by Geonn Cannon
There was the case of the stolen laptop, the workman’s comp fraud, and surveillance on a small office where someone was suspected of stealing credit card numbers from clients. Ari and Dale worked cases from the safety of their office, solving cases by digging around in the electronic garbage people left behind without realizing how much they had accumulated. Dale kept an eye on Ari’s condition, monitoring her health without acting like a mother hen, but she seemed to be back to normal.
The troubles started in the third week. Ari woke up in the night with more cramps, but insisted they were different from the ones that preceded the seizures. At Dale’s insistence she called Dr. Frost to describe the symptoms. He told her they were just the wolf trying to get comfortable. He warned her not to attempt transforming until she was absolutely sure she was ready. Ari wasn’t there yet.
She wouldn’t get to that point until the twenty-fifth day. Her bandage had come off days earlier, but she was complaining that her healed wound was itchy and driving her crazy. She was queasy and feverish at breakfast, and a freezing shower didn’t help lower her temperature. She called Dale into the bathroom and huddled with her next to the bathtub.
“It has to be now,” Ari said. “If it works, then… it works… but if not.” She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “I want you to know that you’re the best and most amazing thing in my life.”
Dale smiled. “You kind of say that all the time.”
“I don’t care. I’ll keep saying it until you get sick of hearing it. And if this is the last thing I ever get to say, I want it to be that. I love you, Dale Elizabeth Frye.”
“I love you, too.” Dale kissed her and then spoke against her lips. “Let the wolf out, Ariadne. Hold onto me, if you need to.”
Ari wrapped an arm around Dale’s neck and hunched forward. Dale looked at the curve of Ari’s back, the water from her shower still glistening on the skin as it began to ripple. She hated to watch the actual moment of transformation, but this seemed important. She felt like she had to witness this. Ari jerked and twitched in her arms and then her shoulders spread out and snapped upward so suddenly that Dale yelped. Ari started to fall to one side, but Dale caught her and held on.
“It’s okay, puppy. I’m here…”
The rest of the transformation happened with a sort of gruesome elegance. Ari’s body broke from the inside, her skin hardened in places and erupted in a pelt the same mahogany brown as her hair. When she lifted her head, her face had lengthened into a snout. The skin around her eyes was black, and her teeth had been replaced with fangs. She locked eyes with Dale and, with a final violent jerk of her body, she fell onto the tile.
When Dale moved to kneel beside her, only the wolf remained. Her sides rose and fell with rapid breaths. Her eyes were open and staring in confusion, but she lifted her head when Dale touched her cheek. She locked onto Dale and blinked, and Dale could see her partner within.
“Puppy?” Dale whispered.
Ari gave a pained whimper before scrambling up onto her feet. She shook her fur, which had retained the water from Ari’s skin. She hadn’t realized how worried she was until the moment was past, and she laughed through her tears as she wrapped her arms around the wolf’s neck. She also hadn’t realized how much she had missed her girlfriend’s lupine counterpart. She pressed a kiss to the top of Ari’s head between the ears and looked into her eyes again.
“Well, I guess you won’t have to decide what to wear to work today.”
Ari huffed.
#
Dale had hooked a leash onto Ari’s collar before they left the house, ignoring the look of betrayal Ari tried to fix on her. “If you want to be a wolf in the city, you have to obey the leash laws. That is unless you want to spend another night in the pound.” The walk to the office was without incident, although a few people did stop to ask if they could pet Ari and inquire as to what kind of breed she was. “We’re not exactly sure,” Dale said. “She looks kind of like she’s got a bit of wolf in her, doesn’t she?”
Dr. Frost was already waiting at the office when they arrived. He gave Ari a complete physical and, while he didn’t want to be too optimistic too quickly, but his body language said enough for Dale. He wasn’t anxious or concerned, and he actually smiled when he finished looking Ari over. He told them to take it slowly for a few days. No unnecessary transformations. No quick back-and-forth from wolf to human. He actually commended Ari for staying in wolf form and told her to wait a few hours before going back.
Before he left, Dale said, “Broad strokes, Doctor. We all know something could still go wrong, but… she transformed. She went from human to wolf. That by itself is encouraging, right? Humans can’t do that at all. I mean, if I got bitten, I would have died just trying that.”
“It’s absolutely encouraging, yes,” Frost said. “But we won’t know if the bite actually cured anything until Ari goes back to human form. The wolf never experienced the crippling pain Ari had when she was bipedal. Right now her fist is clenched. That doesn’t mean she can open it again. But I’m confident.” He looked at the watch on the inside of his wrist. “I’ll be back around two o’clock. I’ll observe her transformation in case there are any complications.”
Dale nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Frost.”
“Of course. Ariadne is a very interesting case.” He looked at Dale. “As are you, Miss Frye. I don’t want to call myself a bigot, but I’ve never really been trustful of non-wolves. I didn’t think there could be any who understood our unique existence. But you’ve proven me wrong time and again. Ari is very lucky to have you in her life.”
Ari barked softly and bumped her head against Dale’s hip. Dale reached down to pet her head.
