Nowen paused just inside the exit door, feeling for anything out of order. The shelves and counters sat quiet and dusty. Large windows at the front of the building had been boarded over at some time in the past, but there were enough gaps to let some light in.
Everything seemed the same as when she had left a couple of hours ago. She moved to the staircase and headed up. The second floor was a large open space with metal racks scattered about. The racks still held some clothing. A couple of ratty couches and arm chairs had been left behind also, too big or unneeded by scavengers.
The lone window on this floor, set at the front of the second story, had neither boards nor curtains covering it and bright sunlight streamed in. At the far end of the open space a stand-alone wardrobe lay flat on the floor, surrounded by some of the abandoned furniture. Nowen took one last look around and then stamped her foot twice on the floorboards. Two answering knocks came from the wardrobe, and then one of the doors was flung back. First Sage and then Suzannah climbed out of the wardrobe.
Sage ran to greet her but her quick steps slowed and the smile faded from her face as she came close enough to notice Nowen’s blood-spattered condition. The girl’s dark eyes widened. “Oh, Nowen, what happened to you?” she asked in a hushed and startled voice. Suzannah moved up behind Sage, and Nowen could have laughed at the similarity of the horrified looks on both their faces.
“Ran into some trouble. Here,” and she held the tote bag out to Suzannah, “all I could find. I didn’t get that far, actually. Revs and patrols are everywhere.”
“Forget that! What the hell have you been up to?” Suzannah said.
“ ‘Forget that’? After what I went through to get everything in that bag?!” Nowen jerked the bag back out of Suzannah’s reach and then brushed past the woman brusquely. She threw herself down on one of the couches and leaned her head back against the worn cushioning. “There’s not much in the bag. Some candles, a whole canned ham that somehow got missed, popcorn-”
Suzannah cut off her recitation, stomping across the floor to stand in front of Nowen, anger on her face. “Yes, thank you, that’s fucking wonderful, and what the hell happened out there?!”
“There was a fight.”
“With who?”
“A black-shirt.”
Suzannah’s pale-green eyes widened. “A black-shirt? Nearby?”
Nowen leaned forward on the couch. “Settle down. It was a couple of blocks away. I was hiding under a car from some Revs when a patrol came down the street. Most of the Revs followed them, and when it was safe I came out from the car. For some unknown reason a black-shirt was on top of the car. I’m guessing she got up there without me hearing her when the patrol came through. I don’t know if she was lone scout, or part of the patrol, or what. She jumped down, I got up, we had a fight.”
Suzannah rolled her eyes. “Great! Now New Heaven knows for sure that we’re here!”
Nowen’s hands clenched into fists and she winced involuntarily at the pain from her bruised knuckles. “What exactly was I supposed to do? Let the black-shirt kill me?”
“How the hell did the bitch sneak up on you anyway?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Suzannah threw her hands in the air. “Why didn’t your Indian spirit animal or whatever the hell it is warn you?” She was nearly shouting now. “You’re one of those damned things those lunatics are trying to create, right? You should have ‘changed’ and let the goddamn werewolf tear the black-shirt’s throat out! Fuck, you could have even chowed down on the bitch, made it look like a wild animal attacked her or something, anything, other than let New Heaven know that we’re here!”
Nowen shot to her feet and took a step forward. Suzannah had to look up to meet her gaze, and whatever the red-haired woman saw in Nowen’s eyes made her own face blanch as white as milk. “My wolf is gone!” Nowen roared. My? “She’s gone, maybe forever. What Vuk did to her, to us, hurt her so badly she ran as far away as she could get. Here!” She jabbed a finger at the side of her head. “My wolf is gone and I can’t get her back! And that means I have nothing left in this world-”
Nowen stopped. The truth behind her words hit her harder than the blow of the black-shirt. My wolf. ‘My’, not ‘the’. A part of me, something I’ve tried to deny for so long out of - what? Fear? Fear of losing ‘me’ in the wildness of my wolf. She staggered back and slumped down on the couch. Her head hurt, and she rested it in her hands Fool. You don’t even know who you are. This is your life now, and why should you fear losing something you don’t even have. The only constant companion you have is your wolf. And only now that she’s gone do you realize what you had and lost.
