Blood and Wolf

by S. M. Gaither

  “You’re seeing ghosts now, too?” Liam teases, shoveling another bite of cake in his mouth. “Weirdo.”

  “No one said you had to be friends with me,” I point out. “Also, I may be weird, but at least I’m not a slob. Seriously—where did you learn how to use a fork?”

  “I’m self-taught.”

  “It shows.”

  “Aaand we’ve derailed again,” Carys sighs.

  The derailment doesn’t last, because a minute later the double doors to the sitting room open. All three of us fall silent and solemn as my mom steps inside.

  Gone are her fidgeting hands, her nervous glances; she’s in Empress of Wolves mode now as she gently smiles at me and beckons me to her side.

  “Good luck,” Carys and Liam say together.

  I give them a little salute and hop to my feet, my movements full of a confidence that melts away as soon as I leave the room. I shut the door quickly, leaving just me and Mom and a long walk to the courtyard, where the council’s meeting has been taking place. She doesn’t say anything for several minutes.

  I can feel the strain of our relationship in moments like this; our quiet is always different than the comfortable silence I share with Dad.

  It isn’t bad, but it’s… heavier.

  She would never admit it, but sometimes I think she regrets having me. Or, more like, she feels guilty for having me, because she feels responsible for giving birth to someone who could, you know, possibly destroy this world or whatever.

  And I never asked her for an apology—don’t need one, thanks—but sometimes I catch her looking at me as if she wants to say sorry.

  "You know the Blackwood clan is fond of illusion magic,” my mom finally says.

  “Yeah. Carys reminded me. I know more about the origin of their magic than any person could possibly ever need to, thanks to her.”

  The corner of her lip quirks, but the almost-smile fades as she grabs my hand and pulls me to a stop. “So hold on to what you know,” she says, her gaze locking on mine. “Remember that however they try to test you, it likely isn’t even real. And even if it is real, you’re strong enough to focus through it. You’re stronger than all of these people who insist on testing you. You understand that, right, Eleanor?”

  She sounds overly anxious, even by her standards.

  I nod, trying to reassure her with a confident smile. But suddenly I’m like a nervous little kid on her first day of kindergarten, and I can’t help blurting out: "I had a strange vision earlier.”

  “I know you did.”

  “You know?”

  She lifts an eyebrow, crinkling the white patch that covers her scarred and blind eye. “Your father knows better than to keep secrets from me after all these years,” she says.

  “So… what do you think?”

  She gives my hand a little squeeze and turns once again to face the door that leads to the backyard. I can hear the voices of the council members on the other side of it.

  Growing restless, it sounds like.

  “I think he was right to suggest we focus on getting through this test first,” Mom says.

  I can’t really argue, because suddenly that door is being opened by my Uncle Eli, and he’s beckoning us outside. My mom is back to empress-mode. I try to follow suit; my head is high, my steps resolute, my face impassive.

  “They’re ready for her,” Uncle Eli says, pointing toward the spot on the lawn where most of the council has gathered. The so-called blood king, Maric, is at the center of this group. When he sees me he holds up a hand, and all the conversation around him stops.

  One-by-one, people turn to look at me.

  I’m always greeted with an interesting mix of expressions when I walk into one of these meetings. Tonight is no different. A few try to offer me kindness, sympathy; others wear thinly-veiled fear on their faces. And then there are plenty like Maric, who look confident to the point of smugness—as if they’ve finally caught a wanted criminal and can’t wait to watch me fumble and accidentally incriminate my guilty self.

  The smugness almost makes sense this time. Because as I come to a stop in front of him, the first thing Maric says is, “Several of us sensed a bit of a…disturbance earlier. Further proof that control is becoming more difficult for you, isn’t it? I believe some of us predicted it would do so, as you got older.” He glances around and is met by agreeable nods and murmuring; neither of which he needs, because he already knows he’s right.

  I have found my strange blood more difficult to control, ever since all that hormonal crap that human teenagers get to endure started happening to me. It happened later than normal, at least—not until I turned sixteen, because it turns out having a dormant wolf in you really screws with your biological clock. But yeah, it definitely didn’t make it easier to harness the dangerous side of me.

  As evidenced by that ‘disturbance’ earlier.

  Instead of admitting that to this asshole, though, I stare directly into his cold gaze and say, “A small mistake. I fixed it quickly.”

  “Small mistakes can have big consequences. The mistake of letting you run free for this long, for example, might prove to have disastrous consequences for us all.”

  There’s some movement at this last statement. Uncomfortable shuffling.

  But I swallow down the retort building in my throat. I know my parents wouldn’t approve of me saying it, no matter how much they dislike Maric and his kind and all the hateful things they spew.

  Pack first, is what they would say. Think of all the lives that would be at risk if we don’t respect our alliances and at least try to keep the peace.

  With that in mind, and with a quick glance at my dad, who tilts his head toward me in reassurance, I keep my voice even as I say, “I am not a mistake. And I will prove it again tonight, same as I’ve been doing for over a decade now.”

