city. I ran from here a long time ago.” Her serene expression widened in honesty.

  “What were you doing at the graveyard?”

  “Visiting my children.”

  “What?” I barked standing more rigidly.

  “My babies with the hunter, Paws killed them.” Her expression intensified.

  I wasn’t fooled. “You’re working for him, tracking me. How long ‘til they come for me? How much do you know, bitch?” I grimaced, my fi
nger on the trigger, ready to squeeze.

  “I know he wants to cage you.” Her head shook. “Shoot me and you lose your only help,” she appealed.

  “Why should I listen to you?” My gaze hardened but my finger hesitated.

  “Take me to the graveyard and I’ll show you my babies,” she pleaded.

  Rain began to pour heavily. I squeezed the trigger as the girl turned. I hit her but she continued to morph and ran. I shot twice more in that direction and sprinted after her across the sand and over the rock as the clouds deluged in the darkness. I tracked her through the bush but the rain was pounding down heavily, making visibility impossible.

  I knew if I didn’t find her before she got back to the pack I was done for. They would know I was still nearby and it wouldn’t be long now until they found me. I fired another shot in the direction of the willows ahead, the direction she had disappeared, in a frustrated attempt. Fuck. Her blood spatter was washed off the rock.

  I turned as water dripped from my face and scuffed the dirt angrily, but it was now a muddy puddle. That just made me more frustrated as mud splashed and drenched my pants and flooded into my boot.

  Completely soaked and chilled to the bone, I looked about disorientated since giving chase and worse, I had let her get away. I searched the surrounding trees as I caught my breath. At least I wasn’t in my usual haunt anywhere near Tisane’s, but who knew how long she had been tracking me, if she knew where my hideout was, or if she knew where Caroline lived. I tried to think if I had noticed or heard anything, but nothing came to mind.

  I hiked back through the forest, heading for Tisane’s. The She Wolf had run when I caught wind of her – it wasn’t an attack. Halfway back home the rain completely subsided. ‘Now you stop?’ I muttered to myself, disgruntled as the air cleared and the only drops falling on me were those cascading off the leaves. My socks were wet, squelching inside my boots. We had a problem.

  I slept in, exhausted. I awoke to contemplate the strange ghostly She Wolf. It didn’t like seem I had been followed. The summer wasn’t exactly scorching in Shade, but a hot breeze had blown up and the full light of the early afternoon was so bright it blinded me. Tisane told me summer belonged to Apollo because he ruled the molten star and for today, it seemed summer had made a reappearance. I worried they would come.

  14. Cold Jane Doe

  After a day it seemed Caroline was allowed out again. She came to the house while I was out washing in the river. She and Tisane were at the table talking, and they stopped when I walked in. I ignored the silence and inspected the contents of the fridge.

  I took Caroline out and we trained a little and then rested by the river; the day was unusually hot. The grey clouds had given way to blue sky, but they lingered. Caroline seemed to have forgiven me for sending her home. I wondered what Tis had said. I had to remind myself that Caroline wasn’t me as I turned my mind to worry about Aaron and the She Wolf. She was catching lizards in the scrub as I waited on a granite rock.

  I had a few cuts on my fingers that I was examining when she sat near me and asked what the plants were that I had drank out of in the trees.

  “Bromeliads,” I answered looking up into the canopy. Tisane had told me the name.

  Then Caroline asked the unavoidable. I knew I didn’t wish to keep it from her. Inevitably the questions came. Perhaps I would have preferred the wolves.

  “Tisane told me you loved a wolf once? That’s his tag you wear.” The proof that I couldn’t let him go.

  “Huh,” I scoffed and pinched my lips. “And what else did she tell you?” So this was my pay back.

  “That he’s alive and you thought he was dead.”

  “And?” I challenged.

  “I think maybe you should tell me yourself?” I assumed from the look on her face she wasn’t being precocious.

  I tried not to show it bothered me. “I did, but I had…bad taste,” I looked up at her and smiled without humour – it was a bad joke. She didn’t laugh as though the rawness of it was evident, even to her.

  “Why?” she asked back, unperturbed by my evasive answer. She wasn’t intimidated by me. I sighed.

  “I fell in love with a wolf, before I knew what he was,” I muttered examining my bow, knowing full well that this fact that may not have changed matters. I loved and hated him. Who was I kidding, the feelings were always there. Maybe they were obvious now.

  “Do you still love him?” She spoke with a lack of judgment. I wished more people were like her. I looked at her child-like face, wishing she would never lose her innocent charm. I was reminded that it was I who had been charged with taking it from her. I wanted for a second to tell her all of it, every scrap. Maybe I let down my walls with her because I knew she wasn’t the malicious kind. She hadn’t known enough of betrayal and cruelty to harbour such feelings of her own. But I caught myself and steadied my emotions. I cast my eyes across the river.

