by Patti Larsen
I stare at her, mouth watering, stomach heaving. I have no idea how to answer her.
The tension in me breaks as I feel him enter, turning to see Sage join us. He’s dressed in fresh clothes, too, T-shirt and shorts, and looks far calmer than I feel. I can’t help but stare at him as he crosses toward me, Tallah and Anna’s questions circling in my head. What is Sage? And could it be the laws demanding his death are no longer necessary?
But no, the other revenants, the ones in Europe…I’m so confused, my heart pounding, the entirety of what I was raised to believe a mushy mess in my head.
Sage joins me without a clue to my state, sitting between Tallah and me after brief introductions, devouring the giant plate of sausage and pancakes Anna places before him. She continues to cook as I force myself to finish my meal. Anna’s eyes widen as Sage just goes on eating.
“Your appetite will level off eventually,” I say. And stop myself. Since when did I start thinking of Sage as a werewolf? He has the appetite of a pubescent, their voraciousness legendary. But he’s not, he’s a revenant. This isn’t going to be permanent. And yet, the conversation I just had, the memory of the one in Ukraine with Iosif, makes me pause again.
He grins at me around a slice of toast, no clue what’s going on in my aching head. “Hope so,” he says.
I turn then to Tallah and ask her, point blank, what I need to know. “The Enforcers?”
She sighs, sets her coffee down. “I’m not fully in line with the Council’s plans these days.” Her frown, mirrored by Anna’s, makes me nervous. What’s happening? Should I know about it? Does Syd? I shake off those questions. Not only am I not Syd’s bodywere any longer, I have other things to worry about.
Tallah goes on. “I’ve been ordered to turn you over,” she says, “if you’re spotted by my family.” Her nose wrinkles again, an adorable affectation. “You must know the North American Council has decided to cooperate with the demands of the werenation that you be returned to them for punishment.”
I knew this already, but hearing her say it still freezes me in place, breath catching in my chest. Even Sage stops mid-bite. Until Tallah smiles at me.
“Silly,” she says. “In case you haven’t figured things out already, I’ve decided,” she returns to her coffee with a casual air, “to ignore that order. You’re both safe with me.”
***
Chapter Twenty Three
I tell Tallah everything I can remember, doing my best to order my thoughts, wandering from time to time, though Sage is wonderful at bringing me back. So much has happened in the last week, I can barely believe it’s only been such a short stretch.
When I touch on the Rupe sighting and my worries about the Brotherhood, Tallah mirrors my concern.
“We’ve been careful as a council to watch for any appearances of the Brotherhood and Belaisle,” she says, leaning toward me, coffee long cold and forgotten by her elbow. “I’ll be very disappointed in myself if we’ve missed their return.”
“Considering their slippery nature,” I say, “it’s hardly your fault, Tallah.”
She just shakes her head. “Have you seen Liander himself?”
It’s my turn to for denial. “Just Rupe,” I say. “Though there are sorcerers at work here, that much is obvious.” Isabelle’s problems with tracking Sage tell me that much.
Tallah is frowning, though not in anger. “It’s possible Rupe is working on his own, then,” she says. “If Liander hasn’t made himself known.”
I find that idea highly unlikely, but I can’t discount it. “Maybe,” I say, knowing I sound dubious.
Tallah reaches forward and squeezes my hand. “I’m not doubting you,” she says, “or minimizing your concern. Not in the least. In fact, I’m even more worried now. If Rupe is working with Belaisle and the Brotherhood, this is a good thing.” She pulls back, tight grin growing on her lovely face. “With warning they’ve risen, we can do more to pin them down.”
“But if Rupe is on his own?” I see the complication possibilities even as Tallah speaks.
“That means he’s branched off,” the coven leader says, returning to grim unhappiness. “And we have a different batch of sorcerers to worry about.”
“I want to know why he tried to kidnap me.” Sage leans into me. “In the hospital.”
“That’s the biggest question of all.” I focus on Tallah. “If Rupe is able to make revenants like Caine and his pack, then why is he creating disasters and scattering them around northern Europe?” That same query has haunted me for days.
