by Kayle Wolf
And he couldn’t afford that. Not now. Not now that his whole life had narrowed down to one single, burning point of focus. There was nothing left but revenge. Nothing left but the hunt, the kill. Find who did this. Bring them to justice. Perhaps he’d even trouble himself to find out why they’d done it—but he could think of plenty of reasons. He’d had a lifetime to come to grips with the fact that plenty of people thought he and his would be better off dead. He moved through the kitchen like a robot after brushing Levi’s blue eyes shut with one hand that trembled, only a little bit. There was another tablecloth in the linen drawer—he lay Levi out on the kitchen floor, and after a moment’s consideration, put back the tablecloth he’d chosen. Too drab. Levi had loved colors, adored them, obsessed over them. He’d have eaten yellow paint like Van Gogh if he’d been able to. A sunshine-yellow tablecloth, removed from regular circulation as it was easily stained. Well, Levi would have loved the stains. Happy accidents were eighty percent of art, he was always saying. Art tried not to notice the way the blood soaked through the yellow tablecloth’s fabric.
He moved past the painting on the wall that those careful hands of Levi’s had painted, so long ago. Found Nell lying face-down on top of a shotgun, huge rents torn in her back. Had she fired the gun before whoever it had been had snuck up on her? The back door was standing open, and as Art moved towards it, he realized what must have happened. Multiple attackers. One through the front door, one through the back. They locked the doors when they went to bed, but never during the day. Had the attackers known that? They’d certainly burst through the front door with enough force to send poor Charlie flying.
He didn’t want to go upstairs. He knew what he was going to find there. He knew who he was going to find there. There was still hope, in a remote part of his mind, that Eric and Yasmin had gotten away—they so often spent the afternoons in the barn together, Eric playing guitar, Yasmin singing, ever since Mel had threatened to turn Wild in the dining room if Eric insisted on playing inside ever again. The threat had been taken seriously. Nell was rather attached to her kitchenware. But perhaps they’d been there. Perhaps they’d seen the attackers, known to steer clear. Perhaps they hadn’t seen them at all and were on their way back now. But the night sky was dark. They both knew better than to stay out after dark. He had to be prepared to have lost them, too.
Upstairs. His feet didn’t want to climb, but he made them. Upstairs, where Noah meditated. Upstairs, where every door stood wide open—because what secrets could they have from each other? Art didn’t let himself look into each door as he passed. There was only so much he could take. But glimpses burned themselves into his mind regardless—Levi’s easel, Mel’s punching bag, Jesse’s band posters, Nell’s shelf of esoteric herbal remedies. Charlie’s room wasn’t even set up yet—it was so sparse, so empty, though they’d managed to find her a bedspread in her favorite color, at least. Sky blue. When they’d shown her, she’d clutched it in her two tiny fists and smiled the first real smile they’d seen from her in the two months since she’d come to stay there. Charlie York. She was going to be okay, they’d thought, seeing that smile.
And at the end of the hallway—Noah’s room. The door had been torn from its hinges—he noticed that first. Next, he saw the state the room was in. Noah’s old chest of drawers, splintered and destroyed, clothes strewn across the room. His single mattress torn, stuffing littering the floor. Blood—a lot of blood, more blood than one man could bleed. There had been a fight here, and not between humans. But it was a human shape that lay on the floor as if it were resting. A human shape, still wearing the knee-length duster that he’d worn every day Art had known him.
He’d betrayed himself, in the end, broken his one law in an attempt to save them. And it hadn’t been enough. Even the Wild form hadn’t saved them. By the wall, torn only a little, was an old quilt, mottled and ugly, each patch mismatched and wildly different in style. Art gathered it up and wrapped the old man’s body in it. The tremble in his hands seemed to have spread to his whole body now, and the ice that had filled his chest, heart, and mind was thick. His hand brushed across the patch he’d made for the quilt, the patch Yasmin had made, the patch Jesse had finished only last week and ceremoniously attached. A patch for every member of their family. He’d always wanted to ask Noah who had sewed all the other patches—there were far more than nine. Now he’d never know.
He left Noah there and walked back down the hallway, stopping only to pull Charlie’s sky-blue blanket from her bed. She was exactly where he’d left her, lying in the front hallway, her eyes closed. He wrapped her tiny body in the blue blanket then scooped her up and carried her to the living room, lay her down on the other couch, opposite Jesse. She’d loved Jesse. He’d surprised them all, their surly teenaged member, by drawing her attention and holding it, treating her with unbelievable kindness that had drawn her out of her timid shell more than any of them had dreamed possible.
Then he’d walked down to the barn. He’d found six of his family. He needed to lay eyes on the other two. And there they were, together in the hay, their bloodied fingertips touching. He stared down at them for a long time. Yasmin, their half-savage miracle, who’d found them after a whole childhood living alone in the wild. And Eric, his best friend, his partner in crime, his brother in everything but blood. More important things than blood. Art stared down at them for a long time, glad—if he could be glad at all, if he could feel any emotion at all but ice and cold and howling empty wind—glad, at least, that they had been together when their throats had been cut.
