Goldenseal

by Gill McKnight

  As if to underscore her gamble, the telephone began to ring. Probably an automated response from the emergency switchboard over in Covington, but it would pile pressure on him. Remind him the real world was just outside the door, and soon it would be knocking, wanting in.

  Luckily, he chose the far corner and the wrong alarm. She darted to an adjoining aisle and hurled herself against another shelf, tipping it over onto him. Adrenaline buzzed in her veins, giving her that extra edge, that extra meanness she needed to attack back. But he was quick and caught this one. Books cascaded off the shelves, but he held on to the framework and simply flipped it back at her with easy strength. Except that she had already slipped away, disappearing into the maze of bookshelves.

  “Thank you for the code, Amy. After you share it with me— and you will—I will know all the Garoul secrets, and I can take everything away from them. You are so much more cooperative than your aunt. She wouldn’t share at all.”

  He was getting desperate; she could hear it in his voice. Time was running out for him and he knew it. Soon the place would be crawling with people. All she had to do was avoid him, but the library was cramped, and shrinking by the minute. She wasn’t allowing him to outmaneuver her, but eventually she would run out of places to hide. Guilt washed over her that she’d been so stupid to trust him. How could he be the beast the Garouls served to protect? It made no sense.

  Amy hadn’t time to wonder. She had to keep moving.

  “No. Connie wouldn’t share at all. Not even when I bit her.” He continued to bait her, hoping she’d give away her position. But Amy was literally one step ahead.

  “She screamed, Amy. She was so scared…and in so much pain.”

  He was slithering closer. She could smell him, that funk that oozed through the patchy, greasy fur on his chest, back, and genitalia. He wasn’t aware of it. He probably lived with the stench every chance he could, sliding through the Garoul valley like an evil little skunk. She quietly and carefully unhooked a fire extinguisher and slid farther way from him and his callous taunting. How he didn’t hear her heart thumping she never knew. To her ears it sounded like a turbine engine roaring, fueled on hate and anger.

  “She was in terrible pain. And, Amy? It wasn’t quick.”

  Rescue was taking too long. She hated him. A deliberate rap with her toe drew his attention to where she was hiding. Positioning herself carefully at the end of an aisle, she raised the canister like a baseball bat, ready to deliver the biggest Dry Powder surprise of this bastard’s life. She waited, alert, sure he had been tricked by her tapping. Anxiously, she kept an eye on first the right-hand aisle, then the left. Quiet, it was too quiet. So, he’d decided to finally shut up? That’s how she knew he was creeping up on her.

  The tiniest scratch, a little creak—and she knew. He was coming for her over the top of the shelves. Sliding along the row above where she stood, hoping to surprise her by dropping on her from up high.

  Well, Amy Fortune had a few surprises, too. With shaking hands she loosened the nozzle and waited. The stink increased as he drew closer. She waited. Stern, composed, and terrified, but patient, she waited. Finally, with one last tiny scrape, the top of his matted head peeked over the shelf above her. She raised her canister and blasted the suffocating dry powder straight into his eyes. The harsh rasp of the extinguisher couldn’t quite drown out Virgil’s outraged squeal. He clawed at his burning eyes.

  Adrenaline pumping, Amy threw her full weight into this shelf and toppled it with Virgil scrabbling blindly on top. He hit the floor in an ugly heap. Amy fled for the rear fire door, running for her life. Time was up, no more hiding; she had a few precious moments to get out of the building. Hopefully, there would be a fire engine in the middle of Main Street, along with all of Lost Creek’s nosy residents. That was the only safety net she had—witnesses.

  She cannoned along the far aisle to the fire door. She could see it. See the exit sign illuminated with promise. He was right behind her. Limp or no limp, he was tearing up the aisle after her, vicious, murderous, grunting, growling. She wasn’t going to make it. An agonizing five feet to go, and she wasn’t going to make it. She had run out of time, luck, life. Her body tensed for his pounce.