Tallah nods slowly. “I think you’re building an excellent case against Rupe working with the Brotherhood,” she says. I frown at her, but hold my tongue as she goes on. She looks distant, as though her mind is elsewhere, but she continues to speak so I let her work it out without interruption. “If Rupe is making revenants, in line with the Brotherhood, that suggests Belaisle is part of the process.” She snaps her fingers. “But if Rupe is on his own, it explains the mess he’s making in Europe, doesn’t it?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure I follow.”
Tallah grins, shrugs. “Sorry,” she says. “Shenka used to tease me about my mental leaps.” She focuses on me with a tense smile. “Here’s where my head went. Rupe used to work with Belaisle, we know that for certain.” I nod while Sage prods me.
“Who?” He looks back and forth between us.
I almost shush him, but he frowns at me.
“This is my life we’re talking about,” he says. “I think I deserve to know the full story. At least enough to follow along and not feel like an idiot.”
I squeeze his hand in sudden regret. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Liander Belaisle is the leader—or was—of a group of sorcerers.”
Sage nods. “The Brotherhood.”
Tallah salutes him with her mug. “Correct,” she says. “And his henchman is—”
“Rupe,” Sage says, now grinning himself.
“Also correct,” Tallah says. “A young and troublesome sorcerer who betrayed Syd, I believe.”
I shrug off that comment. “Go on,” I say.
Sage looks like he wants to protest and I know he has little information, but there will, hopefully, be lots of time later to fill him in. Tallah looks back and forth between us before refilling her coffee cup.
“So, Rupe’s allegiance is to Belaisle,” Tallah says. “Or was when Syd defeated him at the battle at the stronghold.” Sage opens his mouth but I stomp on his foot and he goes silent with a frown of irritation.
“Exactly,” I say. “So what are you thinking?”
“There’s nothing to say Rupe still works for Belaisle,” Tallah says. “In fact, it’s possible the whole Brotherhood did fall apart after the defeat.” Masses of sorcerers abandoned the cause, it’s true, though I never fully trusted their exodus. “Rupe might have been Belaisle’s boy in the beginning, but if things went south, what’s to say Rupe didn’t decide to cut his losses and make his own way?”
I nod. “All right,” I say. “I’ll buy that.”
Anna rolls her eyes as she rejoins us. “Thousands wouldn’t,” she says as she winks at her leader.
Tallah softly smacks her arm. “I’m eternally tortured for my musings,” she says. “So this is the final piece, then, Charlotte. What if it was Belaisle who created Caine and his pack?” Her eyes lift to mine, shifting out of glee and into speculation. She snaps her fingers at me. “After Rupe jumped ship?”
I stare at her as my mind churns.
“Consider this,” Tallah says. “Belaisle is weak and has lost control of his people. He needs some kind of army or something to rebuild his base of power.” Tallah’s dark eyes glisten as she races on. “He figures out how to make werewolves again. Maybe he finds the process the Black Souls used, or maybe he makes it up himself.” Her coffee sloshes as her excitement rises. “He’s had lots of time to work things out, hasn’t he? Years now.”
My stomach wants to reject the breakfast I’ve eaten. “A new m
aster,” I say.
She shrugs. “Not for your people,” Tallah says. “You’re already free.” I try to accept that so my mind won’t explode in worry. “But for a new breed of werewolves, it’s possible. More than possible. Highly likely.”
“So you’re saying this Rupe fellow stole the idea from his former boss?” Sage is clearly listening better than I am.
Tallah nods enthusiastically. “Precisely,” she says. “It makes total sense. The revenants in Europe—”
“And here,” I say, remembering the hunters in Arizona.
Tallah pales, dark skin ashen a moment. “First I heard,” she says.
I wave her on.
She does so, with less passion. “All his attempt to recreate what Belaisle did.”
“Where did he get what he needed to start the process?” Sage looks at me with open curiosity while my heart bleeds.
“He must have kidnapped a werewolf,” Tallah and I say at exactly the same time. She nods. “One bite from a full-born werewolf to a normal creates a revenant.”
