Hellbender (The Fangborn Series Book 3)

by Dana Cameron

  “No, I’m grateful. You’ve released me. For the first time in many decades, I’m free to do what I want! I can leave the village—well, not permanently, but I can do so without guilt that I’m leaving my charge untended. I’m coming with you!”

  She returned in five minutes. She’d obviously kept a bag packed, as I was learning I needed to do, no matter what. Until I got the hang of resisting the Makers or controlling my own power, it could be lifesaving. Fatima handed my small bag to me, and then another bag similar to hers. I frowned; it looked like a kind of saddlebag.

  “It’s got a few standard supplies,” she explained. “Specially made for Fangborn survival.”

  Leaving her driveway, we followed a well-worn path to the airstrip. Luanne was waiting.

  I kept my eyes shut as we took off, but opened them again, not willing to let fear rob me of the view below. The weather had cleared; I’d never seen any place so utterly without the mark of humans upon it, the scrubby brush in reds and browns in tangles, with occasional open spaces of dead grass and bushes. The river cut through, dark blue, reflecting the sky. It only took a half hour again to get back to McGrath, and I found myself wishing the trip had been longer. The quiet had been . . . lovely.

  In McGrath, Luanne handed us off to our next flight. She mentioned that folks had been asking questions in the village about me, and while that was no surprise, it was concerning her that some strangers had been calling and asking around, too.

  I nodded, worried. Maybe it was the Family, checking in on me. But why not call Fatima? More likely, it was the Order. One reassuring thing was that Luanne spoke to the pilot herself, basically saying he’d answer to her if anything happened to us. He assured us that all it would be was several smooth hops to the border.

  “We’ll cross the border in our wolfselves,” Fatima explained out of earshot of the Normal pilot. “We want to keep as low a profile as we can for you, and using a passport with your name on it might set off alarms.”

  Our goal was a small private airport near the Washington State border. When we arrived, we took a shuttle to a nearby national forest and ate lunch there.

  We hiked out on the trails and left them, making sure we were alone. Without a moment’s hesitation, and with none of the Normal prudery I’d been raised with, Fatima stripped down, packed her clothes and boots into the pack, and settled it on her shoulders, snapping belts and straps that I’d never seen on a backpack.

  It was a custom job.

  She Changed fully. I felt the thrill and a Call to Change myself when I saw a large white wolf, with violet eyes. With her teeth she tugged one last strap that helped her settle the pack to her wolfish form. It now looked like the kind of packs I’d seen working dogs wearing.

  She barked at me, her tail wagging with the anticipation of centuries, the stiffness of her ancient joints all but vanished.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. I followed her example and stripped down, packing my meager possessions into the new bag, shivering as the cold air hit bare skin and goose bumps. It occurred to me that this time spent with the Family was starting to make me more comfortable in nothing but my own skin. I strapped the sword I’d taken from Kanazawa to my pack. Fatima paced impatiently and then paused so I could observe how she arranged the straps. After a moment, I’d done well enough to please her and feel comfortable in the rig.

  I Changed.

  We ran.

  Fatima never led me astray. I felt like we were lost in the woods, only our tracks showing that anyone or anything had passed, which wasn’t such a bad thing. She’d done this before and her senses were more attuned to direction than mine. While she was fast and smart with maps and GPS, which she Changed to check every so often, she also sniffed the air for clues as to the best direction to take, and no doubt knew the northwestern plants well enough to take cues from the change in vegetation as well.

  The weather grew gradually warmer, and with that, more of Fatima’s physical vitality seemed to return. Part of it had to be the relief of her long custodianship being over, her duty discharged. Still, while she always took the lead eagerly, she had to slow and rest long before I needed to. This gave me a chance to study how she chose her movements as a wolf. I hadn’t spent much time as my wolfself in the wild, and there was an art to paw placement and choice of gait in getting through the wilderness quietly and quickly. My nose became attuned to the smells of wind and weather, and I was pleased when I identified the presence of a bird before I startled it from the bush. Fatima had mentioned during one of our rest breaks that she had preferred life in the bush to the heat of Cairo. Now she reveled in the cool temperatures and wooded terrain.

