Chapter Twenty-Two
“I knew the cur was trouble from the start,” Feral growled.
“You should have let me kill him,” Jag snarled, fingering the black velvet patch that covered his ruined eye.
“I heard you both the first time,” Lady Melusine sighed. She turned to fix Rend with a disapproving scowl. “I hold you personally responsible for all this. It was you who brought that traître into our midst!”
Rend lowered his gaze, unable to meet the others’ glares. He had failed the pack and everyone knew it.
“But I don’t want him dead!” Jez sniffled into one of her dame’s lace hankies.
“Now-now, chérie,” Lady Melusine said with a cluck of her tongue. “You can’t have everything your way.”
“Why not?”
The Bitch-Queen sighed and shook her head, then returned her attention to Rend. “As penance, you are to track down the traitor and kill him and the coyotero bitch he ran off with. You will also return the Wolfcane to its rightful place. Failure to any one of these things will be punished by death. Is that understood?”
“Yes, milady.”
“Now get out of my sight. I don’t want to see you again until you have Skinner’s head in one hand and the Wolfcane in the other.”
Whatever Shaggybreeks might have been in his post-Viking life, it most certainly wasn’t a poor man. A search of the Caddy’s glove compartment produced several credit cards in different names and a roll of bills big enough to choke a pygmy hippo.
Skinner stopped in Durango long enough to buy himself some clothes that actually fit, as he had been forced to clothe himself in dirty laundry he’d found in the backseat. Luckily, no one working at the Wal-Mart Supercenter gave the barefoot young man with the silvery hair, dressed in a shirt three sizes too big and pair of pants so large they were held up by a length of cord, a second look. Forty-five minutes later, he walked out with a pair of cowboy boots, jeans, a couple of flannel shirts and a denim jacket, and flowered print dress for Rosie, although he had to guess her size, since she was still unconscious.
An hour later, the ulfr turned around and peered into the backseat and began to whine. A few moments later, Skinner heard Rosie groan. As his eyes checked the rearview mirror, he saw her sit up.
“Wh-where am I?”
“You’re in a 1959 Cadillac, headed west.”
She rubbed at her puffy, swollen eyes and frowned at the back of Skinner’s head. “Who are you?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“I remember plenty,” Rosie said bitterly. “But I don’t recall you.”
“We met at your grandmother’s house.”
He could see her looking at him in the rear-view, and his heart leapt as their reflected gazes met. “I’m sorry I pointed my gun at you. I thought you were just another vargr trying to get Root Woman to lead you to my people.”
Skinner wanted to ask her some more questions, but before he could, Rosie rolled down the window and stuck her head outside, so she could be loudly and violently sick. The ulfr thought this was an excellent idea and, using its prehensile thumb, rolled down its own window as well.
It was going to be one hell of a road trip.
Skinner pulled into a tiny off-brand motel in Tuba City later that same night. He registered using the name from one of the myriad credit cards he’d found in the glove box. As he signed the register, the motel manager squinted in the direction of the Caddy parked outside the office door.
“We don’t allow pets in the rooms, mister. You’re going to have to put your dog in the kennel overnight.”
“Dog?” Skinner turned around to see the ulfr sitting in the front seat. In the poor light, it could almost pass for a particularly large German Shepherd. “Oh! The dog! He’s so much a part of the family I forget he’s not, you know, not human.”
The desk clerk smiled and nodded. “My wife’s the same way with her Chihuahua. The kennel is located behind the motel, near the swimming pool. Here’s the master key; it’ll unlock any of the three pens. I hope you and your wife have a pleasant stay.”
“Look, I don’t like this any more than you do,” Skinner whispered. He squatted down so that he was eye level with the ulfr, ruffling the thick fur about its neck as he spoke. “Until we reach Rosie’s people, we’re all going to have to pretend we’re something we’re not. We can’t draw any attention to ourselves, do you understand?”
