Black Wolf

by Steph Shangraw

  Jaisan whined softly, every muscle suddenly tense. “Jess?”

  “He’s in Haven, more or less safe and sound, finally. Damn it, I don’t dare even give either of you a hug, I might break you.” Sam looked like she was fighting the urge to start crying; she conquered it with pragmatism. “Right. Damage control first, sloppy reunions later. Dena would flay me for crying all over you instead of feeding you. Alfari, we just found Jaisan and Aindry. This is my special friend Alfari.”

  Aindry remembered the “special friends” of that school of magic, and Sam’s father’s big shaggy black-and-white cat Rasputin who was fierce to strangers but always gentle and affectionate with Aindry’s family. Even more, she remembered Sam’s lithe orange Uri, who had adopted Sam’s charges as his own and patiently endured hugs and tears and playfulness. He’d often slept on Aindry’s bed when she envied her brothers their bond and their certainty of never being alone.

  She’d stopped envying it forever, not long after they’d been separated.

  This couldn’t be Uri, back for another life: Sam couldn’t possibly have found his body in time. Nor would Uri have needed the introduction.

  She offered a hand, and Alfari came nearer to rub against it, purring thunderously. “Hello,” Aindry told her. “I’m glad Sam has a friend.”

  Shyly, Jaisan leaned down to echo it, following her lead, with only a quiet, “Hi.” Alfari went up on her hind feet to meet him part way, and rubbed her cheek against his fingers. Did he remember Uri and Rasputin? Aindry wondered.

  “What do you have with you?” Sam said briskly. “Back to the car with both of you. I’ll come back and look for your names once you’re there with something more to eat than wild greens.”

  “You do better on four feet,” Jaisan told Aindry. “So you have three that work.”

  “Just clothes,” Aindry said. “Nothing else. Our names are here?”

  “I hid them,” Sam said, shooing Jaisan away to gather up clothing herself. The tortoiseshell cat circled around the trio. “Anything else? Good. I remember it was by a creek and there was a hill with a crack in it that I hid them in, but I don’t remember exactly where. I just followed one creek from lake to source with no luck and I was looking for another one when I heard you.”

  “Just saw one,” Aindry said. “Hunting. Will show you.”

  “You will do no such thing! Just point.”

  Reluctantly, Aindry pointed the way she’d come.

  “Good. I’ll try that one. Once you two are at the car!”

  Aindry changed to wolf and limped along with them; Sam took the one remaining pack firmly from Jaisan’s good hand, and he surrendered meekly, letting her help him pull the hoodie back on.

  They only got as far as the road, which wasn’t paved and was the worse for six years of neglect, before Sam commanded them to stop.

  “Change of plans. I’m going to get the car, you’re going to stay right here, and ‘Fari’s going to stay here with you. Don’t move. Understand? Not an inch.”

  “Yes,” Jaisan said, eyes low, and Aindry dipped her head in assent.

  Sam regarded them both measuringly, and strode off along the road. Alfari reared up to swipe her cheek along Aindry’s reassuringly, and climbed onto Jaisan’s lap when he sat down heavily. Cautiously at first, then with more confidence when she responded with arched back and purring, Jaisan stroked her.

  Sam returned before long in a newish red Cherokee, clearly well-used but nonetheless in good condition; she parked, hopped out, and circled around to the back to swing the spare tire aside and open the hatch. The inside smelled strongly of elf and wolf-bitch and human, with a thin overlay of Sam and Alfari, and fainter scents of other wolves, other elves and humans, dryads, cats and dogs: living scents, natural homey ones that should be there. Inside, anchored by bungee cords to bolts in the side, was a sturdy-looking cooler that Sam opened.

  “If I know elvenmages… yep. Jerky, dried fruit, crackers, pop-tarts, sports drinks… dog biscuits, must be for Lindsay. Under the circumstances, no one in Coven Firedrake is going to mind. Interior’s spelled to stay at a steady moderate temperature, so the drinks aren’t exactly cold but everything’s safe. Can I trust you to go slow and not overeat and kill yourselves?”

  “Food?” Jaisan said hopefully.

  Aindry changed to human. “We’ll be good,” she promised. “Why our names, why now?”

