I was in the storage room for the music department, not for the first time.
Grey took me up here once, I told Raoul. I felt like I had to explain it to someone. It was last year, when he started talking about me going back to school. He wanted me to see what my choices were, to tempt me to try…
I trailed off. I’d just found the largest instrument case in the room. I opened the latches and pulled the bass from its case, and my breath hitched when I saw the long, badly-mended scratch on its neck. Sure enough, this was the bass Grey had used. I’d made that mark on it myself.
I stared at the bow like all the instructions were inscribed on that slender little staff.
Put your fingers here, he’d said. Hold them down, firmly—not too firmly, you’re not crushing the thing flat. Now put the bow here, and make one long, steady stroke…
The first time I’d done it, I’d produced only an unholy screech. This time, when I tried it again, I heard music. Just one note—it was all I remembered how to do—but I’d done it right.
I bent my head and hung onto the bass until I could steady myself. Then I hefted up the instrument and went to the window, where Raoul still waited.
The logistics were creeping up on me, and they weren’t looking good.
I don’t think we can get this out the way I came in, I said. It’s even bigger than I remembered.
Can you take the stairs down?
I’ll go see.
I made my way across the room and reached for the door handle. Funny how simply opening a door was the worst idea of the night—because that was what tripped the alarm. It blared to life, so loudly that I went to my knees, slamming my hands to my ears.
Damn it. B, hurry!
I already had memories in my head of our esteemed police chief pointing a gun at me. I didn’t need the encouragement. I scrambled back to the window. Raoul stood below with arms extended, obviously wanting me to jump. I looked desperately at the bass.
I can’t leave without this!
B, it doesn’t matter now—
It does, I said firmly.
I felt his frustration, then a sense of decision. All right. Lower it as far out the window as you can.
Wincing, I levered the massive thing up, then maneuvered it onto the windowsill. It scraped as I pushed, but at last it cooperated, and I gingerly tipped it until I could hold it out by the neck. I did my best to get it away from the wall, but I was having awful visions of the instrument snapping off under its own weight.
I muttered a few choice curses at my brother for not playing something sensible like a violin or an oboe or a freaking piccolo, then shut my eyes.
Catch it, quick, I said, and then let go.
I didn’t hear anything crunch. I heard a thump, but that was all. I opened my eyes a fraction, enough to see Raoul flat on his back with his arms wrapped around the bass.
This is fucking huge, he said, suddenly sounding so ordinary.
Despite myself, I burst out laughing.
Raoul set the instrument aside gently and smiled up at me, one finger to his lips. Then he held out his arms again. I carefully clasped the bow in my hand and jumped. One second, maybe two and it was over—just a whistle of air and then he was holding me, warm and secure. I almost wanted to do it again. Then Raoul stepped back, and we prepared to retreat.
We got out of sight behind the maintenance sheds, where Raoul liberated a wheelbarrow. We managed to get off school property before the sirens closed in, and we took the back streets away from there, driving our ridiculous cargo behind people’s houses until we’d reached my sparsely-populated street again. If anyone saw us, I’m sure they would have written it off as a bizarre dream and gone back to bed.
No one was awake to see us when we reached my house, either, not even Grey the night owl. The house was dark. Even the security lights were off. I winced. It looked all too much like Grey had given up.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t be standing on the other side of the door with a baseball bat if we did anything stupid, though.
Raoul read my wariness. Should we leave this outside and go?
No. Around back. I need paper.
He didn’t question the non sequitur. He just followed me, still carrying the bass, as I ran across the yard to the cellar door.
Throughout all the years of research to find some kind of help for me, Grey had kept a journal. It was filled with scribbles and fragments and charts of his progress, and he’d kept it in that cellar cabinet, where he did—or used to do—his experiments with medicines for me. It also contained all his observations about what Dr. FitzP’s prescriptions were or weren’t good for. I doubted Grey knew I’d read it. Then again, there wasn’t a lot to do in that cellar while waiting for the moon to change.
