The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

  "Yes, we're working on that." Joshua closed his eyes tightly. Wolf. Wolf. Come out and play.

  The baker's startled yelp told Joshua that he'd succeeded. Why didn't he ever feel different? He didn't even know what size of wolf he'd become until he opened his eyes.

  He'd gotten humongous.

  "Bonjour Monsieur le Loup." Marie's voice trembled even though she sat calm and poised at the card table.

  The baker was wielding the box knife and a tin platter like a shield. "What-what-what-what?"

  I am never going to be able to come here again.

  Joshua sighed and focused on the snake. It hissed at him, eyeing him back.

  It was going to be weird using his mouth to strike instead of his hands. He'd been trained to protect his head.

  Deep breath. Focus on your enemy. Don't let fear in.

  And strike.

  He snapped down on the thick neck, just behind the triangular head. It corded and flexed like a living thing despite the taste of wood and bark and leaves. He heard Winnie give a strangled cry and he ground down with his teeth.

  The snake thrashed in his jaws. Its body uncoiled from Winnie with stunning speed. It whipped around him. The thick woven vines sprouted hundreds of shoots. The thing no longer looked like a snake but more like a millipede.

  This wasn't working. He didn't know how to fight as a wolf. Winnie was free---they should run. He was good at running.

  The thousands of "legs" grew even as he tried to figure out how to safely disengage from the construct. The tentacles wrapped around his body. They anchored Joshua to the floor before he realized what was happening. He frantically tried to pull free. Something was wrong with the floor. The white vinyl had turned translucent like ice, thinly covering a wet blackness what couldn't possibly be the bakery's basement.

  He couldn't break free. The hundreds of vines wrapped tight around him, mummifying him as they pulled him downward. His paws went through the thin surface of the floor. The black was blood warm.

  He whimpered in fear as the vines yanked him down into the darkness.

  53: Joshua

  The world righted. Joshua was still encased in vines but he was no longer in the weird dark, warm nothingness. There was bare cement under him. The smell of blood leaked through the woody cords holding him firmly.

  "Oh my God! Oh my God!" a girl shouted beyond Joshua's living cocoon. "Dad! Aunt Belladonna! Dad!"

  "You don't need to scream, Tansy," a second woman with a deeper voice called from the distance.

  "Black wolf!" Tansy shouted. "It's a black wolf! I got a black wolf!"

  "What did you do?" Belladonna drew closer. "You know that we need to stay hidden until we have the lost heir on a leash."

  "I got impatient," Tansy said. "I thought if I could send a fetch to nab the spook girl, we could use her to get the book of protective runes. Speed things up. I landed the hook, but every time I tried to pull her in, something blocked me."

  "Of course something blocked you! A fetch needs to resonate with the soul of the target. Spooks can use a spirit as a mask. This could ruin everything; the prince is going to spot your fetch!"

  "I got a black wolf! When I couldn't reel in the spook girl, I threw some eyes into the mix to see what the problem was. There was a black wolf trying to tear off the fetch! So I nabbed him!"

  "Which black wolf?" Belladonna said.

  "How the hell do I know?" Tansy cried. "I was fetching a spook!"

  "Get him in a cage, Rowan," Belladonna said.

  "I'm working on it." Rowan was a man with a deep menacing voice. "Hold still."

  There was a whimper of pain from a new voice that was quickly silenced. The scent of blood grew heavy.

  "Okay, let's see what we have," Belladonna stated like a command.

  The vines unwrapped.

  Joshua expected to be inside something made of metal: a dog kennel on steroids. What they'd put him into was another woven vine thing. Its bars were thicker than his wrist, interlaced to a rattanlike weave. It seemed to be sized to the wolf; he barely had an inch of space on all sides.

  The whimper of pain had been from a college-aged boy lying on a plastic tarp. The student's chest had been sliced open and the tendrils of the cage's vine grew out of his heart. The tendrils of the retreating fetch were gathering around the body of a woman cut open in the same manner. The stench of blood and fresh butchered meat hung heavy on the air.

