by L. C. Davis
The contact brought the strange sensation of being locked in this new form to the forefront of my mind and I jerked my head away.
"Incredible," he murmured.
I stared at him in bewilderment.
"Can you understand me?" he asked hopefully.
I opened my mouth again out of habit and made a frustrated sound when no words would come out. Instead, I gave my head a clumsy jerk I hoped he would recognize as a nod.
He chuckled. "I was wrong. You're not violent. You're not even aggressive. And to think, I wanted to suppress you," he murmured. This time when he reached out to stroke my fur, I let him. It was oddly comforting.
"There," he said soothingly. "I don't even have to shift. You're no threat, at least not to me."
I gave him a disapproving growl and he laughed again. Then he frowned and narrowed his eyes slightly, as if in deep focus. "Can you hear that?"
I tilted my head in confusion. There was nothing to hear.
He sighed. "You can hear my thoughts in my beastform, but I guess it only goes one way. Probably a hybrid thing. Wait until Sebastian sees this." He paused to give me the once over. "Then again, it might take some getting used to for him."
When I stared blankly in response, Victor gave me a knowing smile. "If there's one thing to be said for the moon, it's that she is consistent. Especially when it comes to her favorite themes."
Victor's cryptic phrasing usually made him seem mysterious, but in my current state, it was annoying as hell. I made a chuffing sound to tell him as much.
"Duality," he explained patiently. "Wolf and vampire, male and female. Your soul really is split in two. Your beastform, it seems, is no exception. It's neither male nor female--or maybe it's both."
I whimpered.
"It's nothing to be upset about," he assured me. Then he hesitated. "Well, I'm sure Sebastian will have a bit of a fit over it at first, but he'll get over it just like he got over the vampire thing."
I groaned and buried my snout under my paw. That wasn't encouraging.
Victor blew a puff of air sharply through his nose. "You're definitely not a threat. Come on," he said, motioning for me to follow him deeper into the forest. "Follow me."
He ran and I took off after him to catch up. It was much easier than usual, especially now that my stride was three times as long as his. Soon enough, I overtook him and skidded to a halt to cut him off.
"Whoa," he said, right before he collided with me.
I lightly headbutted his chest before turning away. I glanced back at him with a challenging nod. If he expected to keep up with me, he was going to have to trade his skin suit in for a fur coat. I took off running and ignored his protests.
Moments later, the yelling turned into thunderous footfalls that were quickly making up lost ground. I barely had time to look over my shoulder before I saw a shadow directly over me and a huge grey blur took me down. We rolled down the edge of a hill and came to a stop in a leafy valley below. Of course, Victor ended up on top.
He was also easily twice my size. Maybe I wasn't as impressive as I thought.
His grey eyes glinted in the light sifting through the trees as he stared down at me and bent to lick my fur. I can't believe you're alright.
I leaned up and nuzzled him. I don't feel alright. Now that Ulric is gone, it doesn't feel like anything is ever going to feel alright again.
I know, but we have to have faith.
I stared at him like he'd lost his mind, or at least the part that housed his staunch atheism. Faith in what? The sun that wants to destroy us, the earth that wants us sent to the aether, or the moon that's been manipulating us this entire time?
Faith in ourselves, he said simply. Faith in each other and in Sebastian. The three of us have gotten pretty far for colossal idiots pitted against the gods, don't you think?
I couldn't help but laugh a little. Whether it was a laugh because I thought he was crazy or because I agreed with him, it was hard to tell. How can we possibly have faith in ourselves? The only thing we have going for us is that we aren't quite stupid enough to think we have a chance.
Maybe that's where the faith comes in, he said, licking my forehead tenderly before he rolled off of me. I jumped to my feet, still a bit wobbly on them, and followed him.
Where are we going?
Somewhere special, he said, picking up the pace.
I followed him curiously through the woods and up the rocky crags that jutted out from the base of the nearest mountain to the Lodge. He leaped on top of one like it was nothing and proceeded to climb up the side of the mountain. I found myself surprised at the dexterity of my own paws. My movements were far more graceful than they were in my human form.
