Silver

by Rhiannon Held

  The woman’s expression grew harder. “Stop insulting my intelligence. It’s not all right. Death says I’m supposed to trust you, but Lady knows why.” She took a backward step toward the road. “Just let me go. I’m no threat to you. The monster chases me, and I run. Death follows to take me, not you or your pack.” She cocked her head, listening to something that couldn’t be heard. “But you have no fear of him, he says.” She snorted, and spoke to the air. “That’s a dubious recommendation, at best.”

  Andrew let silence fall as he chose his words carefully. Something told him these would be the last words he’d have time for before she was gone, crushed by one of the SUVs barreling past. If religious metaphors were so important to her delusions, he’d use them too. “Fair enough, but I’d recommend you run somewhere else.” He nodded to the street behind her. “Death hunts those lands.”

  The woman twisted her head over her shoulder to frown at the cars. “I can swim,” she objected, but her stance changed, no longer braced to run in that direction.

  Andrew didn’t allow himself a sigh of relief yet, but he held out his hand to the woman. “Come on. If the monster comes, he can deal with the wrath of Roanoke’s enforcer, and by extension, Roanoke’s alpha.”

  The woman ignored the hand, but she did join him. “I would not dismiss the monster so easily if I were you.”

  Andrew put a hand behind her back, not quite touching, to guide her back to the car. “So what’s your name?”

  The twist of the woman’s lips made her abruptly look much older. “I told you, I lost my name. Death calls me Silver.”

  Andrew choked. She didn’t seem like she was trying to shock him, but if it was a joke, it was in poor taste. Who in their right mind would name themselves after a torture method? Though he supposed that was the operative phrase here—the woman clearly wasn’t in her right mind. “But what do you call yourself?”

  The woman smiled without humor. “Who am I to argue with Death?”

  * * *

  The man was some kind of warrior, Silver decided. He was the first she’d seen since she started walking in the Lady’s realm who seemed quite real, besides Death and the monster. He didn’t shine with Her light from within like one of Her champions, but Silver didn’t mind. She would have hated to be reminded of the Lady’s true favor forever denied her. It was bad enough that the Lady’s light caressed his skin from above.

  The warrior’s wild self was scarred, rough patches scattered in the steely gray fur. Silver watched the wild self pace beside the man and saw the play of muscles catch and hold in places, where more scar tissue lay hidden below the surface. His tame self did not show the injuries, as was the way of tame selves, but had the same confidence. His short hair was dark, and his features and muscles had a fineness to them that suggested his power came from training, not sheer strength. No brute, he. No wonder Death approved.

  Death exchanged sniffs with the warrior’s wild self, two old alphas too confident to bother with the ritual of challenge. The warrior’s wild self had more muscle, but Death had no injuries and moved with the quickness of night swallowing the sky when a cloud passed over the Lady’s light.

  “He brings you voices?” Silver asked Death. “Is that why you like him?” Death returned to stalk her rather than answer. Silver braced herself for his howl to come, but she could never brace enough for the burning, hissing pain that consumed her. The snakes paralyzed her muscles, forcing her to fight to break free before she could even writhe with the pain.

  “Is he going to cut my voice loose for you?” she asked, when she had the breath for words again. “Is that why you wanted me to go with him?”

  Receiving no answer, Silver ignored Death in turn and curled over her arm to sing the snakes a lullaby. Sleep, sleep, don’t hiss, don’t bite. They ignored her and her mind gnawed at the problem of this warrior, keeping her from her own sleep. He seemed kind, kind enough she had no wish for the monster to catch him too. He probably thought he could defend himself, but the monster had weapons he couldn’t counter. She should leave to protect him, but she was tired, so tired, of running.

  3

  Andrew led Silver back to the car without fuss, but she started making soft, distressed sounds when he guided her into the passenger seat. He cursed the compact’s limited head room that prevented him from examining her. He couldn’t see any injury he might have disturbed. She babbled something about voices, and then convulsed when he pulled the seat belt across her. He let it go and watched helplessly as her back arched with an apparent seizure.

