“The key to the door?”
“Maybe later.”
“You’re awfully accommodating for someone who works for the Council,” she remarked.
“Ah, did I mention that one of my ancestors nearly ate Rudyard Kipling? My grandmother swears we’re the inspiration for Kaa. Had half of his leg down his gullet. Then the family interbred with snake weres from America, and I’m not sure what we are anymore. Python-rattlers or something equally mutated.”
His head suddenly came up, and he glanced to one side. “Time for me to move along. Listen up though. Things are happening quickly. I know you don’t trust me, but if I open this door, it will be because I have no other intention but to help you. I hope you remember that.”
The snake slithered down the hallway. Claire had never seen someone who looked like a human move so much like a reptile. A chill raced down her back.
“Did he bother you, Claire?” Taq’s voice came floating down the hallway.
“No,” Claire said. “In fact, I think he might be trying to be—” Trying to what? Warn her?
Chapter 5
They (bears) are not companions of men,
but children of gods… – John Muir
As time passed in an incremental manner, the conversations with Taq became more commonplace. However, there were times it was as if he was no longer in his cell. Sometimes she would call, and he would not answer. She had an inkling that the Council was doing something to him or perhaps an inkling that she was trusting his words too much. He was another prisoner. Another prisoner might do anything, betray anyone, in order to get away from this dank pit. But the brevity of the snake’s visits and the utter despair that overcame Claire when she thought of her sister alone in a distant silver-lined animal cage, made her a little reckless.
It was enough that she longed to hear Taq’s voice, she wanted the reassurance of his words.
Stupid, Claire told herself. She couldn’t tell when the days started and when the nights began. All she had were the times when the snake came by and dropped off food and water. She marked the visits on one wall with a broken bit of stone. Four marks. Then she crossed through the four with a fifth mark. The world had become desolation, and she had nothing to hang onto.
“What about you?” she asked Taq one day.
“What about me?”
“You’re down here for a reason. What is it?”
“You could say I had to come,” he said mysteriously.
“Forced to be locked in a cell,” she teased. “That seems rather convoluted.”
“Once there was a great hunter who trekked deep into the forest,” Taq said and Claire sighed. It wasn’t an impatient sigh. She liked the sound of his voice; she enjoyed the stories he told. She thought that by telling the stories, Taq was sharing something of himself. The stories were the clues. He didn’t sound like an Inuit, but he told stories like one.
“A hunter,” she breathed.
“A great hunter with a wonderful bow and quiver of arrows,” Taq corrected. “He went deep into the barren lands where the polar bear wanders, where the white fox plays, and the arctic rabbits bounce endlessly. He found a bear, a grizzly bear of giant stature, but the hunter was not afraid. He shot arrow after arrow into the bear, yet the bear did not fall. The bear simply ran away, finding a bit of forest to hide within.
“The persistent hunter continued his trek. He found the bear again and again and the bear was impressed by the hunter’s dedication. Finally the bear said, ‘You cannot kill me. I am a magic bear. Your arrows will not harm me.’ This bear, you see, was a bear god, the child of gods, and invulnerable to man’s weapons.”
Claire smiled to herself. Here was a story she had never heard before. The bear was telling a story about a magic bear. It was irony and amusement wrapped up in a neat package.
“So impressed with the hunter was the bear, that the bear said, ‘Come with me. I will not harm you. You may live with me in the mountains and always have a full belly.’ The hunter had never met a magic bear before and was thus persuaded.”
“He was too easy,” Claire commented.
“Hush,” Taq said, “if you met a magic bear, you would be thusly persuaded, too.” He paused a moment, and Claire kept her mouth shut. She wanted to hear what happened to the bear and the hunter. She really did. “So the bear led the hunter into the tall mountains. Mountains of ice and snow towered above them. He led them to a hole in a rock wall and said, ‘This is not my home, but there will be a council of all the magic bears, and it is important to know what is happening.’
