Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  “I see,” she said quietly, bowing her head. She had disappointed him again.

  “Indeed, now you see. But this time, your understanding comes too late. This time, daughter, you will be punished.”

  • • •

  They had banished her. She was being pushed from the pack. No matter how much she repeated the sentence to herself, she could not comprehend her own exile. She couldn’t believe it. She would never return home, never sleep in her old bed again, never play with the village young, never visit her old school. She would never again walk these woods.

  She could not return until she “ended the threat of the new vampire prince” — until she killed Caleb. In short, she would never come home. She was no longer one of them. They did not want her with them, so they had gave her a mission that she would die trying to accomplish or one she would flee from in a desire to live. The feelings of the council could not be more clear.

  Fine. More than fine. Better than fine. Perfect. Her father had treated her like a stranger her entire life. And now, well, now she would be a true stranger to him. Her name would be erased from all pack records. It would be as though she had never been. The pack heir who had never shifted was now the pack heir who never was. Fine. Fine. Fine.

  She laughed in a little pathetic huff. She was one of the walking dead, like her sworn enemies. Dead, but unwilling to accept it.

  Starting to cry, she hugged herself. She was alone now, but she had been alone before. So, she would cry. For a little while. For now. For as long as it took. Then she would stop crying and start trying to find a new home.

  Libby considered her options. Would she go to another pack? A smaller settlement would house her, certainly. But as a castoff from another group, she would be an omega, not merely ignored, but hurt, endangered, and constantly at risk. Seen at best as a joke, and at worst a scapegoat for the aggression of the rest of the pack or the pack’s enemies. Would she join the humans, then? Hide her nature, herself? Or … could she surrender to the vampires? Could she trust her new friendship with Caleb? So hard to understand, such a mystery. Could he be trusted? Was he, really, her ally?

  Almost as though her thoughts had conjured him, he materialized in the forest in front of her, moving fast. Deciding rashly to track him, she leapt up and took to the trees. She had to push herself to keep up with his pace. As well as she knew these woods, she almost lost sight of him several times. He was going a speed that wasn’t normal for his kind; his reflexes also seemed sharper than they should be. Was he running from something or toward something? She felt compelled to know. She had to know.

  After a few miles, he neared a cavern that she knew well. Why was he going there? She followed at a distance, until she was sure of his destination. Then, rather than pursue him, she moved in a slightly different direction. Her plan was to enter through a crack in the walls and hide within the waterfall. He would not see or hear her in that position.

  • • •

  He had to hurry. The change was upon him. If he did not find sanctuary fast, his secret would be revealed and his reasons for entering this tiring little village would be lost. He must go faster. He hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. He should have. Damn it. He should have. Although he had gained considerable control over his shifts, everything was different here. He should have expected this, but he had been so distracted. With Libby injured … but all was not lost. Thankfully, he had prepared for even something as unlikely as this. He had anticipated that he would shift here. He just hadn’t known it would happen so soon and with so little control. The moon wasn’t even fully in the sky yet.

  He tried to fight against it, to give himself time enough to reach a secluded area, a space of privacy and protection. But the beast inside raged. Caleb was torn apart, his two sides warring. One wanted calm, wanted control, just wanted the internal war to end. The other … wanted out. The transformation would be terrible, it always was, but the craving, the hunger, the thirst, the emotions of the beast broke him, shattered his will into a million splintered pieces. Losing his mind, his soul, his shape in the heat of the shift.

  If only he could make it in time.

  • • •

  It only took a few moments to travel through the cave and reach the waterfall, but as she approached the lookout, her life laid transformed, tilted on its axis, razed beyond recognition. The vampire prince. Her friend, Caleb. A wolf.

  His change wasn’t complete, but twisted in the water, on all fours, was the man she knew. His posture was so real, so true to the experience she had seen time and time again. But … he shifted so slowly. The men of her kind … their transitions seemed natural. They shuddered and then emerged wolf.

  For a while, he waited, simply breathing deeply in and out. His body was held taught. She waited with him.

  Then suddenly, he cried out and his body twisted sharply, cracking, warping, wrecking itself.

  Wanting to close her eyes, but unable to look away, she hoped that this wasn’t really happening, that she was caught in some kind of vampire trick.

  But his pain was palpable. It tore into her. He wasn’t faking that. His screaming cut through the cavern, through her. His shouts made her own body ache, collapsed her inside herself. It terrified her. He was being torn apart, his body ripping itself into a new and unnatural shape. Ruining all that he was to release the wolf within.

  She had shed tears earlier for herself — now she shed them for him. Curled into a ball inside the cave, her hands over her ears, she cried and she prayed. She begged any god that existed, any god that would listen. She bartered all she had and all she would ever have.

  When it was finally over, the wolf stood on shaky legs, his black reflection in the pool shimmering around of him. For a moment, he stared at it, watching it ripple. Then, looking up, the wolf’s eyes moved immediately and directly to her position inside the falls. He could see her. Gazing through the water, his wild eyes tracked her warily. He was afraid and slightly aggressive, ears pushed back, rear legs bent in case he needed to pounce or flee. She wanted to reach out, to communicate somehow, but as soon as she moved, Caleb’s wolf bolted and ran from the cavern.

