Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3)

by Tina Smith

  The sound of a bird fluttering its wings past the uncovered window, followed by footsteps on the floorboards of the verandah alerted her to a visitor. A hollow knock came at the door - tap, tap. She stood barefoot and walked toward the beat, pausing to whisper under her breath as she reached for the handle, ‘Protect me and mine from harm’. Lightning lit the sky.

  She swung the blue door open to reveal a teenage girl in the glow from the house. Her visitor stared back at her hauntingly from the verandah. Tisane looked past her guest for a vehicle – though she hadn’t heard one.

  “I would like a reading?” The girl’s voice cracked timidly. She was wearing glasses, shoes and was dressed in a grey hooded jumper that looked at least two sizes too large. The glasses and sandals were a good sign, the jumper wasn’t.

  “No appointment?” Tisane frowned, seeing in the dimness, she was completely alone. Her eyes narrowed, distrustfully.

  The girl looked through Tisane “You weren’t taking any,” she responded in a dissonant tone.

  “Do your parents know where you are?” Tisane examined her pale features. “This time?”

  The girl suddenly looked more forlorn, her eyes as dark as the black water of the inlet. “Please, I need help; you are the only one who can make sense of this...I’d like a reading please?” She uttered through soft childlike lips.

  “I asked you not to come.” There was a crescent moon, a night typically free of wolf calls. It was as though the girl had just simply appeared - an unsettling illusion. “How did you get here?”

  “I ran.” Her soft face betrayed nothing.

  It was against Tisane’s beliefs to turn her away. Dubious, she stepped aside to invite the visitor into from the night. It occurred to her that since their last meeting the girl may have been thinner, as her clothes hung from her body. She shut the door firmly.

  Tisane cleared her throat slightly. “Normally I can only take appointments, but I’ll give you a reading just this once,” she lied, gliding over to the kitchen. The girl nodded reservedly and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, following.

  “Sit,” Tisane cleared a pile of papers and a few dirty cups. She placed the tarot on the end of the table - a sign a reading would begin.

  The child took a seat as she spoke “Please, just tell me what you see?” Without being asked she offered her spread palm. After a moment Tis gently took the offered hand. It was soft and cool, from the outside breeze perhaps? Tisane quelled her apprehension. She glanced at the child’s lifeline. It was noticeably short.

  She ignored the lines. “What is it you are seeking to know?” Tisane closed her eyes momentarily, taking a breath in through her nose, and out through her lips readying herself for the energy that was to come.

  “Do you see anything strange there? Can you treat me? I remember what you said, what the cards meant, I thought it was accurate...” Her eyes spheres of darkness. Whatever the girl sought, she would not be satisfied with the mild undecided answers of the cards, or the lines. Answers came only when you weren’t attached to a certain outcome.

  “If the answer wasn’t brought forward last time, it is even less likely this time.” Despite her words Tisane reached across the table top for the cards that had been with her through thick and thin and shuffled them unhurriedly with a familiar hand that then slowed. Contemplatively she placed the cards back on the table. She suddenly rose towards the kitchen bench.

  “You must be hungry?” she said with her back to the girl, “Running all that way?” She fixed herself something to drink from a dark bottle on the counter and swigged it down with a wince. She mumbled something, before returning with a slice of cake. Rigidly she sat back at the table placing it down. She tried to smile. “You have the power to change anything…to be and achieve what it is you want – no matter what the oracle says.” Tisane pushed the cards aside and again took the girl’s soft hand and cupped it in hers. Assured it was still colder than her own, she felt much safer. Her expression became empathetic.

  The girl nodded. “It’s not something I’m sure I want to change.” She met Tisane’s cloudy gaze.

  In Tisane’s other hand she held a decorated knife. Her grip tightened around it. “Then it is nothing to be frightened of.” Tisane’s pristine features crumpled. She lashed the knife across the table and plunged the tip with a swipe into the girl’s hand.

  Shocked, Caroline reflexively pulled away, throwing Tisane a horror-struck stare. She clutched the wounded hand to her chest.

