by Jory Strong
His legs were both broken, too badly damaged to hold his weight. He was injured beyond what could be healed by shifting form, even if he had the strength to manage it.
The whooping calls were closer now, moments away given the speed of hunting hyenas. He would die where he lay, fighting until they ripped out his internal organs.
Aryck growled at Melina, using a sound that meant retreat, climb, hide. She showed her teeth and growled in response but was already scanning, looking for a route, a tree, the instinct for self-preservation greater than any other and beginning to override all else.
She’d taken only a few steps before the first of the new pack appeared, coming from the direction of the forest instead of the Barrens. A feral led it, the scent different from the pure hyenas in the first attack. It was followed by a second feral and then a third, their rolling gait and obvious intelligence enough to send terror out in front of them.
Aryck pulled himself into a crouch, half expecting the hyena he’d injured to attack from behind. Instead he heard it yelling, the roaring scream of an animal trying to escape.
An instant later he saw the reason for it. A male Lion charged past him, closely paced by a Tiger. In front of Aryck the lead feral dropped as a bullet smashed into its skull.
Before the first two of its companions could escape, the big cats were on them, taking them down like prey.
The remaining pack members fled, laughing, filling the forest with the high-pitched sounds of their intense fear.
Melina wheeled and snarled, prepared to launch herself at a new threat. Aryck turned his head just as a man holding a gun said, “I don’t want to shoot you but I will if you attack.”
The voice and face were vaguely familiar but Aryck couldn’t concentrate. With the hyenas gone and the need to fight no longer present, adrenaline flowed out of him, leaving him hollowed out, nauseous until pain descended and shock started to settle in.
He fought against blacking out and was only vaguely aware of Melina giving up the jaguar’s shape for a human one, of the Lion and Tiger padding over, sitting, their heads cocked as they listened while she and the man talked.
Aryck struggled to full consciousness with the mention of the healer Rebekka. Despite the futility of it, he tried to change shape, failed even as the conversation ended and the man moved to his side and crouched next to him.
Were, Aryck had time to think. Lion. And then darkness descended in a wave of agony as he was lifted off the ground.
IT was backbreaking work, bending over each plant, not just to harvest but to check for disease and insects. Rebekka ached from it.
A few plants in front of her a girl pulled a bug from a leaf and tossed it a short distance away. A bold mockingbird snatched the bug up before it could crawl away.
The mockingbird wasn’t the only bird brought to the garden by the prospect of an easy meal. Robins dotted the aisles, waiting for a chance to dart in and snag an earthworm as children harvested small potatoes for the evening meal.
Finches and sparrows of various types were equally plentiful, varying from shades of brown to gold. A lone male cardinal sat on a low tree branch, while higher up, two scrub jays began squawking and quarreling, the sound of it making the cardinal fly away.
Rebekka stood to stretch the muscles of her back and take a moment to look over at where the younger children played on blankets or took naps, watched over by older girls and women on break. She’d taken her turn underneath the trees and out of the sun several times since coming to the garden with her mother to work.
At midday everyone stopped for a lunch of bread, cheese, and fruit. She’d had a chance to play with the girls, to hold her mother’s new son.
A different ache filled Rebekka as she thought about the children. When she was at the brothel she rarely allowed herself to dream of a husband or children. They had no place there. But here …
She rubbed her chest, wished. But the feel of the amulet hidden by her shirt was a sharp reminder of the horror she could call to her and the answers she still needed if she was ever to be able to use her gift to free the Weres from life in the brothels.
In the row next to Rebekka, her mother straightened, facing her. Chloe lifted her hand, shading her eyes.
Around them, other women also stopped working. Several of those looking in the same direction as Chloe murmured to their neighbors, causing them to turn.
Curious, Rebekka did the same and immediately knew what had caused the women’s reaction. They might be devout, married for the most part, but they weren’t blind.
The man accompanying the Fellowship’s leader was physically beautiful. His presence reached across the distance and held them all spellbound.
He wore homespun clothing, dark and somber, plain like Edom’s. But where a carved, wooden crucifix hung from a leather strap around the Fellowship leader’s neck, this man wore gold crosses in his earlobes. And instead of short hair, his was long and black, reminding her of Tir.
“This is Brother Caphriel,” Edom said, the introduction carrying through the garden in a warm, powerful tone. “He is also Of The Sign, though his fellowship is far from here.”
“Thank you for welcoming me among you,” Brother Caphriel said.
His voice had an even more profound effect on the women and children than Edom’s had. They left their places, gathering like a flock to a shepherd.
Rebekka didn’t fight when her mother’s hand closed around her upper arm, drawing her forward. Human, she thought as they neared Caphriel, maybe gifted in the same way as Edom was, with the innate ability to attract followers and hold them to him.
The women and children murmured greetings. And as Caphriel offered each a personal smile, saw them individually, it was as if he were the sun and they were flowers soaking in his warmth.
Rebekka was unnerved by what she witnessed, yet not quite unaffected by it. When his attention was finally on her she wanted to step away in equal measure to the desire to step forward.
