“Why do you say that?” A fresh little bubble of fear. Was he expecting a fight?
“Tradition. I don’t know who’s going to be there, but usually when mixed packs meet, you’ll have some members in skin and some in fur.”
“Showing off,” Kage said. “Have to look our best when we get together.”
“That’s how we look right now.” I blew out a breath. “All at our best. Okay … Jed, stay, but no one else. You can’t keep changing.”
“I could go,” Kage said without conviction, perhaps still worried about Jason.
“Isaac,” Andrew coughed.
Isaac looked around at him from the passenger seat.
“No—Isaac change,” Andrew said, still breathless.
“I’d rather he—” I started.
“Believe me, darling. If it’s to show off…”
I wasn’t following as I struggled to drive and find this bridge in the dark, so only said, “Okay. Zar, it’s up to you, if you know anything about this? What it might be like?”
“Hopefully just us and the coyotes, but who knows? Bears? Isaac and Jed can go in fur. That’s enough.”
“There it is.” I squinted to the bridge in the headlights. “Do we just pull over? Are we supposed to be on foot?”
My question was answered as double yellow glows blazed out of the blackness beside the timber footbridge. A coyote was waiting for us.
Chapter 33
We had a long walk in the dark over a well-traveled path, led by a coyote vanishing like smoke before my flashlight beam.
Isaac and Jed kept behind this elusive guide, then Zar walked with me, Kage and Jason after him. Andrew, eating grass, trailed.
It was twenty or thirty minutes up a gradual slope before I smelled the wood smoke, then saw distant firelight through trees. Enough time to steady my own breathing and pulse, to exchange energy I needed from Zar’s hand in mine, and for my pack to have their public faces on.
The moose attack was over. A freak event, but not about shifters. This was not a vampire repeat. Right where we were supposed to be, doing what we were supposed to be doing.
Most important, everyone was all right—if sick and knocked about. Zar understood shifter gatherings and he wasn’t afraid, only excited as we moved forward.
Such repetitive thoughts soothed my breaths and kept my steps steady while we walked through the forest by night. And a smell of dead fish. Even after their changes, my nearest companions still smelled a bit of the fish they’d so joyfully rolled on not too long ago. Such trivial realities helped calm my nerves.
The trees fell away as we entered another of those open, rocky places. I switched off my flashlight long before we were bathed in the firelight which now guided our steps. The fire ban was flaunted in a big way up here. Three great fire pits in a row, rimmed in stones, sent out not only far-reaching tendrils of light to bring us from the forest, but a welcome warmth.
I felt an upsurge in my own energy drawing near the flames, feeling that warmth and special power.
It was what lay beyond the triple fires which really caught our attention, however. The people waiting for us.
This meeting was clearly already in order. In fact, I knew as soon as I began to make out the forms that we were the party crashers. The rest were well settled, perhaps already having been in conversation for hours while they waited to see if we would receive the message and show up.
Isaac and Jed had slowed as we left the forest. No longer bound to a narrow trail, they walked one to each side of me, in line like bodyguards. They were magnificent at it. The massive twin shapes of black and white, yin and yang, escorting me, the sole non-shifter, here before this gathering, was a stroke of genius. Truly a statement without gaudy drama or noticeable showing off.
The other four, perfectly collected—no limping, gasping, holding injuries, or chewing grass—formed a close but casual group just behind and beside the three of us.
An hour before, I was scared of all being capable of walking anywhere, much less doing it in style. Now, pride in my pack, with my vision of us approaching through other’s eyes, sealed in another level to my own newly flowing power, tingling my blood and making my steps glide.
I’ve heard it said that pride is unnecessary ego, even a sin. I would rather say pride at the right time and place manufactures courage, which manufactures power.
Ahead stood a high ridge of rock that amounted almost to a cave. Either a natural depression into the wall, or carved out to form a long, flowing overhang where even a large group could gather with shelter and still have open space on three sides. The fires blazed in a long row before this indentation which ran the length of a three-car garage and reminded me of a staged depiction of Stone Age life.
