In the Mouth of the Wolf

by Nicole Maggi

  “Bree.” My father dropped his coffee mug into the sink with a clatter. “I’ve had enough from the two of you.”

  Really? Hadn’t I just gotten there? I gave him a simpering, sweet smile. “Don’t you have to go to work, Papa Dearest?”

  Dad either didn’t hear the sarcasm in my voice or chose to ignore it. He squinted up at the clock on the wall. “Oh—you’re right. See you later, dear.” He pecked my mother’s cheek. She didn’t even look at him as he did it. Just before he left, he turned and jabbed his finger at Jonah, then me. “I expect a good end-of-the-year report from all of your teachers, or there will be consequences.”

  “Like what? We’ll move again?” Jonah muttered, but Dad was already out the door.

  Mom stubbed her cigarette out in the sink and eyed the both of us. “Is it too much to ask for you to behave for a few days? You have no idea what I’m dealing with.” She brushed a lock of ginger hair off her face. “I know you don’t believe this, but I am on your side. No matter what happens with your father.” She grabbed her laptop and her cell phone off the counter and shot us a shrewd look. “Can I trust you two to get yourself off to school please?” And without waiting for an answer, she disappeared upstairs.

  I plucked an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it. “Nice going, Jonah. Was it Alessia again?”

  His eyes pierced my face. “You know it wasn’t.” He waved in the direction that Mom went. “Any idea what that was about?”

  “Nope.” I took another bite of apple. “You look a little tired, Brother Dear. Maybe you should talk to your Guide about getting some time off. I’m sure the Malandanti would be very understanding.”

  “Shut up, Bree. I’m really not in the mood.” He skulked out of the kitchen. I heard his footsteps thud up the stairs. A moment later, his door banged shut.

  “I guess I’ll just have breakfast by myself then,” I called out to the empty room. I tried to eat the rest of the apple, but its taste had turned rotten in my mouth. There was no sound from upstairs. Mom was . . . doing whatever she did all day, and Jonah was giving her a big middle finger by skipping school.

  I jumped off the stool and tiptoed upstairs, then showered and dressed quickly. I couldn’t wait to get back to Nerina’s. Her home might’ve been underground, but this house was the real tomb. Everyone inside it was dying, and I wasn’t going down with them.

  A little while later, when I appeared at the bottom of her stairs, Nerina said, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  I shrugged. “Seems pointless, when this is so much more important.”

  Nerina narrowed her eyes at me. “Normally, I would disagree; your education is very important. But we are in a precarious situation, so I will allow it.” She lifted a bloodred book from the coffee table. “The Stag will be joining us tonight to work on the Redwood magic. So let’s jump ahead to another site since we have more time.”

  “Goody.” I rubbed my hands together. “Where are we going today?”

  She held the book up. The surface of it seemed to shift and change, as though it were wrapped in mist and written in sand. I reached for the book. There was mist, undulating around the cover like a snake. “Venezuela.”

  I froze, my hand an inch from the book. I felt its power vibrating toward me. “Angel Falls,” I whispered.

  “The power to suck out a life force.”

  I snatched my hand back. “I’m not using the same magic that killed Mr. Foster. No effing way.”

  Nerina held the book closer to me. It was now a hair’s breadth from my fingertips. I didn’t want to touch it, and yet I could feel its power inside me, uncoiling in my belly.

  “Fight fire with fire, Bree,” Nerina said. “This magic is dangerous, sì. But I will teach you how to use it so you will only stun a Malandante, enough to take him out of commission. Not to kill. We are still angels, and they are demons.”

  I swallowed. Jonah is not a demon, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t. He hadn’t been out all night at the library. And if I could use this power to remove him from battle before he got hurt, it would be worth taking a step over to the dark side.

  I skipped school for the next three days. I created an elaborate ruse to cover my ass on all sides. I had Nerina call the school and pretend to be my mother. “Bree has the flu,” she said in a dead-on American accent. Then I called my mother and told her I was staying at a friend’s house because I couldn’t handle the drama at home. I had Nerina pretend to be Alessia’s mom. “Bree is welcome to stay here,” she said in a roughed-up version of her own Italian accent, “but I’ll send her home the moment you ask.” It played perfectly into her motherly guilt, which I was betting she got over pretty fast and would be more relieved than guilty to have me out of the house.