Victor glanced back every so often to make sure I was staying close. Before I knew it, we had made it to the top of the mountain. Sure enough, my paw slipped on a loose cluster of rocks and he grabbed me by the scruff, pulling me up the last remaining bit of the climb with an amused snort.
He grew serious as he looked out on the vast expanse of woodlands beyond the Lodge. The moon glowed so warmly above us that it was hard to believe that her personification could be so sinister. This was the moon I had come to know, the one who had come to comfort me in so many of my darkest moments, and I knew it was the same one that Ulric worshiped so quietly yet fervently. Even if Selene wasn't real, the moon in the sky was and her warmth would always be real to me.
This is beautiful, I said, taking it all in. It was impossible not to be inspired with awe by such a view, even under the tragic circumstances. But why did you bring me here?
Because this is where Ulric took me when I first came to the Lodge, he said, gazing up at the nearly full moon that loomed above us. When I was still having trouble controlling my anger after what happened to our parents, he said I could come up here to find solace. It was his favorite place and he never told anyone else about it, not even Sebastian. I thought I should share it with you. I know he would have wanted that.
I was glad that I didn't have to speak audibly for him to hear me, because my throat was so tight I could barely breathe. Thank you.
It's not going to be easy, he murmured. But when you need to feel his presence, you can come here. His spirit will come to you, I know it. And if anything happens to me at the ritual --
It won't, I said firmly. The idea of losing them both was unfathomable and I wouldn't entertain it. I couldn't.
He let out a slow breath and sat down on a smooth rock that seemed as if it had been carved for the purpose of accommodating two wolves perfectly. I sat next to Victor and leaned against him, taking comfort in his plush grey fur.
He's only been gone a few hours and already he seems so far away, I said after a long moment.
That's probably because he is. I may not believe for a second that those fuckers who play with our lives like we're toys are really in control of the universe, but I have to believe there's something better beyond this, he said quietly. If any wolf can find it, it's Ulric.
I know we can't go to his grave until we've dealt with Arthur, but I hate just sitting here, doing nothing to honor him, I admitted. I thought shifting would help me forget.
You're not supposed to forget, he said. That's how you honor him, you remember. You do your best to do the things he'd want you to do, unless the thing he'd want you to do would keep you from honoring his memory.
That sounds pretty specific. Are you sure we're still talking about me?
He chuckled. Maybe not.
He didn't approve of your plan, did he? Sacrificing yourself in exchange for the wolves.
No, he did not, he admitted. Neither as a father figure, nor as a mentor. But I like to think he approved one alpha to another.
I listened quietly. Maybe I could use that logic to justify my own actions. There was no way Ulric the father, the protector would approve of my decision to sacrifice myself for both halves of the Kingdom of Night, but I could still hope there was some part of him that would be proud o
f me. If all went according to plan and there really was something beyond the mortal world, I was about to find out.
You know what we should do? asked Victor.
I stared at him expectantly. Instead of answering, he threw his furry head back and his lips parted in a sharp howl. The howl was raw and powerful at first, but it sank into a low, mournful sound. I hesitated, but the sound of it triggered some primal instinct to respond in the back of my mind.
When I tilted my head back, the sound came out weak and strangled at first, but my vocal chords caught on quickly. I howled, but it wasn't in mourning or even in pain. It was a call that came from deep in my soul, pleading with Ulric to return to me somehow, even if it was only in a dream.
If hunters could be raised from the dead by the power of sheer hatred, couldn't love return a wolf taken before his time?
Part II
Chapter 25
ARTHUR
Zombie thrillers failed abysmally when it came to preparing me for just how unpleasant it would be to wake up in my own grave. My eyes were the first part of me to come back to life and that small amount of physical autonomy was the only thing that separated my newly awakened state from sleep paralysis. Not that being able to see did me any good in a wooden coffin buried six feet underground. The nothingness behind my eyes proved less disturbing than the deep black that surrounded me, so I screwed my eyes shut and prayed to no one in particular that the rest of me would wake up soon.
