Skin of the Wolf

by Sam Cabot

  “For me?”

  “He says he’d rather not see the rest of us again. But if a time comes when you care to speak to him, the Noantri Conclave will put you in touch.”

  “He’ll talk to me?”

  “Only to you.”

  “Good. Good. Then I’ll go to him.”

  “To him?” said Spencer. “But what about your work? Surely now—”

  Michael looked at Spencer, and laughed. “My work? I’m through. Rockefeller’s probably packing up my lab right now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Come on, Spencer. I used to be a hotshot minority scientist. Now I’m an Indian with an arrest record.”

  “The charges were dropped,” Thomas said stoutly.

  “So? There’s no due process in science. Rule number one, don’t embarrass your institution.” He paused; his voice changed. “Besides, I was wrong. Even if they kept me on, it would be to do the work I’ve been doing, on smallpox. But I’m done with that. I was looking for the Shifter gene by following the virus. From what Father Carbonariis said, I’ll never find it that way.”

  “Perhaps not,” Spencer said. “But you will find it. You now have access to the DNA of the two people at van Vliet’s estate whose Shifts were incomplete, and also Katherine Cochran’s DNA. That will be of great help, I’m sure.”

  “Katherine Cochran’s? Where the hell would I get that?”

  “It could be managed.” Spencer’s calm confidence almost made Thomas laugh.

  “You know, I’ll bet if you were involved,” Michael said, “it actually could. It doesn’t matter, though. This will have to be someone else’s work, some other time. It’s not mine. The time was wrong.”

  “Michael. The time is very much right, and the work is yours.” Spencer set his glass down. “I believe I mentioned to you that there are scientists among our people. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you were invited to work alongside them. Our laboratories are long-established and well-funded.” Michael said nothing. “Come. You and Livia and I will go to Rome and stand before the Conclave. You will tell your story. Rosa Cartelli is already anxious to speak with you, and all those fine ladies and gentlemen will be moved, I’m sure.”

  Michael looked from Spencer to Livia. He closed his eyes and sat still for a very long time. Thomas wondered if he’d fallen asleep, although he remained upright in his chair. Finally he opened his eyes again and found Spencer. “Thank you,” he said. “But I don’t know. You’re suggesting I disregard the laws, the old ways. Edward did that, and look. To throw in with your people—maybe it’s right, but maybe not.”

  “I think,” Spencer said, “in some ways, our people have already ‘thrown in’ with each other. Have you not wondered, Michael, how it was that in a city of eight million souls you and I found one another? I don’t know how many partners you’ve had, nor am I asking, but over the course of centuries I’ve had many. Since my Change most have been Noantri. Some, however, have not, and yet I’ve felt toward them a type of magnetic draw very like that which I’ve felt toward my Noantri lovers—and toward you. Father Kelly, I apologize if I’m embarrassing you.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Spencer, I’m a priest, not a robot,” Thomas snapped; but he could feel the color rising in his cheeks.

  “Well said, sir. In that case: Michael, what I mean is this. As many sterling qualities as you possess, and as confident as I am that Aphrodite would have brought us together had we both been Unchanged and—and whatever your word is for those who aren’t Shifters—I believe a measure of the attraction we hold for each other is based in our blood.”

  “I’m not sure I get it.”

  “Think like a scientist, not like a lover. Your divergence from the majority of humans is genetic. Livia’s and mine is also, although in our case the alteration of our DNA occurred in adulthood, not in utero. I’ve told you Noantri have a physical need for proximity. In view of that, an intriguing interpretation could be placed upon my feeling the same attraction, in varying degrees, for my non-Noantri lovers as for those from my people.”

  “My God. You think it’s the same?”

  “The cause of the Noantri difference is a microbe. Could not the same microbe, introduced into the human population in a variety of ways, have caused a variety of differences?”

  Michael pushed back his chair and walked to the window. The last of the winter afternoon was fading; the street was already in shadow.

  “I don’t know, Spencer. What you say, it’s possible. I think it might be possible. But I can’t . . .” Another long pause, his back still to them. “I have to go home. I have to take Edward home. I need to be up there awhile.”

  “I understand,” Spencer said. His voice sounded calm but his eyes were forlorn.

  “And after that,” Michael continued, “I’ll go to van Vliet’s estate. I told him. He’ll prepare the people. I’m going to ask Lou to go there now, talk to them, wait for me. The ones whose Shifts were partial need to be cared for somehow, and what van Vliet and Edward built has got to be dismantled. The people there have to go home. They know too much, and not enough. The hope they had—it can’t be.”

  “About that, I believe you’re correct. But your work can offer a different kind of hope. If you’ll accept our help. You’ve told us your grandmother said your brother’s actions would set great changes in motion. The ones he planned were untenable, but perhaps she wasn’t wrong.”

  Michael spoke without turning. “She also said I’d come to a crossroads and have to make a choice.”