  Maric gives me a tight-lipped smile as he extends a hand in front of him, palm flat toward the sky. “No one will be more thrilled than I to see that proof,” he claims.

  Black flames dance up from the spaces between his fingers.

  “In accordance with the addendum to this council’s laws, set forth in the second week following your birth and the emergence of the mark of Canath, and then further amended following the deadly fissuring incidents you were found directly responsible for, it is my solemn duty to administer this test, to determine your willingness to control your power for the sake of yourself and the safety of our world.”

  There’s a weird sensation prickling the back of my neck.

  I can sense several people taking a step back.

  Focus, Elle.

  “Let’s begin.”

  The black flames writhe their way around his hand, up his arm, around his entire body.

  They leap toward me.

  I know it’s an illusion, but I have to force myself to hold still. The flames crackle and dance around my body. Grey smoke fills the space between me and Maric. It builds and builds, growing thicker and thicker.

  Then it collapses in an instant, and he’s gone.

  No, not gone. Just going, I realize as I’m swatting at the smoke, which clears in a disturbingly convincing way—as if it had been real all along. Maric is already twenty feet away. Leaving and motioning for the rest of his fellow sorcerers to follow him. He looks wild. Furious.

  I don’t understand what’s happening.

  But I was so eager to prove him wrong—so ready to kick this stupid test’s ass—that I can’t stop myself from jogging after him.

  “Hey! I’m not finished with you!”

  He spins around, so violently quick that I stumble to a stop.

  “Oh, but you are finished.” His voice is chillingly calm. “Your entire pack is finished, because we have decided that we are finished with catering to their ridiculous insistence that we keep performing these tests, when we all already know what is going to happen in the end.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “You are too weak to safely car
ry that dangerous mark.”

  All around us, the air begins to hum with uneasy power. Several of my pack are in their wolf forms, and the sound of their anxious whining and low, rumbling growls makes my breath catch.

  They’re preparing to fight.

  You know, the exact thing I was trying to prevent by showing up and passing this test.

  This is all wrong.

  What is going on?

  Then it happens in an instant, before I can do anything else to prevent it: The raven-haired sorceress to Maric’s right lifts her hand, conjures up a ball of crackling yellow energy, and flings it.

  It strikes a grayish-white wolf—Sam Loflin, I think it looks like, though I’m too terrified to see straight— and sends him flying across the yard, tumbling through the patch of rose bushes that Carys has been growing as part of a crossbreeding experiment.

  I turn, frantically searching for her, afraid her and Liam will have made it out here in time to see that. Injured pack member aside, screwing with one of her experiments is one of the only ways to get Carys to lose her temper and actually want to fight you.

  But she’s nowhere to be seen.

  Neither is Liam.

  At least they’re safe, I think.

  No one else in the yard is.

  Because the second Maybe-Sam’s body hits the ground—lifeless and smelling terribly of singed fur and blood—several wolves lunge for the sorceress who struck him. She summons another orb of magic. Sweeps it through those descending wolves and sends two more tumbling. But two others reach her and lock their fangs and claws into her legs. She staggers, with them attached, for several feet, and then she falls on her back.

  A third wolf is at her throat an instant later.

  I turn away, not wanting to see the fountain of blood I’m sure is bubbling up.

  My eyes fall on the woods.

  And that’s where the rest of the Blackwood sorcerers come from.

  They emerge from the trees in a haze of the same sort of smoke and black fire that Maric called forth moments ago. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this is their entire clan, because there are too many to even try to count. Way more than I’ve ever seen, and way more than the agreed upon number for this council meeting. Such an incredible show of force that it’s essentially a declaration of war.

  They never intended this to be a test.

  This was going to be a massacre from the start.

  And we aren’t even prepared to fight back, because how many times has Mom drilled the word peace into our pack’s heads? Peace. These demonstrations are about keeping the peace.

  So half of that pack is not even here, and of the ones that are, most aren’t even transformed.

  All around me there are scrambling, vain attempts to try and find some sort of order and properly fight back.

  Some of the other council members are trying to stop the chaos.

  Most are simply picking a side and joining into the quickly-escalating fray.

  I hear a shriek from somewhere to my right, and I immediately recognize it.

  Carys.

  She’s pinned against a tree near the edge of the yard, held there by a brute of a man—vampire, maybe?— with a gun in his hand.

  If I had to guess, I’d say there are silver-coated bullets in that gun.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see her mom, my Aunt Katie, trying desperately to get to her. But she’s being violently cut off by a group of asshole vampires who are taking turns swiping at her with their clawed hands and kicking her with their heavy boots. I’m not sure anybody else even noticed Carys; she’s so small and completely eclipsed by her attacker, and her screech is just one of dozens.

  I have no weapon.

  This is probably going to end poorly.

  I race toward Carys anyway.

  I make it within ten feet of her when a shadow overtakes me. I’m slammed into and sent sprawling across the ground. My head catches the edge of a sawed off tree stump on the way down, and it rakes bloody scratches across my face.

