I am not surprised to hear this about Cal, although mortified that I never caught on to how truly nefarious he was. Or that Lydia was actually on my side the entire time. Only in New Orleans: a secret good guy in the guise of a bone player, and a naga to boot. “She turned on her own,” I remark.
Sylvia shakes her head gently. “Lydia did what she had to do in the name of a higher purpose, which was restoring justice—and saving you. Nagas are no better or worse that any of us. There just happen to be nasty folks in all of the races out there. There are bad humans, bad lycans, bad nagas … even angels themselves have been known to fall. Lydia went beyond loyalty to her kind and did what needed to be done to end a very toxic cycle. Wouldn’t you have stepped up to the plate if you’d known that you could stop a lycan from such evil? Especially if it meant one fewer lycan out there giving the rest of us a bad name?”
One fewer … A horrible thought startles me. “Cal will be even more deadly when he gets out of custody, even if he goes to prison for a long time …”
Sylvia reaches for my hand and holds it tight. “He disappeared, love. While Cal was being detained for questioning, he went ballistic and attacked the cops. He was shot in self-defense, but then took off running and disappeared somewhere around the Moonwalk, presumed to have fled into the Mississippi River. In any case, he’s a wanted man now, and won’t be showing his face around New Orleans anymore. But he’s rumored to be dead.”
The world reels. Shock sends me into a tailspin of disorientation. Sylvia grabs my hand and croons a note intended to steady me. I take a deep breath and the bed stops lurching, but the burning starts in my belly.
Now I will never exact my vengeance on Cal. I wanted to kill him. It was my right to be the one to rid the world of his cruelty, to make him feel even a fraction of what he had inflicted on me as well as his many victims. Instead he may have survived a gunshot, thriving in exile somewhere. I am seething on the inside, uncontrollably growling.
Sylvia hums a soothing lullaby to me, but something is wrong. The melody sounds flat and one-dimensional. Then I realize that I cannot find the pitch. My sense of pitch is completely gone. I panic as if discovering that I’ve had a limb amputated. The roaring in my head resumes, and I can stay conscious no longer. The last thing I recall is the feeling of Sylvia’s hand still tightly holding mine.
The stitches finally come out of my lower lip. There is an angry white slash across the swollen red skin. I wonder if it will still be visible when I fugue. I am still too weak to sit up by myself. Pain is an indicator that I’m still alive. Sometimes being a survivor really sucks.
Pack members pay me visits. A few flowers surround my bed: tasteful blossoms like orchids, some sweet freshly-cut magnolias that save my sense of smell from the constant antiseptic madness, and a coral cactus, which looks like a tiny Roger Dean painting—no doubt this was Sylvia’s gift. I am secretly grateful that no one has brought me Mylar balloons, as I’m not up to seeing anything silver or even remotely lunar-looking. Someone was even thoughtful enough to place my Rush bobblehead dolls on my nightstand, which comforts me more than I can express. Once I had slipped out of consciousness, only to awaken and discover Teddy’s precious copy of The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace tucked into my arms like a teddy bear. They come and go. Only Sylvia never leaves my side.
I am blessedly awake during one of Rowan’s visits. When his face swims into view, I believe myself to still be dreaming until he speaks. I attempt to sit up then, which only slaps me with vertigo.
“Stay in bed,” he orders and I accede. Countless times I’d wished that he would come to my bedside, just not with me being a convalescent train wreck. It’s not so much that you should be careful what you wish for, I muse, as much as you have to include every specific detail.
I attempt to spew out all of my concerns, which to my ears sounds like psychobabble, and is perhaps even less coherent to the man I love. “Shifters in danger … someone knows about the pack … deadly people out there in the music community … innocent lives at stake … I’m a bad bass player …”
He laughs then—laughs! How dare he? I realize that my last concern is paltry compared to the bigger issues, but it’s still devastating to me. “There is nothing wrong with your bass playing!” he chuckles. I don’t have the energy to be angry at his amusement.
