by Nancy Gideon
“And that, I’m sure, was only what was in his best interest.” Rollo smiled easily, rubbing a calming hand across his son’s tense shoulders. “Relax. Let me show you what you are.” He noted Max’s caution and chuckled. “You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“No.”
He nodded in approval. “I don’t blame you. Come with me, Max. Tonight’s your night to howl.”
The prospect enticed and terrified him. He’d been trained to repress that primitive side of his being, to deny those instincts, to bury them deep. By his mother, who frightened him; by Jimmy, who lied to him; by Charlotte, who was ashamed of him. He’d never been allowed to express his dark, wild side unless it was to protect or settle things for those he loved. He’d never dropped those cautious barriers just to see what he was capable of. He’d been forbidden. He’d been afraid. And he’d forgotten what beat at the heart of him.
Until this moment. Until this dangerous man pushed the right buttons of pride and rebellious curiosity.
Who would know? His mother was dead. Jimmy was beyond caring. Charlotte had turned away from him. It was his chance to discover, to explore, to indulge in what he was. He could argue that it would bond him with this deadly creature who held tight to secrets he needed to know. But it was simpler than that.
He just needed to know.
“Close your eyes, Max.”
At his sudden tension, Rollo laughed.
“I’m not going to steal your wallet. Just a few of your inhibitions. Close them. Now, listen.”
“For what?”
“Listen. You’ll know.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. After a minute, he grew restless. “I don’t—”
“Shh.”
“But I—”
“Shh!”
Mentally muttering, he forced himself to relax, to forget about the man beside him as he reached out into the darkness of the night. Listening. Growing still. So still, he could hear his own heartbeat and that of Rollo beside him. Could feel the warmth of the blood in their veins, taste the salty sweat on their skin. And then, abruptly, expanding like a sensory explosion, there was more. So much more, he pulled back in alarm.
“No,” Rollo told him softly. His hand caught Max’s wrist, holding him in place, registering his hurried pulse beneath the press of his fingertips. “Don’t fight it. Don’t be afraid. Let it in. This is what you are.”
It took a moment to get his breathing steady again, then he started to slowly seep out of himself, like liquid pouring out onto the ground, spreading into a wide, wider circle. He wasn’t aware of clinging to his father’s hand as a tether while he leaned out over the edge of his physical boundaries, wobbling there with a precarious balance, starting to fall. His fingers clutched tight.
“It’s all right.”
Was he hearing Rollo’s voice or just reading a vibration of it in his mind?
“Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you. Nothing can harm you. Relax. Breathe it in. That’s it. Slow. Slow. Slow.”
He could feel the enormity of it, just on the other side of his consciousness.
“Are you ready? Are you ready for it, Max? It’s wonderful. Don’t be afraid. Don’t hold back. It’s beautiful. It’s what you are. Open your eyes and see.”
Gradually he parted his lids and opened his eyes to a startling new reality. The wonder of it precluded fear. It wasn’t sight or sense, the way he was familiar with it. Not even the eerie glimmer he’d learned to recognize. This was everywhere. Light, texture, depth to everything. The air had weight and substance. The brightness of the moon brushed cool upon his face. His extrasensory abilities blended into an incredible new perception, not separated into scent or sound or sight, but one fantastic awareness. He let go of Rollo and stretched his hands out before him, feeling colors in the density of night air, tasting fragrances as they teased along his fingertips.
“Can you hear me, Max?”
“Yes.” But it wasn’t sound, not like a speaking voice. He wasn’t cognizant of his physical form or of the man beside him, and a stab of panic altered his surroundings, making them into a cold, flat surface, like a mirror, like the moon reflecting off water. He reached again, fearlessly this time, to embrace the strangeness, to let it slide over him, into him.
It was beautiful.
“Where am I?”
A soft chuckle. “Wherever you want to be. Focus. You can control it. Let down the walls around your mind so your spirit can fly.”
“How far can I go?”
“Find out.”
Focus.
