by Ben Reeder
“He’s trying to test you,” I said. “He wants you to attack him.”
“He’s moving in the right direction,” Dandry said. “If he’s content to keep his tail tucked between his legs for that long, I don’t care how much time he takes to slink off.” Kain picked up his pace after that.
“Thank you, Mr. Dandry,” I said.
“You’re welcome, Chance,” he said. “Let’s get you inside and call Trevor. He must be worried sick about you.”
“Don’t worry,” Riker said, pulling me up so that he supported most of my weight. “I’ve got you.” He half carried me into Dandry’s house, a two story place that was made of something like terra cotta or adobe. The inside of the little house was cool, with a big kitchen off to the right as we came in. Riker took me to the left, past the big dining table and into the sunken living area. He set me down on the curved bench that ran around the edge of the sunken area, then stepped back to let Dandry come take a look at me.
“Well, you certainly do look the worse for wear,” the mage said. “And for a werewolf, I guess that’s saying something.”
“Just need to eat,” I mumbled, though it sounded more like “Juss nee’ eat.”
“Food I can help with,” Dandry said, the smile returning to his round face. “I keep these two pretty well fed, though you’d think I starved them the way they act at dinner time.” Riker moved for the kitchen, and Lucinda came back out with a dark blue blanket and a pair of gray sweatpants.
“Here, put these on,” she said, her mouth quirking up on one side. “You know how I am with temptation.” Still, she didn’t turn away when I stood up to put the sweats on. In a couple of minutes, I was only half naked, the blanket around my shoulders. In spite of the heat of the day, I was feeling a chill on my skin.
“This should help take the edge off,” Riker handed me a mixing bowl full of hot stew and a large spoon. He set a plate with a couple of small loaves of bread on it beside me, then put a big mug of something cool on the low table in front of me. “Drink more water, too.” I barely remembered to use the spoon, shoveling the thick concoction into my mouth almost as fast as I could swallow. The room took on a sharper edge and the colors faded when my wolf emerged, hungry as I was for meat. I gulped the first few bites down, barely chewing any of it.
“Should we call anyone else?” Lucinda asked. My head came up from the edge of the bowl, and I felt stew trickle down the side of my jaw. I shoved back at the wolf, pushing it down into my psyche so I could think more clearly, and talk without snapping at someone. My mind raced, trying first to remember Shade’s number, then giving up because it was on my phone. I hadn’t actually dialed it for months. Calling Mom was a bad idea while she was at work. Only Dr. C’s name came to mind, and even he wasn’t the best person to call any more. But, he had told me to. Plus, everyone else was going to be there.
“Just Dr. Corwin,” I said. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Look under Wizard of New Essex,” Dandry said. “That will ring to his house phone.” I looked to my right to see Lucinda thumbing her way through a thin yellow notebook, then stopping and spinning the rotary dialer on the phone mounted to the wall. My eyes started to drift back across the room, and I slowly slid to one side, knowing I was drifting off and not giving a single damn about it.
Chapter 11
~ Q: Who would win in a fight between a Predator and Kevin from Home Alone?
A: How long does Kevin have to prepare? ~
Internet meme
Dr. Corwin’s voice brought me back to wakefulness. I sat up and cast the blanket aside, disoriented. Dandry’s house. The woods. Running from Kain. Memory helped, but I was still confused. A light breeze blew in through the window, and I felt the sweat on my face and chest chill against my skin. I was pretty much soaked. It was dark outside, but somehow, I knew it hadn’t been that long since the sun went down. The air, my brain told me, was still too warm.
“How is he?” I heard Dr. C ask. To my right, I could see Dr. Corwin, Kim and Dandry talking in the kitchen.
“Physically, he’s fine,” Dandry said softly. “His magick is all but gone, Trevor. I can’t imagine what it must be like for him. Or you. Will you still be able to…?”
“He’s still family,” Dr. C said. “And I’m still going to train him. Maybe not the way I used to, but there is still a lot for him to learn.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“Very little worth doing is,” Kim said. “And nothing about our path is easy. His skills in magick may be diminishing, but his physical abilities are growing. With his new strength and abilities, he could become a most formidable warrior.”
“Eavesdropping isn’t polite,” I heard Amanda say from nearby. She sat on the couch opposite me, so still and quiet that she hadn’t registered on my newfound senses. She’d spoken so softly, I doubted anyone but me had heard her.
“Neither is sneaking up on people,” I muttered. She shrugged, the movement barely visible against the couch she was busy blending into.
“It’s a gift,” she said, her voice still pitched low. “You can lift cars and shrug off bullets, I’m…”
“Sneaky?”
“Unobtrusive. The opposite of you.” She leaned forward, her face visible in the dim light. “He won’t stop teaching you. He loves you like you were his own son.”
“And you’re telling me this why?”
