The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

The prince was sleeping over.

  "You really think we should get beds? It's just one night." Joshua cocked his head back and forth as he made adorable faces at the list he'd written out.

  "At Thanksgiving. Then there's Christmas. New Years. Easter. Besides it's always good to have a place for unexpected guests to sleep." Not that Decker had had such guests for three hundred years, but that was beside the point. "We can get the beds at the same place we bought this sofa and your bedroom furniture."

  The prince was going to be playing house with Decker's puppy.

  It meant that Seth was worried about Joshua and was rethinking leaving him in Boston. The prince was young. He had made a snap decision. Seth had had time to reconsider.

  At best, this was just a prolonged visit to see how well Joshua was really doing. Pretenses can be kept up during a few hours but not a few days. At worst, it was to break the news that Seth decided it was better for Joshua to move to New York. Or it could be something in between, where Seth was going to watch and judge and make a decision later.

  Whichever it was, this had to be the best damn Thanksgiving ever.

  If Decker told Joshua all this, however, it would only make Joshua lose control to the wolf. The boy was in grief over losing his adoptive family but he wasn't ready to interact with them. He couldn't just leave them in the dark. (He could. Decker actually thought it might be better if Joshua didn't contact his adoptive parents. The boy was still a minor. If the couple attempted some legal means to force Joshua to return to their home, things could get messy. The adoption hadn't been legal. It was possible that the couple could be charged as accessories to kidnapping. Annoying wolves was not the safest thing to do.) Joshua would be happier, though, if he knew that they knew he was fine.

  "We should go out shopping," Decker said. "Call a taxi."

  "W-w-what? We just made popcorn."

  "We'll get beds, a table and chairs, a big roasting pan, and a Christmas card."

  "A Christmas card?"

  "When I was human, there was none of this calling people on the phone. We wrote each other letters. Humans had been doing it for hundreds of years. A perfectly fine method of communication. It's sad, really, that it's totally fallen out of practice. At least, I assume it has, as we have not seen anything like stationery in all the shopping trips we've done. I've noticed, though, that Christmas cards are still quite popular. We'll send one to your family with a letter inside explaining how happy you are."

  "That's a great idea!" Joshua hugged him hard, wriggling in puppy joy.

  "Hurry. Hurry. Call the taxi. Time is short if we're going to get the furniture in place before your brother and cousin arrive. I'll go get some money."

  In short order they were at the very bizarre furniture store in Natick where they'd bought the leather sofa. Really, he didn't understand how modern man thought. The place was like a circus train collided with an entire steamer filled with custom-made furniture. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of furniture, none of them like the one beside it. The selection was stunning because somewhere out there was an entire warehouse of copies, just waiting to be stuffed in a truck and dropped into place within hours of making a selection. (They'd gotten the sofa delivered the next morning by paying extra.) The mind reeled.

  And some of the fabrics? Who in God's name would want them in their house? Had the entire race gone colorblind since he became a vampire?

  "What do you think of this?" Decker pointed at what looked like a very ugly print to him.

  "Do you really want another couch for the living room?" Joshua wrinkled his nose at it. "I can sit on the floor."

  If Joshua sat on the floor, he'd probably end up in a puppy-pile with his brother and cousin.

  Decker wanted to avoid that. "What about two leather chairs that match the sofa?"

  "Oooh, that would be nice."

  Then the fabric was as ugly as Decker thought.

  They found the chesterfield chairs and immediately attracted the same sales person who had handled the purchase of the sofa last week.

  "We'd like two of this one." Decker pointed at the one that Joshua was sprawling in. "Tomorrow if possible."

  Her eyes went wide but she kept a smile plastered on her face. "Rush delivery is more," she reminded him. "Much more, this being the holiday season."

  "Please. It's a family emergency."

  She laughed. "Just found out that you're hosting Thanksgiving dinner, huh?"

  "Yes, we'll need beds and a dining room table too."

  "Ah, out-of-town family. The best kind." She led the way to the tables. "They go away when the weekend is over."

