by E. A. Copen
I sat down on a tree trunk next to Chanter and rubbed my hands over my arms. “I give up. Where are we?”
“When we last spoke, you asked me about Ways.” Chanter lifted the cigarette, took a long drag, and let the smoke out through his nose before continuing, “I was not entirely truthful with you.”
I looked around me, trying to contain my lack of amazement. I'd expected Ways to be much more grandiose, full of swirling lights and rainbows or whatnot. This was just a big, quiet forest. It was peaceful, really.
“We're in one now?”
“Part of one.”
“So, you're telling me there's a forest in my kitchen cabinet?”
Chanter laughed. “A forest, an ocean, a desert, or a swamp. There's no way to know without going through. Some are hospitable, and you may pass through without trouble. Others... Simply opening them will draw the attention of those who should never be disturbed.”
I watched Chanter smoke for a moment and listened to the fire crackle. The forest was so quiet that I could hear the tobacco burn. “Where's Hunter? What happened?”
“All in good time. There's no rush. This is a realm of memories and spirits. Time does not touch this plane the same way it does our own.” Chanter held his cigarette out to me.
I frowned. “I don't smoke.”
He lowered it and then turned to fish out a liter of Jack Daniel's that he took a swig of before offering it to me. “If you tell me you don't drink, I won't believe you.”
I took the bottle, looking from it to him. “Where is my son?”
Chanter frowned and turned his attention back to the fire in front of him and the cigarette in his hand. “When I asked you to tell me about the boy's father, you avoided my question. It's a difficult thing to lose a parent. That loss is even worse when that parent took life or death secrets with him to the grave.”
“Chanter,” I said, standing, “where is my son?”
“Sit down and be silent,” Chanter barked sharply in a tone that sent visible waves of power through the air.
When the command hit me, I had no choice but to obey.
“Now, take a drink.”
I did as ordered, though I resisted swallowing until the roof of my mouth burned.
“So impatient. I see where he gets that much, at least. But you should have sought help for him sooner. As it is, this is unnecessarily rough for him.”
A loud sound pierced the night, a howl straight out of the most horrifying nightmare I'd ever had. Chanter raised his eyes and glanced around the tree line nervously.
I swallowed and fought against the command he'd issued. The distraction had weakened it, but the magick was still plenty strong. “Is... Is that him?”
“No,” said Chanter in a voice just above a whisper. “It's the wolf inside him, fighting to come free. The boy is in a dangerous state. Now is the first of many choices, the culmination of which decides whether he controls the wolf or the wolf controls him.”
Magick held me fast against the tree trunk, even though I fought it with everything I had. There was no other choice. My mind was clouded with a mother's panic. My son was out in the woods alone at night with a monster that wanted to destroy him. Even if there was nothing I could do, I needed to be with him.
“If his father were here, he could have prepared him for this.” Chanter growled and shook his head.
“Stop talking about Alex. You don't have the right.”
Chanter was silent as another cry went up, closer this time.
“Why are you here? You promised me you would help him.”
“I told you I would try,” Chanter said calmly. “Had you come to me sooner and given me enough time to build up some trust between us, I might have succeeded. It requires a certain bond of trust, one that we do not yet share.”
I swallowed. “What happens if we do nothing?”
Chanter tossed his cigarette into the fire and leaned forward on his elbows. “Difficult to say. Sometimes, the Change kills. The effort of doing it alone literally exhausts them to death. That, or they don't finish in time and die of blood loss or a ruptured organ. If they manage it, though, they don't often come back. When you are the wolf, you forget human things. The longer you stay a wolf, separated from your human half, the harder it becomes to come back from that.”
“What you're saying is that, if we do nothing, Hunter could die. Worse, he could get stuck like that?”
“Or he could be perfectly fine. Many go through it just fine. Of course, all the ones I've known to do such a thing had a great deal of guidance beforehand from a more dominant wolf of their own sex.” Chanter turned toward me, his forehead glistening. He wouldn't say it, but he was nervous. He wouldn't have called me otherwise. “I don't suppose there is another male that Hunter looks up to and would trust with his life? One that understands the Change?”
My throat muscles worked to swallow the growing sense of helpless dread. “No. There's no one. Just you guys.”
“It's as I feared then,” said Chanter with a sigh. He rubbed his hands together, slapped them on his legs, and stood. “You brought something of his father's?”
I nodded and reached into my pocket to retrieve the engraved wedding ring I'd brought. I cradled the tiny bit of gold in my fingers a moment and traced my fingers over the name spelled there. It had been eleven years since anyone had called me by that name.
The woman who gave him that ring is dead, I told myself. She died with Alex Gale. There's no need to hold onto a dead woman's things. And yet, the name had power. Once Chanter knew my true identity, there would be one less layer of protection between him and I. I would be vulnerable in ways I hadn't been for more than a decade.
I closed my eyes and extended it to him.
“I suppose I expected no less,” he snorted and collected it with a grimace. “This is something with great sentimental significance?”
“It was his wedding band.”
Chanter nodded, but he looked worried. “You can go now.”
