The Wolf With the Silver Blue Hands

by Eric Ellert

  "It is," the lama said, "my delight."

  He trotted off the pig ferry onto the shore and galloped to the lights of the old French manor house the water would swallow this evening. Already the beach had extended, already water flowed down the staircase.

  Rau put his infrared goggles on, Ike Eisenhower-era leftovers, pulled the spear from its scabbard and circled to the rear of the house. He came to the ledge and peered into the dining room. "How well they try to live."

  "You sound as if you envy them," the lama said

  "I do," he whispered. "Care to jump down there?"

  "Bad on the legs, be careful"

  "All I lack is time."

  Rau dismounted, slipped down the hill and peered into the window, the lamps so bright, the music so loud they could not guard themselves or did not care to.

  They'd dressed in their finest eveningwear from another time. The lady wolves in faded-gowns, big wigs, tall and curled, one outdoing another, everyone conversing at the long table, a feast piled high near to the tops of the candelabras, silver of course, for the perverse thrill of setting a dangerous table. Rau listened to the harpsichord play. He was about to crack the window pane but it had been such a lovely house once, so he opened the window and put one foot up on the windowsill.

  The conversation in the room halted.

  Rau pulled a silver dollar from his pocket, tossed it across the room. It landed in a big bowl of soup, turtle soup from the smell and half the diners cursed. The harpsichord played on, his brother in the far room, no doubt.

  Rau cleared his throat but none of the dark guests turned his way. "Tell the brother, the brother is here. The parade ground. I'll be on the north side of the flagpole. And the flag, I hope you took it down for the evening. It will surely be your last. And by the way, the Big Blue man is dead."

  One of the lady wolves lifted her hooped-skirt, crossed the room, brushed past all the guests' chairs and stopped just a few feet past the window. "I hope he cuts your gizzard out."

  Rau smiled, "As do I, Cecile"

  Cecile stepped back, puzzled at his answer then twitched her ears this way and that. The tap-tap sound of the lama kicking at the sandbags by the front stairs had been constant. She only appeared to hear the sound when it stopped.

  Water seeped under the door and under the baseboards. The door shook, burst open and water poured in. They froze for a moment, then one by one jumped up on the table before the silver-tinged water touched their feet.

  Cecile jumped on the ledge, stared at Rau, her claws extended then climbed up the wall. "It's over?" she asked "Isn't it Rau?"

  "It's the night of the triple moon."

  "I still hope it. I do, Rau, that he gets you and we get to eat you your beating heart." She shook for a moment then climbed up the trellis onto the roof.

  "One might go home, Cecile. If you don't take his part and gather by the flagpole when it's done. They might send someone for you."

  She laughed like an actress in a melodrama. "Ah, then it doesn't matter at all, does it? What we have done here will not be forgiven, nor can it be remembered. All parties will be relieved that we finally tore each other apart, since the pig man didn't come."

  "Either way, we won't meet like this again."

  "Would you care to kiss me Rau?"

  "I've not grown that soft or foolish, Cecile, but thank you for asking."

  He turned his back on her and walked the lama down the woodsy path leading from the back of the house to the south end of the field. He adjusted the lama's silver breastplate and head armor with the unicorn spike sticking out of the front and got on. "Do you smell that? The big blue man must have mowed the grass yesterday."

  "I suppose," the lama said.

  Hoofsteps approached and Kau appeared on a sweaty, charger, its hooves painted white, its odd blue and white coloring making it look gray in the twilight.

  "That's an Icelandic horse," the lama whispered. "Where did you get it?"

  Kau pulled the scabbard off his own spear. "Imagine they sent it from Iceland but I don't get out that much."

  Thunder rumbled close then far away and the clouds parted revealing a bright, clean moon.

  Kau looked up at the clear stars. "How did they manage that?"

  Rau smiled at the mechanical weather, wondering if all of this wasn't just for the Nord's amusement, those that lived so very high above them and so very far below them and so very back in time and one day all around them right here, as if their footsteps had just appeared in an earth their own and always their own."