  I turned off my phone so the calls from Jonah didn’t distract me. I lost track of time. Whenever we emerged from Nerina’s lair, I wasn’t quite sure what color the sky would be. Sometimes Alessia was there, and sometimes she wasn’t. Sometimes we used Heath as our guinea pig; sometimes we used the Stag. Sometimes we went to the Waterfall and watched the movements of the Benandanti within and the Malandanti without. On one occasion I saw the Panther creeping along the top of the stream, his green eyes fixed on Alessia as she swooped in circles inside the protective barrier. I gave Alessia a hard time about a lot of things, but I had to give her credit for how well she ignored him.

  Sometimes we spent hours in Nerina’s lair, trying to unlock the secrets of the spell that kept the true nature of the Guild from the rest of the world.

  Nerina taught me how to mask my identity so it looked like I was always in shadow. I got so good at it that once when Alessia came to train with us, it took her like twenty minutes before she saw me. I snuck up behind her as she hovered just above Nerina’s head. “Boo!”

  She fell out of the air, and I nearly died laughing. Nerina was not amused.

  When at last we went to bed, at the ass crack of why-am-I-awake o’clock, we’d lie in the dark talking. Sometimes we discussed the work, the books, the stuff we’d stolen from the Guild. Sometimes Nerina would tell me stories about the Benandanti from long ago, including the years when the Roman inquisition investigated them. “We had three mages working around the clock to cloak the Olive Grove from them,” she told me. “Back in those days, we always had more than one mage working for the Clans.”

  “Why did it change?” I asked.

  “It got too dangerous for the mages. I’ve told you about that before.”

  Yeah, she had . . . but there was some sick need in me to know more, like how exactly each mage died. What spell had brought them down? Which magic had the Malandanti mage used to destroy them? Was it the magic from Angel Falls or something else? As though knowing this would help me prevent it from happening to me.

  And sometimes Nerina would leave me alone. If she had to go to the Waterfall to meet with the Clan, she’d give me a bunch of homework before she left and test me when she returned. Usually, it took me the length of her absence to master whatever it was she’d told me to do. But sometimes, I’d grasp it early, and then it would just be me, alone in her lair with the books.

  I hadn’t forgotten what Alessia had asked me to do. It was one of the reasons I kept ignoring Jonah’s calls. If I heard his voice, I might blurt out that I knew, that I was coming to rescue him, that I would save him as I’d failed to do in Fairfield . . .

  I’d managed to get through every book except Angel Falls. That book scared the living crap out of me. But I forced myself to sit on the floor with the book in front of me. The deep red mist swirled around it, like blood that had evaporated into air. “All right, bitch. It’s just you and me now,” I whispered. I glanced at the clock. Nerina had been gone for over an hour; she could be back at any time. Better work fast.

  The mist covered my hands when I touched the book, numbing them cold within seconds. I ignored the prickling pain and closed my eyes, forced myself into the book’s dark corridors. Are you in there? I asked it. The an
swer to the question I need answered?

  One by one, the doors along the corridor swung open. I already knew what was inside most of them—how to suck out a life force, how to do it just enough to leave a Malandante crippled, how to use a Malandante’s aura to bend their will to yours. But there were doors I hadn’t explored, like how to destroy a life force completely. I paused at that one. I could see it in my mind, how it would go, how I could do it, but when I pictured it, I saw the Lynx as my victim, and I couldn’t go there. I wouldn’t do to another soul what they had done to Mr. Foster.

  The chill from the mist had gone into my bones now, and I couldn’t feel my hands. Screw you, cold. I went deeper, and the magic pushed back, wrapping my wrists in invisible bands of freezing iron. I was trapped outside the last unopened door, unable to go backward or forward.

  There was a place inside me, like a safe haven. I pictured it as the house where we’d lived until I was ten, before Dad got the job at the Guild, and we’d started moving around. A little brown-and-white Tudor with a low white fence around the yard. My best friend, Diana, and I would sell lemonade just on the other side of the fence. Now that house was just a memory. But when I’d first started training with Nerina, she told me that once I unlocked each book, its magic would be in me forever, and I had to keep it contained somewhere. She left it up to me to decide what that container was. I chose the old Tudor house, and now each book’s magic rattled around in there like a family of ghosts.

