The Wolf Witch

by Kara Jorgensen

  Steeling himself, Wesley schooled his face and threw open the bathroom door. His father and half-sister fell silent at his approach. Both were all smiles and between them sat a tray of tea and cookies. A thread of anger snaked through him. He should be happy that he had escaped death, but all he felt was frustration at loosing days of work. The murderer could have struck several times by now and it would take days to find his trail again. His father patted the cushion beside him until Wesley stiffly sunk into the empty chair between him and Emmeline.

  “I was just telling Emmeline about the time your uncle got caught in a snare and nearly had to gnaw his leg off,” Silas said with a laugh. “Oh, you should have seen him standing in the middle of the forest, screaming his head off. He was surrounded by alligators and naked as a newborn.”

  With her attention still on their father, Emmeline poured Wesley a cup of tea and pushed a plate of mutton across the table. Ignoring the food despite the pang in his gut, Wesley leaned back in his chair and studied the room. It would take three bounds at the most to reach the door, but the trouble would be opening the door when his father caught up with him.

  “So what else have y’all been discussing in my absence?” Wesley asked, his voice tight.

  “Well, Emmeline was telling me about her life and her recent trip to the Europe.”

  “And what did you tell her about us?”

  Emmeline’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth, her teacup wavering as she looked from son to father.

  “About you, Theo, and Eudora. About the extended pack, her uncles and aunts.”

  “Mostly funny stories,” Emmeline added. “Nothing too unflattering.”

  “Pa,” the word came out brittle and low, “we don’t even know her. Can’t you have this little family reunion without—”

  A warning growl issued from his father’s throat so low he doubted Emmeline could hear it. “She’s your sister, Wesley.”

  “You just met her.”

  “Do you think I don’t recognize my own child? You knew you had a sister in England. You’ve known most of your life, so don’t act like this is a surprise.”

  Wesley paused at the way Emmeline Jardine’s mouth opened in an O of surprise.

  “Besides, she saved your hide back there. I wouldn’t have even found you if it hadn’t been for her.” Straightening and clearing his throat, Silas gave Emmeline a warm smile and added, “And tomorrow I thought we could all have dinner together to get to know each other better before we head back. I’m only sorry Theo and Eudora weren’t here to meet you. They would adore you, especially Eudora. She’s always wanted a sister.”

  A blush rose on Emmeline’s cheeks. “And I’ve always wanted siblings. Mama promised we would go to America one day. I guess this was why. Perhaps I could come visit you in the spring when the weather is better.”

  “You could leave with us this week if you would like, sha. We’d be happy to put you up. There’s plenty of room.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Wesley whispered, knowing his father would hear.

  His father’s gaze flickered to him, gleaming not with anger but fear. “No.” He repeated the word until it hardened into an order. “No, you are getting on that dirigible and coming back with me.”

  “I can’t, Pa! I have a job to do.”

  “Screw Les Meutes! Your life isn’t worth their favor, Wesley.”

  For a moment, he met Emmeline’s eyes, expecting to see contempt or outrage, but beneath her neutral expression was something akin to sympathy. He could sense no hostility from her now, yet the air hummed with his and his father’s energy. It clashed and built until finally Wesley leapt to his feet. He made it two steps before Silas stepped in his way. Wesley bristled but kept his eyes to the floor as they stayed locked shoulder to shoulder. To move would be a provocation in most packs, but this was his father and there were few who treated their children as he did. When Wesley took a step, Silas matched it as if it were a dance. Even though he was two decades younger than his father, Wesley knew he couldn’t win by strength should his father shift. To be the Rougarou, a man had to be strong of mind and body, and his father had both. Gritting his teeth, Wesley kept his gaze on the wall above his father’s shoulder.

  “Try me, Wes,” his father whispered, his voice so utterly human that it hurt.