Assuring me that the pack will be safe now, he touches my forehead and the room begins to darken. The last thing I manage to mumble before I slip back into unconsciousness is, “Fuck yo studio …”
As I gradually get stronger, I get impatient, then downright subversive. I don’t know what day it is, but I can hear Raúl’s footsteps approaching down the hall. I pick up on the energies of him flirting, presumably with a young nursing assistant—a female one, anyway—and I pick up his scent even among the harsh sterile hospital odor. I am ready to cause trouble, and as he walks into my room, I feign fever dreams. “Uncle Remus, come back, come back … Uncle Remus, come back …!”
He laughs so hard that he drops the bouquet of flowers he had been carrying. Sylvia tried to shush him, even as a couple of staff glance into my room and glare warningly.
He isn’t alone, either. Someone else has joined him for visitation, and now I know the object of his affection: Lydia King, a completely different Lydia King. She is nothing like the distant person I had known on the gigs. She seems a little shy, but for the first time, I see a genuine smile reach the corners of her eyes. I don’t know whether I am more surprised to see her or the fact that she and Raúl are hand in hand.
My first knee-jerk reaction is prejudice. After all, it was a Naga who rendered me this way. And then I remember the prejudice that caused the animal collector to kill his own daughter and break my pack-brother’s heart. I look at the peace on his features, a look I’ve never seen before. Then I turn my gaze to this woman who saved my life and I see the admiration for him in her eyes.
The Creole beauty sheds her aloof persona like an old skin, baring her true self to me for the first time. The real person turns out to be very warm and affectionate, revealing her emotions like an olive branch. Her voice is like lemon and honey as she gently informs me, “We now know that the Shifters are divided. Some have chosen to try to sell the rest of us out in exchange for their own protection, with an added bonus of heroin or cocaine. I am making reports and gathering information on these incidents. We are trying to figure out whom Calvin Quinn was connected to, as he is the shifter liaison between our traitors and the enemy, refusing to align himself with either. Naja Copperhead on the other hand was just a desperate addict, a crisis queen not capable of machinating more than musical dramas and getting her fixes. The shifter community might eventually forgive her, but the music scene will always regard her with suspicion. As for Sand, well … she was just a complete bitch.”
“I jeopardized all shifters …” I venture.
Lydia holds up a graceful hand. “Please do not blame yourself. There have been numerous attacks far and wide. We believe there may have been other shifters spying in their animal forms, especially if they are inconspicuous like insects, bats, or birds. High on the suspect list are migratory shifters, or ones that are common all over the North American continent and may have a network.”
Raúl beams proudly at his new companion. “The King family has done a lot over the years for social justice. The harvest moon will be upon us before we know it. Rowan has been keeping me informed of his plans for the rally. Now that one of our own has been harmed, we have more incentive than ever to give one hell of a musical showcase to send out our warnings, not just to other lycan packs, but to as many Shifters as possible. Also to let the traitors know that this will not be tolerated.”
The King family. Like regal king cobras, or the king snakes that kill and eat their venomous relatives? I have a dream that someday this won’t even matter. There is clearly a lot of emotional detox ahead for me. Tears slither down my face as I stretch out my arms and hug them both close to me. I can’t
stop crying, whether from shame or relief I have no clue.
A day later I am discharged. Sitting upright for the first time in my wheelchair, I am now strong enough to worry about how I am going to pay for the medical bills. A nurse seeks me out, as Sylvia is about to roll me to her car. He informs me that an anonymous benefactor has paid for all of my expenses, down to the last rubber glove. The only identifying information that can be disclosed to me is that this mystery person wanted to be known as simply “your guardian angel.”
Gabriel. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. He probably was wondering why I haven’t been on any gigs lately and could have easily found out which hospital held me.
I’ll deal with him later. For now, I just want to go home.
