Ravensong

by TJ Klune

  Carter looked stricken as his blue eyes changed color.

  Orange.

  Only orange, as bright as always.

  Joe sighed. “Ox, let him up.”

  Ox stepped off him, but not before he leaned down and pressed his nose into Carter’s neck, a pulse of brother home safe home rolling through the threads. Carter curled into a ball on the ground, a wounded noise pouring from his throat. Kelly was at his side a moment later, putting a hand in Carter’s hair, whispering in his ear, telling him it was fine, everything was fine, it would be okay, Carter, I’m here, I swear I’m not mad. I’m not going to leave you, we’re gonna be okay.

  Robbie looked as if he was going to go to them, but Elizabeth stopped him, a hand wrapped around his wrist. She shook her head when he looked back at her. “Let them be,” she said quietly.

  Robbie nodded but turned back toward them, shoulders tense.

  “What the hell was that?” Rico whispered.

  “Dunno,” Tanner said. “Do you think…?”

  “Does it happen that fast?” Chris asked. “I thought it was supposed to take weeks. Maybe it’s the full moon?”

  “Would you idiots be quiet?” Jessie hissed. “They can hear you.”

  “Right,” Rico said. “Sorry about that. We’ll just stand here silently, watching as two naked brothers lay on each other and cry. Aye. My life.”

  “CAN WE beat this?”

  I needed to hear it from her. I needed her to say yes. I needed her to tell me so that I could be brave.

  Elizabeth didn’t look at me. “I don’t know. If anyone can, I would expect it to be us. But sometimes strength isn’t enough. We need to prepare. Just in case.” Her voice broke at the end.

  I wanted to give her promises I knew I couldn’t keep.

  But I couldn’t find the words.

  I left her standing in the kitchen.

  I REACHED out to some old contacts. Witches without packs, as I couldn’t trust those with wolves. Not when I didn’t know what Michelle was capable of.

  Abel had told me once the moon had missed her love. That the wolves came to be because of that. That witches were created due to a last-ditch effort to stop the sun from burning those who sang to her.

  It was bullshit, of course.

  Once, when magic flourished, there were more of us. Magic hadn’t yet begun to fade, dying out with each passing generation. Covens existed, groups of witches that numbered in the dozens. Some were good. Some were not. Most of them burned.

  There were still some of us left. They were older, far older than I.

  The old witch by the sea had been one of them. He, too, had been part of a pack once. He, too, had loved a wolf. He would have been my first call, if not for his heart stopping the moment we’d left. I remembered what he’d seen in the bones.

  You will be tested, Gordo Livingstone. In ways that you haven’t yet imagined. One day, and one day soon, you will have to make a choice. And I fear the future of all you hold dear will depend on that choice.

  I still didn’t know what he’d meant. But it felt like it was happening now.

  There was a woman in the north. She was borderline cliché, cauldrons bubbling, hunched over spell books that were more often bullshit than real. She claimed to speak with those who had crossed over from this life, though I didn’t think she could be believed.

  “Does she live in a broken-down cabin in the middle of the woods?” Rico asked me. “Like, eating children and shit? Is that offensive to witches? Are you offended? I’m sorry if you’re offended.”

  “Aileen lives in an apartment in Minneapolis,” I said.

  “Oh. That’s… disappointing.”

  “Livingstone,” she said, her voice crackling through the phone. “I wish I could say that this was a surprise.”

  “I need your help.”

  Aileen laughed until it shattered into a dry cough that stretched on what seemed like ages. “Damn cigarettes,” she finally managed to say. “Quit smoking, boyo. You’ll regret it eventually, what they do to you. That I promise.”

  I ground out my cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.

  She knew nothing. She’d never even heard of tethers broken from the outside. “I’ll look,” she said, but she sounded apologetic. “See what I can see. Put some feelers out there. You hang in there, boyo.”

  “Have you—”

  “No. No, Gordo. I haven’t heard anything about your father. But….”

  “But?”

  “There are whispers.”

