by Dana Cameron
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 Dana Cameron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
Cover Illustration by Chris McGrath copyright © 2013
ISBN-13: 9781611097955
ISBN-10: 1611097959
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948380
To James:
Here’s to the next twenty-five years.
Usual terms.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
I was sorting a box of objects in the Museum of Salem’s accession office when the call came. My mother was dying. I knew this day was coming, had known for months, but the news hit me like a freight train all the same. Numbly, I saved the work file, turned off the computer, pocketed my pen, phone, and the antique clay figurine I’d been working on. Locked the empty artifact box in the cabinet. Dug my keys from my bag.
The drive across town to the hospital seemed to take forever.
I stood there, frustrated that there was nothing I could do to help her, wishing I was back at the museum or, better yet, at the bottom of a nice, square hole in the ground, excavating and recording a thick Native American hearth with a scatter of stone flakes in it.
Ma had lost so much weight, and she had never had any to spare. Her hair had thinned, the once-vibrant red dulled against the pillow with dark roots showing an inch. Once she’d been tiny, but a dynamo. Now she barely had the energy to breathe. She turned and spoke what I knew were her last words to me.
“Your father, goddamn it,” my mother said. “He was a good person. But you see any of his family, you turn, you run as fast as you can.”
I nodded, not wanting to say anything. Running and distrust had always been our way of life. But I wished she’d talk about something else. I didn’t want her to waste her breath on what I already knew.
“Ma—I love you—”
I knew she wouldn’t say it back, but I needed her to hear it from me.
My mother’s hand tightened on mine. For such a sick woman, her grip was incredibly strong.
I couldn’t stand it. I knew she’d been hoarding the breath for this final set of instructions. It wasn’t long now.
“Promise me. You see them, you’ll run like hell.”
“I promise, Ma.” I kept swallowing so I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t want to worry her. We knew this was coming. “I talked to Ian at work and let him know…about you. That I might have to move. He put me on lab and office work, so I don’t have any field projects outstanding for him.” I brushed my eyes. “He even offered to call a couple of colleagues, to help me get another contract job. And the museum, the grant they hired me for is almost done, so…I can go.”
“OK, good. You lose yourself now; you have a good, quiet, dull life. What we did was only to keep it together until you were grown and could look after yourself. And I’m sorry you had to worry about me the past coupla months. Now you can fade away, settle down. I kept you hidden; they don’t know about you. When I’m gone, they won’t look for you.”
I knew that was a fairy tale, but nodded anyway. Ma was usually tight as a clam; this was volumes.
“You go visit your grandma. I left something there for you.”
“Huh? Grandma—” It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. My eyes filled up and spilled over when I nodded again. “OK, I got it, Ma. I’ll do everything you say.” That much I could do, to make her happy.
“OK, good.” Satisfied, she sank back into her pillow, all effort spent. “Good.”
A few moments later, Ma moved her hand. I leaned in to hear.
“Ginger ale?” came the hoarse whisper.
I nodded and went down the hall, glad I could do something for her. When I returned two minutes later, my mother was gone. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted, but it was nothing like sleep. Her face was free of pain for the first time in months.
I set the ginger ale down on the table. “Ma, don’t—”
Don’t what, Zoe? I thought. Don’t go. Don’t worry. Don’t hurt anymore.
She didn’t even look like herself. Something had left her body, and there was no more Ma.
I felt my eyes start to burn. Sensors beeped and a nurse appeared.
“DNR,” I said robotically, turning away and wiping my eyes. “She didn’t want any extreme measures.”
She didn’t even want me to see her die. Didn’t want me to have to say good-bye.
The attending nurse, a new one, was very nice. I filled out the paperwork I’d become so familiar with, all the while biting the inside of my cheek. I’d cry later.
I took the next few days to work out the funeral arrangements before following Ma’s orders to take off. I wasn’t a fool, but there were some things you had to do, no matter what. I let the folks who worked at the university dean’s office with Ma know. I gave notice at the contract archaeology company I’d been working for and wrapped things up at the museum, grateful my skills as an archaeologist were transferable and I’d be able to find another job shovel-bumming wherever I ended up. I filled out yet more paperwork and answered interminable questions. I cleaned out the apartment we’d been renting, sold everything I could, and emptied out my mother’s checking account.
I wanted to make three calls. I’d left a message for my cousin Danny, but wanted to talk to him. He would have been there in an instant, but, disastrously, was out of town with work. And Will and Sean didn’t want to hear from me. Not after…
That was it. After the funeral, I’d run. I’d lose myself and figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I was almost twenty-five years old. The rest of my life seemed a very long time.