“Go? You're joking, right? My son is out there. I'm not just going to leave, not until I know he's safe.”
He considered me for a moment and then nodded. “You're the blindest, dumbest, most bull-headed human woman I have ever met, Agent Black,” he said and laughed. “My Silvia would have liked you.” Then he stood and tossed the ring into the fire.
I bolted up. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“Don't interrupt,” he said, approaching the fire. “It's rude.” He pulled out a wicked-looking curved knife and slit his wrist straight down. For a human, that was a death sentence, but werewolves were a lot harder to kill. Silver aside, their preferred method of dying was suicide by cop or another werewolf.
A stream of crimson fell from his arm, even though the cut healed almost instantaneously. The fire drank Chanter's blood as if it were lighter fluid, reaching up and changing colors and substance when the two met. He watched it a moment, a dark shadow passing over his face, before coming to retrieve the bottle of whiskey from beside me. He'd cut too deep, though, and nicked a tendon, making his hand all rubbery so I had to hold the bottle while he took a drink. Instead of swallowing, he walked over and spat it into the fire.
Something changed in the trees. Their shadows became longer, denser, hungrier. The hair on the back of my neck and on my arms stood on end as an electric charge ran through the air, thicker and more potent than lightning. Tiny bits of static discharged themselves against the snow in jaw-dropping displays of light battling shadow.
That's what real magick looked like. There weren't always words or gestures or even candles and circles. The most powerful spells, the ones that were the most dangerous, were cast with only a handful of easily found ingredients and a whole hell of a lot of willpower. The more experienced someone got with their own magick, the easier it became, and the less complex the rituals were. All the hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo in the world wouldn’t make a spell work. The real power of magick was always, first and foremost,
in the heart and mind.
The static discharges climbed up into the air, forming walls around the fire, trapping Chanter inside. Shadows spun, but so did Chanter. He moved with a strange fluidity, almost as if he were waltzing to music only he could hear, his partner a shadow just on the other side of the flame.
Another loud growl came tumbling through the forest and I turned my head towards it, watching blackness shift at the edge of the tree line. Fear slipped down my throat and wrapped itself around my spine with a shiver.
“Whatever you're going to do, Chanter, you'd better do it fast.” When he didn't answer me, I turned back to the fire and watched his shape moving on the opposite side.
“Chanter?” The shadow shifted back my way. I strained my neck and squinted to see through the oddly shifting fog and dissipating static.
But it wasn't Chanter that walked out from behind the wall of fire. It was a dead man.
My heart crawled up into my throat and stopped. “Alex?”
He smiled that stupid smile that could only be his, gave me a wink, and pressed a finger to his lips. Then he strode on past me as if I wasn't even there.
I reached for his hand. For eleven years, I'd wanted nothing more than to touch him one more time, to have ten seconds to say goodbye. The chance to apologize for all the stupid shit I'd said, the arguments that could have waited, the truths that never should have been buried. It all passed through my fingers like hot smoke on a cold autumn night. All I could do was watch as he walked off into the woods.
The whole night went silent. Not even a cricket dared to chirp. I held my breath, and I waited.
In those minutes that passed, I reviewed every important moment of our time together, Alex and me. I remembered the way he used to leave his socks right beside the laundry hamper, no matter how many times I told him to pick the damn things up; the way he'd chew hard candy instead of just letting it dissolve; how he'd add water to the orange pulp at the bottom of the orange juice and drink it straight out of the carton. I thought about how he stole my blankets in the middle of the night and left me shivering.
And then I remembered how cold the bed felt my first night alone. All those stupid little things that drive you crazy about a person, they're the things you miss the most when they're gone. Funny how that works.
“Mom?”
I turned around at the sound of a tired, tiny, broken voice. Hunter stood behind me, Alex's leather jacket draped over his shoulders. Hunter was pale, covered in sweat, and shivering, but he looked unhurt.
Alex's shade stood beside him, one hand on his back, waiting. Maybe he was waiting for me to apologize or maybe to yell at him. I did that a lot. Too much.
Maybe I should have said something, but there weren't any words for that moment.
Alex gave me a nod, one that simultaneously told me everything would be okay and that he was leaving. Then, he turned and started to walk back toward the fire.
“Wait.” The word came out no louder than a whisper, but Alex stopped, turning back expectantly. I blinked back tears and walked up to him. “Damn you. Damn you for making me miss you like this. For dying, for taking all your secrets with you, for leaving me alone to deal with this...” I trailed off, not because I didn't have anything else to say but because my throat was too tight to continue. Plus, I had to get the dust out of my eyes. Say what you want about me, but I wasn't going to cry over his dead ass, not again.
Alex smirked and reached out to touch my cheek. Just like when I tried to touch him, his hand turned to cold smoke when we should have made contact and his face darkened. He glanced at our son once more before backing toward the fire.
“Wait,” I called again, but Alex just shook his head and let the flames come between us.
His form danced on the other side of the fire for just a moment before it was lost in a burning shadow. The fire swelled in an impressive show before shrinking back down.
Hunter was suddenly beside me, hugging the jacket tight, trying to contain his shivers. “So cold.”