  With a splintering explosion of wood, fiberboard, and fragmented metal, the fire door disintegrated before her eyes. The outside alarm flashed blue streaks across the sleek fur of another enormous monster. It stood nearly eight feet high, densely muscled and sleek. Its coat shone and rippled in the emergency lighting. Long, strong limbs ended in large clawed hands and feet. Its flat muzzle was pulled back in a rabid snarl. This one was bigger, stronger, faster and much more dangerous than Virgil. This was a true predator. She couldn’t believe it, two of them, two beasts. She was a goner. Then from behind her she sensed Virgil’s dismay, and heard the quick skitter of his hasty retreat.

  With shaking hands she raised her fire extinguisher. It was her only weapon. Face-to-face with this brute, it seemed so paltry. With a stifled, exasperated growl the creature threw out a long arm and swept the extinguisher from her hands. It sailed through the air to the far side of the room crashing into a wall, leaving her defenseless. Amy closed her eyes and waited for it to come for her.

  Except it didn’t want her. Instead, it pushed past into the library, its deep, menacing growl rattling the rafters. It was after Virgil.

  Amy spared no time to wonder. She flew out the door and raced for Claude’s truck. Sirens sounded over the mountain roads. The sheriff’s car was heading this way. She was not going to wait around. She drove out of the parking lot as fast as possible, swerving onto the road. Let the sheriff’s office deal with a library full of werewolves.

  She was nearly a mile out of town when her truck shuddered at a tremendous crash from the rear. It creaked and dipped awkwardly, as if it had slammed into a pothole and broken an axle. Amy looked in the rear mirror in terror. Something had landed in the bed of her truck. She could see nothing in the darkness.

  Suddenly she was showered in glass. She ducked her head, and with a grinding snap the sunroof was ripped clean off its hinges, opening the cab to the stars. With a graceful movement, the black-furred monster from the library dropped through into the passenger seat beside her.

  Amy jerked the steering wheel in abject horror. The truck swerved fiercely one way, then the other. Terror rolled through her in clammy, gut-slamming waves. This nightmare had no end. The creature grunted and hung on to the dash until the truck had straightened itself. Amy screeched to a sliding stop, throwing them both sharply forward, then back into their seats.

  They both sat for a stunned second. Then the beast leapt onto its haunches beside her, surprisingly agile for such a hulking brute in such a small space. It leaned in close. Amy was as frozen in fear, waiting for her head to be ripped from her shoulders. The stubby muzzle with its row of cruel teeth drew closer. Above it, amber eyes blazed with cunning intelligence. Its wet snout tenderly sniffed at her ear for a moment. Then the side of her neck was clamped in bone-crushing jaws. So, this is how I die. Headless in Oregon. A soft nip and a big, rolling tongue washed over her skin. And she was released.

  Shocked, Amy swung her head around, the beastly face mere inches from her own. Its breath was meaty, it panted, the tongue lolled, the teeth glinted with saliva, white and diamond hard. She was fixated, fascinated, like a mouse before a cobra. Her neck was wet from the lick, yet her skin had not been broken, and that amazed her. Those razor-sharp teeth made the blood chill in her veins.

  A sharp tap with a long claw on the plastic dash broke her stare. It tapped the truck’s dashboard again, pointedly. She was to look there, pay attention. Dazedly, she managed to turn her head and gaze stupidly at Claude’s litter. This was too surreal. Her brain felt starved of oxygen.

  The monster leaned into her ear and damply snuffled her again. Inhaling her, delivering another little nip. She tingled all over. She could smell its fur, hot, spicy, musky; lots of scents she couldn’t quite place, but which
felt immediate and intimate to her. Her belly clenched and she trembled all over. In fear, she thought, and then realized it was excitement. Her body was responding as if programmed, completely disassociating from her mind, which was currently screaming that there was a werewolf in the cab with her and maybe she should get out?

  She closed her eyes.

  Leone. Her eyes flew open. She knew this feeling. It existed for only one person.

  “Leone?” she whispered to the empty space beside her. She was alone. The passenger door was gone, lying bent and broken on the dirt road.

  The creature had gone, faded into the woods, like an old dream melting away to nothing. She stared after it; she stared at the dashboard and all Claude’s junk—then she looked after the beast again.

