Wolf Sirens Fever: Many are Born, Few are Reborn (Wolf Sirens #2)

by Tina Smith

  Jackson sprang back to life with as much violence as had rendered him bedridden when he fevered through the Aspirin and itched, as his skin seemed to contort and wave over his bones. And when he lifted on the 29th hour after the bite it was as though he had hatched from an egg, limber, energized and refreshed. Despite the contorted coma he had lain in for too long to placate Reid’s wrung nerves he emerged like a spring chick, completely unaware of the trauma his illness had inflicted on those who surrounded him. Mild discomfort and amnesia occupied the space where the experience had existed.

  Reid swallowed and called Jackson’s mother to explain her son’s absence and apologize, glad of her abuse.

  Jackson had become one of them in unconsciousness whilst teetering on the edge of death. Reid felt as though he had suffered the full ferocity of the venom himself.

  Reid was different, bulkier, and now Jackson morphed into a man two years before his classmates, surpassing even the most mature boys as his once thin legs thickened with muscle and his chest broadened. He was now part of the underworld.

  19. The Anesthetist

  Reid remembered his brother more than his parents could. Like anyone given half the chance to dull their pain, they had accepted the blank nothingness that Sam offered them.

  When his mother spoke to relatives and they mentioned her loss - which they rarely did - a vague memory would surface and sink again, but the part of her that wanted to forget was easily led and the crack that showed was ignored. There were the other boys she’d birthed and raised for a longer time. There was the house, her husband, the meals, Rusty the maimed cat and her community commitments, which were no doubt made easier to perform now they had all forgotten her son with Sam's help. The cracks had closed with the tennis club activities, her friends and the neighbours, who all too easily, under the lack of strong emotional ties, completely forgot the statistic in their midst, of that boy they knew and how sad it was.

  Sam fed on denial; it was her dark tool. Like a drug, she could administer it with proven effectiveness over the years, with increasing skill and perception. After a time she noticed Reid had not shown the signs, the all too common calling for her dosage to be given to numb the thoughts, take away the burgeoning pain he had never fully been allowed to acquire. She knew this meant one thing - he remembered and, like his pack brother, Sky, he knew better than to regress in her presence to the memory, but must hide it, like a hypnotized patient waking from a dream. So she played along as she had done with Sky, but she knew she could force him to forget completely just like all the others and with a little up-keep the missing boy would be a grain of sand in his memories. The others who knew him would recall only in old age as dementia set in, revealing it as one of many in the hourglass being turned. She read too much into the willingness of those who succumbed to her hypnotism, because most people didn’t fight her, couldn’t see her motives.

  She had, despite all pretences, no will to fully dominate the males of the pack, nor did she think it was worth the risk and effort to try. Canine species are eager to please, like humans, and respond to praise and reward. Her first instinct was to please. She didn’t want to be against a room full of her kind. Let them have their boys’ club and their fun, Sam thought. They’ll come back to me when they are ready.

  Werewolves have plenty of time on their hands. Immortality can make you complacent. What was a little freedom given to the members of her pack in the scheme of things? Perhaps it would return their loyalty or prove just how dedicated they could be, uncontrolled by her trick. That way she would know whom to trust before she dolled out the full force of her gift - and she intended to, using punishment as an excuse to make them dull and placid to her whim. But for now let them have their fun and games, she mused. Maybe it was fate and unavoidable, but this ‘kindness’ would contribute to her downfall. For Sam had deluded herself into egocentric complacency. She assumed too much, because she was very clever. That mistake sparked a rebellion devised by the higher powers-that-be, severely debunking her arrogant and complacent parental pride.

  Mrs Thompson was a very good teacher in her day, strict, but well respected. Her invalid twin sister had been her parent’s joy and all their energy had focused on her, since the accident. Identical twins Amy and Samantha Thompson had been close all their lives but only Samantha had married. When their parents died, Samantha generously took her sister Amy into her home, but laid down the law early. She was to clean and cook and deal with the daily chores from the confines of the chair - because Sam worked.

