by Carol Wolf
“I had another cousin,” Elaine said, bending to her work. “Curt's little brother, Pete. Back when we were kids, and what happened up at Aunt Sarah's was our huge secret, Pete was the one who loved it the most.” She shook her head. “I can still remember what it was like to fly, to see for miles…” She made a face. “Though coming back with mouse hair in my teeth wasn’t so fun. Pete was nuts about it. He used to hitchhike out to Sarah's ranch, help her with chores. He got her to experiment with him. She doesn’t do that anymore.
“He's the one who started working with metals, to find a way to hold the spell in place, make it last longer. He's the one who figured out that silver would work that way.” As she spoke, she inserted the short lengths of wire under the skin between Finley's shoulder blades, and at uneven intervals along his spine all the way to the base of his tail. I thought the use of alcohol to clean the needle and the little wires was excessive, but she did a thorough job.
“Pete loved to be a hawk. He didn’t get along with his folks. We thought it was just… After he figured out about silver, he charged up a piece, and instead of making wires out of it, he put it on the grinder and made a handful of dust. The next time he got Sarah to change him… we think he breathed in the dust as soon as she did it. She saw him fly away. He never came back.”
She finished inserting the last little snippet of wire in the skin of Finley's neck, under his thick ruff behind his head. “He’ll never get these out,” she said, and sat back.
Good.
“That should do it. Now all we have to do is…” Elaine got out her cell phone and opened it. After a moment she got to her feet, cursing under her breath about how the damn thing never worked out here. “I have to make a call. Then we’ll need to drag him to the garage. The cage is in there.”
The way she said it clued me in. “My cage?”
She nodded and headed off. I got up and dragged Finley out of the orchard. Slowly, but not very carefully. Sharing is a virtue, right? I had a lot of bruises just then. And I was looking forward to seeing Finley in my cage.
Elaine adjusted the tinfoil packet in Finley's muzzle when she got back, and then the two of us slotted him into the big live animal cage that Elaine hauled out of the garage. She’d cleaned it, but my scent was still on it. Finley was going to be really confused. Then we put it on a dolly and wheeled it out to the gate. Elaine checked Finley's heartbeat and respiration. He was going to live, it seemed.
“I’m sorry I called him.” Elaine poked the bars of Finley's cage with her shoe.
“Can I have my wallet now?”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I really don’t have it.”
“You’re kidding me!” The least I could have gotten out of that great battle was my wallet back. “Where is it?”
“Holly's got it.”
“And where is she?”
“Today? She's getting ready for Cecil's birthday party.”
Elaine's friend Simon arrived before too long, driving a truck with double doors in the back, and a lift. He parked across the driveway and got out, a lanky guy a bit older than her, in dark jeans and a worn jean jacket. His short brown hair spiked in different directions, but his gaze on Elaine was intense with anticipation. “What’ve you got?”
Elaine told him imaginatively that I was a friend who lived along the road, and that I’d seen a hybrid wolf a couple of times, and this morning I’d called to report it, and how we’d gone out together and bagged it, and there it was.
Simon's glance fell on me. “Is that how you got hurt? Are you all right?”
I licked a drop of blood off my lip. “I’m fine,” I told him. My arms were still throbbing, my bruises stung, but I’d won. I was walking away.
Elaine took back Simon's attention by showing him the wolf postcard.
“Seen ‘em,” he said. “So this was it?” He squatted down to examine him.
“I think so,” Elaine said. “I called the number and talked to the guy. Finley something. He doesn’t want it back, he just wanted to know what happened to it, make sure it's all right, and make sure no one was hurt.”
“Huh. He doesn’t look much like a hybrid. He looks like a full-blooded gray wolf.”
“Yeah, he does. But that's what the guy said he was.”
“Right. What happened to his nose?”
There was a silence. “Dogfight,” I said.
“Huh,” Simon leaned down to look closer. “He didn’t win? A big fellow like him?”
