Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls

by Jane Lindskold

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Betwixt retorts. “The Tail Wolves are whores, not our Sarah.”

  “They’re selling sex honestly,” Between snaps. “Sarah just sits here leaving half the Pack panting for a chance at her. You both know that Head Wolf took her so fast because he wants her.”

  They bicker, but I do not interrupt. They have framed my dilemma perfectly. I have seen that not all who come to the Pack are so quickly welcomed. Most must prove themselves first—living as hangers-on, doing the filthiest chores.

  Soon I must decide what I will do. My choices seem limited. Either I must become a Tail Wolf (The Four will only take proven brawlers) or be a beggar—a Tabaqui, in the lingo of the Pack.

  The Tabaqui are barely tolerated and I have heard debates as to whether begging is really legitimate “hunting.” My choice seems clear—either I must choose a path that will disgust me or one that will disgust others.

  I have not yet reached a decision when the welcome buzz of a pulley on wire signals Abalone’s return to our roost. She skids down to my hammock and drops lightly next to me.

  “Good Hunting, Sarah!” Her eyes are bright and her blue lips curl with mischief.

  “Good Hunting,” I reply.

  She leans close, so that she is whispering in my ear. “I have a heist ready. Want to come?”

  I nod vigorously. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.”

  “That’s the spirit, I think.” She hugs me. “I don’t understand you half the time, Sarah, but that’s okay, too.”

  Reaching for a guide rope, I stand, scooping Betwixt and Between up with my free hand.

  “Can’t you leave the dragon?” Abalone asks, a resigned expression anticipating my reply.

  “I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls,” I say stubbornly.

  She shakes her head. “Put your brother in your shoulder bag, then at least it’ll be out of sight.”

  We make our way outside by the same route that Abalone first used to bring me into the Jungle. There are other ways, but this one, which requires memory, lightness, and grace, is her favorite. The few times she has taken me out, however, she has been careful to show me other ways.

  Outside, I gulp the night air gratefully. The Jungle is one cylinder among a score which once held chemicals for a factory. It is vast, but by necessity it is enclosed and the air, seasoned by many bodies, is pungent and hot.

  Abalone touches my hand and at her bidding I trot down the aisles. We walk into another deserted portion of the factory, cross through an underground tunnel, and emerge in a subway station that is deserted now, but once, Abalone assures me, was a busy place built to deal with the factory’s traffic.

  From there we walk down the service walkways to an active station and catch a train uptown.

  In the near-empty station where we disembark, Abalone unlocks a closed rest room with a key card. Inside, she opens a backpack, fills a sink with warm water, and proceeds to transform herself.

  Skintight trousers and T-shirt go into a heap on the floor. She replaces them with a neat business suit—skirt, vest, and frill-trimmed blouse. Blue lips are scrubbed clean and tinted pale peach. Cheeks are discreetly rouged to highlight fantasy cheekbones. Eyes are resculpted with liner and shadow. A final touch dusts a couple of incongruous freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  She winks at me and skins a wig over her fiery buzz and the fire is banked under a crop of close, dark curls.

  “What do you think?” she asks with a proud smile.

  I shake my head with amazement. “I have heard of your paintings, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”

  “Hamlet,” she replies to my surprise. “I did some drama before I left high school.”

  She scoops up the clothing from the floor and into her pack, fighting down some emotion. When she looks at me, whatever it was is gone.

  “Never make known what you have seen tonight,” she says, and I sense the nervousness behind her smile.

  “The rest is silence,” I promise.

  “Good. Now, in those jeans and that sweatshirt, you’ll be practically invisible if we cover your hair and you keep the dragon tucked down in your bag. I’ve brought you a baseball cap.”

  Motioning for me to bend down, she tucks my hair up under the cap. The brim even shadows my pale eyes. Stepping in front of a mirror, I preen—this is one of the few times I’ve seen myself in the street clothes Abalone gave me and I like the look.

  Normal. Mainstream.

