Black Wolf (54 page)

"Jesse is
still alive," she told them out loud. "He can't be the only one,
you know him and Jaisan, if one's alive the other must be,
somewhere out there. Jess might still survive, and kill the demons
that did this. And I know I don't entirely trust Shaine, how can I?
He's one of the children of water, they call themselves merenai.
But he's helped Jess so much, he even fought one of his own kind to
keep Jess safe, even though he didn't have a chance of winning.
Doesn't he sort of make up for the rest of them? There's still a
chance that the story will have a reasonably happy ending. Maybe if
you wish Jess good luck as hard as you can, that'll do some
good."

She
half-expected some ghostly reply, but none came.

Her feet
found, without conscious thought, the overgrown driveway of a
larger house, on the other side of the road, this one with more
land around it. The chicken coop didn't look like it could shelter
much of anything anymore, the chickens probably long since food for
the wild things. The elm nearby was dry and dead, but two platforms
still rested in its branches, the rope ladder to the lower one no
longer there.

Sam sat on the
top step leading to the porch, and leaned sideways against the
post. Alfari climbed onto her lap, pressed against her, and Sam
curved an arm around her to steady her there.

Here, the
memories were too strong to block.

Dena
Kore-Tremayne's mate died when Aindry was thirteen, the twins nine,
over two years after his initial diagnosis—two years of
deteriorating ability to function, increasing pain that in the end
lay beyond the control of magic or modern medicine. The nearest
members of the community did what they could, and got word
around.

Sam, recently
graduated from high school, offered to stay with Dena's family for
a while and take over some of the household responsibilities.

She hugged
herself, smiling. Even in the grief of knowing her mate was dying,
Dena had greeted her warmly—a determined woman who looked much like
her offspring, the Kore-Tremayne blood running true, very clearly
an alpha bitch graciously accepting Sam into her territory as a
subordinate pack member. She apologized for her mate's absence,
explaining that he tired easily and was already asleep. With grave
courtesy, she acknowledged the introduction to Sam's sleek orange
feline companion Uri, which Uri had returned, cautious but
receptive.

Then there
were the kids...

When Dena
called them to the kitchen, they came promptly; Sam's first
reaction was to wonder how on earth she'd be able to tell the twins
apart.

"This is
Samantha," Dena said calmly. "That is her friend Uri. These are
Aindry, Jaisan, and Jesse. You three are to do as Samantha tells
you, is that clear?"

Immediate
agreement, eyes kept submissive-low, but as soon as Dena looked
away all three forgot their gloom in curiosity and bounced over to
quiz Sam on everything they could think of about her life and meet
Uri, who batted away excessively importunate hands forcefully but
with velvet paws. After an hour or so of that, Dena sent them off
to bed.

"They can be a
handful," their mother admitted, amused. "At least only Aindry was
born actively wolf, I can hardly imagine the mischief the twins
would be into if they had both forms to use."

"How are they
doing?" Sam asked tentatively.

Dena smiled,
sadly. "As well as one can expect. We've talked about it, they
understand what's happening." She reached across the table, closed
one hand around Sam's. "Thank you," she said softly. "Knowing
there's someone else here is a considerable relief. We have nursing
help through the day while I'm at work, Phillip talked me into
finishing out the school year, but the kids and the house and so
much else to be done..."

"I'll stay as
long as you need me."

"Come?"

Sam followed
her upstairs.

To Aindry's
room, first, the walls plastered with posters of wolves, rock
stars, dinosaurs, and sports cars, in bewildering confusion; dark
fur showed betrayingly on the garnet-red bedspread.

Dena leaned
down and kissed her daughter gently. "Say good-night to Sam."

"Good-night,"
Aindry said dutifully. "Can we go to the beach tomorrow?"

Sam looked
questioningly at Dena.

"I think it
would be nice for all of us to go to the beach," Dena said. "Maybe
your dad will feel well enough to join us. But get some sleep, so
you'll be awake for it."

"I hope so.
Okay." She snuggled down under the light blankets. "Have nice
dreams, Sam."

"I'll try,"
Sam promised. "You too."

The room
across the hall belonged to the twins.

Sam was a
little surprised to find only one bed, a double, with two small
bodies nestled together in the middle of it under a blanket with a
pattern predominantly amethyst and sapphire.

Dena glanced
in her direction, shrugged, and smiled. "We had to put them in the
same crib, or they'd scream murder and never settle down. We tried,
about a year ago, getting them twin beds, but every morning we
found them both in the same bed, so we gave up. I've had the other
teachers at the school tell me they think they're too dependent on
one another, that it isn't healthy..."

"Obviously
they have no idea what a twin-bond can be like for wolves."

The smile
became a grin. "Many people throw fits at the thought of a gay
teacher. Imagine if they knew they had a demon-werewolf teaching a
class of seven- and eight-year-olds."

Sam
had
to chuckle at the thought.

Dena gave each
of the twins a kiss.

"G'night,
Samantha," one said sleepily, and the other, "We'll show you our
rock collection tomorrow, 'kay?"

"Okay. I'd
like to see it."

Dena closed
the door part-way behind them.

That night was
the first of many the two of them spent in the kitchen, sharing a
pot of tea and talking.

Samantha
stayed long past Phillip's death. When Unity was finally declared
inhabitable in June, and Dena's family moved in July, she went with
them, choosing her offered room with them rather than returning to
her parents' household, with her parents' blessings. She helped
them build the tree-house, and as often as they could get away with
it the twins slept there together.

Everyone in
Unity knew, to make this work they had to lean on each other, make
this a sort of extended wolf pack with everyone contributing
something
to the whole and in return being assured the
support of the whole.