  Falling back into the cave wall, she wondered what this could all portend. Not superstitious by nature, she trusted that this signified … something. But what, she could not begin to imagine.

  Chapter 8: ALL THE KING’S MEN

  Caleb stood in the window of his father’s old home, gazing down at the streets of his city: dark curtains were hung over doors, street lights were dimmed, all the people trudging in the streets below wore funeral garb and would continue to do so in the following weeks. The king had died, and the city mourned. Years of worry and war had taken their toll. Still, though the king’s body had shown signs that his reign would soon end, his death deeply affected the city.

  Caleb knew, though he could not see them now, that the citizens’ faces registered fear, not sadness. Were they afraid of the threat of wolves in a time without a crowned king … or did they fear him, the prince and potential king, the mongrel?

  In the reflection of the glass, he could see the room clearly. These honored men and women — Council members, Elders — dressed in long black robes, all bundled in the costume of mourning, bickering. No doubt they thought their countenances severe and their words significant, but, watching their pantomime in the glass, Caleb thought they looked stuffy, foolish, like old set pieces.

  He had managed to ignore the squabblers successfully so far, but their failure to agree on the date of his coronation was becoming a problem. Weeks had passed since his father’s death. They had respected all of the traditional rites, and the time had come for his ascension. But a faction of the Elders denied his birthright. However, because they all recognized the danger of a kingdom without a king, tensions and tempers were high.

  “What rights have you to deny him the crown? He’s n
ot too young to be king,” said one angry voice, kicking off a round of circular protests.

  “He’s not too young? Of course — ”

  “Surely you don’t imagine that age is a true objection.”

  “He is unstable!”

  “Indeed! He borders on mania, barely a vampire.”

  “He carries inside him one of those beasts.”

  “Yes. It is not his age that begs our interdiction. It is his nature.”

  His nature. As much as he had tried to push aside their complaints and their criticisms, he could not ignore his own concern over his nature. What was he, after all? Vampire? Wolf? As much as he wanted to insist on his immediate coronation, he himself was not sure what was best. He was a weapon filled with the power of his only natural enemy. Could he be trusted? Could he protect his people? Could he control himself?

  It was true that he had undergone one successful transformation since the death of his father — just a few days ago, and nothing had happened — well, at least nothing out of the ordinary. Truthfully, Caleb had been relieved, after long harboring a secret fear that only his father’s rule kept him in line. A child’s reasoning it seemed now, as if only his father’s checks could temper him, but all the same, he was relieved and saw it as a sign that he could be thought to control himself, that he could begin to earn their trust.

  Some of his shifts would always be outside his will, but while that loss of control still scared him, he understood it now as something that, like everything, had its own cycle, a cycle he could look on now without complete terror. He had finally found some measure of peace in the pack camp, with Libby. Working with her, he had a feeling that somehow true peace was possible for him and for his people. He didn’t understand it fully, and he wasn’t truly sure he even wanted to understand it, but part of him was curious, part of him couldn’t look away, part of him had started to wonder if he wasn’t —

  What did it matter? The girl, like his father, was simply gone. She had disappeared. No one knew where she was or, at least, no one would tell him. The wolves refused to acknowledge what had happened. Bring her up in conversation, and the damned creatures acted as though you had started to speak another language.

  He was to have met her in battle several weeks ago. They were scheduled to fight the night after his premature shift, a mere two days after she was injured. He had gone to the betas who ran the trials and requested a change of date. He could only spare Libby a few days’ time, but he’d wanted to try: if and when he met her in combat, he’d wanted to give her some chance to fight. When he’d mentioned her name, though, the betas had turned abruptly from him, saying nothing. After continued attempts to gain information, Caleb had threatened one of them. Angry, Caleb had almost lunged at him, but Moiren, thankfully, had come along in time to explain what was happening.

  Pulling Caleb away from the beta guards, Moiren explained, “They have exiled her from the pack. She had to leave the village. She’s gone.” He had said it simply, as a matter of course. “She’s been banished. Her name, the memory of her has been, in a sense, burned from their minds. For them, she doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Even her father? She’s just — gone?”

  “Yes, even with her father. You will find none who are willing to talk of her.”

  “Surely, we can convince someone to tell us what has happened to her.”

  “No, to speak of her is a crime. The penalty is severe. You will find no one willing to tell her tale, least of all to you. None will take the risk.”

  “Risk?”

  “Right now, their refusal to speak of her is symbolic, a metaphor for her absence from their lives. In the past, though, an exiled member was actually removed from pack memory, the pack’s mind was wiped clean of exiled members. Now, though, that punishment is reserved only for those who cannot be trusted to keep silent. But the threat is there. They will not talk.”

  “Where would she go, Moiren?”

  “There are not many places for her. She could try other packs. Packs will usually allow an exile entry. Of course, they will not fully accept that wolf, but it is possible. Her life would likely be … difficult … bitter … lonely.”

