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

by Tina Smith

  I eyed the cross slashed into the bark, through the rain drops as I sank under the water. Below the slow rapids, I listened to the water rush past my ears. I was drowning in my own emotions. Rising in the water I imagined many lovers had enjoyed the hidden spot before on a summer’s day. Perhaps the names in the heart had been jilted.

  Tisane was right, I had to believe her religion and I did, whether I admitted it or not. I felt it. I felt it every god damn day inside myself and in the forest – the wolves were hard evidence of the Gods. If her spells were real, then I wanted to participate in one to help me obliterate the Cult and free Sky from them and I thought about that intently.

  On the way home from the river, I stayed off the beaten path, navigating the trees. I had taken to hunting rabbits and other game with a bow, due to the fact that gunfire was a more conspicuous style of weapon. I didn’t want to attract the attention of the wolves. I was alerted to an animal present in the saplings. I silenced my movements. My eyes wandered through the branches until my pupils found the sight of a deer, a stag in the shadows. Beautiful, as it shifted to graze the bright new shoots of grass sprouted by the rain.

  I stilled my breath. My arm moved to remove the bow from my back as my other fingers, carefully and steadily, felt for the quills of my arrows with a warrior’s patience. I readied the instrument as a moment stood still and not even the leaves wavered in the breeze. I swallowed as I stealthily took aim; my body tense, as I drew back my bow, breathing quietly through the movement and determined to strike the creature that unknowingly lay in wait ahead. Its slight ears keenly listening for any rustle. I released the bow and it swiftly struck the deer.

  Quickly I gave chase; as I neared him he stumbled in the grass. I knelt beside him. The arrow had hit near his back leg and he flailed as I closed in. I pulled my knife, one hand stroking his neck as he struggled. Then I cut him deeply, pushing the knife into his neck to drain the blood.

  I carried the young Sambar stag home, its grey blood-soaked fur over my shoulder staining the collar of my shirt, its wide reflective eyes open to stare blankly at the world. Damp with sweat, I emerged from the forest into the light and placed its lifeless body carefully across the wooden verandah, lying its weight down across the boards.

  We knelt at its side on the floor and she sprinkled salted water over its body to bless it and set its spirit free. Tisane, once recovered from the shock, bravely helped me skin it. It seemed a shame to waste the meat. She looked a little pale and acted jumpy as I carved its warm flesh. I sliced deeply down its belly; I held my breath, digging the sharp blade in with force.

  The deer in our forest weren’t native; they had originally escaped from nearby farms where they had been bred for meat. Their numbers had multiplied. I guess no one cared because I’m sure they would rather the wolves eat feral deer than to have a thirst for human flesh.

  I removed its fresh internal organs, placing them a bucket, pulling out the warm intestines and slippery viscera. I cut out the lungs, kidneys and heart, my arms smeared with blood to the elbows. Tisane left hurriedly and came back soon after from the kitchen with a wide lipped jar. She lifted the bucket and poured off some of the crimson blood. I didn’t ask why.

  She screwed on the lid and carried it inside. I continued to slice and drag the blade through the meat; Cres would have been proud that the knife was being used so well. We cut away the legs and divided the torso, slicing through with jagged stabs to part the muscle tissue, and sever the bones at the joint, my arms and fingers stained with clotted blood. For the bigger pieces I used the axe. The animal’s severed head was needed for a spell. Tisane removed some of the velvet from the budding antlers as the stag wasn’t yet full grown.

  Flies found their way to the carcass and we hurried to dispose of it. Tisane used a meat cleaver to divide smaller portions over a log by the house. Something I never thought her capable of. There seemed to be more strength inside her than she would recognize as she noticeably held down her wrenching. After we had cleaned the blood stains from the old boards on the verandah and buried the head we hung the skin and scrubbed the blood from under our nails. When we had dried our hands we sat exhausted and satisfied that we had food enough for a while.

