Hellforged d-2

by Nancy Holzner

  No-wings below, pointing. I dodged, moved fast. Too fast for no-wings to see. Out is no good when it’s cold. I wanted shelter, warmth. Wanted to fold my wings and sleep.

  Back to cave, to shelter. No, cave felt wrong. Where was good shelter? Warmth came from no-wings, from a shelter beside them. Car. It looked warm, a good place to sleep. I swooped down. A no-wings made an opening, and in I flew. A four-legs, gray and furry, lay on its side, eyes closed. Yes, a good place to sleep.

  I dropped the sliver of moon, moved in close to the four-legs. Warm fur. Safe smells. Sounds of breathing, heart beating. Good feelings inside me. I found a perch, covered myself with my wings, and slept.

  30

  THE ENERGY BLASTED OUT, AND I WAS NAKED AND FREEZING and it was dark and I didn’t know where I was.

  “Knife! Out! Car!” I heard the words before I realized I was the one shouting them.

  “It worked, Vicky.” Kane’s voice came from behind me. “You did it. You can let go now.” Warmth enveloped me as he draped a blanket around my shoulders. “We’re almost back to your aunt’s house. When you woke up and started flying around the car, Jenkins realized you were about to shift back. He pulled over and we let you out.”

  Woke up—I’d fallen asleep without Mab’s tea. I sifted through the kaleidoscope of memories and impressions from the shift. I remembered darkness, three dimensions of sounds, a glimmer of light, cold, sleepiness … but no Difethwr. Maybe a bat’s dreamscape was too small for a Hellion to squeeze into.

  Kane and I stood in a field tinted silver by moonlight. About ten feet away, the Land Rover waited at the side of the road.

  “Mab—” I wrapped the blanket around me and started toward the car.

  “She’s doing fine,” Kane said. “I just checked on her.”

  Mab slept in the back of the Land Rover, still in wolf form. I ran a hand over her fur; she whimpered softly and twitched in her sleep. I didn’t know how to check a wolf for a fever—was it like a dog? Gently, I touched her black nose. It was dry but not hot.

  “She’s fine,” Kane repeated. He put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed.

  I borrowed a sweatshirt from Kane’s suitcase. I never would have guessed he owned one, let alone two. This one was dark blue and smelled like laundry detergent with the slightest trace of Kane beneath the soap. It was big on me and covered most of what needed covering. I tied the blanket around my waist like a sarong to keep my legs warm.

  Now that I had my bearings, I recognized where we were—no more than a few minutes from Maenllyd. I climbed into the back of the car and sat by Mab, my hand on her shoulder. Kane got in front, beside Jenkins, and we made our way home.

  Given the length of the drive, I calculated that I’d been in bat form for a little over two hours. Shifts can last different lengths of time, depending on a number of factors: the moon phase, the type of animal, the strength of emotion at the time of shifting. Smaller animals generally mean shorter shifts. As a wolf, Mab could stay in animal form for another eight to ten hours. Healing her injuries might keep her in wolf form even longer.

  Jenkins turned left, and we went through Maenllyd’s gates and along the driveway. When the Land Rover pulled into the coaching yard, the front door burst open to reveal an anxious-looking Rose. She ran down the steps and peered into the car, counting heads. Her hands flew to her mouth when she saw Mab.

  “She got hurt, but she’s recovering,” I said. Kane’s promise of she’s fine echoed in my mind. “Kane saved her.”

  Kane shouldered Mab into the house, like when he’d brought her out of the mine. We got her settled in the shift room, where Rose insisted on sitting with her. I showed Kane the blue bedroom, the guest room Rose had prepared for him. We both needed to clean up.

  “I’ll meet you in the library in half an hour,” I told him. “Go down the stairs and across the front hall. Turn right and keep going until you get to the room with all the books.” He nodded and reached for me, but I turned away. I went down the hall and climbed the stairs to my room.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, I WAS SHOWERED, DRESSED, AND FEELING human again—a phrase that really means something to a shapeshifter. I hurried down to the shift room to check on Mab. She was still asleep. She lay on her side, tongue lolling, one paw hanging over the edge of the bed. Rose sat beside her, knitting. She put a finger to her lips, and I nodded, backing out of the room.