  “This may be that crossroads.”

  “It may. But knowing that doesn’t tell me which direction to choose. Honest to God, I don’t know what to do. There’s no one who can help me. I have to think. I have to pray. It’ll take time.”

  “Luckily, that’s one thing I happen to have.”

  Now Michael turned from the window, smiling. “I know you do.” He came back to his seat and picked up his glass. “I’ll leave in the morning.”

  “I shall miss you. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Yes.” Michael grinned wider. “Be here when I get back.”

  77

  Charlotte sat in a back booth at the Stonehenge, sipping ginger ale. Frankie’d raised his eyebrows when she ordered it but why the hell should she explain? He’d figure it out soon enough.

  She listened to Johnny Cash on the jukebox, singing “I Saw the Light.” That’s what Charlotte was looking for, here with the music and the photos and the drums on the wall: a little enlightenment. She was wondering what to do now.

  As always when that question arose it was answered by the voice of Uncle James: Come home. “Home” for Charlotte meant the city where she was born, not the land around Binghamton where so many of her people lived. But this time Uncle James might be right.

  She’d seen Tahkwehso, Edward Bonnard, turn into a wolf. She’d thought Framingham had, too, and when it turned out he hadn’t she thought at least he’d spot the shreds of clothing hanging on the wolf’s body but he hadn’t seen those either. When she’d allowed Michael Bonnard to go out and say goodbye she’d ordered Petersen to stay back so Bonnard would have a chance to discard those shreds, which apparently he had.

  Her cases were closed. Katherine Cochran, dead in a fall, had likely killed Gerald Maxwell. Yes; but not for a drum. That box at the church had never held a drum. And Cochran hadn’t killed Brittany Williams, never mind what the file said. Charlotte was sure, now, that Tahkwehso had done that, leaping from the medical center roof to Sotheby’s terrace just the way Framingham’s loony theory had it. Poor Framingham. Right for once in his life, and he’d never know.

  In the squad room, Charlotte was a golden girl. Captain Friedman loved quickly cleared cases, and he loved even more that this one had actually involved Indians, so putting Charlotte on it was a smart move. And he loved it best that t
he motives weren’t political and the perp was a white woman, at least white enough: a deep background check on Katherine Cochran showed a great-grandmother who was Cree, but nothing in what had happened would cause any stirrings of racial unrest within the five boroughs. One Police Plaza had already called to congratulate the captain.

  Charlotte checked her watch. Seven o’clock; the Sotheby’s auction would be starting. She wondered how much the mask would bring, and whether, with Katherine Cochran gone, the Met would be bidding. What was the big deal about that mask? Uncle James would know, or some of the elders. Yes, she suddenly thought. She’d take a leave and go up there. How long she’d stay, she wasn’t sure, but it might be a long time. She laughed, thinking of Uncle James, waiting patiently all these years. When you say your name, you’ll be reminded. Keewayhakeequayoo, Returns to Her Homeland. New York City was Charlotte’s home, but it wasn’t everyone’s. She had to think about that now.

  She looked around, seeing people she knew and people she didn’t, each of them someone with whom she shared blood. The connection she’d felt to Tahkwehso after their night together wasn’t about sex, wasn’t some crazy variety of love-at-first-sight. It was deeper than those and it wasn’t over; in fact, it would never end, now. The tingling in her spine and fingertips, the sharpening of the colors around her, told her that, told her what she couldn’t possibly know so soon; but she did know it, and without doubt. And it would affect the rest of her life. Charlotte smiled, thinking of Tahkwehso, and of the woods and fields where she was headed. It was beautiful up there; he’d have liked it, she thought. That was important, now, even though he was gone.

  Because she was carrying his child.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We received a lot of inspiration and a lot of help during the writing of this book, and although any errors are solely the fault of the authors, we’d like to thank the following institutions and individuals, some of whom are aware of their part in it, and some of whom probably are not:

  The George Gustav Heye Center at the National Museum of the American Indian

  The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers

  American Indian Community House, NYC

  Art Workshop International

  Nancy Rosoff and Susan Zeller of the Brooklyn Museum

  Tom Govero

  Bill Guion

  Betsy Harding, Tom Savage, and the late Royal Huber

  Barb Shoup and Charles Kreloff

  Steve Blier, Hillary Brown, Monty Freeman, James Russell

  The Consultant in the Snow (you know who you are)

  And as always, thanks to Vanessa Kehren and the team at Penguin/Blue Rider, and to our agent, the calm and unflappable Steve Axelrod.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Sam Cabot is the pseudonym of Carlos Dews and S. J. Rozan.

  Carlos Dews is an associate professor and chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at John Cabot University, where he directs the Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation. He lives in Rome, Italy.

  S. J. Rozan is the author of many critically acclaimed novels and short stories that have won crime fiction’s greatest honors, including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero awards. Born and raised in the Bronx, Rozan now lives in Lower Manhattan.