by Drew VanDyke
As the newest and lowest in established status, Sierra mostly stayed silent among these bitches. When she did try to speak, they verbally wolf-packed her until she bared her metaphorical throat and slunk away. Danika even pulled me aside and let me know that as far as they were concerned, I was the wounded party to Sierra’s prior shenanigans.
My impression of these women went up a couple of notches and I found myself grateful and humbled by their perceptiveness. It was like we were the Astronaut Wives Club and I was Annie Glenn, the one with the invisible stutter.
Oh, well. If different meant special, I was riding the short bus and happy to do it.
The evening waned and we all looked toward the waxing moon, itching to shed our human skins and run free. The menfolk had left us to it and we took advantage of the night to shift and hunt rabbits that had been released before we’d gotten there.
“Hi,” Amber said in my head, and I realized something was different.
“This ain’t the twin bond.”
“I did the ride-along spell, just for a little while.”
“On me?”
“No, on myself, silly. You’re just the target.”
Exasperation. “That’s what I meant. This is really rude, you know, jumping into my head without permission.”
“You can always block me out.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure.”
I stuck my fingers in my ears. “Om mani padme hum…om mani padme hum…”
“It’s not working.”
“So you lied about me being able to block you?”
“No, that’s just what Siegfried told me.”
“Guess I’ll have to get him to teach me how to do it.” I sighed. “It’s okay for now.”
She gave me a running commentary on the experience of turning and being a wolf for the first time – for her – until she realized that we actually were going to kill and eat the bunnies. Then she blinked out with a final “Ew,” and good riddance.
This made me think of a traumatic episode from when we were little, maybe three or four years old. Mornings we went to Happy Tyme Day Care and Preschool to give my mother a break from toting around four children – Amber, me, Adam and Whelan. They had gentle angora rabbits there, pets for the kids.
One morning we arrived to the horrific sight of rabbit parts and broken cages and bright red blood on earth tone fur. They said it was wild dogs, but now I wondered.
It didn’t bother me as much as it had Amber. I was always the tomboy, she the girly-girl.
Afterward, we shifted back and used the rough open showers installed in the back of the barn. Lots of good naked woman flesh. Amber would be disappointed she’d cut out so quickly.
Colby looked like she’d seen it all before and she wasn’t staring at me anymore. I guess it’s true what they say, that a little bit of strategically placed clothing is far more arousing than simple nudity.
We rinsed and soaped off the dirt, blood and grime and though some of the women stayed up and hit the hot tub and the pool, Colby headed for bed and I jogged home in the moonlight. Maybe everything will work out after all, I thought as I finally slipped into my own bed at about two.
I slept until noon.
Chapter 9
When I woke up, I felt a slight shiver of tension go through me as I realized I wasn’t alone. I turned my head to see Will on the opposite side of the bed. I must have been seriously out of it to not remember him crawling under the sheets with me, but his presence calmed my fears.
He stared at me with a wicked grin on his face. “Tonight’s the night,” he began to sing. “For the sinners and the saints. When the worlds collide, in a beautiful display.” He was singing Toby Mac, City on our Knees and I wondered at his choice, but I did love the song and he rarely sang. Will had been in choir with us at school, but he rarely sang out loud anymore. I guess he was self-conscious.
I closed my eyes and let him serenade me awake.
We spent the afternoon lounging around the pool. Elle had taken JR to the city while Amber and the Street Witches prepared for the ritual that evening. Adam had arrived with a bunch of hard-looking men and women in black SWAT gear, kissed my cheek hello, told me we’d catch up later, and went to set up a perimeter on Mt. Rettig. He said he was using motion sensors and his team was loaded up with tranq darts for batshit crazy werewolves or any other threat.
I hoped he wouldn’t have to use them. The lycanthropes, nonconformists that they were, were pooh-poohing the whole Blood Moon warning, but I wasn’t so sure. It seems like tempting fate to even do it. Why not just skip the whole thing and everyone stay indoors? But in the end, they persuaded me to join in. It was hard to resist pack peer pressure, and wolves gotta howl, I guess.
