Forever Wolf

by Maria Vale

  “I need to count it,” says the voice of the man with the draggy socks.

  “Be my guest,” says a familiar voice. “Any problems?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I pumped her with twice what it would take to kill a bull mastiff and look… See what she did to my ankle? Now I’m going to have to report—”

  Deep treads move against asphalt, and a voice comes closer. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Well, it’s not like I can pretend it didn’t happen. I gotta get it checked out. They don’t have their shots, remember? The insurance won’t cover it if I don’t report it.”

  The door opens, and cold air that stinks of oil and rotting food shocks the draggy workings of my brain into remembering that voice and the scent of ferns on damp wood. Lucius? Lucian? I throw my faltering body toward the man at the door, my jaws just missing him when the collar cuts off my breathing. I hang over the edge of the van, my legs beating frantically to get some purchase on the concrete ground.

  “Oh my fucking…” I struggle against the big hand grabbing my hind legs. “You were supposed to get the silver runt. Does this look like a silver runt? Lift her up before she suffocates.”

  The big hands of a second Shifter push me roughly into the back of the van. The floaters in front of my eyes start to fade. As soon as I am back in the van, I scrape at the collar. When I cough, it hurts my throat.

  “I was told to get a gray dog with puppies in front of the big house. And that was what I did. If you don’t want this one, I bet I can sell it for—”

  A phone dings. Lucian turns away. “I’ve got to take this.”

  He takes the call, his back to us, his hand cupped around the speaker. When the voice on the other end grows louder, he moves farther away.

  “You still here?” he says to the human when he’s done.

  “Well, I’m thinking that I may have to make special arrangements about my leg. Get it looked at privately. If I’m not supposed to go through channels and whatnot.”

  “You’re asking for more money? You fucked up, and now you’re asking for more money?”

  “For your sake. For my leg. Otherwise, I gotta go through channels.”

  I can see the second Shifter raise his eyebrows. “I was under the impression that you understood who you were working for,” Lucian says with a low growl.

  “You trying to threaten me? I am a representative of the government of the U S of Fucking A. Period. You tell your boss to grab a two-four and some poutine and watch some hockey, eh?” He snorts at his joke. “Fucking Canuck.”

  “You are a glorified dogcatcher. The last person to try extortion was the daughter of a circuit judge, and she ended up without a fucking face.”

  A soft click makes the air thick with the smell of salt and old leather. The Shifter’s gun is flush against the dogcatcher’s temple. “As soon as we move them, you’d better get out. You don’t want to be here when he calls back and remembers…well, remembers you at all.”

  When the westend’s legs finally move again, they are disjointed like those of a marionette with tangled strings.

  The second Shifter pulls at the crate, so I bite him.

  He whips out his gun, training it between my eyes.

  “You can’t shoot her here, you idiot.” Lucian takes the other Shifter’s face in two hands and roughly turns his head. “What do you see?”

  “A Dumpster?”

  “What else?”

  “A car?”

  “Think bigger.”

  There’s a moment of silence.

  “A Loblaws?”

  “Exactly. You don’t shoot a fucking monster in the back of a Loblaws. You shoot a fucking monster in the fucking forest. We’ll do it on the way back. Allagash or something.”

  Then he shoots me with that long, thin green gun.

  Three times.

  In the back of a Loblaws.

  The cold and black flow over my consciousness, and in my dream, I hear a sound somewhere between keening and wolf song.

  Chapter 41

  I have no idea how long I was under. The drugs were stronger this time, and when they open the doors to the back of the van, nothing works. I am as helpless as I am during the change, except that I can hear.

  “You take the puppies.”

  Pups, my brain yells as the crate bumps against my back.

  “And make sure you wash them before you take them to see their grandfather.”

  Someone finds that funny and laughs.

  “And that?”

  “I don’t know. First, he tells me to kill her. Then he tells me to hold off. I didn’t ask him what he wanted her for. If she’s pretty enough, I’ll take her. Make some puppies of my own.”

  More hilarity. I need to remember something. What is it? What did I need to remember? I thought of it before I went under this last time.

  Oh, that’s right. Kill them all.

  “Send Constantine out. We’ll need help to move her.”

  My sluggish mind wanders. I know that name. Constantine. Gray-flecked beard. Khaki skin. Would be bronze if he lived anywhere but Canada.

  A door closes. Boots on stone.

  “Just take a leg.”

  Four Shifters. Each of them takes a leg. My head drops back, toneless, against the collar pressing into my throat and hackles.

  It reminds me of all those pictures of wolves being carried hanging from branches by the heroic hunters in human books.

  Dead, if they were lucky.

  “Where to?”

  “Safe room.”

  It is an awkward trip. One of them keeps stepping on my tail. When they reach stairs, my drooping head bumps along the steps while they strain to keep me elevated.

  “Fuck. This,” one says and drops me once they reach the bottom. The rest let go, and a door closes with a dull thud. Outside, metal scrapes against metal.