  “I don’t have time for you to be vague, Aileen.”

  “Bite your tongue, Gordo, lest I hex it from your mouth.”

  I sighed.

  “There’s movement.”

  I closed my eyes. “Witches.”

  “And wolves.”

  “Heading our way?”

  “I don’t know. But now that you’ve told me what you have, I wouldn’t be surprised. This feels… different. Things are changing, boyo.”

  “Shit.”

  She coughed again. “You always had a way with words. Watch yourself. And your pack. I’ll do what I can.”

  THERE WAS a man in New Orleans. He had albinism, his skin preternaturally white. His hair was a pale red. Dark, rusty freckles across his face. His voice was smooth jazz and warm whiskey. He practiced white voodoo, his magic sharp and filled with rough edges. He was a healer, and a powerful one at that. “Pauve ti bête,” Patrice said quietly. “Dat’s all dey got. Dem tethers.”

  “I know,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “But it’s always been more with you Bennetts. Something extra. Why is dat, you tink?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Nothing about us was normal.

  “You gotta reinforce dose tethers, Gordo. Dey gotta be strong. Ou konprann? Even when all seems dark, dey need to rememba what dey have.”

  “There’s nothing—”

  He snorted. “Dose wolves. In Maine. Dey tink dey know all. Dey tink dere way is da only way. It’s not. Dere is more. So much more. We exist, little witch, to maintain da balance. Your place, your… Green Creek.”

  “It’s different,” I said quietly.

  “Oh yeah. Big big. Maybe da only place left in da world like it. Who wouldn’t want dat?”

  The thought sent a chill down my spine. “My father—”

  “Isn’t you,” Patrice snapped. “He made his choice. You made yours.”

  “The choice was made for me.”

  “Lies. Did you fight for what was yours? Or did you let da wolves do what dey wished?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Thomas Bennett was a good Alpha,” he said. “But he made mistakes. He should’ve fought for you more den he did. You must now decide what he could not. What your daddy didn’t understand. You must decide to fight, Gordo. And what you’re willing ta do. What you’re capable of.”

  “I don’t know how to stop this,” I admitted.

  “Don’t know either. I’ll look. I’ll pray, Gordo. On my end. But you must do all you can. Yon sèl lang se janm ase. One language is never enough. We need dem. Dey need us. The wolves. Never forget dat.”

  If only my father and mother had thought the same.

  “BREATHE,” OX said in the clearing, Carter sitting across from him in the grass. His legs were crossed, his eyes closed. Hands on his knees. He looked tired. Lines of purple under his eyes. It felt blue and bleak. “What do you hear?”

  “The trees. The birds.”

  “What do you feel?”

  “The grass. The wind.”

  “This is your territory.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were made to be here. It was made for you.”

  Carter whispered, “Yes.”

  “Your tether,” Ox said gently. “What is it?”

  Carter was struggling. His throat worked. His fingers dug into his jeans. His breath was a thick plume pouring from his mouth. The air was bracingly cold, and I shivered.

  �
��Kelly,” he finally said.

  “Why?” Ox asked.

  “Because he’s my brother. Because I’m his protector. Because I love him. He keeps me sane. He keeps me whole. He’s not like Joe. He’s not meant to be an Alpha. Kelly’s not as strong as him. He needs me. I need him.”

  “And he’s there, still?”

  Carter nodded tightly. “Still.”

  But even I could see it was beginning to fray.

  “IT’S PACK,” Ox said, watching Carter flee through the trees.

  I waited.

  “For me.” He stared up at the sky. That frozen ice smell in the air was stronger still. The snow was coming. “Like it was for Thomas. It’s my pack.”

  I wasn’t surprised. “He’s struggling. Already.”

  “I know. That doesn’t mean he’s weaker.”

  “He can’t shift, Ox. If what Michelle said was true, then it makes it worse.” I swallowed thickly. “Mark either. He can’t—you have to tell them.”

  “Full moon’s coming. What then? They won’t have a choice.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He smiled faintly. “He’ll need you. Now more than ever.”

