“At what?”
“At everything… Don’t you see what this means?” I said, “Fen always said everything has a reason. After he died and Geri left, it was like I froze. I forgot my identity, my purpose, but now I have the chance to set things right.” I leaned forward.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Fen…” I sighed, “When Fen died, the police wrote it off as a freak accident. But—I can’t shake the thought that he was murdered… because he was a wolf, like us.”
The idea was staggering, but I could tell that Loki shared my opinion. “Okay Jimmy, I have to admit that fits better than the police’s conclusion, but… no one outside the Pack even knows what we are!”
“The night Fen and I fought for dominance; there was this car in the school parking lot. They could have seen us fighting.”
“Who was in the car?”
“I don’t know, their headlights blinded me. I couldn’t see the driver, or what kind of car it was.”
“Great,” Loki snapped and held her head, “if the police couldn’t find any suspects, how are we supposed to?”
“Think about it; the police can’t talk to spirits. My grandfather died eighteen years ago, but in the Lowerworld he was as solid as if he’d just left his body yesterday, and he said he’d been watching me my whole life.”
“So? You just said your grandfather’s soul is gone for good, so it’s not like we can ask him if he saw whodunit.”
“No, but if I can break through the veil and reach the spirits here,” like Corwin, “I might be able to ask their help finding the one who murdered Fen. I might even be able to find Fen himself…”
“Jimmy, you’re scaring me,” she whispered, “I’ve spent too much time under the attention of the dead. They’ll drag you over if they can, please Jimmy, don’t do this,” she pleaded.
“But what about Fen?”
“I know—I know you loved him,” uncertainty entered her voice. “But you can’t throw your life away for the sake of the dead. No matter what you do, you can’t bring him back.”
“I know that! But I can’t live with myself knowing that I had a shot at justice, and walked away from it. You said I was powerful before, well now I have a chance to use that power to actually do something.”
“I know that but—wait, what is this?” she asked and pushed the sleeve of my t-shirt up. I looked down at the shiny strips of scar tissue wrapped around my upper arm.
“That’s where Raven grabbed me. Lupa said I’m marked by Brother Raven. That means more than just my hair.” I sighed. “Like it or not, death is a part of my life.”
Loki ran her fingers over the scars and I shuddered; I couldn’t feel her touch so much as the pressure of her fingers. Her eyes glistened as she pulled her hand away and she wiped them on the back of her sleeve as I asked her what was wrong.
“Nothing, nothing… just… keep going.” she said in a small voice, wary of the unknown that had become an irrevocable part of me.
“Loki… I need your help. You know that trick I do with the shadows? My grandfather said I could do it because I can walk between worlds; just like how Raven walks between the living and the dead. Now that I have my wolf back, I want to see if I can enter the Lowerworld. I need to try to find out who killed Fen.”
Loki was quiet, and then wrapped her arms around me and buried her face against my chest. “You know, you scared me yesterday; I was afraid you were dead…” I sighed and lowered my cheek to the top of her head while the scarred shield over my heart ached at her touch. “You’re a stubborn freak Jimmy, but I’ll help you if I can. Just be careful…” she whispered as I held her in return.
For the first time since Fen died, I knew what I needed to do. I had a rudder. I could finally focus on the duty I’d let slip through the grip of my depression; and Wolf was ready to hunt.
Chapter 18 – The Hunt
Loki and I made a shopping run to the new-age bookstore in Colorado Springs and bought up half their stock on shamanism and animal magick. We spent the first few days of spring break consuming the books to try and learn as much as we could.
For Loki’s lesson that week, we went over and jammed with Bo. After playing for a while, Bo cracked a joke and Loki threw her pick at him. As I watched them I was hit with a wave of déjà vu. I’d learned, better than most, just how blatant fate could be when twisting her threads. My resentment and jealousy ebbed a little as different images moved through Wolf’s mind; the three of us together, as wolves…
Loki gasped as her eyes changed color when Wolf moved. “God, look at me, I’m such a wreck!” She shook out her trembling hands as she tried to play off her shift. “Jimmy, would you play us one of your own songs?” She bit her lip as she forced her wolf back and the gold faded from her eyes.
I thought about it, “There’s a new song I wrote over the last couple months, but I’ve never played it in front anyone before…”
“Please?” Loki pouted until I sighed and switched my amp over to its clean channel and started picking out the opening chords.
“The storm comes from the east, the wind howls like a starving beast. This shadow, moves through the storm. A dark wraith, walks alone… walks alone… In the dark night of your soul, who will find you there? In the darkness of your mind, how long until you wake up?”
I’d never sung for anyone before, but my hesitance gave way as the emotion of the song took hold of me.
“As sleep comes, so too rests pride and rage. The shield falls, the curtain falls on the stage! This shame! A lie to save yourself! The dream falls, and the black wolf runs! In the dark night of your soul, who will find you there? In the darkness of your mind, how long until you wake up? You walk alone… You walk alone!
“Come, enter the forest! Sleep, under emerald boughs! Dream, of a Pack lost! Sing… alone… to a cold sky…
“In the dark night of your soul, who will find you there? In the darkness of your mind, how long until you wake up? You walk alone… You walk alone!”
