Furry bodies press all around me with familiar yips and whines, and my pack encircles me in the closest thing possible to a group hug. A low moan tears from my throat. I had lost hope that I’d ever see them again. Reunited at long last, I wonder how I could ever carry on without my closest companions.
And then I hear is a familiar voice sobbing, “Wally … Wally, stay with me, mate!” Darren has taken on his human form, his lower back still striped, but the outline of his body blurry in his grief. His long hair falls over his face as cradles the motionless koala to his chest. Wally stirs to mumble, “… dog’s breakfast, mate …” before slumping at an odd angle. We all feel his energy pass.
Darren cannot seem to hold his human veneer any longer and retracts back into his true form, a formidable six foot long carnivore that cannot be compared to anything I have ever known, like a creature that never quite finished evolving to fit the modern era. Something wild and unfathomable lies behind his dark, expressionless eyes. His distinct scent is thick with animal grief. He emits a few barking coughs, then drops his jaw and lets forth a wheezing cry, undulating in his devastation. His stripes give him the appearance of still being behind bars.
I try to move in to comfort Darren, even as Raúl urges me with a growl to stay back. But he doesn’t know that I too must honor the brave shape-shifting koala saved my life, and possibly took his mortal injury in freeing me. As I limp over to sit beside the suffering thylacine, his rounded ears swivel, then press against his skull. At first he hisses at me, but then picking up on my scent, he slumps in acceptance and we rest our muzzles together. His snout is smooth and boney … definitely not canine, but somehow familiar. We share several long breaths, wordless exchanges of comfort, as only two people who have suffered the same hell can.
Bipedal footsteps behind me signal that my time is up. Everyone has gone back to soprano form except Rowan, who remains hyper-vigilant and dangerous. “Come on, Little One,” says Raúl at last in the softest voice I have ever heard him use. “You did well to bury your cell phone, for it was the only way that the SIN agents were able to locate this place. We were looking straight at the compound for days and unable to see it until you killed the Chimera and broke her warding. But time is running out. We don’t have a choice, we have to get out of here now. You there …” he addresses Darren, but with a hiss the thylacine refuses any help and resumes his grieving.
The rest of the pack is strong enough to move on, but I am too weak to walk. Raúl hoists me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and we make out way toward the waiting van and freedom. I take one last look at the bereaved Darren, sitting on his haunches all alone among the dead, and I suddenly can’t stop howling. Raúl pets me soothingly, but his pace remains firm. Darren’s cries ring in my ears long after we make our way through the main portal and into a blast of cold air.
The starry night sky is surreal. I have no idea how long the battle must have gone on, or even how long since it’s been since I last saw stars. The rhythm of Raúl’s feet crunching in the snow and the rocking of his body begin to calm me down and I go deadweight in his arms.
Carried backward away from the compound, a glimpse of the building’s true form in the distance—with the Chimera no longer alive to ward it—creeps into view. It’s not the palatial exterior I’d have expected. It’s an abandoned-looking gray cement block building obfuscated by vegetation. Ivy and kudzu form a shaggy network around the exterior, giving the fortress the appearance of a harmless butte.
Along the trail we find a partially frozen stream. With only minutes to spare we wash the worst of the blood off of ourselves. Everyone goes bass in order to better avoid hypothermia. Then it’s back to three people and two wolves, and then Raúl’s van rises like a specter by the old dirt road. Heavy doors slide open, and from all sides loving arms wrap me in thick blankets.
I shiver uncontrollably. They place me in the back of the van, with Rowan curled protectively around me. Raúl’s van smells so familiar, so much like New Orleans and pack and musical equipment, I almost can’t stand it. Raw emotion shoots through me—relief, terror, grief, solace, and confusion.
But there’s no time for anyone to comfort me. The urgency to get the hell away from here is still far too pressing.
In a wash of tingling someone wards the van, for a vehicle containing three naked humans and two wolves would most likely pique the interest of any state trooper.
Once the van begins moving, I begin to panic, triggered by the memories of my abduction. Rowan wraps his body around me more tightly, shudders, and in one breath slides into his soprano human shape. At long last I surrender to my own form as a woman, allowing him to spoon against me like the perfect puzzle piece. He wraps his arms around me, strokes my hair, and murmurs comforting words. His scent flooding my senses is the best drug ever. He kisses the top of my head—the way he first did after I killed Gabriel, I realize—and familiarity rushes back. My mate. And then I think no thoughts.
There is no telling how much time has passed before Raúl pulls the van over. “We are a safe enough distance from that hell hole,” he reassures us. “I think it’s time to join the land of the living.” Duffel bags full of clothes come out. The pack must have left in such a rush that there was no time to swing by my house and get my own clothes, but they had hastily found some cheap truck stop coverings for me: a t-shirt with a bald eagle and an oversized pair of Tweety Bird pajamas. I just hope that they can help me to ward whenever we finally have to be seen—a filthy, half-crazed, half-starved woman in mismatched clothing would definitely get the attention of authorities.
Teddy and Sylvia open an ice chest and try to coax me to drink some water and eat some sliced turkey. The moon is high in the sky, a gibbous disc from which I draw a little strength. And then we are back on the road, putting more miles between us and the compound with every passing minute.