Feeling began to emerge in my extremities first, but the worst pins and needles sensation of my life quickly made me wish for the return of numbness. It felt how I imagined shifting would after all the ghastly tales I had heard of werewolf transformations. Something was wrong. Surely this wasn't the way ascension was supposed to be. I didn't feel powerful or immortal. Maybe I wasn't really dead. Maybe the others had buried me alive. I ransacked the furthest corners of my mind, but I couldn't remember how I had gotten there. Clara's hooded form flashed in my mind, her fingers poised around the hammer of a gun, but that didn't make any sense.
Feeling crept its way up my legs and arms and ate at my torso with all the frenzy of a beast eviscerating its living prey. I couldn't even scream and it occurred to me then that my lungs were frozen just like everything else had been moments before. I wasn't breathing. No oxygen was making its way into my lungs, and yet I was capable of some mobility and thought.
The most impossible part was that the thoughts were my own. I was myself, or at least as far as I could tell without any environmental stimuli to respond to. That had always been the plan, but the fact that I was actually living it, that I had somehow come out on the other side of death with my soul intact was beyond unfathomable.
A strangled laugh escaped me with the first gasping breath that didn't come close to satisfying my lungs. I took in another sharp breath, then another, but it wasn't enough to quench the thirst for air that I had only just seemed to develop. It was as if the moment I had realized I still had the capacity to breathe it became a necessity.
I realized then just how little oxygen I had left and how much I was wasting, but that didn't stop me from screaming. "Help!" I cried, struggling to remember how to turn my useless hands into fists that proved only slightly more useful as I pounded on the lid of the coffin.
The pine coffin was nothing special and certainly nowhere near as steady as the polished models you could find in any funeral home around the country. The wooden slats had never posed an issue for any of the countless hunters who had risen before me, but the hot, sticky blood that trickled down my knuckles long before the wood showed any signs of wear informed me that I wasn't a normal hunter.
It seemed had succeeded in keeping my consciousness and my heartbeat. Maybe it was due in part to Prentice's transfusion, but I certainly hadn't been gifted with his strength. Upon having the realization that I was still in full possession of my human weakness and, ostensibly, my mortality, I went at the lid with even greater ferocity.
"Help me, please!" I cried, raising myself as close to the top of the coffin as I could. It was a longshot that anyone would be up there to hear me and even if they did, I knew they had little reason to answer my call. Memories of my funeral were filtering back in short bursts. I could feel the cool metal in my hand, my arm raised, then the moment when the pressure my finger exerted on the trigger became just enough to fire the bullet that left Ulric dead and all our plans in shambles.
I let out a strangled gasp as I collapsed in the coffin and tears burned the corners of my eyes before rolling down my cheeks. I killed Ulric. I remembered the trigger word so clearly now, the urge that sprang up in my mind, and I knew what it was. Closure.
I accepted then that no one was coming and let my battered hands fall limp beside me. Of course no one was coming. The fact that they had bothered to bury me at all was proof that they thought I was still useful, but a hunter who couldn't dig his way out of his own grave was of use to no one. There was no other reason to keep me alive, other than maybe the knowledge that suffocating in a box was too kind of an end for a traitor like me.
I closed my eyes again and accepted my fate. The air was growing staler by the second, or at least what was left of it, but I made no attempt to take shallower breaths. There was no point in putting off the inevitable, other than to prolong my own suffering. If I had possessed even a shred of decency, maybe I would have wanted to.
My head grew light and my chest seized in pain. Despite my best efforts not to care and the knowledge that it was futile, I gasped in a rather undignified attempt to claim oxygen that wasn't there. My head began to swim and a familiar feeling of heaviness pulled me down like hands grasping my limbs and my body went still. It was hard to say when things went black since everything already was, but my next moment of conscious awareness was the snap of my own sternum breaking and agonizing pressure in my chest.
