I bowed again.
A breeze, not cold but vigorous, blew around the open window and seeing my slight shudder Lord Contarini stood to close it. “I hoped to compare notes upon the purification of base metals,” he continued. “Is this something that Lord Dannick shares with you?”
“Not at all, my lord,” I averred. “His interest is solely in the family history surrounding the tablet.”
“How did you meet?”
“I met his son at Cambridge, while studying at the university.” Not so much a lie, since the younger Lord Robert had gone to the university, and I had been employed to be his tutor and servant. “I had previously been the student of Sir Solomon Seabourne, the alchemist.”
“In truth?” The man seemed surprised. “I heard he had some success in making gold from the rotting carcasses of swans.”
“I am sworn to secrecy, my lord,” I said, but he was not fooled. I had left Seabourne’s employ to enter the house of Dr. Dee before Sir Solomon became unexpectedly wealthy. “But I can say it was not putrefaction, but purification that produced the transformation.”
“Really?” He pondered the point a long moment. “My own method is more an intervention of the spirits.” He swirled the wine around in his goblet. “My great-grandfather attempted the invocation of a demon within this very house.”
I was intrigued. Everyone knows that raising demons is almost always fatal.
He must have divined such from my expression, and laughed. “You are right, my young friend. It was a dangerous experiment. He filled a barrel with horse blood, thinking it cleaner than ox blood, called the demon into the circle and constrained it with spells. He must have got one wrong, at least, for the thing demanded human blood and when he would not oblige, it took the life of every last human in the castle.”
This is the kind of story I have heard several times. Raising demons is Satan’s work, though I thought it polite not to say so.
His eyes narrowed as he examined me, as if trying to divine my thoughts. “You question the legend?”
“If all humans died,” I asked, “how may the line of Contarini succeed to this day? Or the story be told?”
He smiled, showing his long, sharp-looking teeth. “It is said that in the distant past, the family was cursed by a witch, whose only son was slain by his overlord, for the crime of poaching. She cursed that no Contarini would father a son, into the third generation.”
As one who has lived in a world of queens, I knew the origins of such a myth. I supped a little on the bread, dipped in a bowl of a kind of soup or sauce. “What did your ancient ancestor do, my lord?”
“He set his three daughters to beget sons, as best they could. One daughter became so pious, she attracted the attention of one of the nephilim, a creature born of humans and angels. She bore twin sons, but they were disgusted by their human grandfather’s pride and sin, and flew away to heaven. The next daughter called upon Satan, debasing herself in his filthy cult, and was ravished by one of his demons. She bore a son, but he was appalled by the kindliness and virtues within his grandfather, and he was swallowed up by the ground and taken down to hell.”
“And then?”
“The youngest daughter went into the world and searched for an answer among the peasants to lift the curse. She worked as a swineherd and a dairymaid and a weaver, and she met all kinds of people. They were neither all good, nor all bad, she reasoned, and she would marry none of them. One day, walking in the woods collecting truffles, she was attacked by a pack of wolves. In her eyes, the leader seemed to shift, one minute a black-haired youth, the next, a dark wolf. In her terror, she swooned, falling upon the grass.
“She awoke, astonished to find she was still alive and had not been eaten, but her clothes had been disordered and she realized she had been ravished by the wolf. She gathered her torn clothes about her and returned to her family. There, months later, she gave birth to the first Baldassarre Contarini, my ancestor. Like the wolf, he was neither all virtue nor all sin.”
“So when the demon killed every human…?”
“He spared those of the wolf line. My father, his brothers, and myself, a baby in my mother’s dead arms.”
Chapter 27
PRESENT DAY: LAKE DISTRICT
It is the season of mating and growing, of pollen drifting and flowers opening to it. Everywhere life is expanding, thrusting into the soil, unfurling into the sky.
