by Tobi Grim
“Thanks… what have they done about the fucking doors?”
“Some guy came down and replaced them. I stayed ‘til it was all done…”
Fuck. Strangers in her home. Strangers putting doors on her home. And she was so fucking far away. Fuckity fuck fuck. Her things were touched... No. She couldn’t think about that now. “Thanks for letting me know…”
“There’s something else… my Gran finally said something…”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah… she said that the blood is after you, said she saw you with blood in your mouth, and on your hands, and of a big man...”
Lupa felt her heart thump, her body going cold, she could feel her eyes bugging… had she seen her dreams too? “Oh…” she managed to squeeze out.
“Yeah… so um…”
“Fine. Thanks. Bye.”
She hung up and stared at the phone. Her place had been gone through. And Gran Marietta was dreaming of her again. Dammit. Why did this have to happen when she was so damn far away?
“You a’right?”
“No. No, I am not fucking alright. Someone broke into my place and fucking went through all my shit, and Marietta had the dream…”
She looked over at Sledge. Shit. Was nothing going right? Did he still want to even be her friend? He didn’t appear as though he wanted to run away from her….
“Needin’ to go home?” He didn’t look away from her.
“Don’t think it’ll make a difference. We’re here, let’s do this.”
His gaze was on her, but not quite meeting her in the eye, making her feel even more uncomfortable. “What’n Marietta dream?” Sledge started the car and turned it around, heading back up the mountain.
“She thinks the blood magick is after me. She saw me… covered in blood… with it in my mouth… I had the same dream this morning… Hawk’s Gran has the Sight. Think she might have seen you too.”
Lupa shuddered and stared out the window at the trees passing them by. Someone in her home… what had they been searching for? She didn’t have anything of value… and who? Was it to do with Hammer and the spells she was trying to break?
“What about them wards you put on your place?”
Shit. Lupa hadn’t even thought about that… someone would have to be pretty fucking powerful to break them and get in, it had been the most… fuck. “Shit… I dunno.”
“You a’right?”
She nodded, but didn’t look at him. She couldn’t stand to have his gaze pull away from her again. To feel like she’d fucked everything up, again. She just needed… shit. Lupa rubbed her head. Could nothing go fucking right?
Sledge pulled the car off the road, parking in between the trees and got out, opening her door for her. She looked around as she stepped out. There wasn’t anything she could see… she couldn’t even see the road from the spot… Sledge leaned against the car and lit a smoke. Lupa shrugged and did the same, staring into the trees with him.
“I aint expectin’ anythin’ from you.” Lupa stole a glance at him, but he was still looking into the trees. “I aint meanin’ to get… carried away. I know you dun thinkin’ you wanted it. But I shoulda not taken advantage when you bein’ so drunk. I bein’ too drunk to be thinkin’ properly. But I shoulda… I shoulda not done it. Shoulda just lettin’ you go to sleep… but I didn’t. And that bein’ my fault. I knowin’ you aint really wantin’ me. Not like that. And I dun lettin’ myself take advantage…”
“You didn’t-”
“Thinkin’ you oughta let me finish.” He looked at her, but only quickly, “You dun sayin’… you sayin’ you aint never had no wolfblood traits. You just… you. Witchy girl. With a bit of wolfblood boostin’… when… when we on the bed, I lookin’ at you… and I knowin’ I bein’ lookin’ like the wolfblood in me… I knowin’ you seein’ me before, but that bein’… different.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and took a long drag of his smoke. Lupa waited, watching him. She knew he’d get there eventually, she just needed to keep her damned mouth fucking shut while he did… was he… ashamed?
“I knowin’ what I look like, I knowin’ what I look like when I changin’ too. And I knowin’ that you aint likin’… wolfbloods. But… when I lookin’ at you…” he stared at her now, his face unreadable, she felt her heart skip nervously. “You didn’t turn away, when you seein’ me… but when I seein’ you… when I lookin’…”
“What…?”
“You dun havin’ eyes like me.”