  “I’m sorry.” Tisane swallowed, her face drawn. “Here let me get you a Bandaid.” She turned and with panicky hands she found a drawer. The girl’s frown grew deeper as she watched Tisane fumbling in the dresser.

  “Here…Bandaids, see? I’ll let you put it on.” She placed a kit on the table and slid it nearer, her face had paled.

  “Why did you cut me?” the girl whimpered staring at the cut in disbelief.

  Tisane pinched her lips “I needed to see the blood,” she offered and paused. “Why you are out past curfew? Aren’t afraid of the wolves?” Tisane serenely met her horrified gaze. The girl didn’t answer. “Are you a wolf?” Tisane asked disinterestedly as she opened the first aid kit on the table, and nudged it closer to her guest. She picked up the knife and examined it closely. Caroline’s eyes dashed to the blade.

  Tisane placed it down near the cards and cast her stare over the girl. “Why did you come here?” she uttered, frowning back inquisitively.

  “I’ll show you.” Caroline’s scowl warned Tisane to stay back. She looked about and picked up a dish from the kitchen bench, and making sure that she was watching her, she tapped the dish to show its solidity and then proceeded to snap it between her small hands as though it was nothing but a loaf of bread. Tisane’s saintly countenance became more certain. The girl placed the severed dish down in two pieces on the old table.

  “Put on a Bandaid,” Tisane nodded and gave a small, encouraging smile. The girl’s eyes hardened. It was a small cut, but a trickle of red blood still ran over the luminescent white skin of her palm. She sat. The wound trickled, landing with a single drop onto the table.

  “I had to check. It’s just a nick.” She paused. “You should heal well. Please forgive me,” Tisane implored. “Caroline wasn’t it? Pull a card.” Her fingers expertly handled the cards with a finality that promised a reading, she cut three piles and flicked them together again. It seemed the wolf wasn’t in Caroline’s veins, but perhaps the huntress was. Tisane’s eyes remained on the girl, quietly appraising her as her hand swept to splay the tarot out like a fan between their waiting fingers, ready for divination.

  “Choose – it’s what you came for.”

  Caroline hesitated, then leant forward and lifted her index finger. Her short painted nail glided above the pattern on the back of the spread, hovering and then suddenly she touched one, holding her finger on it. Tisane slid the card back towards herself and looked at it. She paused a moment.

  “The Ace of Pentacles.” Tisane gritted her teeth. Lila’s card. The card Caroline had pulled coincidentally represented Lila to Tisane. Was it a sign? She gestured with a nod for Caroline to pull another. “I accept these gifts from Artemis and mother earth,” Tisane canted.

  The Ace of Wands. Pulled second in a short reading it represented the present. “Persephone, power inspired, fear and darkness be retired…pull again,” Tisane urged smoothly.

  Death. “Renewal and rebirth is in your future.” Really the card depicted an unhappy ending, or just taken less literally as movement to another world. Tisane hid the flicker of concern the image evoked, which was made much stronger by the spilt blood on the table. “Release my soul…renew my powers,” she noted. “Don’t fear this card,” she assured her quickly, snatching it back into the pile and sweeping up the entire deck.

  There was no need for a full spread. Tisane piled the cards to the side. Immediately she uttered something inaudible and reached for the deck again, delicately shuffling them, concent
rating. Separating the three piles and shuffling them once more, she focused on channeling.

  “Artemis, Aphrodite and Persephone. I accept these gifts from mother earth. Power inspired. Fear and darkness be retired. Release my soul, renew my powers. Tell me what I see before me. So mote it be,” Tisane muttered to herself and spread the cards. She immediately flipped one for herself.

  Strength. The Queen of Beasts, “Courage and perseverance.” Spiritual strength would be needed. The cards often represented the entrance of a person with similar qualities into the life of the one who sought its answers. Girl of strength has now entered my life. Perhaps the Demigoddess had sent Lila what she needed. Lila would have more reason to slow her attack on the Cult, something that Tisane had desperately wished for. Perhaps Lila was no longer the only huntress in Shade. Young Caroline would need training.