Then he pulled the matches from his pocket. His instructions had been clear. They’d all known—since the beginning—what to do if this day came.
He’d just never thought he’d be the one to do it. And he’d never thought he’d be alone.
The flames were climbing high into the sky by the time he climbed back into the old pickup truck and started the engine. He didn’t look back as he drove down the winding road for the last time. The barn was ablaze, as were all the sheds and the homestead itself. Nothing would be recoverable. Maybe some bones, in the ashes. The cops would be scratching their heads for years, if they managed to identify anyone, that was. But they wouldn’t find him. Not before he did what he needed to do. Not before he found the murderer, and put an end to them. He had enough information to go on, and absolutely nothing to lose.
Arthur York, the perfect weapon.
***
Three days later, in a run-down motel he’d paid for with the wad of cash that had been stashed in their ‘in case of emergencies’ case, he calmly and methodically closed all the doors and windows, set a timer for forty-five minutes, and cried until the buzzer went off. Then he restored his icy composure and went to bed.
Bars were the first step. There was an amazing amount of information to be gleaned by just sitting in a bar and keeping your ears open. And Art was a pretty average looking guy when he wanted to be—medium brown hair that he kept cropped close to his head, dark brown eyes, handsome in that rough, rugged kind of way common to men who spent a lot of time outdoors. If a girl were looking for trouble, she might gravitate his way—but otherwise, he blended seamlessly into a crowd. Just your average American guy.
At least, he was when he was sitting down. On his feet he was closer to seven feet than six—whether that was a gift or a curse was hard to say. His whole family ran on the tall side, though he loomed above them all. Perhaps it was something to do with their bloodline, or their species, or whatever you wanted to call it. He didn’t remember his parents very well, but he didn’t think either of them had been noticeably tall—no taller than any adult was when you were six years old, of course. But he’d grown like a weed, and kept growing right through his teenage years. Nell had always cooked twice as much food as she thought he’d need, just in case he woke up hungry in the night. And he’d filled out as he grew, too—Art was no string bean, that was for sure. Whenever he left York, his habit was to slouch, just to take the edge o
ff his rather intimidating presence. It wasn’t in his interest to be recognized or remembered.
So he found himself on a Sunday night, sitting in a dingy little dive bar in a town about twenty miles from where his home had been. Two weeks since the attack, since the fire, and there’d been nothing in the news about it. Art knew that was good, but he could feel a tell-tale gnawing of anger at the back of his mind. Nobody had noticed. Eight people killed, and nobody had paid any heed. County cops, he supposed. Montana wasn’t exactly the crime capital of America, but a fire that size with eight bodies uncovered in the wreckage… surely there’d have been something, some kind of investigation or at least a news report. Why was it needling him, he wondered, maintaining the distance from his own emotions that Noah had taught him all those years ago. Probing at his own mind with a detached curiosity, like a scientist might prod at a dissected frog. Not getting caught up, just wondering. Why did it bother him that nobody seemed to have noticed the deaths of his family? That had been what he’d wanted. They’d always agreed—in the event of a calamity like the one that had befallen them, no news was good news. The less the world knew about them all, the better.
Especially since every single one of them had been reported missing or dead in their home state. The cops would be tangled up for years if even one of the bodies was identified. So Art should be glad of no news… but still, something about it kept on prickling. It just seemed so strange. The smoke had billowed into the sky for hours… had nobody investigated? Their community had been remote, but not that remote. Clearly not remote enough that whoever had attacked them couldn’t find it.
There. That was the problem. The attacker—or the attackers, he reflected. At least three, maybe more, depending on how strong they were—and they’d have to be pretty strong to have taken down Noah in full Wild state. If they were that strong, that organized, wasn’t it possible that they could have ties to the police department? The ability to conduct a kind of cover-up, make sure certain questions didn’t get asked and certain information didn’t get out? If that was the case, they’d done Art a favor—but still, it ground on his nerves. No cops meant that only Art was looking for the killers. It was all down to him to make sure they saw justice. That meant he could be as savage as he liked, which was good… but it was galling to have yet another reminder that the world, in general, didn’t care what happened to people like him. People like his family.
Something told him he was in the right place, although business was slow, so he stayed at the bar with his head lowered as the place filled up. Nothing unusual about that—a man in jeans, a plaid shirt, and a dusty old jacket, a hat pulled low over his eyes. Bars were full of men just like him, and his body language succeeded in driving away anyone who might want to join him. He sat, hunkered over his beer, his focus filling the space. He was working against the tinny pop music coming from the jukebox in the corner, but Noah had taught him to filter out distractions like that. With a calm and empty mind, he could hear every conversation in the bar, or thereabouts. Especially when it was quiet.
Most of the conversations were boring. Small town tales of love, loss, betrayal, tragedy. Lost jobs, lost loves, family conflict—he kept abreast of it all but assigned it a low priority. It was about eleven by the time his interest was piqued. Amid a half-dozen conversations about sports, women, money, or politics, one word stood out like a sore thumb. Art had to control his impulse to leap up when he heard it, channeling the rush of adrenalin to calm his mind even further. Discipline. Focus. Would they say it again?