“The hunter followed the bear inside the cave a long way. As the tunnel went into and under the mountain, it widened and became large enough for a stone village populated with dozens of bears. Brown bears, black bears, and giant white bears. The hugest bear of all was the great chief bear. They talked about scarcity of food and about which valleys had the best acorns and which rivers had the ripest salmon. They even discussed which inlets had the plumpest seals.
“After a while, one bear complained about the bad smell in the cave, and the bears looked at the hunter in the corner with the first magic bear. The chief bear told them, ‘It is only a stranger, and you should not be rude.’ Then the ceremonies began and they danced and sang and celebrated the lives of magic bears.”
Claire surreptitiously sniffed at herself. She smelled bad. She hadn’t had a bath for days. The wet wipes that the snake gave her were a godsend, but she’d give one of her arms for a hot shower and a bar of soap. Well, maybe not an arm. Perhaps a finger?
“So the first magic bear and the hunter left the cave the next day and went to the bear’s home, another cave some distance away. There the bear rubbed his belly and made enough blackberries and huckleberries and dried fish for them to survive through the winter. As the two made their home in the cave over the long winter, they played games with stones and told stories. Their friendship grew, but as spring approached, the magic bear became sad. ‘Soon, my friend,’ he told the hunter, ‘other humans will come and kill me. They will not kill you. But if you look back after I have died, you will see something.’”
“Oh, does the bear have to die?” Claire couldn’t help interrupting.
“Don’t spoil the story,” Taq admonished her gently. “The humans did come. They brought their dogs and hunted the magic bear into his cave. They killed the bear. Then they skinned him and took his meat. When they noticed the hunter in the back of the cave, they thought he was another bear at first, but it was only his long hair and beard that momentarily fooled them. They recognized him as the hunter who had gone missing a year before and invited him back to their camp. When the hunter left the cave, he looked back at where the bear had been killed. There in the blood and dirt was a movement. The magic bear rose from the gore and dust and became bear again, for he was invulnerable to man’s weapons. As I said before. The hunter did not want the humans to know the bear was magic, so he went with the humans back to the village and never saw the magic bear again.”
Claire shrugged to herself. “But the hunter lost his magic bear friend.”
“And became an animal shaman, who recognized that sacrifices must always be made for the good of the tribe.”
Claire thought about it. “But the magic bear lived.” She hadn’t missed the point of the story, but she felt somewhat petulant. It wasn’t exactly a happy story. Nor had the story about Sedna and her father been happy, but at least they hadn’t been skinned and their meat taken. She glanced at her fingers. Just her fingers cut off. And her father’s hands and feet chewed off by Sedna’s dogs.
Sacrifice. Claire didn’t like the sound of it. It meant that someone had to die. Someone always had to die.
* * *
Claire was tired. She didn’t sleep well in this place. Who could possibly sleep well in this place? She filled her time with jogging in place and doing pushups. She tried to remember the moves of tai chi her mother had taught her, but she hadn’t been a very good student of thin
gs that didn’t interest her. Taq would speak to her several times a day, and then other times he was mysteriously quiet. No one else but the snake came to see her. She nearly became desperate to escape the cell she found herself trapped within. The inner beast came to the surface more and more, speaking to her in tones of demand and needing.
“I want to feel the sun on my face,” she muttered to herself. “The push of a tundra breeze as it feathers my hair away from my head.”
“Patience,” Taq said from his usual distance away.
You be patient, Claire told him in her head. She wanted to try some of that Parisian coffee and right now wouldn’t be too soon. She wanted to rip someone’s guts out and now wouldn’t be too soon for that. In fact, if she could have a cup of that Parisian coffee at the same time that she ripped someone’s guts out, she would be a happy, happy were.
“There’s a story about shape-shifters that the Inuit tell. They call them the ijiraq or sometimes the ijiraat, depending on who you’re speaking to.” Taq sounded patient. He sounded a lot more patient that she was.