“Couple of bitches,” I said. It was all I could do to not start laughing.
“He's got a bite on his shoulder too,” Elaine told him. “I cleaned it, but you’ll need to keep an eye on it.”
“Sure thing,” Simon got up. “Poor guy.”
“Yeah.”
“He's a handsome fellow,” Simon observed. “Does he have a name?”
I looked down at Finley, thinking, but Elaine didn’t hesitate. “Butt Crack,” she said.
“Butt Crack?” Simon smiled, trying to understand the joke. “Okay. You sure you want to get rid of him?”
“Yes,” we both said.
“All right. I’ve got four stops. Any of them will be glad to have this specimen. I’m dropping a couple of rescues off at the rehab place near Big Bear, then I’m going down to the wolf center in Julian and picking up a pregnant bitch and a couple of yearlings for the new habitat near Phoenix. They’ve got a breeding pair they want delivered to the experimental station in Albequerque. So. Where do you want this guy dropped off?”
“Albuquerque,” we both said.
“Albuquerque it is.”
I grinned to myself. Albuquerque is deep in Lobo territory. Even if he got out of the station, he’d be in deep trouble, being so far off the Moon Wolf range. Escaping might even get him killed. What a happy thought.
We gave Simon a hand in dragging the cage to the lift, and then hauling it into the truck. One row of shelves held two wolf hybrids—and these were real wolf hybrids—wide awake and ready for fun. We shoved Finley's cage onto the empty shelf opposite and closed up the truck.
Simon studied Elaine for a long moment. “When I come back, maybe you’ll tell me the real story.”
She smiled at him. “Maybe. Someday.”
I was tired, and I was hurt. I wanted to complete my errand and go home to a hot bath and relive my triumph. And this is why I made the mistake that would bring my enemies down upon me. Something was niggling in the back of my mind, but I was too tired to work it out. I forgot about Finley's truck.
“All right,” I said, as Simon drove off, and Elaine finished waving at him. “Let's go find Holly and get my wallet.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You can’t go to Cecil's birthday party looking like that.” I dabbed at the blood on my lip with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. My head felt like it was bulging. My arms were still throbbing. I ached in places I didn’t remember being hit. “I’m not going to any party.”
“You are if you want your wallet back today. And you can’t go to Holly's looking like that.”
I looked down at my clothes. “Oh.” My black jeans were smeared with dirt, and Finley's blood had gotten on them too. My sweatshirt was dirty in places, and spotted with blood. I pulled it off. My t-shirt was sweat-soaked. No, these were definitely not my party clothes.
“Wait here,” Elaine said. She went into the house and shut the door behind her.
I sat down on a bench on the patio. Then I lay down, put my sweatshirt under my head as a pillow, and fell asleep in the sun. I woke up suddenly when Elaine loomed over me, holding a damp cloth and an open bottle of witch hazel. I took the cloth and wiped my face, then poured the witch hazel on one corner and applied it to the bruises on my arms. I dabbed at my face and the bruises on my ribs. My lip had stopped bleeding.
She held out a liter bottle of water that had never been opened. I took it and drained half of it gratefully. She held out her cupped hand with two pills in it.
“What's that?”
&
nbsp; I must have sounded suspicious. “It's just aspirin. You look like you need it.”
I did need them. I gulped them down with some more water. I hoped she wasn’t going to bill me.
Elaine had showered and changed into a green skirt and an ivory colored satin blouse that looked as fragile as it was revealing. She’d put on make-up that made her eyes look harder behind her glasses, and her lips and cheeks were as bright as blood. Her hair hung loose, and golden earrings tangled in the strands. A soft leather purse hung awkwardly from one arm. She held out a pile of clothes.
“I’m not wearing those.”
Elaine's glasses flashed. “I brought pins. We can take in the skirt and pin it.”