  Time to go meet Kane.

  As I crossed the kitchen, nervousness rippled through my belly. That kiss. The memory of it made me stop and lean against the table. What if he’d read too much into it? I didn’t want him to think I was throwing myself at him or getting all clingy. We’d always given each other plenty of space; that’s what worked for us. Tonight, he’d saved Mab and I was overcome with emotion. If he didn’t see that was all there was to it, I’d set him straight. He’d understand. In fact, he’d be relieved.

  I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and went to the library.

  Kane sat by the fire, the flames’ light and shadows playing over his silver hair. This was the Kane I recognized, wearing knife-creased black trousers and a light-blue dress shirt. He smiled when he saw me—God, he lit up the room when he smiled—and started to stand. “Don’t get up,” I said, my voice squeakier than the brisk tone I’d intended. I sat in Mab’s chair, and he stayed where he was. But he leaned toward me, a question in his eyes I couldn’t decipher.

  I was glad there was a fire to stare into. “Mab’s still asleep.”

  “I know.” He paused, and it felt like he was waiting for something from me. The flames danced and fluttered, yellow and white, above pulsing orange embers. Kane sighed, and I heard him settle back in his chair. And just like that the moment passed.

  “Yes, Jenkins told me when he brought me this.” He lifted a glass of wine. It was a deep red, shimmering with reflected firelight. “May I pour you some? Château Latour Paulliac 1970.”

  “That’s older than you are. You sure it’s safe to drink?” When feeling awkward, make a lame joke.

  He eyeballed me over his glass. “I hope you’re kidding. Do you want some or not?”

  I wouldn’t know the difference between Château Whatever and the stuff the winos drink out of paper bags in the New Combat Zone, but a drink sounded good. “Okay.”

  Kane poured some wine. He swirled it around the glass a few times and gave it to me.

  I rolled my eyes at the performance and drank. Yup, it tasted like wine. I wondered if Jenkins could pick up some of that lite beer Axel served at Creature Comforts.

  Kane watched me intently. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s wet, it’s got alcohol. What’s not to like?”

  “Philistine.” He sipped and closed his eyes, savoring the taste.

  Jenkins must have discovered Kane liked wine and dusted off one of Mab’s best bottles. He and Rose would be treating Kane very well for as long as he stayed here. I wondered how long that would be.

  “You didn’t come all the way to Wales to drink my aunt’s wine. What are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you for months, not until you’d argued your case.”

  “Didn’t you see it on the news?”

  “What news? There’s no TV in the house, and Mab doesn’t get a newspaper. Just like there’s no phone. Maenllyd is … outside of time.”

  “I can see that.” He waved his arm. “This place feels like something out of Masterpiece Theatre.”

  There was more to it than that, but I didn’t know how to explain. Time moved differently here. Maybe that was why Mab didn’t age like everyone else.

  “So what was in the news?”

  A cloud crossed his face. “The case has been postponed. Indefinitely—maybe forever, I don’t know. Everything’s in disarray.”

  “Kane, what happened?”

  “Justice Frederickson was murdered.”

  My glass stopped halfway to my mouth. Carol Frederickson, the Chief Justice whose opinions on civil rights had worried Kane. />
  “Who killed her? Do they know?”

  Kane’s laugh rang bitterly. “They thought it was me. Her throat was torn out. And it happened on the first night of the full moon. Who else but a werewolf?”

  “But … but …” I sputtered as my thoughts pulled themselves together. “What would your motive be? You’ve waited years to get a case in front of the court.”

  “And I thought I was going to lose, thanks to Frederickson—that’s how the theory went, anyway. I heard it about a hundred times when the cops questioned me.”

  “But you were in Virginia at the werewolf retreat, so you had an alibi. Why would they even look at you?”