It was a good plan, but the day before the funeral, my last day temping at the museum, I could barely control my emotions. One minute, I thought I’d explode, feeling too much. The next, everything seemed distant, and I felt numb and detached.
I opened up the file of acquisitions I’d been working on the day Ma died. A quick look around; I was alone. I took out the figurine I’d stuck in my pocket on my way to the hospital and looked at it. It was dirty and ugly, not much longer than my middle finger. It looked a little like a doll of painted clay, its colors faded almost to a uniform beige, a woman with her hair piled on top of her head and dressed in what looked like Greek robes. It was so crudely done, so battered, it couldn’t possibly be real; it was just a souvenir from some classical tourist trap, an imitation of a votive offering or a miniature of a fam
ous statue. It had been rolling around loose in a box of objects from a donor’s collection, probably swept up when they were clearing out her house. The box it came in could have been a museum piece itself, having originally held a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer, with—dig it—four whole kilobytes of memory.
An honest mistake, picking it up that day. I’d found it that night and realized I could return it as soon as I got back to the museum. No harm done.
Looking at it now, something about the figurine spoke to me. Reminded me of something, maybe from a dream. Maybe it was the wall of sadness surrounding my better judgment, but impulsively I deleted the description I’d just typed—Greek, late 19th-century replica, clay—and put the figurine back in my pocket.
I’d never stolen before, not really, and certainly not an artifact. I was as ethical in my archaeology as only the righteous new professional can be, as rigorous in my recording as in my analysis, never ignoring data that didn’t support my theories. Never even touched an artifact out of context on the spoils heap without checking with the crew boss, and even then, I marked the object with the site location.
But the box was full of old junk the donor’s heirs clearly didn’t want to be bothered with, and that thing was just…calling to me. I couldn’t look away from it, couldn’t make myself enter it into the collection, where it would be ignored again for the next hundred years.
It wasn’t gold or in any way precious; it was dirty and it was really hard to identify it until you looked hard, I told myself. It had no provenience other than the box it had come in.
I had just erased its official existence. No one would be able to tell anything was missing. I was good at leaving no trace of my passing in the world, and this was no different.
I didn’t give it another thought the rest of the day.
That night, a few of the museum folks invited me out for farewell drinks. I went, surprised they’d noticed me at all, and even more surprised when they presented me with a glossy program from a past exhibit on daily life in ancient Greece. It was out of print, hard to come by, and expensive. It was an unexpected kindness, and it made me nervous. I liked thinking I’d been invisible.
On my way home, my skin began to crawl. I’d been mugged twice in my life, despite all my vigilance and despite what I’d learned from Ma. It had turned out very badly both times. Now I saw no one. This made me even more afraid.
Then I caught a passing glimpse of a man, but my eyes are sharp, and that glimpse, in the dark at fifty meters, was enough. The jawline and nose looked too much like the faded picture I kept in the bottom of my backpack. While he didn’t have my dark hair, cut above shoulder length in an attempt to mitigate split ends and the occasional Kool-Aid home coloring, I could see other resemblances to me in his big eyes, small nose, and pointed chin. Slight build, Harley-Davidson T-shirt…
I didn’t need to see whether he had green eyes to know. He was my father’s people.
My family, the people I was never supposed to meet.
The enemy we’d been fleeing all my life.
I turned and ran, even though I saw nothing obviously dangerous. I knew the neighborhoods well enough to avoid tight spaces and dead ends. But my apprehension only increased.
Small and stealthy, I made the most of the shadows when I could, but mostly I relied on speed.
The two other muggings—attacks, let’s be honest and call them what they were—had been too horrible to remember, too terrible to repeat. I’d burst my heart before I let it happen again.
I vaulted a low chain-link fence and ducked between two houses. As I tried to catch my breath, I saw more of them, spread out and running as silently as I was. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, the world begin to swim before me, a familiar thrill of adrenaline.
Oh no. Not now, not when they’re so close…
Maybe I could still outrace it. I tightened my backpack straps, almost to the point of pain. With any luck, I’d keep my meager possessions with me in the flight to come.
Things got worse, more intense, as they do when you’re in a panic. Reality receded. Whoever they were, they hadn’t found me. They had never lost me, I now understood, my legs going wobbly. They’d chased me to exactly where they wanted me. Herded me.
My blood boiled, my despair transmuting into something else, more powerful. An anger that was cleaner, nearly irresistible. I knew I was giving up and I knew what would follow as I did.
As my rage grew, it wiped away the last of my resistance. They wanted me so bad, let them see the real me.
Let the Beast come.