  The lama twitched its ears and Rau listened closely; the other wolves had surrounded the field, hiding in the tree line, quiet as cats but smelling of perfume to hide the odor of the camphor on the clothing they had borrowed from the dead.

  "Hey, Kau."

  "Yes brother."

  "I was just thinking, the dead to go hell." He kicked the lama though, he never kicked it; the lama charged.

  Distance became warped in the red, infra-red world of Rau's goggles. The stars seemed to shake. Rau stood in the saddle then leaned forward, getting all the stabbing length from the spear he could.

  Kau was poised much the same.

  Rau knew he mustn't be fooled; it wasn't his brother, as brothers are brothers, Kau was a creature of the forest of the night and in that fact delighted.

  When he came within ten feet of him, the lama slipped, skidding on the grass and when their spears were five feet from one another, he had hadn't the speed.

  Kau, poised and tall in the saddle, grabbed the horse's reigns in his teeth and took the spear in two hand-paws.

  As they closed to killing distance, Rau pushed his weight forward, leaning to his left, swiping the spear over the lama's head then he dropped low, his head below the height of the lama's neck and kicked off.

  A bit of a second later, he stuck the spear into the horse's chest.

  It screamed, the sound as close to language as it might come. Its chest heaved into the air; its rear hooves skidded on the grass.

  Kau lay flat on the saddle. The saddle strap slipped and he fell to the horse's rear, then it fell back on top of him, rolling and kicking the air to get up, pinning Kau to the ground.

  The lama couldn't stop or turn away in time and leapt over the horse before it trampled it. With four hooves in the air, the talking werewolves cursing and screaming in the trees surrounding the parade ground, the stars turning from red to white as Rau's goggles flew off his face, he plunged the spear into his brother.

  Kau screamed for so long a bellows could not have held so much air.

  When the lama landed, it caught a hoof in the horse's reigns and tumbled.

  Rau fell through the air and landed in the grass staring at the stars, listening to his brother's last cries.

  When he recovered, he leapt to his feet, stepped over the dying horse and pulled his spear from Kau's chest.

  He stuck him again, leaning his weight on the spear, penetrating the Kevlar vest until he felt the quivering beats of Kau's cursed-heart vibrate through the spear.

  The horse managed to get to its feet and ran this way and that, fearing the smell of its own blood, the smell putting it to trot towards the reservoir then terror of the wolves of men causing it to choose another path, then another.

  Rau whistled and jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the water. It brushed past him as it ran.

  The lama hobbled around giving the wounded-wolf a wide berth.

  Rau took a look at the tree line. "Why not," he asked as the wolves of men refused to change. His last bit of energy drained from him, he thought of the blue sky outside the fence, that he had never seen and never would and he thought of the liars from home in the computer screen.

  Cecille cursed at him, smiled ruefully in apology and leapt from the roof into the water, burning, bubbling and turning into mud.

  "Don't," Rau said.

  Rau staggered around, wolves all around the wooded-edges of the parade ground. All the wasted years
tasted bitter in the blood he spit up on the ground.

  "Why not?" Kau asked, "finish it?"

  "I no longer wish to." Rau turned to go as the werewolves howled at the faltering, triple moons.

  The lama stopped walking, jumped in the air and spun around, sensing some animal danger, with a sense Rau did not possess and tried to push him to the ground but Kau's spear flew past it, struck him in the back, protruding from between his ribs.

  Of all the things to think with the moons above him and his feet slipping on the bloody grass, the steel was so sharp it didn't even hurt going in. Rau fell backwards, the thin blades breaking off with a snap.

  Kau stood above him, his foot on his shoulder.

  He'd cut his heart, blood spurted from beneath Rau's hands and in the moment he should be dying, he did not die.

  "You forget, we have two. Should have paid more attention in class. Are we not even? No not for the torn-up heart. I deserved that, for the horse." Kau leaned forward, their blood mixing. "Are we not men, after all and take when men take and bleed as men bleed and pay for what we take? There's your answer, Rau. The experiment complete. The doctors of Orion had lied after all, and the Greys. You at least, have a soul, after all."

