by KL Mabbs
Snow and ice filled his nostrils, the heady scent of pine, several animals upwind of him—and Faelon. It was faint. A hint on the wind. But it was enough. In the snow in front of him, there were wolf tracks leading to the cliff edge and then away again. The prints a quarter full of snow. Hope surged through him until he realized the size difference. This wolf was normal, tiny compared to Faelon. Following the prints led to a jagged hole in the snow, bare rock under a half-formed puddle of slush. What would melt the snow this way? But the prints stepped out of the depression, as if the animal had been dropped out of the air. It reminded him of how he had found Faelon, her prints disappearing into the depression where he had set his trap, but not coming out. There were no other prints around though, not White Bear’s—the way he would have expected if Faelon had gotten away from him.
It wasn’t Faelon. PAC was gone. Lost in the snow or blown away in the weather. Without his input, the machine would revert to its original form. He’d left the order that if he died PAC belonged to Faelon. But what happened if Faelon was dead?
Michael set off, his pace eating up the klicks before him, following the faint scent that was Faelon. At the top of the large basin he was in, he could see the avalanche that had buried the cave he had spent a night in. His gun was buried under that mound of snow. It should have been pristine in colour, but the small slide had brought down debris from the top, rocks and trees and . . .
. . . a body. Michael slowed and then stopped. A cold realization gripped him, a shiver ran over his scalp and then down his back. He sniffed the air. The scent that came to him, he knew it. It smelled of spring to his new senses. Before it was just sweet, like the syrup as he had poured it over the traps he had set. The same trap Faelon had been in.
That meant . . .
Before him was a body. Locked in death and in two different forms. A wolf stared at him, its jaw open, but that was only one side of its face. The other side was human. Its grey eye blank with death, no presence, or life in its surface. No cataract covered over the colour. It was clear and stark in its beauty.
The same eyes Faelon owned. The shaman's tale of Simon Werheald came back to him. Faelon's father.
Other parts of the body were human too, mixed together with that of the wolf. Wherever a human part showed, the bough of a tree had pierced the body. One sharp bough had impaled the chest, through its heart. Another had slid through the bones of the jaw.
Faelon knew what the plant would do. What would happen when she dropped her hind leg into the trap. Why? There was only one reason he could think of; to get pregnant.
Michael knew the smell of the European Mountain Ash. The legends said it was sacred and could bestow long life. They called it a Rowan tree.
It was another way to kill a witch. And what was the Yeenaaldlooshii? Even if they were from different legends. But maybe that was the point. Faelon’s father had studied therianthropy, all the ways to become something else. Wolf, bear, cat. The shaman worked with curses, it was how the Witchery Way was performed. Not through healing but with curses, and the skin of the animal.
Skinwalker.
What had Simon discovered?
Chapter 52 White Bear Dying
The sun sank behind the clouds. The ground went dark and the sky turned into blood, red and purple mixing into an omen over the blond hair cascading down the German’s shoulder. Then it was gone, the darkness of the mountains stealing the last of the light.
“I’ll teach you, but what you want is impossible.”
“Then why?”
White Bear’s eye clouded over for a moment. “A promise I made.”
The German archaeologist spoke then, “‘Ant’jjhnii.”
“What?”
“It takes a relative.”
White Bear screamed and threw the door shut.
The German stopped it with his boot, the sharp thud enough to make the shaman cringe, but he held the door firm for an old man, pressing the wood against the German’s foot.
“I’ve done my homework. The Witchery Way, therianthropy, the old legends. They have similarities.”
“The Yeii demand a sacrifice for the power to Skinwalk as a man.” White Bear looked down and noticed how crushed the man’s shoe was. “I’m sorry.” He stepped back. “I know what the Yeii want.”
“You gave them . . . .”
“Not on purpose, but they don’t care. The price is a sacrifice.”
“These are your ways, let me save them. I know the lore. It’s the Yeibicheii . . . .”