I felt tears roll down my face as I sobbed the last refrains and felt loss and isolation wash through me. I heard Qhipe’s words in my head, “If you choose this middle road, you will truly walk forever between the worlds. You will never—never completely belong to either. Spirit bound to flesh, wolf bound to man, but never one or the other.”
I’d found a new way to be cursed.
Loki hugged me and Bo laid his hand on my shoulder, and I realized that I wasn’t really alone. I never had been. I just had to be brave enough to trust them. Loki and I gathered our gear up to leave as an itch festered in the back of my mind. As we left, I gave in to the itch and said something I never thought I’d say in my life, “Hey Bo, how’d you like to learn the truth about werewolves?”
Bo’s eyes grew wide and Loki dragged me outside. She forced me into the car and made me drive off before Bo could interrogate us. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” she hissed as soon as we were safe inside the car.
“Loki, do you trust my judgment?” I spoke softly.
“What? Of course I do, but I don’t have to agree with everything! Why’d you do that? You didn’t even ask me! You don’t know him! How can you possibly trust Football Hero with that kind of information?”
“I know him better than you think; and he already knows a lot about us.” I said and tried to calm her down.
“But don’t you see? That’s what makes him dangerous! How did he learn those things? What if he’s the one who murdered Fen, once he found out the truth about him?”
I flinched, and she quieted for a moment.
“Sorry, that was low blow wasn’t it?” She lowered her face in apology.
“Don’t think I’m about to hand him everything on a silver platter; he’s going to have to work for every little piece of information. But I can—see it in my mind. See him as one of us.”
We stood in silence as Loki glowered at the ground
“It’s spring Loki.” I muttered under my breath.<
br />
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I looked into her eyes, “In the spring, everything starts over. Life grows, families—packs—grow.” I tried to deliver my intention through our gaze.
“You really mean to make him…?” she asked me.
“It’s like I’ve already seen it. Already seen him as one of us.”
Loki sighed and shook her head; “You’re sooo going to owe me for this—” she paused on the thought. “Hmm, maybe we’ll start with Prom.”
With that four letter word; any worries about revealing my lupine nature to a potentially deadly stranger suddenly seemed benign beside the threat of the school dance to end all school dances.
“I thought you didn’t do school events?” I tried subtlety first, but I knew it would degrade to begging soon.
“Well, you only get one Prom. Well, I guess I could get two, but I want to be taken to prom, not be the one taking… Don’t worry, I’m not expecting anything extravagant like the other kids have been twittering about lately; but it would be nice to experience it once, ya know?”
I resisted the urge to bang my head bloody on the steering wheel. “But I don’t know how to dance! You remember how much I used to weigh; I didn’t exactly frequent the dance circuit!”
“Oh, don’t worry about it! Everybody’s gonna be off in their own little la-la land. The guys are gonna be wondering if they’ll score,” her words triggered images in my mind and I felt my face heat, “and the girls will be wondering if their hair is still perfect. Don’t forget; you’re asking for a huge exception to bring Bo into this, so you fucking owe me anything I want—a-ny-thing!”
“Okay.” Was about all I could squeeze through my constricted throat.
I had about a week and a half to prepare for an ordeal I’d foolishly assumed I would never be subjected to. I just had to hope for the best, maybe a compound fracture… or the Ebola virus?
When Loki came over for dinner, Mom and Dad were ecstatic to hear her announcement that I was taking her to prom. I figured they probably gave up on any school dance fantasies for me somewhere around tenth grade; a few years after I had. I wanted to crawl under the dinner table and die while my face turned beet red, but I managed to suffer through dinner in silence.
Loki and I spent the rest of spring break dodging Bo’s badgering phone calls while we worked on breaking through the veil. Loki loaded a bunch of shamanic drumming tracks onto her MP3 player, and we spent hours outside while she read and I struggled with mounting frustration to break through the wall.
On the last day of break, we sat together in the field behind Loki’s house, though neither one of us could bring ourselves to go back to the den. Another day pissed away as I tried to clear my mind of the constant noise and clutter, while Loki tried to reassure me that the books said most shamans took months of training before they could achieve a spirit journey.
I couldn’t help it; there was something arrogant inside me that insisted I could do better than them. Like having Qhipe’s blood was supposed to be some kind of shamanistic cheat-code.
As the sun set, something moved in the brush along the irrigation ditch and Wolf stirred inside me.
Something shifted, but not like the pulling rush I’d felt when Raven dragged me over. I opened my eyes and gasped. The field was still there, but it looked vastly different. Trees stood everywhere, like imprints of long-fallen trees still stood, some of them nothing more than faded outlines. Loki was surrounded by a cloud of fire in a spectrum of colors, and her house was nothing but a ghostly outline of itself.
I stood up in surprise and it all faded back to normal, like a dissolve in a movie. Loki looked up at me as I plopped back down.
“What the hell was that?” I thought out loud.
“What did you see?” Loki asked, and her eyebrows furrowed I described it to her. “I… Honestly Jimmy, I have no clue.” She flipped through her book, “I’ve never heard of anything like what you just described—are you sure you didn’t just imagine it?”
