A Fistful of Charms th-4

by Ким Харрисон

  "Run!" I howled, leaping to intercept her. She skidded to a halt, with me between her and Jenks. I had bitten her twice, and she was learning that small meant faster. I couldn't look to see if he left, but by Pam's eyes tracking something behind me, I had to believe he had. No one was paying attention to him now. Determination swelled in me. He was my vanguard, and this time I had his back. I wouldn't let this she-wolf past me.

  Pam shifted her feet in frustration. In what was probably an attempt to warn them, she lifted her muzzle to the sky and howled. The Weres surrounding us joined her, thinking she was trying to cow me. Their human voices almost matched hers.

  "You won't get past me!" I barked, then in a bold show, I lifted my own head and howled, trying to drown out her voice. I am alive. And I will stay that way!

  Pam's howl cut off in surprise, and my voice rose against the rest, its higher pitch sounding more authentic, ringing with defiance. From nearby came another howl. Aretha.

  The surrounding Weres went absolutely silent, their faces wondering, fear in some of them. For a moment my voice twined with Aretha's alone, and then they died together.

  Pam looked shocked that the wolf had answered me. She stood with her tail drooping, blood dripping from one eye and her rear foot held off the ground. I hurt everywhere: my back, my hip. And the smell of blood came from my pulsing ear. When had she done that?

  But Jenks was waiting for me. Snarling, I gathered myself and lunged.

  Pam fell back, jaws snapping at my neck as I tried for her front leg. I jerked out from under her, a sharp stab in my ear telling me she had scored again. I rolled, and she followed. Flipping to my feet, I met her yap with my own toothy, aggressive grin.

  She came at me without pause, and I skittered away. The watchers were silent now. Breathless. Someone was going to die, and Jenks wasn't with me anymore.

  I found her neck. My grip slipped when my teeth closed and she jerked back. She had my leg in her mouth, and a rush of adrenaline pulsed. I had half a second before she'd crush it.

  I fell to the earth and pulled. Teeth closed on my footpad. I yipped, scrambling up and away. Panting, we hesitated. Behind us the circle of Weres had turned into knots of tense people. No one had noticed Jenks was gone. Pam gathered herself, and I felt a burn of anger.

  I didn't have time for this.

  But she hesitated, freezing as her attention went to the lake's edge behind me. My fur rose and my skin prickled. I didn't turn. I didn't need to, and alarm showed in Pam's eyes when she saw me track the second wolf skirting the edges of the parking lot behind her, visible past the knots of people. A frightened whisper rose, fingers pointing and hands going to mouths as they realized Aretha had braved the compound, desensitized to the smell of Weres and pulled by the sound of my fight with Pam. Aretha had come, and she didn't look happy.

  Ears pricked, the wolf confidently padded across the lot and came under the shade of the surrounding trees. The first roundness of her belly gave witness to the pups she carried, and I felt afraid. Pam and I were fighting for dominance on her island. Her pack had surrounded us as we fought, blind to everything else. Shit.

  Don't run, Pam, I thought when she went frightened. For all her Wereness, she was also human. She was hurt and surrounded by a wild alpha's pack. And she stank like Were, not wolf. "Pam!" I barked, seeing her start to turn. "Don't!"

  But she did. Spinning, she ran, betting they would fall on me as she went for the safety of the buildings. As the joke goes, you don't have to be faster than the wolf chasing you, just faster than everyone else running away.

  I jerked, digging my feet into the ground to keep from following when three gray shadows streaked past me after her. The crowd panicked, falling into chaos and scattering. Women screamed and men shouted. Someone shot their weapon off, and I skittered sideways, nails gouging the packed dirt. My pulse hammered.

  But my eyes were riveted to the four wolves dodging trees and picnic tables. Terrified, Pam streaked past the security of walls and into the trees. In seconds they were gone. A yip of pain rose sharp over the noise of frightened people. Walter shouted for silence, and in the new stillness there were unseen savage snarls and barks. Then a terrifying silence.

  White-faced, Walter gestured, and a cluster of men with unslung weapons raced into the trees after them. I felt sick. This wasn't my fault.