“I’ve heard about the ijiraq,” Claire said musingly, tamping her useless impatience down into the very pit of her soul. “They sound like the weres.”
“Ah, but the ijiraq play in the north, and their land is cursed,” Taq said. “It’s said that the ijiraq were once hunters who went too far north and were trapped between the land of the dead and the land of the living.”
“Those who hunt near the land of the ijiraq are likely to lose their way, to become confused,” Claire said. “The ijiraq do not like to share their hunting grounds.”
“They can change their shapes at their whim. They become the bear, the fox, the rabbit, and the fulmar. They play games with the humans because they can.”
“It’s also said that they steal children and set them free on the tundra. Some of the people build the inuksuk to help guide the children back.”
Taq sighed. “And you’ve built inuksuit, haven’t you? In order to guide the lost children back to The People.”
“They’re only babies,” Claire said, “and it’s only rocks, isn’t it? It’s only a small gesture.” How could he know that? She hadn’t told anyone, and no one had seen her make them.
She could almost hear the smile in his voice as he said, “But you didn’t think it small, did you?”
“I don’t know what I thought. I’ve never seen an ijiraq nor any of the shadow people who linger at the corners of one’s vision.”
“The tariaksuq, or shadow people, are only visible if they’re killed,” Taq said gravely, “which makes it difficult to kill them.”
“And the ijiraq and the tariaksuq have kicking raves at the top of the world,” Claire said. “Now what happened to my invite?”
“The clan I was raised with said I had been taken by the ijiraq,” Taq said, “although they are bears like me, and wolves too, they saw me as an outsider.”
Claire took a breath. Even in the world of shifters, there was bigotry and discrimination existed. The humans didn’t really own all of those misguided prejudices. “Did they mistreat you?”
“I had a protector who took me in. Another bear, but he’s a Kodiak bear. A big mother who never said a word that wasn’t all blunt honesty and designed to educate me in the way that would benefit me most.”
“My father is—” like that, she was going to say, then didn’t. She didn’t want to give away too much information, even to Taq, who seemed to be genuinely concerned with her. Only a fool would trust anyone in this place.
“Aningan is exactly like your father,” Taq said. “Remember the name. If you should need a friend, Aningan will help you. Aningan of the Alaska Clan. All you have to do is give him my name. You remember my full name?”
“Taqukaq, Inuit for grizzly bear,” she murmured. “What makes you think I will get out of here and you won’t?”
“Circumstances are rarely what we wish them to be,” he said.
“Very enigmatic,” she admonished him. “That sounds like something I would find in a fortune cookie.”
“Nevertheless, remember it.”
“I’ll remember,” she vowed.
“You know that sometimes weres have to do things for reasons they don’t always want to admit,” he murmured.
“I know that my father has had to make hard decisions.”
“I’m sure the Bloodletter has had to make many hard decisions.”
“I don’t know him as the Bloodletter,” she said with a wry smile. “Although I can imagine him with a great axe.”
“An axe with a double blade,” Taq corrected. “One side is larger than the other and sharp enough to split the finest hair. There’s a wolf head at the top the battle axe. It’s said it’s made out of silver because the Bloodletter doesn’t feel the sting of silver like other weres.”
That was true. The Bennetts had a certain immunity to silver. Her father and mother told their daughters to keep that knowledge to themselves, to use it as an asset. It was likely the reason the drug they’d used on the sisters hadn’t worked as long as it had on the other weres. The silver-lined animal cage that Ula was contained in wouldn’t hold her for long. Perhaps she’d already escaped. Claire could see her sister doing exactly that, and taking names as she kicked ass. But Claire…she was stuck in a dungeon, with an irritable snake were, and a bear were she couldn’t see. But his voice made her stomach tingle like it was full of butterflies.
Shut…the…front door, Claire told herself. “Tell me another story,” she said. “Make me forget where I am for a moment.”