"Clara!" someone screamed. Remus' voice was so contorted with panic that I could barely recognize it.
The pressure lifted from my chest for only a moment before it came down harder than before, then again and again in rhythmic thrusts. It felt like my heart was being crushed, and it was only when my eyes fluttered open enough to see Victor on top of me, compressing my chest in a frantic rhythm, that I realized it was.
"You're not getting away that easily, you little son of a bitch," he growled, putting all his weight into the next thrust. Air made its way into my lungs only to have him force it out.
I seized his wrist to make him stop and he froze, staring down at me with wild eyes. "Oh, God," he breathed, pressing his ear against my chest. He looked me over and ran his hands over my face, as if just as confused by my revival as I was. "You're alive." He turned to face the doorway to that led from Clara's garden into the Lodge "He's alive!"
A moment later, Clara ran out into the garden, followed by Remus. I was still too preoccupied with getting breath into my lungs to acknowledge either of them. Clara took Victor's place at my side and held me up. The pressure in my chest had been joined by agonizing pain, and even when I was partially sitting up it felt like Victor's full weight was still on top of me.
"What happened?" she cried, looking me over. She swept aside the damp hair at my neck, matted with dirt, and pressed her nimble fingers into my flesh. "I don't understand. He has a pulse."
"How is that possible?" asked Remus.
"I don't know," said Victor. The wheels were turning behind his eyes. "Maybe Prentice's blood?"
"We have to get him to the infirmary," said Clara.
Victor lifted me into his arms and him carrying me into the Lodge was the last thing I remembered before I blinked and found myself staring up at the ceiling of what I assumed was the infirmary. I had been strapped down with thick leather restraints I recognized from the dungeon.
"He's human," said Clara, her tone hushed as she leaned in to speak to Remus and Victor. The three of them were huddled together on the other side of the room, but I could hear them even through the shrill ringi
ng in my ears. "I don't know how, but he bleeds and he breathes."
"That doesn't mean he's himself," Victor muttered.
"Remus," I tried to say, but it came out as a pathetic croak.
The room fell silent and Victor was the first to make his way over to me. "Arthur?"
I could only nod and even that proved to be a challenge. When I tried to sit up, the strap across my chest held me fast. That seemed to give him some semblance of relief.
"Do you remember who you are?" he pressed.
Another nod. Clara held a paper cup of water to my lips and I drank eagerly. Gasping, I let my head fall back against the table. "Remus...please." My voice was still raspy but at least it was intelligible. I didn't know how long my sentience would last, and there was something I needed to say before it was too late.
Victor hesitated, but Remus moved to the edge of the bed. "I'm here, Arthur." His tone was unreadable and his eyes were full of grief. He wasn't looking right at me, which was fine, because there was no way I could meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said, my face contorting in weakness as a strangled sob escaped me. Tears streamed down my face, chasing away any lingering doubts that I was as weak as I had felt in the coffin. "I'm so sorry for what I did, I --"
"Don't," he pleaded, gripping the bed railing. "Please, let's not talk about it now. You're awake and you're yourself. That's what matters."
"I'm not a hunter," I said shakily. "Something went wrong. I should be strong by now."
"You should also be a sanctimonious monster slayer by now," muttered Victor. "I'd say we broke even."
"I'm useless to you now. It didn't work."
"Maybe not," said Victor. "It's too early to say anything for sure. We'll have to watch you, to make sure it's not just a delayed reaction, and I'll need some time to figure out where we go from here."
"What's there to figure out?" I demanded. "You kill me like I killed Ulric."
Remus flinched. Even Victor seemed at a loss for words.
"No one is killing anyone," Clara said, her voice trembling but no less authoritative. She held my gaze and the image of her with glowing golden eyes flickered in my mind just long enough to realize that she wasn't the one who had pulled that trigger. "There's been enough death around here and I won't tolerate any more violence. Enough is enough."