  "Hopefully." Decker was willing to let the prince move in, if that was what it took.

  Joshua eyed the table that Decker pointed out; little puppy dog tail droop. "It's huge."

  Decker patted him on the head. "The thing about families is that they grow." And a huge table would indicate that the prince would always be welcome to come and visit. Anytime. Just that he needed to leave his brother when he left. "Besides, a little table would look wrong in our big dining room."

  Joshua lowered his voice. "It's expensive."

  "Money is one thing I have lots of. If I ever manage to run out of what I have, I can always find more."

  "You mean?" Joshua held up his hands as if he was holding dowsing rods.

  "Exactly."

  "Is that where you got all your money?" Joshua whispered.

  "Yes. I've been sitting on a small mountain of cash. All I've spent it on for decades has been taxes, gas, electricity and occasional small repairs on the house. I want to use it now to make this a happy Thanksgiving."

  The welling of tears in Joshua's eyes was the only warning Decker got before he found his arms full of puppy. Luckily no one was looking in their direction. The saleswoman had been busy copying down the numbers of the table and various chairs.

  Decker unbuttoned his overcoat and tucked the puppy inside the wool, hidden from sight.

  "We have these in stock," the sales woman announced. "You want this and the leather chairs and you said something about beds?"

  "Yes, two queen beds and mattresses. We have two men coming. A brother and a cousin."

  "Ah, I see. Beds are---" She glanced around for Joshua.

  "He's in the restroom," Decker lied. "Lead the way. He'll be along, wagging his tail behind him."

  43: Joshua

  How did people cook before YouTube?

  Joshua typed in "how to cook a turkey" and discovered that the search engine believed there were over two hundred thousand videos on the subject. That was a lot of turkey. Within a page, however, the simple directions fell to the outlandish. One video explained how to cook the turkey in a beer keg. Another method was using the exhaust of a Lamborghini sports car. Another video showed how to dig a big hole, build a fire, and then bury everything, turkey and all.

  He went back to the first page of hits and started to watch the top videos.

  Turkeys---he had. Some of the things that he didn't have were obvious. Stuffing apparently required bread cubes and butter and chicken broth. Mashed potatoes needed potatoes---of some sort. His grandmother boiled potatoes and whipped them with a hand mixer while adding milk and butter. His great aunt always complained, saying she should use a potato ricer. His mother, though, used a box of instant flakes. He didn't want to attempt the real potatoes---his grandmothers were very hit or miss---but there was suddenly something very wrong with the world when he wrote "instant potatoes" onto his list. It made him think of Wickers for some reason. He shuddered, crossed out the words and merely wrote "mashed potatoes." He had a few days to practice cooking them.

  Cranberry sauce was a must. As were biscuits and strawberry jam and pie. They had to have pie.

  It made a lot of food for three people but at the same time, it seemed a very lean Thanksgiving dinner. There should be veggies. Something green. Maybe. He was cooking for werewolves. Did Seth eat vegetables? One video mentioned turnips and another tal
ked about Brussels sprouts. People actually liked those? His family always made a green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup and fried onions sprinkled on top. Was that too redneck for Seth?

  His mom always made a "traditional" Jell-O salad for all holidays that was a cloudy pinkish orange color. The flavor, though, wasn't orange; it was something else. He'd never watched her make it; he had no clue what she put into it to get to look like that. There were always nuts on top---weren't there? He flailed for a while making random stabs at Jell-O recipes but found nothing that sounded close.

  Which looped him back to what he should do about his family.

  He and Decker spent nearly an hour looking at Christmas cards after picking out the furniture and paying a small fortune to make sure they'd be delivered during the weekend. Joshua thought that anything that had a baby in a manger should be avoided. Santa? Christmas trees? Presents? They reminded him of the one year that Bethy stole everything out of his Christmas stocking before everyone else woke up and left a lump of coal. (She gave it back after he was reduced to tears. She never understood that he was mostly upset by the idea that Santa thought he was bad. He'd had spent months in trouble that year because "he kept getting into fights" as bullies refused to leave him alone.)