Besides, Will wanted to get the party started with the pups, and I’d already agreed. If I was going to start acting more like a grownup, sticking to what I’d promised seemed like a good start. At least the pack had agreed not to go running all over the place, to stay in one area like we were camping, only with pelts and paws.
At sunset, we locked Colby in the cage as she insisted. Maybe the youngest of us was the only wise one. Then we went up to the crest of Mt. Rettig where at least a hundred witches surrounded the delegation while Master Shelby and his group of intimates presided.
This spell they had arranged was another layer of protection against the theoretical consequences of turning and mating during the Blood Moon. It was supposed to reroute any violent energies into the usual wolfish activities – running, hunting, playing, mating.
The whole thing seemed simple and innocuous except for the corpse flower, which they had to rub all over the shifters’ foreheads. It attracted the most disgusting nocturnal zombie flies, but we endured.
The witches sang chants that sounded old as the heavens and finally ended with the incantation:
Blood Moon fever
Fears abate
To escape thy violent fate
Sublimate, sublimate
Make werewolf love to thy chosen mate
Well, that seemed unsubtle enough. Bring on the orgy? Or not, if that “chosen mate” line was supposed to ensure the wolves were monogamous tonight. I guess this was the compromise between lycanthrope laissez-faire and uptight witchiness.
When it was done, Amber and the witches disappeared off the mountain and the doggie delegation stripped and sat waiting. The moon rose and bled from orange to rust as the shadow of Earth crossed its face. It was a sight to behold, and the tension to shift built and built. I could tell this one was going to be different.
I just didn’t know how different.
Normally I stayed conscious throughout the turning, but this time was reminiscent of the first time when I lost all control and most of the memories, so overwhelmed by the lunar energies was I. This time, I felt as if the moon were pouring its light into me, making me glow, filling me and my seven chakras with its primal essence.
That was the last thing I remembered until I awoke the next morning on the floor of our campsite, spooning with Will on my front side…and Jackson snuggled up to my back.
“Um, guys.” I cleared my throat and elbowed Jackson in the gut.
He groaned. “A little bit lower and you would have gotten my nuts.”
Will began to wake, so I stood and performed a quick leap over the men. Some women would have thought they’d died and gone to heaven. I just felt nauseated and proceeded to drive the point home as I retched, naked, over a fallen log.
“What’s wrong with Ashlee?” Will asked.
“Must have been something she ate,” Jackson deadpanned and loped over to join his human mate. Sully was already standing by a small camp stove set up on an old picnic table and was happily percolating coffee, old-school, in a battered steel pot. A stack of paper cups, cream and sugar waited beside it.
Jackson kissed Sully a good morning and asked, “Everyone accounted for?”
“As far as I can tell. Do you remember anything that h
appened last night?”
“Not a thing,” Jackson said. “But my wolf is still asleep and satisfied. So, it can’t have been that bad. No disasters, right?” He sniffed the air. “Do you smell…?”
“Colby, yeah,” Sully answered. “I think we’d better check on the kid. You’ve got her cell phone, right?”
Jackson nodded and began to dress.
Colby, here? That couldn’t be right. I mean, I’d left her locked in my cage. They must be mistaken. Maybe they smelled her on my clothes or something.
I’d finished tossing my cookies and turned to find Will handing me a cup of coffee for mouthwash, when I heard Siegfried barking in my head.
Ashlee! You’ve got to get home now! Amber’s in a coma and I can’t reach her! His voice came through loud and clear. In fact, it seemed the whole pack heard it. Must be a canine thing.
“Sounds like you’d best get home,” Jackson said and pointed to the vehicles waiting for us at the trailhead.