Here, about these fires and sitting or standing together in groups along this rock wall, were many people. I gained the sense of a crowd as we walked up, some two-footed, some four.
Several forms came forward to greet us by firelight.
“The coyote-seekers,” an elder male said, smiling benignly at us as he approached. He was very old, his skin creased, his long hair gray. “Tell us, why have you come? What are your intentions?”
He and his companions appeared Native American, with nothing showy or traditional about their attire, most in street clothes—jeans, skirts, denim or plaid shirts or flannel button-downs. A couple, though, wore buckskin robes, tied with sashes at the waists and decorated with bone, stone, and wooden beads, feathers, and rabbit fur. The rest nearby were yellow-eyed, gray-coated coyotes, looking like pet dogs in size compared to Jed and Isaac, who stood, indifferent to them, so close to either side of me I could have rested my hands on their heads.
“We’ve come looking for shamans. Our pack is in danger.” My own voice was strong and calm, without being loud or forceful. “We are traveling together to find help and answers. Not to do anyone harm. We thank you for offering us this opportunity to meet with you.”
“Our pack?” He cocked his head gently. “How is this?”
A young female in a robe at his shoulder held out her hand, sweeping us up as if to show our scale. “What is a witch doing in a wolf pack?”
It was her. I felt a shiver and followed my instincts as I answered. “You’ve been in my dreams. You asked me the same question.”
She didn’t blink, dark eyes fixed on mine, jet black hair framing her face, in turn framed by firelight. “Did you answer?”
“I asked what a talking coyote was doing in my dream. I never saw you in this form. You gave us the message earlier.”
Her eyes narrowed and it seemed her shoulders relaxed some, comforted rather than alarmed. “You do know me… By magic? Are you a scry?”
“I am. But I cannot. Whoever has been murdering members of this pack has also attacked my magic. I’m not scrying anymore. I did see your family in a scry from England which initially brought us to Colorado.”
“I admire your faith,” she said rather coolly, as if she found it more foolish than admirable to take advice from a scry.
“Are you also looking for a witch?” I looked from her to the old male beside her. “Or did you merely say that in my dream?”
“We seek knowledge, guides, and unity with the Mother,” the elder answered. “If we seek a witch in an enlightened dream, and meet her with our eyes open, it must be because she has something to offer us in the waking world.”
“Since when has a human ever known unity with the Mother?” the female asked him, still looking at me.
“Since when has a human led a wolf pack?” His benign smile returned. “Very well, witch. You may wait here while the clans make their decision.”
“Decision for what?”
“Whether or not you are welcome here.”
“Oh…” I’d had no idea I was making a pitch, suddenly wishing I’d said so much more—how much we needed help, how hard we’d worked trying to find them, what was at steak. “Maybe—”
But the elder, and the rest, includi
ng those in fur, walked back between two fires to join the gathering at the rock wall.
I could not hear even the murmur of their voices over the crack and pop and feeding of the three large fires being done by several young ones. Two young to change, I realized, and the presence of pups, or whatever they called them here, reassured me.
From this side of the fires, it was impossible to tell who all or how many ranged beyond the light in this gathering place. I saw, however, more than one grizzly and black bear, a great many clan members in skin, fifty at least, and other furred beasts.
Several coyotes sat near the fires, gazing incuriously at us as if they’d already seen and smelled plenty. Probably they had.
A little, sand-colored fox stood on an outcrop of rock almost beyond the firelight, eyes glowing, craning its neck and sniffing toward us.
Two big, tawny mountain lions paced, glaring past the flames at us, mouths slightly open as they panted in our scents.
We did not move or speak, only waiting a few minutes while the clans discussed us.
The elder and his fellows returned.