“I always thought the woman I settled down with would have to be special. I just didn’t know how special she would end up being.”
Dale passed the time by transcribing Ari’s notes from a past case, while Ari paced and wandered around the waiting area. Occasionally she went to the window behind Dale’s chair to look out at the street, but she quickly got bored with that. Finally, she sat down behind the desk and rested her head on Dale’s thigh. Dale reached down to scratch her neck.
“Only an hour to go,” she said.
Ari huffed, whined, and went into her office with her head and tail hung low.
She climbed onto the couch and rested her head on her forepaws, watching the large clock on her wall as if staring could make it go faster. Her transformation to the wolf had been so easy this time, like putting on her favorite sweater on the first day of winter. But Frost and Dale were right. The pain never happened when she became the wolf; it only manifested after she went back to human form. There was every chance that her next change would be the one that crippled her. In an hour - actually fifty-six minutes - she could be in greater pain than she’d ever experienced. But all she could do was wait.
Finally, Dr. Frost arrived. He checked Ari’s vitals and reported there were no warning signs. “If you’re ready,” he said, “you can go ahead and try transforming back.”
Ari looked at Dale, who gave her a nod. She closed her eyes and dropped her head. For her entire life, she’d experienced the change as a violent process. She braced herself by planting her forepaws on the ground and hunching her back. Her body hitched and trembled, and her paws turned into hands. She watched as her fingers uncurled and her palm flattened on her office carpet. Dale rushed forward and covered her with a blanket as the transformation completed.
When she lifted her head, lips parted to gulp air as she grabbed the blanket to close it around herself, she did an evaluation of her pain.
“Well?” Dale asked.
Ari swallowed hard. “It’s, uh… it hurts. It still hurts. But not as bad. Nowhere near as bad.”
Frost said, “On a scale from one to ten?”
“I don’t know,” Ari said. “Like going to the gym for the first time after skipping it for three months. Manageable, though. If before was a ten on the scale, this is… thi
s is a one. Hell, this is a point-three.” She laughed and leaned against Dale, who bent down to kiss her forehead and her hair. “You saved me, baby.”
Frost smiled. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I still want to examine you and make sure this wasn’t just a fluke.”
Dale kissed Ari again. Ari was willing to go through with the examination, and tests, and anything Dr. Frost needed to do. She could tell the cure had worked. Something was different inside of her. It felt as if the wolf had finally found a comfortable spot inside her brain to curl up and rest when she didn’t need it, and going from one to the other felt more natural than it ever had before.
“You saved me,” she whispered again, this time pressing her face against Dale’s throat and rocking with her.
#
A week after the change, Ariadne was still reveling in the fact she could transform without excruciating pain. And only now did she understand just how debilitating that pain had been. There was still pain involved with the process. Transforming from human to wolf and back again required her skeleton to be bent, broken, and rearranged so drastically that there was no way it could be pain-free. But now the knots and twinges could be soothed by having Dale give her a massage.
She knew a big part of her euphoria was the fact she had let go of her stress. For the past few years she’d feared turning Dale into a full-time caregiver. Now it seemed like that wasn’t going to be an issue. She’d gone out three times that week, with only Dr. Frost’s warning not to overdo it keeping her from running every night. The wolf seemed completely revitalized. Ari could feel its joy as it leapt over fallen trees, as she burst through a pile of dead leaves. She had Sheryl Crow’s “Steve McQueen” playing in her head when she exploded out of some underbrush and scared the shit out of a raccoon.
Tonight she was running on Marsh Island, a fish-shaped wedge of land on the northern edge of the arboretum. From the northern shore, she could see the lights at Husky Stadium light up for a football game. She paused there to catch her breath and listened to the shouts and screams, the war drums of the marching band, and she threw her head back to add her howl to the symphony.
Soon she would have to start for home. It would have been over three miles back home if she could stick to the main roads, but that wasn’t an option for a wolf in the city. She would have to move through backyards and stay out of sight as much as possible. By the time she finally got back to their apartment, she might have traveled a total of six or seven miles. Then again, she could always find a stash and call Dale to come pick her up. It wasn’t late enough for her to be in bed yet.
Then again, the football game meant there might be fewer people in the street. And she was still making up for a whole month without transforming. The wolf needed to stretch her legs. With a yelp of happiness, Ari put her head down and started south.
In the end it was another hour before she arrived at Neka’s house. She hunched in the underbrush across the street to watch the windows that looked into the living room. Neka was there with her boyfriend, and Ari waited until both of them were away from the window before breaking cover. The backyard was unfenced so she had no trouble reaching the stairs. She transformed when she reached the last step, reveling in the fact she only hurt as much as anyone who had just gotten back from a twenty-mile jog.
She stepped inside, achy and dripping sweat. “Hey, Dale. I practically ran a marathon tonight…” She froze when she saw her mother sitting on the couch. She and her mother had never been self-conscious about being naked in front of each other, given their nature as canidae. Still, her presence was so unexpected and it had been so long since they went for a run together, that Ari stepped toward the closet and pulled a coat off the hook.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Dale asked me to come. She’s in the bedroom.”