Lupa tore her eyes away. What… he must have been wrong. It must have been the firelight. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, her hands shaking violently. She… she never should have wanted him. She never should have… not here… not where she couldn’t escape… not where they had to be near each other, and where they had to… no fucking way. She did not have yellow eyes. She was not like him. She was not a fucking wolfblood like them. None of them. She was the witch. She was the Hunter. She just had the foul blood in her veins by chance. There was no fucking way. In twenty years in Black she had never shown any fucking signs… no way. No fucking way. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t fucking breathe.
Sledge placed his hand on her face, pulling it to look at him. “Thinkin’ you dun needin’ to take a nice deep breath for me, witchy girl.” His eyes looking soft as he waited for her to breathe. She could feel tears wanting to fill her eyes. She didn’t want this. She didn’t fucking want this. “Thinkin’ maybe you wantin’ me to take you home now?”
Lupa shook her head furiously. No. She couldn’t go back there. She could never go back there. Soon they would know. Soon they would see. They would see she wasn’t the person she had thought. She was like him. She was… well… she was like him, but she already knew that, that was why she wanted him around, wanted to… and she didn’t think anything less because he could change.
“I don’t… I don’t want to. I’m not supposed to…” she hated that tremble in her voice, hated how she felt…
Sledge pulled her to him, holding her in his arms. Her head resting against his chest, hearing the thump of his heart beating hard and fast. Lupa didn’t know why he was holding her like that, but she didn’t care. She felt safe here. She felt like she could breathe, like maybe it would be ok… Like fuck it would. But she didn’t need to think about that now.
“I aint wantin’ to say. But I aint feelin’ right not tellin’ you.” He let her go and she stepped back and looked up at him.
“Do you hate me?” Her voice sounding pathetic and weak in her own ears.
“Aint never thinkin’ that, witchy girl, what you thinkin’? I just bein’… feelin’ like an asshole. And when you not wantin’ to say nothin’… thinkin’ you dun wishin’ you could fuck off. I aint surprised. I just… aint hate you. Never hate you.”
Lupa nodded. She did feel like she should fuck off. But then, that’s what she did. She wasn’t into relationships. She liked sex, but anything more seemed… too hard. If they had been anywhere else, she would have got her shit and left.
“I’ve never had to… stick around before. And… I didn’t want to fuck everything up more than I did…” Fuck. What was going on here? She had just found out that she… fuck. And now they were fucking talking about… fucking hell.
“Like I sayin’, I aint expectin’ nothin’ from you. Aint wantin’ you to feel like I am. I likin’ you. I likin’ you just how you is. Like this just how it is. Aint wanna fuck it up neither.”
She smiled at him, relieved. Well… maybe that was ok. Maybe… maybe she would be ok. And maybe they would be ok. Thank fuck they wouldn’t be back in Black City for two more days. She wasn’t ready for that. What would she tell Dameon? And what would she tell Slasher? Shit.
“Wantin’ to head back and chill? Or you ready to go to the camp?”
“Let’s go to the camp. I… I have plenty of time to deal with that later. But now, we have you to deal with... Well… maybe…”
Sledge opened the door for her, smiling ev
enly. Lupa climbed in and took a deep breath. She had plenty of time to think about it later. Plenty of time to push it down into the places she didn’t want to touch right now. Or ever. But she would have to touch this one. Because someone would see. She couldn’t hide it forever. Shit, she didn’t even know how… fuck.
“A’right?” Sledge asked, pulling back onto the road.
“Not really. My house has been broken into, someone with Sight is seeing my dreams and I just found out that I all of a sudden have wolfblood… traits. But I will be. It doesn’t matter. How far are we from the camp?”
“Couple of minutes. I wasn’t gonna pull over…”
She nodded. A few minutes passed far too quickly and he turned right, down a dirt road… or driveway? They drove for another couple of minutes when the salbatici camp appeared, Sledge pulled the car over and got out, opening her door as usual.
She gazed around in awe. Lupa thought it would look more… like the movies. Caravans and tents and crazed looking people and…dirt. But it looked more amazing than that. Like the pictures she had seen of old circuses, the ones that had big side shows and glamorous attendees. The residents all looked colourful and beautifully dressed, children in tie-dye dresses and pants with braces and collared shirts ran laughing and playing. Women with smiles talking together holding babies. Men working in what looked like a vegie patch…
“Aint what you thinkin’?”