  They’d have to chance the ticket for an unbuckled belt. When Silver finally relaxed and curled into a little ball, he straightened from leaning over the open door and returned to the driver’s side.

  Andrew had planned to drive at least half the distance between New Hampshire and the Roanoke pack house outside of D.C. in Manassas before stopping, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Traffic on the Beltway would probably still be bad whether he hit D.C. later the next day or not. Unlike other packs, Roanoke was named after the original colony, not their city of residence, but Andrew often wished they did live in the backwater for easier access.

  Andrew turned off at the first chain hotel he found, and checked them into a ground-floor room at the back. Silver was still dozing, babbling to herself again, when he returned to coax her in through a side door.

  The room stank of cleaning products layered over strange humans, but that was true of any hotel. He got her onto the closest bed, where her clothing looked even more dingy against the overly cheerful shades of the bedspread. When she was settled, he reached for her sweatshirt’s zipper to examine her arm, but she lashed out. Andrew avoided the blow, but he suspected her whole strength had been behind it. He retreated to the other side of the room to allow her to relax again.

  When she subsided into a doze, Andrew flopped down on the room’s armchair and got out his phone. Time to figure out what to do with this poor mystery woman. He paused with his address book open. Technically, he should go over the local alpha’s head. He was under Roanoke’s authority, and this was strange enough Roanoke should get involved. But it was the Boston alpha’s territory, so it would be at least polite to inform him of what had happened.

  Besides, Boston was Andrew’s favorite of the sub-alphas united in the Roanoke pack. They’d clashed since Andrew had taken the job of enforcer, but Boston was gentlemanly even when working against Roanoke’s orders. More than once, Andrew had privately agreed with the older man.

  But then, Benjamin was over a century old. While werewolves could see two centuries if they were lucky, few from earlier generations had made it that far, not in an era when wolf slaughter was practically institutionalized. Benjamin’s age gave him the politeness of another era and a wisdom it was hard for younger men to match.

  “Ah.” Benjamin’s voice was warm and satisfied when he answered, like he’d seen a good friend’s name on the caller ID. “Dare. Did you manage to find our lone?”

  “Yes, but she’s a lot more than I bargained for.” Andrew scrubbed a hand along his jaw. “She smells like silver, sure, but she’s been hurt. I’m starting to wonder if she’s the victim of a European, rather than one herself. She’s definitely crazy.”

  Andrew wished he could smell Benjamin’s reaction in the pause. The silence didn’t tell him anything. Finally Boston asked, “Anyone you knew in your time there? Someone they might use as a message?”

  Andrew growled. He supposed when Benjamin had taken him in and helped him through the worst of his darkness after he’d returned from Spain, he’d earned the right to bring up the subject. “I did think about it, when I thought she was a European herself, but I can’t see why they’d come after me after all this time. I haven’t tried to contact my daughter lately.” Andrew had to clench his free hand to keep his voice steady.

  “I’m sorry.” Benjamin blew out a breath. “It had to be asked, Dare. Are you taking the poor lone to Roanoke, then?”


  “Unless you have some other suggestion.” Andrew almost wished Benjamin did. Rory was a decent alpha, but he sometimes had trouble with bigger-picture stuff. Europeans were good at subtle backstabbing and manipulation, difficult to catch unless you watched the big picture.

  “I trust your judgment.”

  Andrew could almost hear Benjamin’s flickered smile at the pronoun—Andrew’s, not Rory’s. But Rory was the alpha, and Andrew liked it better that way. “At very least, the Roanoke doctor should be able to help her. Then maybe we’ll get some sense out of her.” Even beyond what his duty required for dealing with a lone, he found she roused in him the instinct many high-ranked werewolves had to protect those of lower rank.

  “Mm.” Benjamin paused again. “Where are you staying the night? You could come here.”