  “I did have an alibi—thank whatever gods may be up there—but not that one. On Wednesday, I stayed later at the office than I should have. It was the first night of the full moon, and I’d be at the retreat for three days. There were a couple of things I wanted to finish.” That was typical. Kane the workaholic werewolf. “When I finally left, it was starting to get dark, but I could make it to the retreat before moonrise, no problem, as long as I didn’t get stopped for speeding.”

  Doubly typical. Finishing one last thing at work and running late for whatever came next.

  “My damn car wouldn’t start. I tried calling a taxi, and three different companies told me there was a twenty-minute wait. Some convention in town. But twenty minutes was too long. I wasn’t going to make it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “After I finished cursing?” He gave a wry smile, sipped some wine. “Nothing. I was trying to figure out who else I could call when somebody jumped me from behind.”

  Whoa. Mugging a werewolf was about as dumb as a dumb move could get. I waited for Kane to tell me about how he’d taught the mugger a lesson. But that wasn’t what he said.

  “I think I was out for a couple of seconds, because I don’t remember hitting the pavement. When I came to, it felt like the temperature had dropped fifty degrees. And this thing was peering into my face, like this.” He held up a hand about an inch from his nose to show how close it had been. “Vicky, I don’t know how to describe it. Its skin looked like dried-out leather, stretched taut over the skull like it was painted on. No nose, no lips. Fangs like a vampire’s, only bigger—so big they stuck out of its mouth. They were yellow like old ivory. And there was a smell like grave dust—old and stale and long since dead.” His nostrils twitched at the memory.

  I put down my wineglass and shifted in my chair. He could’ve been describing the creature I’d seen in my living room in Boston—the one Juliet insisted I’d dreamed. But what really astonished me was Kane’s horror. Kane, champion of all things paranormal, the politically correct werewolf who scolded me every time I said “zombie” or “monster.” I’d never heard him call any paranormal being a “thing” before.

  Rose came in, carrying a tray. “Sandwiches again,” she apologized as she set it on an end table. “But I thought you’d be hungry, and I’ve got to get back to Miss Mab.” She smiled shyly at Kane. “I’ll feed you proper tomorrow.”

  “She’s still sleeping?” I asked.

  Rose nodded. “Deep, like. She got restless for a bit and I thought she was getting ready to shift back, but then she quieted down again.”

  “It’s good she’s sleeping,” said Kane. “Among my kind it can take two or three days of sleep before someone’s fully healed.”

  I hoped it wouldn’t take Mab that long. We’d failed tonight. Pryce had released that huge deposit of Morfran, and I needed her help to plan our next move.

  Rose turned around in the doorway. “There’s cheese sandwiches, and bacon, and lamb. I left out the pickle from some of the cheese ones for you, Miss Vicky.”

  We attacked the huge pile of sandwiches. Kane gulped down two before he reached again for his wine. Lamb, both of them. I was glad he hadn’t been around earlier, when I was a sheep. You can take the man out of the wolf, but …

  “So this creature that attacked me,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I thought maybe it was a demon. Does it sound like anything you’ve ever come across?”

  “Yeah, in my living room. But it wasn’t a demon.” I didn’t know what it was any better than Kane did, but I was sure of that much. Demons can’t cover up their sulfur-and-brimstone smell, and Kane’s werewolf nose couldn’t have missed that. Now, he stared, forgetting about his wine. “I’ll tell you about it after you finish telling me what happened in Washington. What did you do when you woke up and found that creature in your face?”

  “I remember jumping up and snarling at it. Moonrise was approaching, and the shock of seeing the damn thing nearly forced me to change early. It backed away, but a second one came at me out of the shadows. I snapped at that one, and it retreated a few steps. Then another advanced. There were definitely three of them, maybe four. I couldn’t be sure, because I kept whirling around, trying to keep an eye on all of them at once.”

  “They were tall and skinny?”

  He nodded. “Like stick figures. They were playing their bizarre game of tag because they were trying to keep me in place so I’d shift out in the open, in the middle of the city. They almost did, too. The damn things were fast. But one got too close, and I grabbed it. I lifted it over my head and threw it into its friends, then ran like hell. I don’t know where I thought I was going. But I got lucky. One of those taxis I hadn’t actually ordered showed up. I jumped in and told the guy I’d give him a five-hundred-dollar tip if he could get me to the National Zoo in five minutes.”