  We spent one night in the woods and I had the chance to ask her about her life in Egypt. From that we moved on to a discussion of werewolves in general, and how she believed that the man-beast Enkidu was a very early variation on the Fangborn story, dating back perhaps more than five thousand years. Enkidu was a creature made to protect other beasts and people from a predator, in this case Gilgamesh, who later learns to behave responsibly. Enkidu was not human, but molded in clay by the goddess of creation, with attributes of the sky and war gods; he eventually learned the ways of beasts and men. I was sold. Immediately resolving to do more research on this myth, I added Enkidu to my list of potential Fangborn origin stories.

  “I’d read something about Enkidu going to the underworld to recover some lost artifacts,” I said. “Do you know—”

  “Enough!” She laughed. “That’s enough for one night. I need rest if I’m going to—”

  She was interrupted by the howling of wolves.

  “What do we do?” I asked anxiously. “Are we supposed to answer back?”

  “No. We try to leave true wolves be. We’re not wolves, Zoe, though we take that form. We’re not here to contest territory or mates with them. The less we interfere, the better for them.”

  I fell asleep next to the dying fire, listening to the howling in the distance.

  If we were not real wolves, we were much faster than them. The next morning, we broke camp, reassumed our packs, and Changed to our wolfselves. We ate up the distance as blurs across the rough terrain.

  As soon as we crossed the United States border, I felt better. We left the national forest in Washington and continued on private lands, the trees becoming thinner, the smells of nearby towns coming more frequently.

  A whirring noise appeared that I felt before I heard. Helicopters. Then . . . rifle shots.

  Someone was hunting wolves. Or maybe they were hunting us.

  It gave me some indication of just how old Fatima was when I realized that she didn’t hear it right away. I yipped, and tore ahead, faster than I knew I could run.

  She followed me.

  The helicopters followed us both, gaining on us. It was as if the ground was shaking, with the number of bullets thud-thud-thudding around us.

  The cover of the tree line was too far away. We weren’t going to make it. Fatima’s eyes had been bright with exertion and her tongue hanging out even before we started to run.

  I stopped and Changed back to my skinself.

  The shots continued.

  If they’re shooting at a wolf, and then keep shooting as it turns into a naked woman, then they’re Order.

  I was going to stop them. I hauled back and punched the sky.

  A bolt of energy and an explosion, a crash, and flames and fireworks shot from my hand, power coursing through me straight into one of the craft.

  One down.

  A yelp. I turned my head back and watched Fatima stumble and hit the ground, blood streaming over her pelt.

  I ran to her, my bare feet getting torn up by the cold, rocky ground and biting plants.

  Quarrel appeared. He announced himself in my head, careful to keep his volume to just below organ-shattering loudness. “Zoe Miller, the Makers would speak with you.”

  I stumbled and tried to concentrate on where I was going as I answered. “I can’t—I have to—
wait! Quarrel, you must help me heal my friend!”

  “The Makers do not wait. They brook no resistance, particularly after your last inspection. We must go!”

  “Quarrel, no!” But with a crack that seemed to split the air, we were gone.

  Chapter Eight

  For a moment, I thought that I’d messed up again, unintentionally transporting myself back to Boston. Boston University, to be precise, just outside the archaeology department. Not at all what was necessary . . .

  Until I realized there was no traffic. No cars at all. No trains, no tracks. No people.

  Boston without traffic, without pedestrians or half the student population circling like vultures looking for a parking space wasn’t right, not in any dimension. It beggared imagination. And without the MBTA trains clacking along Commonwealth Avenue, clanging their warning bells, it was wholly surreal.

  There was a kind of traffic, I realized, as my eyes adjusted and the vertigo passed. There were flashes of green, blue, and purple light about ten feet over my head, as if things were whizzing by in midair, too quickly to be identified. Another meta-realm, perhaps one where I could communicate directly with the Makers.

