by Maria Vale
When she finishes her Moscow mule, I order her another. She’s jabbering something about some start-up. An app that does something I don’t have any use for, so I hear but don’t actually listen. When her voice goes up in a lilting question, I nod or frown slightly, concerned. When conversation lags, I look intently at her irises for a beat or two past the norm and say something about the sky or storms or chocolate, depending on their color. It’s a body part humans set great stock in.
“Your skin is so soft.” Lifting my arm is like lifting lead when I brush her hair back from her face and my fingers trace her cheek. “You should never wear anything but silk.”
Her bleached-blond hair is dry and crisp and feels like late-autumn sedge against the back of my hand.
I don’t know when the thrill of the hunt died. My cock is so jaded now, but I can’t help myself.
In the end, I am left looking at the ceiling, waiting for her breathing to even and slow. I don’t know how many Moscow mules this one had, but it must have been a few. Her breath is sickly sweet, and she snores in the way women do when they’re chemically relaxed.
I can’t take this anymore.
Chapter 3
When I get back to the building, the night porter is busily polishing the brass.
“Nice evening, Mr. Sorensson?”
“It was fine, Saul. Thanks.”
And I lope past the acrid smell of polish, through the elevator that smells of take-out carrion lo mein and into the apartment. Because I bought a model unit that no one had ever lived in, it didn’t take long for the stench of carrion and steel and artificial sweeteners to dissipate.
Humans don’t come here. The only thing I changed was the mattress. I left the queen in the hallway one Tuesday afternoon so that the men came and knocked and rang and eventually left the California King in its place. As soon as I was sure no one was around, I carried it into my apartment.
The only thing that is truly personal is the photograph, sandwiched between two pieces of UV resistant glass, of my echelon the summer before we divided up.
There are eighteen of us in the 9th echelon. All born within five years of each other: Celia, my shielder, who runs things day-to-day, frames the left side; I frame the right. Between us are the other sixteen. Eight standing, eight crouching down, all side-facing and squeezed tight together. Genetics as well as centuries of breeding to power mean we are very big on the human scale. One at a time, the reaction is dully familiar: “You play football?”
There’s a reason we never leave Homelands in groups.
Some of us would go on to college and come back to run Pack businesses near Homelands. Some of us would stay away longer. I remember staring at the shield on the acceptance letter to Yale Law School, with its crocodile, dog, and staples and thinking with dread that from now on, I would be that dog, fastened far away, protecting my Pack from that crocodile.
The photograph shows a happy cluster of newly minted adults but so much has changed. Nils was the Alpha at our Daeling, our Dealing. He was the one who watched as we fought for position within the hierarchy and cemented our transition from juveniles to adult. Not long after, he and his mate were shot by hunters. His brother John took over, and now, another bullet later, he is dead too, leaving his mate, Evie, as Alpha.
It has hit us all hard. I don’t think humans could understand the ties that bind us. They have family, but the longer I live Offland, the more I realize that it has nothing to do with Pack. Parents do horrible things to children. Children ignore parents. Spouses divorce. The loss of an Alpha goes beyond the loss of a parent. An Alpha is like the woody trunk of a grapevine. Everything spreads out from it. Yes, you can graft the vine onto a new rootstock, but not without consequences.
Sarah and Adam, the 9th’s Gamma couple, seems to have been particularly hard hit by John’s death. This past moon, they huddled close to Home Pond and the burned-out remnants of the Great Hall.
Carefully setting the photograph back on my bedside table, I reach into my pocket for my phone. Then I open the little app that is designated by a full moon sandwiched between a black star-speckled square and the spine of our native mountains. Called Homeward, it is not available in the Play Store or on iTunes. It was developed three years ago by one of our wolves so that Offlanders who sometimes get caught up in the rhythms of the lives of humans do not forget our own.
Each morning, a wolf—the developer, I presume—intones “Hámsíðe, ðu londadl hǽðstapa” in the Old Tongue, before a computer-generated voice counts down the days until the next Iron Moon. “Homeward, you landsick heath-wanderer, in 27 days.”
Whoever devised this must have known firsthand how desperate Offlanders became for the Homelands. How “landsick” we gray heath-wanderers, as men once called us, became.
If Homeward calculates that a wolf is too far away to make it back before the change, it chirps out one last phrase in the Old Tongue.
Ond swa gegæþ þin endedogor.
And so passes your final day.
Who says Pack have no sense of humor?
Usually I set Homeward for a single reminder one day before the Iron Moon, but this time I set it for a daily countdown so I won’t forget just how important this particular change is.
Hámsíðe, ðu londadl hǽðstapa, in 26 days.
Homeward, you landsick heath-wanderer, in 26 days.
From inside the elevator, I hear a door open, followed by tiny claws skittering on the carpet. My thumb is pressed so hard into the brass DOOR CLOSE button that it bends. We were told to be careful with human things—they are delicate and break easily—but it’s hard to remember when you’re in a rush.
“Hold the elevator?” says a lilting, questioning voice. My finger drops from the elevator button and my heart falls with it. I smile at the woman with the black Dutch boy haircut, yoga pants, and a raincoat. Amanda is in her thirties. Her husband, Luca, is nearing sixty.