  “Because Jess needs to remember who he is and given what I had to work with, that seemed like the best bet.”

  “Jess is in Haven,” Jaisan whispered, and started to laugh hysterically, but it dissolved into sobs. “The one place we’ve been avoiding.”

  Aindry whined, slid an arm around him carefully. “Jais, don’t, your ribs… we couldn’t know.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Sam said, doing something in the cooler. “I’ve been there all along but Jess hasn’t, not until recently.” She handed Jaisan a plastic bottle of bright-coloured liquid. “Here. Take a sip. Calm down. Not remembering protected Jess. All three of you remembering, staying still, but too young to defend yourselves might have gotten messy. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter right now. Don’t cry now, wolf-cub, you’re really going to regret it if you do. Drink. Don’t choke.”

  Jaisan struggled to obey the voice of compassion and authority. At the first swallow, instinct took over, short-circuiting the emotional storm, and Sam had to stop him from finishing the whole thing without a pause. He took a couple of breaths as deep as he could currently manage.

  “It’s perfectly understandable that you’d be scared,” Sam said, watching him sip it more slowly. Reassured, she wrapped an arm around Aindry’s waist and urged her over to sit on the back of the Cherokee. Sam smelled of many animals of many kinds, and of Alfari, and of a male wolf, and catnip, and faintly of salt. “Get your weight off that leg. Here.” She gave Aindry a gentle kiss on her forehead, reached past her to the cooler, and gave her a matching bottle. Sunlight caught the thin wet track down her cheek, but it didn’t reflect in her voice. “I found myself in Haven without meaning to, and by the time I reached any state of being able to decide, there was someone who felt like an oasis in the desert, so I stayed. Obviously, some inconvenient knowledge about demons hasn’t been enough to make me worth the effort. I’ve been harassing every new class of students coming to Haven for the college for any news of black wolves—subtly, of course.”

  “We stayed on the edges,” Aindry said. The simple drink made her body scream for more of it, and she could understand why Jaisan had found it hard to stop. “Mostly between. Visit each village, keep moving. There was… in Falias last year, a coven wanted us to stay. Were there two weeks, longer than usual. Wanted to stay, but scared to. They were very sad when we left. Coven in Aralu, not long ago, they were worried about us, wanted lots to help. If we stayed they’d be dead.”

  “Demon attacks?” Sam asked gently, pausing with one back door open.

  Aindry nodded tiredly. “More and more.” She’d have liked to assure Sam that they were okay, that she shouldn’t worry and didn’t need to feel so bad, but didn’t think she could make it sound even remotely plausible.

  “Want Jess,” Jaisan said, visibly torn, perching beside Aindry. “But don’t want demons in Haven.”

  “We’ve already got ‘em,” Sam said grimly, reaching inside to fiddle with the catch that held the rear seat in place upright. “There we go.” She folded the rear seat forward and down. “And I suspect we need all the demon-wolves we can find to stop it before it gets worse.”

  “We can’t fight right now. Can’t even hunt food.”

  “Of course not! The coven Jess lives with have a house with massive and ancient shields, it was Alessandria’s house. You’ll be safe there, and we can get a healer to look at the pair of you. Now. Are you okay if I go look? Eat what you want but go slow. If Alfari tells you to stop, pay attention to her.”

  Aindry gave her a faint smile. “Been hungry before. Know what happens.” The thought
of how painful it would be for either of them to start throwing up right now was enough to counter any drive to stuff themselves indiscriminately. “You can prob’ly search faster with help.”

  “I’d rather have her here. I hate letting you out of my sight at all and I wouldn’t for anything less important. Just in case I really am seeing ghosts and there’s no sign of you when I get back. Hop inside out of the wind and I’ll close the door, I’ll leave the tire out of the way so you can open it if you need to. Stay together, stay with Alfari, and all of you stay here with the car for anything short of hostile demons showing up, okay?”

  “We will.”

  Clumsily, Jaisan crawled up into the carpeted back, lying on his less-injured left side, and Aindry joined him, keeping her weight on her right.

