“How the hell am I supposed to do this whole wolf protector thing when no one ever tells me anything?” Becca pounded her fist on the dashboard, her voice rising to a shout.
“Look, there’s Pack business and there’s family business. I don’t have much of the first part to tell and I’m not telling you the second without a damn good reason. So stop hitting my car. It won’t help.” Lizzie sounded as annoyed as Becca had ever heard her sound. That was enough to make her rage die down, make the wolf inside her curl up in her cave. She unclenched her fists and sat with her hands in her lap.
“All right then. What can you tell me? Is she really dangerous? Did werewolves really kill her family?”
Lizzie stomped on the brakes and whipped around to stare at Becca. “Did she actually tell you that?”
“Not exactly something I’d make up.”
“Shit, shit, shit. Shelly’s not going to be happy to hear about this.” Lizzie was staring out the window now, like her thoughts were somewhere else. A car pulled up behind them and she pulled forward. “Man, I don’t even know where to start. Is she dangerous? Well, she is now. Stay away from her, Miz Thornton. Let’s just say she believes what she’s saying and that’s bad enough.”
“She and her buddies burned down the Women’s Club.” Becca could feel her tone getting spiteful, childish. But if she couldn’t stop Oya one way, she’d try another.
“I promise you, we’re looking into that.”
“Could be going a bit faster,” Becca swallowed hard, trying to push away the tears of frustration that were threatening to spill down her cheeks. This was too much—why couldn’t she get this damn woman out of her town, one way or another? Lizzie flinched but didn’t say anything. “Well?”
“The wolves may not need proof, Miz Thornton, but the Sherriff and I do. Yes, I think they did it too but we need evidence. All I’ve got are some gas cans wiped clean of prints. You got anything more than an argument that pits her word against yours?” Lizzie looked tired and quietly angry but her voice was steady and firm.
Becca slumped in her seat and stared out the window. She’d get the evidence, somehow. She’d get Oya and her “cure” locked away somewhere safe where she couldn’t hurt anyone in Wolf’s Point. She promised herself that much. “Drop me off at Erin’s, please.” She was pleased at how little her voice shook.
Lizzie drove her there in silence and nodded when Becca thanked her. Becca didn’t look back as she walked up the path to Erin’s door. She knocked hard, the noise impossible to deny or ignore. When Erin answered the door, she looked her neighbor straight in the eye. “You’re going to make me the best damn werewolf this town has ever seen.”
Chapter 14
~
Over the next couple of evenings, Erin started with the basics. Becca learned about wolves and pack behavior, then werewolf myths and history from around the world. After that, it was differences between their kind of werewolves and regular wolves, apart from turning back into humans: the silver bullets, the faster healing and so forth.
Mostly, Becca was just relieved to find out that they didn’t have to all move into one big den together. She didn’t think she was ready for that. She did remember to ask some questions. Would being a werewolf actually stop the other changes she was going through? According to Erin, it wouldn’t, but it would make her menopause timeline shorter. What about hormones and all the stuff regular menopausal women did? The Pack didn’t seem to need estrogen but they had their own doctor if she wanted to check it out further.
The last question that she had was one that she didn’t find the nerve to ask: were odd feelings about Erin part of the whole werewolf thing? It felt like asking that one would just make the dynamic strange. Or perhaps just stranger. She couldn’t quite bring herself to use words like “crush,” not even in her own head.
Erin took her out in the woods after every session. Becca liked the part where she got to use her new enhanced senses. And since she wasn’t sleeping that well since she started changing, it was good to be able to do something besides toss and turn in sweat-soaked sheets. Erin had her exploring the wind, using it to distinguish between the scents of different animals as well as humans. She also practiced blending in with the trees and the brush, using all her senses to listen and feel what was going on around her.
But what astonished her most was how quickly Erin healed. “It’s one of the good parts,” Erin said as she stretched her now cast-free arm before they went out on their third run.
“Good thing I stopped smoking back in my twenties,” Becca wheezed her words a bit when they stopped to rest.
“Yep. It smells even worse with wolf senses.” Erin grinned to take the sting from her words but Becca shrugged and laughed. It felt like they were getting more comfortable together, at least to Becca, and she thought she might get to like that. With any luck, the weird feelings would just go away on their own.
By the night of the next full moon, Becca could feel the magic in her blood long before moonrise. She was at Erin’s door right after she finished dinner, even before she washed her dishes. Erin looked amused and got her to help with some chores while they waited. It was while they were straightening up the living room that Becca noticed a photo of the black Lab on the mantle. “When did you have a dog?”
Erin’s face took on the saddest expression Becca had ever seen her wear. “That’s Midnight. She died last year, a few months after I moved in here.” Becca shifted uneasily and Erin muttered, “Of natural causes, thank you.”
Oh, crap. Becca smacked her hand to her forehead. She had brought cookies over when Shelly told her that her new neighbor’s dog had died. It all came back to her now: she’d been too shy to talk much to Erin and Erin was too sad to notice. She walked over and after a moment of hesitation, gave Erin a nervous hug. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry.”