  He staggered into the night, the clouds pouring down into earth in fog, the wolves of men wailing, dropping from the trees one by one and hiding further in the forest.

  Chapter 28

  "Hello, Cheri," Mrs. Rochambeau said to Moren. "You have brought the bad silver?" She howled, forcing Moren to howl, the sound horrible in her ears.

  "Enough, Cheri. It's not for you but your kindness was not wasted." She took a half step outside and peered left and right as if looking for nosy neighbors. "You have not killed yet?"

  "No. But the triple moon?"

  "Lovey, I am the queen of wolves. I say what the men of wolves can and cannot do, may and may not do, ought and ought not to do. "

  Mrs. Rochambeau closed her eyes; when she opened them again Moren was Moren again.

  "Thank you."

  Mrs. Rochambeau cackled. "I have anticipated your query. Take the car battery from the automobile in the garage."

  Ten minutes later, the loving cup sat in a washtub; two wires from the battery leading into the water had stripped all the silver plate from it. Mrs. Rochambeau muttered something in French and pointed at the water.

  Moren shook.

  "No."

  "You must." She closed her eyes, opened them and became the wolf again.

  Moren cried but pushed Mrs. Rochambeau's head under the water. Steam rose and bubbles came from her mouth and when she pulled herself up, her face was human again.

  "I don't understand."

  She smiled cruelly, cupped her hand and drank from the cup, some internal pain showing on her face. She whispered in a strange language. When it was done, she sat in her chair. "Now I am no longer the queen of wolves."

  "No?"

  "You are," Mrs. Rochambeau said.

  Moren wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run. She stared down at her hands, made silvery blue by the solution and thought of big, blue Shep.

  "Yes my son," she said, reading her mind.

  Moren had to think about it for a moment, and when she figured it out she wanted to cry. Faudron had been right, there was nothing good at all in this town. It rotted people from the outside in then the inside out. Small comfort knowing the silver water that waterlogged this place could no longer burn her. "And you are like them from, there," Moren said pointing up at the ceiling with two hands stupidly, like an animal might.

  "Oui."

  "So they caused the problem then blamed it on us."

  "Write your congressmen. Ask him for world peace while you're at it. Now, can you drive?"

  "No, yes, why?" Moren asked.

  "I must go to the Back Beyond and so must you."

  Something about the words sounded too permanent, as if it wasn't just another place, but another kind of place. "I can't."

  Mrs. Rochambeau looked this way and that. "Then just come to the fence and call your mother there." She leaned close and whispered, "Just through the fence, not over, not under but through, you'll find the past, and in it you'll find her. But not any past. No, the past re-written, re-written for us not you." She pushed her and laughed, then poked her again.

  "When in the past?" Moren asked.

  "Clever girl. It's a crap shoot but she is there and there you must flee. And I think, one might draw one to another, if there is any love at all."

  This town of liars, Moren did not trust her but even liars didn't lie at least once in a while. "I'll put the battery back in the car."

  Mrs. Rochambeau called after her, her voice pleasant again as if Moren had come to bring her supper. "I was thinking, after watching those videotapes you so kindly left me the other day. I would suggest that Emily join the Navy for a spell. You see, child actresses waste all those years playing some finer version of themselves, them being rather interesting for their age, but since their dreams have been achieved, what's left inside when they grow up isn't like that of their audience, so they have to remake themselves."

  "Please don't talk about that now?"

  Mrs. Rochambeau poked Moren. "But when they make the movie about you two, I want her to play you. The nice girl from Caprica with the big pimple can play Faudron. I think I'd like to see that movie. And Merly St.-Savou, should play Karen. That's what I would do. She was rather good in A Certain Soldier's Daughter, don't you think?"

  "Please shut up," Moren whispered.

  She grabbed the car keys from the kitchen table, followed Mrs. Rochambeau outside and opened the garage door. She got in the driver's seat but couldn't get a proper grip on the steering wheel and when she pulled the shifter, she bent it. She hadn't realized she was as a werewolf again. She held her breath and closed her eyes, but couldn't make it stop.