  Mrs Thompson’s only daughter had moved away and her son had died years earlier, effectively ending her marriage. She was bitter about this, angry and intent on punishing those around her, including her invalid sister.

  When a student in Mrs Thompson’s troupe at the high school named Lily Page went missing frequently, she suspected the girl was in trouble. Lily was an only child of a very Christian family. Mrs Thompson suspected something was very wrong and wondered if the father was to blame. And in an act of charity she made Lily an offer to stay in her home. Perhaps it was compensation for the failure of her relationship with her own daughter, which prompted her to intervene in the situation. And of course the notoriety it would bring. She thought how charitable she would look for opening her home. Not to mention what it would be like to have the love of another girl who would respect her, thereby exonerating her of any evidence of bad mothering towards her own daughter, who refused to speak to her. Offering Lily a safe house and taking in her own crippled twin sister were all irrefutable evidence of her good standing and worthiness.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t as easy as all that. Despite locks on the doors, strict curfews and clear rules the girl continued to act out, in spite of genuine pleas for her to conform. The teenager would disappear like lightening in the night, breaking the deadbolts from the doorframes like they were putty. So Samantha Thompson spied on her, took notice of small things, and followed her. Then watched in disbelief as she morphed into a dog, snarling and wild. Mrs Thompson took a stiff drink that night and watched the girl’s behaviour as she disregarded her strict rules. The next morning as Lily came through the door Samantha caught her arm tightly. Lily instantly registered that her teacher’s breathe smelt of rum.

  “What the hell are you!?” Samantha hissed, her eyes a mixture of terror and disbelief, her body rigid. Years of cigarette smoking had not affected her fitness. She had always been an active woman. Smoking helped keep the weight down, but the muscle strength was from basketball, and being a gym teacher. She had practiced what she preached, though her skin had thinned and sagged over the muscle as it tensed.

  The girl knew she was done for. She considered whether to flee or fight. Samantha’s grip was sturdy, painfully so, and her first impulse was to fight and bite. There was a wild look in her teacher’s eye, which scared her. Lily had dirt on her face and under her nails from burying the remnants of her latest kill and her dark red hair was messy and knotted. Her first thought was of her parents. The way their faces had looked, what they had thought, seeing her like this, seeing her in this state. What they assumed couldn’t have been further from the truth, but just as terrifying. It had been easier to let them think it was true that she was a filthy slut, a whore. Perhaps psychotic or on those new illegal drugs. Involved in gang rapes and crime - even possessed by the devil, though they would be too ashamed to admit it. They perhaps thought that’s what it was: possession. Her father had brought in a priest but to her surprise, was too ashamed to divulge the truth even to a man of the cloth. He’d simply asked him to inspect his daughter - and home, for signs of the devil. They were the first to realize something was wrong and the last people to do anything about it. They felt responsible but didn’t want to be blamed for their daughter’s condition. Perhaps her father hoped he wouldn’t have to say what he had feared: the priest discovering the devil flying in their house like a poltergeist possessing their daughter. As strange as it seemed, this is what he wished for - to explain
the mess. But after the priest had left as quietly as he had come her father tried to conjure the dark spirit himself out of his daughter, and her mother wondered if it was her husband and herself that were crazy as she sniffed into her tissue. For Lily that was the final straw: her father trying to shake the devil out of her, his only child. Though she could have used enough force, not only to release herself but throw him like a rag doll, she simply let him beat her and listened to him cry for mercy at what he had done.

  That night she gathered some of her things and never returned, passing the dent in the wall where her father had rattled her. The purple bruises turned yellow and green on her pale skin, healing as she fled the mauve house. She wanted to find a cure. Running out through the front door she would have easily thrown anyone who got in her way. Lily ran out into the bush with duffle a bag strapped on her shoulder and left all her memories behind. At that time she still hoped to return, hoping to find them, the ones who had done this to her and while her parents’ shame had stopped them from reaching out and causing gossip, she was safe from head-hunters. She didn’t know where to find the boy who had done this to her, whom she had let touch her like no other boy had before. She didn’t know who he was. He had simply materialized at the party long enough to find a meal and get called away, before he could finish her, by his equally handsome friends who then vanished into the night. Leaving her in the wet grass writhing in pain for the sheriff and his boys to find with flashlights in the lightly falling rain. They had broken up the party due to a noise complaint, a complaint that had saved her life and destroyed it at the same time.