“I am Daniel, and you know Si, my daughter. You may stay and explain yourselves. We will trade you knowledge or assistance for your guidance.”
“I’m Cassia. Thank you. How can we help you? What guidance are you looking for?”
Daniel shrugged. “I could not say. Mother knows. Knowledge is currency and you know something we do not. You are agreeable to a trade?”
“Of course. If there’s anything we can help you with, we will.”
“Then come sit where it’s warm and the mosquitos do not bite. Would you like soup? We will see what shamans can do about helping you.”
“Thank you. You are shamans, then?”
“Several of us. Have you journeyed? That will be a step to the answers you seek.”
“I have.” I glanced around as we started forward as indicated. “I don’t think my friends have.”
“It matters not. It takes no experience to journey.”
This was true. I’d been on plenty of shamanic journeys before and it was no more difficult than meditation. To my wolves, though, would it feel too much like magic? Would they be willing to try? This elder coyote seemed to be taking a lot for granted.
They settled us in the curve of the stone wall, seated on crude log benches. The rock wall turned out to be covered in charcoal cave paintings of all imaginable western wildlife, plus scenes of gatherings, stories told in panels, hunts, and seasons of flowering trees fading to naked branches and deep snow.
The living, breathing group around us were even more interesting. It seemed every species had their own little cluster here, each their own clan.
Brown bears and black, swift foxes and red foxes, bobcats and cougars, timber wolves and prairie coyotes, greeting us with everything from sniffing curiosity to indifference, to, in a few cases, veiled hostility. The cougars seemed particularly displeased to see us, yet they were perhaps unfriendly from the start. I noticed Clan Mountain Lion kept to the periphery of the gathering, as did the foxes. It was the coyotes, our hosts, and the bears, who were most to the forefront, plopped comfortably out in the open around us. The bears appeared only mildly interested as they drank their soup—really broth—from earthenware mugs, and murmured to one another in low rumbles. The coyotes did the talking, bringing soup for us, stoking the fires, and breaking up a fight when a bobcat stepped on a fox’s tail.
An elder female asked for our story while we were accepting soup mugs. Zar and I told it. I’d made up my mind with my renewed courage walking up here that there was no holding back. If they would help, we would tell everything we could. No tricks, no traps, I had to believe that—despite my last scries leading us to a vampires’ den. We had to trust to ask for help, which meant leading with courage, not fear.
Zar told the beginning, how the murders had started out of the blue, two Sables killed last winter, Eve and Sarah, then deaths in the other packs of the South Coast—the Greys and Aspens. How the murders were done—the hanging, staking, cut throats and eyes, and covered tracks. The eight losses of the Sables, and many more now from the Aspens and overseas as well.
Then I talked. I told of my scries, of the deaths among druids, the heavy losses of the vampires, and slaying of faie in Britain, perhaps beyond. Then of our talk with the Scottish foxes and my scries leading us to wonder what we could learn from a history lesson of shifter conflicts from Irish-American wolves whose ancestors had kept those records. This led to shamans, to visions of coming here, and to a conviction that American coyotes could shed light on mass murders happening halfway around the world.
The clans listened in silence other than slurping and refills for the bears, plus blazing fires.
Zar ended telling them of the bears who had followed us in the Rockies, of our moving north and picking up promising trails, and our hoping to finally meet them all, grateful they’d come forward.
While we’d talked, I’d spotted the two older males from Red Eagle in the crowd but I irritably avoided looking at them.
A big, gray-bearded male, probably six-six, smacked his lips at the end of a savory mug of soup and nodded.
“Curnook told us about you. You caused a ruckus among their clan.” His voice was like muffled thunder. “But it’s good for the old boy. They don’t get out much. Your pack through his territory will keep Curnook talking for a decade.”
“All the same,” a big female added beside him, “you did well to move on or he might have made trouble for you.”
Daniel invited wolves forward, asking after any links to these Irish history buffs.
