She must have pulled onto private property. The wolves had to be trained. Maybe they were wolf-shepherd hybrids. They must belong to the man. They would probably run her down if she tried to get away
Her flimsy attempt at logic crumbled. She spoke to the alpha wolf in the same way she spoke to her daemon. I had a dream about you. You said you had answered my call for help. You said you’re here to protect me?
Silence unfurled in the clearing. She felt like a fool.
Then the wolf said, Yes.
The simple word came into her head from a place outside of herself. Her lips parted. This was far beyond her daemon, which could, after all, be explained away as a construct of her own mind. She reached out to the wolf but didn’t quite dare touch him. I am . . . very grateful. Thank you.
Sister, the wolf said.
Beyond trying to make her experiences fit into any logical scientific framework, she thought of the hawks that had fought off her attackers, and rapid words burst out of her. I don’t understand what’s going on. Please don’t let this man hurt me—
The wolf lowered its head. We can only protect, he said. We cannot heal. The warrior can help you more than we can. You must let him.
But—but—Her gaze went back to the man who watched her with hard, expressionless eyes.
He had pinned her down. He scared her.
He pinned her after she woke and started fighting him. She had tried to bite him too.
But he didn’t have to pin her down. Why didn’t he just back away? He threatened to tie her up, and no amount of rationalizing could make that okay.
The man remained silent, as if knowing better than she the kind of thoughts that raced through her mind.
She said aloud, again, “I don’t understand. Who are you? What do you want?” An avalanche of questions piled up behind those two. She had to bite her lips to keep from shrieking them.
The man said, “You can call me Michael. What I want is irrelevant.”
He reached out a hand. The panic hit her low and hard, slamming into her gut. She cringed from the hand and scrambled away. She didn’t stop until she had put several feet between them.
Only then did she realize that he hadn’t moved. She huddled into the overlarge jacket, head down, and dared to look sideways at him.
He knelt frozen, his hand outstretched to her, palm up. Nothing moved in the clearing, not even the wind through the trees. The stoic expression in his hard face and blank eyes never changed. He looked prepared to take any blow and not budge.
It took a moment before she realized he was silently asking for her plastic bag of food. She hesitated then inched forward to offer it to him, holding the bag as far away from her body as she could.
Moving only his hand, slow and easy, he took the bag from her. He pulled out a packet of trail mix, tore it open and shook some into his hand as he said, “I hear you were attacked and some people were killed. Where did this happen?”
She pulled his jacket tighter around her torso. “How did you hear that?”
His colorless gaze lifted to her. “A wind spirit. Hawks.”
“My daemon talked to you?” She lifted her head but couldn’t sense any ethereal presence hovering nearby. “Where is it? You didn’t hurt it, did you?”
His glance admonished her for the question. “I sent it to someone, with news.” He chucked the handful of mix into his mouth.
She felt a sharp pang of loss. “You had no business doing that. It can’t leave me—I needed it. It was going to show me how to get somewhere.” Part of her found room for amazement. She laughed. “Listen to us. We sound like lunatics. We’re talking about something that can’t exist. The two of us are the same kind of crazy.”
“I’m not crazy,” the man named Michael said. He shook more mix into his mouth. He didn’t look crazy either. He looked like a tired man after a long, hard day. His gaze speared her. “But I figure you’ve got to be pretty close to it. I’m just trying to decide how close you really are.”
A fresh thrill of fear jangled along her nerve ends. She reached for her tattered dignity. “Whether I’m crazy or not has nothing to do with you.” She added bitterly, “And you had no right to send my daemon away.”
The man continued to study her. “What’s your name?”
“That’s none of your business either.” She hugged her knees, her muscles in knots.
His lack of expression was chilling. “Listen to me carefully,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time to debate this at length. You can’t afford to take weeks or months to decide whether or not you’re going to like or trust me. I can either help you or I can kill you. There is no middle choice. I will not let you go.”
His words echoed in her head.
I can kill you.
He actually said those words to her.
She sucked air. “So what am I now, some kind of hostage?” she hissed.
“I didn’t say that, did I?”
She shook her head hard. “You want me to tell you things but you don’t tell me anything, is that it?”
“I didn’t say that either. All I said was that what I want is irrelevant, and it is.” He paused then added in an abrupt clipped tone, “You are mixed up in something far greater and older than you can understand at present. Right now you’re a danger to yourself and to others. You’re a danger to me. And you are dying, unless we can get you help from someone that I know.”
Even her daemon had said she was dying, yet she had no visible wound. She panted as if she had been running hard, but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. Her composure broke. She flung both arms over her head, and rocked back and forth. “I don’t understand!”
The man named Michael rubbed his face, his mouth held in a tense line. He said, “You don’t understand. I have answers. You’re in danger. I’m a fighter, a good one. You’re dying. I know someone who can heal you. This is not rocket science. Are you going to cooperate or not?”
She stopped rocking, lowered her arms and looked at him with eyes hollow from trauma and weariness. “Or you’ll kill me.”