  The zoo? Kane? His story hadn’t exactly been a laugh riot so far, but this had to be a joke. Kane, with his suit and briefcase, checking into a zoo? It defied imagination. And anyway, not even the strongest zoo cage could hold a werewolf.

  He saw my amazement and nodded. “The zoo has a safe room for werewolves who can’t get to a retreat during a full moon. Most big-city zoos have one. The safe room is usually underground, with a six-inch-thick, silver-plated steel door. Multiple surveillance cameras. And no windows, so you don’t feel the moon as strongly.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “Most people don’t. Or didn’t, until it came out in the news after the murder. I got there with two minutes to spare—not even. I could feel the change begin as I tried to make it down the stairs. I had to scramble into the room on all fours. The night zookeeper was right behind me, aiming a gun loaded with silver bullets at my head.”

  Of course. I’d been picturing something like the shift room where Mab now slept downstairs. But Kane’s safe room was nothing like that. “Safe” room meant keeping the norm population safe, not the unfortunate werewolf who got caught in the city at the wrong time. Kane had come close, really close to being killed. I reached over and squeezed his hand.

  “It was a bad night,” he said, squeezing back. “That no-window theory? It’s a crock. The moon hit me strong, and it was worse not to see it. I was restless and cooped up and boiling over with rage. All night I paced and howled and hurled myself against the door. I’ve still got silver burns on my shoulder.”

  “And while you were in there, someone murdered the judge.”

  “Yes, and set me up for it. An anonymous call to the police reported a werewolf in the judge’s neighborhood. And somebody called the retreat in Virginia to ask if I’d checked in. When the story hit the news—judge dead, werewolf seen in vicinity—the retreat staff called the D.C. cops and reported I’d never arrived.

  “You can imagine what happened after that. When the safe room door opened the next morning, it wasn’t to let me out. A paranormal SWAT team burst in and arrested me. They had assault weapons, silver-plated handcuffs, the works.” He smiled ruefully. “At least they let me put on some pants before they hauled me out in front of the TV cameras.”

  “Oh, Kane.” How humiliating. Kane was all about respect. To be treated like a criminal and a monster on television, arrested at the National Zoo of all places, must have been worse for him than the ordeal itself. I wanted t
o kick the crap out of whoever had done this to him.

  “Who’d want to frame you?”

  He shrugged. “Who wouldn’t? A lot of humans want to make sure PAs never get full legal status.” He drained his glass, but I could tell from his faraway look that he hadn’t tasted the expensive wine. “It was a perfect plan. If they’d succeeded in pinning the murder on me, it would’ve been all over. The crusading werewolf lawyer turns out to be just another monster after all.” I’d never heard him sound so bitter. “But they couldn’t charge me because my whole night was captured by the safe room’s surveillance cameras: See Kane change. See the wolf pace. See Kane change back. From four different angles.”

  “So there was no question you were innocent.”

  “Right. But whoever set me up still won. My credibility has taken a serious hit. When people hear my name, they’re going to remember those images of the SWAT team shoving me into their van.”

  I was glad I hadn’t seen those images. They would have made me want to hurt somebody. Or somebodies—saber-toothed somebodies with ice-cold auras.

  “Those creatures weren’t humans trying to derail PA rights.”

  “That’s why I wondered if they were demons. I thought maybe some sorcerer …” His voice trailed off as I shook my head.

  “Definitely not demons. I don’t know what they are.” I told him about the chanting in my living room, how Juliet had seemed to be in a trance, how the creature standing next to her had attacked me. “So I know what it feels like to get jumped by one of those things. But the next day Juliet denied it all. She said I was dreaming.”

  But I couldn’t have been dreaming—I knew that now, because no zombies had died. I’d been unconscious, stuck in a blank, twilit world outside my dreamscape. Why had Juliet lied?

  Kane jumped up and paced before the fireplace, like the enraged wolf locked in that underground room. “Juliet’s involved, Vicky. She was seen near the site where Justice Frederickson was killed.”