  There was a drabness to the landscape, which, added to the silence, further reassured me that the place wasn’t real. It was a bit like looking at a sepia-toned photograph, with the color of the stones and bricks so washed out as to be practically monotone. The only place that wasn’t washed out, that was nearly as I recognized it, in full Technicolor glory—and then some—was the Castle, which among other things, housed the graduate and faculty pub. A big Tudor-revival mansion with steep roofs, windows of diamond-shaped glass panes bound with lead, and stone walls covered in ivy, it stood on Bay State Road, away from the busyness and traffic of Commonwealth Avenue, and felt like a step back in time. The basement housed the pub, and I’d always found the gloom comforting.

  Okay. If the Makers wanted me to go to the pub, I would.

  The door was red-painted wood set against aged dark gray stone. The doorknob and knocker glowed gold. No sooner did I put my hand on it than it swung in. I stepped down into the familiar near-dark and paused. Something was wrong. I remembered I had been naked save for a backpack, but looking down in a panic, I saw that I was wearing something approximating my usual street clothes. But the feeling of something wrong persisted.

  I sniffed the air and got nothing. I sniffed again and smiled.

  When does a bar not smell like a bar? There was no odor of beer and popcorn in the carpet. I couldn’t detect any trace of the cracked leather of the seats or the polish and dust on the dark wainscoting. There was a light at the bar, however, so I went to the other end of the room.

  No one was there. There was, however, a small tray. Two beers, my usual brand, in the bottle. Two short, chilled glasses—vodka, no doubt. Two joints, neatly rolled, sat next to a lighter.

  Someone knew my tastes. I decided it would be churlish to refuse hospitality, so I took the bottle of beer. After a moment, I pocketed the two joints and the lighter, too. I didn’t think anyone would try to poison me, not when they had such power at their command; I wondered briefly if the “beer” was something to help me adjust to my surroundings, or if the Makers were just being courteous.

  I took a swig, and saw the lights flicker on, leading to what I assumed was the office of the pub. I’d never been back there before.

  Instead of an office, I found myself upstairs in the main lobby of the Castle. I’d only ever been in there twice, when I was at BU, for a reception for some visiting lecturer. Needless to say, I was only there in the least possible way to schmooze; that was left to the faculty and ABDs. No, both times I’d spent with the rest of the graduate students, making a meal of the crackers and cheese cubes, gulping down the free wine.

  Why here? I wondered. I mean, I get that it’s familiar, but frankly, there’s something much more unnerving about seeing a place you know that isn’t entirely . . . right. And yes, yes, I can read the symbolism. It’s a place of authority—the Castle had been the home of the president of BU and now housed offices and was used for receptions and other functions.

  I followed the lights as they moved through offices, which I’d never seen, and I started to see people I’d never met.

  They didn’t go out of their way to notice me, or ignore me. When I paused to get my bearings, one smiled and pointed. “Just down the hall. You can’t miss it.”

  I followed her directions and found another administrator behind a desk. “Good morning, Miss Miller. If you’d just sign in, just here.”

  She proffered a paper, with text I couldn’t make out, and a pen, silver, heavy. I signed where she pointed, not bothering to read the fine print because I suddenly knew it didn’t matter.

  The pen bit me.

  Like the door knocker in Roskilde and the artifact in Claros, I knew they were identifying me, testing my blood. Why, I didn’t know; maybe to make sure there were no tricks in store. I would have asked for ID, too, if I’d been in their shoes.

  She indicated a seat, and I felt a warm sort of glow, like I was sitting under a heating lamp. I glanced up and saw nothing but office lighting, but I assumed I was being scanned.

  “You can go in now,” she said, nodding at the door behind her.

  I paused by her desk, trying something stupid that had just popped into my brain. “Did you know my mother? Nancy Miller? She used to work over in the dean of students’ office?”

  The administrator blinked, so slowly I had the impression she was searching files behind her eyes. “I know of her. Never met her.”