His eyes seemed to blaze when he looked to the spot where the hidden amulet touched her skin. “Speak with me, sister. I see you carry a heavy burden. Let me offer you a chance to be rid of it. Let me shine the light where darkness claims a part of your soul.”
Next to him, Edom said, “God is a living god. He doesn’t have a body. Except us. We’re his hands and his mouth. We’re his way into this world.”
“Amen,” the gathered said in refrain.
“Let Brother Caphriel share The Word with you, Rebekka! Let him pray, so The Spirit might move on you!”
Hands pushed Rebekka forward with an “Amen.” Bodies formed a wall, blocking any possibility of retreat.
“Come, let us speak privately,” Caphriel said, turning away, separating himself from the crowd.
Rebekka followed, not sure whether it was hope or fear, free will or hidden command, making her place herself in front of him.
His eyes bored into her as though he could see the desires of her heart. “Brother Edom tells me you have a powerful gift for healing. But it’s not enough. Is it? You long for a family, a husband to love and be loved by. Children. A place to call home that is free of horror and full of peace.”
Rebekka wet suddenly dry lips. “Yes.”
“You can have those things. Brother Edom spoke to me about your mother as we came to the garden. I can sense she bears a tattoo, and you a similar one. I can guess the shameful nature of it.
“There are those who embrace the scripture proclaiming the creator a gracious god, slow to anger and abounding in love. Forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin, though he doesn’t leave the guilty unpunished. For the sins of the parents, the children are punished to the third and fourth generation.”
Goose bumps broke out on Rebekka’s skin as she remembered the policeman quoting similar words as justification for holding a child down and forcibly, painfully, leaving a mark that destroyed hope and possibility.
Caphriel’s face warmed with compassion. “Forgive those who
trespassed against you. They do not understand the nature of the Father. The god of the early days needed to be harsh to ensure his children were not led astray.”
“And the god of the end days? Is he any less harsh?” Rebekka said, the words escaping unbidden, forced from her subconscious as a result of her encounters with Father Ursu and the witches, by the terrible fear resulting from the memories and dreams of the urchin. “I looked and there before me was a pale horse, and its rider was given power to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
Caphriel threw back his head and his laughter was a burst of sunshine. “The end days aren’t yet upon us. There is no reason you can’t find what your mother has. Peace. Acceptance. Love to create and sustain a family.”
His smile was glorious temptation. “I myself have a small gift for healing. I can remove the tattoo with a touch if you accept all that I offer. You will never have to worry about disrobing in the presence of others. You’ll never have to fear revealing your body to the man who claims your heart and being repudiated or turned away from in disgust.”
Caphriel’s eyelids lowered. “The darkness I see in you is tied to your gift. Unless you rid yourself of it, death will follow in your wake.”
The icy fear Rebekka had kept at bay since realizing the amulet offered some protection returned in cold waves. She couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to.
Caphriel leaned forward, offered his hands. “You don’t have to live with such a burden. Pray with me, sister. Ask that your gift be made pure so you can go forward with peace in your soul and the knowledge you serve only a higher cause.”
His voice held promise and conviction. His words tasted of happiness, sweet and infinitely tempting.
Rebekka believed without question. Any prayer made in his presence would be answered. Her gift would be changed so she no longer had to fear calling sickness and plague to her.
She lifted her hands toward his, only to hesitate. She was a child of the brothels, an inhabitant of a world where everything came at a cost.
Brother Caphriel had seen some of what lay in her heart, but not all of it. If Edom spoke of her gift, then he also confided how and where she used it.
“What about the outcast Weres? Will I still be able to heal them?”
There was a subtle hardening of Caphriel’s face. “You can’t serve the light and the dark at the same time. If you want your soul and your body cleansed of the things setting you apart and causing you fear, then you must turn away from those who are damned. You must separate yourself completely from the path that being able to heal the Were outcasts places you on.”
Levi’s image came to Rebekka’s mind. It was followed by Feliss’s, and Dorrit’s, and so many others’.
Some of them were still in her life. Some gone, dead or their contracts sold, or their debt to the vice lord paid.
She couldn’t turn her back on those she’d come to care about, even if in coming here she’d learned the truth of her father, and knew he was the one who’d sent her to the Were brothels.
The amulet bought her time to figure out who she could trust. Until then she had to trust herself to make the right choice, to do the right thing.
“No,” she said, her hands falling back to her sides.
Caphriel straightened and suddenly there was something terrifying about being in his presence. “So be it,” he said.
The words rang with icy, unnerving finality. And the dread stirred to life by them remained with Rebekka through the return to her mother’s home and the evening meal. Lasted up until she saw Levi appear at the edge of the forest, beckoning for her to join him.
Eleven
REBEKKA blinked, hardly daring to believe it was Levi and not some apparition. How could he know she was here?
Yet as she continued to stare, he didn’t disappear. If anything his gestures became more frantic.
When he risked taking a step away from what little protection the trees provided, Rebekka signaled she was coming, sudden fear shoving aside her doubts and questions. The members of the Fellowship weren’t prone to violence but they weren’t avowed pacifists either.