  The cage stood in a massive underground parking garage. The concrete stretched out in all directions; the structure most likely took up an entire city block. A forest of square cement support columns held up the low-slung ceiling. Wide scattered lights barely touched the cold darkness. Somewhere in that darkness, Joshua thought he could hear pigs grunting. The noise echoed eerily in the huge space. Except for a scattering of furniture, five tall work lamps on stands, and the dead bodies, the garage stood empty. The place felt gravelike.

  Joshua couldn't see any way out. There didn't seem to be any ramps leading to other levels. If there were doors to stairways, they were hidden behind the support columns. There were no helpful "exit" signs, nor any other normal signage. No painted parking stalls. No arrows indicating flow of traffic. No random oil stains on the pristine concrete. The space might have been built as a parking garage but the Wickers had taken it over before it had ever been used as one.

  The three Wickers stood staring at Joshua from a safe distance.

  "Tansy, you have a monster's luck." Belldonna looked nothing like how Joshua imaged witches. She was a stunning blonde woman in a deep jewel blue cocktail dress, studded with sapphires, and draped with a sable fur stole. She wore four-inch stiletto boots to make up for the fact she was short. If it wasn't for the assault rifle that she kept aimed at Joshua, she would seem like a movie star about to walk the red carpet.

  "Oh my god!" Tansy was a junior-high-school-aged girl with two blonde ponytails. "He's huge! You could put a saddle on him! Hey! Once we get the leash on him, can I ride him?"

  The wolf flung himself against the cage bars, snarling. The cage seemed to shrink smaller.

  "I'm not sure that would be wise, sweetie." Rowan looked harmless with a receding hairline, glasses perched on the end of his nose, and an apron that stated "Danger: Men Cooking." His hands, though, were soaked in blood up to his elbows.

  "The leash will make him docile, Rowan" Belladonna stated firmly.

  "As long as it's the right black wolf." Rowan turned to a basin on one of the work tables to wash the blood from his hands. "It could be that damn Thane again."

  Belladonna shouldered the rifle. "Cabot is in New York City with the prince."

  Tansy squealed, bouncing up and down with glee.

  The wolf roared in fear. He was all alone. No one knew where he was. With Decker asleep for hours, no one would miss him. No one would think to look for him until it was too late. He bit at the cage bars, trying to break open a hole large enough to wiggle through. It repaired the damage he did to it faster than he could bite through it. The cage shrank little by little until the bars pressed tight against his sides and he couldn't move.

  "Are we sure the cage will hold?" Rowan dried his hands on a clean white towel. He'd missed some blood and it stained the terry cloth.

  "It will hold. The Monkshood coven spent decades refining the spell to hold even the strongest alphas."

  "Yes, my dear sister, but the Monkshoods are all dead." Rowan picked up heavy rings from the sink's lip and slid them on. "They were either made feral or torn limb from limb; else we would have never inherited their spell books."

  "The spell wasn't what failed." Belladonna checked the time on her diamond wristwatch. "This throws our time schedule off. We only have four hours until we're up to our neck in pissed-off werewolves. Heath won't land at Logan for another five hours."

  Belladonna and Rowan glanced hard at each other.

  "Tansy, go fetch the other bag," Rowan said.

  Belladonna nodded as if he'd agreed with some
thing. Neither one looked entirely happy about the decision.

  What did they have planned, Joshua wondered? What were they going to do? What was this end game of theirs? Why had they killed so many people to capture him?

  "It can't be helped." Rowan pulled on a leather welding glove onto his right hand. "Heath will not make it back in time."

  He pulled a silver chainmail glove on over the leather one.

  "Don't rub it in." Belladonna shifted a wheeled tray closer to the cage. It looked like something out of a hospital operating room, stainless steel cleaned to gleaming perfection. "I know you want this as much as I do."

  Rowan produced a narrow silver case and sat it on the nearest planting table. He fumbled left-handed with the catch. Inside was one of the angelic daggers. He cautiously took it out with his double-gloved right hand. The dagger flared bright as an arc-weld in his protected hold. He laid it quickly on the steel tray. "Perhaps, but I'm not happy with the cost."

  Tansy left and returned wheeling a large suitcase. "This is so awesome. Do you know what I'm going to do with my wolves? I'm going to take over Disney."