The ulfr whined and glanced toward the kennel, which consisted of a bare poured concrete slab surrounded by a six-foot-high hurricane fence and subdivided into three individual units four feet wide and eight feet deep.
“C’mon, fella,” Skinner said, touching the half wolf’s muzzle with his own nose. “It’s important.”
The ulfr whined again, licked Skinner’s face and, with a heavy sigh, walked into the pen.
“That’s a good fella!” Skinner said as he closed the door of the pen, smiling at his friend. “I’ll buy you a nice fresh T-bone tomorrow, to make up for it. How’s that sound?”
As he walked back toward his room, Skinner noticed a middle-age man lounging in an open doorway a couple of units down. The man’s suit was rumpled and his tie askew and he held a smoldering cigarette pinched between his fingers. Skinner guessed him to be the proverbial traveling salesman.
“You really got that dog of yours trained! I wish I could get my beagle to behave like that.”
“Yeah, well, it helps that he’s a really smart dog.”
“What’s his name?”
“Uh—Fella.”
“That’s a good, solid name for a dog that size. I can’t stand it when people name their dogs shit like Chloe and Nathan, like they’re their kids. So—what is he? I’ve never seen a dog that big before.”
“He’s half wolf.”
The salesman raised an eyebrow. “Really? Wow! Is he dangerous?”
“Not to me.”
Rosie was sitting cross-legged on the double bed nearest the wall, watching the television. She was wearing the dress he’d bought for her earlier that day. Her hair was freshly washed and fanned across her shoulders to dry. The bruises had vanished from her face, but she still looked pale, despite her natural complexion.
“You feeling okay?” he asked solicitously.
“I feel a lot better than I did. Thanks for getting me out of there. That was very brave of you.”
“It was just the way I was raised,” he explained. “If someone’s in trouble, you try to help them.”
“I see. And what about the ulfr?”
“He’s my friend. I freed him from a trap on the lodge grounds, and he saved my bacon when I was trying to rescue you.”
Rosie barked a tiny laugh. “You are a strange vargr! Do you always go out of your way to help others?”
Skinner felt his cheeks color. “Is it so strange for a vargr to show compassion?”
“To something besides a fellow vargr? I think you already know the answer to that question.”
“So, tell me—why do the vargr hate your people so?”
“They don’t hate us; they fear us because we still have our magic.” When she saw the look of confusion on his face, she smiled apologetically. “There is a story among my people that a long time ago, all of the shifting kind possessed magic. The coyotero had coyote magic, the kitsune had fox magic, and the berskirs had bear magic, and so on.
“But the vargr spent so much time imitating humans and infiltrating their society, they lost their wolf-magic, and with it their connection to the Wild. They still possess some artifacts from the time of the wolf-wizards, such as that cane you stole. But they are incapable of manipulating the power locked within it. Over the centuries they have become increasingly resentful of those of us who still possess our magic.”
“Then it wasn’t just my imagination!” Skinner exclaimed. “There really is some kind of weird power connected to that stick.”
Rosie narrowed her eyes. “You sensed magic in the Wolfcane?”
�
��Sensed it? Hell, I saw it!”
“What did it look like?”
“Like blue fire. And I saw—naw, you’ll think I’m nuts.”
“No. Go on. Tell me.”
“It was a giant wolf. Its eyes were full of fire, and it spoke to me.…”
“What did it say?”
“It didn’t actually speak in words, per se, but more in pictures. Something about the return of the Great Extinction. Do you know what it might have been?”
“From what you’re described, you were given a vision by the totem-spirit of the vargr. Only shamans receive such visitations.”
“What’s a shaman?”
“They’re a cross between wise men and wizards. Some call them medicine men.”
“Wise man? That counts me out!” Skinner snorted.
“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Rosie said, looking at him as if his flesh had suddenly turned to glass, revealing secrets he knew nothing about.
“Look, I’m just getting used to the idea of being a werewolf. Now you start talking about shamans and visions and totems. Deep down I’m still a poor farm boy from Arkansas trying to make sense of the insanity that’s taken over my life.”