  I summoned the house and the ghosts inside, calling forth the magic from Tibet. The power to separate my soul from my body. Inside the Angel Falls book, my body stood rooted in the hallway. I pulled my soul apart and shadow-walked through that last door. I tricked the Angel Falls magic into thinking it had me caught, when really my shadow was bouncing off its walls like Peter Pan.

  The answer to Jonah’s problem smacked me in the face. The full impact of it darkened my shadow skin as I drank it in; it filled me like too much vodka, and I stumbled back into my body. With a hard tug, I wrenched my hands off the book. My skin was red and raw, as though I’d been shoveling snow without gloves. I flopped onto my back, panting. Shit. Now I had to tell Alessia what I’d found. Double shit.

  Bree!

  Nerina’s voice ripped through my head. I clutched my ears even though I knew I couldn’t block her out. Get to the Waterfall! Now!

  What the—?

  The Malandanti. They’re here.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Take That, You Motherfuckers

  Bree

  I didn’t think; I just acted. That was how well Nerina had trained me. I didn’t need to plan out what I was going to do; I just did it. I wasn’t much for plans, anyway.

  I plucked myself out of Nerina’s lair and transported through time and space to the birch trees by the Waterfall. Shadows poured out of me. I wrapped them around my body and plunged through the trees to the water’s edge.

  It was chaos.

  Frozen for an instant, I didn’t know where to look first. Screeches and howls filled the air. At the edge of the protective barrier, Heath and the Malandanti Coyote rolled in the water, their jaws locked on each other. Across the stream, the Stag had the Boar backed up against a tree. Using his antlers like horns, he stabbed at the Boar, who feinted from side to side to avoid getting gored. My gaze swung wildly around the perimeter of the Waterfall. Where was Jonah?

  Inside the barrier, Alessia dodged and swerved in the air. A huge form loomed from the pool below, blocking her from my view.

  What the hell—?

  It’s one of their Concilio. The Harpy. Nerina’s voice was raw with rage. She cracked the barrier with her magic and got in. I spun around and spotted Nerina up the stream. She galloped through the water, a dark shadow on her tail. My gut turned over. Jonah.

  Nerina wheeled and swiped Jonah across the nose. He fell back, and she rose, bursting through the barrier to help Alessia. I ran into the water toward Jonah.

  Bree. It was Nerina.

  I stopped.

  Get down to the base of the pool, she instructed. Focus on the Harpy.

  I glanced back at Jonah. He was on the other side of the stream now, loping toward the Boar.

  Bree!

  I’m coming, I’m coming. I made my way down the rocks. Spray from the Waterfall dappled my cheeks. Where’s their mage?

  I don’t see him yet. When he gets here, take him down.

  I took a deep breath and crossed into the barrier. The outside world was muffled. My toes touched the edge of the water, my shoes sinking deep into the cold mud. Above me, a battle raged between all the winged creatures of the Benandanti and the Malandanti. The ocean-blue auras of Nerina, Alessia, and the Eagle mingled with the silvery glow of the Raven and the Harpy.

  Now that I was just underneath it, I could see the god-awful ugliness of the Harpy. She looked like a cross between a vulture and the scary-ass velociraptor from Jurassic Park. I had no idea how I knew it was female, but I knew, the same way I could spot the Mean Girl Queen Bee on the first day at a new school. The Harpy stretched her black wings, blotting out the moon, and craned her scaly neck. Her yellow eyes bulged out of their sockets as she looked right at me.

  I shrank back into my shadows. She couldn’t see who I was, could she? No, I was fully cloaked; I was sure of it.

  Still, those neon eyes pierced me as if they knew me to my core. She flexed her talons, six-inch-long nails gleaming in the darkness. Quicker than I could blink, she swiped one of those deadly talons at Alessia, who darted out of the way just in time to save her belly from being ripped open.

  All right, you fugly bitch, I thought, it’s on.