“Not at all. I thought… I thought they’d look mean. And skinny. And… like Blackwater in tents…”
Sledge nodded and stared over at all the people, not making a move. “Thinkin’ maybe you dun doin’ the talkin’? I aint like talkin’ much to nobody but you and Hammer…”
Lupa peered up at him. So he was nervous. Maybe not the same way she got, he appeared as though he was more likely ready to fucking punch anyone if they looked at him funny. But nervous all the same.
“Can do, Lio, what’s the story?”
“We here lookin’ for my… bloodline. Aint sure what else. I trustin’ you.”
She smiled at him and stared back at the camp. Nobody seemed to be taking notice of them for now. “Ok, let’s go.”
As they started walking over, one group of women turned to look at them but didn’t seem too fazed at their appearance in their… home? Lupa decided to walk over to the accumulation. They might be willing to talk to them. One beautiful, dark woman stepped out to shake her hand, a baby on her hip.
“Hi, I’m Little Red, and this is Sledge…”
“Hello there, Miss Gloria is waiting on joo’s. She saying we be ‘specting some visitors. Go to the rose caravan, she waiting.” The woman’s accent was soft and enthralling.
Lupa glanced at Sledge, he was looking at the ground, his arms folded tightly across his broad chest. “Thank you.” Lupa smiled at the woman. She started walking over to the rose caravan, Sledge striding alongside her.
“Thinkin’ that strange?”
“Not if she has Sight. Either way, she’s waiting.” Sledge nodded as Lupa put her hand up to knock on the door, an old woman opened it.
“’Specting joos, come on then, been waiting for joo chit chat be all done so we can talk. Come in. Joo big guy watch joo head.”
Sledge went ahead of her, ducking his head, she followed and they stood awkwardly while the woman shut the door. As she turned around she flapped her hands at them like they were kids behaving badly.
“Be sitting, children, I knowing joo bigger than mes, aint needing to make a point.”
Lupa and Sledge sat on the small red couch, their legs touching. “I’m Little Red-“
“I knowing who joo are, Hunter wolf girl, and I knowing joo too, hiding wolf and witch. I been seeing a long time joo come to me, a seeing a long time that she be the one who bringing joo to me.”
Lupa felt Sledge tense beside her. No one should be able to see through the spell Sledge had over him. No one should know he was a hybrid.
“Jes, I see, Hunter, I see through many a thing. It is my curse, and my gift. Joo come here for answers, Sandalio, and answers I can give.” She leaned back on her chair, crossing her heavily ringed hands over each other. Her long black hair running free over her white cotton dress. “Joo needing this Hunter, joo needing her more than joo knowing yet. And she needing joo. There is a darkness coming for joo both, and in the darkness there will only be each other. And joo must trust her, and she joo.” Lupa nervously glanced at Sledge, was this woman serious? Or was it just for effect?
“Don’t doubt me, Hunter girl, for I see more than joo know. But soon joo will know also. Joo have already touched the darkness coming for joo. But this is not why joo come, joo come for my knowing about your ancestors, Sandalio. Joo have an aunt here, she be hearing that she have a nephew coming, I be telling her, she has three children; magickal children. They be playing. She is your rotten father’s youngest sister. But she in no record, Hunter girl, she was taken as a babe. For her father was not the same. Her father was a free man. A roaming man. He bring her here for me to raise. For somewhere along our bloods, we related.”
Lupa watched the woman smiling at them with a twinkle in her eyes. Her wrinkled face seemed kind and somewhat amused. So Sledge had a family after all… Lupa wanted a fucking smoke. This whole thing was making her edgy.
“Joo may smoke.”
Lupa and Sledge both pulled out their cigarettes at the same time. Sledge lighting hers before she could search for her lighter.