  3. Protectress

  In the early hours I strolled into the house from the dark forest, the waning crescent moon over my shoulder. The familiar cedar smell welcomed me. Something wasn’t right. Reflexively my hand reached for the gun in the back of my belt, sharply, I readied my stance.

  “Lila, this is Caroline.” Tisane presented what she had discovered. A small teenage girl with a tiny smattering of freckles looked at me anxiously. I ignored Tisane’s introduction with a fierce expression. Her guest was dressed in a baggy grey jumper with the words ‘Mad Dogs’ printed on the front. I stepped further into the room, my gun pulled. I released the safety with a click.

  “What are you thinking?” I hissed at Tisane. We had an unspoken arrangement. She knew no one was allowed to see me. I hoped the girl was just a girl – though in that lay other problems. “What is she doing here?” My voice was coated in accusation as my finger found the trigger, my veins filled with adrenaline.

  The glasses were a disguise.

  “Please, Lila. It’s not her fault that she is here.” Tisane urged.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Tisane interrupted, “She’s cold.” My eyes darted to her. “She’s a huntress,” she advised. I threw her a fierce questioning look. If it were true, then Artemis had sent me a child, not a warrior. “She is strong, like you,” she encouraged. But I wasn’t so easily convinced.

  “Is there anyone else here?” I asked with unease.

  “No,” Tisane alleged steadying me with her eyes.

  I addressed the girl. “Why did you come here?” My heart rate increased.

  “She was searching for answers.” Tisane’s voice was almost breathy as she answered for the girl. Her wide blue eyes told me to be still. I looked at our visitor and my gaze searched her skin for visible scars, the lack of which indicated immortality because the wolves were unmarked and smooth, they wore their scars on the inside, only under more beautiful skins.

  I ignored Tisane, keeping my defiant stare firmly, towards the girl, but my lips asked Tisane, “How did she get here?” My chest rose and fell more rapidly, anticipating her attack. Tisane confirmed, “She ran.”

  Unconvinced I uttered, “Let me look in her eyes.” Lightning flashed behind me. The girl looked at Tisane for reassurance. Tisane nodded urging her forward. She shuffled closer to me “Slowly,” I ordered with intent. She swallowed, understanding my request. Tisane stepped further aside. Apprehensively the girl edged closer, with a dazed look of fear in her eyes. I gestured for her to approach even closer still. When she was in reach I looked down at her.

  “Take off your glasses.” Pensively she removed them and swallowed. I pointed. “Look up.” She obeyed. I touched my left hand to her jaw carefully and peered at the lay of her face. She smelt salty and of strawberry shampoo. I felt the tepid temperature of her soft skin through my fingertips. I pressed her flesh firmly, as I tipped her head from side to side. Inspecting her neck; it was free of fresh visible bite marks or wounds, no scars and no tell-tale signs.

  I clicked the safety and put my gun into the front of my jeans. I pulled Tormey’s pen torch from my front pocket; shining it across her pupils. There was no fluorescent green glow. I swallowed before daring to peer carefully, deep into her irises. I dropped the arm with the torch to my side. I was momentarily relieved to see the absence of crescents, but they could take their time in appearing. If Tisane was right she couldn’t have had the demigoddess in her for long, she was too freshly cursed for me to tell. I sighed soundlessly, and let down my hand. “Show me your arms?”

  She peeled back her sleeves. I saw a new looking Bandaid around her finger, a human sign. The skin over her arms was otherwise pure and mark free. I touched it with my fingertips.

  “Take off your jumper,” I asked quietly.

  She gave Tisane a worried look. “Don’t look at her. If you’re not a wolf, prove it. Take off your clothes.” She tucked her spectacles into her pants pocket, slowly she unzipped her jumper and pulled off her undershirt. She swallowed. She stood before me wearing a purple bra.

  “Pants,” I nodded and my lips tightened. Again she shot Tisane a help-me expression and then hesitantly she unbuttoned and removed her Jeans, sliding them down. To reveal white floral underpants.

  “That’s enough.” I gestured a hand out for her to still. “Stand up.”

  She carefully straightened her pale legs. I marched around her running my eyes along her skin in the silence as she held her breath.