  I pulled the first trick out of my hat and sent the Harpy to another time and place. But as soon as I released the power into the air, the Harpy pushed it right back to me. I had to jump out of the way. In an instant, it landed on a fallen log next to me, setting it on fire. I looked up, my mouth open. The Harpy tossed her velociraptor head and let out a cackle.

  Well, okay. Fine. I’m just getting started. Bring it. I raised both my arms. Bloodred mist spiraled out of my palms and threaded the air. The Harpy dove out of the barrier, but the mist caught the Raven in its wake. That’s for Alessia’s barn, you little butt-monkey, I thought.

  The Raven tumbled down and hit the water with a fierce splash.

  And this is for my brother. I dragged the Raven up to the shore, the mist binding him to me like a hangman’s rope. He flopped on the ground, trying to move his wings, but I held him fast.

  When I had practiced this with Nerina and the Stag, neither of them had fought back. It was easy to stop then. But the Raven fought. My breath was stolen as he strained against me, my heartbeat quickening. I pressed my magic into him, deeper and deeper, until he couldn’t move. A silvery light seeped from his feathers. His life force flowed toward me. I beckoned it . . . I could take him out right now, and Jonah would no longer have a Guide . . .

  The Raven croaked a pitiful little sound. I blinked. The Angel Falls magic fell out of me. No. I wasn’t that mage. The Raven flew up in an arc over my head. I snarled at him. I wasn’t that mage, but I wasn’t a saint, either. I flicked my wrist and blasted him out of the here and now. He disappeared with a little pop. An ungodly sound tore across the Waterfall. The Harpy bore down on me, talons outstretched, her demon-yellow eyes targeting me . . . I threw my arms up and reappeared at the top of the Waterfall.

  The Malandanti Bobcat looked up in surprise. It was perched on a rock in the middle of the stream. Too late I saw the figure behind it, a human shape cloaked in shadow just like I was . . .

  The figure took one splashy step toward me and pushed.

  I tumbled backward. The barrier swished across my skin as I fell through it. For a long moment, there was nothing but air, my limbs thrashing wildly to grab onto something and finding nothing. When I finally hit the water, I felt as if I had crashed into a pile of bricks. Pain cracked across my ribs, knocking the wind out of me. The force of
the Waterfall tossed me in and over, again and again . . . I tried to suck in breath and got a lungful of water. I fought my way up, up toward the light, oh, so far above me, but something shoved me down again—some force I couldn’t fight. Their mage—their Rabbit—holding me under until I drowned. I kicked and reached, trying to find my magic, trying to find anything to save me. Iron bands wrapped around my chest; red spots popped in front of my eyes. My whole body tightened, trying to get one tiny, lifesaving drop of air. God, I was going to drown, just as Jonah had almost drowned all those years ago in Mexico.

  Huge paws appeared above me. With one enormous burst of effort, I grabbed onto them. I rose up and up, pinpricks of light dancing behind my eyelids . . . I broke the surface and opened my mouth. Air—sweet, beautiful air—poured into my lungs. Nerina dragged me to the shore. I rolled onto my side, coughing water out of my lungs.

  Bree. Bree. Are you all right? She nudged my face with her dripping-wet nose.

  I flopped onto my back, panting. Above me, Alessia and the Eagle circled the Harpy, trying to drive her out of the barrier. How had she gotten inside in the first place? I didn’t have time to ask. Every time the two Benandanti Birds got close to the foul Harpy, she screamed and flashed her talons so close to them I was sure their heads were going to come off. I sat up. The Harpy flew at Alessia and the Eagle, pushing them back against the barrier. I knew the rule; if the Harpy succeeded in getting the Benandanti out, all the Malandanti could rush in and retake the Waterfall.

  Get up there, I screamed at Nerina. Don’t you see what she’s going to do?

  Are you—?

  I’m fine. I pushed my wet hair off my face and hauled myself to my feet.

  Nerina ran into the sky and rammed the Harpy from behind. Alessia and the Eagle dropped below her, down toward the pool. The Harpy turned on Nerina, the look on her face pure murder. I splashed back into the water, ignoring the chill that crept into my bones, and lifted my arms high. Party’s over, you whore. Calling on the power of the Redwoods, I sent strength into the barrier. Light flashed out in all directions, so bright they must’ve seen it in Nova Scotia.