  With a frustrated huff, Wesley staggered back a step and broke into an impassioned string of broken Cajun French. He ranted about his need to leave the pack. How the rules and constant input from aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, the neighbors even, on every aspect of his life drove him away. How all he wanted was to be his own person instead of a member of the pack. Person, not wolf. How people were being murdered in London by a wolf creature, and he didn’t give a shit if Les Meutes cared or not. He cared. Somehow, it felt safe to say it all in Cajun. The bastardized French with its rolled sounds and twisting cadence was his language. It went beyond the pack or being a Bisclavret. He was Cajun, and no Pinkerton or wolf’s blood could change that. Silas took every word without flinching. Listening with his head cocked, he waited patiently until, with a shuddering breath, Wesley stopped.

  “Do you feel better now?”

  Wesley ground his jaw, wishing his father would be less reasonable. Anger he could work with.

  “Your family still sounds better than mine. Well, what’s left of it,” Emmeline replied in French, leaning back on the couch.

  The Bisclavrets whipped around to look at her as if they had forgotten she was there. Wesley pushed his knuckle into the groove between his brows. Of course she knew French.

  “You still have a few days to investigate, don’t you?” she added, all eyelashes and innocence.

  Silas’s face locked and reddened. “Don’t encourage him! He’s been sentenced to be transported. He’s barely supposed to leave the hotel.”

  “Why should I listen to them? They locked me in a cage! They would have happily killed me rather than see past what we are. They don’t even think we’re human, Pa. Remember, I’m not human under the law, so why should I play by their rules? Hell, they could have killed those people and framed me for it.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Emmeline said, reverting back to English. “Last summer, another practioner manipulated my powers and tried to bring something across the veil. The Interceptors didn’t even care that a dear,” she cleared her throat as if the word stuck, “friend of mine died. They dragged me in and threatened to throw me in gaol as a conspirator. They didn’t care what I did and didn’t know. If you aren’t on their side, you’re on their sword.”

  “See, Pa? Is this what you want to bow to?”

  “Bow? When did I bow to anyone?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, when you did nothing to save me. You were going to let them kill me in the name of justice. Did you think that it would serve me right?”

  “What are you talking about? Emmeline and I went together to find you. I—”

  “Did nothing!” Running a hand through his hair, Wesley braced himself against the back of the sofa at the push of the wolf trying to get out. It paced inside him, anxious and unpredictable as it fed off the tension in his blood. “Look, Pa. I need to get some air. I just need to get out for a while.”

  “Not tonight, Wesley.”

  At the hardness of the order, Wesley found his hands on the buttons of his shirt. He didn’t know who started to shift first, but with the motion came the gurgle of organs moving and bones tearing. A gasp tore from Emmeline’s throat, but it died beneath the pain as the wolf hurtled free. The moment the wolf’s pelt took hold, it whipped around, shaking off the fresh clothing. Free from its binds, it dove at his father’s wolf. They rolled in an undulating pile of tan and black fur across the Persian rug. It’s back bounced off the table as it ducked out of reach. Outside of him, he could hear Emmeline yelp and gasp, and he hoped she was smart enough to stay out of the way. Even though a werewolf at heart was a man, in battle the savagery wasn’t soon forgotten. In the second he had looked at E
mmeline holding the tray of food, Silas knocked him to the ground and pinned him, but as he put his mouth to his son’s neck, Wesley’s wolf growled and threw its head back. Their head’s collided, the force of it ringing through his skull.

  They squabbled open-mouthed. Grunts and barks filled the hotel room as teeth gnashed and their jaws locked. Wesley’s wolf dipped down and leapt aside to slip away, but Silas tackled him, sending them skidding into the couch at Emmeline’s feet. Leaping onto the cushions, Emmeline narrowly avoided being swept off her feet as her brother rolled out of reach. The tan wolf yelped as Silas Bisclavret nipped at his side before standing over him. He bared his teeth at his son and drew closer until Wesley could smell the meat and wine on his breath. His wolf should have licked at his face and pulled his ears back in submission, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to give in this time. He wanted to leave.