A hand lightly touched her shoulder. She raised her head, blinking away the tears that threatened to fall, and looked at Sage. “You’re wrong.” the girl said. Her dark, dark eyes seemed to pin Nowen to the couch. “You have something. You have me. And you have Suzannah. We’ve already been through so much, and we’re still together. We can’t - we won’t - turn on each other. Or we might as well walk out the front door right now with our hands up.”
Nowen looked up at the woman. The wariness in the pale green eyes spoke eloquently enough that Suzannah was not completely convinced of Sage’s argument. Still, she effaced a weak smile. “Sure, kid. Sure. All for one, one for all.” The tension visibly eased from her body and she took a seat on the couch. “I just can’t help but think that the black-shirt is gonna be a big ol’ sign, screaming: ‘Here they are!’ “
Nowen looked at the woman but directed her words to the girl. “Sage, could you bring me some water? And an aspirin, if we have any left.” The girl crossed her arms over her chest and gave Nowen a suspicious look. “Do you really think there is anything you can say that will bother me at this point?”
Nowen sighed. “Fine. I understand your concern, Suzannah, but the black-shirt won’t be betraying us to anyone.”
“What do you mean? What could you threaten her with?” Suzannah drew in a quick breath. “Or...fuck! Did you kill her?”
Nowen glanced at Sage; the girl stared calmly back. “No. I didn’t kill her. But I made sure that she couldn’t escape, and then I got the attention of a few straggler Revs. The damage they’ll do to her should cover anything that I did.”
Sage paled a little but kept her composure. She nodded briskly. “That’s good, right? So we should be okay here for at least another night.”
Suzannah scrubbed her hands over her face as she spoke, muffling her words. “Yeah, I think so. Gives us more time to have our favorite discussion.” She lowered her hands and looked at Nowen. “What the hell are we going to do? Damn New Heaven freaks have cleared out most of this area of any kind of food. We have - what? A few cans of chili and asparagus-” and here she gave Sage a disgruntled look “- a gallon of water, some candles, and a whole bunch of socks.”
Sage frowned. “Don’t look at me! I grabbed a bag; why didn’t either one of you take your bags, too?”
“I’m not complaining that you somehow latched on to the only bag with cans of asparagus in it.” Suzannah said in a long-suffering tone. “I’m just wondering why, when we were packing those bags, you felt it so necessary to stuff eight pairs of socks in there, too.”
“Socks are important! In school last year we read about World War II, and how soldiers who don’t have enough clean socks can get infected feet!” Sage replied, her voice rising.
“Well, great! When those freaks come along and drag us back to their compound, we’ll have nice clean feet!” Suzannah shouted back.
Do something before they draw every Rev in the neighborhood here. Nowen stood. Suzannah and Sage looked at her. “Obviously we can’t stay here. We’re going to head north. North, and west.”
“Into the mountains? In winter?” Suzannah asked.
Nowen nodded slowly. “The Revs are slower in the cold. The colder it gets, the safer we are. We’ve seen the recreation area signs, right? We look for a ski lodge or resort or hunting c
amp to hole up in for winter. The bigger places should have supplies, and if we’re lucky they won’t have been disturbed. And there have to be towns or cities near the resorts, so that’s another scavenging possibility.”
Sage frowned. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“I agree. But I think it’s the best choice right now. It’s already November. Trying to head south or east would be more problematic; the risk of capture by New Heaven or running into Revs is huge. If we can find a place to hide, disappear so thoroughly that Vuk gives up on us will he, though? and make it through the winter, then...well, then we can see what the spring holds.” Nowen looked at them, the woman and the girl, her friends? companions. “Are we agreed?”
Sage nodded and glanced at Suzannah. The woman sighed. “Your argument makes sense. We’re never gonna have a moment to think as long as those freaks are after us. But damn!” She thumped the couch with her fist. “I hate the cold. Why couldn’t I have been in Florida when the end of the world came?”