A cool hand on my brow, a soothing incantation, and the lights come on. I am lying in someone’s bed. A worried face hovers above my own. Familiar objects around the room begin to register in my mind, but it takes a while to realize that I am in my own tiny apartment and that the face belongs to Sylvia. It slowly seeps into my awareness that I have had another night terror. I take a deep breath and take in my surroundings. My clothes are hanging neatly on the rack across the bedroom, my Rush posters are exactly where I hung them all, and the doors to the bathroom and the kitchen are both cracked open to let some light through. Sylvia briefs me that various members of the pack have taken turns tidying my little place for me and there is enough food in my fridge to feed a pride of lions. I wonder if they just feel sorry for me.
“Sylvia,” I whimper, “is the pack going to get rid of me?”
“Shush now, don’t you be worrying about that,” she says firmly, sounding a bit like Father O’Flaherty for a second.
“My playing!” I sob. “I had no idea that my playing was so deplorable! All these years … why didn’t anyone ever tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?!?” I grip the sides of the bed to keep from lashing out.
My best friend cradles me to her without fear. “Breathe with me, dear heart. No one is getting rid of you. That’s the poison talking. They not only poisoned your blood and your body, they also poisoned your soul. Your self-esteem is sick. Even as you are too weak, you have to fight it anyway. What other choice do you have?”
“I could choose to not drag down the pack,” I moan.
My best friend is stern for once. “If you love the pack as much as you claim to, then you will heal. Remember how Jesus said, ‘Love you neighbor as yourself.’ Well, if you don’t love yourself, then you can’t very well love your neighbor, can you? I often wonder if that’s what He meant. You are bonded to this pack whether you feel worthy or not. We leave no soldier behind. Now are you going to help us and heal?”
I don’t think she’s even being rhetorical. I take a deep breath and look into her speckled green eyes. “I will try,” I promise. For now, that seems to be enough for us both.
CHAPTER
9
DOMINANT PREPARATION
Journal entry, August 29th: Force yourself into exile, and be free of this tyranny that you call your deepest wish. This is what I tell myself daily. It’s far easier to break a drug addiction than it is to break a thought addiction.
Home alone and self sufficient at last. I normally thrive in my solitude, but something in me has changed. Curled up in bed, neither sleep nor wakefulness claims me. I don’t know how long I remain in this state, but something needs to change. A push up with my forearms, and the rest of me follows in a disjointed follow-the-leader.
I drag myself to the bathroom, brace my hands on the sink, and examine my face in the mirror. My own appearance shocks me, but I shouldn’t have expected anything different. Dark circles ring my eyes, my hair is greasy, and I am now certain that the white slash across my lower lip will mar my face for the rest of my life.
I wonder if it will be visible in wolf form, and am reminded that I should attempt to shift. So I begin my Kundalini yoga and meditations in preparation.
I recall that Kundalini is sometimes called “Waking the Cobra” and recoil as if yanked from my state by a harsh elastic band. And then I experience subtler but infinitely more devastating recoil—for I realize with horror that I have developed a bitter prejudice.
Here in New Orleans, especially in the music scene, all races have to not only coexist, but also truly get along. I occasionally hear people denigrate the Deep South for presumed racism, but from my personal experience, we are all just bands in one fucked-up spectrum called the human race, and we have gigs to play.
Now I harbor the very thing that once infuriated me about others’ attitudes. Snake people. They can’t be trusted. One bite has poisoned my entire view. Can I overcome this? I reach for my phone.
Within half an hour, Raúl and Lydia are in my apartment, encircling me in their arms as hysterical sobs rack my body. Unable to look either of them in the eye, I can barely stammer my inner turmoil, overcome with shame and self-loathing. Fear or loathing of snakes has never in my life been an issue for me. Now being overcome with a generalization against an entire group of snake people is shaking me to the core.
My darkest question finally comes tearing from my throat, “Am I prejudiced?”
Raúl’s face is grim. “The fact that you are in such distress over this mind-sickness should be your answer, Little One,” he replies at last. “No, you are not prejudiced, but you must address this fear immediately.”