By March, they
were sure it was going to work, that they finally had their dream,
a place of their own. Latent wolf blood being relatively common
among the Cassandra wolves, the tradition had formed of a Beltaine
ceremony of sharing power to a level that woke it; the twins
turning thirteen that year, they were to be included for the first
time, an event that had both of them wildly excited—and their
sister as well, though she teased them mercilessly about it.

Then came
April...

The happy
memories shattered.

Her recall of
that day was like that of a nightmare, twisted in ways that made no
sense, only the feelings remaining clear. Uri had woken her, crying
urgently and pawing at her; her first reaction was to bolt for
Dena's room and tell her they had to get out of the house and away.
They'd roused the sleepily-confused kids; Sam left Dena to hurry
them into their clothes while she ran to her room to grab her
canvas backpack and dump the contents out. Uri howled from the
front door, the shriek of an alarm siren, and Sam detoured to open
it for him; he took off running, not into the woods where he could
hide, but towards the nearest house, and farther off, she could
hear more feline voices yowling frantic warning, the sound echoing
eerily around the village. Lights were starting to come on here and
there, others responding to the unprecedented clamour. Virtually
every household had a cat, and she rather thought that none of them
were currently considering their personal safety; some fifty cats,
all gathering in force and clearly determined to wake everyone in
Unity, created a considerable cacophony. She wished Uri and the
others luck, and darted back to Dena's room. From under the bed she
pulled a carved wooden chest, very old, and opened it; the
magesilk-wrapped contents she stuffed hastily into her pack, tied
it and slung it over her shoulder.

She found Dena
hanging up the phone when she came out in the hall.

"I called your
parents," the wolf explained. "And two others. They can call
others, but I think most people have heard the cats by now. You
got...?"

"Yes. Let's
go."

The five of
them fled, out into the forest, under storm-clouds gathering to
hide the stars, with the agitated hue-and-cry of the cats a surreal
soundtrack.

They didn't,
couldn't, flee far enough to not hear the inhumanly beautiful song
echo its way through the trees, twining itself into the rising
wind, warping her perception of reality beyond recognition; Dena
and Aindry were less affected than her and the twins, but what
power must be in it to reach full wolves at all? Dena reported that
she could smell demons, and the same sort-of-fishy scent the wolves
had picked up traces of around the lake many times. Almost, Sam
turned back to the village, in terror for her parents, their
friends, the other wolves, the brave cats that she could no longer
hear at all, but she stopped; her first responsibility was to see
to it that Dena got her children to safety.

Try as she
might, she couldn't remember how she and Jess had gotten separated
from the others, sometime after the full fury of the storm broke,
no more than she could how she'd lost Jess, only the blind panic
that she'd failed and Jess was out there alone somewhere... She hid
her backpack close to Unity, and searched and searched, the music
still ringing in her ears until she thought she'd go mad, all her
senses suddenly unreliable...

The next clear
memory was of waking up in Bryan's bed, with the wolf who became
her dearest friend hovering anxiously near—with nearly two weeks
missing in her head.

"Dena," Sam
said softly, hugging Alfari close; Alfari purred and reached up to
rub her cheek along Sam's. "I tried, I really did, and I'm sorry I
messed up. But demon-luck brought him right to me, and I haven't
forgotten, even though he has. It's been so tempting to tell him,
but he's been safer without his memory, until now. They've found
him, and it's just him all alone against the same thing that killed
everyone. I won't give up, I promise. Maybe demon-luck will keep
working and you and Aindry and Jais will turn up at the last
possible moment. Maybe one of the demon-wolves that we lost touch
with when they moved to the States and the UK, or maybe a wolf from
another line like the legends say, will show up on the doorstep and
help." She rested her cheek against the top of Alfari's head. "Uri,
I'm sorry, we only survived because of you waking me in time, all
of you tried so hard, and you died and I wasn't there for you."

A chipmunk ran
out from under the porch a short distance away, gave her a wary
look, and scurried off on errands of its own. Alfari's tail
flicked, but she didn't move and her purr never faltered.

"Thank you,"
Sam told the chipmunk gravely. "I needed to be reminded that I came
here for a reason other than the ghosts. I don't have infinite
daylight, and finding what I left here is not going to be easy—and
no way am I staying here after dark. Not even with 'Fari." She
stood up, and stretched. "I can at least give him back his name,
Dena. That's about all I can do, but I'll keep trying. I
promise."

53

Rebecca
watched the clock on the wall tick slowly closer to five o'clock.
She'd been without a coven for something like two weeks now, and
had discovered it to be oddly liberating: no one she needed to
scold to do things properly, no one she was responsible for. She
was giving serious thought to not creating a new coven at all, and
certainly not right away. She hadn't felt this free in years. She
could hunt when she pleased, stay home when she pleased, sleep in
on the weekend with no one demanding her attention... Perhaps it
would be better to find an apartment of her own. Certainly she
earned enough that she didn't need to live with others. Yes, it was
a wolf responsibility to protect, but if no one particularly wanted
her protection, then simply being here and contributing to the
general safety of Haven was sufficient. Perhaps she'd start making
plans to leave entirely, go to much smaller Irminsul in
Saskatchewan or Aralu in the Northwest Territories, or even to some
more remote place where she'd be the only wolf. But even being in
Haven just might be more tolerable under the right conditions.

The clock
inched its way closer and closer. A few people came in, but this
was a Monday, and the second week of the month, so the always-slow
stream was more like a puddle. That was why she was one of three
people who kept the entire bank functioning.

Finally! Time
to close up. She crossed the floor to throw the bolt on the door,
and turned back to the routine of closing. The couple Adam had been
talking to in his office emerged; Rebecca let them out, locked it
again, went back to her tasks.