There had to be a few blank pages left in the back.
I pulled open the cellar door and crept inside.
The place smelled of fear and blood and sickness. The darkness, the pressure, the layers of awful memories—they all pressed in at once. Then I growled and yanked open the cabinets and boxes. First I was assaulted by the scent of moldering leaves—Grey’s last experiment, left to go bad. Then I saw the folded-up clothes I’d put in the bottom drawer before that last, fateful full moon. I hugged them against my chest. These, at least, still smelled like me.
Tucked beside them was Grey’s book.
Raoul found me like that, reading my brother’s notes. Horrified, he took in his surroundings. The dark, cramped space. The bloodstain marking the ground where I stood. “What happened here?” he whispered.
I didn’t reply. I just took the bass from him, propped it and the bow against the wall, then flipped to the back of the notebook, where I used the attached pen to scribble down a quick, impulsive note. I tore it out and tucked it between the strings.
The rest of the notebook I handed back to Raoul as my answer.
“Take this,” I said. “You can read about it later.”
Raoul stopped me as I tried to leave. “How will he know it’s here?” he said softly.
I considered the open cabinet and snorted. “He’ll have to come down sooner or later or that last experiment of his will stink up the whole house. Let’s go.”
We did, and we even got back home without anyone noticing. Raoul left me with only a little awkwardness at the door. I claimed exhaustion, fairly enough. Mostly, though, I kept wondering what Grey would make of my message to him. It wasn’t enough. I’m not sure what would have been. But maybe he would understand:
Found something I know you’ve been missing. I hope I can hear you play this again someday.
—b
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next night began at the firing range.
Raoul and I were ready to launch our plan, the one that could either solve all our problems or, well, not. But first we had to play the game, and the game, for the time being, was still Ilsa’s. She’d been making her own preparations, and they felt like battle plans.
For hours she put us through exercises. They were both exhaustive and exhausting: obstacle courses, running, dodging attacks, practicing stealth. To make matters even more entertaining, we were doing this in both human form and wolf shape. She was even drilling us on transforming more quickly and effectively. I hadn’t even thought that was possible. For years the change just hit me whether I wanted it or not. Thinking my way through more careful ways to do it made a demented sort of sense, and yet…
I didn’t know what to think. It was strangely helpful, yet worrying at the same time.
At least we weren’t doing this during real live-fire exercises, but I had the creeping suspicion that was coming.
“We need to build up our strength,” Ilsa said, as we stood at the edge of the field and prepared for a dash to a designated point a good mile or so uphill. “We’ve been complacent here. Lazy. Perhaps even a little too human.”
I gave Raoul an uneasy look. He stood beside me, with Pandora and Ayu on his opposite side. Brandon remained
behind. Ilsa either didn’t trust him not to bolt, or didn’t want him getting the benefits of the training. Probably both.
After all, the next few things Ilsa said were directed straight at me.
“Those we have to face down will meet us at our most powerful,” she said, “and we won’t have anything to fear. Now. Go.”
We all wrenched ourselves through the transformation, mine ending in more pain than the others. I fell out of it gasping and had to struggle upright. Raoul made a whine of concern.
Ilsa wasn’t having any of that, though. She leaned over me, weirdly terrifying even in her weaker human shape, and hollered, “Go!”
I hauled myself up and went—again and again and again.
She chased us, some times, leaping from behind the trees to spook us or drive us off course. Other times she’d just be at our destination, human again and neatly dressed, with a stopwatch in hand and a skeptical expression. Then she led us home, exhausted and starving, and all hurting. The meal itself, being plain old normal food this time, only helped so much.
It was afterward that she actually produced one of those bottles of medicine—with, unfortunately, its label torn off. Raoul just barely stopped himself from lurching for it. I saw there was no point. She just handed it around the table, without comment or encouragement. She knew we were in no shape to say no.