Will and I shimmied into our clothes and raced for the parking lot, throwing ourselves into a car and telling the driver to step on it. Out the window I saw Adam standing in all his killer gear, finger to his ear, watching in puzzlement as we drove by.
I blew open the twin bond, but got nothing. Will called Samantha, while I phoned Adam to give him a quick, reassuring report and ask about last night.
“Yes, we did have an audible alarm go off and one of my men reported a wolf heading toward the interior of our perimeter, but I thought it must have been one of you guys getting too frisky, not a wolf coming in from outside.”
“Some security you are.”
“Hey, you try guarding a whole square mile of wooded mountains in the dark with twenty men. There’s only so much I can do.”
“Yeah, sorry. Thanks.” I hung up. Then I called Con. Yes, I had the vampire on speed dial. I didn’t like it, but this was my reality. As Bob Dylan once said, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody, and Con had his place in things, even if he wasn’t as much in charge as he liked to think.
Sister Lena, Siegfried and Colby met us at the door. I ran through the kitchen to my sister’s bedroom. Nurse Sam was already hooking Amber up with an IV. Elle was looking lost holding her partner’s hand.
Peg sat in a chair next to Elle, praying, and Con stood in a corner of the room. Even with the shades drawn he looked incredibly pale in the indirect day glow. I wondered how much sunlight he could tolerate before he burst into flames, or whatever vampires really did outside of movies.
Meanwhile, Ghost Mom floated like a worried angel above the lot of us.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“You happened,” Elle said, and then she bit her lip.
Ouch. I began to cry. Maybe I deserved that. No matter how much good I did in the world, deep down, I always felt like a colossal screw-up.
Siegfried bumped me in the crotch and I dropped to the carpeted floor to hold him.
“Siegfried, come,” Elle said, cruelly, I thought.
I’m sorry, Ashlee, he thought at me and he went to comfort his mistress, but Spanky was more than happy to take his place. At least one member of the family still loved me.
Peg was the one who acted the adult and jumped into the fray. “Don’t let Elle blame you, Ash. Apparently Amber got up suddenly in the middle of the night and recited the ride-along spell. Elle thought she was dreaming, but she found Amber on the floor in a coma when she woke up this morning.”
“So, where is she, Siegfried?” I asked. “Her spirit, I mean.”
I can’t tell. She didn’t jump into me, the poodle said.
I told them, “Siegfried doesn’t know and I’ve pinged the twin bond, but all I get is this echo in my head.”
“She’s traumatized,” Ghost Mom said. Of course nobody else except for Siegfried and Spanky heard her.
“What do you mean, she’s traumatized? I’m talking to Ghost Mom,” I told the room.
“Amber had a premonition, woke up scared and apparently cobbled together a spell on the fly. I think she thought she was going to jump into your body, but the closest shifter in proximity was...”
“Colby,” I said, jumping to the nearest conclusion. I quickly relayed the message and turned to find the teenager standing at the bedroom door, Sister Lena behind her.
“I think she’s in my head,” the kid said. “She’s not saying much. But, when I close my eyes, I see her curled up in the dark in the fetal position. When my wolf tries to get close to comfort her, she just stares wide-eyed and whimpers.”
“So what do we do?”
“Amber’s like that monkey who shoved his hand into a coconut to get a trinket, but because he’s got his hand bunched in a fist, he can’t get it back out,” Mom said and I repeated.
“So, what, I’m the coconut?” Colby asked.
I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m sorry. I’m inappropriate that way. When things get awkward and dark, I get snarky. It’s an involuntary defense. “In other words, whatever it is that’s keeping her there…”
Mom finished for me. “She’s gotta let it go.”
“I guess we need to wait until she’s ready to talk.” I relayed that to the room while Elle got up and faced Colby down.
The girl tried to back away, but Sister Lena stood beside her whispering in her ear. “This isn’t about you, Colby,” she said to the frightened teenager. “Elle just needs you to be strong while she delivers a message to her wife.”