I’m in some sort of mental haze that might be half-wakefulness, or perhaps the world is really that blurry. Their soft voices communicating with each other surround me—worried tones, relieved cadences, unresolved chord progressions of speculation.
Artificial light streaming through the window hurts my eyes. Something feels like a hard bubble around me, but flexible like a curtain—more warding magic. No one looks my way as they help me make my way across the parking lot to the truck stop, with its promises of food, supplies … and a shower!
The first thing I do is cut my nails. My callouses are gone, and it is so strange to have tender skin, I might as well be missing teeth or claws. But I am still a musician, and need to feel prepared for anything. So many things I will never again take for granted: a toothbrush, enough room to stretch my limbs, and water, so much water! I can get it from the tap any time I am thirsty, I can even bathe my whole body in it.
Sylvia and Lydia stand guard by the truck stop shower. They hum soothing frequencies to me—take your time is the message I feel. They ward themselves and shield me with patience, while I sob and cry and laugh, and bark my frustrations that the water can’t wash away the filth and rot I feel to the very core of my being.
“You guys all came for me,” I sob to Sylvia. “Once again, I was the weak link of the pack …”
“Look at how far you’re come, Buzz,” she whispers. “In just under a year, you went from not knowing that there were other lycans out there—aside from Rowan—let alone other kinds of shifters, to taking down Public Shifter Enemy Number One. I think you’re doing okay.”
I still can’t wrap my head around all that has passed. Did I truly take down the public shifter enemy number one? Or did I just kill my lover’s ex?
She wasn’t my lover’s ex, I correct myself in my mind, she was merely my opening act. My own guffaw startles me. It’s been so long since I’ve laughed that it feels like some external force shaking me like a rag doll. My packmates look at me with alarmed concern, but I hold up my hand to indicate that all is well.
Stumbling back toward the van, I smell a rat even before
my eyes find the large rodent by the nearby dumpsters screeching at us, “Escapeeeeeeees!” Sylvia snarls a warning, and as if on cue a barred owl stoops out of nowhere and strikes. The bird swivels its head backward at us, throwing us a wink before carrying off its prey.
“How did ye get so bloody far away?” my cousin Bonnie demands over Lydia’s pack phone. The morning sunlight streams in through the windows, and I am finally able to sit upright in a seat. We still have a couple of hours to go before we cross into Orleans Parish, and her voice forces my anxiety to the back of my mind.
My non-shifter parents have apparently been spared the news, but Bonnie had heard the whole saga while in her wolf form. The “official” story that I have been found after a camping trip gone wrong has been announced to human family, friends, and followers of my music, and I’ve been notified that the guestbook on my website has been flooded with prayers and well wishes over the past few months. Maybe people don’t suck as much as I once thought they did.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Bonnie turned out to not only be a shifter, but also one working for SIN as well. Next to Sylvia, she can keep a secret like no other. Phone communication is still circumspect until we are certain that all of Brume’s minions are either dead or in custody. But undercover shifters like Bonnie and Lydia have an extra level of encryption in their lines. So if I cannot talk directly to my family, at least I have my wild kinswoman, and her voice is a magical elixir to my psyche.
She continues her interrogation before I can answer. “Was this some sort of Mary Poppins leaping into a painting? And if it was that easy, then when the fuck are ye gonna come and visit again? I haven’t seen ye since we caused all that trouble in Oban!”
I chuckle at the memory. That was over ten years ago, when we were two bored young women splitting the Isle of Skye for the weekend. It was an adventure. First there was a hitchhiking race between us and a pair of girls from Vancouver that we’d met on the ferry. We’d lost because we’d tried to kidnap someone’s lamb on the way. Then after a mighty session of traditional fiddle tunes, we’d ended up chaperoning a night-blind accordionist named Aleister, whom we kept having to hoist up every time he fell into a ditch. And somehow we all had ended up in a trailer with six travelers and a Scottish deerhound. The cheap wine had turned my lips blue, and when I fell asleep, everyone had freaked out because they’d thought I’d stopped breathing.
Good times. Nothing can take that away.
“Oh, and by the way, I’m supposed to relay a message to ye,” she continues, her accent exaggerated in her buoyancy. “Some Turkish chickie named Aydan says congratulations for being the number one hero, and thank ye for helping her to learn the real words to ‘Let it Be.’ She says for years she and her sister Reyhan were singing it as ver ipe.” Bonnie pronounces it very pee, with a trilled r. “Which is Turkish for ‘give me the rope!’”
I laugh for the first time in months. It’s a comfort to know that my former rival survived, and I find myself proud to know this tough and troubled woman.
“Also a man named Jean-Michel Lapin was asking for ye. He says that Crick and Watson would be proud, whatever that means.” Neither do I, but I am relieved to know that he is safe, presumably his mighty flea of an assistant as well.
“So, in all seriousness now,” she asks a bit more softly, her accent softening. “How in the world did you get almost to the Canadian border?”