Erin nodded and gestured at the door. It was nearly time, then. Becca shivered with something that felt like anticipation. They got into Erin’s car and drove out of town, heading up into the mountains by the same route that Lizzie had driven the other day.
Once they got to the foot of the trail and parked, Erin got out and began to lope uphill in the dim light, Becca at her heels. When they reached it, the cave was even spookier when Becca saw it with the acuity of her wolf vision and she stopped at the entrance, trembling all over.
Before, it had just felt strange, like whatever it was inside the place was sleeping or out taking a walk somewhere, leaving a shadow of itself behind. Now the power was completely awake and sending prickly sensations down her arms and legs. Everything was shifting and it felt like the place could swallow her up, then spit her out as a new painting on the stone walls.
No! I’m not ready yet! She wanted to yell at it but the words wouldn’t come out.
“What’s the matter?” Erin paused just inside. Her eyes were starting to turn silver now and her hands were getting longer.
Becca could feel herself start to change in response to the magic’s call. She was shaking all over, fighting to stop it. She managed to choke out, “This place. It’s too much. I’m not ready.” She backed up a few steps, only to find a crowd of women coming up the path behind her.
Shelly put her arm around her shoulders and leaned into her. Becca made herself relax a little into her warmth. It felt crowded on the ledge, like they were all much too close, but she still found some comfort in that.
Then Erin began to strip down and the others joined her. Becca tensed back up as she felt the wildness stir inside her. But she could feel her own transformation slip out of her control, taking over her body. She gave up and let Shelly tug her across the cave threshold.
No point in ruining another outfit, she thought as she began, reluctantly, to undress. The change, when it really hit, was even more intense in the cave. It hurt less than the last time but the stretching and sensory overload still dropped her to her shaking knees. Her heart was racing so fast she thought it would jump out of h
er body and her skin superheated as the fur began to sprout from it.
When she could look up, she could see everything now, all the wall paintings in sharp relief, the other women, every pinecone on every tree outside. Smells and sounds warred for her attention until she tried to bury her head in her paws.
The cave whirled around her in an ocean of sensations. She could hear somebody whimpering, a high-pitched sound of disorientation and terror. She cut it off abruptly when she realized the sound was coming from her own jaws but she couldn’t stop her body from shaking in pure panic.
Then Becca felt a furry body press itself against her. Then another one on her other side. Soon she was surrounded by wolves, each leaning gently into her and each other like a warm, living carpet of fur. Their scents and small sounds, the racing of their hearts and rise and fall of their breathing, gave Becca an anchor.
Her own breathing slowed and the urge to howl and claw her way out of the cave gradually disappeared. The wolf part of her brain rose into slow dominance. She was part of a Pack and that Pack would protect her. The feeling was intensely soothing and comforting. Sleepily, she wondered if the Becca part of her had ever felt that way with other humans.
A few more moments passed before Shelly rose from Becca’s side. She stood at the cave’s entrance and sniffed the air. All around Becca, the other wolves began to sit up. Becca could smell it too, whatever it was, as she joined the others at the entrance. There was something out there in the woods, something with a human smell of burnt metal and harsh chemicals. It smelt like it was waiting for them.
Shelly looked up the cliff toward the mountain above the cave, then she stepped out onto a trail that seemed invisible, at least to Becca’s eyes. She began to climb, her paws soundless in the quiet air. One by one, the other wolves followed her up, each one slinking low with their bellies to the rocks and hiding behind whenever cover was available. It was slow going, even on four legs, but the smells of humans ebbed as they got higher, finally fading until they disappeared.
Shelly led them over the mountain and halfway down the other side. Then they began to circle back, this time in the deep cover of the woods. Becca’s wolf self was intent on following the Pack, letting her other self dream in the back of her mind.
As if she was dreaming, she was swept along with no set destination, knowing only that she jogged along with the others toward the same goal, whatever it was. And that they were once again going downhill and she could smell humans again. They were farther away this time but it seemed like Shelly was bringing the Pack closer to them. She wondered why but could not rouse herself enough to stop. Shelly was alpha; whatever she planned was necessary.
Soon she led them in a run, tongues lolling out of open jaws in a collective pant. The air was full of human scent now and there were tiny, muted growls as several of them recognized the humans from the Nest. Shelly slowed down until they all stopped in some shrubs in a thicket of trees. She looked up and they all followed her gaze. There was something in the branches, some machine that turned right and left as it looked for something.
Camera. Part of Becca’s brain remembered the word. She felt a pang of fear; the humans were hunting them, might even know that they were here now.
Erin nudged her shoulder and slunk forward, as the camera swung away, its seeking eye turned elsewhere. Becca followed her, though all her instincts told her to run. They slithered through the brush, pausing every few feet to watch for other cameras. There were other machines now, too, ones that looked like weapons with blinding bright lights on them.
Ahead through the trees, she could see a small campfire with some humans grouped around it. She recognized Oya and her men, though it was hard to think of them that way. Now they were just enemies of the Pack.
She and Erin froze where they were, hidden by the trees and the shadows. Even so, Becca felt horribly exposed and vulnerable. Her wolf self wanted to run and hide more than anything in the world and it was hard to fight that fear.