Pandora took one pill and silently swallowed it. Ayu did the same, but she looked grimmer about it. Raoul gave the pills a good long look, then shook his head. Ilsa arched an eyebrow at him. So did I. Are you feeling okay? I privately asked him.
I could tell he wasn’t, but he pressed the bottle into my hand without a word. I picked at the shredded paper, seeing only shadows and hints, and sighed.
By this point, after a day without the meds, my back was killing me, my feet were sore, my legs ached, and muscles I barely knew I had were twisting into knots. It was like I was my old self again. I wanted to decline the “help” like Raoul had, but I hurt.
I slowly pulled out one small white pill, stared at it, and set the bottle aside. I couldn’t make myself swallow the thing, but I couldn’t bear to let go, either. And I hated Ilsa for it.
“We should all get some rest,” she said, giving me a speculative stare. I stuck the pill in my pocket and got out of her path as quickly as possible.
Raoul was still slated for his usual evening rounds around the property. I followed him out. We had a basic plan: get everyone out of the way, so I could get into Ilsa’s cabin and find the stuff she was giving the Elder. We might pull it off if we could convince everyone there was an emergency. A false alarm. It sounded easy in theory.
I just wasn’t convinced that the better plan wouldn’t be running like hell instead.
I tried to get into character, at least. I played up the routine that Ilsa had taught us, sniffing the air as though I were trying to pick out something. All I smelled was dampness and autumn decay, but I did my best to sell it. Then I imagined what I was supposed to be seeing—someone skulking out there, looking in on us, discovering our secrets.
I kinda wish someone would, I thought dourly. And I wish it didn’t have to be me.
What the hell is it? I heard Pandora say. She was out on the porch, frowning at me. I forced myself to give her a sharp, alarmed look, then returned to staring into the trees. Without actually answering her, I pitched up the alarm:
Raoul!
He was there at once. He came from behind me, vaulting forward from human to wolf in one beautiful arc, one that made my heart skip strangely. Intruder!
Pandora hurried toward me in a big mad hurry, with Ayu on her tail—literally. They’d already changed. Ilsa swept up behind them, ghostly pale but blazingly intense. If anything actually had been out there, I would have been freaked the hell out in its place.
“What did he see?” Ilsa demanded. I projected dazed innocence for all I was worth.
“There’s something, out in the trees. I think it’s a person. Watching us. But I couldn’t be sure…” I gulped, then added, “What if he’s not alone?”
That was in the script. Divide and conquer, Raoul had said. You get some of them going west. I’ll go east.
“There,” I exclaimed, throwing one hand out to point. “More of the smell. Might be a second person.”
Ilsa looked frustrated. I’d deliberately picked smell, not sound, since my senses in that regard were sharper than hers. She wouldn’t be able to detect the lie right away, and if I was lucky, she’d think a failure was her own fault, not mine. She had no choice but to run with it. “Ayu, with me. We’ll follow Raoul. Pandora, take B—”
“Wait,” I said, desperate. “Shouldn’t I stay behind for the Elder? What if someone doubles back and finds him?”
I could see Ilsa work over the logic of this, and swallow it like a particularly bitter pill. “Fine,” she snapped. “You stay. Ayu, we’ll go after this thing instead. Pandora, to Raoul.”
I backed up several steps and waited as Ilsa changed. Soon they were all dashing into the woods.
The instant I could, I ran headlong for Ilsa’s room.
Raoul had given me instructions. Ignore her clothes chest and the desk. If that memory still holds, it’s under the bed. Or maybe a loose floorboard.
It sounded easy, but while everyone else here had simple cabins, Ilsa liked her creature comforts. I came to a stop inside and gaped. The bed was more of a glorified futon, but the furs and silk pillows alone must have cost more than anything I’d ever owned.
Except for the I-hunted-these-animals-myself discount, I suppose.