  The meat was stored in the freezer and a leg was in the oven, roasting. The pleasant smell wafted away, or maybe just covered, the earthy rust smell of blood and dead flesh, along with the uneasy sensation of the butcher’s task that we had undertaken only hours before. Tisane lie on the couch, looking a little green.

  We were to let the head rot under the earth, according to Tisane’s Grimoire and resume it in a few days, do the shady incantation under a full moon and the next night, bury it under a seedling. It was a dark spell. I intended to sever the head of a bigger beast. She requested a seedling and I found an acorn near the river from a row of tall oak trees. I watched her in the house, after the kill, as she filled a glass of water and placed the seed in it. “Good new beginnings grow,” she said as it sank under the lucid water. The glass was placed on the kitchen windowsill where it would be warmed by the overcast sun. We were silent, as we often were in each other’s company. Perhaps we were listening for the fight to start. And when it did, I had to go at it with everything inside me.

  We waited for the return of a full moon. I listened to the woods, the birds, and the flow of the river, the insects scurrying on the ground and even the trees themselves. I remained in their shade under the rippling shadow of leaves. Sometimes in the night you could hear a call, a remote taunting wail rise and fall in the distance. In the mean time I trained.

  Tisane named the weeds and spoke about the ‘Docturine of Signatures’, an ancient way for her to identify which parts of nature to use for healing. I was told we were not rulers of the earth or even caretakers of it, but simply part of it. The Gods were entrusted to maintain the balance of our valley, but not even they are perfect. Where there is great power there comes great responsibility and more often than not the abuse of it. I studied Paws’s picture in the aging newspaper, his smug sneer. I left the house every day and practiced scaling the tall trees and surveyed the land from the strong branches. Turning my eyes up through the dancing leaves, I gazed into the sky to see thick clouds sliding in, hiding Olympus as they crowded to encompass the glowing sun.

  The soil was wet and thick with worms as it rained almost every day. Tisane’s ceiling began to leak under the drumming rain and the constant tap of dripping water soothed us to sleep. Zeus’s tears soaked the land until the Artemis remained swollen from sadness and the dark clouds clapped to show his displeasure.

  I would leave at night - the way Tormey had done before me - to trek the woodland trails under the crescent moon, learning the slopes and valleys and boulders and the curve of the river path, sharing the bush with the nocturnal creatures: to hear the rapids against the backdrop choir of crickets, bats and singing frogs that sang for only me to hear.

  It was an indestructible unseen life force that forged the huntress out of me and somehow put more of her inside me. In the deepest hours of night I dared to sneak out of the shadowed cover and towards the ocean where I listened to the waves lapping the rocks. Under a pitch-black universe littered with tiny stars, the ocean churned, laced with power. I looked across the darkness to make out Lily’s abandoned, unlit home in the distance, the roaring waves crashing on the shore close to the fence surrounding it. I wondered if it was Lily that had brought me here from the forest because Tisane said she existed with us now, on another plane, though I doubted it was to help us. I retreated back into the ever present bushland. Whether I wanted to or not, my duty would soon have to be done.

  10. Monsters Know My Name

  Narine had personally been back through the room and examined his belongings as Sky hyperventilated on the verandah. The only odd thing was the dog tag in the blankets, under the upturned mattress. She tapped them and turned the silver about between her forefinger and thumb, contemplating. He was sentimental, she supposed. She had
never seen him wear it and was about to throw the necklace aside when she thought better of it. They were grasping at straws, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was that most likely had invaded their privacy. She squeezed the metal in her warm palm.

  “Paws, we’ve found our missing little huntress. Samantha will be pleased.”

  “Not as much as Cresida.” Relieved was more the right word for Cresida’s reaction, but Narine didn’t correct him. Narine was inwardly disappointed that this meant the boy could not be hers, because she had privately begun to warm to the thought of making him a gift of sorts for herself. Like a pet.

  “No, the boy will be safe only if we catch her.” Narine knew Cresida would not be relieved, not yet anyway. Narine smacked her lips. She knew Cresida wanted to be the first to find her. “We have the advantage.”