  “You better get back; your olds will be worried.” I nodded to the other side, towards the direction of town.

  She looked at me waiting. Birds sang above.

  “Caroline, the world is a more complex and complicated place than you or any of us are raised to believe,” I said softly.

  “Explain it to me, then?”

  I swallowed. The truth was I would stop thinking about him if I could. He was a fragile monster, he made me weak. I paused considering my next words and not wanting to admit them. I squeezed my eyes closed but the memories remained.

  “It’s alright; I’m not going to judge you.” Her honeycomb eyes gazed towards me, uncomplicated still.

  I stabbed the end of my bow into the loose wet dirt. “Caroline, I said today is over.” It was too personal and she was being incorrigible.

  “L, Tisane thought it was important enough to mention. I want to understand.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about me. You don’t know what I have been through.” The words were filled with ache. The sick emptiness that he had left.

  She was quiet. “You’re right – but I want to learn, I do.” Her face was placidly determined.

  “Fine, why ask that? How can I love someone so much that I hardly know? I can’t explain it, so it would be a miracle if you could.” That it goes against everything. I failed to hide the undertone of torment as my voice broke. My face pulled.

  Suddenly the birds were silent.

  “Lila I-”

  “Shh, do you hear that?” I was alerted to something, my eyes rapidly searching our surrounds. There was a moment of quiet as I scanned the bush, listening, stone faced like a statue.

  Caroline’s face pinched slightly. “No?” But her eyes widened with alarm as she looked about in the silence. We paused.

  “Exactly,” I whispered. What the hell was that? Reaching for my gun tucked into the back of my belt, my eyes scanned the trees. I stilled my movement and listened to the forest. It could be the She Wolf.

  I looked at Caroline who had silently pulled the large hunting knife. I nodded at her to get behind me. She frowned but obeyed. We were being watched. I took a few careful paces into the scrub. I stopped to listen, hearing a noise and I turned, ready to squeeze the trigger, but it was only a bird fluttering through the branches. I turned about, searching the trees around us.

  Caroline was on guard, her back to the river as we looked at each other. I relaxed.

  “It could have been a fox?” I breathed.

  She sniffed and let her arm drop. My hand relaxed on the gun.

  “So would you kill him?”

  I looked quizzically at her.

  “The one you love, he’s with them right?”

  I winced, annoyed. “Yes.” The one I love. Urgh.

  “Because if you didn’t-”

  I cut her off. “I understand all too well the implications of my feelings...so really, don’t.” It was becoming more apparent just how inconvenient and hazardous my desires were, not only for myself. She didn’t know yet that the wolves were capable of wond
erful and terrible things.

  My brow lowered. “We have to do what we have to do.”

  “Do you think it will ever happen to me?” she asked.

  “It’s a test; Apollo cursed us. Don’t fall for it.” My voice was hard.

  “And what if I do?”

  “Shoot him in the face,” I replied.

  “But you haven’t.”

  I gave her a sharp look. “I know what I have done. I told you, we uphold justice. If they don’t break our laws, we have no reason to hunt them down.” My tone was firm. Sky’s life meant I wouldn’t destroy them.

  “Yeah and we have to stay one step ahead and protect the innocent. They don’t do the same for us.” She sounded reticent. I reminded myself that she had no idea that the huntress had stolen my life and he my heart.

  “No, not all of them,” I replied low. “But if they do we take them o-”

  All of a sudden a black wolf burst from the trees growling and I lifted my arm as it lunged for me and I was thrown back to the ground, skidding in the leaves. It turned in one motion to go for Caroline; she was an easy target armed with only with a knife. I struggled for the gun, which had been knocked from my hand. Caroline was holding it off and I gripped the gun and pointed the muzzle to let out two clear shots into its body. Never drop your weapon.

  It whimpered and fell to the side and Caroline kicked at it hurriedly to free herself, crawling away backwards awkwardly. I clambered over, ready to shoot again, until I saw the knife in its chest. Its breath ceased as life left its body and I watched the blood run from the wound and seep over the earthy undergrowth. She scrambled wide-eyed to pick up her glasses. I whirled expecting others, but the only sound was our breathing.

  I exhaled. “Good Job C.J.”

  Heavy clouds were rolling in, creeping across the sky as we headed back with Tisane’s shovel. I tied my jumper around my waist. On the walk, I felt the silence. Finally I said what I had held back, maybe it was the fright of nearly losing her but I heard myself mumble something about him.