by Drew VanDyke
Colby said, “You should know that to most werewolves, Knightsbridge is a joke. A gay male alpha, I mean. C’mon. This is bucking tradition in a huge way, far worse than with mundane society. And from what I gather, since you’re probably the only female lupine alpha in existence, I bet they’ve been keeping you in the dark about pretty much everything.”
I’d surmised as much, but with my socially liberal leanings and the outdated ways of pack tradition, I’d figured the less I knew the better, and didn’t ask. Out of sight, or smell, and out of mind. Where the hell was my journalistic edge? Oh right, it had been bought off by massage therapists and exfoliating scrubs. I tried to stay away from subjects such as politics and religion in my regular life, but I guess lycanthrope history was something I ought to bone up on. I took a long drag of the clove. “Go on.”
“You know, most alphas win the right to dominate in battle, usually to submission but sometimes to death. The younger generation isn’t as bloodthirsty as the old, but unless the previous alpha is willing to leave or take a subservient role, death is usually the best answer – especially if the wolf is old.”
“Sounds rough.”
“Times were tougher back then, Dad says. They used to burn us out with torches and pitchforks. Sometimes we’d have to kill them, whole villages even. Nowadays, people either think we’re cool and we incorporate them, or they don’t want to believe their own eyes anyway. That’s what the fangs are for. Keep the sheep loyal or scrub their memories.”
She said it like it was nothing, but it made me profoundly uncomfortable. Good thing weres were mostly immune to vampire mind magic.
“It’s pretty great what you’re doing here. I sure hope it works out,” she went on, taking a deep drag.
I wondered for a moment what she thought the great part was, but I didn’t ask. If knowledge was power, I just realized, I must be an idiot savant.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here,” I steered her back to the subject at hand. Guess I wasn’t the only bitch who went spoor-sniffing.
“Well, though I’m old enough to breed, Dad’s never let any of the pack get near me during MoonFall, or frankly at any other time of the day or night. I’ve had bodyguards since I was twelve years old. We’re Catholic, so Dad’s kept me locked up tighter than the Vatican. You may not be able to see it, but I have an invisible chastity belt that makes the President’s Secret Service look like rent-a-cops. He tried to send me to an Inuit community of lycanthrope females, but that only made me bi-curious and when he got wind of that, I was on a flight back to Idaho. Now he’s decided to send me here.”
“Here? You’re not just visiting?”
“If I were being nice I’d say I think he knows deep down that pretty soon I won’t be his little girl anymore. If I wanted to be fair, I’d say he’s getting old and tired of watching me like a hawk and he’s letting me go. If I wanted to be mean, though, I’d say Sierra’s got him bewitched and he’s throwing me out so he can use up the last bit of juice in him screwing his trophy wife. Who knows? I might get a half-sibling or two out of the deal, though I hate to think how they’ll turn out with Sierra as a mother.”
“Well, the silver lining is, you’ll have a lot more freedom here. But you won’t be the alpha.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Unless that’s your goal?”
“If I ever want to be an alpha, I promise I’ll find somewhere else to challenge,” she replied, holding up a forefending hand. “I don’t want to be the one that killed the magic lupine, after all.”
“Oh, that’s all that’s holding you back?”
Colby hugged me again. “No, Ashlee. I’ll never kill you. I like you.”
“Good to hear.” I hugged her back, and it felt good. I wish I’d had a little sister.
A man’s voice sounded behind me and we both started, dropping our cigarettes to the ground and grinding them out with our heels as we saw who it was.
“Del Monte Rio.” The man extended his hand.
“Daddy,” Colby said and gave him a quick but strained hug.
His nostrils flared at the lingering smoke, but he refrained from voicing the judgment I saw there.
“I may not agree with my daughter’s choices,” – he put emphasis on the word “choices” like there was some extra meaning there, maybe about her sexuality – “but that doesn’t mean I love her any less. At least with Jackson, I know she’ll be taken care of if she finds herself in a womanly way.”
Colby sighed. “Daddy, why can’t you just say ‘pregnant’? You’re too old-fashioned. Maybe Sierra can drag you into the twenty-first century.”
Pregnant? With Jackson? As in, wolf pups? So Colby was Jackson’s wolf answer to my relationship with Will, and damned if I wasn’t unnerved at the thought. Though why should I be? It made perfect sense.
Yeah, sure.
Rio’s broad shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath preparatory to raising his voice, I could tell, and my brain began jumping through hoops and my heart started racing. It was entirely too much like what my own father had done during my childhood, when getting ready to deliver a stern lecture backed up by an application of the belt.
I could feel the onslaught of an anxiety attack and was afraid that when my head finally wrapped around the information I’d just received, I wasn’t going to be suitable company for anyone, let alone a pack of doggie dignitaries. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I need to get some air.” Since we were already outside that seemed redundant, but I had to place some distance between myself and this new information. I threaded my way through the cemetery just as Amber pulled up at the curb.
“Get in,” she said as she reached across and opened the passenger door for me. I dove in, buckled up and Amber raced away. We could see Jackson, Sully and the rest of the Knightsbridge Canyon pack piling out of the rectory as if to come after me. When they saw I was with Amber, they stopped. Well, that was a bit weird. Showed how much they thought of me, as a piece of chattel rather than a free person.