His light, colorless gaze seared her. “No. Or I tie you up and take you with me. I’ll only kill you if you’re not salvageable, and we’re a long way from determining that. And I’ll kill us both before allowing us to be taken by the other creatures who are hunting you. Death is preferable to being at their mercy. But we have a greater chance of surviving if you cooperate.”
“Well isn’t that a goddamn comfort.” Her voice sounded like the rest of her, stretched too thin.
He stood. “Are you going to come willingly or not?”
“You’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?”
“No.”
She looked at the Toyota. First she lost her sanity, then her home, and now her car. Soon she would end up with nothing. “What are we going to do, just abandon my car?”
“Yes. With any luck, ditching it will slow the hunters down. It could buy us some time.” He didn’t sound like he had much hope for that to happen. He walked over and held out his hand.
She ignored it and forced her aching body upright. His hand fell to his side. He had a good foot on her in height. She came just to his shoulder and had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. She said cautiously, “I was supposed to go north to a grandmother.”
“I know where you’re supposed to go,” he said. “That’s where we’re headed.”
He knew? The lure of that pulled her more than anything else.
She was going to cooperate with a man who stood ready to kill her because—he said—the alternative was worse. Shuddering as the wind swept through the tangle of strange forest, she felt more lost than ever before. She longed to see a safe and friendly face, someone who genuinely wished her well. Someone who was not an enigma.
She told him, “I want my purse.”
“I’ll get it.”
She glanced at his gun. “I also have a first aid kit in the trunk. I want that too.”
�
�I have a first aid kit.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you a doctor?”
His tough, expressionless stoicism shattered. He looked stricken, as if she had knifed him without warning. She watched, uncomprehending, as his throat muscles worked. He whispered, “No I’m not.”
“Then I’m guessing mine’s better.”
A muscle in his jaw bunched. He gave her a short nod. He walked away to retrieve her purse and the canvas bag that held her first aid supplies.
Then he strode toward her. Even though his large body was heavy with thick muscles, he was so light on his feet he was a symphony of graceful movement.
Something about the fluidity of his body reminded her of the abundant golden river from earlier. His hands had rested flat on her torso as the shining stream had poured into her.
“Wait,” she said, instinct driving her words. “When I woke up you were trying to help me in some way. Weren’t you?”
He held the purse out to her, his gaze steady on hers. “I did help you. I bought you some time. But I can’t heal you. That’s beyond my abilities.”
Their eyes met. She experienced a moment of light-headedness at the intensity of the connection.
She almost said, I do know you. Don’t I?
But her gaze dropped to the gun in his holster, and she didn’t. Instead, silently, she took her purse.
He turned to the alpha wolf. You have fulfilled your promise with honor. Go in peace, brother.
Warrior, the wolf said.
She stuffed her hands against her mouth, filled with excitement and wonder for she had heard both of them as clearly as if they had spoken aloud. Even if she felt like she had lost her mind, she wasn’t creating everything that she was experiencing. The wolf looked at her.
She said, I’ll never forget you.
He paced forward and nosed her hand. Then, before she could stroke his head, the wolf whirled to leap into the forest. The pack poured after him.
When the last of them had disappeared, she looked at Michael. “My name is Mary. I have two hundred and ninety-five dollars in cash. I haven’t used my checks or credit cards since I was attacked.”
“Good.” He regarded her, his hard expression thoughtful. “And don’t worry about money. I have plenty. We need to go.”
She walked with him to his car and climbed into the passenger seat.
* * *
THE INTERIOR OF the Ford was worn but spacious and comfortable, with old-fashioned bench seats and much more modern installed seat belts. The backseat was piled with things that were unidentifiable in the darkness, but the front seat was clear. The car smelled faintly of engine oil, leather and the faint clean scent of aftershave.
She tucked her purse and the plastic bag of snacks between her feet. They were now the sum total of her worldly possessions. After she put her seat belt on, she rummaged in the bag for a bottle of water and the chocolate bar.
Michael twisted to look over his shoulder, and he backed the car onto the paved road. She caught a glimpse of a large red-tailed hawk perched on a low-hanging limb of a tree and craned her neck to stare as it launched into flight. It was soon swallowed by the dark night.
After a few minutes they approached the entrance ramp to Highway 131. Michael took the northbound ramp. The car accelerated to just under the speed limit and held steady. She sagged back in her seat with a sigh and unwrapped the chocolate bar.
The duality in her emotions continued. As afraid of him as she was, she was also intensely relieved to be on the road again. Losing her independent transportation worried her, but leaving her car behind meant that they also left her license plates behind, and she became a little more difficult to track.
They traveled in silence. Apparently you-can-call-me- Michael was a man of few words. He drove with competence and appeared relaxed, but she noticed that he checked the rearview mirror often and his expression remained a closed vault.
He didn’t offer to turn on the radio, and she didn’t ask. She looked out the window at the moonlit landscape and the occasional traffic, sucking on her candy. She didn’t offer him any chocolate, and he didn’t ask.