  Narine wasted no time at the meeting; in her presence the banter ceased, and she threw the tag at Sky who caught it.

  “Was there anything missing from your room?”

  “What’s this?” he asked, relying on the innocence of his voice. His heart told him to be weary and it almost began to thump wildly as he resisted the urge to swallow. He could feel Genna watching.

  “I thought you could tell us?”

  He hardly had to eye it to know what it was. He licked the inside of his lips, which were dry. “My tags,” he admitted. They all looked at Sky and he knew he couldn’t play it casual much longer. If Narine wasn’t fooled, neither would they be; it was a certainty.

  “I’ve noticed you don’t wear them anymore?” she probed. The audience watched on, intently focused.

  He sat up. “I’ve had these since the war in Nam, you can ask anyone – Sam,” he offered, turning them in his hands and staring back at Narine’s expressionless glare, waiting, “that part of my life is over.”

  Tyler cleared his throat, either accidentally or on cue, because he didn’t believe him. Tyler was a short guy with wavy almond hair, he spent most of his immortal life playing video games when he wasn’t in his room wanking or running madly in the forest. It wasn’t so much that he was immature as that he had fried his brain on a mixture of weed and methamphetamine Ice.

  It was then Sky noticed the feather; Narine ran it under her nose and pressed her lips together. She and Paws exchanged glances.

  Paws breathed. “There is also the feather.” He took it and passed it to Dahlia. She and Aylish inhaled it and wrinkled their noses and it was passed from pack member to pack member. Blair handed it to Sky with an apologetic look. Sky held the feather by the cuticle and swallowed. It reeked of Lila. He looked it over out of true curiosity, like the others; by this he was truly perplexed. Pure white in colour, but it stank of hunter.

  “It’s an ordinary feather,” said Shell, handing it back to Narine with a jewellery laden hand. Narine refused to take it, and instead had Shell place it on a plate which her rings clanked against as she dropped it on the ceramic dish. It was a silly thing to wear jewellery; if she phased it would be lost.

  “Not just an ordinary feather, it has been left on purpose.” Narine scanned their faces with an icy glare.

  “Smells like she has deliberately placed it here,” added Paws, looking into each member’s blank face as he spoke. “And she has been in Sky’s room,” he said solemnly, with a lively sparkle in his eye.

  Angele grabbed Sky’s fingers and inhaled, to both smell the piece of jewellery, and to inadvertently inhale the scent of his skin to see if he had touched the invader or made contact with her somehow.

  She licked her lips and looked at Narine. The air was palpable, though the gathering appeared relaxed, leaning on the back of the old mismatched couches, crouched on the stairs and leaning on walls, but the energy was tense, like the calm before a storm. The hairs rose on Blair’s neck, and his eyes darted about. Would he have to defend his friend? Or see him torn to pieces by the pack for disloyalty?

  Blair cleared his throat; he was going to try his best to talk down the coming accusations without risking himself in the process. “He has been with us all night.” He broke the silence and faced his palms up. “And every day. Narine you would have seen…something. One of us would have, what about the clairvoyant? Was it her?”

  “No.” Narine’s eyebrows raised, her voice was definite. “I know her scent; this was the huntress – Lila.” It couldn’t be another. “We’ll get something to match the scent from the Mongrel hunter,” she retorted, referring to Cres.

  “What do we do?” Angele glanced about with a worried look; she was the youngest of the bunch, new, young and naïve. She looked into Blair’s concerned amber eyes that avoided hers and then she looked towards the others and knew if Narine gave the order, Sky would be dead in a few seconds. Genna and Tyler would relish the chance.

  Blair looked up and chimed in with a suggestion. “We could lock the doors, turn on the alarm?” He glanced at Shell hopefully.

  Shelly looked as though she could have cried as her eyes glistened; she knew it was she who had left the door unlocked, and Angele was too young to take the blame. It was Shell’s job to look after her. She was older, she had been a woman when she was bitten, another of Paw's selections - the beautiful teacher had caught his eye one weekend in the paper and Shelly Bealy the high school teacher, became a lovely wolf.