It would take a long time to explain how I was abducted in Mississippi, held prisoner in the upper Midwest, with my buried phone sending a signal to the allies, and just tried to survive as best as I could, somehow coming up with a solution that would weaken the Chimera’s power. I promise to tell her everything once I’m settled in before handing the phone to Lydia, who turns out to be a colleague of my cousin’s.
The pack would have been proud of my skills. I managed to keep my wits about me for the duration of what turned out to be three months. Now I can only hope that I am not too damaged to be an asset to the pack and play my bass again.
When we arrive at my apartment, my little Honda waits in the driveway, crouched like a contented cat glad to see its human at long last. Even my bass and rig are safe, as I discover the second I walk in. My home is alien in its familiarity, as if I don’t know where I am, but am being hosted by someone who shares my taste in music and trappings. This is coming home to live in a childhood fairytale, a place that ceased to be, yet never stopped existing.
Rowan undresses me slowly, trying to kiss away every scar within. We don’t leave my home for a very long time.
The careful snick, snick of the scissors in my hair causes an involuntary shudder in me. Dean pauses and places a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. Remember to breathe, okay? Do you want some ice water? The cold might ground you.”
I shake my head. “Thank you, no. Let’s just do this. I have to get back to work in a few days, and I can’t go onstage looking like a six-year-old just tried to play barber with me.”
“Just let me know if you start to get triggered.” Dean’s house is comforting, full of modern art and soft lighting, with the pungent-sweet odor of sage burned on a regular basis. He resumes his magic on my hair, evening out the parts where it was hacked off in my confinement. Wisps of mustard-colored locks fall from my smock to the ground, and I draw in a huge breath through my nose, gripping the arms of the chair. My fellow lycan begins humming a low, soothing melody. Between the healing energy of his song and the exhaustion that still consumes me, it has a soporific effect, and I allow myself to drift off to his music.
“Buzz, honey?” he whispers. “Why don’t you have a look?” How long was I out? Blinking hard, I lightly swat my own cheek to rouse myself. Dean spins my chair around, facing me at an image. It takes me two entire heartbeats for me to realize that what I’m looking at is my own reflection in his mirror.
Dang …
He’s given me a shaggy, layered bob that looks edgy and fierce. “Wow, Dean,” I tell him. “I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve made me look like a rock star.”
He unclasps my smock, whisking it off and giving me a gentle peck on the cheek. “Well, you are a rock star, girl-child-boo! You do realize, don’t you, that you are the most celebrated werewolf of the century? Not only did you beat the Chimera mano a mano, but also you’re also immune to silver. Packs far and wide call you ‘Silver Birch.’ You’re a heroine among all shifters. How does that feel, sweetie?”
I stare for a long time into his kind blue eyes before dropping my head. “It doesn’t feel like anything, really,” I finally answer. “It just is what it is. No silver lining is worth that kind of cloud.”
“I know, baby.” He draws me to him in a hug, and the last of my confusion drains from my body. “But somebody had to save us all. I’m proud to know that it was you, and …” He releases me, pulls me to my feet, and coaxes me into a smile. “… now you look fabulous!”
A chuckle leaps out of me like a fish after an insect. “Dean, you are a genius. Is there anything that you don’t do?”
“Yes. I don’t do girls!”
It’s a time of turning in so many ways, and we are the ones on top for now. Our practice room at the Fountainbleau has never felt so sacred, or so homey.
“Housewarming party soon!” announces Raúl. “We couldn’t do it with the heart of the pack missing!”
My four closest companions are still holding me in a group embrace. It’s hard to know who needs the most reassurance, them for my safety or me for their presence. Oh gods, we’re all together again! And now Raúl’s news is just what we all need—tidings of life going on.
“Can you do a blessing?” he asks Sylvia. “We need a holy woman, and would prefer pack. Just a general one—holy water and sage—with a quick nod to Asherah.”
“Asherah? As in the wife of Yahweh?” queries Sylvia.
“Yes. What do you think?”
My best friend smiles with a faraway look in her eyes. “I always liked to think of M
other Nature as being God’s wife.”
“But doesn’t that go against your … line of work?”
Sylvia snorts. “Hey, if I thought that women had no business in sacred stuff, do you think I’d be wearing this ridiculous outfit?”
Teddy chortles. “Don’t knock it. The Bible wants women to be modest.”
Sylvia gives him a look. “Bite me. The holy book is full of outdated values, most of them misogynistic. I know I’m supposed to teach the Bible, but in my humble opinion, too many authors spoiled the plot.”
“What did you say?”
“I said too many authors …”
“No, before that.”
“Bite me.”
Teddy springs at her with playful nipping teeth. I don’t think he knew he was going to kiss her any more than the rest of us did. Maybe she was the only one who saw it coming, because she kisses him back with the ferocity of a long wait.
His unattainable love … Of course. And then it hits me: That’s why he’d tried to give up swearing! I could have told him that he didn’t need to change, so to speak.
The spontaneous applause floods my very soul with a warmth and goodness. Everyone is happy in the pack.
*One*
CHAPTER
15
OUTRO
Journal entry, February 14th: I’m not ready for happily ever after just yet. The movie’s only just starting to get really good now.
The Wild Harmonic Page 30