  My eyes move around my sockets, trying to see where I am. Solid walls, two cabinets, a toilet, a sink, and a single bed. No windows: the only ventilation comes from a tiny grate in the ceiling.

  There is nothing here that speaks to me. No light, no trees, no animals. Even the air smells like nothing. It’s…disorienting, and my stomach already feels like it is filled with beetles.

  My immobilized back legs don’t respond. Twisting my shoulders and forelegs throws my balance off enough. I fall forward, my jaw into the cement. Shaking my head doesn’t make anything clearer. The pressure of the collar on my neck makes me gag. I need fingers fast, but it’s hard to coordinate my muscles. I keep trying, pushing into my hips over and over, hoping that some combination of spasming and intent will trigger my change.

  That, I suddenly realize, was not. A. Good. Idea.

  I wake up, my naked body splayed out on the icy floor.

  The drugs that were strong in my wild body are a lead weight on the more sluggish metabolism in skin. For some reason, I remember the feeling of Eyulf’s hand like liquid on my changing skin. I always remember the feeling of Eyulf’s hand on my skin. I’m good at remembering things I’ve lost.

  Crawling to the door, I turn the knob. It is a safe room; isn’t that what they said? There are three locks on the inside: two sliding bolts at the top and bottom and a lock in the door handle. None, obviously, are locked, but when I turn the knob and push, it shifts slightly and then jams. A bar lock maybe.

  The walls are made of concrete, the door of steel, the spare furnishings of particleboard.

  This is not where I want to die. I want to see the ferns unfurl in the shock of bright green. I want to see the red squirrels emerge with their litters. I want to hear the wood frogs.

  I want to run with my echelon, feeling the warmth at my shoulder, the sound of their breath, the smell of damp fur. I want to hear my Alpha calling me home.

  I want t
o stand at the promontory where I stood before looking out over the chaotic fertility of the Great North’s territory. Of my territory. I want to smell the sudden scent of petrichor and stone and cold and look into the green and blue eyes, the promise of heaven and earth.

  I want to tell him I love him.

  I want to tell them all that I love them.

  It’s too late for that. But if I have to die here, I will do it killing the men who are threatening my Pack. I have loved, and I have failed those I loved. I will not do that again.

  The floor pitches under me, and when I reach up to the walls, they lean away from me. Both hands barely skimming the concrete, I keep walking. Round and round. Heart pumping, poison filtering, thoughts clearing.

  There are footsteps upstairs, more than one set. Listening to the movements and distinctive patterns, to the combination of weight and stride and rhythm, I decide that there are five. I cannot kill five armed Shifters alone. I just have to wait and focus. I need to focus on August. On killing August.

  The first cabinet is nothing but a flimsy container for food and water. I drain two bottles quickly. When much of it comes up into the sink, my head feels a little clearer.

  The other cabinet has shelves of clothes: a few packages of men’s boxers and tanks. The rest on hangers. I pull a tank over my shoulders and look through the hangers. Even without knowing his scent, I know because his name is everywhere.

  “Styled exclusively for August Leveraux.”

  “Customized exclusively for August Leveraux.”

  “Tailored exclusively for August Leveraux.”

  Leaving aside the question of what emergency would require locking yourself in a safe room with a bespoke walking jacket, the word that stands out is exclusively. This safe room was outfitted exclusively for August Leveraux. His food. His clothes. His toiletry kit. His single bed. As if Evie or John or Nils or even Lorcan would ever imagine locking themselves away when disaster came for their wolves.

  I help myself to a pair of canvas pants. “Breeks designed exclusively for August Leveraux,” they say.

  The last piece of furniture is the narrow bed. Its metal legs are screwed into plates in the floor, but under the blankets and mattress are metal slats soldered into the narrow frame.

  Wrapping my hands in one of August Leveraux exclusive shirts, I plant my feet firmly on either side of the frame, squat down, grab hold, and slowly straighten my legs. The slat curves, then lifts, and then one end comes up, pitching me backward onto the floor and into the chair, which skitters across the room with a crash.

  All motion upstairs stops, and when it starts again, someone is running down the hall. I grab the bar in my bare hands and push both feet against the far edge of the frame until I loosen the other end. Shoving the slat under the mattress, I sit on top of it.

  A door opens at the top of the steps, and a particularly lugubrious tread starts down the stairs.

  Outside, metal ratchets open, and the door cracks just wide enough for a gun. Not one of those long, thin green ones, but a thick silver one. The gunman takes in the room and the chair and me sitting on the edge of the bed, my hands clasped in front of me, dripping blood on the floor.

  He calls up the stairs. “She’s just waking up. Looks like she banged into the chair.”

  Someone says something I can’t hear.

  “I know what I’m supposed to do; I’m just saying it’ll take a while.” Constantine closes the door. Locks it top and bottom and pulls the chair in front of it, his gun aimed steadily at me.

  “What happened to your hands?”

  The exclusive shirt on the floor says A. L. on the cuff. I wipe the blood on it. “Where are our pups?”

  “With their grandfather. Don’t growl at me. He’s not going to hurt them. They are his grandchildren. August wants you to make them change.”