  A feminine gasp pulled me spinning around. My heart pounded and I felt my knees go wobbly. Aretha had silently entered the clearing as if the surrounding people didn't exist. Ear flicking, she stopped a good fifteen feet from me, her fur the color of silver bark. I looked at her with my wolf eyes, seeing the grace and beauty—and her utter alienness. I might look like a wolf, but I wasn't one, and we both knew it.

  I started, freezing again when she lifted her muzzle. An eerie, soft howl rose from her, picked up by three more voices along the ridge. She was checking to see who had won.

  Adrenaline scoured through me. Aretha lowered her head, her yellow eyes fixing on me a last time before she turned and padded across the lot, satisfied.

  The wind in the trees slipped down to ruffle the fur about my sore and battered body. What in hell had just happened?

  A twig snapped, and I skittered like a shying horse, heart pounding when I came to an ungraceful halt. It was the street Weres' alpha, pale but determined with his pack around him. "It's not my fault!" I barked, knowing he wouldn't understand.

  The Were's Brimstone-weathered face was one of awe as he flicked his eyes from me to where Aretha had vanished. His tattoos from multiple packs made him look rough and uncouth, but his face was as clean-shaven as Jenks's. Bending, he plucked a tuft of red hair that Pam had pulled from me, looking at it as if it meant something. "The she-wolf," he said to Walter, as his roving eyes told me he meant Aretha, "she chose Morgan to live and your alpha to die."

  The surrounding Weres started to talk, their voices growing in anger as their shock wore off. I panted, my bruised paw held up off the ground while I waited, feeling the seconds slip away. A shudder rippled over me, making my fur rise. Something was happening.

  The street Were tucked the red tuft behind his jacket as if he'd made a decision. "The oldest stories say the statue belonged to a red Were before it was lost," he said, and his wife joined him. "Morgan held her ground when your alpha ran," he said, gesturing. "She won. Give Sparagmos to her. Love will loosen that thief 's memory when pain and humiliation won't. I don't care who holds the statue as long as I can have a part of it."

  "You gave your allegiance to me!" Walter exclaimed.

  "I said I'd follow you when you said you had it!" the young Were said, his hands making fists and his jewelry chiming. His wife was a head taller than he was, but it didn't make him look any less threatening. "You don't. Sparagmos does, and she's claimed him. Dissolve my blood oath. I'll follow a red wolf as soon as a white one. Either way, I'm not following you."

  "You lowlife cur!" Walter snarled, red-faced, his white hair standing out starkly. "I have Sparagmos, and I'll have the statue, and I'll have your head as an ashtray!"

  The crowd was splitting. I could see it. I could smell it. Old patterns were emerging, both comfortable and familiar. The hair on the back of my neck pricked, and with a small effort I pulled my second sight into focus. My heart quickened. A pearly white now rimmed the street Weres, and an earthy red covered the ones in suits. It had broken that fast.

  The entire clearing had shifted. The street Weres were dropping back into the woods. I could smell the whiff of Brimstone. If they went wolf, nothing would contain them.

  "Sir," a grief-stricken Were in fatigues interrupted, and I turned to the six men carrying Pam, their slow steps saying it was too late.

  "Pam!" Walter exclaimed, grief raw in his voice. The Weres set her gently down, and the man fell to kneel beside her, savagely driving them away before his hands dove into her fur, pulling her up into him. "No," he said in disbelief, his wife's body close to him.

  Aretha's pack had torn open P
am's throat, and her blood clotted her black fur and stained his chest. His head going back and forth, the powerful man struggled to find the pieces of his world, scattered like the dead leaves shifting between us.

  "No!" Walter shouted, his head coming up and his eyes finding me. "I will not accept this. That witch wolf is not my alpha, and I will not give Sparagmos to her. Kill her!"

  Gun safeties clicked off. Holy shit! Panicking, I leapt for the slice of parking lot I could see. An instant and I was through. A screamed curse spurred me on. Nails digging, I reached the woods. My feet slipped on leaves and weak-stemmed plants and I almost went down.

  Struggling for balance, I kept driving forward. I listened for the sound of shots, but I was away—for the time being. They had Hummers and cell phones. Against that I had a six-foot pixy and a three-minute head start, tops. Pam was dead. This wasn't my fault!

  Behind me came the distinctive calls of a mob organizing. They were all people right now, but that was going to change. I had known the peace wouldn't last. Weres were Weres. They never bonded together. They couldn't. It went against everything they were made of.