Dale appeared at that moment and smiled apologetically. “Oh. Hey, Ari.”
“Hey.” She looked between them. “What’s… going on? Is this an intervention?”
Gwen smiled. “No. Why, are you involved with something we should be intervening on?”
“No.” She looked at Dale. “So… what’s up? Just felt like a family dinner?”
“Not exactly.” She looked down at Gwen, who nodded for her to go ahead. “I’ve been thinking a lot this week about you and the wolf. The new thing you have going on. This is the first time you’ve really been a full-fledged canidae. You can change without hurting, which is huge. It means that you’re different than you used to be. You’re a different kind of wolf. You need to learn how to handle it. And since your original lessons with your mother were cut short, I thought it would be good if you had a chance to remedy that.”
Gwen said, “Dale made a very good point when she called me, Ariadne. You may think you know how to be the wolf, but I think there’s still a lot for you to learn.”
“And you also need a chance to get to know your mother,” Dale said. “Make up for lost time. She can take you somewhere out in the woods where you can really stretch your legs. You can bond, and she can help you learn to deal with the wolf stuff outside of a big busy city. You won’t have to stay hidden in bushes or run from park to park.”
Ari said, “The woods?”
Gwen said, “I know someone who will lend us a cabin as long as we need it.”
“I can’t just leave. The agency…”
“We can take some time off. There are cases I can work without you. Due diligence and background checks. I can do enough work like that to keep the lights on. We have some savings. I mean, as long as you eventually come back, I think we could handle a bit of a hiatus.”
Ari glanced at her mother and moved closer to Dale. She lowered her voice. “And… us? Everything is okay with us, right?”
“Everything is perfect with us,” Dale assured her. “But Dr. Frost and Gwen both asked me to keep an eye out for any unusual behavior. You’re acting cooped up. You pace around the apartment and the office both. You go out running as often as possible, but you never seen satisfied. You’re…” She glanced toward Gwen and leaned in to whisper in Ari’s ear. “The rough stuff…”
Ari tensed, eyes wide with fear. “I asked—”
“It was fine! It really was. But you have to admit, it’s rare with us to go so crazy. I think your wolf needs a little room to stretch its legs before it settles into domesticity. It needs to stretch the limits, and you can’t do that in Seattle. I’m going to really hate being apart from you, but it’s necessary.”
Gwen said, “Dale is making very good points, Ari. I think it could be hugely beneficial to you at this stage in your…”
“Recovery,” Ari said. “We’re calling it recovery.”
“Right.”
Dale said, “Tonight is the perfect example. Gwen has been here for almost two hours waiting for you to get home so we could have this talk. I’m just worried that if you don’t do this, one night the wolf is just going to start running and won’t stop until it gets to Vancouver.”
Ari took Dale’s hands. “I want you to come with me.”
“I have to stay and cover the agency, babe. We can’t afford to completely shut down.” She cupped Ari’s cheek. “Besides, it needs to be you and your mom. Willow wolves only.”
Ari grinned. “Willow wolves?”
Dale shrugged. “You need this. Your mom needs it. I get you every other day of the year. I can cope with a few weeks.”
“Okay,” Ari said. “I have to admit, it sounds amazing. And I could always take a break and come down to see you if I get too homesick.”
“Exactly.”
Ari nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.” She looked at Gwen. “When do we leave?”
“We should go in the morning.”
“Then I guess I should pack.” She touched Dale’s cheek. “And I promise, I won’t be away from you longer than necessary. Three weeks. Four at the outside.”
Dale said, “Absolutely. Come on, I’ll help you pack.”
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Bye, puppy.”
Ari waved goodbye and shrugged into her backpack. Dale heard the door close, but she was asleep before she could hear Gwen starting the car.
She wouldn’t see Ariadne again for over three months.
Chapter One
Ari had been gone for three months.
There were a few phone calls at the beginning, before Ari let it slip how far she had to travel just to get a signal, and Dale told her it was okay to miss a few. After that the calls stopped completely. Dale was still leaving voicemail messages to let Ari know what was happening at home, with the office, and just in general. She told herself every day when there wasn’t a message left in return that Ari was busy. She was getting to know her mother. She was re-learning how to be a wolf. She was probably constantly exhausted.
So Dale went to the office alone. She did paperwork in an empty room, playing her iPod at full volume to make it feel less lonely. She had Thai for dinner, because Ari didn’t like it, and she went home to watch TV. She restricted herself to only watching shows she knew Ari didn’t want to watch so she wouldn’t get too far ahead. She checked her voicemail before bed and as soon as she woke up, and again a few hundred times per day, but there was never anything new.
Toward the end of the third month, her messages became a bit more frequent and urgent. Not because she was getting incredibly anxious and angry, although she was, but because one of Ari’s cases was going to trial after six months of legal wrangling. The lawyers needed Ari to testify about her investigation. The lawyers had agreed that Dale could give the testimony if Ari wasn’t back in time, and the deadline was currently less than an hour away.