by Eileen Wilks
She could see him. He’d lit a small fire, and she could see him moving in front of its dancing flame, bending and straightening rhythmically in his own dance as he chanted. The scent of the herbs he’d cast on that fire hung in the still air. She couldn’t identify all of them, but she knew he’d used sage.
Sage was for cleansing. For purifying. It was as horrifying for her to find it used in such a rite as it would be for a Catholic to witness the desecrated cross at a Black Mass.
The skinwalker was a tall man, though nowhere near as big as the bear whose hide he wore. It trailed on the ground behind him, muffling the shape of his body in the dim light, making him look half man, half creature even now, when he wasn’t transformed.
According to Coyote, via Benedict, the skinwalker could turn back into a bear with a single focused thought while he wore the skin, but he couldn’t perform the death magic ritual in that form. They’d adjusted her plan accordingly.
A small blanket-wrapped bundle lay on the cold ground near the fire, unmoving.
Arjenie watched from within the cover of the trees, a couple yards away from the skinwalker’s ward. She knew exactly where it was. When she used her Gift, wards spoke to her, telling her where they were and sometimes what kind. This was a simple warding, set only to tell its caster if someone crossed it. Simple, but powerful. A mouse couldn’t walk over it without alerting the skinwalker.
She could, though. She was pretty sure of that. She wasn’t at full strength, but her Gift was good at fooling wards. It had only failed her in that way once, and that had been an elf lord’s warding. Compared to that ward, this one would be a snap.
It was what happened after she crossed that ward that had her hands shaking so much it was hard to pull the blade out of the small pocketknife she’d brought.
The snow had stopped. A little over an inch of it tossed back what light reached the ground, making the night brighter than it had been. The clouds had thinned, too, enough that Arjenie could see a big, glowy spot where the moon rode, as if the lupi’s Lady was trying to reach them with her light.
Full moon. Wolf moon. Full moons arrived every 29.5 days, not a nice, even thirty, and twelve lunar months added up to about 354 days, which was eleven days short of the solar year. Which was where blue moons came from. Blue moons were the extra full moon that occurred every two or three years owing to this nonsynchronization of the lunar and solar calendars.
None of which had anything to do with what she did tonight, but her silly mind conjured and clung to facts the way other people might clutch a talisman or a teddy bear.
Her phone vibrated against her hip. That was the signal. She took a deep breath, pulled hard on her Gift, and stepped out firmly. She was quite sick with fear.
He didn’t see her, even when she stepped out from under the trees. He didn’t hear her, even when she stepped on a stick beneath the snow and it snapped, sounding horribly loud to her own ears. He wouldn’t. She knew that, even if her scared-spitless heart pounded as if it were trying to run away without her. Her Gift kept him from noticing the sight, sound, or scent of her.
It only failed with one sense. Touch.
He was ten yards away now, weaving his slow dance around the fire and the sleeping child, his voice rising and falling in atonal ululations that didn’t sound like words to her. He was naked beneath the bearskin.
If it hadn’t been a child sleeping beneath that blanket—only one blanket, and with it so cold!—Benedict might have balked, tried to stop her, sent himself and his men charging half a ton of bear. But combat put the little girl more at risk, so he’d agreed.
Whatever fear she felt now, his was worse. It was always worse to wait, to hold back and watch the one you loved walk into danger.
Five yards. The man lifted his knees high as he bent down. His legs were hairy. Arjenie’s mouth was so dry she thought she’d never be able to swallow again.
Benedict couldn’t even be close. Apparently the Power the skinwalker served could sense presences even without the wards, if those presences carried more than a whiff of magic. Which all the lupi did, of course, as did Havoc, given whom she was hosting.
One of them, however, had barely a whiff of magic to him. One of them had emptied himself keeping the deputy alive. Arjenie’s backup was her guilt-ridden, mischief-making, half-adult, half-kid cousin, who knew no more about fighting than she did. Maybe less. But Sammy wasn’t Wiccan anymore, and Coyote had added something to the chant Nettie had taught him. Maybe it would be enough.