  Thank God for that, I thought as I tracked the scent of snapped twigs, following Jenks. The pixy could find Nick by smell if nothing else. We could still get off this damned island. Maybe the breakup of the round would buy us a few minutes more.

  Nick, I thought, my heart racing from more than my escape. So it wasn't the way we planned it. So sue me.

  Fifteen

  My pace wasn't smooth in any sense of the word, loping through the warming forest, stumbling every time my front foot came down too hard. There were booms in the distance that my wolf hearing couldn't identify, but nothing close. My back hurt in time with my steps, and my front paw was throbbing. The wind cut a sharp pain across my ear where it was laid open. I went as fast as I could, my nose a good four inches above the ground as I tracked the sapling-snapped scent of Jenks.

  I was on borrowed time. The island was big, but not that big, and grief would likely make their feet faster, not slower. Eventually someone would catch up to me. If nothing else, Jenks would run into resistance when he found Nick. They had radios.

  Faster, I thought, promptly tripping. Pain iced through me and I lunged to catch myself before my face plowed into the ground. My bruised foot gave way, and cursing myself, I held my head high and took the fall, biting my tongue as I came to a sliding halt in the dirt. I was tired of being a wolf. Nothing looked right, and if I couldn't run, there was little joy. But I couldn't say my trigger word and switch back until I reached the mainland and tapped a line.

  Besides, I thought, getting up and shaking myself, I'd be naked.

  I sneezed the dirt and leaf mold out of my nose, whining when my entire body spasmed in pain. The sharp crack of clean wood on metal rang out. My head came up and my breath heaved. A man shouted, "Just shoot him!" and there were three pops in quick succession.

  Jenks! Forgetting my hurts, I jerked into a run.

  The light brightened around me as the forest thinned. Shockingly fast, I came out into what looked like an old state park with logs bolted into the ground to show parking spots. A Jeep was parked in the shade of a cement-block building painted brown, and near the entrance I saw Jenks attacking two men with a length of wood still sporting leaves.

  I bolted forward. Like a dancer, Jenks swung the stick in a wide arc, the wood hitting one man on the ear. Not watching him fall away in pain, Jenks spun, jamming the splintered butt into the solar plexus of the second man. With a silent ferocity, he spun to the first, bringing the stick down with both hands against the back of his neck. The man fell without protest.

  Jenks shouted, an exuberant cry of success, as he spun the stick above his head in a wild spiral, slamming it first against the back of a knee, then the skull of the second man. I came to a four-posted halt, shocked. He had downed both of them in six seconds.

  "Rache!" he cried cheerfully, tossing his blond curls out of his eyes to show his He-Man bandage. His cheeks were red and his eyes were glinting. "I take it we're going to plan B? He's inside. I can smell crap for brains from here."

  Heart pounding, I vaulted over the downed Were in fatigues blocking the door, my nose taking in the stale coffee in the tiny kitchen, the forty-year-old mold in the bathroom, and the pine air freshener fighting the stale musk in the tiny living room festooned with weapons and a two-way radio frantically demanding that someone pick up. My muscles tensed at the scent of blood under the masking odor of chlorine. Nails clacking on white tile, I padded through the narrow hallway, searching.

  There was a closed door at the end of a dark hallway, and I waited impatiently for Jenks. He reached over me, pushing it open with a squeak. It was dark, the dim light coming from a dust-caked high window of wire-embedded glass. The air stank of urine. There was a rickety table cluttered with metal and pans of liquid. Nick was gone, and my hope crashed to nothing.

  "Oh my God," Jenks breathed, his breath catching.

  I followed his eyes to a dark corner. "Nick," I whispered. It came out in a whine.

  He had moved at the sound of Jenks's voice, his head lolling up, his eyes open but unseeing from under his long bangs. They had tied him against the wall in a crucifix position in a cruel mockery of suffering and grace. His clothes had burned patches, singed hair and red skin showing past them. Black crusts of blood marked him. His cracked and bleeding lips moved, but nothing came out. "I will not…" he whispered. "You can't…I will…keep it."