So Taq did.
* * *
She was waiting for Shade as he closed the door that led to the pit holding Claire. He smelled her as soon as he exited, and he resisted the shudder of fear. Of all the Council members, Scarlotte the rat witch was the vilest. She might appear as if she was twelve years old, but she was full of vicious purpose. She didn’t need to be a fearsome warrior because she had cunning and powers that most didn’t appreciate until it was far too late. Weres whispered about the Bloodletter when they should have been whispering about Scarlotte and hiding under the nearest rock.
Scarlotte had been a member of the Council long enough that most forgot she had killed off some, or all, of her husbands. No one knew for certain because they had vanished into the ether. No one dared to question their absence.
It hadn’t always been that way. Once the Council stood for its motto. In gremio legis meant “in the bosom of the law.” The Latin could be confused for something more sinister, but the origin had been honest in intent. When Shade had become an agent of the Council, he’d had the motto tattooed on his right bicep. A special tattoo artist used silver nitrate in the mix to make the tattoo stick. One couldn’t see it when he became the bear, but it was there when he returned to his human form.
When had the Council begun its slide into blackened corruption? Shade didn’t know, but he would see it returned to the original, or he would die trying. Of course, he would prefer not to die, especially now. He would also prefer not to deal with Scarlotte.
“Interesting,” Scarlotte said in French. Her French was lovely and lilting, a throwback to a hundred years before. It was said that she had seen two centuries roll over, but no one would dare ask a lady her true age. No one would ask Scarlotte either.
“Madame Rat,” he said in recognition as if he had nothing to hide.
“Does the Bloodletter’s daughter know who you are?” she asked.
Shade shook his head. “She thinks I’m another prisoner.” Scarlotte was far too clever to play games with. The truth could be used in his situation, if he could skip around the deceptions he was forced to produce. He was still the Council’s were. He was still a game in play until the time came for the Bloodletter to take the Council back to where it belonged. It was safest to assume that the rat witch had been listening to the two speaking. She’d probably followed him in rat form. There were enough rats in the catacombs not to be suspicious. M
ore fool I.
Scarlotte tittered. Her large eyes kept watch on the were who towered above her. “How funny,” she said. “How absurd. She’s your mate, is it not so? And you cannot have each other.”
“I can’t see that the Bloodletter’s daughter would look upon me affectionately as a mate,” Shade said, forcing the words to sound neutral and uncaring.
“She is our prisoner,” Scarlotte trilled. “There will be no mating.” She made a genuinely Gallic gesture with her hands. “You should be relieved, bear. Mates are a burden. They weigh upon your souls. Best to be rid of them.”
Shade stared back at Scarlotte. He wasn’t sure how to react. Mating was typically perceived as a gift to the shifter world. The were was given a mate to love and protect. Some would never meet their mates, but the ones who did usually didn’t complain about it. But Scarlotte was a psychopath in rat’s clothing. She’d probably eaten her mate.
“I don’t have any choice, Madame Rat,” Shade said after a long pause.
Scarlotte’s impish grin belied what he knew to be inside the rat witch. “So you play with the girl, make her think you’re something you’re not. How very clever and cruel of you. Whatever will happen when she finds out?”
Shade shrugged. Best case scenario. Claire would understand about choices and his desire to make the shifter world a better place. He hoped.
“Not that it truly matters,” Scarlotte added. “The Bloodletter will come for the girl sooner or later. He’ll do what we say because of his child. Then when we don’t need him, he’ll die. The seeds of their little rebellion will be over. The girl won’t be of any use to us anymore.” She passed one hand under her nose, a French gesture indicating something had slipped away or would slip away.
“She won’t be worth anything,” Shade said, well aware of how cold he sounded.
Scarlotte made a fist and extended her thumb. She clicked the edge of her thumbnail against her teeth as the fist went away from her. Just after the click of the nail against her teeth, she said, “Que dalle!”
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