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

by Tina Smith

  She waved and knew that she must have been a sight there in her underpants on the front verandah.

  Luckily it was only Karen from town. A friend Tisane didn’t particularly like all of the time, but in the country choice was limited. When Karen looked bemused, Tisane made an excuse that living in the bush you became a little too relaxed, and excused herself to put on some pants. Karen wasn’t fazed and had brought a peace offering of fruit in hopes of a chinwag. She invited herself in for tea and biscuits; she was one of those people who took a little too much liberty in stranger’s houses. Tis was just glad she kept busy, as she rattled her mind with reasons to oust her guest before the girl woke up. At the same time she couldn’t help coming up with horrid imaginary scenarios and feeling ever more certain the girl was dead which obviously made her complexion grow more pale and clammy.

  “You look peaked.” Karen tilted her head above her steaming tea.

  “Oh.” Tis wiped her brow and decided to go with it. “Mmmm, yes, I wasn’t feeling well when you arrived.” She sipped her Chamomile tea, cradling the cup too tightly and looked for her visitor’s reaction.

  “Have you been working yourself to death?”

  Tis almost shuddered thinking of the wheelbarrow “Ha, probably. Actually I think I need to lie down.” Nausea rose in her.

  “I think it’s this weather. Oh well, if there’s anything you need…”

  “Oh, no, no, no, I can look after myself you know, herbal brews and all.” She tried to smile but most likely looked more tense.

  “Would you like me to stay?” Karen offered, wide-eyed with concern.

  “No, no, no, really I just need a sleep…really, I’ll be fine tomorrow - women’s troubles you know?” she suggested a little too quickly.

  “Oh well yes, god…did you need a Panadol?” she offered, growing more concerned at Tisane’s pallor.

  “Oh, I’ve had one, Willow Bark, Cramp Bark.” She gestured to the kitchen. Tis rambled, “It’s fine, really I just need a lie down now.” She sighed and tried to hide her unsteady breath as she hoped Karen would leave.

  And after niceties and polite good-byes that were all too painfully drawn out as far as Tisane was concerned, she dared not glance at the wheelbarrow until the dust had trailed Karen’s car into the distance.

  Tisane hoped her captive was not stone cold dead. With panicky hands, she removed the skirt from over the girl’s body. Tisane’s heart skipped a beat and didn’t seem to resume beating until she was sure the girl was alive. Her body was cool to the touch, but she had a weak pulse and seemed to stir when Tisane touched her.

  “Oh, thank Christ you’re alive,” she whispered with such great relief at the child’s heartbeat that she felt as though she would collapse from the adrenalin.

  Tis began to rethink her plan. She dragged out a camp bed into the living area. Then she summoned her strength, picked her up, and managed to get the unconscious girl inside and onto the bed, though not as smoothly as she would have liked. The girl was thin and wiry but extremely muscular and sinewy, like a dancer.

  Tis spied the edge of a tattoo that made her blood run cold as she pulled back the sleeve. The black swirls waved up from the wrist to the forearm. This image stained in the childlike soft skin both scared and intrigued her, as she studied it. Under the girl’s forearm were little scars. Was she from the Cult? The symbol painted on doors and hung from windows meant protection. Why would a teenage girl need it scarred into her flesh? She stood back stunned as her blood seemed to drain from her face.

  About the girl’s neck she wore a dog tag. Tisane lifted it and ran her thumb over the numbers. Wiping away dirt from the metal, she slipped it off the child’s neck.

  The teenager stirred from the movement.

  Tisane glanced into her half open eyes - fern green eyes.

  “This is Artemis,” she said toward the unconscious girl, setting the necklace aside.

  “No.” The girl pushed her away limply, her lavender eyelids revealing the whites of her eyes.

  She wiped the girl’s pale clammy skin and stroked the greasy, knotted hair back from her face. With her head tilted Tis assessed her aura again from a distance. This colour was a good omen and it helped her decide not to be frightened – that and the symbol. The colour around her was green – the colour of abundant nature and balance - and pink and blue/violet, a very good aura to have. It was much like her own, if not duller. It had potential.