“. . . are the Holy People, they do not give this evil.”
“I just want . . .” Simon stopped. When next he spoke an ache filed his voice, a loneliness that covered the decades and cultures between the two men. “My life is gone too, my wife and child. I don’t want to die, but I can’t live in the world the way it is. That’s not evil. You’ll never see me after this.”
“How does that save my culture?”
“I will teach one child.”
“You think it will pass to . . .” He shook his head. “Now I know you’re mad. Leave.” White Bear pointed to the wilderness beyond.
“One night, that’s all I ask. Draw the symbols for me. I’ll learn the rest myself.”
“Fool.” But White Bear opened the door wide for the mad German.
White Bear stood over the woman that used to be a wolf. He leaned on the staff of Rowan that was his only defence from the evil that had taken his son. Taken him. The sacrifice he hadn’t wanted to give. The woman was born to a wolf from a man and a spirit joined in the sand. But how? And without a sacrifice. Without the evil of the Witchery Way. “What did he use to become a wolf?”
“Don’t you know, dead man? You taught him the Way,” Faelon said. Her voice was thick, as if her tongue were swollen and her teeth broken from the swing of a baseball bat.
White Bear raised his hand, the shadow falling over Faelon. She didn’t cower, or raise her fist up to protect herself. She glared at him.
“I know the Way, White Bear. I will teach it to my cubs. But never to you.” She spat at his feet.
White Bear brought the staff down, striking the woman with all his might. This time she moved to block the wood, to protect her children from the blunt force.
A whimper escaped her throat, turned into speech. “Heal yourself, dead man, I won’t do it for you.”
White Bear stopped, a thought striking him. It was painful, too far from his normal patterns and understanding of the Way. But the proof was in front of him, a woman with a wolf spirit within her.
His voice surprised, the timbre rising, “Your father, he healed himself?”
Faelon sank into the sand, feeling the warm comfort of it in a way that White Bear never would. Never had, using buckskin and grizzly pelts. Her hand covered her belly and her unborn cubs. “How many symbols did you teach him that night, White Bear? How many variations?”
Laughter echoed in the cave—under it, if anyone had been listening, was the growl of an old grizzly bear.
Chapter 53 Samantha
Samantha wiped the tears from her eyes, the blur making the road harder to see. Her fever wasn’t helping, but that’s all it seemed to be at least. The rage that Kerrigan or Ma’ii tsoh had wasn’t affecting her. Had Sammy filtered something out of Ma’ii tsoh’s blood? Or was it something more basic than that? Men were more aggressive, usually. She kept thinking of Kerrigan though, lost in the mountains with no one to help him, no hope of being found. How long would he stay an animal? How long could he stay that way?
Her men had told her of the two wolves that had left the compound together and the dominance play that had happened once they were free. Sammy said that was normal for wolves. Normal for men too. Bloody pissing contests were all too common in the army.
Beside her, Sammy sat in the seat of the Jeep. Her feet were splayed to give her balance. But her shoulder leaned into the door and her head was out the open window as far as possible, her jaw unhinged, and tongue lolling out.
“Do you still smell him, Sammy?”
She answered, her tongue still out, with vocal cords not meant for speech, but that didn’t stop the miniature wolf. “Sometimes. Yes, ma’am. He’s to the east of us.”
“The roads get worse the closer we get to the mountains.”
“He’s still with the black wolf.”
“We can assume he’s going home. We know where that is.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Samantha settled down into the long drive, her hand reaching out to Sammy often to scratch behind her ear or stroke the soft fur of her back. When she did, Sammy would stop tasting the air for scents and lick her hand in return. Eventually the small wolf curled up on the car seat and fell asleep. Not that Sammy needed sleep; she’d always been able to find power from a wall or a hotspot depending on the tech in the building. And she had alternative power sources. Her friend was changing so much. She seemed almost independent except for her need to be close to Samantha. As if having a leader was the only thing that counted to her. That was in direct opposition to Samantha's own character. She wanted to lead.