One destination consumed him. The only place he wanted to be. He concentrated on a familiar scent, on a longed-for heat, let himself be drawn across a distance that had no meaning.
And she was there.
He couldn’t see her through his own eyes, where she sat in the car he’d given her beside Alain Babineau. He envisioned colors, flavors, glaring infrared-like patterns of heat. Frustrated, he struggled to understand the input he was absorbing. She was speaking, but the sound was garbled as if stuck between two radio stations. He wanted to touch her but when he got close, he fell right through her image into pictures, feelings, voices. Hers.
“I don’t know how to reach him anymore, Alain. He’s not the same person I fell in love with.”
Charlotte?
“Max? Max. Come on back, boy.” Rollo’s voice, taut and worried. Then sharp with a demand. “Take a breath.”
He gasped. Air rushed into his lungs, and he choked as if he’d been suddenly pounded back to life with CPR.
He was lying on his back in the damp grass. He didn’t remember falling. His muscles cramped with a hard bout of shivering as an icy chill like he’d never felt before chewed through him. A fierce, soul-emptying cold. He tried to speak, and grew agitated when words wouldn’t come.
“It’s all right, son. Give it a minute. Just relax. You’ll be fine.” Rollo pressed his shoulders to the ground, holding him still, forcing him to recover himself slowly. Then he smiled. “Now you know.”
“What?” Max wheezed. “What do I know?”
“Why they fear us.”
Rollo sat back as Max rolled awkwardly to his hands and knees. The shaking wouldn’t stop. His head spun. He was weak, so weak, completely helpless. Dangerously vulnerable at a time he couldn’t afford to be. He swayed, elbows buckling, pitching him face-first. When Rollo’s arm slipped around his neck, he knew a moment of perfect hindsight. What a fool he was, to place himself in the hands of this man who was about to kill him.
But instead of snapping his neck, that steely arm braced across his chest, holding him up, supporting him as he sagged, shaky and strengthless, senses whirling. Rollo’s other big hand settled on the back of Max’s head, still at first, then lightly rumpling his hair.
“The dizziness will pass. The first time’s always a bit rocky. I’ve got you, son.” His voice lowered to a husky whisper. “My son.” Then his tone roughened. “You did well. How far did you go?”
“The Square.”
“Into the city? My God. That’s . . . that’s amazing. You amaze me, Max. Such power with no training. My son.” This time he spoke with fierce pride.
And suddenly the warming praise in words he’d longed to hear, the tenderness of an embrace never there to hold him when he’d needed to be held, that pleased assumption that this man, this stranger, had anything to do with what he’d become, ignited a deep, resentful fury.
You son of a bitch, where were you when I was desperate for my father’s love?
Max backed out of the arms encircling him, coiling in a defensive crouch of suspicion and rage behind the practiced blankness of his expression. He felt steadier, but still too uncertain of his strength to try to stand.
“What was that?” he demanded.
“The closest I could come to a name would be astral projection.”
“As in ‘Out of body, be back in five minutes’?”
Rollo laughed. “Something like that.”
A deeper timbre to his chuckle. “Oh, no. No, no, no. They have no idea. No fuckin’ idea. LaRoche, the rest, they’re herd animals. Clumsy instruments of destruction. Claymores to our elegant and lethal rapiers. I told you, we’re the best of the best. We’re capable of things that shouldn’t be possible. Aren’t supposed to be possible.
“The others are only capable of simple tricks: shifting, surface sensing. What we can do goes beyond that. So far beyond, it’s another galaxy. We can shift, but we can also see and read and project. That’s why we’re a threat to them. That’s what makes us so important.”
A shiver of remembrance passed through Max. “Them. Who is them?”
Rollo smiled. “All in good time, boy. First, we need to feed. What you’ve just done requires an unbelievable amount of energy. You need to rebuild it with heat, blood and flesh.”
Darkness flickered through Max’s eyes, but his voice was even. “I know.”
“Did Marie teach you that?” Rollo looked somewhat mystified.
Max pulled back even farther into himself. “She didn’t have time. She didn’t teach me anything except to hide what I was. To hide everything about me that was different.”