“Did you have strange dreams as a child? Dreams where you saw what would come to pass?”
“Sure, I had weird dreams as a kid. And I knew there was something different about me. But I had no idea I wasn’t human, for the love of God! I’ll admit that I’ve never really cared for the vast majority of people I’ve met, but I don’t hate humans! Most of the people I’ve really cared for in my life were humans. The people who raised me—the ones I called mother and father—were generous and loving parents.” Skinner’s throat was suddenly very tight, and he had to swallow to keep speaking. “My mother even continued to love and protect me, though she had every reason to condemn me as a monster! She allowed me to grow up innocent of my heritage and my sin, without letting her knowledge affect her love for me.”
Rosie uncoiled her legs as she turned off the television set with the remote control. She smiled sadly for a moment. “She sounds like an incredible woman.”
“She was. And I miss her more than ever now. But what about the coyotero? How are they different from the vargr?”
“There are several differences between our races. The coyotero are, by nature, physically smaller than vargr. And while coyotero have been known to dine on human flesh now and again, we prefer wild game. And, unlike the vargr, when a coyotero bitch mates, she does so for life. But perhaps our greatest difference is that we do not share the vargr allergy to silver.” Rose fell silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her cheeks were flushed. “There is a ritual among the coyotero. When someone does us a great favor, such as you have done for me, it is traditional for the coyotero to tell that person its secret name. My name is Desert Rose.”
“It’s a lovely name. My real name is Skinwalker.”
“That is a fine name,” she said as she rose from the bed. She stepped forward as he stood to meet her, each dropping their human skin.
She was smaller and slighter than he was, and her muzzle narrower and pointier. Her pelt was light brown, and her three sets of teats were small and firm, the nipples already erect.
She nuzzled his shoulder as he licked her ear, then her muzzle. She felt so warm and fragile. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and protect her from everything cruel and harmful in the world. Her fur smelled of wilderness and open sky, and when he looked into her eyes, he saw desert sunsets and evening campfires. And he saw himself at her side. Forever.
When he mounted her, it was unlike anything he had experienced before. It wasn’t rape or blind, instinctual rutting, but genuine lovemaking. Rosie whimpered like an unweaned cub as she climaxed, chewing her pillow to shreds. When it was over they lay atop the covers, idly licking each other’s fur and rubbing their muzzles against one another. They fell asleep huddled together like sled dogs in high winter.
Later that night, William Cade stepped out of the empty closet of the motel room and moved to the foot of the bed where his son slept, wrapped in the arms of his lover. Skinner sat up and stared at the man he called father.
It pained him to look at William Cade’s wounds, knowing now that he was responsible for them, but there was no reproach in the dead man’s eyes. His father silently unbuttoned his blood-stained flannel shirt, exposing a gaping hole in his chest. He reached into the cavity and removed his heart, holding it out to Skinner as if he were offering him a box of Valentine’s Day chocolates.
Skinner took his father’s heart and held it in his hands. It was still beating. He looked up at his father, who merely smiled and nodded. He then opened his jaws and swallowed the heart in one gulp. It slid down his throat, lodging in his chest—where it belonged.
“My, aren’t we cozy.”
Skinner started awake to find himself looking into a pair of blood red eyes. Rend knelt over him, one hand clamped about his throat.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Skin,” the werewolf snarled. “I take you in when you had nowhere to go, and how do you repay me?”
Rosie raised her head. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?” Her eyes widened in alarm upon seeing Rend.
“Make another move, bitch, and I’ll snap your boyfriend’s head off and use it for a maraca,” he growled, and then returned his attention to Skinner. “You’re dead meat, cuz. And if I don’t want to end up the same way, I have to bring back your ears—with the rest of your head attached, of course. It was bad enough you put Jag’s eye out and gave Jez the brush-off, but making off with the Wolfcane was just one step beyond, you know?”