I glared at her, “Why would I imagine something that lame when I know what the Lowerworld looks like. This was different, like it wasn’t as—deep?” I struggled for an analogy and it hit me, “Oh my god!”
“What?”
“I think I saw the etheric plane! The… buffer between the physical and spirit worlds. I didn’t even think that was possible… Let me try again.” I tried to focus and relax, but my excitement wouldn’t relent. I tried unsuccessfully to slip back between, and wondered what I was doing wrong.
I remembered how Wolf stirred and it finally made sense. Wolf and Qhipe were one and the same now, and Wolf existed primarily on the etheric plane; like on Halloween when my mental shift in Fen’s bathroom amplified the voices.
Wolf was the key that allowed me to break the veil.
Duh…
This time, I let Wolf rise and I pulled the shadows of the trees around myself. As I disappeared, I pulled deeper and the etheric overworld faded into view. The colors of Loki’s aura swirled with surprised flashes of yellow when I vanished, and I could see her wolf’s ears, tail, and muzzle.
Testing my control, I pushed Wolf down and everything returned to normal. Then I flexed my new muscles and Wolf and I pulled back into the shadows, but this time I pushed as hard as I could and felt my heart sync with the rhythm of the drums I listened to.
Now that the buried terror from my snakebite didn’t rule me anymore, I slipped out of my flesh and down through the roots and soil. I followed the water down and came up in a lake, the sun sparkled brightly off the water as I looked up into the Lowerworld sky. I smiled at my accomplishment as possibilities formed in my mind.
Now… how do I get back?
After an ‘oh-shit’ moment, I felt the throb of the drums resonating through the water. I focused on it and used it as an anchor to pull myself back across the veil. I settled back into my flesh and opened my eyes as I released the shadows.
“I did it!” I grinned at Loki as I pulled her headphones off.
“Took you long enough,” she laughed, “Most people take weeks or months, so your slacking is unforgivable!” Underneath the joke, I could tell she was nervous. Almost scared of me.
Inside my head, I remembered what Qhipe had said, “Weapons are tools, Jimmy. A hammer can build a house or crush a skull; it all depends on the person who wields it. Never confuse the two, and never forget where the accountability lies.”
I’d never realized quite the arsenal I’d collected over the months. I’d never thought of them as weapons before; it just depended on how I used them. On their own, they were nothing but freakish attributes, but together… I just hoped they’d be enough. I could feel emotions, disappear into shadows, speak to the dead, enter not only the spirit world but the etheric middle plane as well, and perceive with the senses of a wolf.
My goodness Jimmy, what big teeth you have…
We went over to my house for dinner, and after we ate, Loki and I laid down outside on the front walk. We stared into the splattered stars across the deep blue heavens while the Cheshire Cat moon grinned down at us. Loki complained that the ground hurt her neck, so I offered to let her rest her head on my shoulder, and absently stroked her soft hair with one hand.
We didn’t talk, but just touching her made me content and prompted foolish thoughts as I grew drunk with her presence.
“Loki?”
“Hmm?” She turned her face and looked at me.
“Would you mind telling me about your last boyfriend? … Um, you don’t have to if you don’t want to…” I mumbled, as the urge to confess gnawed at me again. My arm was tired, so I relaxed and laid it down on her stomach.
Her smile melted away and she sighed.
“Like I said, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to—” I blurted.
“No, no… it’s fine…” She sighed again and set her hand on top of mine. “Back when I was a freshman, Fen and I took Drama together, and there was this guy there I li
ked. We went out for a couple months, but he started going through some really heavy shit at home. I resented feeling like his life raft, and he started to lose control of himself, and he uh… he hurt me one day—on accident—but still. That’s part of why my dad’s so overprotective. So, I dumped him and he uh…” she swallowed hard as her glistening eyes roved around the twilight sky, “He uh… he killed himself…”
Corwin?
A trap door fell out from under me. I felt lightheaded. When she asked if I was okay, it sounded so far away.
“Yeah, that’s just… holy shit Loki…” She and Corwin had gone out? That was the rough breakup that Fen had jumped? Corwin blamed Fen for his death though, not Loki, so what did Fen do that pushed him over the edge? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid…” she muttered and fidgeted with her fingers, “It’s hard for me not to feel stained by it, and I was afraid you wouldn’t like me anymore if you knew.” She slipped her fingers between mine and squeezed my hand while my pulse rocketed despite the sick flutter in my gut.
Don’t read too much into it, or you’ll ruin everything…
“You’re a strange one.” I muttered and shook my head.
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have me any other way!” She laughed and batted her lashes, but I felt her uncertainty.
God help me, even knowing the truth now, all I could think about was kissing her. Silence fell, not a single car or dog broke the stillness.
I love you…
The stars whirled overhead, and she looked at her watch and then yawned and stood up. My hand felt cold where her warmth had just been. “C’mon, I need to get home before my parent’s curfew.”
I drove her home while I suffered over my indecision, certain I was about to waste the perfect opportunity. She hugged me goodbye and started to climb out of the car. Shit...
Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) Page 27