Footsteps behind me. Ahead of me. Shadows from a street-light showed familiar profiles, features similar to those I saw in the mirror.
I gave in to the Beast.
I felt the shame of unleashing the Beast only until I was washed in a flood of righteousness. The guilt evaporated, sizzled, then vanished like water on a hot skillet as my body shifted. I always expected pain, and the few times this had happened before, I’d been surprised: nothing but goodness, like I’d had an injection that made me somehow better in my Beastliness. My spine arched and stretched, my legs and arms lengthened, my fingers shortened. My jaw grew long and narrow, my ears pointed. My backpack straps were now comfortable, conformed to my new body. As I stepped out of my cheap black China-doll shoes, I felt elegant, sleek, graceful. The wind ruffled my fur.
I could think, I could keep a plan in my head, I knew who I was, but didn’t think I was up to complex math or philosophy. Maybe that was to make room to deal with all the information my heightened senses fed me. I felt like Zoe, but stronger, more elemental, and the Beast guided me.
Go ahead, guys, I thought. You’d have to be nuts to stick around, having just seen that. And even if you are nuts, you probably aren’t stupid enough to mess with the Beast.
I growled, low but palpably audible. I ached for them to attack. I’d end this nonsense now. They owed me for haunting my mother and me. They owed me two lives.
A glimmer—but of what? My sharpened senses weren’t easily fooled, but something was happening I couldn’t explain. The air around me was charged with electricity. Another moment and we’d all spontaneously combust.
It was coming from the men at both ends of the alley. The air was full of Beastliness.
It wasn’t just me. The others were…
I turned and bolted.
I ran as long and as hard as I could until I felt the Beast relax and no longer sensed those around me posed a threat. I trotted, catching my breath, but still kept to the shadows; people in Salem might expect to see a coyote these days, but I didn’t want to draw attention as a wolf in a short cotton dress with a backpack.
I pulled up behind a huge rhododendron, shifted my pack, and…concentrated. Praying I’d be able to turn back, terrified I’d stay in the Beast’s form, trapped in my own brand of insanity. The Beast had come upon me about a dozen times since I turned sixteen, and sometimes it took ages to turn back, and then I despaired of resuming human form. Those were the worst times.
I lucked out, and it happened quickly. Shifting back, I surveyed the situation. The hem of the dress I’d been wearing was shredded by my escape, but it’d do for the moment. I pulled a pair of flip-flops out of my pack and looked no more remarkable than anyone else out on the street that time of night.
As I found my way back to our triple-decker, over fences and cutting through backyards, I wondered about the men who’d just followed me. Ma’d always told me Dad’s family were blood-thirsty killers who considered themselves above the law. She had implied they were “Family,” with a capital F for “Felonious.” She said they killed my father and were after her because of what she knew about them. That’s why we moved around so much. I had no reason to disbelieve her. But I knew all along it probably wasn’t the whole truth. I never dreamed maybe she meant this family shared my problem, one I’d worked hard to hide from her.
Was it possible she knew what I was? Had she been the same?
Once home, it didn’t take long to pack the rest of my things. I slipped a note under the landlady’s door and then went for the last box of stuff. I’d leave immediately after the funeral tomorrow. I’d wait till I had to decide between going west, on the Pike, or south, on Route 93, then call Ian to ask for that recommendation.
On my way from the car, parked down the street, I stiffened. I felt a tingling in my spine until I saw it was Hunk coming around the corner toward me. He was, as he put it, temporarily between permanent residences. On nice nights, he slept on the Common; I don’t know where he found shelter on the nasty nights. He was far from his usual haunts. I almost sneaked past, but I heard him mumble my name.
There’s always someone worse off than you. No matter how squirrelly our life, I knew there was always someone who could use what little I had to give.
I fished a tattered bill from my pocket. “How’s it going, Hunk?”
He took it, nodding thanks. “Snakes are bad this time of year.”
Not one of his better nights. “Snakes?”
“All over your house. I seen ’em.”
“OK, Hunk. It’s OK. They’re…gone now.”
“Did they find you?”
I went cold. “Did who find me?”
“Your cousins. Said they were looking for you.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about garter snakes now. “I…they weren’t my cousins. They’re bad men. I don’t want them to know you saw me or that I left, OK? You see them, you duck out of sight.”
“Hey, I’m an old guy who sees snakes. Who’s gonna bother me?”
“You don’t want to find out. You take care of yourself.”
But Hunk had already wandered off.
I knew my plan, had been rehearsing it in my head when I couldn’t bear to think about Ma’s pain. Tomorrow I’d drive until I felt safe, then start a new life.