He travels way too much.
Usually I would have been smart enough not to screw someone who knew where I lived, let alone lived where I lived, but the day I did it, she was wearing a raw wool poncho that smelled like sheep and made my mouth water.
“Elijah? How have you been?” She leans one hip against the wall of the elevator and smooths her hair over her ear. Left, then right.
“Well. And how is Luca?”
“Well?” she lilts again. She swoops down and picks up a fluffy gray doglet whose hair has to be clipped from his eyes so he can see and away from his underbelly so he can walk and who is apparently full-grown but is named, for some unaccountable reason, Tarzan.
Pulling Tarzan to her nose, she eyes me over the faux-fur collar of the dog’s trench coat. “But Luca? He’s out of town? In China?” she says as if to ask whether the distance is far enough to revisit our infidelity.
That damn poncho.
Before the implicit invitation becomes explicit, the elevator door opens and Amanda is pulled into a conversation about lobby improvements while I glare at Tarzan.
“You,” I whisper to the little ball of coyote meat dressed in beige-and-black plaid, “should be ashamed of yourself.”
Tarzan lowers his eyes, then whimpers piteously. The little bit of wild that has not been bred out of him, recognizing that submission is his only option.
I know it’s not his fault, but still, a little dignity. Please.
As soon as the elevator hits the ground floor, I mutter something unintelligible and race for the street, hailing the first car that will take me. The driver motions for me to wait while he pulls the seat forward, but I throw myself in along the length of the back and slam the door closed just as Amanda extricates herself.
* * *
Halvors, Sorensson & Trianoff is housed in a tall yet squat postmodern building overlooking the last feet of the Hudson before it transforms into New York Harbor. It is undistinguished exc
ept for its proximity to a huge, green-glass atrium holding sixteen palm trees. It’s odd that humans will pay so much for exotics as though that makes up for the native trees they are so profligate with.
There is a man at the top of the curved atrium entrance. Looking up, I see his feet and the thin pole he uses to pull at a wave of soap. A line tethers him to the wall of glass above. I wonder if he’s ever thought of sliding down the slick of soap and leaping off, flying toward the not-so-distant smell of the ocean and the sound of the seagulls. But then the leash would tighten and pull him back and he’d end up back where he started, bumping against the glass.
“Elijah? Are you coming?”
The window washer starts toward the next tier of glass.
“Max.” I nod to the little human before opening the door into the expansive lobby with its high wall of shaded glass, its marble floors and brass fixtures. The security guards behind their white desk wave us through the turnstile without demanding ID.
Maxim Trianoff is in his late sixties. He’d spent his early legal career as a brilliant member of the SEC’s enforcement division. He’d been, I heard, a Democrat who believed deeply in social equity. Then in the middle of his first very expensive divorce, he left the SEC for Zoerner, Marwick. By the time he was done with his second very expensive divorce, he was a Republican, committed to holding on to whatever money he still had and ready for something new. Ready to see his own name acid-etched in glass. That’s when he was approached by Aldrich Halvors with a proposition from a silent partner who wanted to fund a law firm with lobbyists who would represent its interests and turn a profit.
Great North LLC.
“And how are our silent partners?” Max asks as he always does when I come back from trips up to the Great North. He has no idea how silent our silent partners are. Gliding through the great tangled swaths of pine-and-loam-scented hardwood that his firm, our firm, was created to protect.
“Fine, though John Torrance has stepped down.” I hadn’t been able to say it last time; it was still too raw then. I stare straight ahead at the bronze elevator.
“Well, he was there for a long time. Have they chosen someone new?”
Two elevators arrive at the ground floor.
“Hmm. Evie Kitwana.”
We get into the second elevator, the one with fewer people making fewer stops. Looking down, all I can see is the thinning top of Max’s scalp, but in the high shine of the elevator, his face is reflected clearly. Worn, with puffy eyes and cheeks that hang low like a bloodhound. Taking out a large handkerchief, he blows his nose.
I look younger than I am, because left alone, we live a long time. We rarely do, because eventually the most powerful wolves take a bullet, trying to defend the Pack.
Still, I’d rather be shot during the Iron Moon than to deflate soufflé-like as Max is doing.
“And does Ms. Katana—”
“Kitwana.”
“And is she looking for any changes to our arrangement?”
I can see my jaw tightening, and the door slides open onto Halvors, Sorensson & Trianoff.
“No. She wants things to stay exactly the same.”
From her place within the white circle of the reception desk, Dahlia calls out to tell us that the associates are already in Conference Room A.
Six associates are seated at one end of the long oval table in Conference Room A, leaving the two at the very end free for Max and me. I slide my tablet into the slot designated for it and plug in to the USB so we can talk about bonuses without putting anything up on the big screen where potentially envious not-associates might see it.
Of course, Max and I already knew that last year was a banner year for HST. The three equity partners—Max, myself, and Great North LLC—have all done exceedingly well. Max will be able to not only pay his three ex-wives, but also make a down payment on a fourth.
“That’s a lot of money,” Max says, once the associates are gone. “What are you going to do with it?”