  "You don't need werewolves to do that." Belladonna motioned for her to put the suitcase on one of the planting tables.

  "All of Disney!" Tansy swung the case up. "Disney World. Disney Paris."

  "You still don't need wolves to do that," Rowan said sadly.

  "No one wants to help me get my favorite television shows back on the air," Tansy started to unzip the suitcase.

  "That's why they were cancelled in the first place," Belladonna said.

  Rowan gave his sister a warning look. He brushed Tansy aside to take over the case.

  Tansy crossed her arms over her chest in defiance of the older witches. "I'll take over Disney and have them made! Firefly. Xena with the original cast. Farscape."

  "It's a waste of power, dear." Rowan flipped the lid open to reveal a lush grey wolf pelt. The head lay on top, glass eyes inserted into the skull so it stared mournfully out at Joshua. "I will be recognized as a god."

  Rowan swung the pelt around so it draped over his shoulders and lowered the skull so it sat like a hat on his head. "Let us take our last steps of hiding in shadows."

  Joshua cringed. The skin was from a werewolf. A person like him. A man that walked and talked and watched television and had parents someplace. He'd died protecting Joshua. Daphne had used his friends to kill the man. The Wickers had treated the man as less than a dog, butchering his body down while knowing full well how human he really was.

  And they had Joshua trapped and helpless. Were they going to kill him and skin him too? Seth warned him that the angelic blade was one of the few things that could kill Joshua instantly.

  "Tansy." Rowan caught the girl by her shoulder. He moved her closer to the cage. "Hold still. I'm sorry. This was to be Daphne, but the stupid fool got herself killed. Heath won't be back in time. He was our second choice."

  "What?" Tansy's voice went sharp with fear.

  Rowan picked up the angelic blade. It flared brilliant in dim garage. "This takes a blood sacrifice of a witch full into their power, born to the wearer's immediate bloodline, killed by a Virtue's dagger. A child or a parent. Daphne and Heath would have been better since they were out of your aunt's womb and there's no fear of adultery there. I have to trust that your mother was faithful."

  The wolf roared with anger and fear. It threw itself against the bars. Rowan was going to kill his own daughter! If the Wicker could murder their own children, what did they plan for Joshua?

  "Be done with it!" Belladonna snapped.

  Rowan caught his daughter's pigtails. He pulled her head back sharply.

  "No! Daddy!" Tansy cried.

  "Shhhh, be quiet baby." Rowan lifted the gleaming blade to her neck. "Daddy needs to do this right."

  Her father's power held Tansy rigid and silent as he repositioned the dagger again and again, gleaming blade millimeters from her skin, painstakingly choosing his cut.

  "Rowan!" Belladonna growled softly.

  "It would be a shame to waste all that fuss and bother on a bad cut. The poopy diapers. The teething. The vomit. God, I hated the vomit. She's finally gotten old enough that you can have a reasonable conversation with her."

  When Rowan found his mark, he cut without warning. Blood fountained from the wound. It pulsed in time with Tansy's racing heart. As the warm stickiness sprayed over Joshua, the air seemed to thickened, pressing down on him.

  Tansy whined involuntarily of pain and fear.

  "Thank you, baby." Rowan kissed her on the temple as he raised the blade high over his head. "Daddy loves you very much and you're making him very happy."

  He drove the dagger into her heart to its hilt.

  Tansy's mouth flew open in a wide circle of voiceless pain and horror.

  The pressure increased on Joshua until it felt like something had wrapped tight around him.

  What do I do? What do I do? He could barely think past the rage of his wolf.

  "Be still," Rowan snapped.

  Joshua's body obeyed against his will, just like when Seth made him sit after chasing him across Cambridge. The wolf continued to growl.

  "Be quiet," Rowan ordered.

  Joshua had no choice but be silent. He sat huddled in the cage, covered with Tansy's blood, panting.

  "Good girl." Rowan kissed his daughter's temple again. "You were perfect, baby." He laid her dead body on the floor. Her eyes stared unblinking into Joshua's. "It's done. He's mine. Now what? Send him after the spook? He must know where she is."

  "No, we don't need to find Decker's house any more. We got the ultimate prize, we just skipped all the steps leading up to it."