Mindful of the rage that was simmering inside her, Jack drove with exaggerated care and turned toward Grizedale Forest. Farmers had been working on the fields, shedding arcs of sculpted soil onto the roads. Jack could feel her heart banging in her chest. She felt completely alive and energized. She wound the window down, smelled the scents of the night, so vivid since she had been transformed by Felix’s blood. She could still remember the way it tasted, the way it roiled into her throat, thick and salty, and so hot. Paradoxically, she could also remember the way he kissed her, the scent of him, the feel of his hair sliding through her fingers. Her body was tingling, she wanted—Felix. She yanked the steering wheel around, driving the car onto the verge by the gate to the wolf research cabin. For a moment, she struggled to catch her breath. She leaned her head back and took a few moments to stop feeling and start thinking. It was time to resolve things with the professor because, she realized on a wave of warmth, it was Felix she wanted. But her body still opened the car door.
She stood by the vehicle, and fought the impulse to get back in and drive back. A sound made her lift her head.
It was a howl, but not a normal one, more like a yelp. Maybe the wolves were playing, maybe one had got a bit rough. The next yelp was definitely not playing, and she could hear something else—a man’s voice. The next sound made her vault over the gate and stride up the long path. The wolves started howling, more barking, she realized, than just trying to communicate. They sounded like they felt threatened.
The cold air seemed to prickle against her skin, she felt as if each step were bouncing against the packed earth, as if she had almost enough energy to fly. She started to run, the dark occasionally sending a branch or a puddle her way, but she seemed to know where they were, could brush them aside or leap over them. It felt like she was more alive than she had ever been, racing to protect the wolves, Sadie, everything.
He was standing where he had been earlier as if he’d been waiting there all the time. He had a bag of equipment in one hand, and a long pole in the other. She hit him at a full run, banging him against the wooden cladding of the building.
“What are you doing to those animals?” she snarled, both hands high on his chest, his arms splayed out as they hit the building. He dropped the equipment.
“You came back.” He grinned at her, the pale light from the windows gleaming off his teeth, his eyes.
She could feel her muscles soften, her mind become confused. He smelled like wood smoke and cold air and damp wool. And man. It was as if a switch had been thrown in her mind, the one that put Jack and her fears aside and instead gave her body control over her muscles.
Her body’s demands drew her up on tiptoes, reaching for that kiss to check it had really been that good.
It was. She had never liked being touched before, but now she just wanted to tear her clothes off, his clothes—it was new, and intoxicating. He seemed to know all the right things to do, how to kiss her, how to hold her. Her brain switched off and her body took over in a haze of sensation: the feel of his hair, the skin on his neck, the scent of him. At the same time, part of her retreated in confusion, revulsion at his stale smell, the rough way he handled her. The reality that he wasn’t Felix.
The spell was broken when he dragged her away from the cabin. “Come with me.” His breathing was as ragged as hers, but he stepped away and bent to pick something up. The long pole.
“What? Where?” She was still dazed when he took her hand in his and led her along the high fence. “No.”
“The enclosure.” He let go of her hand to fumble for
keys in his pocket, and unlocked the narrow gate. “You wanted to see the wolves.”
“But—” She allowed him to drag her in, lock the gate behind them. Reason started to creep back into her thoughts now he was a few feet away.
“It’s safe,” he said, as if answering the question forming in her mind. “They are scared of me. And this.” He waved the pole. “Cattle prod.”
That was like a bucket of cold water poured down her neck. She wiped her lips and noticed her hand was shaking. “Why are they scared of you?”
“I’m in charge, I collect all the samples.”
“You are bleeding the wolves for the Dannicks.” Jack could feel eyes watching her, making the hairs on her back prickle. “For some crazy ritual they believe will make them like wolves.”
“Skinwalkers, they call it.” He grinned, his hand finding her arm in the dark. “You should see them, it’s amazing.”
“You’ve seen them change?”
“There’s this ritual. They do something with the blood, smear themselves in it I think, and go into this animal state. Then they hunt.”
“Here?”
