Thorne Bay

by Jeanine Croft

  Tristan didn’t seem like a monster though. But where was he? The sound of the lock turning in my cell had me swiping at my tears. I sprang off my stained mattress as the door swung open.

  It was Augustus. “Evening, Lippy.” He cocked his head and scrutinized the long white tunic I was wearing. Then, with a shake of his head and a snort, he said, “You look like a sacrificial lamb.”

  “Isn’t that the point?” I sniffed miserably.

  “Hmph.” He shrugged his large shoulders. “Let’s go. It’s time.”

  “Where’s Eliza?” I hadn’t seen Augustus since the night of the conclave when he’d brought me back here to my cell. My dedicated warden the past few days had been a girl named Eliza, the daughter of Sylvie, with the kind eyes. She’d brought each of my meals, her eyes as sympathetic as I remembered her mother’s being, and had talked to me a little, up till I’d brained her with my bowl, when her back had been turned, and bolted from the room. Unfortunately, I’d only pissed her off instead of felling her as I’d intended. She’d been a helluva lot stronger than she’d looked and she’d promptly wrangled me back into the cell, kicking and screaming. From that day onward I’d been treated to nothing but sullen glares and silence.

  “Eliza’s with the rest of the pack. Waiting.”

  Did he have to make it sound so ominous? My shoulders slumped and I followed him obediently from the hospital cell. There was no chance I’d overpower him, so I decided to play meek and bide my time for now. Time. Ha! It had clearly proven it wasn’t on my side. “So what exactly is gonna happen tonight?” I needed to prepare myself.

  “Aidan will cite the rules of the rite. After that…” He shrugged.

  I gritted my teeth when he said nothing more. “After that?”

  “Probably best you know as little as possible.” He sounded grim.

  Great. Back through the labyrinthine clinic I followed him, the stench of neglect stronger now that my senses were feral. It felt as haunted as before, and I was now just another of its derelict ghosts. Already, I felt as dead and gloomy as the drab grey walls. At the deserted ‘reception’ area I caught a glimpse of movement in the glass, the dimly lit hallway reflecting back at me in the dusty silence. At first, I thought I really was seeing a pale-faced ghost, but almost instantly I recognized the lonely creature for who she was. Me.

  The tunic was an overly dramatic and macabre touch, though unintentional on Eliza’s part. She’d merely donated an old nightshift for me to sleep in. After I’d attacked her, she’d not been in much of a charitable frame of mind, so I hadn’t dared to ask her for something more practical to die in. I looked like a hollow-eyed phantom, my dark hair stark against the white linen. White had never been my color, and tonight was no exception. Augustus was right, I really did look sacrificial. At least I’d not be dying a virgin. Sort of tragically poetic that I’d been given the wolf gift on a full moon but would die on the new.

  The sound of my companion’s impatient throat-clearing obtruded upon my morbid revery. Squaring my shoulders, I turned from the dead girl in the glass and proceeded after him again.

  * * *

  “Not since we settled in these lands has Lupum Caedes been invoked. Not for over a hundred years.” Aidan stood on one side of me as she addressed her people, and Augustus somberly occupied the other. No escape.

  I had been brought to a different location tonight. Although it looked no more distinct than the previous woodland, I could sense that we were miles away from the council hall. Here, the air smelled almost like pastureland (a farmstead nearby, maybe?), despite the thick forest enclosing us. Close by, I could hear the muffled burbling of a small brook. We’d hiked a good distance up the hillside to get to this small clearing and, had I not been forever changed, I wouldn’t have been able to see my hand in front of my eyes—it was that dark. But I was changed, or at least my senses were. By the faint light of the milky way, and my keen nocturnal vision, I could see clearly the faces of each and every monster assembled here. Even Eliza’s and Sylvie’s, neither of them smiling as they met my gaze.