  I fight my way to my hands and knees and find Maric Blackwood himself looming over me.

  In his hand are those dancing black flames, and as I watch, they stretch and sharpen into a sword-like shape. He points it toward me. Swipes it back and forth a few times, making little sparks of it peel off and sizzle in the air for a moment before disappearing.

  I scramble backward and trip several times trying to get to my feet.

  He follows.

  “Aren’t you going to fight?” he asks, his lips playing into a cruel smile. “You know you want to.”

  The wolf inside me surges, desperate to answer by clawing his face off. And why not? What does it matter now?

  There’s no peace left to keep.

  Carys is no longer screaming.

  Is she even alive?

  The fear of what might have happened to her takes me in a cruel grip, squeezing me a little closer to violence. The tips of my fingers tingle and itch, my claws trying to extend. My whole body shudders, muscles rippling, building—

  “Go on.” Maric’s voice is hardly above a whisper. “It’s okay to give in, you know. It was only a matter of time before you did. Even your dear parents knew that, child.”

  I shake my head. Take a deep breath, and manage to think three words: Human. Control. Peace.

  The three words of my existence.

  Human.

  Control.

  Peace.

  But the wind is picking up anyway. It’s making the scratches on my face sting. And the lighting around us is changing, bathing everything in the sick yellow-green hue that comes before a storm.

  Or before a fissure.

  “No,” I groan, closing my eyes.

  I’m in control, I’m in control...

  Maric’s voice floats down to me: “You see? Your parents can’t even stand to look at you now. They knew you would fail. I only wonder why they’ve allowed you to suffer so long, instead of just putting you out of your misery before you caused this disaster.”

  I open my eyes and glance around.

  Disaster is an understatement.

  Several fights have stopped, the blood-streaked and torn up combatants turning my way now that Maric has me cornered, all of them watching to see what he’ll do. But still others keep fighting. The air is brimming with smoke and waves of magical energy, and filled with the sounds of painful cries and moans.

  Somehow I find my parents through the haze, standing hand in hand in front of several members of our pack.

  Maric is right: They seem to be purposely trying not to look at me. They aren’t searching for me. They aren’t worried about me.

  And that’s when I know.

  “This is not real.”

  The flame-sword in Maric’s hand flickers, and the scene around us begins to do the same.

  “You bastard,” I growl. “What kind of sick, twisted illusion—”

  That illusion shatters the rest of the way, like a curtain falling away to reveal the true scene. But parts of it remain the same: the lighting is still strange. The uneasy energy of magic is still lifting hackles and making all the different council members shuffle anxiously.

  My face is still bleeding.

  And my dad is not happy about that last part.

  He closes the space between him and Maric with frightening speed. “The rules of our agreement say that you are not allowed to actually touch her,” he snarls, taking hold of the sorcerer’s arm and jerking it so hard that Maric drops what’s left of his magic. The flames hiss and extinguish against the ground.

  “Kael! Stop!” my mom shouts.

  But he isn’t listening—not to her, and not to me either, even when I insist, over and over again, that I’m okay. I’m not even sure he can hear me over Maric’s angry shouting, or over the sorcerer king’s violently sparking magic.

  So much anger.

  So much chaos escalating now, all because of me.

  And it’s all real this time. Not an i
llusion. I can reach out and grab the bodies scuffling, fighting and tangling with each other all around me, and I can feel their weight as I try uselessly to pull them apart.

  My muscles begin to twitch again. I drop to my knees and grasp my head in my hands, bury my face into the cool earth and try to shut out that primal voice in my head, the one that’s crying that I don’t have to be useless, that I could fight, I could shift, I could destroy all these cruel people who insist on testing me, pushing me, fighting me.

  I can’t drown out that voice.

  I feel my buried magic burning, urged on by my wolf. My palms suddenly itch. Because lightning is dancing across them. Magic.

  I’ve accidentally summoned magic.

  Oh no.

  A vicious CRACK rings from up above.

  I look up—everyone looks up—because shimmering dust is floating down over us.

  It’s drifting out of a wide, grey blur against the otherwise clear sky. At a glance, it just looks like a strange cloud. And a glance is all the time it lasts for before it blinks out of sight, but it was long enough for something to emerge. I saw it. Everyone saw it.

  And now everyone is silent.

  Still.

  The fighting has stopped, because they’re all watching that shimmer of falling dust as it materializes into a monster.

  Four

  Fire and Sacrifice

  “Inside,” my dad says, his calm tone obviously forced as he pulls me up and gives me a little shove toward the house. “Now, Elle.”

  “No! I can help, maybe I can fix this, reverse it somehow if I just—”

  “You’ve done enough!” he shouts.

  We both stare at each other in shock for a second.

  He never shouts.

  But he doesn’t apologize. There’s a nasty looking burn on his cheek from Maric’s magic, and his breathing is hard, uneven. My mom is at his side a second later, and her eyes dart toward me, more wild and afraid than I’ve ever seen them.