Levi was too close to their homes, too close to the women and children. A flaring of an amulet warning a Were was near would bring men with pitchforks and hoes, perhaps even with rifles.
Chloe turned from the cabinet where she was putting away a dish she’d finished drying. Her gaze went immediately to the window.
All semblance of peace left her expression. She’d met Levi once, the first time he’d escorted Rebekka across the Barrens. She knew what he was.
A hasty glance over her shoulder, to where her husband was supervising the children as they helped him tend the snakes, conveyed Chloe’s nervousness, not for their safety, but at what Boden’s reaction would be if he caught Rebekka exposing his children to evil and wickedness.
Rebekka knew they’d fought over her before. Boden allowed her visits only because he hoped to save her soul.
Unlike Chloe and her, he had never lived in the red zone where contact with Weres was common. Until drug use made him a thief, and a criminal’s tattoo caused his parents to cut him out of their lives and business, he’d had a comfortable life among what served as a merchant middle class.
He didn’t know what it was to survive as her mother had, as the Were prostitutes were forced to. Before Boden experienced the worst of humanity, he’d been saved by Edom and joined the Fellowship.
“Don’t go,” Chloe whispered. “The first step toward salvation is the hardest.”
“I have to.” Only something bad would bring Levi here. “Tell the girls I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye. Tell them I needed to leave quickly because of an emergency.”
“I won’t lie to Boden if he questions me. He may not allow you in our home afterward. He may forbid you from seeing the girls again.”
Rebekka’s throat tightened. She saw them rarely but she still cared for them.
“I have to go,” she repeated, eyes pleading with her mother not to allow Boden to have the final say.
“Wait a minute,” Chloe whispered, moving away from Rebekka to pick up a blanket lying neatly folded on a chair. She returned, pressing it into Rebekka’s hands. “Be careful.”
Tears wet Rebekka’s eyes. She had the fleeting fear she would never see her mother or the girls again.
“I love you,” she said, hugging Chloe before slipping out of the cabin.
Rebekka’s chest ached. As she hurried toward the woods she imagined the worst, Cyrin or Canino stumbling into a trap or being riddled with bullets. When she reached Levi, she asked, “What’s happened?”
He pulled her into a hug, then released her. “A Jaguar is badly injured. The bones in his back legs are broken, possibly crushed in a fight with hyenas. We got the bleeding stopped but he was fading in and out of consciousness when I left. He’s in a place we can defend during the night. It’s in the Barrens.”
Rebekka didn’t need to glance up at the sky to know there’d be no time to return to the Fellowship, even if an offer of shelter and safety was assured. The forest was already dark with the onset of dusk.
“I can leave now.”
Levi indicated a path. “Run in front of me.”
She ran, turning when he directed her to.
Questions pounded through her with each footfall but she had no breath to spare for conversation.
At the edge of the Barrens they stopped and she doubled over, sucking in air, her sides and legs burning. It was nearly full dark and though the night didn’t hold as much terror for her as it did for the majority of humans, she was still scared, more than she would have been if they remained in the forest.
“It’s not far,” Levi said, speaking close to her ear. “Ready?”
Rebekka nodded and straightened. Saw the gun in one of his hands and the knife in the other. This time he led, treading lightly, the pace slower than it had been, more cautious, though it was brighter, easier to see am
ong the ruins than it had been in the woods.
Bats dipped and fluttered, making a meal of insects. Moonlight caught on the eyes of creatures crouched among vine and rubble. The faint smell of burning wood reached Rebekka, brought on a breeze that also carried the fragrant scent of night-blooming flowers.
Levi finally stopped in front of what had once been towering apartment buildings. Now they were a forbidding structure of narrow passageways formed by twisting, rusting steel.
From within came the rustling of hidden creatures, the scurrying of rats. Rebekka shivered, remembering the diseased animal in the brothel alleyway.
Nausea threatened as she thought about the pocket of plague elsewhere in the Barrens. She feared she’d made a terrible mistake in coming here, in turning away from Brother Caphriel’s offer. She might just as readily be used as a weapon against the Weres as come to be the healer who could make the outcasts whole.
They climbed, careful of jagged edges. There were traces of smoke now.
Levi gave a soft whistle. It was answered by Cyrin’s chuffing and a low rumble, most likely from Canino.
The rough stairway ended, leveling out into what remained of a hallway between apartments. Behind half-fallen walls was a living room complete with furniture long ago destroyed by rodents and rot.
Light came in through an opening above, adding to that provided by a small fire. Rebekka processed it all as she sought the injured Jaguar and found him unconscious on the floor.
She moved forward carefully. The female Jaguar was unexpected but there was no doubt in Rebekka’s mind that the woman crouched next to the prone figure was a Were, and most likely the male’s mate.
The Jaguar female was exotically beautiful and equally deadly. Her eyes glowed catlike and every line of her body screamed possessiveness, advertised her willingness to defend and attack.
Levi positioned himself at Rebekka’s side. He sheathed the knife but the gun remained in his hand.
“Step back, Melina,” he told the Jaguar. “Give Rebekka room to work.”