  Angels made him think of heavily armed Elise.

  Snow scenes made him feel bleak.

  In the end, they went with a card of a ginger tabby kitten that looked like Trouble.

  If his parents were going to get the card before Thanksgiving, he needed to mail it soon, which meant he had to write the letter that would go inside of it. The problem was he had no idea what to say.

  The letter wasn't going to write itself.

  Reluctantly he sat down to write it.

  * * *

  Dear Dad and Mom.

  Dear Mom and Dad.

  Dear Mom and Dad and Bethy.

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. How are you?

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. I am fine. I will not be coming home for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Or ever.

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. I am fine. I'm having Thanksgiving with my real family this year.

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. I am fine. I miss you very, very, very...

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. I picked this card because it looks like my new kitten, Trouble. Decker picked a stupid wolf card but I told him it wasn't funny. You wouldn't understand.

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. I love you all so much. Even Bethy. I miss you every day. I hate not being able to tell you where I am or how I am or what has happened to me. I've become a...

  Dear Mom, Dad and Bethy. I know you must be worried about me but you shouldn't be. I am fine. I know this must be very hard for you to understand, but it is the truth. You had no way of knowing this but I had been kidnapped as a baby and my real family has been searching for me all these years. I am sorry, but I will be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with them this year. I miss you. I would call but I know that you would tell me to come home and I don't want to do that. I love you so much, I couldn't bear to tell you no. So I'm not going to call. I will let you know exactly where I am on my birthday. I know this must be hard on you, but know that I am safe and loved where I am right now, and please be happy for me. Always yours, no matter what, with love, Joshua.

  * * *

  Joshua leaned against Decker's back, reading over his shoulder as the vampire wrote out the letter in elegant calligraphy. "That's perfect, Decker. It's like you read my mind."

  "I just listened to your heart." Decker put down the pen among all the crumbled and torn pieces of Joshua's attempts. "You'll have to copy it into your own handwriting."

  "Thanks. You saved me."

  Decker reached back to ruffle Joshua's hair. "Any time."

  * * *

  On Monday morning the weather report announced that a Northeaster was sweeping in from the ocean and would be hitting the area late Tuesday night. (They probably announced it earlier but Joshua hadn't checked the news since Friday morning. It had been a hectic weekend of cleaning and painting the two bigger bedrooms for Seth and Cabot.) He stared at the television, feeling his stomach drop. The weatherman gleefully described sleet changing to snow then ice and back to snow for an impossibly slick commute on Wednesday morning. The bulk of the storm, however, would come as a polar vortex sweeping in from the west to collide with the Northeaster. By Thursday night, a blizzard of epic proportions would lock down most of New England.

  He thought of the letter he'd sent his parents. The one they'd be getting today. He told them he'd be spending Thanksgiving with Seth and Cabot. If he didn't, it would be as if he'd lied.

  Well, lied more. Or something. After he mailed the card, guilt started to eat at him for all the things he didn't tell them. It felt like lying by omission. He knew that they'd be worried about the massive wound on his shoulder; it had completely healed before he even reached Boston. They'd wonder if he had warm clothes to wear; he'd only taken T-shirts and a light jacket. As a werewolf, he was always plenty warm.

  He hated the fact that they'd probably keep worrying about him despite the card just because he hadn't told them everything. But "everything" would have made him seem a total nutcase. If he'd told them the truth, they'd have stormed Decker's house and dragged him away to some shrink. That would go so well: a know-it-all doctor trying to cure him of his delusions. Joshua wondered what the shrink would make of a horse-sized wolf having an anxiety attack.

  Still he hated all the lying he had to do to his parents. He'd always taken pride on how truthful he could be with them. He picked up his phone, thinking he could call Seth and make sure he was still coming. If the roads were going to be bad, maybe Seth shouldn't come. It seemed wrong to urge his younger brother to risk his life just so Joshua could stop feeling guilty about telling his parents he was spending Thanksgiving with "his family."

  His phone chirped and a text from Seth appeared on the screen.