  This isn’t your battle. Reigning the wolf in, Wesley rose to the surface. His father backed up, lupine face still set in anger, as a man unfolded before him. Wesley’s head swam and his limbs felt soft as dough, but he forced himself to his knees to stare down his father. Emmeline frowned and spun on heel toward the wall, her gaze inching back over her shoulder. Their father barked and released a low whine at Wesley. Ignoring him, Wesley quickly donned his clothing. As tempting as it might be, his father would never attack him in human form. Now was his chance while his father waited to transform again. Old bones made it difficult to shift, and youth was the only advantage Wesley had.

  “I’m sorry, Pa, but I have to go,” he said, not meeting his gaze. “Nice to meet you, Emmeline.”

  Grabbing his father’s coat, Wesley tucked in his shirt and disappeared into the hall.

  ***

  Wesley stalked through London’s streets, keeping to the well-lit roads as a steady drizzle turned to chips of biting ice. The people around him huddled deeper into their coats and scarves as they quickened their pace toward home, yet he barely felt it. The wolf inside of him paced at the thought of being outdoors. It wanted to run and tumble, but the expanses of green were all manicured and artificial. It would be too easy to be caught again in a place where he couldn’t escape into the trees or hide his clothing to return to later. The underground train stations called to him to take the next train out of here and go to the country where he could breathe and return to balance again. Balance was essential to not becoming a nightmarish creature of the past, and after days in that cell, he could feel the urge to shift again building in his chest and head like a bad hangover. Too long without shifting and the wolf would do it for him. It would be a downward spiral from there, and he didn’t need that.

  Crossing the road to the bank of trees peeking above the walls of Hyde Park, Wesley rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. At least he had been able to secure a new room at a modest hotel closer to the crime scenes. In a few hours, he would go back to his father’s hotel room and retrieve the rest of his belongings and explain to him why he needed to see this case through. This time, there would be no deflection by entertaining his sister. Wesley sighed. His other sister. The one he had never met but always wondered about. The one his father had supposedly sired with a witch after their mother died. For years, he found himself caught between betrayal and curiosity when he thought about this faceless sister, but now that he was a man, he understood that his father had a past and a future beyond their mother. It was still weird, though. She looked like Eudora, if Eudora lost six inches, darkened her hair, and was far too sardonic for her own good. Her fire reminded him of Pa, and that sent a douse of cold water over his thoughts as he crossed the grass toward the gurgle of a stream. Pa had just met her and he loved her. Wesley knew it was his father’s nature to be that way, but it still stabbed at his heart.

  Wandering deeper into the park, Wesley drew in a long lungful of air and tasted the tang of the river threading through the warm scent of soil. The wolf barked at him, giving a little leap at the sight of the vast space of the empty park. He didn’t want to go back to the soul-sucking cell, but he wanted so badly to let his wolf out. The squabble in the hotel room had done nothing to ease the wolf’s anxiety. Melting into the shadows, Wesley followed the river on silent feet. As the sun set, he caught the distant hoot of an owl beneath the rustle of the dendritic trees, but in the light of the setting sun, he found what he had hoped for: a bridge. If he couldn’t give the wolf free reign, he could at least let it frolic in the water and run beside the bank for a few minutes to tide it over until they could return to America.

  At the plunk of a pebble hitting the water, Wesley whipped toward the sound. Beneath the bridge, the outline of a human form materialized in the shadows. “Do not be alarmed, Mr. Bisclavret.”

  Wesley’s eyes narrowed, but even with his heightened senses, he couldn’t see more than the outline of a man in a top hat and cloak. “Who are you?”

  The trees answered with a shake of their arms, bringing with the wind the faint odor of the not-wolf and carrion. His body tensed of its own accord; the murderer, the creature, was here. Keeping his face impassive, Wesley shifted his gait in case he needed to spring or run and hoped the man under the bridge couldn’t see any better than he could.

  The man laughed, the sound high and tinged with an arrogance that set Wesley on edge. “I am in a situation much like yourself. I heard about your predicament and thought we could be allies.”

  “Then, why hide in the shadows?”

  He tilted his head, the light catching a row of perfect teeth as he smiled. “Because we both have much to lose if others found out about our shared values.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To bring werewolves back to England and for our kind to return to our rightful place. My country has no place for us; you saw that firsthand. And we are short on allies.”