“So how did you learn these things?”
When Max spoke, his tight reply invited no more questions. “Survival is a cruel and necessary teacher.”
Rollo surprised him by reaching out, by gripping the sides of his face between his palms. The contact was warm, steady. His voice was intense, yearning. “Talk to me, Max. Tell me what you’ve seen, what you’ve endured, what you’ve done. Let me know you.”
“No.” He jerked away, then staggered to his feet. “You don’t have the right to ask.”
Rollo stared up at him, a bittersweet smile curving his lips. Then he nodded. “All right, boy. Your past is your own business. I’ll respect that. But allow me just a piece of your future.”
“Why?”
“So wary. Marie whelped a smart boy.” When he saw the hard glitter in Max’s eyes, he quickly moved on. “Curiosity, for one. That and the survival you just mentioned. Reasons enough?”
“For now.”
“For now,” Rollo agreed, rising to his feet in a powerful movement.
Could he take him? Max wondered. Could he overpower him and kill him if he had to?
Then the dank smell of the swamp stirred the curtain covering his memories.
Oh, yes. He could.
“Hunt the night with me, Max. Breathe in that freedom at my side.” He reached into his coat and offered the bottle. Max took it, needing its stabilizing heat, because an uncomfortable anticipation growled through him, beckoned forth by the silky promise of his father’s words.
Freedom. He’d never been free. Something had always chained him to this form, to this life, to these obligations. But tonight, on this moon-drenched evening when sorrow whispered through his soul on the words “He’s not the same person I fell in love with,” he was ready to fling off those shackles and run.
And run they did.
Sleek, dark shapes skimming the shadows like clouds over the swollen moon. Silent, deadly predators seeking what they might devour. Eyes gleaming, nostrils damp and flaring wide at the scent of prey. Working together with a deadly pack instinct to flank and distract and to lunge. Facing off with hackles high and fangs bared, snarling to establish dominance. Then Rollo took a stiff-legged step back, watching his son claim the kill with a savage amusement.
Glorious madness. Tearing through warm hide, feeling the sudden hot spurt of blood on his face, tasting it, thick and potent in his mouth, letting its intoxicating heat rush down his throat.
Max sat back on his haunches, eyes closed, misshapen features lifting toward the stars to howl. The melancholy sound was filled with power and conquest, with the wild sense of freedom.
Crouched on the other side of the gutted animal, Rollo smiled. “This is what you are, Max.”
The rest of the evening was a blur, a frenzy of drinking and reckless behavior. Foolish, dangerous animal behavior Max would never in a million years have considered had it been any other night. He followed Rollo along the river, chasing down and ripping apart any creature that frantically tried to outrun them. Tangling with a pack of gaunt, vicious dogs over territory consisting of back alleys and garbage bins. Frightening tourists into racing for their cars so they could root through their abandoned packages in search of anything interesting. Letting their eyes blaze like hellhounds to scare winos into dropping their paper sacks, then lapping up the sour spoils. When one produced a blade and managed to send Max yelping away with a few quick slashes, Rollo was on the derelict with malicious fury, gutting him while Max crouched in the shadows licking his wounds.
But killing the old rummy wasn’t enough for Rollo.
Max was a firm believer in justice and retribution and he meted both out with swift, unflinching efficiency. It was something he had to do, not something he particularly enjoyed. And never something he relished with the unholy amusement he saw shining in his father’s eyes. A terrible sense of sickness and horror cut through the fog of his conscience as he helplessly watched Rollo toying with the human as he was dying, clipping tendons as he tried to stagger down the alley, stalking him as he crawled, his insides trailing behind. Finally Rollo shifted into the huge man/beast form that had the poor drunkard shrieking as Rollo finally went for his throat.
Chuckling darkly, Rollo wiped the blood off his chin, turning to share the joke with Max—only to find him gone.
IT WAS LATE. Tina Babineau had called three times for an ETA, but Alain was still reluctant to head home. Which only made Cee Cee feel worse. He was feeling sorry for her in her miserable state of heartache.