“Because I am self-aware enough to know that it made me jealous.” She looked to the kitchen, then her focus came back to me. “Imagine finding the father you thought had left you in one moment, and in the next, finding that you had been replaced with a delinquent he’d brought in off the streets and adopted. To watch your mother give this same delinquent in a matter of minutes skills you’ve worked your entire life to master. No, I know it isn’t a fair comparison, but it is what my heart told me. But...we have a lot in common. You have a warrior’s heart, even if you have almost none of the skills.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“You’ve endured worse things than I have. I can see them in your eyes.” She leaned forward a little more. “You’re still broken, Chance. No one else will tell you this, but I see it. You are self-destructive, and you have a deathwish. But...I see in you a brother.”
“Aw, are we having a moment?” I asked.
“An annoying, bratty brother with no discipline and no honor, but a brother all the same.”
“Yep, it’s a moment,” I said. She got to her feet and walked around the edge of the circular couches.
“We are not having a moment,” she smiled at me. “You are being delusional. And a boy.”
Another scent hit my senses, and I saw Shade walk through the door. She was across the room and in front of me in a heartbeat, her hand on my face, eyes green as her wolf fought to emerge.
“You okay, baby?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“This was Kain,” she snarled, and her eyes went to pure amber. “I can smell that son-of-a-bitch all over you.”
“Yeah, it was,” I said. “And he’ll probably have some story ready.”
“I’m about done listening to that bastard talk.” She stood up and turned to Dandry. “Mr. Dandry, sir,” she said.
“Roland,” Dandry said. “You can call me Roland.”
“Roland, then,” Shade said, and her smile emerged. “Thank you so much for helping Chance. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a friend to my whole pack, and if you ever need anything that we can give you, just ask.” She went to him and hugged him, and Dandry’s face was slack when she pulled away.
“I, uh, I mean I...well, it was just....well, what anyone would do...well, not anyone, because I am a mage, after all, and Lucy and Riker were there, too, so I can hardly take...well, maybe some of the credit.” Dandry’s face was a bright red as he babbled, and Lucinda laughed.
“I think you broke him,” she said to Shade. “I scryed Chance’s path back north, until he hit an area with so
me pretty serious wards. I can only guess that was where your pack is based.” Shade glanced at me and nodded in my direction.
“Yeah, that’s us. My gothi does some good spell work.”
“Well, he did,” I said. “By the way, I lost the phone you gave me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Shade said, coming up to me and slipping her right arm around me while running her left hand down my chest. “It’s insured.”
“Won’t your parents be pissed?”
“They didn’t buy it for me.”
“You two should come back to the Sanctum,” Dr. C said. “There’s still a lot we have to go over, and I’m sure you and Shade have plenty to discuss on the way back.” He gave Shade a glance and a nod, and I sensed that there was some disagreement between them on what needed to be told.
“Before you go, Trevor,” Dandry said, looking a little uncomfortable. “Chance, there’s something you need to know. When I was tending to you, we noticed something on your aura. It was subtle, and I nearly missed it, but Lucy has a knack for these things and she noticed something felt... odd about your aura. I’ve undone it, but the groundwork has been laid, so unless you make an effort to defend yourself, it could be done again. Something...someone was sapping your will. I’ve seen your mental defenses, and this bored a hole through them like they weren’t even there. In fact, I never found any point where your defenses were even active against it.”
“Someone’s been in my head?” I asked, my voice dropping to a growl. The room went bright and washed out again.
“Definitely,” Dandry said. “It’s unlikely you would have even noticed the influence, or even the attempt. Your defenses appear to still be intact. This was an extremely subtle working. To reiterate, I only noticed it because we were working on you.”
“It’s his wolf,” Shade said, then turned to me. “That’s why your usual defenses are still solid. Your control is being sapped through your connection to your wolf. You haven’t had enough time to develop any defenses around it. And your alpha, whoever it is, probably did you what King did to us.”
“Damn,” I said, reviewing the last few days in my head. “But I couldn’t bring myself to fight either Kain or Alpha,” I said. “And I'm sure they’re not the same person. Even if I haven’t seen them in the same place at the same time.”
“But we’ve both seen them in different places at the same time,” Shade supplied. “An alpha can command another Weres’ wolf, if they’re strong enough. Kain is probably just doing that. Dominic didn’t want us around other Weres. I’d bet we would have been easy to control because of the way he controlled us.”
“Wait,” I said. “I mentioned Alpha. I can talk about him! Holy crap!”
“Tell me in the car, baby. Dr. C is right. We have a lot to talk about on the way.”
“Roland,” I said, coming up to Dandry and taking his hand to shake it. “Thanks. I owe you big time. More than you know.”
“Well, I try,” he said, but he was definitely proud of himself. With good cause, I figured. Roland Dandry might have been a humble little hedge mage, but when it was important, he’d stepped up and put a hurt on a bad dude. That was the kind of badass that counted.
Shade led the way to her silver Mustang, and I had to check myself from getting in on the drivers side. She followed Dr. Corwin’s Land Rover down the dirt road toward the highway, and her hand slid over mine.
“So, what’s the latest?” I asked when she turned onto the asphalt.
“I stopped by the Mulani camp,” she started after a moment. “Whatever they did to Varo, it didn’t exactly take. He died a few hours ago. Your grandfather was fairly decent, in his own way, I guess. He also told me that they’d followed the trails of the wolves who attacked them. All of them converged on one trail, and then it was like they disappeared. In the end, they could only find one set of tracks, and even those disappeared.”