Sage doesn’t comment again, so Tallah goes on. “He figures it out through trial and error, ends up with Caine and his pack. They’re not perfect, since you said you can still sense revenant on them, but they are functional and have magic.”
I nod. “Sorcery,” I say. “He has to have tapped into their innate sorcery and used it to transform them, triggering the elemental magicks other werewolves use.” Fire and earth, namely.
Tallah’s hands skim over the smooth surface of the table, palms down. “But he abandons the project, for whatever reason, and Rupe in the process.”
But why? We have less information than I would like to be speculating like this, and no proof whatsoever Tallah is right.
Tallah seems to agree with me, her frown returning. “I wish we knew more,” she says. “But there has to be a reason Rupe is on his own, if he’s splintered free of Belaisle.”
“Maybe an internal division?” Sage shrugs as we stare at him. “Happens all the time in big business. People branch off and start their own thing, right?”
The only way I can see Belaisle would let Rupe go is if the younger sorcerer killed him. Not an unpleasant thought. I’ve never wished such ill on anyone as I do Liander Belaisle. Except for Andre Dumont.
“Okay, so here’s Rupe, young and ambitious,” Tallah says, excitement of the story rising in her eyes, “decides to stick it to Belaisle and take his handful of buddies elsewhere to plot world domination or whatever else he has in mind.”
I’m following her. “He realizes he needs an army himself,” I say, “especially if he finds out Belaisle is building one. A controllable force if he’s going to defeat his enemies. Or take control from Belaisle.”
Tallah grins. “Exactly. And what better model than the werewolves?”
What better model, indeed.
“Only one problem,” Tallah says. “He knows Belaisle has done it, made revenants who aren’t insane. But he doesn’t know how his former leader accomplished it.”
“Which is why he’s experimenting,” I say, nodding. “But is he working with Caine and the others?”
“Possibly,” Tallah says. “This smacks of Belaisle disappearing, going missing.” She’s hesitant, but continues her line of thought. “It could be Rupe has already killed him and taken over the Brotherhood. Which means Caine and his pack are now loyal to Rupe by default.”
I can’t imagine someone as wily as Belaisle falling to someone like Rupe. But odder things have happened.
Tallah sits back with a sigh. “This is all well and good, in theory,” she says, “but without proof, we’re singing in the wind.”
I nod, glum all over again. “What about the Steam Union?” Didn’t Piers say there was a branch here in California? Maybe they can help where my friend’s branch won’t. He’s already told me as much. But an independent group might be more pliable.
Tallah doesn’t look optimistic. “We’ve been trying to contact them,” she says. “We know they are here. But they run from us every time we get close and refuse to connect.” She shrugs. “Piers has been trying to help us. In fact, that’s how we knew to keep an eye out for you. He told me you were heading this way.”
I knew it. My guilt about him and his part in this makes me sad. “Is he in much trouble?”
Tallah laughs. “Don’t worry about Piers Southway,” she says. “He’s in hot water with his mother and Femke, but you know he’ll come out the other side smelling like a rose.”
I allowed her good humor to ease my conscience. “And werewolves?” Surely, she and her coven heard hints of a pack here. “Are there any in the area?” It would take me some time to cover enough ground to find hints of others like me.
Anna looks uncomfortable. “We thought so,” she says. “About two years ago. They showed up out of the blue and then they were gone. So fast I doubted they were here at all.”
Tallah pats her hand. “We went looking, thinking they might be some of your family trying to relocate, wanted to make them feel welcome. But we couldn’t find a trace.”
“That has to be Caine’s pack.” Now I’m excited.
She nods. “I can only assume that’s the case.”
“Which means,” I say, “if Belaisle was the one who created Caine and his pack, he is—or was—here in California.” And he’s the sorcerer I need to find to gain the cure for Sage. Now there’s a troubling thought. What if Tallah is right and Rupe really has killed his former master? That would mean no cure since, so far, Rupe has been unable to make revenants who don’t devolve.
“And that Rupe wants Sage because he’s the first successful new werewolf he’s created,” Tallah says.