  Bouncing once on the bed, I feel for the bar through the mattress.

  Pups don’t change. They can see better, hear better, move better wild. That’s why some—my hand slides into the pocket of these pants, reflexively feeling for the grubby little ball of white fur, the talisman I have been clinging to these past weeks—some don’t change until they’re juveniles.

  “Can you?”

  I smooth the empty pocket back down.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s going to kill you if you can’t.”

  I open and close my hand on the drying, sticky blood. “I’m a wolf. We spend our lives running from bullets. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Constantine has the grace to look stricken.

  He pulls the chair closer. “Do I need this?” He lifts the gun slightly in the air.

  “Absolutely. If I see any way of doing it, I will kill every one of you.”

  Chapter 42

  “I am not the enemy here. I am…” He looks at the locked door behind him. “I don’t have a lot of time, but…August thinks you can save us from extinction. I think he’s just going to drag you down with us.” He starts talking fast and quiet. “We used to be like you. We didn’t have to change, but we did. Not often: just enough to make it impossible to live as human. Then August starts saying we didn’t have to live like this. He said all it took was a little discipline, and we could have everything they had: money and power. Freedom. It was easy. All we had to do was give up the change.”

  I hear the scraping of his fingers along his cropped beard, his eyes distant. “Now, so few of us have ever done it, but I did. Once. Didn’t understand what I was doing. It was terrifying: I changed and everything else did, too. I heard the dark, felt voices, tasted the air… I lost the edges of my self.”

  The smell of reeds at water’s edge grows stronger, but then the weight of the gun shifts in his hand and he jerks awake, the scent fading quickly. “I’m not explaining it well.”

  “Do Shifters use the Old Tongue?”

  Frowning, he shakes his head.

  “When we are wild, we say we are manigfeald: manifold, complex. We are ourselves, but more. We are part of the land and the Pack. Everything. We say that when we’re in skin, we are anfeald, alone and singular. We think of it like seeing the world through the wrong end of a telescope. It’s dangerous, because then everything that isn’t you becomes insignificant. Expendable.”

  Constantine startles, then reaches into his pocket for his buzzing phone. “Almost,” he says. “She still has to get dressed.” He listens for a second. “I know he doesn’t, but she might.”

  He slips the phone back.

  “It was never easy for us to have children, but I think giving up the change killed something inside. August…” He shakes his head and sighs. “August doesn’t want to hear it. He’s obsessed. He doesn’t want to know that all that work and everything he’s built may be responsible for destroying us. But what if it happens to you too? What if you stop changing and then there is no future for any of us?”

  The phone buzzes again.

  “Dammit,” he says and flicks it again. “I know. She’s ready.”

  “Listen, there’s something else. August wants to cull the Pack, get rid of anyone strong enough to lead it. Somebody got a picture of blood and white fur and this enormous paw print in the snow. I don’t know the details. All I know is that August has arranged for a predator hunters association to host a ‘Dire Wolf Hunt’ during the full moon. On your land. The only stipulation August made was to leave the smaller ones, the younger ones. For future hunts.”

  “And Victor?”

  “Victor?”

  “He’s the one who told you where to find the pups.”

  “Only August knows his name, but he’s supposed to hide until the change is over. Then he—”

  The door to the stairs opens. Constantine looks pointedly beneath the bed before slipping outside.

  I grab the metal bar. All the stomach beetles and wobbling floors
and leaning walls, all the weakness and sadness of these past weeks disappears in the face of the end of the Great North. Half an hour ago, I had thought only to take as many Shifters with me as I could before dying; now, I want to survive and warn my pack. I pull off the pants.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  I shred a tank top into long strips.

  “She’s using the bathroom.”

  I tie the bar against the outer part of my thigh, so that it sticks up to my waist.

  “Don’t hear anything.”

  I pour some water into the toilet, pull up the pants and flush.

  Someone knocks on the door. “Hurry up in there.”

  “Washing my hands,” I snap, scrubbing thoroughly to get rid of the smell of metal. Then I open the door.

  “Let me see your hand.” It’s Lucian, the blond Shifter who delivered August’s ultimatum. “Why is it bleeding?” he asks when I hold it out to him.

  “I tried to open the doors of the van,” which is true and easy to say. Lucian narrows his eyes. He signals toward me with his own gun.

  “Check her out.”

  Constantine gestures for me to lift my arms and pats down first my left, then my right, then my back, then my front. His expression flickers as he touches my torso, but he does nothing when he feels the hard metal bar continuing down the outside of my thigh.

  “Clean,” he says without looking up. He uses the muzzle of his gun to push me toward the stair.

  “And what’s wrong with her leg?” Lucian asks.

  “I took five darts the size of hummingbirds in my ass. That’s what’s wrong with my leg.”

  I don’t look at either Shifter.

  It’s easier to walk once I clear the stairs into a long hall of smooth wooden panels that blend almost seamlessly into smooth wooden doors with indented metal fixtures. The kind of thing that no wolf could ever open.