  “But tonight,” Aidan continued with a flinty look, “you’ve chosen to resurrect a practice that our ancestors abolished for good reason.” She expelled a heavy sigh. “I am mother and sister and daughter to you all. As such it is my sacred duty to serve, nurture, and protect you. To guide you. That being said, let me caution you all one last time before we begin.” She had their complete and undivided attention, and even I was fascinated by her eloquence. “We are no longer the wolves that our forefathers were—we haven’t their prejudices and cruelties. Nor their bloodlust. We are finally at peace with the other packs, and we live only to uphold the laws that ensure our success and survival. Take a moment to consider carefully what we are about to condone. Do you still demand your wolf hunt?”

  I dared to hope, my eyes searching the shadowed faces.

  Then the voice I hated above anything suddenly piped up from the ranks. “What you say is all true, sister. Likewise, there hasn’t been a case of biting in recent years, but what is that—” Nicole pointed at the bite mark on my shoulder “—if not cruelty?”

  “Glad you can admit that, you crazy bitch.” The rage filled my belly. Every ravenous eye instantly snapped toward me, including the hypocrite’s—my nemesis.

  “There you go again, Lippy,” Augustus said with a surly grunt, “making it worse for yourself.”

  “An act of violence,” Nicole went on, disregarding my outburst, “such as this is, deserves a violent resolution. Lupum Caedes will serve as a means to discourage others from attempting further violations against pack law so that every pack will know that there are consequences to every breach of nature. Because we Athabaskans will not stand by and overlook them, no matter the prestige of the bloodline. Better that we put the mutt down tonight.”

  Aidan folded her arms and scanned the mood of her pack briefly. As did I. Though their alpha had momentarily cast some doubt over them, Nicole had now stemmed that doubt completely; moreover, incited them. They wanted blood. My blood. They were not only punishing Tristan but exterminating an aberration. Me. They, therefore, thought themselves to be shifting the natural balance back to its rightful equilibrium. Or so Eliza had briefly explained before I’d attacked her.

  “I hope, Nicole,” said Aidan, “that you never have such a convincing prosecutor in the event you ever disturb the laws of nature.”

  Nicole flushed and stood back.

  “Very well,” Aidan went on, briefly looking up to the barren night sky, “let’s begin. The rules are as follows—Evan will be given a thirty-minute advantage whilst your three chosen runners shift skins. On my signal, and not before, they will give chase. The rest of us will spectate at a distance. The hunt will ensue till one of three things occurs: moonset, a kill, or the mutt reaches the perimeter. Any questions?”

  “The perimeter?” I glanced at Augustus, the rest of the pack talking amongst themselves. “Wait, there’s a chance I’ll—?”

  “Ha!” Nicole gave a derisive hoot. “You seriously are delusional.”

  I ignored her and fixed a pleading gaze to Augustus. “There’s a chance though, right?” So I would be given a fighting chance! Thirty minutes was more than enough of a running start. Here was my chance to fight for my life then.

  After a pause, the beta (was that the right term for a lieutenant?) shrugged. “Sure, there’s always a possibility.” Yet he looked far from convinced of that.

  “But you don’t think so, do you? Not really.” My heart was hammering wildly against my sternum.

  Another shrug.

  I wasn’t satisfied with that. “Has any…mutt—” how I hated that word “—survived before?”

  “No. Never.”

  “What happens when they catch me?” I asked in a whisper, watching as a man and a woman stepped forward to begin undressing. Two of the runners had already been selected. One more to go.

  “I don’t need to tell you that, Lippy.”

 
; True, he didn’t. I knew what would happen. It wasn’t called the wolf slaughter for nothing.

  “If I get away do I get to live?”

  “Yes. Till the day you kill someone, which is also likely…considering what you'll become. We, as a species, are great advocates for corporal punishment. Manslaughter is punishable by death.”

  “Who will you choose as your third?” Aidan’s voice rang out over the assembled wolves, effectively ending my Q and A with her lieutenant.

  “Me.” Nicole was glaring spitefully at me as she eagerly volunteered herself.

  “No.” Everyone seemed stunned at Aidan’s stern and instant refusal. “You’re far too involved already.”

  “But—”

  “I said no, sister.”

  “I’ll do it.” When Augustus proclaimed himself as the third—amidst general nods of approval—I felt my last ounce of hope wither and die.