That night, after a supper of canned ham and cold asparagus, Nowen, Suzannah, and Sage retreated to their night-time shelter to talk and plan. Two of the couches had been set at angles to the wardrobe, creating a triangular space that was then covered with curtains and rugs to hide their light and keep in what warmth their bodies generated. Suzannah had been trying to teach her and Sage poker, but had eventually given up and settled on gin rummy. The red-haired woman had gone downstairs to use the rough latrine they had cobbled together, and now Nowen was absently shuffling a deck of cards and staring at the lantern they were using for light when Sage interrupted her reverie.
“Nowen?” Nowen looked at the girl. Sage was lying on her stomach, on a worn quilt she had put down to cover the hard floor. She was tracing circles on a pale-yellow patch of smiling daisies, trying for nonchalance but only conveying nervousness. She glanced up from beneath her wild russet curls, dark eyes flashing in the artificial light. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Sage.”
“What happened to Anton?”
Nowen’s hands stilled, the riffling cards collecting in the space between her cupped palms. She ran her hands over the deck, tapping the edges to line the cards up. “Sage, he’s dead.”
“I know he’s dead.” Another quick glance before she looked back down at the daisies. “I mean, how? How did he die?”
The blonde-furred human kneeling in front of the cage, the metal point protruding from his chest. “Anton came to free me. He talked, apologizing, I think.”
Sage looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I was not entirely present. My wolf had turned on me in her madness and rage, had driven me back, deep inside my head. I tried to stay aware of what was happening, but after a while, it was just easier not to. I have a lot of the wolf’s memories, but without my influence she grew wilder and more distant from any understanding of speech. So, I think Anton came to apologize for leading me into Vuk’s trap.”
“He did.” Suzannah slipped beneath the sheltering curtains, sinking to the floor next to Sage. She tousled the girl’s hair and then looked at Nowen. Her face as she spoke was sad. “Anton was real sorry for what he did. I don’t know if that counts for anything. I ain’t making excuses. But I can tell you he regretted it. He felt he had no choice. See, Vuk was holding-”
“His mother hostage.” Nowen said slowly. “I remember that.”
Suzannah nodded. “Anton was real close to his momma. He talked about her like she was a saint. Evidently he was a real hell-raiser when he was young, and his momma was always there for him.”
Sage pulled herself into a sitting position. “What happened to his mother?”
“They killed her.”
Nowen leaned forward. “How did he find out?”
“Anton was like a pit bull in a fight; he locked his jaws onto finding his momma and never let go. I know he got the run-around for a while. He’d tell me that he’d been told she was at one temporary camp or another, or she was out on a scavenging mission, or some other bullshit like that. Finally he’d had enough, and he just barged into that Isaac’s cabin and demanded to know the truth.” Suzannah smiled wistfully. “Stubborn fool. The black-shirts gave him some nice bruises for that, but he got the answers he wanted. Isaac told him that his mother was dead, killed back in Cheyenne with a whole bunch of other people who weren’t the right choices for New Heaven.”
All those people at the mall. Too old, or too ill, or not healthy enough.
Suzannah took a drink of water from a dainty teacup with a broken handle, coughed, and continued. “Anton...went a little crazy after that. He came real close, I think, to getting himself killed a couple of times, picking fights with the black-shirts. He started taking long walks at night. I thought he was just wandering around.” She looked at Nowen. “He was searching for you. He told me once that he needed to make amends. And I’m guessing he found you, ‘cause one night he didn’t come back to our cabin.”
Nowen nodded. She closed her eyes and dredged the wolf’s memories, piecing together something coherent. “Anton came into the building where I was being held. He had the keys to the cage, and I have the impression that he was apologizing. And then, suddenly, Vuk was there. He stabbed Anton with a...I don’t know, sword or staff or something.” She opened her eyes and looked at the other two across the pool of light. “He died there, outside my cage.” And we were hungry, so hungry, and the blood ran bright and fresh across the floor.