  The concern in his voice could have been just for the hurt lone, but Andrew had heard variations on this tune often before. Benjamin thought his life as enforcer wasn’t healthy, exercising Rory’s authority over Roanoke’s sub-packs but belonging to none.

  It was tempting to spend some time with a pack. But he’d set himself outside the local pack structure for a reason. He wasn’t going to be responsible for anyone’s life again anytime soon. “I don’t want to try moving her again until she’s had time to rest. We’ll make the run to Virginia tomorrow.”

  “Fair enough.” Benjamin sounded disappointed, but not surprised. “Take care of yourself, Dare. And her.”

  They said their good-byes and Andrew rose to check on Silver. Still sleeping, if fitfully, whimpering to herself every so often. He wondered if she was deep enough under he could chance leaving to get dinner. His stomach was starting to growl. With his earlier shifting, his metabolism wasn’t very tolerant of missed meals.

  He’d have to risk it. Andrew drove to a fast-food restaurant a few blocks down and took the drive-through to pick up two burgers, stacked with multiple patties and cheese and bacon. He’d never been sure how humans managed them, but they hit the spot after shifting.

  He left one in the bag for Silver and munched on his as he approached the room. He folded the paper back over the burger and moved the bag to the same hand to free up a hand for the key when he reached the door.

  Silver slammed into him the moment the door opened. Andrew dropped the food and snatched a handful of her sweatshirt as she bolted down the hall toward freedom. He wrestled her into his arms and lifted her feet from the floor, hoping she wouldn’t scream. A story about a teen runaway dragged home for her own good or some such would only hold up so well when he was healthy and male and she was female and pathetic. Fortunately she only panted harshly as she struggled. Andrew kicked the burgers into the room and slammed the door behind them the moment he set Silver down.

  “The monster is coming,” Silver hissed, crouching. “I can’t stay here. Can’t lead him to you. Let me go.” She gasped and curled around her arm again.

  “I am trying to get you to help,” Andrew snapped. He stayed blocking the door until he was sure her gasping was not an act to get him out of the way. “I’m taking you to people who can protect you from monsters.” Whatever those monsters were. Hallucinations, most likely. Hopefully the doctor could take care of those.

  Instead of answering, Silver subsided into silence and lay in a curl on the floor, eyes closed. Andrew waited a few minutes and then knelt beside her and rolled her shoulder back so she lay in a more open position. She kept her eyes closed, but Andrew could smell she was conscious. It was awkward, but he needed to know what he was dealing with. He eased down the zipper on her sweatshirt to reveal an equally grimy tank top underneath, though no bra.

  He drew out her arm and she fought him, straining her shoulder muscles against his pull. The rest of her arm muscles seemed unable to respond. Another moment and she sighed and gave up. He laid her arm flat on the carpet, exposing angry red welts running from the inside of her elbow toward her heart. His fingers brushed one of the welts as he tried to angle her arm for better light and pain shot up his arm like he’d touched something red hot.

  Or something silver.

  Andrew’s breath caught and he recoiled. What had been done to her? He knew European use of silver as punishment well enough from when he’d lived there. But that created burns in obvious places. Around wrists or ankles from binding. On the face or lower arms that had been raised against blows. Across the back from whipping.

  The human world was also filled with silver, but those wounds were accidental and thus on extremities, like a burn on the palm from shaking hands with someone who wore a ring. In the past, the Catholic Church had used it on purpose to defeat or torture what they thought were monsters, but no one had believed in the Were for over a century. None of those things fit with the welts Andrew saw here.

  Andrew leaned over the arm again, careful not to touch this time. If he made himself think in human terms the welts looked less like burns and more like blood poisoning. Had silver remained against her skin for a long time? Andrew traced the welts back to their source in the cup of her elbow with his eyes, and drew in a breath.

  That looked like a needle mark.