  She had symmetrical features, except for her eyes, that when tainted with venom, became her most striking feature as they glowed an iridescent blue. The public High school had kept it hushed that she had suddenly left them for the Cult with no notice, with no prior warning signs according to her young newlywed husband. It was kept from the students so rumours wouldn’t run rife.

  They all looked at Narine who came across as cool as ice.

  Her eyes smiled. “No, we wait, no locks or alarms; she will be around.” She grinned a straight line.

  Paws interrupted standing forward. “We are going to trap her.” The words lingered on his broad mouth.

  Sky tried not to show any emotion as his insides shook. The plan for now was simple – wait. The meeting broke up moments later and Narine spoke to Angele privately; she was to keep an extra close watch on Sky until she left. Narine exploited Angele’s obvious crush on him.

  Sky walked out onto the wooden second story balcony again and felt the breeze on his warm skin; he knew he was as good as dead. He had the urge again to jump the rail and phase on the run and if he made it to the fence to keep on running. A moment passed as he contemplated it. A presence moved to join him; too small to be Blair, he noted Angele's human scent - of flowers and vanilla, which she doused herself in.

  He didn’t look at her; she touched his arm softly and with her sweet voice tried to soothe him like a child with a pet. Tyler walked behind them and Sky looked in his direction as he passed. Tyler liked to have competitions with the others to see who could jump the furthest. Sky had won. Tyler was a little pissed about that. The only thing worse about Tyler, other than his bad sportsmanship, was his breath. He liked to eat unsavory things when he phased.

  “Sky, we all care about you, we are a family here. Please just talk to me, just for today, tell me how you feel?” her ringing voice urged.

  She was prying. The sun had risen.

  He had zoned her out. “Huh?” He huffed, feeling the metal tag between his rough fingers and he glared at it as she spoke in his ear. He felt irritated by her being so close. She was so breathy.

  “Please Sky?” she cooed. Her voice was high and smooth; she smiled and let out a little nervous laugh. “Tell me what she has that we don’t?”

  Her questions were inane, and Sky wished she would stop. She had no idea. He ignored her nasal voice like he would a mosquito. But unwilling to cause ripples at this heightened time, he tolerated her close proximity, tensing uncomfortably at her every irritating gesture.

  Wanting to be distracted, he noted the numbers on the tag, ran his fingers over them and felt the familiar bumps and remained frozen as he read the numbers. His heart twan
ged, the numbers were not his, he re-read the name and the infantry and then the soldier’s number - which was wrong, this wasn’t his tag. This was a copy; only Lila had the original tag and Lila had been in the house.

  “Where did Narine find this?” he asked as though he were casually changing the subject, as a nervous trickle ran down his spine.

  “In your room, why?” She arched her back.

  “Where?”

  She pouted her lips. “Under the pillow I guess.”

  He thought deeply - what could these numbers mean? He tried to remember the last conversation with Lila, but there was nothing, they couldn’t have known, and it was so long ago. Coordinates? Time? He was acutely aware his new shadow Angele had left her soft tanned hand on his forearm, and he had begun to notice it lingering there. He glanced at it with only his eyes, and racked his brain for something off track to say to Angele before she decided to take an interest in the tag also.

  “I thought I loved her, you know,” he found himself muttering. His blue green eyes were wide with honesty and disbelief.

  If she was shocked by his sudden words, she didn’t show it. She stroked his back gently with her arm.

  “I know, please talk about it, it’s the best way to just let it out.”

  She was sounding more and more like Narine by the day.

  “I wanted her no matter how much it hurt; I made a list once - of all the pros and cons, you know? And I tore it up and threw it away - forgot it.” He let his voice trail, full of just enough torment. He didn’t want to mention the cage.

  “You can never be with her,” Angele offered in a soothing tone and he blinked as her breath wafted his cheek. He ignored her.