Strange City

by Anth

  It was a disgusting thought, but I was afraid they were going to need a friend.

  "Soon," I said, "you can go home if you want to. But first you have to spend some time with a secret soci­ety of people like yourselves. They'll teach you how to harness your hidden talents It's what you need, and they're a good group—so good that I'm joining them myself. It's part of my reward for shutting this dun­geon down."

  Which only goes to show that there's more than one kind of wolf trap, and it's hard for any one Garou to dodge them alt.

  Shards

  by Phil Brucato

  We've got to talk." Gerald's words had an omi­nous chill. Sara glanced up at him as they walked, and his eyes were as cold and dis­tant as the San Francisco mist. Here it comes, she thought. She'd seen it coming, but feit no better for the knowledge. Tanglewood had meant what he had said. The loremaster's rites were more powerful than she would have guessed.

  Gerald quietly refused to meet her j>aze, but looked off into the fog. The cool sheen on his face reflected the orange glow of streetlights. Finally, he spoke. "I think that it may ... we might. . maybe we shouldn't see each other like this anymore."

  A blow prepared for hurts just the same. Sara swal­lowed, and for a long time she said nothing, feeling the chilly, damp sand beneath her feet. They walked in silence for a time before she answered "Just like that?" The words grated in her throat like glass. Gerald nodded. He had no answer. Sara hadn"t expected him to, "Weil, this certainly comes out of nowhere," she said, but she was lying. She had an idea of exactly where it had come from.

  "Stand by the fire," Tanglewood had said. The lore-master's eyes reflected dancing flames as the bonfire bled its warmth into the August night. Sara padded carefully through the rock-studded clearing and took up a place by the fire, feeling the gaze of the pack upon her.

  "You disappoint me," said Tanglewood. His voice was heavy with sadness and anger. "You are Garou, but you are not pack to us. You dwell in your own life and wall out those who are your family. You shirk, responsibility and set yourself apart, and yet you still have no wholeness, no sense of Gaia in your heart, The wolf and the woman are not one within you. Your soul is selfish and alone"

  "That's not true!" Sara shot back. "And its not fair! i'm new to all this! I'm just trying to get my bearings! This stuff takes time—"

  "You have had time/' Tanglewood thundered, "and you have wasted it. You see our tribe as some great new game, but you do not aspire what you must become! You are separate now, as you were two years ago, still woman and wolf, and not a whole Garou!"

  "But—"

  "We try to help you," he continued, "and you do not care. Your old life is still too important to you, and you cling to it like a child! Until you let it go, we can waste no more time with you." Sara shivered, and she crossed her arms against the hostile glare of her tribe. "If you wish to stand alone," said Tanglewood, "You shall."

  Tanglewood's words rang hollow in her mind Primal Rage stirred in her gut, black, frightening, all too familiar. Gerald, oblivious, walked beside her, search­ing the night mist for answers "So, how long have you been thinking about this?" she asked.

  "A few weeks."

  "How long?"

  "Over a month," he admitted. Sara glanced up sharply. The Rite had been three weeks earlier. "Any particular reason? she demanded

  He shook his head "A lot of reasons. I can't put them all into words."

  "How about trying?" She looked at her feet, sticky with sand, as they walked. Doubt, fear, anger swirled up the back of her throat like bile She bit her lip, feeding Rage with her own blood.

  "J haven't felt too good about us lately," he admit­ted. "It's a lot of little things. Look," he said, stopping, "we're pretty young, okay?" This was true; Sara was just shy of eighteen, Gerald a little older, "Things never last at this age_ I'm thinking about college after all, and I don't want to go to Berkeley. I just wanna go somewhere else."

  "And leave me here "

  "You never needed me to take care of you or any­thing," he said Was there an accusation in his voice? "You'll find someone else."

  "And so will you." She started walking again. She felt scabs pulled off deep inside, and the cuts were still raw underneath. The blood from her lip tasted good. "Bastard,I she muttered. Gerald didn't answer, and they both walked in silence for a while. "Well," she demanded at length, "don't you have anything else to say?"

  He shook his head and extended his hand, but she refused to take it. "Sara," he implored, "don't be this way."