Maybe, she told herself as her feet carried her ever closer, it wouldn’t be needed. As long as she didn’t touch the skinwalker . . . or maybe even if she did. He might feel the touch without noticing her. She’d played that game when she was little, sneaking up on people while using her Gift, then touching them. Some of them saw her the moment she touched them. Some of them didn’t, and the look on their faces when they felt that ghostly hand had struck her as hilarious.
Well, she had been little, and lacking in empathy.
She was close enough to touch him now. Only he wouldn’t hold still. He moved slowly—now bending, arms spread, now straightening with his back arched and his head flung back. But he kept moving, and she followed him around in his circle, trying to find an opening.
She couldn’t see much of his face. The bear’s pelt he wore was shaped into a crude hood that hid everything his beard didn’t. But surely this was K. J. Miller. The build was right, and the beard, which was almost as dark as the fur he wore—black in the dim light, except where the fire struck orangey red highlights. That gorgeous fur dragged in the dirt behind him in spite of being bunched up at his wait with a rope belt.
She didn’t have to worry about the belt. The hide didn’t have to fall away from him entirely. It just had to stop being fastened by that clasp . . . which was silver, about three inches long, with a narrow metal rectangle with leather ties at each end that were threaded through holes punched in the pelt.
She just had to cut one of those ties. Just one. Even if she touched him. Even if he felt it and saw her, if she cut the clasp away he couldn’t change to a bear.
He could probably still kill her, even as a human.
Never mind that. He’d stopped, arching his back, raising his hands high—
Arjenie darted in, knife out. And tripped over the sleeping child.
She hit the ground rolling. That was automatic, part of the training Benedict had given her, and wouldn’t he be glad to see it had taken so well? Except for the tripping part, but she’d held on to the knife and she hadn’t sprained her stupid ankle, so she stopped rolling and gathered herself, getting her feet under her . . . and looked up. And up. At nine feet of truly pissed-off bear, reared up on two legs, snarling, and looking around. Sniffing the air.
He didn’t see her. Relief blew through her like a whirlwind, making her shake. She’d tripped, but she’d barely touched him and he didn’t see her, only now he was a bear, and this was going to be so much harder.
Someone stepped into the clearing at the far end, coming from the sacred grove. Sammy. He was dirty and pale, his jacket torn—when had that happened?—and looked so terribly ordinary in his black watch cap and jeans. He chanted softly.
The bear did see him. It dropped to all fours and charged.
Arjenie ran after it. As if she could do anything, anything at all, to stop that flesh and blood locomotive running twice as fast as she could, and Sammy just stood there, chalk pale but still chanting . . .
The bear slowed. Stopped. Wrinkled its nose, shook its head. And advanced slowly, clearly puzzled.
It had worked! Oh, praise the Lord and the Lady, or maybe Coyote, who’d taught Sammy the trick. Bears don’t rely on vision nearly as much as they do their incredible sense of smell.
At this moment, Sammy smelled exactly like a female bear. In heat.
The bear was deeply confused. As for the man he’d been a moment ago . . . none of them knew how much man remained. A skinwalker didn�
��t hold on to as much of himself when he changed forms as lupi did. With every change, Nettie had said, more of the man was lost—and what remained was often mad. They had no way of knowing how many times K. J. Miller had used his bear form, how much of him was looking out of the bear’s eyes now, able to reason that just because this odd-looking animal smelled like a possible mate didn’t mean he was one.
Sammy kept chanting, but his pitch changed. A different chant now. Arjenie kept running. She had to do this quickly. The others would be coming, and once the wolves arrived there would be fighting. The child could be hurt or killed. The lupi, Benedict—any of them could die.
The bear circled Sammy slowly.
Where was the clasp? All she saw was bear. Huge, enormous, furry bear. Was Sammy doing the chant wrong? How could she—
Something glowed at the bear’s throat like an LED light. That was it. That must be it.