  Jenks pushed past me, cautiously touching a knife to judge the silver content before picking it up. I was stuck in the threshold, not believing it. They had tortured him. They had hurt him for that damned statue. What in hell was it? Why didn't he just give it to them? It couldn't be money. Nick was a thief, but he loved life more. I think.

  "You can't do anything here, Rache," Jenks said, his voice catching as he started to saw at Nick's bonds. "Go keep an eye on the front. I'll get him down."

  I jerked when Nick began shouting, clearly thinking they were at him again, calling my name over and over.

  "Knock it off, crap for brains!" Jenks yelled. "I'm trying to help you!"

  "My fault," Nick moaned, collapsing to lean forward against his bonds. "He took her. He should have taken me. I killed her. Ray-ray, I'm sorry. I'm sorry…"

  Shaken, I backed out of the room. They hadn't told him I was alive. Sickened, I turned tail and bolted, nails sliding on the tile. I tripped on the man at the door, rolling into the yard. The sun struck me, jolting my horror into the beginnings of anger. Nothing was worth this.

  The blue jays were screaming in the distance, and the sound of an engine grew closer.

  "Jenks!" I yipped.

  "I hear them!" he shouted back at me.

  Pulse racing, I looked at the men sprawled in the packed dirt. Grabbing the shoulder of the nearest, I dragged him into the building, not caring if I broke the skin or not. He might have been dead for all I cared. I jerked him halfway down the hallway in short splurges of motion, left him and went back for the second. Jenks was coming out the door as I got him past the sill and inside. I dropped him, my back hurting and my jaws aching.

  "Good idea," Jenks said, Nick's arm draped over his neck and shoulder.

  Nick hung against Jenks, clearly unable to support his own weight. His head was down and his feet moved sluggishly. His breath came in pained gasps. There were red pressure marks about his wrists, and it didn't look like he could move his legs yet. When he brought his head up, his eyes were cloudy with a smear of gel. Arm moving slowly, he tried to wipe them, blinking profusely. A dry cough shook him. Clenching his arm about his lower chest, he held his breath to try to stop.

  "Go," Jenks prompted, and I tore my eyes from Nick. I felt sick again, and as my paws hit the dirt outside, I wondered just where Jenks expected us to "go." There was only one road out of there, and someone was coming up it. And stumbling about with a sick man in the woods was a sure way to be caught.

&n
bsp; "Just…go behind the building!" Jenks said, and I trotted an uneasy path beside him, feeling small. Nick tried to help as his muscles started to regain their movement. Jenks eased him to the ground, propping him up against the painted brick. It was chill back there, out of the sun, and he held his legs and groaned. I thought of Marshal's warmth amulets. We had only one left—if they hadn't found our gear. Maybe Nick and Jenks could share it somehow. My fur could keep me warm. Could I swim that far as a wolf?

  "Stay here," Jenks said to me, standing to look tall. His brow was furrowed. "Keep him quiet. I can take care of them, and then we'll drive out of here."

  I put a foot on his shoe for his attention, looking up at him pleadingly. I hadn't liked running apart. I didn't want to do it again. We did better together than alone.

  "I'll be careful," Jenks said, turning toward the sound of an approaching vehicle. "If there're too many, I'll hoot like an owl." I raised my doggie eyebrows, and he chuckled. "I'll just shout for you."

  At my head bob, he crept away, silent in his black tights and running shoes. I looked at Nick. He didn't have any shoes, and his pale feet looked ugly. Nick, I thought, nudging him.

  He stirred, wiping the goo from his eyes and squinting. "You're too small for a Were. I thought you were a Were. Good dog. Good dog…" he murmured, sinking his fingers into my wavy red fur. He didn't know who I was. I didn't think he recognized even Jenks. "Good dog," he said. "What's your name, sweetheart? How did you get on this hellhole of an island?"

  I took a heaving breath, hating this. He looked awful in the brighter light. Nick had never been a heavy man, but in the week Jaxs said he had been on the island, he had gone from trim to emaciated. His long hands were thin and his face was sallow. A beard hid his cheekbones, making him appear like a homeless man. He stank of sweat, filth, and a deep-seated infection.

  Looking at him, one would never have guessed at his wickedly quick mind. Or know how easily he could make me laugh, or the love I felt for his complete acceptance of who I was without any need to apologize; a man whose danger was in calling demons and his willingness to risk everything to be smarter than everyone else.