  "What way?" Her tone was bitter, "I saw it corning, you know. I did. I just want a reason. I want an explana­tion. After almost two years, I think I deserve one. Why are you doing this?" The question was a plea for some normal, rational, human reason beyond Tanglewood's curses. She said it knowing that Gerald had no answer, but wanting one all the same.

  She met him soon after the First Change, when her life was in fragments. The taste of bad wine had been strong in her mouth that night, and her eyes were swollen from crying. Gerald had touched her shoulder and asked if she were all right. Sara had always been a bad liar, but she had refined it to an artform since that night.

  He'd been a sweet guy, then, not quite eighteen and a bit awkward, too polite for his own good. It was always easy to keep her temper around him, and he accepted everything she told him with quiet defer­ence. Sara had built a house of deceit to shield him from her new life, and had kept him as a barrier against the wolf. Gerald was soft, in a good way, a comfortable anchor, and she felt freer with him than she did with the pack These walks on the beach became a ritual, a cleansing of her spirit. He had stood at the gateway to her humanity, the woman that the wolf could not command.

  Now his voice was cold as the ocean and his eyes were hard as glass.

  He stopped and turned away, looking out into the endless dark. Waves rumbled and hissed just out of sight, scattering the sands. "I'm not sure where we're going, Sara." he said after awhile. "We've been together for a long time, but I don't see where we're going."

  "That's a lot of crap." Her tone was quiet and sharp. She restrained a sudden urge to shove him down into the sand and scream out the fury just beneath her words. Deep inside, below her human mask, Sara felt another, darker urge to hurt. Something inside her twisted and uncoiled. "Don't give me that shit, Gerald; she snarled. 'I know you too well. Be straight with me, dammit! Is there someone else, or are you just bored?'

  The words stung him "Fuck you!" he snapped. "This isn't easy for me. dammit!"

  "It's a real treat for me!" she shot back.

  "Listen to me!" he shouted. Their eyes locked.

  "You're asking for something I don't have," he said. "There is nobody else, Sara, no. I just. . . feelings don't always make sense, We can't. . I have to go. I'm sorry." You will be, said the wolf.

  Sara had blinked back tears that night. The campfire stung her eyes, and she could not meet Tanglewoods gaze. Beside her, Bessa, in natural lupine form, snarled at the loremaster. Tanglewood glared in return as Bessa trotted up to her friend and brushed against Saras legs, interposing herself in between the human cub and the angry loremaster. "Don't defend your charge, Bessa," Tanglewood growled. "She stands between two roads and will not choose Until she does, she is of no use to us or to herself."

  They performed the Outcast Rite and sent her away.

  The wolf inside her reared its head. Sara felt its heat behind her eyes and fought to drive it down again. Gerald took her silence for speechlessness and reached for her. "Don't!' she snapped, and he flinched. Around him, the mist seemed to brighten. Sara's vision sharpened, and her heart jumped. The taste of Change, like a mouthful of summer grass, rose unbidden in her mouth. Not now A voice inside her screamed. A sudden strong gust blew in from the sea, biting through her damp jeans and leather jacket, raising goosebumps on her bare skin. She shivered, but the chill went deeper, far deeper, than a cold misty breeze. She snarled. Gerald met her gaze, and she pinned him in place without rais
ing a hand.

  She had wandered the park for hours after the rite, daring some mugger to hassle her. None had. When she reached home, her Rage had built to a fever pitch, barely clenched by sheer wilt, and she paced the hard­wood floor, muttering to herself until the dam brake inside and she hurled the first thing that came to hand—an incense burner shaped like a Chinese foo dog—and hurled it hard against the mirror. The bitter smash sent her into a frenzy of destruction, ripping furniture, trashing knick-knacks, baying in rabid fury.

  The wolf had her in its jaws. Its Rage had shredded her apartment,

  When her fury was spent, she sagged to the floor, weeping as she reverted to her human shape. Her clothes hung in tatters, and the mirrored glass bit into her knees. Blood welted up with the tears. She cried until she couldn't breathe, then reached for the phone.

  When he came, he asked no questions. He only held her until she finished shaking, then helped her clean up the mess, his brown eyes clouded with concern.