That shuts us all up. I listen to the breeze, the call of sea birds through the open door and try to figure out what to do next. “Can you tell me where the pack was supposed to hold territory?”
Anna nods quickly. “Of course,” she says. “But there’s more.”
Tallah grimaces. “We don’t know if this is connected,” she says, as if it’s an old argument.
“With all we’ve discovered and posited,” Anna says, “it makes sense, Tal.”
Tallah nods. “Go ahead.”
I lean in, Sage at my side, as Anna speaks.
“Just prior to the werewolf pack appearing,” she says, “there was a string of missing person reports. Mostly from the street community, but more widespread than anything Los Angeles has ever seen.”
“You think they might have been test subjects?” I shudder at Sage’s casual question.
“Possibly,” Anna says. “And then, an entire biker gang disappeared. It was huge news, because the leader was well-known and feared in the community.”
“Do you have a photo?” If it’s who I hope it is, we have proof. She holds out her hands, projecting a holographic image of a newspaper front page. The LA Times shows me the grinning, arrogant face of Cicero Caine.
Sage speaks up before I can. “That’s him.” He’s paled, hand going to his shoulder on reflex.
“So, now we know,” Tallah says. “You have proof he was human.”
He changed his name, took his whole gang with him, turned to werewolf revenants.
“We have to get this information to my grandfather.” Oleksander wants proof. Now he has it. That part of my task is done. I still have a cure to find—if there is one—but at least my grandfather will be able to move against Caine and his pack.
Tallah turns to Anna who closes her hands, shutting off the hologram. “I’ll make sure Oleksander has this information immediately,” she says. “And with pleasure.”
***
Chapter Twenty Four
Tallah has just finished speaking when the air beside me ripples, turns black. I leap to my feet, but not out of fear. The moment Piers strides through, I throw myself into his arms and hug him to me.
“You idiot,” I whisper in his ear before leaning back and hitting him hard in the shoulder. He rolls with the punch, letting
out a squeak of protest while I hug him again. “What are you doing here?”
Piers grins at me when I finally let him go. “Figured I’m in enough trouble already, a little more won’t make much difference.” He raises his gray eyes to wink at Tallah and Anna. “Ladies.” His tall body bends in a half bow. They both wave a little while he turns to Sage. His eyes tighten around the corners, but his ever-present grin remains. “Wolf boy.”
Sage snarls, but when I turn, I see the startled look on his face. His wolf reacts before he can stop it. “Piers,” Sage says, far more civil than his previous greeting.
Wait, Piers is here. We’ve been down this road before, and with dangerous results. “Your mother will track you here.” I spin back on him, panic returning. “You have to go.” I don’t want him to leave. Having people around who care, who understand, it feels like being part of a pack again. But if his presence will bring Enforcers, I have to send him away.
“She won’t,” he says, grim bitterness flaring a moment before it disappears behind his enigmatic smile. “In fact, I’ve seen to it my mother will never again be able to use me against anyone. Ever.”
I stare in shock. “What are you talking about?” He’s Steam Union. She’s his leader. There’s no alternative to doing her ultimate bidding. Unless.
Oh, Piers.
“You see,” he says, booping me on the nose with one thin finger, “I’ve made a life decision, a change of fate, if you will.” His grand delivery of his lines could come from a well-practiced play. A tragedy, though he tries for comedy. “After a brief, yet enlightening, conversation with dear Mummy, I’ve chosen to cut myself off from the Steam Union and sever my association once and for all.”
“You what?” Another punch finds his shoulder, this one without power behind it, my strength stolen by my shock. “You’re insane.” The Steam Union is his life.
“No,” he says, “disillusioned and unwilling to follow a stubborn leader who can’t see past her fears and self-centered need to control everything.” He tosses his white-blond hair, the ponytail bouncing over his shoulder. “About time I left,” he adds with an arrogant sniff. “I’ve long railed against the narrow-minded ways of the Steam Union. Just ask Syd.” He winks at me, though there is pain far behind his eyes. This has cost him far more than he’s willing to admit. “Thanks to my mother’s unwillingness to listen to reason yet again, I could follow no other course of action but to release myself from her influence.”