I was about to grab my son and start looking for a way out when someone on the other side of the fire groaned. It wasn't until I stepped around the fire altogether and saw him lying there that I even remembered Chanter was in there with us. His mouth and chin were stained with blood, although I didn't understand why until he coughed and more came up.
I cursed and dropped to my knees beside him, stripping off my shirt to throw over him as I went down. “Get that fire going,” I yelled at Hunter, adding an insistent, “Now,” when he didn't move.
Hunter jumped and went fumbling around, looking for dry wood.
I turned back to Chanter, trying to decide what I should do. There weren't any obvious wounds, so whatever was wrong had to be on the inside. I wasn't qualified to diagnose or treat anything that serious. I checked my phone, looking for bars of service.
Chanter laughed. “They don't build cell towers here, girl,” he said and turned his head to spit more blood.
“Shut up,” I growled at him and tucked the phone away after realizing he was right. I wouldn't be calling any squads to that scene. Chanter put a hand on his chest and closed his eyes.
I panicked. “Chanter!”
“I'm thinking.”
“Think faster, and don't you dare die on me. Sal will kill me if you die on my watch.”
I turned to check on Hunter's progress. All those years of living in the city hadn't done him any favors. Without a lighter and a step-by-step set of instructions, he'd never get that fire burning again. A survivalist, my son was not.
A small sound drew my attention back to Chanter, and I found he'd managed to sit up. He stared at my chest, wiping a smear of blood away from his chin with the back of his hand.
I snatched my shirt back up and pressed it to my chest. “Pervert. Don't think I won't hit you just because you're bleeding.”
Chanter shrugged and grinned. “I usually have to pay girls your age to take their shirts off for me.” He looked around, spat a mouthful of tissue and blood into the snow and grunted as he used a low-hanging branch to pull himself up. “Damn, boy. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to build a fire?”
I wriggled back into my t-shirt, cursing myself for getting so worked up. Werewolves heal, idiot. Of course, he's fine. Should have known.
Chanter grabbed some sticks from Hunter, but he didn't use them to build the fire back up. Instead, he stomped out what was left of the coals and went digging through them. “What the hell happened to you anyway? One minute you're spitting blood, and the next you're fine? And what the hell was that? You should have warned me about what you were going to do.”
“You of all people should know, Agent Black, how fragile magick like that can be. It isn't easy to channel power from the other side, even in here. I'm surprised it worked, considering.”
“Considering what?”
He pulled a charred bit of metal from the ashes, blew on it, and rubbed it against his jeans before offering it to Hunter. “Hold onto this for a while, will you? Don't lose it. Don't put it down.”
Hunter wrinkled his nose. “It's girly.”
“In your pocket or around your neck,” said Chanter, patting him on the back. Then he turned back to me. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?”
I crossed my arms. “Let's start with the illegal necromancy before we jump to the obstruction charge. We can go from there.”
“Necromancy is frowned upon. There aren't any laws expressly forbidding it yet. Besides, your laws don't apply. BSI has yet to plant a flag here. Give them time. I'm sure the government will try.” He bent over and retrieved a sweat-stained white tank top from beside a tree that he threw on. “Second, I didn't tell you about the Ways because I knew the first thing you'd want to do was go poking around in one. That isn't safe. There's no telling where half of them go and the other half...” He shook his head. “Wounded fish shouldn't swim in shark-infested waters.”
Hunter frowned and tugged the coat closer to him. “What
's that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” said Chanter, “things notice when you stumble blindly into their territory. Dangerous things. Even those of us who know about the Ways only use them in emergencies.”
I glanced up and at the surrounding forest. In the whole time I'd been there, I hadn't sensed any other life besides us. Then again, I hadn't sensed anything at the Summers' either. There were still things out there beyond me.
“If it's so dangerous, why did we come here?” asked Hunter. The kid stole the words straight out of my mouth.
Chanter didn't answer him. He just stumbled toward the tree line, rubbing his chest and appearing deep in thought. It was either follow him or get left behind, so I grabbed my son and followed.
I let Chanter take the lead, mostly because I had no idea where we were going. That made it slow going. He may have acted like he was fully recovered but, by the way he winced and wheezed every time he had to put aside a branch, I knew he wasn't yet back at full speed.
When we came to a particularly big fallen tree blocking our path, I lifted Hunter over first before climbing up on it myself and extending a helping hand back down to Chanter. He stared at my hand, old pride and stubbornness swelling, and tried to pull himself up without my help. Chanter got halfway over before sliding back down with a grunt. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and went back to the other side, where I could push him rather than pull. That way, Hunter couldn't see him accepting help from me. Werewolves were funny about looking weak in front of other werewolves.
“What happened to you back there?” I asked, grunting as Chanter used my hands as a step up. “You seemed pretty bad off.”
“The cost of some magick is steep. You ought to know that.” He paused on top of the tree trunk and offered a hand down to me. I refused it and climbed up to join him.
“Don't give me that. If that's all it was, you wouldn't be so hell-bent on avoiding my question.”
He ignored me and hopped down to join Hunter.