  “When we go up to the street, walk a little behind me,” she says, extracting a notebook computer in a slimline clutch from her pack. “If I get in a car, keep walking straight. I’ll pick you up. Otherwise, just follow me.”

  “Thou shalt not steal,” I say, striving to make the words express my concern for her rather than condemnation of her craft.

  The wicked smile blossoms, incongruous on peachy lips. “I’m not. If the work I’ve been doing with my tappety-tap here has done the trick, I own the car. I just need to find where the former owner has parked. C’mon.”

  I follow and the world outside is one I have never known. Here the streets are straight and smooth. Well-kept shrubs and slim-trunked trees grow with metal grids at their bases. Tall buildings, threaded to each other with glass tubes as the Jungle is with rope and wire, make cliffs that threaten the sovereignty of the sky.

  Abalone walks confidently onto the sidewalk and I wait a moment before daring to trail her. Although the hour is late, there are still some pedestrians on the night streets. We become fish in that stream and no one gives either of us so much as a casual glance.

  When Abalone turns to claim a car parked in a metered space, only a warning hiss from Betwixt and Between reminds me to keep walking. I do, but now all the things that had seemed benign, even mildly amusing when I knew that Abalone was there to deal with them, become frightening and threatening.

  A man looks my way. I tense and prepare to run. He goes by and I realize that his glance was for the clock in a shop window.

  Thumping music announces a juvee gang. As I remember how the Four treat trespassers, a damp sweat prickles across my skin. I don’t even dare to scratch lest they look my way. But they pass me without even a rude comment.

  By the time Abalone hails me from where her new vehicle idles in a cross street, I am almost too weak with fear to climb in the passenger side.

  She gives me a grin and we swoosh off above the dark streets. When she leaves me in an all-night diner with food and tokens for the video game built into the table, I am almost over my fear. Leaving Betwixt and Between in my bag, I slip them French fries and drops of oversweet orange soda.

  Abalone taps on the window an hour later. Her hair is again the color of fire and her lips shimmering blue. We take the subway back to our turf, but, though dawn is a mere hour away, she does not take me to the Jungle.

  Instead, we go to a strip of concrete and crabgrass that has been dubbed a Park by a municipal blueprints maker. We sit on a wall and Abalone lights a lovely little pipe made from copper tubing.

  “It went really well tonight, Sarah,” she says after she has it drawing. “I made good money on that piece. Of course, time’ll show it was floated, but flip ’em. If a kid like me can bust the codes, anyone can. They should write better codes.”

  I gesture confusion. She puffs smoke rings, considers, then gives me one of her sparrowlike tilts of her head.

  “Sarah, I told you that car belonged to me when I drove it away. That’s true—I made it mine. A cop could have pulled me over and everything in the computer would have said that flitter belonged to ‘Abby Shane,’ the name on the ID I was carrying.”

  She breaks one of her smoke rings with her index finger. “Setting that up took me a month, but I’m rich now. I can pay my fees to Head Wolf until the next ‘repossession’ is ready. And I can pay yours, too. That is, if you want a job.”

  I nod v
igorously. Not to be a Tail Wolf or a Tabaqui!

  Seeing my excitement, Abalone holds up a hand. “The job doesn’t ask much—on the surface. But you’re going to need to learn a whole lot to swing it.”

  “When the strong command, obedience is best,” I reply.

  “Fine, briefly then. I want you to help me steal vehicles. I’ve been at the job long enough that before long someone is going to get wise to me. I change my appearance, use false names and prints, and forge IDs. Still, I’m the same general height and build and if anyone started really checking…”

  She shrugs. “I want to start using you to pick up the cars and sell them for me. We’ll split the profits, say seventy/thirty.”

  A host of protests race through my mind. I can’t drive. I can’t bargain. I can’t even talk! My worries choke me and my hands flutter to my throat.

  Abalone pulls them down and holds them.

  “Easy, Sarah. I think you can do it. If you don’t want to, there are other ways to stay in the Jungle”—she looks away—“maybe even better ways.”