  She made soup and burnt Chamomile oil. She dabbed it on her pressure points for protection and muttered a spell to herself as positive reinforcement. She may need to keep active in case she had too much time to think about the situation and doubt herself. She glanced at the phone, wondering if she should call someone, then shelved the idea. She dressed the girl in an old T-shirt, pulling the cardigan carefully from her now completely unconscious guest, unzipping the satin strapless dress and pulling it down over her legs. She baulked to see a lump, realizing it was a flip knife tucked in her bra. Holding the handle between her forefinger and thumb, Tisane pulled it out and tucked it in her pocket. She noted the bruises all over the girl’s body before swathing her in the big T-shirt, and sitting a spare pair of jeans on the couch next to the camp bed. She used a cloth to cleanse the girl’s filthy hands, stopping to look over the tiny scars all over the opaque skin on the underside of her forearms. She laid the dog tag on the kitchen table, next to her tarot cards, and as a passing thought decided if she had a moment she should do a reading.

  Tisane turned her immediate attention towards the stove. In between stirring she checked the book again and reread her grandmother’s recipe for the sleeping herb mix and decided not to wait much longer for her guest to wake, in case she slipped too far away. She hurriedly began mixing a concoction of Kola Nut, Yarrow and Sarsaparilla in Prickly Ash oil to administer when she noticed her guest rousing. A panicked feeling encompassed her again, but she decided to wait. She entered the pantry, reached for the Lavender and Hops, and after a moment’s contemplation also the Valerian - either for the girl if she woke, or for herself, as she didn’t know how much more stress she could endure as her neck and shoulders tightened. Withania and Chamomile and Pulsatilla - definitely. She was rummaging in the pantry when she heard a creak and felt a cold hand around her neck and about her face. She dropped the chamomile bottle and it smashed on the slate floor, splashing the liquid contents over her feet. A hard whisper came at her neck.

  “Who are you?” it hissed.

  Adrenaline coursed through her veins. “Please, I mean you no harm,” Tisane pleaded in a shrill voice.

  “Then why did you poison me?” came the quick reply.

  “I had to speak to you,” she pleaded.

  “I was listening.” The cool breathe brushed her neck.

  “I needed to see you and hear you as well,” she urged softly.

  “Why?” the voice asked louder.

  “I was frightened - to know why you are here, and that you wouldn’t harm me.”

  “Where is my tag?” the voice cracked hoarsely from a dry throat.

  “My name is Tisane Hunter; I mean no harm to you. You are free to go - but no one knows you are here - and you are safe from me,” she assured her, with her head awkwardly frozen in the vice-like grip.

  The girl threw Tisane around to face her and she looked into the girl’s electric green eyes.

  “Where is my dog tag?” she threatened, gripping Tisane’s soft arms and glaring with her piercing gaze.

  Tisane swallowed. “The necklace is on the bench.” She pointed cautiously. “See.”

  The girl smiled and let her go, roughly. Tisane thought it was rather unnecessary until she realized it wasn’t ferocity, but clumsiness, that caused her guest to be so rough.

  Tis wondered momentarily if she should try and bolt.

  “Do you know who I am?” Following no immediate answer from Tis the girl raised her voice, scowling into Tisane’s face. “Do you know who I am?” She sounded aggressive but dr
owsy.

  Tis knew that she appeared noticeably jumpy. “I think I had a vi - a dream about you – I guess things.” Tis gestured at her pantry with her eyes. The girl looked at the walls of filled glass jars surrounding them, seeming not to focus on anything.

  Tisane saw the slowed reactions as the young woman looked angered, then bemused and then annoyed and confused. The poison hadn’t worn off; she was delirious, but not docile enough to be of no threat.

  “I was making soup, it’s just chicken and celery.”

  The girl looked out at the kitchen with wild eyes.

  “No one knows I am here?” she asked looking highly sceptical.