She wasn’t foolish enough to invite him up, nor he foolish enough to suggest it, so they sat on the steps outside her apartment and talked. About work, mostly, because it was the safest topic. She brought out a cold six-pack and they were just finishing it up. She was about to kick Babineau off her stairway and send him back to his wife when a deep rumbling growl made them both freeze.
From out of the thick shadows between parked cars, a huge animal emerged, wolflike in appearance. Its heavy black coat was matted with mud and burrs and blood, and rose in an aggressive bristling ridge from the back of its lowered head to the base of its stiffly held tail. Green eyes gleamed as its jowls curled back in a snarl.
“Don’t move,” Babineau whispered as his hand went instinctively for his gun.
Cee Cee was quick to curtail the move. “No. There’s no need for that.”
“Ceece, what are you doing?”
He grabbed for her arm but she was off the steps, approaching the threatening animal with palm outstretched. She advanced slowly, carefully, but without fear as Babineau eased out his piece, just in case the beast proved as vicious in action as in appearance.
“It’s all right, baby. It’s okay. Come here to me.”
She crouched down and waited for the creature to start forward in a slightly altered gait. The crinkles eased from its muzzle and the menacing teeth disappeared. The badly scratched nose pushed into her hand. Her other immediately stroked over the filthy coat in search of obvious injury while she scolded softly.
“You are a mess. What have you been up to? Geez, you stink. What have you been rolling in? Let’s hope it’s what and not who.”
The dark head nudged up against hers, chin resting on her shoulder, while the brilliant eyes closed on a heavy sigh.
“It’s all right,” she repeated gently as her arms circled the thick neck. “I’ll take care of you.”
Babineau resnapped his holster and came down off the steps. “Need any help?”
Hackles rose and lips curled back, but Cee Cee merely slapped one of the laid-back ears with a curt “Stop it,” and the animal relaxed its offensive pose. “Thanks, but I’ve got him. He just needs to be cleaned up and fed.”
“I didn’t know you had a . . . dog.”<
br />
“I don’t actually own him. We kind of watch out for each other. You’d better take off. He can be temperamental.”
Babineau hesitated. “Are you sure you’ll be all right with him?”
“Oh, he wouldn’t dare get ornery with me, would you, baby?” She pulled back his head by the ear and stared into the glittery eyes. There was a long stalemate, then the animal’s tongue slapped wetly against the side of her face and he leaned into her wearily.
“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning. And, Ceece, don’t worry about Savoie. He can take care of himself.”
“I know. I’m not worried.”
As soon as Babineau’s car pulled away from the curb, Cee Cee started up to her apartment. Max trotted up behind her and upon entering, immediately headed for her sofa. The guinea pigs started shrieking and raced about their cage, certain he was planning to snack on them.
“Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you dare get on my furniture until you get in the tub.”
After a look of longing toward the soft cushions, he obediently walked to the bathroom, head and tail drooping. He nosed back the shower liner, then jumped in, claws scrabbling on the fiberglass bottom. Cee Cee regarded him for a long frowning moment, waiting for him to shift into human form. Instead he dropped onto his belly, chin on paws, eyes closed.
“If you think this gets you out of having to give any explanations, Big Dog, then you are sorely mistaken.” Her chastising had no effect. Finally she relented and grabbed up a fine-tooth hair pick. “All right. Be that way. Let’s get these burrs out of you.”
He lay still, letting her pull out the nasty barbs, often with clumps of hair attached, twitching and occasionally yipping, but content to let her continue until his filthy coat was free of them. Then the sudden forceful spray of the shower had him scrambling for traction.
“Stand still, you idiot. I don’t want to take a shower with you.”
He stood quietly while the disgusting evidence of his night out began to swirl down the drain.
Cee Cee upended her shampoo bottle, pouring it along the tough, rangy frame, then gently worked up a lather that smelled a lot better than the creature that had followed her upstairs. As she scrubbed, her heart softened at the feel of his many scrapes and several ugly wounds.