“Joo two are more special than joo think. There be stories of wolves and witches mixing, but no babes survived their first days in this world. Joo have a bond joo don’t even know. He seen them dark places, Hunter girl, and he no turn away. Those places be so deep not even I can see them proper. Joo have much sadness and pain hiding there, joo have memories joo don’t know hiding there too. Joo need to trust this man. This man will save joo.” Lupa tried not to react to these words.
“And joo, Sandalio, joo will love this girl. Joo will fall and rise in blood and darkness, and joo will see more than joo wanting. But if joo turn away joo will die, and there is much risk joo will do just that. There is things coming, changes in this world, and joo must hold each other tight. For things will get bad, much more bad, before they get better. This not being what joo here for. But joo needing to know all the same. Now, run along, children, Aunt Tsura wishes to meet her nephew.”
Lupa and Sledge exchanged glances and then got up and left, Sledge hitting his head on the roof. “Saying joo need to watch joo head.” The woman laughed and shut the door behind them.
“Aint…”
“Sandalio?”
They turned to see a very tall woman peering at them, her long brown hair plaited down her sides, her dark eyes searching them… Sledge grunted, then the woman threw her arms around him, surprising them both.
“Miss Gloria say joo come, I know not what to think. But now I see joo, I see joo family.” She stepped back and put her hands on Sledge’s face, “Too much lost. Will joo come sit with me?”
Sledge looked like he was going to punch the woman and run, Lupa bit her lip and waited. “A’right. But I aint no like the talkin’.”
She beamed at him, letting her hands drop. “And joo must be the Hunter girl who brought him to us, joo have no idea how much this mean to me, will joo join us?”
Lupa looked to Sledge. His was nodding furiously at her. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Wonderful. Joo come this way.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The sky was darkening as they walked back to Sledge’s car. Aunt Tsura had talked and talked and fucking talked. Lupa hadn’t really minded, it meant she didn’t have to say much, and listening to the stories of her and Sledge’s family had been interesting. Sledge had said they needed to leave as soon as Aunt Tsura started asking him too many questions. Lupa didn’t blame him, this woman spoke to him like they hadn’t seen each other in years, instead of never at all. But they had promised to return the following evening for dinner and da
ncing. Lupa suspected from the look on Sledge’s face that the dancing part seemed horrifying to him.
“How you feeling?” Lupa asked as they hit the road again.
“Aint sure. Aunt Tsura can talk. Talkin’ too much. Makin’ my head spin… what you thinkin’ on what the old woman sayin’?”
Lupa played with the sleeves of her shirt. She had tried not to think about it. Had the woman been serious? Would he love her? Would he save her? Fuck. Was the darkness coming for them? Would he see anything else… that he didn’t want to see? Best not to think about it.
“Aint sure really. Was a fucking lot to take in…”
Sledge nodded. “Makin’ me nervous. Especially all that talk of darkness and blood… thinkin’ maybe bein’ about them spells?”
Lupa nodded and looked out the window into the growing gloom, glad he’d decided not to mention the ‘love’ bit. Yeah. That’s what she fucking thought too. That fucking dark, dirty magick.
“Wantin’ to go out for dinner or me cookin’ somethin’?”
Lupa glanced back over at him. No. She didn’t want to deal with more people. Being alone with him was what she wanted. Fuck. “I’m happy to just go back to the cabin. Don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink after all that. And quiet.”
Sledge smiled in agreement and nodded, pulling down the driveway to the cabin.
Chapter ten
“And blood is blood…”
Sledge started cooking while Lupa looked through the fridge and cupboards. She found two big jugs and some ingredients to make up cocktails. “What do you think about drinking out of these!?” She held them up.
Sledge raised his eyebrows, “Aint thinkin’ them big enough for you.”
“Ha ha. You fucking in?”
He grinned at her, “Aint gonna look like a chicken shit ‘round you. I fuckin’ in.”
Lupa moved around Sledge and placed the jugs on the bench, putting four liquor bottles down and starting to mix them. Lupa didn’t really have any idea how much she was supposed to put in, but she figured as long as it tasted alright, then who gave a shit? She topped them up with a strange fruit juice and pulled drawers out looking for straws…