  "Take turkey out of freezer and put in fridge! Now!" An entire row of "!" followed.

  His first text ever from Seth was some kind of weird turkey emergency. "What?" he typed back.

  "Turkey needs to thaw," Seth texted. "Cook says you need to move turkey to fridge now or it still be a block of ice on Thursday."

  "Okay. Did you see the weather report?"

  "Hold on." A minute later. "Ouch!"

  Joshua frowned at the screen. What did "ouch" mean exactly? "It will be dangerous to drive."

  "Don't worry. We'll be there."

  "Okay." And then because that seemed too plain. "I'm looking forward to it."

  "Same here, bro."

  Bro. Joshua stared at the screen. Bro. No one had ever said "Bro" to him before. That Seth said and meant it as "brother" freaked Joshua out. Bethy never called him "bro" or "little brother" or any cutesy term like that. Booger Face was the closest she got to it.

  But then Bethy hadn't wanted a brother. (She'd told him that many times.) And Bethy had never lost one before---and Seth had lost three.

  Maybe having a brother was actually going to be cool.

  * * *

  It snowed.

  It sleeted.

  It hailed.

  It did things that he didn't know the words for.

  He became addicted to checking the weather.

  Seth might say he was coming but Joshua started to seriously doubt him. When the governor declared a state of emergency and shut down the turnpike on Tuesday, Joshua gave up hope.

  He went to the refrigerator and stared at the turkey lurking within. "You planned it this way, didn't you? You're some kind of evil anti-holiday god. You want me to be miserable. I didn't ask for this. I never wanted to be werewolf. I had my life planned out. I was going to college. I had lots of friends. Okay, not a lot of friends, but they were normal and I could call them during the day when I was upset and not have to wait until the freaking sunset! And I had parents. I really, really love my parents. I don't care that they're not my biological parents. They did the best th
ey could and that I wasn't really theirs never mattered. My God, they spent more money on buying me than their pickup and Dad loves that pickup. And I've ruined Thanksgiving for them and probably Christmas too."

  The turkey lurked and the electricity flickered.

  "What? On top of being totally alone all Thanksgiving, you're going to make it impossible to cook too? Well---fine---I'll show you!" He snatched up the turkey and ran to toward the front door. He'd just freaking fling the damn thing as far as he could throw it. As a werewolf, he should be able to clear the neighbor's house.

  He had to stop at the door to juggle the turkey while getting all the locks undone. He never understood why Decker insisted on so many freaking locks. It always took forever to open the freaking door. It just made him so freaking mad!

  He got the last lock undone, flung open the door, and nailed Cabot in the face with the turkey.

  "Ow!" Cabot staggered backwards. He caught the turkey before it hit the ground. Blood trickled out his nose as he stared at the frozen bird. "What the hell?"

  "Seth!" Joshua leapt at his brother.

  Seth caught the wolf puppy and carried him inside. "Obviously I should have called but I was afraid we wouldn't make it, so I figured we'd just show up. I hope you don't mind that we came a day even earlier than we agreed."

  "Why did you throw a turkey at me?" Cabot complained. He stomped his way toward the kitchen, carrying the turkey. "It's still half-frozen. You could kill someone with this!"

  Seth settled onto the couch with Joshua in his lap. "Maybe it's one of those Martha Stewart recipes; a very elaborate seasoning process. Take it for a walk. Show it the town. Buy it a few drinks."

  Joshua was too happy to see them to be embarrassed yet.

  Cabot wedged the turkey back into the crowded refrigerator. "No need to worry about the blizzard; he's got enough food in here to feed an army of werewolves." He opened the freezer and laughed.

  "What?" Seth asked.

  "There's like fifteen pies in here. Pumpkin. Cherry. Apple. Peach. Blueberry. Dutch apple. Key lime. Banana Cream. Turtle cream? Fruits of the forest? What the hell are those? Wild berry blast with lemon crust? Where did he find all these? Southern pecan. Coconut meringue. Lemon grove meringue. One. Two. Three... I stand corrected. There are fourteen pies."