  Had she been injected with silver in a liquid form, like silver nitrate? Was there still silver in her blood? That would explain why touching the welts had burned him. His stomach clenched as nausea rose. There were stories—myths, really—that the Catholic Church had tried injecting silver into the Were they had picked up along with the vampires that were the Inquisition’s real target. All kinds of impossible stories existed about the Inquisition, however, most easily disproved.

  More important was to figure out what he could do about it if she had been injected. She should have the silver removed as soon as possible, but if it was in her blood—should he cut her? Hope the silver drained before she bled out?

  The silver did look like it might be fairly contained in the welts, especially since touching the rest of her skin hadn’t burned him. But what if cutting into them released it into the rest of her bloodstream instead of bleeding it out? Did it work that way in humans? Andrew had no idea. He would have immediately forgotten the information if he’d come across it before.

  Better he let the doctor the Roanoke sub-packs shared look at her before he did anything stupid. Andrew left her injured arm where it was and checked her wrists and ankles for other signs of silver, but found nothing.

  After watching her a little longer, Andrew scooped the woman up, laid her on the bed, and returned to his now much squashed burgers. He needed the time to settle before he presented this to Rory. Injected silver. He could barely believe it himself.

  When he could put it off no longer, he got out his phone and called his alpha.

  “You find her?” Rory sounded distracted.

  Andrew checked his watch. He’d probably caught the pack getting ready to go out for an evening run. “Yes. She’s brain-damaged from silver exposure.”

  Shocked silence. Then, “Did a European dump her after her punishment?”

  “It’s injected silver, Rory. That died with the Inquisition, if it ever happened at all.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past some of the European packs. Though I suppose you’d know.” Rory tossed off the comment as if he didn’t realize how insulting it sounded.

  “I just married a European. I’m as North American as you are.” Andrew stopped to ungrit his teeth enough to continue speaking. Rory was just rattled by the European politics ending up on his doorstep. “You’re the one who resorted to silver when things went wrong in Memphis.” And given his reputation, it was Andrew who had taken the blame for that incident. Of course.

  “Don’t forget Sacramento’s son, down in Florida. That was all you. I never told you to kill the boy.”

  “A clean death, without silver. You agreed with me at the time, Rory. It was necessary.” Andrew flexed his free hand into a fist. This old argument was beside the point. “Trust me. I’ve never heard of a Were doing something like this before.”

 
; Rory growled. “Humans, then. It has to be.”

  “Humans don’t believe anymore, not in this century.” Silver jerked in her dream and Andrew paced over to look down at her. “If a werewolf can’t exist, you don’t bother using silver on it.” But. But it did sound exactly like the stories about the Catholic Church.

  “Whoever it was, we have to find them. Is she going to be able to tell us?”

  Silver gave a soft cry and covered her face with her good arm. “I doubt it.” Andrew pulled the blankets free and laid them over her.

  “Well.” Robbed of the clearest path to action, Rory sounded a little lost.

  Andrew rubbed his temple. “Warn the doctor we’re coming. We’ll leave in the morning. Maybe she’ll get more lucid once she’s been treated.”

  “Right.” Rory sounded annoyed as he hung up, and Andrew suppressed a sigh. Normally he would have worked to make it sound more like the other man’s idea, but it had been a long day.

  He checked the windows to make sure they didn’t open wide enough to allow an adult woman through, then returned to the door. He would hear if she got up, but he didn’t know if he would be able to catch her before she reached the door if he slept in the other bed. There seemed to be nothing else for it but to sleep in front of the door.

  Andrew grabbed a towel from the bathroom and dropped it on the floor. Even more shifting with the moon not yet full would tire him out, but it would save him a crick in his human back. He could feel the day’s efforts building to exhaustion in the time it took to push into wolf, but he made it, and curled up on the towel after scuffling it up around him.

  4

  Silver woke before the snakes and she lay still for a long while, reluctant to disturb them. She heard the warrior’s sleeping breaths on the other side of the den. Death was nowhere to be seen. That gave Silver hope, and she eased her arm back to its place against her chest. The snakes hissed in their sleep, but did not wake, so she sat up.