“They’re in the Cascades,” a female said. “You’ll find descendants from Famine immigrations in the Seattle area if you wish. What they know to answer your questions that we don’t know hardly seems worth the trouble, though. The Sun Valley Clan can tell you all there is to know about shifter history in the Old World or New, if not precisely about wolves.”
“It’s true,” Daniel said meditatively from his perch on a bench with Si and another female. “We keep records of our history since it cannot be found in the skin-bound’s libraries or web pages.”
“So do we keep our own history,” Zar said. “But that’s left us with a saga from our own perspective, not a scholar’s study of world events.”
“As to the clans history being biased or selective…” Daniel shrugged. “Who’s history is not? If you believe finding these true wolf scholars will give you a fuller picture of wolf shifters without prejudice, you may wish to trail your prey in the Pacific Northwest. However, ask first what it is you seek? Are you writing a thesis or solving a crime?”
“Thank you for bringing that up,” I said. “We have no interest in uncovering the tangled history of a rare species in exhaustive detail. We have been trying to uncover a greater historical understanding of shifter conflicts in particular to shed light on the present. No matter what we may think we’re after, at the end of the day, we want only one answer: who is responsible for these killings. If shaman’s wisdom or a historian’s pen can give us those answers, it is all the same to us. We have struggled even to know the questions to ask, yet the answer we seek remains unchanged.”
“As I thought,” Daniel set down his mug at his feet. “Now … as you already know, shamans can answer many questions. Just as a dream, meditation, or near-death experience can. Not because we are all-knowing or telepathic. Because we invite all that enlightens us.”
He rested his worn hands on his knees and regarded them. “You have avoided giving us your suspects.” He looked up. “I gather you thought at first this was vampires, now you believe shifters? But do not answer.” Shaking his head. “You are right to ask without judgements. Having suspects presents judgements which clouds true seeing. In your history lessons, you wish to know is anyone aware of a time in the past when shifters were murdered like this? While, in your shamanic needs, you wish to know if we can see across space and time like your magical
scrying and answer questions with true sight and the Mother’s guidance to solve your problems? Your expectations, like your suspicions, will guide your sails, turn the dreamer into the dream. Do you understand? Our goal in asking Mother for truth is not to impose ourselves. Not to allow ourselves to become the dream. It is to allow Mother to send the dream to us.”
“I understand,” I said quietly. “And I understand how hard it is to live a life without any prejudices, preconceived notions, or biases. Only open to the gifts and true information around us. I would argue that, in trying to solve a murder case, it is necessary to have suspects and ideas of who might be behind the murders. Which makes a clear mind and unbiased soul even more difficult.”
“Release for now those preconceived notions and allow yourselves to journey with us—or else we can teach you little.” He cocked his head, smiling, adding a silent question.
“We’ll do our best.”
“An admirable promise—all too often taken for granted. Now, it is Rema you want for a discussion of shifter history and conflicts.” He lifted a hand and a middle-aged female came forward from the gathering.
Chapter 34
“Thank you, Daniel.” Rema raised both hands to the rock wall, casting flickering shadows with her arms. Others stood behind her to add figures to this canvas, painting their own shadow pictures. They moved with patterns like a dance, from tiny fingers to whole bodies, as Rema told the story.
“Earth Mother grew the sun, moon, and stars from her womb and cast them into the sky. She grew all the plants, all the animals, yet they left her longing for more. A change here, an extra touch there, gradually the human animal took shape—standing up, fashioning tools, developing the written word. Agriculture, art, and the domestication of other beasts set mankind apart as the highest creature of Mother’s own creation. He was her greatest pride, her greatest sorrow.
“The human being took with him, beside gifts of fire, language, and art, ravages of brutality, oppression, torture, savagery, greed, and entitlement unknown to any other animal. Mother wept for what she had done with this last creation: mankind meant for perfection, instead revealing original evils.
Moonlight Journey: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 6) Page 22