“—a dozen shifters signed up for the fights already—”
There. That word. Spoken in a low voice, as though the speaker was gritting his teeth around it, making sure it wouldn’t be overheard. Shifter. Not that any human in Montana would know what that meant, of course, but they were a secretive bunch. He knew enough from Noah’s lessons and from Nell’s stories of the bad old days to know that he was probably listening to wolves. If not wolves, then it was dragons. The likelihood of the shifters being like him… well, the odds weren’t good. Compared to wolves and—he assumed—dragons, there were preciously few of Art’s people around. Nell had contacts and networks that reached across most of the northern US, and it was that network that had brought their little family together. It was possible there were more out there, of course. But their people didn’t last long on their own.
Dragons. He still remembered the scorn and disbelief that had hit him when Noah had told him about dragons. Not only real but alive and living amongst them. He’d resisted—told him they were fairytales, that all this shifter stuff was stupid enough without adding mythical creatures to the mix. But Noah had been infinitely patient. He’d always been patient. Art felt his hands start to tremble around his beer, and he closed that particular door of reflection firmly.
By the end of the conversation, he had a time, a place, and a contact. Some kind of festival that took place once a century, to be held on some sprawling property up in the mountains a hundred miles or so away. Typical shifter move, building little settlements that humans didn’t know about, keeping themselves off the map at all costs. It had been what Noah and Nell had done, all those years ago. It was getting harder, the more technology advanced, but there were still pockets of communities unknown to anyone but shifters. The men he’d heard talking had called it ‘the village,’ and though they hadn’t mentioned it by name, one had given the other directions there. Stupid of him, really, in a crowded bar like this—but what interest would a human have in some run-down old settlement in the mountains? And sure enough, nobody in the bar seemed interested in what the two men in the corner had to say.
The only other point of interest in the conversation had been a brief reference to someone they called King—whether that was a name or an actual title, Art wasn’t sure, but they’d mentioned that the man had been hunting. Of course, it was more than likely they were talking about wild animals … but something about the tone just pinged on his radar. Hunting. There had been something so calculated, so targeted, so mercenary about the way his family had been executed—methodically, one by one, like flushing out a nest of vermin. They’d moved fast—fast enough that nobody downstairs had shifted before the slaughter began. Only Noah had made it that far—and no human would have been able to contend with that.
It wasn’t much to go on, but it was more than he’d had for two weeks. Art drained his beer and ordered another, waited for the men to leave, then gave it another hour, just in case. At closing time he wandered into the street, his mind only a little clouded by the half-dozen beers he’d nursed throughout the evening. Benefits of a large frame. Then he headed back to the motel, methodically packed his few belongings, and got ready for the trip. A once-in-a-century celebration for shifters—with gladiatorial combat as the main event. Well, despite his best efforts, Art was a shifter through and through. There was no cure, no treatment, no escape from the curse of his blood. Attend the festival. Confirm whether this king had been responsible for the deaths of his family. Then tear out his throat and the throats of anyone who tried to stand in his way.
Art smiled to himself as he swung his bag into the back of the truck. With the exception of his family’s murderers, he seriously doubted many of these shifters had fought a bear before.
Chapter 3
The first time Helena woke up, she lunged to her feet immediately, heedless of her bound hands, and her aching head. A wild glance around her surroundings indicated she was in some kind of tiny box, swaying and shaking with some unknown force—but before she could figure it out any further, she felt arms close around her again, cloth pressed to her mouth and nose until whatever liquid the fabric had been drenched in sent her mind spinning down into darkness again. She woke up twice more and tried to fight her assailants before she finally came to the conclusion that this wasn’t a situation she was going to be fighting her way out of. So the fourth time she came around, she held her body deliberately still, relaxing the muscles that had sparked
with the urge to tense, to pull her upright, to fight until she died. That wasn’t going to help. All that was going to get her was knocked out, again—and the sickly smell of the chemical was already making her head unbearably sore and stuffy.
So she lay still, her eyes half shut, and tried to figure out where she was. The shaking and rocking of the floor was puzzling, but after a few seconds she realized—she was in some kind of vehicle. She and her family had never had much use for wheeled vehicles like this. In the heights of the Rocky Mountains, there was hardly any ground level enough to drive on… and at any rate, why use wheels when you could use wings? Speaking of—why hadn’t she been able to transform, earlier? The memories returned to her as she lay still on the floor of the van. There had been the first man—then a second attacker, behind her, who’d locked the strange metal band around her throat—and then a third who’d sidled up beside her and clamped the chemical cloth over her mouth that had knocked her out. Then, presumably, they’d dragged her into this van. Then she must have been out for a very long time, she reflected, thinking of the geography of her home. They’d have had to carry her at least a few dozen miles to the closest road, where they’d have had to have the vehicle ready and waiting… this had been a planned attack, then. But—why?