Suzannah picked up the deck of cards, sliding them anxiously through her fingers. When she spoke, her words were shaded with both fear and strength. “I hope you don’t hate Anton too much, Nowen. He did something awful to you, but then he paid the ultimate price in trying to fix it.”
Nowen shook her head. “I don’t hate him. He was used by Vuk, used and then thrown away. Vuk already has a lot to answer for, and Anton is one more mark on the list.”
“There was something else I was wondering about, Nowen.” Sage said. Suzannah snorted and gave the girl a gentle nudge on the shoulder. “Ain’t we had enough interesting stuff for one day?” the woman said.
“What?” Nowen asked.
“Well, I was thinking about how we’re going to get away from the black-shirts.”
Suzannah started shuffling the deck of cards. “We’ve already decided on that, honey. Gonna find us some bikes, travel at night, hide in the day.”
“Yeah, I know. And hope the black-shirts don’t have night-vision goggles like you see in the movies. What I was wondering was this: why haven’t we seen any of those, uh, vukodlak?’ Sage stumbled over the unfamiliar word.
Nowen stared at the girl, dumbfounded. Why the hell didn’t I think about that? Too caught up in my own problems? “I don’t know.”
“You said, back at Eli’s house, that that was what Vuk was doing. Creating more vukodlak. I was wondering why we haven’t seen any of them.”
“Oh, fuck me.” Suzannah’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell, if they start hunting us with werewolves, we’re screwed.”
The panic coming from the red-haired woman was almost palpable. Nowen raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Calm down. We can’t worry about everything. I can tell you what I think might be going on.” She waited until Suzannah seemed calmer and then continued. “I have nothing to base this on except what Vuk said to me, and my own thoughts. Right after I was captured I was still in my human shape. Vuk had me starved for a few days, hoping to make me more amenable, and then he came into the building and talked. From what he said, vukodlak are not that numerous. Never have been. It’s not an easy transition, I gathered, and the new vukodlak needs constant watching and, I don’t know, ‘mentoring’ from the one that created it. Vuk called me a ‘feral’, a wild wolf that, before the Flux, would have been killed because of the threat I would have posed to other vukodlak. Now, though, he wanted to keep me alive. Even when the wolf and I fought him at every turn, even when we killed the white wolf, Livia, he kept us alive. He need
ed us, for some plan of his. Needed every vukodlak he could get.”
“And his plan is to make more of you.” Suzannah said.
“It’s what makes sense to me. We are immune to both Flux and the bite of a Rev. We can live off the land, we can kill the Revs without much danger to ourselves, and can you think of a better way to infiltrate an enemy camp? The world as it is now is not easy on humans. But vukodlak? It’s a playground.”
Suzannah leaned back, a look somewhere between thoughtful and horrified on her face. Sage caught Nowen’s gaze. “Ok. But why haven’t we seen any yet?”
Nowen shrugged. “I’m sorry, Sage, but I don’t know. All I can think is that Vuk’s not having much luck creating them. Other than Livia, I don’t know how many vukodlak he has.”
“Is he one?”
“I...don’t know. He never changed, even when we killed Livia and tried to attack him.”
Suzannah clapped her hands loudly together, breaking the solemn mood. “Well, thank you both for some wonderful nightmare fuel. I won’t be falling asleep anytime soon, so who wants to play a game of cards?”
Chapter Twenty
Nowen crouched next to a moving van and checked the next street over. She felt, more than heard, Sage and Suzannah join her in the shelter of the van. The sky had been cloudy all day but had cleared up before sunset; now a half-moon had risen and Nowen both blessed and cursed its light. The same illumination that helped them avoid danger also made them targets.
They had left the shelter of the thrift store just after nightfall. The stars had spilled across the sky in frozen glory as Nowen led the other two on an arching path away from where the New Heaven patrols ranged. The patrols had been active all day, agitating the Revs and inadvertently clearing a passage for Nowen and her companions. The noise of the patrols’ engines and music had died off with sunset and now the night was still.
Wolf Hiding (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book 2) Page 15