“But…”
“You can do this. Remember, this isn’t about you,” Sister Lena said.
Before I knew what the hell was happening, Elle had taken Colby into her arms and laid a smackaroo on the young lycanthrope the likes of which I know I’ve never seen from the two of them – my sister-in-law and Amber, I mean. For a moment there, I felt a movement in the ethereal force. It was as if the twin bond thrummed within me. I placed a hand on my nervous stomach.
Then she, Elle, looked deep into the heart of the teenage werewolf, to where my sister’s spirit might be lurking, and said, “Take all the time you need, love. That’s just one of the things waiting for you when you return.”
Instead of standing there with my mouth open looking shocked, I turned to Con and said, “You’ll donate some of your magicky blood if we need you to, right?”
To which Peg answered, “Of course he will.”
But Elle was having none of it. “All of you need to clear out. Colby, would you mind staying in the guest room so you can be close? Amber was going to offer it to you anyway while you were in town.”
“Sure, no worries,” Colby said, so we all left Elle to sit with Amber’s body.
We seemed to be at somewhat of a collective loss, and stood around making uneasy small talk. Will suggested we fix breakfast, so we threw out a spread my sister would have been proud of. It only dawned on me a little later that, when Colby began to pitch in, it was like she had a sense of where everything was, despite never having been there. Not once did I tell her where to find anything. And if that didn’t convince me that my twin sister was still alive in the young were, I don’t know what would.
It took Amber a couple of days to come out of her spiritual catatonia, during which time there were way too many people traipsing in and out of the Gordon-Scott house than was normal and to my sister’s liking, what with witches and werewolves and all. I think it might have been that more than anything as I saw Colby’s eyes narrow at the coffee rings on the kitchen counters, spurring Amber toward recovery. Never underestimate the primal rage of an OCD housekeeper.
We weres still couldn’t remember most of the details about what happened over the Blood Moon, but I was getting disturbing flashes from my wolf, coming clearer all the time.
I called Adam and tried to get more information, but he told me his people had merely manned the perimeter and made sure the wolves stayed within bounds. He repeated the report about when the perimeter alarms had been triggered, but to
him it had seemed one of the younger wolves had wandered too close to the demarcation zone.
That reminded me about Jackson and Sully claiming to smell Colby. Hmm. I’d have to dig further into this.
Later, according to Adam, what he saw from the high-powered binoculars he was using, we all took down a longhorn steer and there seemed to be a lot of wolf-sex going on, and then we all laid down and fell asleep. He’d let his team go once he started to see signs of morning and confirmed all the sleepers looked human again. After everyone had awoken, he’d left as well.
Colby pulled me aside one morning as we were sitting at the main house kitchen peninsula chowing down on donuts from Crave. “Amber wants to talk to you.”
“Oh, thank God!” I answered. I’d felt the twin bond twitching, but the emotion and turmoil I was getting, without any clarity of information to back it up, was seriously chapping my hide.
“Alone,” she said, lowering her voice, so I grabbed a few Bavarian crèmes and a couple of coffees and we exited the main house, rounded the pool and entered my domain.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Colby said.
“But Amber does,” I told her.
She smiled my sister’s smile, which was hella weird coming from someone else, and took a sip before setting it on the coffee table, along with the pastries.
We sat cross-legged on the futon, facing each other. “So, how does this work?” I asked.
“Amber can take control of my body if I let her. All I have to do is step aside in my own head and her consciousness comes forward. But you should know, I do hear and see everything, so whatever Amber tells you, I’ll end up knowing.”
“Yeah, I got that part. Well, Colby, little sister, guess it’s time for some TMI.” I was making light of the situation, but deep down I was seriously worried.
Colby closed her eyes and relaxed, breathing deeply. When she opened them and looked at me, I realized that it was Amber behind those orbs.
“Oh Amb,” I said and moved forward to cradle her in my arms. She let me for a moment, then sniffled and pushed me back.