To make herself stay put, she studied the cameras and other machines in the trees. They turned on an arc, carefully surveying a patch of forest at a time. Some tiny creature scuttled through the brush away from them and one of the machines fired a sharp and painful light at it, blinding the wolves for a few moments.
Becca shivered. This was terrible. There had to be something they could do to stop this, her human self clamored, nearly fully awake now. Otherwise, all of them might die out here. She remembered the sense of belonging she’d felt in the cave and both of her selves, wolf and human, ached to think of losing that.
She tried to see the campsite before them with not quite human eyes. There was a fire and weapons and food, the last making her mouth water a bit. They had tents. What else? Then she saw them: two barrels, whose acrid reek blew over to their hiding spot and made her gag. Her human self roused itself enough to whisper Gasoline into her wolf brain.
With that came the memory of the Women’s Club and the smell of burning and the cans of gas in the ashes. They must be planning to do something like that again. But what else was there to burn? And did they want to wait to find out?
Becca kept watching the machines in the trees until she knew what to do. She moved forward, ignoring Erin’s frantic nip at her shoulder. As silently as she could, she slid past the arc of the first camera. Then she hid again in the shadows while she watched the moving machines, studying their patterns as if they were prey. She gauged how far she was from the barrels and her human brain told her wolf self what to do. She gathered herself for one big run that would take her through the camp to her target.
But the humans were moving around the fire now, grabbing their guns and looking out into the woods. She wondered what Shelly had planned and where the others were. Whatever they were doing, she hoped it would be a good distraction.
Then one of the men looked at a glowing machine in his hand and shouted. He pointed back into the woods, over by where she and Erin had left the rest of the Pack. The humans began to split up, pointing their guns out into the trees as they left their camp.
Becca knew she had to act now before they found everyone else, before it was too late. She shot out of her hiding place and dashed around the tree where the closest camera was mounted. A thin beam of light sliced through one branch over her head, then another. It began to burn a trail in the dirt behind her as she ran. She raced toward the barrels, moving faster than she could have ever imagined her middle-aged body could move, even on four legs.
A bullet whizzed past, followed by a second and a third. The humans had seen her and were firing at her now. She dodged as best she could, then threw herself at the first of the barrels with all her strength, knocking it toward the fire. Then she slammed into the second and shoved it toward the fire too. An instant later, she gathered herself into a huge leap that would take her away from the rolling barrels and the flames and back into the safety of the woods.
A sharp pain burned its way through the fur on her shoulder and she yelped and staggered. There were more shots, then she felt a second burning sensation in her back leg. She went down with a whimper. The bullets felt like they were fusing with her blood, freezing her in place. She couldn’t even move when one of the humans approached.
“Well, we got one of you anyway,” Oya’s voice was thick with satisfaction and bloodlust. There was a click from her gun and Becca knew she was done for. She closed her eyes, letting herself drift off as waves of pain swept through her.
Then there was an explosion of flame, and a ball of fire knocked Oya sideways. She hit the ground and rolled away with a shout, “What the hell is going on?” The air around Becca was glowing against her closed lids, the wind a hot tongue on her fur and skin. Then Oya spoke again, “Holy shit, it’s you.” Her voice was soft.
Then there was a vicious snarl and Becca could hear Oya go down under the weight of an angry wolf. She was shouting and the air was full of bullets. Then the thicket was a blur of wolves. There were screams from near the f
ire, the sound of guns firing. Then a second explosion.
Becca could feel herself being picked up by someone who smelled familiar. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore. Instead, it was as if she was suspended in a black velvet pool. She sank in as whoever was carrying her started to run.
Chapter 15
~
Becca drifted in dreams for a lifetime. In some, she was running through the woods, naked and human, and the trees were bursting into flame around her. Burning branches hit her as she tried to claw her way to a wakefulness that never came. In others, she was a wolf, racing through open fields while humans with guns shot at her. Sometimes the Pack was with her. These were the worst since then she got to see each of them picked off by the hunters, falling one by one.
When she finally woke up, it took a moment to realize that she hadn’t just awakened into the next dream. Instead, she was in a white room with white curtains. There were faded prints of flowers on the wall and a hospital smell permeated the air, making it hard to breath.
She glanced down: her left arm was bandaged from the shoulder to the wrist. From the feel of things, there was at least one more bandage around her ribs, another around her thigh, but she wasn’t ready to lift the sheets to find out yet. At least, she could move her feet under the covers, and that alone was a huge relief.
She kept blinking at the room until it gradually came into focus. There was a machine beeping in the corner. The streamers of sunshine that came through the curtains made her eyes tear up. Wherever she was, she hadn’t been here before. That much she was sure of.
She shifted her left foot and something rattled. Her ankle fell weird, as if there was a weight on it. Slowly, she lifted the sheets and looked down. She was wearing a heavy-duty leather cuff, one that a farmer might use to hold livestock, on her ankle. There was a chain attached to it and that was attached to something else that she couldn’t see under the bed.
Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) Page 11