  “I’ll be back as fast as I can,” Sam said, as Alfari leaped up on top of the cooler. “Eat something. If you fall asleep, it’s okay. I’m going to get you to Haven and Jess and a healer as quickly as I can, I promise.” She heaved the back hatch down, but as promised, didn’t replace the tire holder.

  Aindry watched her walk away, long rapid strides, in the direction of the creek.

  “Really Sam?” Jaisan whispered, raising his eyes to hers. “Really Jess? Not a demon trick? Not dreaming?”

  “Yeah. Real. Demon-luck. Last-minute rescue.” It was so improbable that she could feel mad laughter trying to bubble upwards, but forced it away ruthlessly. “Food, please, Alfari?”

  55

  Kevin retrieved the now-finished sheet of chocolate-chip cookies from the oven with one hand, replaced it with the next batch, and set the former on the table next to Deanna. While he went back to contemplating possibilities for things to make that might help with Jesse’s frustration as well as his healing, Deanna started transferring cookies off the hot sheet so they could cool.

  Even though Kevin had made sure, through most of the previous winter, that there was always a pot of soup on the dining room woodstove for random meals and warming up, he strongly suspected that at the moment, soup would only make Jesse feel like he was being treated as an invalid. The wolf was going to need to eat more than usual, though, and that was more likely to happen if there was something easily available.

  If he’d had any idea what the wolves had planned to do earlier, he’d have done this last night, to make sure Jesse got a balanced meal before being helped up to his bedroom. But then, if he’d had any idea, he probably would have done his best to prevent it and keep Jess from ever leaving the house.

  Wolves and their status and fighting and rules. If they had to challenge Rebecca, couldn’t someone else have done it? But oh no, that’s not part of the challenge conventions.

  Damned wolves. The more you love ‘em the more you want to grab them and shake them sometimes.

  Aha, chili, and I’ll get someone to run to the store tomorrow morning and get fresh rolls.

  He set the big old cast-iron pot on the stove and rummaged in the freezer for ground beef. It was going to be a lot easier to make now, with Bane out running, Flynn with Cynthia asleep in her bed and Gisela in Deanna’s and Shaine with Jesse, than it would be while the kitchen was a high-traffic zone.

  “This is going to do it for the chocolate chip,” Deanna said, her voice breaking the quiet. “I assume you have more cookies in mind. What kind?”

  “Peanut-butter, I think. Head for bed, Dia, these days you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow and someone needs to be alert.”

  “You think I’m leaving you here to be up until sunrise?”

  “I’m just going to throw some chili together and leave it on the woodstove and do one more batch of cookies.”

  “And I’m sure you believe that. But that isn’t what you actually do when you’re all restless like this.”

  “I admit I’m tired. I just need to feel like I’ve accomplished something, then I can try to get my mind to slow down so I can sleep. I have no intention of being up until sunrise.” He dumped two pounds of frozen ground beef in the pot, put the top on, and rested both hands on the rim, touching both parts and thinking heat into them.

  If he did that enough, his coven would find him passed out and hypothermic on the floor. Energy didn’t just appear from nowhere on demand. Lose enough to drop his body temperature, and sleep would no longer be optional, it would be a fact.

  Not the most pleasant way to get to sleep, however.

  “I know you don’t, but you don’t watch the ti…” She halted mid-word as his attention turned elsewhere. “What is it?”

  “Someone just came inside the walls. No Dandelion or Winter resonance.”

  “At this hour? It’s nearly midnight.”

  “I know.” He let go of the pot—it was warm enough to begin thawing the meat anyway—and left the kitchen in the direction of the front door. Deanna followed.

  “That’s Sam,” he said in surprise, as they reached the big open hall just inside the door. “And someone with her?”

  Deanna shrugged, passed him in a couple of longer quicker strides, and pulled the door open.

  The pair with Sam cringed back instantly and in unison, and Kevin thought they might have bolted had Sam not laid a hand on the shoulder of each.

  Startlingly like Jess, especially the longer-haired one on Sam’s left who had his right arm in a makeshift sling; the shorter-haired one had an alarming-looking bruise on her jaw, and was keeping her weight carefully off her left leg. Both were dressed, more or less, but in dire need of both a bath and clean clothing of better repair and better fit.