“I’m not wearing your clothes.” The vet had shot Finley, but that didn’t make us friends. The clothes smelled of her, and I didn’t want anything of hers that close to me.
“Look,” I said, “let's just go to Holly's, you go in and get my wallet, and we’ll be done.”
“I thought you wanted to meet Cecil.”
I did want to meet Cecil.
“He's supposed to be back today. He's been out on a boat communing with the World Snake. He said if he meditated deeply he’d be able to communicate with it, and persuade it to move off, and spare the city.”
I was going to try and explain again that Richard and I had already done this, but I didn’t bother. “You really believe he can do that?”
“At least he's trying! What have you been doing?”
“Besides trying to get away from you?”
She decided not to argue anymore. “If you are going to Cecil's party, and you won’t wear these, you are going to need some new clothes.”
Elaine had been going to get a friend to take her to Holly's party, since her truck, she told me pointedly, was in the shop. So we went in my car.
I do not like new clothes. I do not like the way they smell. This is why, on the way to the smart clothing store in Canoga Park, with Elaine in the passenger seat directing me, I pulled over when I spotted a second-hand store. An embarrassed query by Elaine of whether or not I had any money I met with a grin. I still had almost all of the money I’d made her give me the first time we’d met. In any case, the clothes were pretty inexpensive.
I wandered along the aisles of women's clothes, and men's clothes, partly looking, and partly taking in the scents of the people who had worn them before. Much less annoying than sniffing chemicals for weeks until they wear away in the wash.
I got a new pair of black jeans, only worn a couple of times, but more form-fitting than the work jeans I usually wear. I bought a dark red silk open-necked shirt with wide sleeves and tight cuffs, and little pearl buttons at the throat and wrists. It had a little rip in the sleeve, but I didn’t care. I found a black leather vest cut up into patterns like a snowflake, so my new shiny red shirt showed through.
We shape-changers have to be careful about our clothes. I like mine to be loose and comfortable, for running, fighting, or doing any work that comes to hand. Clothes that get in the way of what needs to be done are just foolish. Heavy clothes, like boots or big coats, tend to get lost when one changes back to human form. Sweats are ideal, not tight enough to get hung up, but not so heavy that they don’t come back with you.
The legends say that the wolf kind used to be able to run to battle in their wolf form, and then change into humans, dressed in full armor with their weapons in hand. No one can do that anymore, though the most powerful of the wolf kind can carry a fair amount of weight when they change, and bring it back. We practice, growing up. I thought about the things I’d left in that other place that, however often we change, we never seem to see, or don’t remember, as I eyed a pair of short leather boots. They were a size too big for me, but I liked them, and they fit well enough. So I thought, why not? I’ll leave my muddy tennis shoes in the car. If I end up changing, and change back and find I’ve lost them, I’ll have a short walk to the car, and I’ll be out thirty bucks.
Best of all, in the doorway into the dressing rooms, a tape measure had been tacked to the wall. I borrowed a plastic hanger, and measured myself. And then I had to measure myself again. I’d grown almost an inch since leaving home. An inch! I was taller! Not five foot nothing anymore! Ha!
This I had to celebrate, so I bought a lightweight silver and turquoise choker. It would probably be gone as soon as I changed, a gift to the dark. But until then, it looked nice. I already felt taller, wearing my new duds. I used the comb in my glove compartment to get the dried mud out of my hair, and off we drove to Malibu.
On the way, I had to hear all the details of all the damage Elaine's truck had taken, and what the estimates were to get it fixed, but when she realized I was enjoying the tale, she stopped talking. It must have been the big smile that gave it away. As I sat aching in all the new places, I could still feel the wound on my hip. It had finally closed up, and the bruise was fading to purple and yellow. Her truck didn’t hurt her nearly as much.
Holly had her own narrow driveway off the Pacific Coast Highway, leading past the back walls of a set of tall beach houses, tight up against each other, and then curving onto a knoll overlooking the ocean on two sides. Turns out Elaine's little sister had married a Hollywood agent who’d died about five years earlier. Holly had inherited from him both his house and his fortune.