  She was brought in suffering with the fever in the remnants of her witch’s costume, with bare feet. Her parents promptly put her to bed after the wounds were bandaged and said they would call for a private doctor, considering the circumstances, and never did.

  Mrs Thompson’s tight grip on her pale arm surprised her, but not as much as her next words.

  “Bite me.”

  Her brow furrowed in disbelief that anyone would want to be a deathly creature cursed to an eternity in hell, like her. She had eaten the cats - all the cats in the neighbourhood once she’d had a taste of one, a deer on a naive exploration into the bush - in a feeble search for the boy who had changed her, in a desperate attempt far too many months later to even find a trace…and a small dog. She had not yet consciously struck a human but after what she had just done out there in the dirt…

  She knew enough not to ask twice in case Mrs Thompson changed her mind. Lily knew she needed help. She had begged in silence for this so many times - someone on her side. A wolf isn’t a lone creature by nature and neither is a sheltered girl tossed out into the cold. Lily sniffed, letting the blue vein in her neck and the flesh smell entice her, though she wasn’t hungry due to her very recent kill. She shivered and morphed. In a blink the hot breath of the giant dog misted over Samantha Thompson’s face.

  Mrs Thompson’s instant reflex was to let go of where she gripped the hairy monster. Horrified, she began desperately stumbling backward at the guttural growl escaping from its ravenous mouth. The wolf grabbed her by the foot as she stumbled backwards. Its teeth piercing the skin, she screamed instantly and despite her request – struggled cowardly, twisting her body and flailing her arms, noises which would have surely woken her twin sister, Amy. The creature’s huge incisors clamped down and she screamed louder. Lily was only making sure it was done.

  She didn’t know how long or how hard to bite to inject the venom - or whatever it was which had to be transferred to her. Immediately after she had done so, she morphed back into a quivering pale girl and pressed her palm over Mrs Thompson’s mouth.

  “Shhhh,” Lily’s pleading eyes began to glaze with moisture, “please, be quiet.” She feared the neighbours would be on their way over, possibly armed.

  Lily dragged her up the stairs leaving scrape marks and smeared droplets of blood along the carpet, as the damaged ankle dragged. Meanwhile the invalid sister clambered into her wheelchair in her room on the bottom floor, yelling her sister’s name.

  “Sam, Sam! What’s wrong!”

  Once Mrs Thompson was safely upstairs in the bedroom, Lily flew downstairs again. Mrs Thompson’s sister, upon seeing the girl appear, edged back in her wheelchair. Lily recognized she was frightened, she could - smell it. She hadn’t had time to notice the blood on her chin, a sight that had instantly struck absolute terror in Amy’s eyes.

  “Where is she, you devil?” She waved her finger at the girl. Lily approached but went towards the wall and Amy winced as Lily pulled the phone cable out of the plaster wall beside her.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Amy, she just fell and hurt herself.” She turned, cord in hand, and halted on the stairs mid thought. “Don’t you go anywhere - stay quiet, she’ll be alright.” But her words were harsh and unnatural to her own ears and her green eyes dull. She walked along the blood-smattered carpet, which Amy noted with wide-eyed horror. Somewhere inside Lily, the little girl who had done her Holy Communion, wondered where these words were coming from. She checked on Mrs Thompson in the upstairs room. She hadn’t moved from where Lily had left her. Immediately she was frightened.