  I hung my head. “You know?”

  “About you being his tether? Yes. I know.”

  I sucked in a breath. “What if—Ox, I’m not enough. For him. It—”

  “You are enough,” Ox said quietly. “Even if you don’t believe it yourself, you have a pack that believes it for you. And a wolf who will do anything to keep his tether safe.”

  “We have to fix this,” I said, sounding desperate. “We have to find a way to stop this from happening.”

  His eyes flared red. “Trust me. I’m just getting started.”

  I WATCHED Mark and Ox disappear into the woods.

  Behind me, I heard Robbie pleading into his phone. “Please, Alpha Hughes. Please call me back. We need help. You can’t just leave us like this. You can’t do this to us. Please. Please don’t do this to my family.”

  AS THE meager light began to fade outside, I walked down the stairs to the basement.

  Behind the line of silver stood a shifted Omega wolf.

  He snarled at the sight of me, smashing into the barrier again and again and again.

  Eventually he started to bleed.

  But he didn’t stop.

  LATER, AT home, I took a duffel bag out of the closet.

  I unzipped the secret pocket.

  Inside lay a wooden raven.

  I traced the wings with my finger.

  I set it on the nightstand next to the bed.

  I watched it for a very long time, waiting for sleep that would never come.

  THE SNOW began to fall just before midnight.

  storm

  “SON OF a bitch,” Chris said, wiping flakes of ice from his face. “This couldn’t have waited?”

  “We’re the only tow truck in town,” Rico reminded him, pushing himself up from a crouch. “And because this idiot decided to take the curve faster than he should have means we get to go out in the cold while everyone else is sitting in front of a fire and being warm and comfortable and probably sipping a nice brandy and—”

  “We get it,” I muttered, making sure the hook was fixed to the front of the car. We’d been at the Bennett house under lockdown, waiting for something to happen. Michelle’s warning of three days hadn’t yet passed, and Green Creek was buried under a near foot of snow with more coming down. I hated being reactive rather than proactive, but keeping our ears to the ground had revealed nothing. Michelle Hughes and Maine were silent. Philip Pappas was more wolf than man.

  I’d gotten a call from Jones—the cop at the motel—telling me some asshole had lost control of his car before smashing into a snowbank, crumpling the front fender into the tire. It’d been abandoned when Jones had come across it in his SUV while on patrol and had called me.

  Ox hadn’t been too happy about us leaving the safety of the Bennett house. I’d promised him we’d be careful. The wards were quiet. We’d know if they were breached. Whatever Michelle was planning we’d be ready for it. I thought the storm had come at the right time. Green Creek was essentially isolated now. Nobody could get in.

  Mark hadn’t been happy about us leaving either, if the look on his face had meant anything. But he hadn’t said a word, only reached out and touched my shoulder before disappearing farther into the house. The guys had teased me mercilessly about possessive wolves and scent marking.

  Assholes.

  I hadn’t had the courage to ask him yet what had happened with Dale, though I knew something had. I tried to tell myself it was none of my business. Or that it could wait. Or that it meant nothing.

  “Good?” Tanner called from the driver’s seat of the tow truck.

  “Yeah!” Chris shouted back. “Looks good.”

  The boom on the tow truck creaked as the winch whirred to life. The sedan rose, front end up toward the back of the truck.

  “Thanks, Gordo,” Jones said. Red and blue lights spun lazily behind him. “I know it sucks to be out here, but I didn’t want to take the chance of someone else coming around that corner and running into it.”

  “It’s fine,” I grunted as the car came to a stop. “We’ll get it to the shop and take care of it once the storm passes. You got a bead on the driver?”

  He shook his head. He looked troubled. “No. Couldn’t have been out here long. I passed through a few hours ago and it wasn’t there. Had to happen since then.”

  Rico and Chris glanced at each other. “Where’d the driver go?” Rico asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jones said. “Hopefully toward town, though everything is closed. It’d be just my luck if whoever it was hit their head at impact, then decided it’d be a good idea to go wandering out into the snow.”