“So, they leave tracks when you don’t look at them,” I said. “They’re not phantasms.”
“But they’re not normal wolves, either.”
“Yeah, just ask Varo,’ I said.
“They were definitely Weres, though. I could smell it, both on them, and on Varo.”
“This shit gets weirder and weirder.”
“Yeah,” she said, then fell silent. “There’s something else,” she said a minute later. “Compared to everything else, it might seem small, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass. You’re not going to like it.”
“There’s a long list of shit I don’t like lately,” I said. “What is it?”
“My parents are enrolling me in Valmont Prep this fall,” she said. “They told me to break up with you and start seeing boys in my ‘social strata,’ they call it.”
“They want you to start dating rich guys,” I said, my voice a little bitter. “Or anyone not me.”
“My mother enrolled me in classes that are basically Bitch 101. Home Economics, Choir, Culinary Arts, Fashion Design...she’s trying to turn me into a damn Stepford Wife.”
“So, are you...breaking up with me?” I looked over at her, uncomfortable with how long it was taking her to answer.
“Hell no!” she said, her expression as shocked as her tone. “I’m in love with you, Chance! And I’m sure as Hell not going to date some rich little prick who doesn’t think I should take tennis because I kick his ass at it.”
“That’s very specific,” I said.
“True story. My parents already have some smug little prick picked out, and they’ve been trying to get us together since you went to Boston.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, relieved and a little ashamed of myself for doubting her. “He doesn’t want you to play tennis?”
“No, he doesn’t! He actually said we couldn’t play against each other because it would ‘look bad’ for me to beat him. Or that when we did play, that I couldn’t beat him.”
“Your folks must love this guy,” I muttered.
“I think they’re ready to put him in the will,” she said. “Or plan the wedding. I fucking hate this, baby. I don’t feel like I have any say in my own life. It’s my damn senior year. You’d think they would be ready to treat me like an adult.”
“It’s weird,” I said. “We’re both powerful enough to handle anything the normal world throws at us, but your parents don’t know that. Even before I was turned, I was a mage. I could handle most things. Now…”
“Now, you can do all that and you’re still buff as Hell.”
“Still?” I said, pulling up my shirt sleeve over my shoulder and sticking my arm out. I flexed, and cords of muscle stood out all along its length. “Babe, I am ripped!”
“You already were,” she said, letting a little heat into her voice. “And I should know. I’ve seen all of it.”
“Well, in case you forgot any of it,” I said. The rest was cut off with the sound of her phone playing a tune I recognized more from Dr. C’s memories, Mama Mia by Abba.
“It’s like she knows when we’re together or something,” Shade said, pulling the phone out. She gave me a meaningful look, and I put a finger to my lips, then gave her a thumbs up.
“Hey, Mom,” she said with forced cheer when she pushed the button.
“Alexis, where are you?” her mother said. “Your father and I are worried sick about you. And you owe Doug an apology for standing him up for your date tonight.”
“I don’t have a date with him tonight,” she said, her voice getting low and slow, a sign I’d seen often enough to know her temper was rising. “Or any other night.”
“He asked us if he could take you to the opening gala for the new exhibit at the Vanderberg Museum tonight,” he mother said, sounding exasperated. “His father knows the director of the museum board. We tried calling you and sending you messages. You were supposed to be home hours ago.”
“He asked you if he could take me?” she said, edging toward a growl.
“Of course, he did. And we told him you’d be thr
illed to go.”
“Well, I’m not thrilled, mother,” she said. “And I’m not going.”
“Don’t you dare use that tone with me, young lady,” her mother snapped.
“Let me talk to her,” another voice said in the background. I stared at the phone, trying to place where I’d heard it before. “Look, bunny, let’s talk this over, okay? You need to be reasonable about this.”
“Reasonable?” she said in a saccharine tone. “You want me to be reasonable? Are you going to explain everything for me and tell me not to worry my pretty little head about anything?”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about anything with me around,” he said, completely missing the false ring to her words. “I’ll take care of everything, babe.”
“I won’t?” her voice rose to almost hypersonic levels. “Oh, Doug, let me tell you how much I really don’t give a fuck.” She closed the line, powered the phone off and tossed it in the back seat.
“I know that guy,” I said, my memory finally showing back up for work.
“Doug Fairing? What, was he one of your old clients?”
“No, he’s one of Alpha’s supplicants.” I stopped, remembering that I could talk about Alpha. “Alpha is the one who turned me. He has this group of wanna-bes who are trying to earn their place in his little pack. Holy crap...there’s so much you need to know!”
“Tell me, baby,” Shade said, taking a turn that led off our route. I unloaded everything I could remember, and Shade….Shade just listened while I told her the whole story. No judgment, no pity, she was just there. When I finished, she reached out and took my hand, pulling off to the side of the road.
“That sucked, baby,” she said, her words measured and slow. “I hate that you had to go through all of that.” She lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it gently. “And none of that is on you. You know that right?”
“Know, it? Yeah. Believe it? That ain’t so easy.” I looked down, cheeks still hot from telling her how badly Alpha had beaten me.