  “What is wrong with these creatures? Have they no love for a daughter of the pack?”

  “Truly, Caleb, I do not fully understand it myself. This pack is strange. Normally, each pack is led by a mated pair. It is always a mated pair. In that case, the mother would, I am sure, protect her daughter, but here the alpha has retained control although he has no mate. It’s very peculiar.”

  “I don’t give a damn about their politics, Moiren.”

  “You should, Caleb. You should care. If you want to know where she has gone, you should care.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is not a typical exile. She is the rejected daughter of a powerful political leader. I do not think she will be safe in another pack. She will not be a typical omega. She will suffer.”

  “Do you think that she … where do you think she will go?” he’d asked again, though he knew Moiren’s answer would be the same.

  “Caleb, I can’t say. She doesn’t really have many options. Other wolves? Humans? Neither is a good fit. Frankly, she’s in danger.”

  “Why? Why has all this happened? Is it because we were … ”

  “I cannot speak for their reasons. I truly don’t understand this. I am sorry, Caleb.”

  “What should I do, Moiren?”

  “Nothing, Caleb. Your mission — such as it was — is over. It’s time to return home. Your father has been ill. It’s time to go.”

  And, like that, Libby was gone, erased from his life as his father was. So much had changed so quickly.

  And he had returned home — to this.

  “He is the first-born son of our King.”

  “He wasn’t born. He was created.”

  “Now, see here — ”

  “No, you need to see! We will not support him!”

  “Support him — the Mutt King! It’s ridiculous.”

  The Mutt King? That was catchy. That would probably hang around. Even now, Caleb observed in the window’s reflection, the phrase was making its way around the group, many of the Elders who would not support him shaking their heads, nodding, repeating the phrase over and over to themselves as though it were a mantra.

  Unnoticed by the bickering Council, an officer was ushered into the room. Caleb, watching the soldier’s reflection in the glass, saw the young vampire stalled at the door by a member of the Elders’ sentry. He was talking rapidly, worriedly, to the guard. Annoyed that the Elders had not quieted upon seeing the officer, Caleb was about to ask them to discuss affairs of state in appropriate company: he had enough to worry about without the entire population nicknaming him the Mutt King.

  Before he could speak, though, the officer suddenly turned toward Caleb and ran forward, whispering in an absurdly loud voice, his words hissing in his panic, echoing throughout the room. “Sir, I — sorry to interrupt, but — I … ” he stuttered, pausing to glance around, his eyes darting to the Elders within the room. Clearly he had more decorum than the Elders themselves and worried that he should not share military issues outside the chain of command.

  “Out with it. What do you need?” Caleb ordered, giving him permission to speak.

  “Sir, sentries have reported something.” He looked cautiously around, still concerned that he was in mixed company and that only his commander should hear what he was going to say. “Something strange, sir, something unusual on our border.”

  Looking at the Council Members, and seeing an opportunity to deliver a rather crushing blow to their squabbles, Caleb asked, “And what have they seen? Come, be clear. You may speak freely.”

  “Sir, an unshifted wolf has been spotted. What do you want us to do: capture or dest
roy?”

  “Destroy the wolf, clearly. No wolf dares to get this close to our city,” Caleb answered decisively. Let the old fools see that he ruled now and ever in the spirit of his father.

  “Yes, sir!” the soldier answered. After saluting, he turned to leave, walking quickly toward the door.

  As the door shut, there were murmurs of approval behind Caleb, council members echoing their satisfaction. One muttered something about strength and decisiveness. Another, nodding his head said something that sounded like, “Indeed, his father’s successor.”

  As they mumbled among themselves, Caleb allowed them to slowly understand that he ruled already — decisively. After a few moments, Caleb turned toward the Elders and finally spoke, “Gentlemen. Ladies. Let me be brief. It is my birthright to rule, and I will claim that right. But what you fail to realize is that I already rule. As a former army commander, I am respected by thousands; nearly our entire army will be calling me king by now. I wield the mighty arm of our people. I will wield it on your behalf and in the way you wish, if you but will it so.”

  Allowing time for the Council Members to speak, he was pleased to note that they remained silent. Simpletons. All of them. Even now, approving of his decision. What was there to approve of? Of course he would destroy any intruder. What decision had been made? What other options were there? Having been a bitter enemy for generations, no lone wolf had ever darkened the door of the vampire city. There was no chance of entry. No reason to visit. Unless the wolf had a death wish. Really, now that he considered it, when had this ever been a concern? What wolf would wander here without reason or recourse? What wolf would ever be that hopelessly foolish or desperate?

  “Alone?” Caleb asked himself out loud, too loudly, drawing the Elders speculative glances his way, as a strange and impossible idea entered his mind. He moved to the door without any check to his speed, almost a blur of energy. Yanking the door open, he called to the soldier walking down the long hall. “Stop,” he called, halting the officer who had delivered the message. “Alone? Is the wolf alone?” he insisted, although he heard the Elders murmuring behind him.