“No, this is too close to public land. They do it in their own forest, around the castle. They hunt, naked, like wild animals. Whatever they catch, they tear to pieces. They locked me in the basement of the castle last time, but I could see them going out, and when they came back—they were mad with it.”
Jack could feel the spell of his touch, his scent, starting to draw her back in, and wrenched herself out of his grasp. “I thought they just wanted to help the boy.”
“The hunt keeps them young, helps them be healthy. Maybe it would help the kid, though he seems pretty far gone to me.” This time he grabbed her hard enough to hurt her. “Never mind them, now it’s my turn.”
A small part of Jack started to panic, waves of fear creeping through the confidence that pushed him back with her own strength. “Let me out.”
“No chance. You came. I know what you want.”
This time she put some weight behind the push, shoving him away hard enough to fall onto one knee. He staggered to his feet, his breath whistling faster now. She started to move toward the gate.
The next moment something hit her in the face, a bang echoing inside her head and something smashing into her cheekbone. She spun as she fell and dropped face first onto long grass and mud.
It took a few seconds to realize he was sitting on her legs, tearing at her clothes. She tried to roll over but he was stronger and heavier. “No—stop,” she panted, struggling under him, feeling her waistband give way under his crawling fingers, the cold air creeping into the gap between her jeans and her jumper. She struggled, thinking feverishly for spells, wrestling moves, anything that might save her. He dragged her jeans down, and she struggled to push back onto all fours, to get away, anything.
This time, the blow was to the back of her head, and the world lit up with jagged flashes of light. She was stunned for a moment, coming around to realize her face was pressed into the mud. She was held by a hand on the back of her neck. She could barely turn her head an inch to breathe. The need to survive became more important than what he was doing. Fumbling with his belt, by the sound of it, grabbing her legs to pull them apart. She stopped fighting, and the grip on her neck relaxed for a moment. She pulled her head up, looking into the dark knowing they were there in the shadows, their eyes fixed not on her but on him. She whined, a tiny whimper of distress, the sound Ches would make if he was scared. It was answered by the deepest rumble of a growl from the darkness. She tried to kick the man off, but he was pinning her down, too excited to notice the sound building up around them.
She tried another whine, this time, short bursts of cries as she hyperventilated in her panic. Her senses, reaching into the dark, could feel the lead wolf, Desna, could smell his musk, his breath. He must be just a few feet away. For a moment she saw the flash of his teeth. It came as, despite her kicking, Powell managed to pin her legs apart.
As she braced herself to be raped, the wolf hit the man, the silent attack carrying Powell away from her. She rolled into a ball, sobbing with relief. She screamed, scrabbling around for a weapon, for her clothes. Jack struggled to all fours as the snap of a cattle prod was answered by a yelp, and the wolf fell back.
Powell staggered to his feet, waving the prod around him. “You bastards!” he shouted. Jack could see him holding his arm across his chest. “Try it if you dare, you useless mongrels!”
Jack grabbed at the jeans, still around one ankle, and pulled them up. She managed to stand although the pain in her face was lighting the dark with sparks when she moved.
She felt her way toward the fence, pressing her back into it. “Just let me go.”
“They won’t hurt me. They wouldn’t dare.” His voice started the growling again from all around. Jack could just make out the wolves in the starlight, the gleam of a canine tooth here, the flash of a tail there. They were circling to attack.
It came to her, even as fear started to inch her closer to the man and his flimsy defense. He had said it himself, she talked wolf. She started to creep back away from him, attracting the wolves herself.
“Don’t move. They’ll kill you,” he warned, but she ignored him, focusing on the lead animals. The male Desna was back, just behind the shoulder of the lead female.
She yipped, finding the sound under her tongue, the greeting of a wolf to its pack. The wolves froze, their sounds falling away. As she distanced herself from the man, she could see their focus return to him.
She started the growling, turning toward him and crouching forward, her whole body pointing at Powell. One by one, the animals joined her, the growling developing into the first excited yelps from the animal nearest to her.