  Both looked intensely anxious, nostrils flaring to pick up scents—though the one in the sling flinched with every breath—and eyes flickering everywhere except up to meet Kevin’s or Deanna’s. Something in their body language, their expressions, screamed that they’d been living wild for so long it probably felt more normal to them.

  “It’s okay,” Sam said reassuringly, urging them back towards the door. “I promise, I promise, you are absolutely safe here from everything. No one in this house would ever hurt you. These are two of Jess’ closest friends. He trusts them.”

  The one in the sling whined plaintively. “Smell Jess…”

  “He lives here,” Sam said patiently, and looked at Kevin and Deanna—Kevin wondered if they both looked as flat-out astonished as he felt. “No, you aren’t imagining things. Jaisan is Jess’ twin, and Aindry’s their big sister.”

  Deanna braced the door with her hip, and smiled at the two frightened wolves. “And here we thought our wolf-cub was one of a kind.” She offered a hand. “I’m Deanna. This is Kevin. Yes, Jess lives here, he’s upstairs sleeping, although after the day he’s had it would take an earthquake to wake him up.”

  “I bet,” Kevin added, pitching his voice much the way he might to a nervous animal, smooth and gentle, “some real food that you don’t have to catch first and a hot shower would feel wonderful.”

  Both hesitated, gazes going back to Sam.

  “I trust them,” Sam said. “Jess trusts them. Go on. Nothing can reach you while you’re inside the walls. No demons, nothing else that would mean you any harm. Don’t start asking questions right now, there’s nothing so urgent that it can’t wait until you’re feeling more alert. Let Kev and Dia and their coven help, just like they’ve been helping Jess when he needs them for a while now. Okay?” She gave them a small push towards the door. It didn’t take a genius to see that both remained uncertain, or that they were responding to Sam very much as they might to an alpha. “They’ve had demons making more and more attempts at killing them, so they’ve been avoiding people even more than before to keep bystanders from getting hurt, they’re exhausted and badly injured and haven’t been eating regularly. And from the sounds of it, they didn’t have a home even before that.” She handed Deanna a canvas backpack with something inside; the attention of both wolves flicked towards it, following its location. “Protect that. It’s more valuable than I can explain right now, and absolutely irreplaceable.”
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  Deanna nodded and passed it to Kevin. “We will.” She stepped through the doorway, and Kevin retreated a couple of steps; the two young wolves, with a last uneasy look at Sam, obeyed her gesture and went inside.

  So they didn’t see Sam watching them, or the sorrow in her eyes.

  “It’s been a very long and draining kind of day,” Sam said wearily. “I seriously need my bed. Look after them for me, okay? Please?”

  “You don’t even need to ask,” Deanna said gently. “You know we will, just like with Jess. Go get some sleep. ‘Sela’s here, I’ll go wake her up and we’ll get them fed and into a hot shower and a warm bed.”

  Sam nodded and turned back to what Kevin thought was his second-cousin Katherine’s car. Somehow, he suspected that the amount of faith she was placing in Sundark, to take care of Jess’ lost siblings and that backpack in her place, was greater than he could readily grasp.

  Deanna closed the door, careful not to let the heavy old wood make any loud thumps.

  Both wolves, Kevin thought, were straining for every scent they could possibly pick up, normal wolf reaction to being on new ground but the anxiety behind it was less typical.

  “There’s lots of smells,” Aindry said apprehensively. “Lots of people. Wolves.”

  “All the wolves you smell are Jess’ pack,” Kevin assured them. “They’ll be very happy to have you here, they aren’t going to see you as intruders.”

  “Water-people!” Aindry’s head snapped up, and she backed towards the door, wild-eyed. Jaisan spun to catch her before she fell, his breath catching in a thin whine as her weight shifted towards him.

  “That’s Shaine,” Kevin said. “He ran away from the lake because of what his family did to yours. He spent a long time pretending to be human, and Jess wouldn’t be alive right now without him. He might be the one person Jess trusts the most, to tell you the truth. I know he’d never in a million years do anything to hurt you, and I’m pretty sure he’d probably do crazy things to protect you. Sam knows him and she brought you here anyway. Would she do that, or would Jess live here, if he wasn’t safe to be around?”