  "But the spook must know where Decker's house is, else she wouldn't have been with the lost heir. The vampire will be awake soon. The spook will tell Decker that we've taken the wolf. We should at least send puppets to kill Decker before he wakes up."

  The wolf roared with fear and anger.

  Belladonna dismissed the suggestion with a flick of perfectly manicured fingers. "We're spread too thin. Decker is the Grigori's tool; he might not put himself at risk for a werewolf. The prince is a more immediate problem. He would have known the moment Tansy made the fetch where we are. We might have less than four hours before he gets here. We need to set up protective wards and open the breach quickly. The prince has to die before the king returns."

  He couldn't let them kill Seth. What could he do to stop them? He couldn't even move.

  Joshua had done some kind of spirit communication with Jack and the Wolf King, if one could call that "talking." If he could get to the right meditative state, he might be able to get hold of Seth. Warn him. Tell him that it was a trap and Joshua was the bait.

  He struggled to calm himself. Breathe deeply. Focus inward. Fall into the darkness and find the green. Be one with the Source.

  Quickly.

  Not productive.

  Breathe deep. Clear the mind. Let the fear go.

  He stood in the dappled forest.

  "Seth!" He ran through the bracken. "Seth!"

  He saw something flicker through the forest. "Hey!"

  The shimmer of white warned him that he hadn't found his brother. He'd found the Wolf King.

  "Um, sir? Help!"

  The great white wolf came out the shadows. Without the restriction of a ceiling, he seemed big as an elephant.

  "Oh shit," Joshua whispered.

  "What are you doing here?" The Wolf King asked in a voice like thunder.

  "Wickers have set a trap for my brother. Seth. The Prince of Boston. I'm the bait. I need to warn him."

  "Ilya," the Wolf King whispered. "I should have sent all the Thane in New York to fetch you instead of focusing on the Wickers themselves. I can no longer move effortlessly through the Source; I will not make it back in time. Listen carefully to me. Do not lose your temper. Anger will give control to the wolf. You need to be your wolf. Your wolf needs to be you. If you're at odds w
ith yourself, you cannot break free."

  "I can break free?"

  "You must or all will be lost. Your brother. Boston. Everything. In that order."

  "Must is not the same as can!"

  "The Wickers don't understand our magic completely. It's why they failed before. The Source isn't what they think it is. You can use it to free yourself. You need to be one creature in heart and mind. Be careful, though, it can destroy you too."

  54: Seth

  "Seth! Seth!"

  Seth jerked awake in the front seat of the Land Rover. They'd started home hours ago but the aftermath of the blizzard on the holiday weekend had made a mess of the roads. Traffic was at a standstill again as emergency crews cleared yet another accident. He blinked at the snowy surroundings. They were nearing the Sturbridge Exit on the Massachusetts Turnpike, less than a third of the way back to the Castle.

  "Did you just call me?" Seth asked Jack.

  "Hm? No."

  Seth frowned, considering the dreamlike impression of someone calling him. It sounded like Joshua. That was impossible. Joshua wasn't in the Boston pack; they had no magical connection beyond the fact that Joshua was in Seth's territory. Joshua couldn't "call" to him.

  Seth reached out to check on his brother. Decker's house was empty. They'd taken Joshua shopping the day before, restocking his refrigerator and freezer with food. Joshua told them that he planned to go back to sleep until Decker woke up. His brother should be home. His brother should be safe in his bed.

  "Something is wrong." Seth turned in his seat to look back toward Boston now sixty miles behind them. "Joshua isn't in Cambridge."

  "What? Where the hell did he go?" Jack muscled the Land Rover into the fast lane. "There's a turnaround ahead. We can head back to find him."

  The bright star of a werewolf should be easy to spot anywhere in Boston. Seth scanned his territory quickly, afraid that Joshua had been somehow magically spirited out of his territory. There! Under Boston Commons. His brother's connection with the source glinted within the darkness, much weaker than it had been before. Snarled tight around Joshua were threads of power linking him to a person that wasn't a werewolf. Wooden constructs moved in the shadowed hallways connecting the garage to buildings around the park.