“Breathe. Ashlee. Breathe,” Amber said and shoved a covered plastic bottle at me. “Drink this.”
It was the tea of tranquility. My eyes teared up and I choked out an ironic gasp of disbelief. I downed the tea as Amber blasted Goddess worship music at me. Siegfried stuck his head between the seats and pushed it into my lap. Seriously, if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry and I was so not going to let this whole thing get the best of me. And I have to tell you, there are some really good praise choruses to the Divine Feminine out there. But you might have to join Spotify to find them. Although I think Amber has Sirius XM. Or maybe just casual XM.
Anyway, we drove up the Canyon and when I’d calmed down enough, Amber began to talk. “Will wanted to come but Siegfried wouldn’t let him.”
I looked a question at her.
“Yes, we’re talking now.”
I have an enchanted collar, the familiar thought at me, thought at us both.
“So, what’s going on?”
“Don’t you know already?” I petted Siegfried’s head.
“I know Sierra’s back in town and I got that you can’t do anything but ride it out till she’s gone. But something hit you especially hard just as I arrived. Something about your wolf and the puppies. I told you, you need to reconsider this.”
“I’m not reconsidering having the puppies,” I muttered. “I’m just reconsidering the father.”
“You and Will having problems?”
You know how sometimes if you talk long enough you stumble upon your own answers. Well, that wasn’t this time. If I was going to be honest with myself – and the only person I’m starting to believe you owe full honesty to is yourself – the truth was, though I chose Will, my wolf wanted Jackson. And the wolf was me, wasn’t it? Freaky Friday!
“Sounds like you have another decision to make.”
“Another?” I wasn’t sure what my twin was referring to.
“You said you were going to hold off on the puppies. This just gives you more reason
to. I mean, what do you know about what you’re getting yourself into? Trying to fulfill some goofy prophecy about uniting the supernatural kingdoms.”
“What? I’m not trying to – where the hell did you get that from?” I demanded as she pulled up to the trailhead to Lover’s Leap.
“I sent you my research.”
“I haven’t had a chance to get to it yet!”
“I swear Ashlee, if you would just take that analytical eye and journalistic integrity you use when writing your articles and apply them to your own life, you would be so much farther ahead of the game than you are now.”
“Yes, well, we wouldn’t want to mess up that dark mirror you’ve got hidden in your pool house.” I know, it was a poor metaphor, but I wasn’t thinking straight.
Amber sighed. “I packed you a bag of clothes.” She motioned toward the back seat. “GPS, bottled water, raw hamburger. I figured you’d want a run the way you were feeling when I caught your distress call.”
“I didn’t call…never mind,” I said and exited the car. I opened the back door and Siegfried hopped out with my gym bag in his mouth.
No, you’re not coming, I thought at him.
“Siegfried will wait for you and guard your clothing. Just make sure you clip the GPS receiver to your collar.”
“I have done this before, you know,” I told her through the open window.
She smiled. “Shake it off, Ashlee,” she said. Or run it off. Whatever. She blasted Taylor Swift out the window as she left Siegfried and me in the dust.
I looked at the dog-daemon. “Bet you never thought you’d be twin-sitting.”
Thankfully, and wisely, he kept his reply to himself as we headed up the canyon.
Chapter 8
I learned this from Jackson later:
After I’d left, small talk had ensued until the twelve-course meal in tapas had the rest of the delegation reclining or sitting on the scattered chaise lounges, leather La-Z-Boys and love seats. Someone mentioned the Blood Moon fever, about which a semi-heated debate ended with a consensus. A few of the young alphas disagreed, but the majority of elder voices held sway. Everyone would have to refrain from mating.
Sister Lena had petitioned the delegation with the proposal that her people cast a spell to keep the Blood Moon fever from doing harm to any sentient being in Knightsbridge and, though many thought that the witches’ fears were unfounded, it seemed like it couldn’t hurt.
Shelby topped the day off by driving the entire delegation out, in limousines of course, to a ranch he owned on the eastern ridge of Mount Rettig in order to provide livestock in a confined area. The weres all stripped naked under the moon, turned, and feasted to their wolfish hearts’ content. Can’t have the locals opening hunting season because we were poaching their livestock, after all.
I had to give him kudos; hey, it was a good decision. Maybe Peg was a good influence on Shelby, teaching the Con-man how to be more human.
Naw, he was still a snake. I’m sure it was purely self-serving.
“Hey Siegfried?” I consciously spoke directly to the familiar instead of the poodle for the first time in a week.
Yes, milady, he responded, trotting up to me and attempting to gnaw on my fingers.
“Ew, gross. Knock it off,” I told him. He sat on his haunches, cocked his head to the right and stared at me. “You know, you’re not helping your case, looking all cute in that doggy way. Not if you want to be taken seriously as a familiar instead of a dog.”
Just keeping in practice.
“So, I was thinking about how Amber can’t see our mom and I can, and I was wondering if there was a spell that would allow her to see and hear her like I can.” I wanted to do something nice for Amber since she’d come through for me the other night.