When they attacked, the wolves hit him low, only the lead wolves snapping at his neck and face, but Jack dove for the lighter-colored cattle prod. Ripping it away from him, she staggered back to the fence as the yowling increased.
“Jack—” he screamed. “Help me!”
A part of her, even as it shivered in terror, wanted to help. Another thought, cool and logical, made her step toward the gate. The animals were in a frenzy, yapping and snarling, a dark shape of moving wolves where the man had stood. Another scream was cut off by a cracking, as if a bone had been shattered. She crept along the fence, feeling behind her as she kept an eye on the animals.
Shit, the keys. She looked at the cattle prod in her hands, and in a moment of disgust, threw it away, the sound of bushes swishing where it hit. The snarling stopped, and at least one of the shapes stood away from the silent body.
She stood, trying to project a calm she didn’t feel, the cold mud seeping into her clothes. One by one, the animals joined the first. She could see the lightest fur, just hints in the shadows, so the dark gap in the middle must be the big male. She couldn’t guess what they were thinking, her only experience was with a tame wolf hybrid. With a moment of clarity, she realized her best chance was to become one of the pack. She threw back her head, and as best she could, barked three times then launched into the howl. At first her voice cracked, she knew she had nothing like the animals’ volume, but took a deep breath, and started again. This time, one of the wolves joined in, then another started barking. Finally, she paused for breath and a deeper howl came from the dark shadow she assumed was one of the dominant wolves.
She assumed a less aggressive posture and started a greeting whimper, allowing the wolves to approach, the lead animals at first sniffing at her from a few feet away. She must be covered with Powell’s scent, she knew, as well as Ches’s. At least he had been neutered, so there was no testosterone to set off the pack leader. She sniffed back, getting the metallic scent of blood. Was Powell dead? A fleeting instinct made her breathe the intoxicating scent in again.
She started sidling back toward him, back to the keys. One wolf growled, but the others just watched, probably confused, she thought, at attacking their food supply as well as th
eir tormentor.
He was still alive, his breath coming in tiny gasps, but he didn’t seem able to respond to her. She reached her hand into his right jacket pocket, and her hand slid through the ripped cotton and into—some hot cavity inside the man’s abdomen. Fighting an alien urge to stop and lick her fingers, she retracted her hand, finding the keys tangled in the pocket lining.
She shook off the strange feeling and retreated along the fence, still watched closely by the wolves. She could see the forward ones now, they had stepped closer to the fence, boxing her in by the gate.
“Thank you” she said, unable to guess whether the tone of the words would help but hoping the change in body posture would reassure them.
Desna stepped forward, with the lead bitch—Chulyin—at his shoulder. Acting on impulse, Jack held out the back of her unbloodied hand for them to smell, and she was rewarded when Desna sniffed, then pulled back a little. She fumbled the key into the lock, the metal slipping in her gory hand. Sliding through the open gate, she clicked it quietly behind her and locked it, feeling sudden grief that she couldn’t let them out of their enclosure. Rational thought reminded her that seven wolves roaming free in the Lake District National Park wouldn’t last a week.
She staggered in the dark, slipping on mud, the adrenaline making her shake. She polished the keys on her sleeve to remove any trace of her own fingerprints, then tossed them over the fence by the gate. Perhaps people would think Powell had dropped them on the way in.
She stumbled down the footpath to the car, shivering, spooked at the sound of a branch snapping in the dense scrub beside the track. She scrambled over the gate, catching her knee on the top, starting to feel the bruises. The car was a welcome refuge, and she took a long moment to catch her breath and lock the door. She sat under the tiny glow of the interior light then picked up her phone, left on the front seat, but still no signal. Starting the car was reassuring, just the rumble of the engine and the flare of bright lights. She reversed onto the road and drove to the public car park and looked again at her phone. The number for the castle was easy to find.
The Secrets of Blood and Bone Page 20