“Rend—You don’t understand. The cane wanted me to take it. Treating humans like cattle, exterminating esau and ulfr like vermin, warring with the coyotero is a perversion of the vargr way. That’s why you can no longer work the wolf-magic. You know it, deep down, even if you won’t come out and admit it!”
“You’re talking crazy, cuz,” Rend growled as he tightened his grip on Skinner’s throat. “You’ve gone lone wolf.”
Skinner surged upward, clawing at Rend’s face. The other werewolf fell backward, pulling Skinner onto the floor, where they rolled about snarling and ripping at one another with their talons. Rend abruptly shrieked as Rosie leapt onto his back, biting off his right ear with a single snap of her jaws. Staggering to his feet, he tried to rid himself of his unwanted passenger by smashing against the room’s sparse furnishings, but to no avail. The were-coyote refused to be unseated and continued worrying at his exposed neck and shoulders. Skinner swiped at Rend’s fetlocks as he lurched past where he lay on the floor and the werewolf cried out again, collapsing onto his knees.
Skinner got to his feet, shaking the blood from his coat. Rosie joined him, licking her paws. Rend lay sprawled on the carpet, glowering up at them as he clutched his hamstrung legs.
“Go ahead. Kill me,” he growled. “What are you waiting for? Finish it!”
Skinner shook his head. “I’m not going to kill you, Rend,” he sighed. “Despite everything, you’re still my friend, Rend.”
“Some friend!” the werewolf spat. “You’re condemning me to death! Lady Melusine and Lord Feral will see to it that I’m drawn and quartered, then flayed alive before they get around to killing me!”
“That isn’t the true way of the vargr—it’s what the vargr have allowed them selves to become! You don’t have to return to the Pack, you can come with us.”
Rend barked a derisive laugh. “You really think I can turn my back on the Pack and simply walk away? You think it’s that easy?”
“You’re not an animal, Rend! You existed long before you knew about the Pack, didn’t you?”
“Yes, as a serial killer who preyed on closet cases looking for rough trade. Is that what you want me to return to?”
“You don’t have to be a monster, Rend,” Skinner said gently. “You just have to want better for yourself and believe your deserve it.”
T
he sneer disappeared from Rend’s face and he looked at Skinner as if he were seeing him for the time. “Do you honestly believe I can tame the beast inside me?”
“It’s always easier to be cruel than kind, and to place your needs above all others—especially when you can commit any atrocity without repercussions. But if humans can conquer their baser instincts, why not vargr? Is that too incredible to imagine?”
Rend laughed and shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a fool, albeit a holy one.”
“Then you’ll come with us?” Skinner asked hopefully.
“It’s too late for me to change,” Rend replied, shaking his head. “As fucked-up and imperfect as it sounds, the Pack is the only real family I have. I can’t abandon it.”
“They’re going to kill you, Rend! Does that sound like ‘family’ to you?”
“Yeah, it does,” the werewolf said with a bitter laugh.
Suddenly there came a pounding on the door. “Hey! What the fuck’s goin’ on in there?” Skinner recognized the irate voice as belonging to the traveling salesman. “It’s fucking three in the morning! I’m tryin’ to get some sleep!”
Skinner quickly shifted back into his human skin and snatched up a towel, which he wrapped about his waist. Rend used the distraction to push past Rosie and dive for the door. Although his hamstrings weren’t completely regenerated, he was still able to throw open the door and escape on all fours.
“What the hell—?” the salesman yelped, turning to gape after the fleeing shape as it disappeared into the darkness.
“I thought you only had the one dog?”
“I do.”
“Then what the hell was that? It damn near knocked me down!”
Before Skinner could reply, the Rosie abruptly stepped out from behind the door, dressed in nothing but his flannel shirt.
“You did not see anything,” she said, her voice as sharp as struck flint. “You did not hear anything. You slept the whole night through. Now go back to bed.”
The salesman blinked and his eyelids began to droop. Yawning, he turned and shuffled back to his room.
“How’d you pull that off?” Skinner asked as he shut the door.
Wild Blood Page 16