  Chris let out a low whistle. “Human popsicle.”

  Jones sighed. “I’m supposed to be on vacation in a few days. I can kiss that goodbye if there’s a stiff out there. Just my luck.”

  “Run the plates?” I asked.

  “That’s the weird thing. Come look.” He jerked his head toward the back of the car.

  We followed him and—

  “No plates,” Rico said. “Huh. Maybe he… took them with him?”

  “He hit his head and then took his plates before he walked out into the storm?” Chris asked. “That’s a little weird.”

  “As weird as werewo—”

  “Rico,” I snapped.

  He coughed. “Right, boss. Sorry.”

  Jones looked at us curiously before shaking his head. “I looked for the plates before you got here, thinking maybe they got knocked off in the crash. But there’s nothing, not even any footprints. It’s fine, though. I can stop by the shop after the storm and get the VIN to run that. I’ll find out somehow.”

  “Unless that’s been shaved down,” Rico said cheerfully. “Maybe there’s a body in the trunk.”

  “I don’t like you,” Jones said, pointing a finger at Rico. “Vacation. First time in two years. Don’t fuck with me.”

  “Yes, Officer.”

  The radio on his shoulder crackled to life. Jones sighed. “No rest for the weary. You guys going to be all right getting this back to the shop? Need me to follow you in?”

  I waved him off. “We’ll take care of it. Call me if something else happens.”

  He nodded before turning back to his cruiser.

  We waved as he drove by us, honking his horn before heading toward town.

  “Weird, right?” Chris said, staring at the car. “You don’t think it’s—”

  “Let’s just get it to the shop,” I said, cutting him off. “I want to get back to the house before this storm gets any worse. Chris, with Tanner in the tow truck. Rico, with me.”

  “Move your asses!” Tanner bellowed. “I’m fucking cold.”

  We moved our asses.

  IT WAS slow going, getting back into Green Creek. The snow was coming down harder than I ever remembered
seeing it. The roads had been treated ahead of the storm, but it wasn’t doing much. Large drifts lined either side of the road. We followed the tow truck slowly, the light bar atop flashing bright yellow.

  Rico had his phone out, set up on the dashboard, speaker on, trying to continue the conversation he’d been having beforehand. “Baby,” he was saying. “Baby, listen to me. I swear I’m—”

  “I don’t care, Rico,” Bambi said, voice crackling through the phone. “You were supposed to come over here. But instead you tell me there’s a situation you have to handle and you won’t be in town for a couple of days. And when I ask you what situation, you tell me it’s top secret.”

  I turned slowly to look at him.

  He shrugged. “What was I supposed to say?” he muttered.

  “I heard that, Rico! Who are you talking to? Who is she? If you got some bitch pregnant, I swear to god, I will end you.”

  “Hi, Bambi,” I said, dry as dust. “Rico didn’t get me pregnant. I swear. And even if he tried, he’d end up knocked flat on his ass.”

  “Is that Gordo? Gordo, who is he screwing besides me?”

  “I told you I’m not screwing anyone but you!” Rico cried. “You know you’re my one and only.”

  “Like I believe that. You’re a smooth talker, Rico. I see how you flirt with women. You did it to me, after all.”

  “What can I say, mi amor. The ladies love me.”

  “Probably should have kept your mouth shut,” I told him.

  He winced as Bambi began to let him know what she thought about that. I tuned them out, staring at the tow truck ahead of us. The car hooked up to the boom was shaking slightly, bouncing on the road. We passed the sign welcoming us to Green Creek, mostly covered in snow. We hit Main Street, the shops closed up on either side of us, the windows frosted in ice. The neon lights of the diner were a beacon in the white. The only time I’d ever seen them off was after Ox’s mother died. The owner had shut the lights down for a couple of days to honor her, in his own way. I hadn’t known how I’d felt about that, but we’d been on the road shortly after and I’d forgotten about it until now. Memory was a funny thing.