Look what that had gotten her.
Four klicks past the town of Massive on the Bow Valley Parkway, she pulled into the Johnston Valley Resort and booked a room. She slept for five hours, took a shower to wake up all the way, and then left for the interior of the Johnston Valley. She’d unpacked the ski-doo and arranged for the jeep to be taken care of, and then packed all her supplies into the small ski-doo trailer. Sammy took a seat on the gas tank, looking a bit too much like she was having an adventure, and they drove off.
Eight hours later, Samantha drove into the area where Michael Scott had been wounded. She knew his cabin was up the hill and tucked into the ridge past this place. But this is where Kerrigan . . . Well, this is where Samantha wanted Kerrigan to be. Needed him to be.
He wasn’t.
They’d lost the black wolf and Kerrigan’s trail yesterday, as they could go places it was impossible for the Jeep or the ski-doo to reach. This is where she had told Zach to meet her, if he could, if he was willing. But what would being a wolf do to him? Would he even remember her?
She waited, metal pinging, the warmth of the ski-doo settling and slowly disappearing into the atmosphere and the earth. The sun sank into the valleys to the west of her and the mountains turned purple, the clouds struck by a darkening orange light, as if the sun had been contaminated.
“We passed a cabin, three klicks back, Samantha. It is currently unoccupied. Satellites show no heat signature other than the house itself. It is one of those living homes. I suggest . . .”
“I want to wait.”
“We can come back in the morning. We need a base . . . perhaps the owner will let us rent when he shows up.”
“You’re right, Sammy, it’s cold outside.”
The door opened easily and the warmth of the Eco-house pulled the cold from her body.
“Is anyone here?” The house rattled with an echo that told her Sammy had been right. It was empty. “Do a records search for the owner, please, Sammy.”
The place smelled of the heavy musk of deer, but underneath it was the honey sweetness of a plant. There were other smells that came to her new senses. The thick gagging scent of blood. The spicy aroma of coffee. The sweet smell of pine that was the house itself. The walls were covered in art—fascinating, Aboriginal, and colourful: blue and yellow, black and green, the sparkle of quartz and mica. The minerals left a chalky taste in the scent glands of her mouth. When she looked, she realized that all of the art was made from sand. The intricate details of colour all made from fine grains packed between glass.
The house had the sense of home to it, that feeling of otherness that told a person that a life was lived here.
But who?
Chapter 54 Kerrigan
Ma’ii tsoh took the deer down with a leap, the sharp crunch of his powerful jaws echoing against the rocks surrounding them. Kerrigan grinned; a sharp bark came from him as his breath settled from the bellows of his lungs from running the deer into this trap.
Hot flesh slid down the wolves’ throats as each of them ripped great hunks from the deer, Ma’ii tsoh growling any time Kerrigan got too close.
Kerrigan just growled back. Mine. And they settled down to feed.
Then they were back to the driven pace of the black wolf. Tearing over the terrain, following whatever instinct drove his pack mate.
Kerrigan raised his snout into the air and sniffed. He stopped, his legs stiff, and his ears up, his body forward. Questing. He knew that smell. It filled his dreams, along with the woman that wore the scent. A whine filled the air. His mate.
She had betrayed him.
Ma’ii tsoh barked, sharp and urgent, telling Kerrigan that they were close. The three days of travel was almost over. They were here.
Kerrigan turned and leapt, following the black wolf up the ridge.
Chapter 55 Faelon
The words Faelon’s sire told her had changed the way she thought. Scars left a resonance in her now, more than the lesson of learning from pain. More than the consequences of her actions. If she let herself, she could think past the rising of the sun to the next day and another after that. Into the future. She thought past the actions of the stag that had gored her. A strange possessiveness that was unnatural for that animal. Even with the new gift of thought from her sire, she didn’t know how to frame that action. She had run from the stag, and the thought. Forgetting them in the heat of summer and the falling off of winter, when her body drove her in ways she didn’t understand. Why hadn’t she felt that way last season?