  “I swear on my life.”

  The girl smiled a defeated, slightly mad smirk and slumped back into the shelves a little too hard, still groggy, as the glassware clinked about.

  “What did you give me?” she muttered with her eyes half closed and fluttering against the soporific effects.

  “A mix, please sit down in the kitchen.” Tisane waited for a gesture of approval before daring to shuffle apprehensively after her.

  The girl nodded in agreement and stumbled out into the kitchen area like a drunken sailor. Tisane silently thanked the opiate mix and the Chamomile smashed on the pantry slate, which had blessed her as she swept the remaining sprigs of henbane from the bench into the bin hurriedly. She pulled out a chair for the staggering girl.

  25. Strange Angel

  The house smelt like a strange combination of food and some sharp odour - herbs of some sort.

  I reached for the shiny object on the table, and clumsily feeling about managed to touch the cold hard texture of the dog tag. I felt the coarse grains of glass beneath my feet and the cold solution that had been splashed over them and it stung the scratches. I nearly lost balance, swaying as I attempted to slide the object back over my head before I lost consciousness again.

  Then she poured a glass, in front of me on the table, and my eyelids opened again, to watch it fill. I could tell she was frightened, though she did her best to contain it. She stood rigidly as though waiting for instruction, as my head slumped.

  “It’s river water.” She touched my shoulder softly. I would have shrugged it off but it took all my strength not to slump over on the table again as it was. At my core I now felt like a sandbag weighed me to the chair and my limbs were like tentacles not of my control. It was a change from the strange floating sensation I’d had when I was walking, before I passed out on the riverbank.

  She then turned her attention to stirring the neglected pots on the stove and my stomach growled. I could smell the caramelized leeks. I salivated, having not even finished the meal left for me on the ground before the drug took hold. I had realized too late that there was something wrong - collapsing in the long grass. Were the police on their way, I wondered? I remembered the location of my weapons in the bush, and snuck a butter knife off the table-top as quietly as I could. Though her back was turned I suspected maybe she knew what I was up to. Oddly she asked if I liked music and switched the radio on. ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ was playing. She turned the volume down and adjusted the static with the dial.

  I had gripped her tight enough to know she was real, to feel the blood pulsing in her soft warm arms.

  She was not wolf though; I tried to smell it on her again and wondered if all the herbs had covered it. But she did smell strange, not human nor wolf, despite her long mane of wavy hair that was reminiscent of the beasts.

  She placed a hot bowl in front of me. My stomach ached for it. I watched her distrustfully. My face must have said everything.

  “It’s fine,” she whispered kindly.

  “Are the police on their way?” I croaked.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, ignoring my question. I didn’t answer her either, as the moist steam from the bowl below my nostrils enticed me. She was definitely too interested in the answer for me to feel like I should tell her. I guarded the reason I was here. Nothing would make me tell her the truth. I wasn’t going to go down easily, even if they were coming for me now. I wasn’t going to give up.

  Instead she answered with her own name.

  “Tis-ane.” Enunciating, she placed her pale hand over her chest.

  “It’s unusual.” I felt as though I was speaking to one of my mother’s friends, but I had the distinct feeling that though she dressed like a grandmother she wasn’t all that many years older than me. Her skin didn’t give her away, it was smooth even around her large watery eyes.

  She smiled, hopefully.

  I considered how the last meal went as I resisted the urge to fall asleep and the words slurred strangely from my mouth. “Did you drug me?”

  “I am sorry about that, you were frightening me.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “The police won’t come.” She carefully assessed my reaction now, sitting across from me at the wooden table.

  I lay down the spoon clumsily and looked at her, unimpressed with her lie. I was waiting for the sound of the sirens.

  “Now don’t you think it would be silly of me to call them, when I have just drugged you?” Her large eyes flickered naively.

  I picked up the spoon again and hesitated. “How do you know me?” I squinted, barely able to keep my heavy eyelids from making the world dark again.

  “I don’t,” she answered quickly, as she went to the bench and then turned back with a pot from the stove. I noticed her long pale fingers were chewed to the quick.