  "Sara?" Gerald's eyes were wide, his voice uncertain. The wolf in her wanted to rip those eyes from his head. It would be so easy, here, alone, to share her pain with him in ways he'd never forget. Words, tor­rents of fire, bloodlust, and worse boiled just out of reach. "Go home. Gerald." she said suddenly, breaking eye contact and turning away.

  Was he to blame? Would things have ended this way if not for Tanglewood's rite? Did things run deeper than the rite, down below the surface of things they never talked about? Sara had built a wall of lies, to her pack, her lover, her self What lies had Gerald buiit? He knew so little about her, really. How little did she know in return? She hurt too badly, now, to think about it. Better to puzzle through this later, when the wounds weren't raw.

  "Hey, wait," Gerald called as Sara walked away. "We can talk about this!" Now he was beside her, reaching for her arm. She pulled away "There's nothing to talk about." she replied. "You've said enough, lust go."

  "I'm sorry"

  "So am I, Gerald. Leave me alone. For your own good" Hurt lodged in her heart like a sliver of glass. Rage buzzed just beneath the surface. She had to get away.

  "Is this it?"

  "That was your decision." The wolf gnawed at her self-control; pain and loneliness, Rage, confusion and sadness washed through her like cold waves. Had she loved him, ever? Did she now? "Please just go." Too many questions, too many doubts.

  Sara had sensed the difference in Gerald after that, the half-hidden giances when he thought she wasn't looking. No questions, ever. He hadn't thought to ask her what was wrong, not that she could've told him. He simply withdrew, like the pack, but without anger or recrimination. Less than three weeks after that night, Tanglewood's rite was complete, Or was it? Was this the loremaster's doing, or Gerald's, or her own?

  "Ill take you home." He reached for her again.

  Go!" The word was a lash, and there was blood behind it. She dropped her human mask, and Gerald cowered, finally seeing the wolf in her eyes. Change bristled just beneath her skin. Let me have him! cried the wolf, and Sara stepped forward. Her prey stum­bled backwards, sprawling in the sand The fear in his eyes dimmed as she blocked the light, throwing her shadow across the sand. She could smell his sudden fear above the salty air. Her fingers curled into hooks, claws inching to extend from beneath the nails. Her teeth ached, sharpening into fangs. Only slivers of humanity kept her claws from his throat. Only shards of will kept the wolf inside.

  "Get out of here," she rasped. Gerald scrambled to his feet, eyes rabbit-wide Sara trembled, wanting to hug him, wanting to kill him, and turned away instead, striding ankle-deep into the freezing surf. She waited there, hugging her sides, until the Rage subsided. When she turned around, he was gone.

  She howled until her throat was raw. The sound was lost in the roaring surf

  Hours later, Sara stood alone on the beach, awash with memories and cleansed by the Pacific wind. Her eyes stung, but she refused herself the luxury of cry­ing The sliver moon was hidden, wrapped in shim­mering mist that enveloped her like a mother's womb, This womb, though, was damp and cold, like the icy part inside of her Saras breath was mist before her face, and waves washed her bare feet. There was a chill, pristine beauty in the night, and both wolf and woman welcomed it together. The cool wind soothed Sara. Her sadness lingered, but the bitterness had faded, It was about time, she thought, to be reborn.

  "The wolf and the woman are not one within you," Tanglewood had said. After the last few hours, though, Sara felt that they had come to some sort of understanding. With no one else to run interference, neither had a choice,

  In the distance along the beach, the flicker of beach bonfires warmed the dancing mist From one came the sound of drums, laughter, and off-key singing, all mingling with the roar of endless waves. Sara paused, recalling similar nights with Gerald, with Rick and Ray, Shelly and the mousy blonde with a name no one could pronounce Cool wet nights in the fog with a fire and a beer and a pack of old friends. Gone now, only memories. It was a good night for sor­row, but sorrow was a waste of time. Her life was smashed to splinters, now. Better to bury the pieces and move on.

  Down the beach a ways, firelight glittered on a rash of broken glass, bottles jutting from a blackened mound of sand. Sara swore as she approached the mess. The campfire embers guttered, smoke rose into fog, and the tracks of the bastards who'd left this dis­aster led up to the pavement and away. By the look of the fire, they were long gone. Pity.