And then she met the male, an alpha to any but her. She could sense his fear, smell it on the air as he approached her. She could smell other things about him. Things that corresponded to the words her sire had taught her. “You deserve more,” he’d said. “Your mate is out there. Don’t settle.” This wolf was less than her.
He did the dance, the growls that said she was his. The posture that spoke of dominance. She didn’t respond, didn’t show herself to him. But that didn’t stop him from grabbing the ruff of fur at her neck. She twisted her head and bit him, hard. He growled and bit down, fiercer than he had any right to. Faelon lunged away and then turned. Savage rage taking her over as she attacked.
Faelon’s body was racked with fever from the beating White Bear had given her. Not just once either. She was no longer able to change into a wolf, but maybe that was for the best. The cubs in her belly had screamed at the last change—in their own way, a writhing agony that made her nauseous. The pain was a new kind of discomfort from all the other aches that she had felt. This one was a living pain, one that told her what it was that she missed in the world. She wanted her cubs to live. They were her only link to Michael now.
White Bear hadn’t given up though. He had come back again and again, screaming at her for the way to change that her sire had taught her.
“Tell me! I can undue all of this . . .” He pulled at the skins on his body and fell to his knees. The staff in his hands covered in her blood. And then he cried and whimpered. Like a cub. “Don’t make me do this anymore. Just tell me.” And something she had said had told him what he needed. It wouldn’t do him any good though.
There was no way back. Her sire was dead. Michael was dead.
Now, her memories were riding her vision of the present. She saw White Bear, heard him chanting the Blessing Way. A song her sire had sung, over and over. And there were others, always with more knowledge. It was in the song that beat in the earth against her feet. It was the voice that PAC called God. It was the growls of her sire as he taught her the symbols in the sand as they poured from his fist. He taught her about the plant that would change her, that gave her a choice to be human or wolf. But she was both now. Unable to stop being a wolf, unable to give up Michael. Her chest tightened as she remembered the ones she loved. Her sire had disappeared. White Bear had killed her mate.
A growl left
her throat, a low rumble that vibrated the sand beneath her. She stood on her legs, her muscles wanting to cramp from the effort, but she willed herself to ignore them. She wavered on her feet, caught herself with a stumbling step. White Bear was distracted. She could kill him now, even with one good hand. She gathered her feet under her, tensed the large muscles that would hurl her onto his back as he drew his symbols in the sand, and jumped, a snarl rising in her throat. Her body came even with the black sand, and she was stopped, a force throwing her back. White Bear didn’t even look at her.
She staggered up from the white sand, sniffing at the barrier that held her. The closer she got to it the more she could feel the hum of power that surrounded her. She backed away and slumped down. Her eyes still hurt, and so did her body, the bruises covering her flesh the way rocks did the landscape after an avalanche. Her foreleg was gone, but the pain that thrummed through it was enough to cause a whimper. Enough agony that she should have had a limb to go with it. She licked the space that should have been her flesh, trying to soothe herself. She could feel her fingertips against her tongue, the palm of her hand. She worked her way up to the stump that was just before her elbow. The roughness of her tongue against her pink skin, smooth and hairless, felt as it should—would have felt, as if her arm were still there.
She could feel the skin moisten, the barely-there slick feel of water. The saliva cooled the heat from her missing limb. She couldn’t see it, but it was there. All her other senses told her that. When she was done, she settled her paw in the sand, the particles of it clinging to the nothing that was there. The white sand glowed in her eyes, not bright enough to warn White Bear from his chant. Even her growls hadn’t been able to do that. The glow mixed with her memories, brought her sire to the front of her vision, hiding the shaman and his actions. She licked at her hand again watching her sire teach her his lessons. Then she knew what she had to do. She let her will go and felt the present disappear from her, as her father talked to her from the grave.