The bear stopped. It growled low in its throat, angry that it couldn’t figure out this odd bear/not-bear standing so still in front of it. This time Arjenie didn’t hesitate. She threw herself onto her knees in front of the bear and reached up with both hands, reached into the thick fur and at the bear’s neck, breathed in its foul breath as its jaws parted in shock at her touch, found the clasp with her left hand as it looked down at her and saw her and such teeth, such big teeth it had as it lowered that great head at her. And she slashed the leather tie.
Oily black smoke, incredibly foul, boiled down into her face, into her lungs, making her eyes burn. She coughed, blinked her streaming eyes, and looked up at a naked madman.
He crouched over her, his hair long and stringy, eyes wild with rage, snarling as if he was still a bear, his hands reaching for her.
A wolf howled from a very short distance away.
He jerked, looking over his shoulder.
Two wolves shot into the clearing—one silvery, one grizzled gray and tan, both of them sleek and dangerous and so beautiful they almost took her breath away.
They were also ohmygod fast.
The madman who had been K. J. Miller howled in rage, a sound that didn’t belong in a human throat. He must have known he wasn’t a bear anymore, though must have retained some of the man because he yanked off the belt, let his bearskin fall, and took off running. Running away.
That wouldn’t work.
“Arjenie,” Sammy said urgently, kneeling beside her. “Arjenie, are you okay? He didn’t get you anywhere?”
“Yes. I mean no, he didn’t get me, and yes . . .” A third wolf raced into the clearing, moving slower than the first two—who whooshed past Arjenie and Sammy like cars on the highway. The third wolf was slower because he ran on only three legs. He was black and huge, and her eyes teared up with joy at the sight of him.
A small white shape shot out of the trees behind the black wolf. Barking shrilly and running after him.
“Yes,” Arjenie told her cousin, grinning like a fool. “I am fine. I am perfectly, wonderfully okay now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Arjenie was right, Benedict thought as he washed down the last bite of his coffeecake with a sip of coffee. Christmas morning at the Delacroix homestead was a riot of unrestrained greed. Not to mention chaos, noise, and tons of ripped wrapping paper.
That paper had mostly been gathered up now, and some of the legions had dispersed to other parts of the house, with a few venturing outside now that the sun was out.
Some, not all.
“Look, Uncle Benedict! Look!” Malik dodged a girl cousin, a bicycle, Havoc, and two adults on his headlong run to Benedict—who had somehow become an uncle to every child here in the past three days. “I figured it out! See, if you kill enough of the aliens, then blow up one of the wheel-shaped spaceships, you get a laser beam. You’ve gotta see what it does!”
Obediently Benedict looked. The boy’s parents had given him a new iPod. Benedict had learned about that ahead of time and had gotten him a gift certificate to download the game of his choice. His choice seemed to involve a great deal of shooting and killing of aliens.
It was fun. Benedict had racked up a decent score when a voice said, “Scoot over, bud. You’re in my spot.”
Malik look up at Arjenie. “But we’re playing Space Wars.”
“You’re still in my spot.”
He heaved a great sigh but got up. “We’ll play more later,” he assured Benedict, who handed him back his iPod.
“How’s the leg?” Arjenie asked softly.
“Not bad.” Hershey had loaned him a pair of crutches he’d used a couple years ago, after being tossed off a horse. Benedict had used them for two days but the healing was far enough along now for him to dispense with them.
The footstool Sheila had brought him wasn’t necessary, but he appreciated it. Having his feet propped up let him look at the handmade leather moccasins he was wearing—one of Arjenie’s gifts. She’d also given him two shirts, a book on archaic weapons, a beautiful custom scabbard for his machete with a smaller, matching one for his favorite knife, and a fistful of candy, toys, and novelties in his stocking.
Everyone who was in the Delacroix house on Christmas morning got a stocking. That was one of the rules. Even people who were supposed to be outside guarding the house, which had thrown Josh and Adam into confusion. There were other rules, like everyone had to have at least one item for everyone else’s stocking, and you had to sneak to slip in your contribution. Arjenie had a big advantage on the sneaking part.