  “Are you alive?” she whispered, wide-eyed. “You asked me to do it.” Then low, when all she received was a stiff nod,“I’ll just be a minute, alright?” She sprinted down the stairs and with two kicks crippled the wheelchair under the escaping Amy, sticking her to the spot halfway to the backdoor. Lily turned the broken chair around to face the front door, roughly like a disgruntled carer would a toddler, though Amy was full grown and far from slight. “If anyone knocks tell them you’re alright, and to please go away.” She spoke hard, but the good girl in her hadn’t forgotten to be polite. “Thank you Amy,” though it had a hard edge.

  Amy instantly knew what she had suspected. Something was very wrong. Perhaps this girl was the devil. She was a stubborn older woman who had thus far been rattled, but now she was petrified.

  “And don’t try to cry out,” Lily said turning up the stairs, “or you’ll be sorry.”

  Mrs Thompson wasn’t any better the entire day. Lily tried to remember from her experience how long had it been, before the fever broke.

  “Shh,” she soothed, patting Samantha’s head with a wet cloth. The carpet under her was wet with sweat. She picked Mrs Thompson up with little effort and swung her gently down onto the bed.

  Lily’s ears pricked when she heard the familiar creek of the backdoor, faint and slow from downstairs. She turned and dashed back down the stairway, realizing what had to be done - she had a problem. Amy Thompson could only be subdued for so long, but how long before she managed to get a message out or a cry for help? How long before she knew too much? And though Lily had been hardened by the last few months, she couldn’t murder like this, not premeditated, and she did not yet realize that her venom would restore Amy’s legs, so naive was she. She knew she owed it to the world to protect the other humans from her creation, the way she had avoided attacking a human herself. It would be her penance for being greedy enough to let herself infect someone else, because she was lonely. The little girl inside her was lost, then.

  In the end it was her sister who would attempt to finish Amy off. They’d agreed to tie Amy up in the broken metal alloy wheelchair. Lily did it with torn curtains from upstairs and they left her there. Amy struggled all night and she managed to crawl out, untying the threads of shredded curtain and dragging herself on her elbows to the shed where she dug out her dead father’s rifle and three bullets from an old wooden chest. Amy waited like a sniper at the front window for their return. The dog that had hurt her sister was her aim. She let out two clear shots ‘crack, crack’ in the dim light of dawn. The creature fell injured but only one of the shots had hit the wolf in the shoulder. It slumped into the grass of the unmown lawn. Another huge dog appeared beside it. She watched as it sniffed and growled angrily in her direction through a plume of steam radiating from its jagged mouth. The glowering blu
e eyes of the beast seemed to instantly meet hers through the window. Amy struggled away. She hadn’t imagined there was any more than one creature. Trying to reload the gun, she shook with panic as the blood drained from her clammy face. The beast tore through the window showering the room with glass. She closed her eyes in a reflex action to protect them. The dog began to tear at her flesh and she knew with terror she was about to die.

  Samantha struck out at her sister but as she tore through the window Lily, furious, phased instinctively into weak human form on the lawn, temporarily faint from the pain. She stumbled through the door, holding her shoulder as she recovered from the shock. She looked upon Samantha attacking the crippled Amy in a hail of glass and blood. Helpless, Amy vacantly glared at her. Lily glowered and shook until she morphed into a writhing ball of fur and lunged at them. Lily crashed into Samantha and tore her to bits. Amy had tried to kill them with her rifle. Lily’s split second decision to attack Sam instead of Amy changed everything. What she didn’t realize was that Sam wasn’t as bad a person as Amy was. Amy had become bitter and vengeful trapped in her chair. She was nasty and hate-filled, capable of far more than Sam. She was more damaged, and angrier - with a keen survival instinct. Sam’s attack had almost fatally damaged Amy. Her body convulsed and fevered like her sister’s had only days before and Lily knew she had done the wrong thing. A crippled wolf would be more trouble, if she survived - and worse, her teacher was dead. But the woman, Amy, in the wheelchair wasn’t done for. She’d been badly hurt but her wounds weren’t bad enough to kill her before the fever infected her flesh, regenerating her cells under the moonlight.