  “Leone.” Her shocked whisper swirled away on the night breeze.

  He was in the air, foul and polluted. He poisoned both worlds, both states of being, with his greed and brutality. An ugly creature, neither human nor wolven.

  She was easily closing in on him, stronger, faster, smarter; a lifetime of training and honing her genetic characteristics had made her a consummate predator. Rogues normally avoided natural born wolven. They had no place in the order of being. Fearful loners, they could cope with neither the city nor the wilds. This world had no place for them. Their days were numbered and they knew it. For him to come so close to a settled wolven den was an indication of his ambition and madness.

  He was wily, cunning, but also a coward. He attacked the weak. Humans and adolescent wolven like Paulie. But Paulie had gotten a few good bites back and chased him off. Virgil still hurt from that miscalculation. She could see it in his tracks. He moved stiffly; he didn’t heal well. Polluted and unnatural, his suppurating wounds were probably what slowed him and saved Amy.

  Her mate was unhurt. She had attended to her, worried that his filthy bite had caught her. But Amy was safe, and Leone’s rage eased from red-hot, belly-burning fear into a cold, calculated determination to hunt him down and kill him.

  As she followed him through the backwoods straight to Little Dip, it was clear he had a well-worn route. She was closing in. He had harmed her clan, intimidated her loved one. She would kill him…for Paulie, and for Connie. But most of all for trying to harm Amy, her mate, her very own.

  Amy jolted forward, jamming the gears, toward Little Dip. Her eyes again focused on the dash. What had she missed? What was she to see? It was strewn with crumpled paper, chewed pens, candy, and empty coffee cups. All Claude’s trash. Candy. There were several packs of unopened cherry candy. Connie’s favorite brand. This wasn’t litter; this was candy Claude had bought for Connie. Connie!

  Banging rapidly into high gear, she increased her speed. Connie was safe. She realized that in her guts she had never really believed Virgil’s claim that Connie was dead. It had never felt true—but the thought of it had made her so very, very angry.

  And her rescuer, her protector—that was Leone. Every molecule of her mind, body, and soul knew this.

  Barreling down the back roads, she was determined to see this through. She would follow the cherry-flavored clue and find Connie. And she would find out who, or what, in hell’s name Leone Garoul really was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It seemed like good manners to put Claude’s keys back under the visor. Despite his truck having a passenger door missing, no sunroof, and being littered with broken glass. When she checked the bed, it was so bent it looked like a dairy heifer had parachuted into it. Well, Claude could just suck it up. He’d lied to her.

  On rubbery legs she pounded up the trail to the compound to find it mysteriously empty of Garouls. Early evening was when they usually congregated around the barbeque or fire pit for beer and supper. Undeterred, she burst into Marie’s cabin.

  “Hello? Who’s there…Amy? Is that you?” Paulie’s croaky call came from Leone’s bedroom.

  “Paulie?” Amy found him struggling to sit up in bed. “Oh, hon. I’m sorry I woke you. Here, let me help.” She eased him into a sitting position. His wound still caused him pain, though it had been treated and bandaged.

  “I see Marie has been working her magic,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He wriggled into the pillows she had plumped up for him. “Thanks, Amy.”

  “Did he hurt you much?”

  “Nah. Marie says she’s more worried about dirt and infection—” He pulled up short when he realized what he was saying. His face flamed at falling for her trick.

  “I know Virgil attacked you,” Amy said. He looked at her in amazement.

  “The librarian? Wow. You know more than me. I just thought it was a rogue.”

  “Rogue?”

  “Yeah. No clan. Dangerous guys with no proper Alpha to control them. They often snoop around other dens, drawn in by scent.”

  Amy sat back and digested all this. Virgil, she knew was a werewolf. But a rogue werewolf? They had names for him, for his kind? Dens and clans? What the hell did Paulie mean by clan?

  “Paulie, can I ask some stupid questions? And please be honest with me, because I met with Virgil earlier today and only just escaped by the skin of my teeth.” Thanks to the skin of Leone’s teeth.