  I tilt my head inquiringly. Abalone lets go of my hands and starts thumping her heels on the wall. I wait.

  “Head Wolf may not like that I’m giving you work—especially since he doesn’t quite know what I do. The Law states that adults should be able to hunt for themselves. You know the part.”

  I nod. “The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown. Remember the Wolf is a hunter—go forth and get food on thy own.”

  “Exactly, your Baloo is proud of you. I may be able to make Head Wolf see this as part of your training. Sweet Mike, you’re innocent enough. I think he’d go for it.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Especially, if you’re willing to make him feel good about it.”

  Even in the dawn’s early light I cannot interpret the expression on her face. Shame, pity, even jealousy seem to vie for dominance before she is again my weird, wild teacher. I touch her shoulder and point to the sky.

  “Remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep.”

  She stretches and hops off the wall. I stand and we walk back toward the nest of chemical tanks. We are almost there before she turns to me again.

  “I’ll speak to Head Wolf as soon as the Hunters have left tomorrow evening. Do you want me to?”

  My heart is in my throat, but I manage, “Yes.”

  ABALONE HAS BEEN IN HEAD WOLF’S TENT FOR A LONG while. I try hard not to wonder why.

  Betwixt and Between can tell that I am worried, so to distract me they tell me what has happened while I was sleeping.

  Betwixt starts. “Chocolate came running in here wearing this lovely leather biker’s jacket. He was just starting to strut it around when what do you think happened?”

  Between answers him. “What?”

  “Shut up, stupid. I’m asking Sarah.”

  Lest the dragons start sulking, I politely meet the ruby eyes and look interested.

  Satisfied, Betwixt continues, “We hear police whistles and sirens from the way Chocolate had come.”

  “The idiot not only propositioned a cop,” Between snickers, “but stole his jacket.”

  “You can bet that Head Wolf wasn’t pleased,” Betwixt says. “He had the Jungle sealed and members of the Four on each doorway. Everyone who was awake had to keep silent.”

  “The cops never found any of the entrances,” Between adds with a wondering shake of his head. “And when they were gone, Head Wolf beat Chocolate until the kid looked like the worst side of a sadist’s fantasy.”

  I barely hear the end of the story. Below, the flap of the tent is moving and Abalone emerges. She waves for me to come down and I scramble with lines and pulleys.

  In my month and more in the Jungle, I have gotten beyond sore muscles and fear of falling to where I move through the Web as easily as the long-term residents. I am at her feet practically before she has lowered her hand.

  “Head Wolf was—receptive—to my suggestion.”

  She nervously licks her lips. I realize that she must have done this frequently in the last hour, for the blue eyeliner with which she paints them is nearly worn away in some places. I scan her for bruises or teeth marks and find none.

  She continues. “He wants to speak with you alone and make certain that you really want to do this. It’s up to you to prove to him how much you want it.”

  I nod, my options thinning into one line. My heart beats wildly, as I know what I must do.

  “Go on.” Again Abalone gives me the strange look she had in the Park. “Head Wolf wants you.”

  I hardly hear the snickers from the few Pack members still lounging around the camp stoves. With a hand I hope is steady I scratch the tent door as I have seen others do. The painted surface looks smooth, but is ridged and uneven to the touch.

  “Who is there?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Enter, Sarah.”

  Lifting the flap, I duck and enter. Once in, I kneel on the cushioned softness and wait.

  “Make yourself comfortable, Sarah. I only have a few questions for you.”

  I look up and move to sit on the cushion he has indicated. The dark eyes seek for and hold mine. I can only bear to hold their gaze for a moment and am grateful that Abalone has taught me that a Cub must never hold the gaze of a senior Wolf, nor any Wolf the gaze of Head Wolf. But when I look away, it is not from courtesy, but from a sense that if I look too long, I will be swallowed.

  “Abalone tells me that you are learning well, but that you have much to learn. Did you always live in places like the Home before you came here?”

  I nod.

  “So you cannot read or drive or even work a simple terminal?”

  I blush and shake my head, ashamed.