Siegfried thought for a minute.
We could do a spell to let her see and hear ghosts, but it’s not that particular and I don’t know if she wants to become a ghost whisperer. Besides, it wouldn’t last. Psychics deal more with time, cause and effect, potentiality and that rot. It would probably open her up to all sorts of influences.
“Yeah, she’d love that. NOT. Anything else you can think of?”
She could do a ride-along spell.
“That sounds interesting. What’s that?”
It’s a spell that allows a witch to share the consciousness of another being. She’d be like an observer sitting on your shoulder, only in the back of your head. Of course, during which time she’d be seeing what you see and hearing what you hear.
“That sounds perfect. As long as it’s temporary.” The thought of Amber forever in my head even more than she already was…yikes.
It has some side effects. A few drawbacks, depending on your perspective.
“Such as?”
Such as, anything you think, she has access to, and vice versa. You won’t be able to block each other for the duration.
“Well, she always said she wished she knew what it was like to be me.”
You must know, there is risk involved.
“What kind of risk?”
Well, for the time she’s in your head, her body will be comatose. As long as you get her back into her own body within a specified amount of time, it will be just like she went into a deep coma, and then woke up. But, you might want to have an IV on hand in case something goes wrong. If her spirit doesn’t get back, she’ll need life support.
We told Amber about our idea and she seemed skeptical, but curious. Granted, it was a little scary to think about putting my twin sister into a coma, but it was only temporary, right? Siegfried assured her that it was a spell most witches got around to eventually, wanting to know what it’s like to do a ride-along with their familiar, for example.
Elle was adamantly against it, and tensions ran high in the Gordon-Scott household until I suggested that Amber call another gathering of the Street Witches to the house and they could mentor her on the process.
Siegfried was a bit miffed that his mentorship wasn’t enough, but Elle was a hard sell on anything that put Amber in danger, to which I threw in my final card and promised that Will’s sister Samantha would be on hand as backup medical treatment.
Besides, this would just be a trial run, riding along with Siegfried, a friendly being. Not that Amber and I wouldn’t be friendly, but, well, you never know how ugly it could get with two of us in there, right?
All bases covered.
They do say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But I’ll get to that.
We sent JR to his dad’s and gathered the usual suspects, plus a few extras.
There was Sister Lena, Sister Nayala, Sister Bertrille and an Abbess Layolin to call the corners and sweep the space clean from negative energy. There was Siegfried and Spanky and me, of course. Ghost Mom, who was beaming with excitement.
Will’s sister, Samantha, who I’m only just lately finding out is much more informed than we ever would have guessed, had oxygen, shock paddles, and an IV drip on hand, while Elle sat stoically on the edge of the bed, holding my sister’s hand as she reclined among the pillows like Cleopatra.
Surprisingly enough, we were all crammed into the master bedroom, a sacred space that even JR and I couldn’t enter without explicit permission. No wonder both my twin and her wife appeared vulnerable. This was a huge concession on my sister’s part and I marveled at the changes she was making to even explore a new aspect of her neo-witchy self.
The witches called the directions and invoked the Goddess to midwife their “sister” into the heart of the familiar, which was funny, because as I understood it, the ride-along spell was a brain thing. Siegfried used the analogy of the conscious observer, an almost pure non-judgmental consciousness that one could inhabit in the practice of mindfulness. Only this conscious observer was more like the peanut gallery.
Anyway, I was glad I wasn’t in for the trial run, So, I could spectate and take notes. I wanted to record it on my cell phone, but Amber nixed that one.
“Knowing you, the damn thing would end up somewhere on YouTube.” To which I vehemently replied that I might think about it but I’d like to think that my good sense would get the better of me. Regardless, as it stood I was stuck with my favorite gel ink pen and composition notebook. I’m good at taking notes. Making sense of them on the other end, now that’s a whole ’nother story.
Siegfried, come, my sister thought at the dog, and he gracefully leaped up to lie down next to my sister on the ridiculously huge California King. She placed her hand on his head and turned to the witches. “I’m ready.”
Sam pricked Amber’s finger with a lancet and pressed the blood spot just above Siegfried eyes, halfway between his ears, the drying rust color like a blemish on the dog’s lambswool coat.
“Good thing we only have to do that once,” Amber said, sucking on her finger. Sometimes she was such a wimp. Then she began to sing the chant she’d been taught.
I felt a chill run down my spine and a lump rise in my throat at the intimacy of the moment. Except for the sound of Siegfried dog-crooning next to her, the house was eerily silent.
Bring my consciousness to bear
Upon my chosen familiar
Canine thoughts and canine sight
Be my refuge for a night
She sang it like a round, or a chant, evoking a resonance of our childhood growing up with a mother who bought us DVDs of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo, all the old stuff from her own time as a little girl. In fact, I think the tune she was using was similar to the one about the magic mirror.
I must have dozed off, because, Mom, was the next thing I remember hearing and my eyelids shot open and Siegfried was off the bed and prancing around with our ghostly mother. He’d tackled her to the floor and she took on a solidity I’d never seen as she sank to lotus position and took Siegfried and my sister’s consciousness into her arms.