  Mrs. Rochambeau opened the door, tiptoed over the wet lawn and entered the garage. "Lovey you are the queen of wolves, be Moren once more. The dexterity of the fingers you see. It comes from your ancestors need to throw their own feces."

  Moren didn't do anything, but in a moment she was herself again.

  "Yes, yes that is better. The moon, the moons, have no power over you now."

  "And at the end of my world you give me gifts?"

  "Ah," Mrs. Rochambeau said. "S0 you know, you were the given-away daughter, not Faudron. How sad."

  Moren turned off the car and placed the keys on the dashboard. "To hell with you and all the Nords."

  Mrs. Rochambeau bunched up her fists and pounded the dashboard. "You do this for me; you do this now. I need to go from here before they come for me."

  "If that is true, then you must be hunted and slain. I looked in your painting. I know what you did."

  "I could 'a killed Kau."

  "You didn't because you're the same. I thought we were friends."

  "I was what I was. If you can't live with that then it isn't so. But will you help me? Do it for an old lady under a doctor's care."

  Moren didn't want to, but had a bad feeling Mrs. Rochambeau would take it out on Faudron if she didn't. "All right."

  ***

  They sped down the road, knicking the walls with the bumpers at every turn until the road faced a wire fence. Moren sped up and pointed the car's nose at it. Mrs. Rochambeau had a good memory and a bad sense of humor. This was like the last scene of Caprica. Robot girl, with no place to go rammed her car into a roadblock and broke like a crash dummy. "You got airbags? Doubt it."

  "Not here. No not ever there," Mrs. Rochambeau shouted as she grabbed the wheel and got Moren back on the road.

  Moren lost control of the car and a hundred yards later Mrs. Rochambeau reached her foot across Moren's and stepped on the breaks, stopping the car at the top of the reservoir's damn.

  The old concrete roadway was cracked; trees grew up out of the gaps between the wall stones. Far ahead, the lights of a highway beckoned.

  Mrs. R
ochambeau took Moren by the shoulder, calmer now, and kissed her on either cheek. She opened the car door, got out and stood on her tiptoes. "Do you hear that? The generators. Damn big things, I seen them put them in." She ran back and forth across the tarmac. Faudron wasn't sure if she wanted to jump into the fence or into the water, and wondered if she could still burn.

  Mrs. Rochambeau spread her arms out wide and was about to leap at the fence.

  "No," Moren shouted. "You can't do that."

  "No. Why not. I am the Queen of wolves." Then she sagged when she realized it was no longer so. "Nothing does work out for me, does it?"

  Moren got a tire iron from the trunk and tossed it at the fence. It stuck, fizzled and arc-welded sticking to the fence like a magnet.

  "What ever do we do?" Mrs. Rochambeau asked. Listening in two directions at once, her hands to her ears, as if she missed the lupine senses.

  Moren heard it too, the generators, deep inside the dam that fed the damn town power. She looked at the trees bouncing in the water and thought of how surprised Tree Pros would be when they never got their boat back.

  "It's under us. Kill them. Kill them all," Mrs. Rochambeau said. "Water won't burn you."

  "Promise."

  "But most certainly."

  "But your a liar, and a killer."

  "Then I promise- promise."

  Moren laughed. Mrs. Rochambeau was so awful, she liked her more and more.

  Moren leaned over the edge of the reservoir. The logs lay together like a walkway, the float balloons like blue pillows strapped to their center's. She jumped down, found her balance, lost it, leaped from log to log, then got the hang of it. Moren bent down and scratched at the nearest Kevlar bag, popping it. She jumped off the log as it sank and leapt to the next until six logs were down below the surface.

  She jumped back up to the dam, landed flat on her feet and fell. Smoke poured from the souls and the pain was intense, but something about the air soothed them and in a few seconds she could touch them, a few more seconds and she could stand.

  Mr. Rochambeau pointed at the deck and jumped up and down at the sound of the rumbling generators. "You stinking, little liar. Nothing happened. Why did you bring me here and waste all that time in the water."