  Whether or not it was some weird case of Stockholm Syndrome, I’d begun to feel a fraternal affinity towards the beta despite his occasional cutting remarks. Which is why I burst into tears as he distanced himself from me and began stripping his clothes off his powerful frame. Nicole was right, I’d been delusional to think I could outpace even one werewolf, never mind three, but not at my most delusional would I ever think myself capable of escaping the monster I knew Augustus would soon become. I’d seen his other skin once before. I had no chance.

  “Come with me, Evan.” Aidan had come up beside me and was beckoning me towards the makeshift starting line, a fallen tree at the edge of the clearing. At least she’d called me by my name and not ‘mutt’. I was suffering enough degradation as it was. “Head south,” she said, gesturing into the woods ahead. “There’s a narrow road that separates our land from a neighboring farm. Once you’re on the bitumen, you’re safe.” With an imperceptible turn of her head, she cast a forbidding look at her sister. “At that point, no one can touch you.” Then after a pause, she said, “You’re no longer my problem once you cross the road.”

  I knew now why she’d kept her sister to heel instead of allowing Nicole to run. Nicole couldn't be trusted to stop short of the road if I made it safely across. That one wanted me destroyed. Did that mean Aidan believed me? She seemed too astute not to. I decided to confront her. “You know Tristan didn’t bite me, don't you? I know you know.”

  She made no answer except to say, “You run in five minutes, I suggest you save your breath. You’ll need it.”

  I wiped my clammy palms on the white linen, feeling the mossy earth beneath the pads of my feet as I anxiously shifted my weight from one leg to the other. Looking back was no longer an option for me. Behind me was only death. In the hush of the forest came the sound of pained grunting behind me. It instantly precipitated my gaze over my shoulder to discover the cause.

  A naked Augustus, however, was not what triggered a bloodless yelp from my throat. It was his bones—his spine, his ribs, his jaws—protracting unnaturally under his flesh, flexing and swelling like some bizarre series of contortions. His forehead was pressed to the earth, his skin drenched with perspiration, and his sharp fingernails were gouging at the ground as he panted, small grunts of exertion issuing through his clenched teeth. My knees threatened to buckle beneath me.

  Beside him, the arms of the unfamiliar female were bulging rhythmically, and every time her muscles jerked it seemed to thrust coarse, dark hairs out of each follicle till finally she was completely covered in fur. By this time, each of the runners was sporting pelts in varying shades of black—the female had a unique ridge of grey along her spine, and the unknown male had a white streak up his nose. His chest had begun expanding impossibly, and his legs seemed to thicken and shorten into stocky limbs. Their haunches, all three of them, had become markedly more compact than their forelegs. Or were forelegs still considered arms? All three now had stubby, bristling tails that had sprouted grotesquely from their sloping spines. Augustus’ tail was longer, the tip streaked with grey. It was the only part of his pelt not completely black.

  The Augustus that had been shuddering and convulsing moments ago, whose bones had been snapping and muscles palpitating, was no more. In his place there now stood a sort of heavyset, ape-like wolf with a blunt muzzle and elongated ears that sat lower on the head than a wolf’s would have. The creature’s heavyset shoulders were easily as high as a grizzly’s and it’s skull just as broad, but there the similarities ended.

  Its back had a considerable downward slope to it, the withers far higher than the hindquarters, and its neck was thick and short in accordance with its torso. There was an undeniable glint of intelligence in all three sets of eyes that pinned me keenly. But mine were fused to the heterochromatic glare of the largest wolf. The last time I’d seen the dark side of him, Augustus had been standing on his hind legs, but tonight he remained on all fours, the way a grizzly might…if it was of a mind to chase its prey. Grizzlies ran best on four legs, not two. I was the only two-legged of the runners tonight. And those blunt, non-retractable claws that jutted out of their fierce-looking paws seemed all too eager to eat up the space between us.

  “Now, Evan. Run.” Aidan’s soft command drew my eyes away from the three waiting predators. “Your thirty minute headstart begins now.”

  “Wha—?”

  “I said run!”

  She didn’t need to tell me a third time! I ran.