  He tensed. “I’ll try, Amy. But I’m making no promises.” She admired his open honesty and plain common sense, something sorely lacking in his elders, as far as she was concerned.

  “Okay. I know the Garouls have a werewolf.” She came straight out with it. Out loud it sounded so stupid she immediately tried to qualify it. “Look, I broke the almanac code and found out some information. I know you guys have a beast to look after. Generation after generation.” She took a deep breath. “And I know it’s Leone.”

  “She told you that she was the only one.” This was more a statement than a question. He almost sounded offended.

  Unsure what she was really answering, Amy nodded. “Sort of,” she said. Ambiguity seemed the best way forward.

  “Typical.”

  “Huh?”

  Paulie sighed. “We each have a werewolf to look after, Amy.” There was a twinkle in those black eyes that reminded her so much of Leone.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the place would be crawling with…” Her sentence trailed away as the truth dawned on her.

  “The Garouls are a werewolf clan, Amy.”

  “Jesus.” Amy sagged onto the bed.

  “I don’t think you read that code right,” Paulie said sympathetically.

  “I don’t think I did either.” She raised her head to look at him. “All of you?”

  “The minute we hit puberty the change begins and we come here for Claude to train us. Little Dip is our family home. We learn to hone our wolven skills here on hunting breaks like this. We need to get by as hybrids in the modern world, but still be able to survive in the natural environment. So yes, I guess there is a beast. Many of them.”

  “Fuck. Excuse my language.”

  Paulie shrugged. “You should be with Claude when he gets stuck in a thorn bush.”

  Amy sat up. “Do you know what happened to Connie?”

  He shook his head. “I only arrived last week to learn to hunt. Connie was…ill, before I arrived. But she’s safe.” He shifted uncomfortably and Amy sensed there was something he wanted to keep from her. And guessed she knew what it was.

  “If a rogue wolf attacked a human, would they become a werewolf, too? Like in the movies?”

  “That’s a really harsh thing to happen. Even if someone survives an attack from a rogue werewolf, the shock to their system when the change begins can kill them. Few get past that stage, and if they do manage, then there’s the addiction. The wolven side brings such a high, and if you run with the change too long, or too often, it sort of psychos you out. It’s one of the first things we learn.” Paulie paused, and looked hard at her. Amy knew he desperately wanted her to understand. “The real struggle is to control your humanity, not your beast. The wolfskin is more
real, more in harmony with the natural world than the human side. It’s harder to be human.”

  “So it’s easy to become addicted to the raw power of the beast side, and harder to revert back to human?” Amy mulled this over. All the movies she’d seen had it the other way around. The full moon had always been the struggle for Lon Chaney, not the twenty-eight days in between. She’d imagined the fight was to deny the beast inside, not the day-to-day struggle to survive in the human world.

  “Paulie, Virgil bragged that he’d bit Connie. Could it be like that for her now? Shock and addiction?” She was scared at the possibilities of Connie’s situation. Virgil had hurt her, but had he changed her?

  “Connie’s lucky. She has all of us, and Marie’s specialized knowledge to help her through. But it’ll be tough on her.” He held her gaze. “Marie’s been nursing her, but she had to be moved away. Sometimes the change can get a little…violent. And Marie had to subdue her. Everyone has been caring for her, Amy. Please don’t worry.”

  Again, Amy found some reassurance in his words. “I want to see her.”

  “Not tonight. It’s the full moon; it’s going to be hard on her. Connie’s not trained to cope with its pull. Look at the damage she did to her own cabin walls last time she went on a rampage. But now that you know, you can talk to Marie about it. There’s nothing to hide anymore. No reason why you can’t be with Connie.”

  “Why hide it from me at all?” She was angry now. Connie had damaged her own cabin? Amy was shocked, she’d thought it was Virgil torturing Connie just as he’d tortured her that day in the studio. Just how out of control was Connie, how bestial had she become? Paulie shrugged in a typical teenage fashion.

  “Probably the work you’re doing. I imagine Connie was attacked for what she knew. Bloomsy probably reckoned she was the weakest link, being the only human in the whole valley.”