  “Can you tell me anything about her?”

  “She’s no longer relevant.”

  Okay, yeah, Ma was dead, but that wasn’t a nice way of putting it. “I meant, her origins?”

  “She’s no longer relevant. You can go in now.”

  Okay, lady. I get the message.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  “You can go in now.”

  “Yeah, gotcha.”

  I don’t know who I was expecting to see behind the desk, but it sure as shit wasn’t this guy.

  Like all the other denizens of the Castle, he was unknown to me. Tall, pale, thin, going to thickness about the waist, with glasses that had been out of date before I was born. His hair was slicked back over an oblong of a head; I had the impression of jowls beginning to form. He reminded me of a long-ago German teacher I’d had: cautious, particular, self-contained, and restrained. There was a certain bureaucratic smugness about him, though I didn’t feel his demeanor was unkind.

  “Good morning, Miss Miller.”

  I didn’t tell him how good a morning I didn’t think it was, with a good friend bleeding to death in the snow and me caught up here. I kept quiet. I couldn’t afford to offend him, not with this kind of power. I’d try after a bit.

  “Good morning.” I swallowed. “Er, how should I address you?”

  “I’m just an administrator. You can call me that.”

  “Thank you.”

  We sat uneasily for a few moments, and I swigged my beer. Finally, I said, “You’ve . . . you’ve been trying to communicate with me. Via the dragons.”

  He sighed, deeply. “Yes, there have been so many attempts. We’re not sure what’s gone wrong. When we can sense you most easily, you’re inevitably using your powers in a quite desperate situation or your emotions are running high. That may be the distraction that is keeping you from giving us your full attention. We were also so surprised to find you could not communicate with us. Ordinarily, at the stage you’ve reached, you’d be capable of perceiving and understanding us both.”

  Distraction? I felt my temper flare. “Speaking of distraction, my friend back there is dying—”

  He totally ignored my concern. “We don’t have much time; this connection is weakening. What do you want to know?”

  The enormity of that question left me at a loss. I went with the first thing that came to mind, as he said time was sh
ort. “The dragons said you thought we, the Fangborn, were broken?”

  “That is a harsh word, but . . .” He trailed off. “We were . . . um, taken aback, is the closest way I have of expressing it, to find not only were you in hiding from the other creatures around you, but also that you imagined you were somehow in their service.”

  “He also mentioned the word ‘subjugation.’ So we were meant to be, what? A spearhead? An advance army? You’re going to swoop in and take control? Of who?”

  “Oh, no,” the Administrator said hastily. “No, the word we use is not unlike your ‘ambassador.’ And not take control, only . . . well, organize and keep in reserve. If there were resources or technology that developed since we scattered your—” Here the Administrator said a word I could not understand. “We would take them into account and catalog them against our future need.

  “Your genetic material is human. We changed some of that, to accommodate the ability we find useful. For some reason, it did not grow as it ordinarily would, and rather than being dedicated to our purposes—”

  I nodded. “The Fangborn thought we were dedicated to protecting humans.”

  “Yes, exactly!” The Administrator leaned back.

  “Wait—what about the dragons? Aren’t they more . . . advanced than I am? Why am I suddenly the center of all this attention?”

  “The dragons are too old, too distant from their humanity. You’re the closest to our ideal, within our perception, and your power makes you available to us.” He actually began to tidy files. “We must decide how to proceed. And do not worry. We can give you some assistance with your people. We don’t want to cause any trouble, either of precedence or misunderstanding. We will sort it all out. Thank you, Miss Miller. That will be all for now.”

  “Wait! No! My friend—”

  But I found myself dismissed and was slammed back into the here and now. Which was not a particularly good place to be. While I’d had my attention drawn away by the Administrator, for even just a fraction of a second here, I found myself in my skinself, confused. I sat down, naked, on the hard ground, my backpack still on my back, the bullets still flying. A fine mist was descending over the area, and it seemed to be coming down from the remaining helicopter.