  31

  Hysteria

  Terror shot straight to my marrow. My bones felt brittle, like ice, and unbearably heavy as I forced one clumsy foot in front of the other. I pulled myself through the trees like a thing possessed. Possessed and consumed by ravening horror. Past blurring streaks of malefic shadows, I ran for my life. The monstrous trees watched coldly as I fled, stretching their sharp fingers out to gouge at my face and tear at my dress. They whispered low, lifting their roots out of the ground to trip my feet. I fell and I stumbled and I sprinted and whimpered in terror, sure I could feel hot fetid canine breath on my shoulders; sure I could hear the excited grunts of wolves at my back, snapping violently at my heels.

  Again, I fell, my ankle buckling over a pine cone. I lay, winded, on my back with a frozen stare cast at the starscape above me. Except for my painfully heaving chest and the pestilent needles and rocks stabbing at my back, I felt dead already. Dead and alone. A chill brushed across my skin as I struggled back onto my trembling legs. I gave a wince as my ankle protested—the same ankle I’d sprained not so long ago when Tristan had startled me. When he’d carried me up that hill. Rescued me. But where was he now?

  Disregarding the jarring pain, I let the ankle bear my weight as I fled again, adrenaline-fueled, praying that I was still heading southward towards the safety of the road. Just to be sure, though, I skidded to a halt and glared furtively through the canopy to search the night sky for the Big Dipper or Polaris. Anything that would help me navigate. There it was, the North Star, so much higher in the sky than I was used to seeing down in Florida. With the constellation for guidance, I readjusted my bearing, tearing southward through the thickets and midnight boles.

  How long had I been running? How much longer before they gave chase? Even as the last question materialized in my shattered psyche, I heard the signal I’d been dreading. A long, ominous howl rent the hush. A dooming knell. Panic surged viscous and frigid through my veins before pooling in my gut. Then came the answering calls, excited and frenzied—a baleful chorus of awful wolf-song.

  It had begun. My half hour was up. Now I was no better than a frightened ungulate, heart stampeding wildly. And wasn’t that the point? Didn’t my terror add to the piquancy of my blood?

  I hadn’t thought I could run any faster, not with my throbbing ankle and tears flooding my eyes, but I did. I hurtled headlong through the trees, allowing my nose to guide me through the night. I even deluded myself I could smell the bitumen I was so desperate to cross. I tripped. Fell. Clawed my way back to my bruised feet and ran again. Once more I stumbled. An anguished and frustrated sob to
re from my throat as I scrambled back up.

  Calm down! From somewhere deep within I heard my mother’s voice, steady and sharp as a lash. Think. Or was it my own voice snapping the whelming hysteria out of my terror-soaked mind. Panic, I knew, was as deadly as a werewolf. Get up. Quickly now!

  Obeying instantly, I grabbed a sharp-looking rock from nearby and, despite the added weight, pressed on. The weight was almost negligible anyway, but it made all the difference—it anchored me to the earth and to sanity. I felt a little more in control with a missile in my hand.

  My heart stammered suddenly as another terrible howl reached me. Too close! They were closing in with supernatural speed. I had only two legs to carry me, they had four.

  Pricking my ears over the din of my pounding feet, I thought I detected something to my left. Maybe I’d seen a dark shadow flash past me. Maybe my mind was so overactive and I was seeing and hearing danger all around me. How did natural wolves hunt? My eyes darted left again, straining into the darkness. Was I being herded like a caribou? Would I be eaten alive?

  Once more I searched the moving shadows, cocking my ears to catch every sound. But when I bent my eyes forward again it was too late. I screamed as a massive ten-foot shadow suddenly reared up on hind legs, rampant as a bear, my momentum carrying me straight into its solid chest. I convulsed and struggled like a dying fish, shrieking madly. It held fast.

  Yet nothing was happening, I quickly realized. No fangs were poised at my neck to snap my spine. My eyes flew up to see large, bi-colored eyes glaring down at me. One brown. One grey. Both eerily bright. It released me almost instantly, stood aside, and then gave me a peremptory shove in the direction I’d already been headed.