I don’t know. The Pack pays for whatever expenses aren’t covered by the firm. I don’t know what they do with the rest. I have no money. I have only the facade of wealth.
“I don’t have any real plans.”
“I’m going to be honest with you. You’ve seemed off your game for a while now. You work hard, Elijah, and there is no one who knows how to reel in the clients like you do. But you’ve got to be on and be focused. You should do something. Travel. Buy a boat, for Chrissake. My brother-in-law over at Morgan got a boat a few years ago. Swears by it.”
Lori, Max’s assistant, knocks softly at the door and Max waves her in.
“Mr. Sorensson, your eleven o’clock is here?”
“What eleven o’clock?” I always block out the entire morning for associates’ meetings.
“Tony Marks apparently—”
“Oh, right,” Max says. “I’ve got this, Lori. Just send her to Mr. Sorensson’s office.”
“Sorry about that,” he says, pouring himself one more cup of coffee before walking through the door propped against my foot. “I meant to tell you about this before you went Upstate, but it slipped my mind. Our great friend and client Tony Marks is very fond of his gardener, even though he lost him when he lost Southampton to Susannah. Now, apparently, the gardener’s niece has found herself with some kind of legal problem. If what Tony says is true, it should take no time, so just take care of it, will you? Pro bono, of course. Neither gardener nor niece have any money. And, Elijah? Be as charming as you want, but keep your clothes on. Hard to credit from a man on his third alimony, but still, I’d appreciate it.”
“You really need a divorce lawyer who can stand up to women,” I say, starting for the southeast corner of HST.
Chapter 4
“Mr. Sorensson.” Sinise from accounting scurries into step beside me. “That was a super presentation. But you always do such super presentations.” It wasn’t a super presentation. It was pure bullshittery. But then Sinise from accounting puts her hand on my arm and bends her leg behind her, leaning slightly to fix a strap of her shoe. When she stands back up, she shakes her head, tossing her long, oddly burgundy hair first left then right.
So.
It has nothing to do with the quality of my presentation and everything to do with indicating that she is receptive.
My assistant, Janine, quickly insinuates herself between us, her back to Sinise. She tells me that a client is waiting and unnecessarily adjusts my tie, thereby marking me. Telling Sinise that I am already fucking her.
Having defended her cunnan-riht, Janine points with her chin toward my office and the client Tony Marks sent who is waiting there. I can only see her from behind. Her thick, black hair hangs down wild, like flames pointing to the curve of an ass like a Japanese pear. Her strong, slim legs are encased in jeans, one leg of which is caught in the top of a pair of mud-spattered hiking boots.
Janine has returned to her office, which is really a windowless interior cubicle across the hall from my own. She has her hand on her mouse and her eyes concentrated on the screen. Unlike Sinise, this woman poses no threat. When she turns around, I see why. She is not beautiful in the way Janine recognizes. She does not have the tight symmetry that every cosmetic surgeon and every patient of one aspires to. She has a long nose in a face that is broad and soft below high cheekbones. Strong chin. Her mouth is wide and straight and unsmiling.
She is probably four inches taller and eight years older than Janine, and since she is not like Janine, Janine not only doesn’t see her as competition, she doesn’t see her at all.
This woman doesn’t flick her hair or coyly lower her eyes with a half smile. She doesn’t angle her hips or finger her collarbone or bite her lower lip. She is contained, quiet, still. And when I take a step closer, she smells nothing like carrion and everything like cold, damp earth.
“Elijah Sorensson,” I say, ho
lding out my hand. Her hand has cropped nails and no ornament. Calluses in the grip between thumb and forefinger.
She sizes me up quickly with eyes the color of ironwood and just as unyielding.
“Thea Villalobos,” she says, and it takes me a moment to get my breath back.
“I’m sorry?”
“Thea,” she says slowly. “Villalobos.”
Wolves laugh about the madness and mutability of men. About how they are prey to the sudden whims of fate and their own emotional instability. From my jaded and indifferent perch, I have laughed about it too. Laughed about Max and his sudden passions.
But now, confronted by this woman with an ass like a Japanese pear, hair like night, eyes like ironwood, skin the color of gold rye, the ground shifts and topples me into a rotation around her.
Thea Villalobos. Goddess of the City of Wolves.
“Elijah Sorensson,” I repeat, stalling while I try to remember what Maxim had said about her. Tony Marks’s something. Daughter? No, that wasn’t it. She’d have money if she was Tony Marks’s daughter.
“Have a seat?”
I hit my toe on the corner of my desk and stumble into my chair, the Titan. That’s what my chair is officially called. The Titan.
I discovered it after four years at college, three years at law school, two years clerking for Judge Baski, and two more years at Halvors & Trianoff, crammed into tiny human-size chairs. Then when I became partner, my assistant at the time—Barbara, whose pubic hair was waxed into an arrow as though most men she’d had were too drunk to know where to aim—suggested the Titan.
Ever since then, each new piece of furniture has been upgraded, even the two chairs facing across from my big desk. Sitting with their feet dangling loose above the floor helps whether I need to intimidate or impress. And everyone who comes into my office has to be intimidated or impressed.