Arjenie must have noticed what he was looking at. “You like the moccasins.”
“They’re great. I can’t believe how well they fit.” Though he knew why they fit so well. His old moccasins had vanished for two weeks, mysteriously reappearing shortly before they left. She must have given them to someone to copy.
She snorted. “I give you shoes, a couple shirts, a book, and a scabbard. You give me a house. This is not exactly equality in action.”
He turned his head to look at her. She was glowing, her eyes so bright and happy it made his heart stutter. “You’re forgetting the nightgown and earrings and the holster for your Sig.”
“Well, I do win on the number of presents given, but a house?” She snuggled closer, so he put his arm around her. “What do I get next year? A jet plane?”
“I was thinking of a nice casserole dish. Or maybe a blender.”
She chuckled. Her eyes were happy, but the lids were drooping. They’d been up late last night, fashioning their own, private celebration. Then, of course, they’d been up early this morning. No one could sleep through a tornado of hyperexcited kids on Christmas morning, and who would want to?
All of these kids, happy and healthy and safe. Everyone here—safe.
Benedict’s arm tightened involuntarily around Arjenie as he thought of how nearly . . . but she hadn’t been hurt. Not even a scratch. And K. J. Miller wouldn’t put her family in danger again.
The authorities ruled it a heart attack. The man had been over fifty and had smoked for most of those years, so that was believable. It might even be true. Benedict didn’t know what exactly Coyote had done, but he’d never forget the look of utter terror on Miller’s face when something drifted up out of little Havoc and swept down over the skinwalker.
It had worked out. It had all worked out, even the presents he’d been so worried about.
He’d made a bowl for Robin, hand-turned from the stump of an old elm, then hand-finished using beeswax, because that way she could use it in her spellwork if she wanted. For Clay he’d found an antique blacksmith’s hammer—nothing he would use, probably, but he might want to display it. Seri and Sammy got lift passes at a ski resort Arjenie said they liked. Pretty much everyone else got gift certificates, which was a cop-out, but he hadn’t known any of them yet.
Next year, he thought, he’d do better.
But the house . . . that had kept him awake nights. Was it too pushy? Would Arjenie see it as him tying her down or assuming too much? But one reason she’d hated gi
ving up her apartment was that she’d put a lot of effort into decorating it, making it hers. He’d hoped that planning a house together, making it theirs, would ease the sting.
It seemed to have worked, even though, properly speaking, he hadn’t given it to her yet—just the appointment with the architect. He’d put the man’s business card with the day and time of the appointment in the small box he’d made out of mahogany. A real pleasure to work with, mahogany.
Naturally, the card had required explaining. When he did, there had been a moment of complete silence in the room. Ambrose had broken it, saying with a shake of his head, “A custom-built house? Way to blow the curve for the rest of us, Benedict.”
Everyone had laughed then, and the normal chaos of paper-ripping, exclaiming, and zooming-around kids had resumed.
Havoc came trotting up, propped his forepaws on Benedict’s leg—the uninjured one, fortunately—and inserted his head beneath Benedict’s hand. Benedict chuckled and gave the little dog a good ear rub. Ever since their adventure, she’d considered him pretty much hers to order around.
In other words, she’d accepted him. Like everyone else here. He didn’t understand. Nothing had gone right, not from the moment he’d stepped onto Delacroix soil. He’d turned into a wolf, then gotten caught up in circumstances that never let him present himself as normal. As one of them.
But the kids all called him Uncle Benedict now, and the adults were as relaxed and teasing with him as they were with each other. Maybe he’d gotten the sympathy vote because of his wound. If so, he’d take it.
He looked at Arjenie, intending to ask her about the little charm her aunt had given her, the one that had them exchanging sly grins. And smiled. In the midst of all the noise and commotion—outside, kids were shrieking as they pelted each other with snow—she’d fallen asleep.
Havoc apparently though a nap was a good idea, because she hopped up into Benedict’s lap, turned around twice the way dogs do, and settled down. He grinned and stroked her head. Life was good. Life was very good.