In the privacy of her own mind, she admitted that it was a relief to sit passive for a while with someone who seemed strong and capable, who wore a gun and knew how to use it and who appeared to understand the dangers they faced. At the same time her bruised, hypersensitive nerves jangled with awareness of the tough, dominant presence at her side. She could not get beyond her fear of him, or the threat that he had made.
Hawks, wolves, wind spirits and the strange haunt of inexplicable dreams. Two grotesque men and casual murder. The vision at the Grotto. Her house in flames. She was dying.
Why was she dying?
She was walking and talking like a normal person, but something was terribly wrong with her. She didn’t need to take Michael’s or her daemon’s word for it. Deep in her bones, she could sense that it was true. It felt like she had torn something open, some unseen spiritual ligament, and it was vital in some way to her existence. In the meantime everything she thought she knew about the world had crumbled into dust.
She said aloud, “It’s like all my life I’ve lived in some kind of painting. There was a lot of color and detail, and the painting seemed to make sense, but either somebody has smashed the frame or I’ve fallen out of it somehow. Now I’m in a totally different reality. The color and detail seem similar, but everything’s changed. I can’t go back into the painting. It’s two-dimensional, and I don’t fit. I don’t even know how to try. But I don’t understand this new reality either, or how to survive in it.”
The atmosphere in the car changed. She could sense his attention sharpening on her as she spoke. She paused, but he said nothing.
Anger sparked. She said, “If you’re not crazy, then I’m not crazy. I heard you speak to that wolf. I heard that wolf speak to me. Someone burned down my house. I saw it on the news along with other people in a restaurant, so I know I’m not making that up. Hundreds of hawks attacked two men who murdered four innocent people right in front of me. Those men called me by name. They were kidnapping me. Those hawks were the only thing that kept me out of their van. These things happened. I have the bruises to prove it. And I resent like hell that I might need you, but you might kill me for some mysterious unknown reason. As far as I know, maybe you’ll kill me on a whim—maybe just because you get indigestion and you feel cranky and trigger-happy tonight. By the way, you never thanked me for that sandwich you took without asking. And if I’m already dying, which you say, I don’t know why you’d even bother to kill me unless you just get cranky and trigger-happy sometimes. Maybe you’re the crazy one, and I’m the one who’s sane. Did you consider that, Mister Enigmatic?”
As she twisted in her seat to glare at him, a startled smile flickered across his face. By the dashboard’s dim illumination she caught how the brief smile shifted the planes and angles of his face into something quite different from his former grim endurance. He glanced at her, his light eyes glittering like a flash of bright gems glimpsed under a shadowed cloak.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She waited again, but he fell back into silence. “That’s it—you’re sorry?” she said after a while. Bitter anger scalded her words. “Thank you, everything has become crystal clear, and I feel so much better now.”
“I’m thinking,” he said. The trace of a whip was in his voice.
She shrank closer to her door, her temper chilling. Great, Mary. Release all your stress on the guy with the gun. You know, he really might kill you just because he’s got indigestion. How much more of an idiot can you be?
It was time to force some conciliatory words out of her mouth, whether she actually felt them or not. She said, “I shouldn’t have said all those things. It’s just that I’ve—”
“You’ve had a rough day, I know,” he said. “I should never have said anything about killing you. It was a cruel and useless thing to say, and I’m sorry. Let’s just sa
y I’ve had a rough day too and try to get past it, all right?”
She mulled on that and found it unsatisfactory. She said, “Is it true?”
The fleeting smile was gone. In its place was something darker, much more savage. “Yes,” he said. “But you didn’t need to know it.”
“But why?” The thin-voiced plaintive question hung between them.
“All I can do is repeat myself,” he said. “There are some things that are worse than death. Someone is hunting you. If he captured you, what he would do to you would be far worse than death.”
She rubbed her face and forced herself to focus. “There were two men who tried to kidnap me.”
“They were dangerous in their own way and destructive enough, but ultimately they’re unimportant. They’re just tools for the person you need to worry about. If he had gotten hold of you, you wouldn’t have escaped, hawks or no hawks.”
She shuddered at the thought of someone worse. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know what name he goes by these days. But he is quite old, powerful, inventive and wicked. I’ve dedicated my life to his destruction. So has Astra, the woman that I’m taking you to see.”
“The Grandmother.”
“Some call her that.” His voice had turned measured and expressionless, giving away no hint of his own thoughts or opinions.
She remembered that she was thirsty, opened the bottle of water and drank. After she’d had enough she hesitated then held the bottle out to him. He took it. “Why do I feel that you and the—wind spirit, as you called it—are right and I’m dying?” she asked. “Aside from some scrapes and bruises, there’s nothing physically wrong with me. And what did you do to me, back there by my car?”
“As far as the difference between you dying, and me killing you goes . . .” He blew out a short sharp gust of air, an exhalation of frustration, and she tensed in dread. “If I killed you, I would only be killing your body. What you’re suffering from is much more serious than a wound of the flesh. Somehow you’ve taken a wound of the spirit. If you expire from the spirit wound, you will be destroyed. Gone. You won’t exist any longer, so you could never be reborn.”
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