  I dropped the butter knife clumsily and it clanked on the wooden floor, startling her. I noticed her shaky hand as I ignored the fallen cutlery.

  “Who do you know by the name of L?” I squinted, unconvinced of her motives.

  She thought and then said knowingly. “You’ve read my note book.” She placed some of the contents of the steaming pot into a bowl. Setting the pot aside she moved and sat across from me and looked eagerly into my eyes, while holding her mug.

  “You are the one I’ve been seeing.” Her blue eyes scanned mine, she looked pleased, like a child who had found a new friend. Her chair creaked a little as she leant in as if to study me closer. “You’re hurt, aren’t you?” She stood up as though startled.

  I nodded, feeling unusually compliant. Scrambling through scrub and sleeping in trees for days, exposed to the cold had been uncomfortable to say the least.

  I watched as she then touched her side and her arm near the shoulder and one side of her wide hip in timid succession. Where the gun had pressed into my hip for days.

  All the places I ached more than others. I didn’t react though my heart almost fluttered. I began to feel woozy again, unsure of reality as the walls swayed. I picked up the spoon.

  “If this is poisoned…” I warned pulling the bowl closer and despite my better judgment I turned my eyes down and ate her food again. If I could have managed it, I would have run. But I knew I was done for and I was so hungry. This time I finished it without becoming dizzy. It was a heavy warm concoction filled with potato and salt. I ate it slowly, just in case, and I felt certain I would hurt her before I passed out this time.

  “See – safe,” she said sounding almost happy, taking the bowl to the sink when I was done. I felt as though I had drunk alcohol, as a warm feeling buzzed through me.

  “I’ll ask you this one more time,” I cautioned as I finished, licking the warm spoon. “Why were you on the road?”

  “Sometimes names come to me and when they do I write them down.” She looked down in thought. “Sometimes people, who I previously didn’t know, then come into my life with those names. It’s happened several times before,” She mused. “That book is my Grimoir.”

  “People like me?” I raised my eyebrow and now began to wonder if this was some other side to the world of the wolves, which I didn’t know about.

  She continued, “I know I seem – odd.” She looked sympathetic. “I wanted to help someone. But I want to assure you I am here to help you in whatever capacity that may be.” Her expression was gen
uine. Her messy hair stuck out around her face like a halo. She reminded me of a renaissance painting with her peaches and cream complexion, and dirty blonde hair. “I can help you.”

  She sounded like the counsellors at school and I was intently dubious of her then. But as though it was a bad habit, I nodded compliantly. My eyelids were becoming heavier, her face became Miss Bradshaw’s as I felt reality slip away. Just like that I was in a bad dream.

  Rousing again I fought the nothingness which was engulfing me. “When did you decide that?” I muttered unconvinced, trying to draw out any evasiveness from under her honest expression. I was running out of consciousness again.

  “Cresida…James do you know her?” I scowled. My voice had morphed into a deep droll. I struggled to act stronger than I was feeling. Her soft pale face looked blankly upon me.

  “No?” She replied, as if waiting to hear more.

  “Good.” That was all I needed right then; my weakened human body needed to recharge.

  Whether Cresida came now or not, I wasn’t sure I cared. Perhaps I would have complied if she did. This was something I hadn’t considered. Cres was the only one I knew who could have orchestrated this situation. I felt glad it was over, my belly full and now I let my body sink down to rest. I stumbled towards the couch in the living room.

  The witch’s soft hands were on me. I didn’t feel them until they had traced the slightly raised ink on my skin. She was warm; I looked at the fingers and suddenly saw Cres’s fingers. I pulled away as the walls distorted.

  “This is Artemis,” her thin lips whispered.

  “No.” I tried to shrug her off, as darkness swallowed me. I fell into unconsciousness.

  The girl, displayed a bemused confusion as she furrowed her brows, above cat like eyes, which turned up at Tisane but looked past her as she lolled about, off balance and dazed.