Lydia’s voice is warm and brimming with sympathy. “People develop fears of all kinds based on experiences, be these fears of ethnic groups, authorities who abuse their power, situations, and so on. Your task is to try to search your soul to a time before you had any such notions.”
They sing me through the Kundalini. I know that Raúl managed to overcome his fears in spite of terrible abuses that he suffered the last time he fell in love, so perhaps there is hope for me as well. Lydia is still practically a stranger to me, but I trust Raúl’s choice in her. I close my eyes and try to open my heart chakra, but it is still clamped shut in fear. This distresses me, for the heart is the gateway to consciousness: between animal and human. And fear is the base of all prejudice, like the discordant bass note that can drag down the entire song. Even still, they continue to sing healing.
Wolves and snakes. Two creatures vilified by the human race, yet so essential to the balance of life on this planet. I reach out to them, I trust them.
When I open my eyes I discover that they have both changed. Raúl is his exotic African lupine beauty and Lydia … is too lovely for words. Her coils are dazzling, black with shimmering gold flecks that form a pattern resembling hieroglyphics. Her large velvety eyes are rich with love, humility, and strength. Her exquisite human torso is smoothly muscled and well-defined, a warrior’s body. The glow that seems to radiate from her tawny-bronze skin draws us in. She wraps her arms around Raúl’s furry neck and cradles me in her smooth coils, letting her compassion flow over us both.
They comfort me and let me cry, let me laugh, and let me cry some more until all of my fear of the mortal coil has dissipated. We three form a nucleus of animal and human, wounded and healing. And letting go of all pretenses I sink into my wolf form, quieting the mental chatter that has plagued me for weeks and allowing myself to just be.
I would die for my brother Raúl. And I would likewise sacrifice myself for the mate he has chosen. I am proud to have her as part of my extended family. Even in the wake of my injury, someone I love has healed because of it. I hold a tiny morsel of hope that I too may be restored.
By now most of the pain in my body is mostly from depression, but it’s no easier to manage than physical damage. I have to regain some self-esteem, even if it only starts with a shower. I have a near aversion to the process, but the water and sweet smelling soaps dilute my thoughts. Perhaps my greatest source of relief is cutting my fingernails. Even on days I don’t have gigs, I can’t stand to have the tiniest bit of length getting in the way of my fingers, and by now I nearly have claws befitting a comic book werewolf.
Some women find long nails a mark of glamour, but they probably don’t understand that good chops are glamorous as well.
Physical beauty was never my attribute, and music is the only thing I’ve ever had going for me. So getting back to it has to be done, even if it’s by taking baby steps. If I can only make myself open one of my bass cases, I’ll have accomplished something today.
Which bass? I can’t even think. I don’t want to go on. I just want to sleep forever. The pack took my Rickenbacker to be repaired, but I can’t bring myself to look at it, not just yet.
I open my gig bag instead. My cable unrolls perfectly like a lasso. I know that style. Only Rowan could have done it. I am caught unprepared by a wave of love for him that nearly knocks me to my knees in spite of myself.
Courage fills me, and I assess my silent stringed minions again. My Music Man Stingray 5-string, perfect for reggae gigs. My 1961 Fender Precision, a must for studio sessions.
Do I dare …?
I take out my fretless Fodera six-string. I had inherited it from my late friend, Cajun bassist Jack “Tracas” Guilbeau. He was one of the kindest people I’d even known and one of many musicians of his generation to die of hepatitis-C. Trying to channel his love and support, a blanket of good energy seems to cocoon me. I could potentially play a range sweeping four octaves. And the lack of frets … I can bend the notes … a greater range of notes. Maybe even Turkish microtones.
I pick it up with reverence, the weight a sure sign of how badly my muscles have atrophied. My fingers graze the strings to play … and instantly burn as if my beloved instrument is plugged into an electric fence. What the hell?!?
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