  She knelt beside the fire and carefully scooped up the largest pieces, tossing them into a paper bag. As she worked, Sara remembered Gerald, cleaning up bits of broken mirror. Maybe I'm not the only one, she thought, who got stuck cleaning up someone else's mess. The larger pieces were easy to find, Sara thought. The hard part was finding the splinters, the stubborn shards of glass half-hidden in the sand No matter how carefully you picked them away, she reflected, some always waited below the surface, any one of them large enough to draw blood or to lodge painfully in bare skin. You could sift the sand all night and never catch all the shards.

  But a few ti ny shards in the sand evaded her grasp, leaving large, sharp fragments laying around. Given time, the sea would wear away the splinters until the shards and sand were one. Until then, she guessed, you just took your chances and hoped that you never stepped on the broken glass,

  Her legs were cramped by the time she finished. She stretched and grunted, then carefully took the bag. The glass inside rustled thinly as she searched the sand a final time. You can never get them all, she thought. Sara brushed damp hair from her eyes with a sandy hand- It would have to do. She dumped the bag of shards in a nearby trashcan and headed back across the sand to the oceans edge,

  One less bag of glass. A few less shards to litter the beach Not a clean sweep, but it would have to do.

  Rootbound

  by R. S. Martin

  I wake up with the ground grinding against itself like teeth. Earthquake. All around, my house is shivering loose from itself Has this happened before? I don't remember.

  [t's dark in here and it's dark outside, so it's night. What time is it? This is one of those times when a clock would come in handy, but they always stop. Call it three in the morning for want of working clocks. A good time for teeth to grind. A cityful of broken bones screeching like yellow chalk when they touch, making sure they hit each other's sore spots. The ground's not supposed to do that. It's supposed to lie there, buried underfoot, and carry its burdens in peace

  While the firm ground gnashes its teeth and snarls on ail sides, ( start to panic, hoping that the world didn't change while I slept. So I pull on my eyes and look out the cracks in the window glass. My hair falls in my eyes almost at once, force of habit, and I brush it back again. I don't know what color it is or what I look like, so I don't ask I forget.

  Outside my window there's Richmond, same as it ever was Rows of close-trimmed yards, unassuming houses reflecting each other across long, undistin­guished streets. Richmond. My neighborhood of square houses emb
roidered with personal touches that distract us in the suburbs from the numbness of the days. Land of garden furniture and quaint wicker arches, where lawns are taken seriously. If ever a neighborhood were to put off grinding the teeth in its foundations until three in the morning, to keep the neighbors from hearing, it would be Richmond. I can respect that philosophy

  Always a relief when your neighborhood doesn't die in your sleep. It's happened. You lay your body down to rest a little piece, and when you wake up, they've bulldozed your house and you're in a parking lot. Every time I fall asleep, I'm always a little afraid it'll happen to me. I'll wake up, and it'll be the year 2525 or something. Everything and all the people will be gone, and that will be that.

  The ground keeps straining against the founda­tions of the house. One by one the splinters of the broken windows fall from their frames, making sounds like sighing. Upstairs, something heavy falls to the floor, and the roots of the house creak in sympathy A crash like that is about as close to coffee as I get these days, i am awake.

  There's a fog up tonight, but between the street-lamps' haze and the thick moonlight, the trees along the street look like autumn. Hard to tell, though. With a few of them bare of leaves and the rest of them gold and black, it's hard to tell. Could be the tail end of winter, just before budding starts. Could be October. Call it October.

  Out of the broken corner of the window, the bea­con at Saint Ignatius s shimmies at me through the fog. Such a tease. I already have a girl.

  Girl. Angel. I'm in love with a statue, you know, a wooden statue of an angel I know full well what "statue" means. Inanimate person-shaped object. Mute, immobile, insensate for all I know. Doll. Around here, though, you take love where you find it

  I keep her upstairs. Where I just heard something heavy fall. I drop my eyes to the floor and I'm up the stairs and in the Angel's room now and she's in bad shape.

  The earthquake must have knocked her off her pedestal. Instead of smiling down at me, she gri­maces up from the floor, almost snapped in half, with dry leaves and dust pouring out from all these new cracks in her. In her willowy figure. She always was slim. There's a branching fracture in her left side, just under. . just under her heart.