  I felt a sensation in the bottom of my stomach. Tisane was right, she wasn’t a wolf, I could see a tiny scar on her lower back, it was small but it was enough. I came to a halt and ran my eyes up her body one more vigilant time. I sighed, “Put your things on.”

  She pulled up her trousers. As she tugged her jumper on again, I cut to the chase “What’s with the Bandaid?”

  She looked wide-eyed, but before the girl could reply Tisane answered clearing her throat, “That’s my fault.” I looked at her questioning. “I nicked her to see the blood. It was clear,” she offered. I was impressed, but I didn’t show it.

  “Why are you here?” There was a hard edge to my tone.

  The girl slid on her glasses, her eyes fell. “I was looking for Tisane.” Cautiously her wide gaze lifted and met my face.

  “She came for a reading,” Tisane confirmed, “that’s all.”

  “Who is with you?” I asked, searching the windows for trouble. I was keeping my eyes peeled.

  “No one, I came alone,” she rasped with a woeful expression as the words died on her lips.

  “How old are you?”

  She looked guilty and shifted a little. “Fifteen,” she mumbled, “and a half,” she admitted, bravely meeting my face.

  I looked her up and down, it seemed about right. Maybe she was too young to be a wolf, anyway. “And you came here uninvited in the middle of the night despite the curfew? All the way from Shade?” I tapered my stare. “By yourself?”

  “No, Tarah,” she corrected, looking to Tisane as though she would help her.

  “From Tarah? And you claim you ran here?” My eyes narrowed like slits now, suspicious, focused on her every twitch.

  “Yes, I did,” she said shifting.

  It didn’t smell right. Someone had sent her. “Alone?” I tensed my jaw and grasped my gun. “Why?” The line of my jaw tightened. Any sign that she was a wolf, any hint and I would shoot her dead in a second flat. No one traipsed the forest, let alone by themselves. Not in Shade, not unless they had a death wish.

  “I don’t know. I wanted to know what was wrong…with me.” Her waiting eyes dimmed and then met mine, hopeful.

  I decided to believe her for the time being. My fingers relaxed. “When did you realize you were different?” Intrigued, my hand released the grip.

  “I started to notice it a few months ago,” she pouted. She reached and slid her glasses back up her nose. I noticed that her short nails were painted pink and chipping.

  “Do you know what you are?”

  “No,” she said hesitantly.

  A small chuckle escaped under my breath that stopped abruptly in fru
stration. “Tell me, what you’ve noticed?” I rubbed my ear.

  “I have energy.” She lifted her shoulders slightly, thinking. “I am strong.” She concluded.

  “She broke a plate.” Tisane encouraged. My expression must have been perplexed “With her bare hands. Clean in half. She is stronger than you would imagine.” She seemed insistent.

  I indulged Tisane’s claims. Walking over to the kitchen I saw the floral plate broken in two on the dining table, a knife with blood on the tip and an uneaten plate of cake. I wouldn’t be easily placated. “If she’s strong she could be wolf.” I announced the obvious to the broken pieces and touched my finger to the crimson drop on the table. I swirled my forefinger and thumb and examined the blood. I raised my voice addressing the girl. “Tell me, do you know about the wolves?”

  Again Tisane answered, “She doesn’t.” I ignored her.

  “Do you have any bite marks?” I looked at the girl’s face sharply. She appeared empty, waiting for me to provide some sort of explanation. Maybe she was a spy. Perhaps Sam had hypnotized her.

  “The cards suggested she is – special,” Tisane advocated. I noted their placement in a pile on the table by the blade of the athame. I turned and walked to the sink. I rinsed my finger and fixed myself a glass, taking a moment to think, moistening my dry mouth. Tisane and the girl stood as though frozen where they were. I took another, longer drink and put the glass down on the counter. “We can’t be sure until the Crescents come in.” I thought of what to do as I leant on the edge of the bench. There was still the possibility that the Goddess had sent her. She had come to Tisane’s door as I had. Possibilities spun before me.

  “We can talk outside,” Tisane urged. Her voice broke the tension.