  A stab of pain twisted in Wesley’s ribs. How many others had been trapped in the bowels of the Interceptors’ Headquarters awaiting execution while their sanity was leeched away by a spell? How many had never known about their powers until it was too late?

  Wesley swallowed against the tightness in his throat and the wolf’s raised hackles. “And what would you need me to do?”

  “That will be clear soon. For now, pray to St. Hervé. We’ll be in touch.”

  Overhead, a carriage stopped at the edge of the bridge and with that, the shadow of a man retreated until all that remained was the lingering scent of wet fur and an underlying hint of rotting blood. Wesley climbed up the bank but found he was alone. We. How many werewolves walked London’s streets too afraid to shift only to teeter on the edge of madness due to archaic laws? Drawing in a long breath, Wesley tried to dissect the smell of the man. Even after following the trail to the edge of the park, he still couldn’t discern if there had been one man or two.

  Chapter Eight

  Consequences

  Emmeline sat at the breakfast table with the latest fashion magazine propped against a sturdy vase and her fork absentmindedly traveling to her mouth. She barely registered the bits of ham and egg as her mind churned all that had transpired over the past few days. A smile had played on her lips since she awoke, which had startled Price into asking if she was all right. Surprisingly, she was. For the first time in months, her life seemed to have the potential for happiness again. She could come and go as she pleased, she had friends, and she had a family. Her father had told her stories about her brothers and sister, aunts and uncles, and about her mother. Her heart had cracked a little at those, especially the one about the Louvre.

  It had been one of her favorites as a child as it was the kind of story she could play along with. Her mother had told her about when she and her sisters had gone to the Louvre with their mother. Aunt Josephine took art seriously, and while Madeline had tried to feign interest, a man had appeared in the gallery with her. Standing beneath a painting of a Medici, he had adopted the same dead eyes and stoic pose. By a statue of Aphrodite, he settled into the alluring sway of her hips. And as Madeli
ne turned the corner into a new room, there he was posing beside a naked statue of a Greek, thankfully clothed.

  Only in his version Madeline was a beautiful woman Silas had met the day before by accident when he caught her fan after it blew from her hand. He recognized her in the Louvre the following day and was determined to make her smile even if he made a spectacle of himself. She had covertly sketched his portrait in the museum and given it to him with her name and where they were staying scrawled on the back. He still had the picture. Tears burned the edges of Emmeline’s eyes at the realization that he might have more to remember her mother by than she had, but what made her smile was how he slipped so perfectly into the missing pieces of her mother’s story, filling a void she hadn’t realized she was missing yet now could never imagine being without. In time, she would go to America and meet her family. Perhaps there she would finally feel part of something greater than herself.

  Emmeline scratched the back of her hand and swatted at the tickle of a phantom creature walking across her arm as the dining room door swung open. A twang of energy rang through Emmeline’s chest so hard that she coughed on the egg she had half swallowed. Price dropped the pile of mail and continued on her way to the kitchen, but all Emmeline could see was the black paper wrapped package beneath the letters. Her magic reached for it like the tide reached for the moon. She didn’t need to open it to know what it was. It whispered to her of its relief; for what was a teacher without its pupil?

  Pushing the letters aside, Emmeline stared down at the package. Much like the last time, it had no mention of a sender, no identifying marks, but this time it bore no stamps. A thrill of fear raced through her. Whoever had returned it had dropped it at her door. Tearing away the twine and paper, Emmeline shuddered as her hand brushed against the book’s skin-smooth cover. Her fingers traced the etched twisting vines and flowers until they reached the clasps. The book pulsed beneath her palm as she opened the cover to confirm the concentric sigils within were still tainted by the brown of her blood. Relief washed over her at having the book so close again while at the back of her mind, a little voice cried for her to drop it in the fireplace. If she hadn’t bonded to it, then Cecil would still be alive. Emmeline shut her eyes but saw no half-formed beings or malicious forest beast.