  He quizzes me further about what I can and cannot do, always thoughtfully phrasing his questions so that a “yes” or “no” will do and so that I will not need to struggle for an answer. His kindness relaxes me and I find that I can look at him as we talk.

  Finally, he says, “I can see the reason for what Abalone has suggested. With your current assets, however, you could still do very well as one of the Tail Wolves. Surely, you do not scorn that way of hunting.”

  I do, but I shake my head, knowing that the Tail Wolves are the most reliable providers in the Jungle.

  “Sometimes I think that Abalone does,” he continues. “I hope she has not passed that attitude on to you.”

  His eyes say more than his words and my heart knows it is time. Words swim in my head in a chaotic pattern. My hand reaches out and touches him lightly on the cheek.

  He waits with dark eyes hooded. I stretch out my other hand, hold his face between them.

  Words I know are not needed for this form of communication. I make him as mute as I am, cover his mouth with mine. When next he speaks, there are no words at all, but I know perfectly what he desires. With only a small sorrow, I give in to him.

  Indeed, he is glorious in his madness.

  Four

  THE NEXT DAY, AS ABALONE BEGINS MY LESSONS, I CAN hardly keep from touching the ivory wolf’s head that dangles from a silver loop in my left ear.

  The ceremony promoting me from Cub to Wolf had been simple yet moving. Head Wolf and Abalone shared the cry “Look well, O Wolves.” The Pack members questioned Head Wolf and were satisfied as to my fitness. Even Edelweiss was more friendly after the inspection was passed and the token presented.

  Yet, I realize that I still must prove myself more than a hanger-on. Thus, I bend my head over the model control panel that Abalone has cobbled together for me. The letters and numbers mean nothing to me and have a disconcerting tendency to squirm and move upon the surface.

  Abalone deals with her frustration with my inability by focusing the lesson on developing manual skills. What I will do with them comes after.

  My determined concentration is shattered as if it is a smoke ring when a thin voice pierces the Jungle with the Stranger’s Hunting Call: “Give
me leave to hunt here because I am hungry.”

  I have dropped my practice panel into a holding bag and am sliding to the floor even as Head Wolf’s deep voice answers, “Hunt then for food, but not for pleasure.”

  Thumping to the floor, I race across and embrace the little, bent woman who has entered the Jungle and stands before Head Wolf unintimidated by the Four who hover over her.

  She embraces me in turn, “Easy, Sarah, love, in all things moderation. You will strangle me.”

  “Professor Isabella! Professor Isabella!” I repeat over and over.

  “Dear child,” she says. “Certainly I have taught you to speak better than that. But I won’t leap you through Othello and Chaucer quite yet; this charming gentleman with lupine pretensions wants to speak with me.”

  Head Wolf has watched me greeting Professor Isabella, amusement replacing his initial anger at her invasion. Abalone has joined us, those few members of the Pack who are not out hunting circling round.

  Professor Isabella pats me and I sink down to sit at her feet. From this familiar post I study my old teacher. I had believed her unchanged from when I had known her in the Home, but now I see differences.

  She still has snow-white hair and delicate, tissue paper skin faintly threaded with blue veins. But her frame is more bent and her hands are swollen, the knuckles shiny with arthritis. My initial joy had numbed me to the fact that she smells strongly, as if she has not bathed in weeks.

  The Law of the Jungle insists, “Wash daily from nose tip to tail tip.” I wonder why Professor Isabella is not taking better care of herself.

  “Professor Isabella.” Head Wolf cocks an eyebrow. “May I call you that?”

  She twinkles. “Professor Isabella Lacey, once of Columbia. I quit during the budget crisis of the nineties. Met Sarah in the Home where I was ‘resting.’”

  Head Wolf nods. “You don’t look like a professor.”

  “She’s a Tabaqui,” chirps one of the new cubs, a little boy called Peep. “I seen her by the train station.”

  Professor Isabella smiles, but I see a flush underneath her weather-worn skin. The truth hits me suddenly.