“He didn’t disappear mysteriously, did he?” I wondered aloud. “We’re not going to find a dog or a pony in the garage or somewhere, with leather bands on its legs?”
But in fact, Elaine said, he’d died quite publicly in a restaurant of a heart attack, and Holly had a certificate to prove it.
The driveway was lined end to end with parked cars, but the circle in front of the entranceway was clear. A stand of bamboo and palm fronds screened the house so all we could see from there were the red tile roofs. I could smell the ocean. I pulled up and parked at the walkway, since no one else had, and a slender, dark-haired young man in a blue uniform coat and a red bow tie and a happy smile appeared and opened my car door. When I got out without his help, he went around and opened the door for Elaine, who graciously held out her hand and let him assist her. He then came around again and held out his hand to me. Was I supposed to tip him? I hadn’t needed his help, and Elaine was only playing along.
“Give him your keys,” Elaine told me. “He's going to park your car.”
“Where are you going to park it?” I asked him.
“Just give him the keys,” Elaine said. “He’ll bring the car back when you ask for it.”
I handed him the keys. I could already tell this was not my kind of party.
Elaine took a long piece of white cotton cloth out of her purse, draped it over her neck and flipped her hair over it. She pulled another one out and handed it to me. “Put this on.”
“What is it?”
“When you meet Cecil, take it off and give it to him.”
“It's his birthday present?”
“It's just the custom. Come on. It doesn’t hurt.”
I took it from her, wrapped it around my fists and tested its strength. It would certainly do to strangle someone. Under Elaine's unamused gaze I slipped it around my neck.
Beyond the bamboo screen an ornamental waterway wound back and forth. We had to cross three little arched bridges hung with flowers to get to the big square front porch decorated with more baskets of fresh flowers, where a young woman in a black uniform waited to greet us. A tall, heavy woman in a flowing flowered dress and short, flat, dyed blond hair stood up from the rail where she had been leaning, smoking a cigarette, to greet Elaine as she approached.
“Sally!” Elaine said, and went to her.
“Don’t say a word!” Sally held her cigarette at arm's length as she whisked her long skirts around to face Elaine and embrace her. “Good to see you, too.” She also wore one of the white scarves around her neck.
“Holly's in great form, I see,” Elaine said, examining the flower baskets.
“Neve
r better.” Sally reached out and put her cigarette out in a basket of peonies.
Neither of them sounded sincere. In fact, that was definitely sarcasm.
“Is Cecil here?” Elaine asked.
“I haven’t seen him. I thought I’d hang out here until he arrives,” she confided. “Otherwise I’ll never get a word in edgewise.”
“Not once Holly gets in range,” Elaine agreed.
“Who's this?” Sally asked, looking at me.
“Oh, just some werewolf I know.”
Sally barked a laugh. “If you decide to bite Holly,” she told me, “give her an extra one for me.”
What an evil vet! Didn’t she understand that was supposed to be a secret identity? I’m the only one who gets to tell people what I am. I glowered at Elaine. Her glasses glinted as she smiled back.
The uniformed woman ushered us into a big immaculate room where all the furniture was the same light beige. Here the walls were hung with colorful banners, so long they draped over the floor, decorated with signs within circles, strange gods, and what looked like abstract pictures of the same flower, in different forms and colors. Here we were greeted by two more young waiters in black, who welcomed us and offered us necklaces of golden flowers from a big platter. Elaine bowed her head and let them deck her with one. I already had an extra scarf on, so I declined. Elaine picked up a second one and dropped it over my head.
“It's for Cecil's birthday.”
“But you said Cecil is an asswinding jerk.”
“Shush!” she said, and asked the male waiter, “Where is Holly?”
“She's on the meditation lawn, ma’am. Shall I take you there? The birthday meditation is about to begin.”