I dropped to my knees, wincing at the ache in my joints, and shoved back the extravagant bedding. The board jarred loose with it. I reached in, knowing what I was supposed to find: the other bottle Raoul and I had seen.
I didn’t find a thing.
I dug around the compartment. Nothing was there. Nothing. I looked again, even dug through the bedding, but turned up precisely zilch. I shouted in frustration and threw everything back into place, wrenching my shoulder so badly I nearly tipped over with another howl of pain.
Either the Elder’s memory was too old, or Ilsa was a sneaky, paranoid, scheming mad genius and she regularly moved her illicit goods to different places. But either way, it was gone. I nearly dissolved with panic.
Then I turned around and ran. I was heading back to the main house.
The main house, where the Elder slept, and where my last chance remained.
I went to the Elder’s bedside, coming to an awkward stop and teetering down to my knees. He looked like he was decaying in his own skin. His breath stuttered and stumbled and his face was outright gray. I was afraid I was too late, and I was repulsed, I admit, and so frustrated that I almost screamed again—but I also figured there wasn’t really anything to lose. I dug into my pocket and pulled out the only trick I had.
The pill Ilsa gave me that I’d refused to take.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I shoved it into the Elder’s mouth.
It woke him up, that’s for sure. He choked for a horrible second, and I thought it might end that way, with the evidence lodged in his throat. But then he turned his head and swallowed hard. His eyes flashed open, then locked onto me. The sound he made was like nothing I’d ever heard. Inhuman didn’t even come close. And it was swiftly ratcheting up into a roar.
I flung myself backward, cracking my skull against the windowsill and slumping down, dazed. That sound just went on and on, and he was thrashing with more strength than I was expecting. He wasn’t in control of himself, and I had no idea what might happen if he got his senses back. Help, I screamed, and really, really meant it.
The reply I got was not what I’d expected.
Footsteps came pelting up the stairs at high speed—either two people or one on four feet, I couldn’t tell. What finally sprang into the room, changing form as it came, was Brandon. I thought for a second that I’d lost my mind. It couldn’t be him. Couldn’t. Yet it was, in the fle
sh, with everything exposed for everyone to see—including bloody, bruised marks all over his arms that weren’t fading. He must have done that to himself trying to get out of the cellar. I couldn’t even imagine the force it must have taken.
I also couldn’t help but assume the worst when Brandon lunged toward me, and so when his hands clenched around my arms, I screamed. I just knew, knew, that he’d heard my cry for help and knew I was vulnerable, and had come to finish the job after all—
But then he demanded, “What’s he done to you?”
The whole world went sideways, and away I toppled with it. Then there was another roar, and I saw the Elder lurching up from the bed.
“Look out,” I gasped.
Brandon let go, and my arms blazed with belated pain. He wrestled the Elder back down to the bed. I tried to help, but could barely catch up. I heard myself babbling. “It’s some kind of seizure. I didn’t think—”
The Elder’s body arched, and his face contorted, as if he was trying to change. Then as suddenly as it began, he went limp. Brandon hung on, breathing hard, but there was no more protest. The Elder went so quiet I was terrified his heart had given out.
I fumbled forward, taking the Elder’s wrist. Brandon let go. “Anything?” he said hoarsely.
There wasn’t, at first. Then I felt a slow, sluggish beat under my fingers. I sagged down, my head almost dropping against his chest. From there, at least, I could feel his breathing again.
I curled down against the side of the bed, feeling like I was about to throw up. Brandon painfully sat next to me. I finally saw how badly his hands were damaged. He looked like he’d tried to punch his way out. And after all that, he’d still had the strength to hold a struggling man down.
“Ilsa’s gonna kill me,” he said. At least, true to form, he was still thinking of himself first.
“How did you…?”
“Don’t ask.” He focused on me again. There was something terrifying about his voice, even while he asked me, “Are you okay?”
Before I could answer, all hell broke loose. Or at least all of the pack broke into the room, which amounted to the same thing.
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