Lunatic Fringe (32 page)

Right. They should get moving again.
Lexie followed as Archer loped off.

They hurried along in silence for a
while longer, Lexie admiring the play of muscles under fur, until
Archer came to a dead stop on a rise. Her nose to the air and then
to the ground, she turned to Lexie, brows twitching with concern.
Lexie sniffed and discovered it, too: the odor of blood, urine, and
guts. Fresh death. Lexie dropped to her knees and sucked in the
nauseating mélange of fetid odors. The ground reeked of iron and
ammonia, sickening sweetness of putrefying bits of flesh, like
rancid meat. Salt from tears and blood, sugar from the viscera of
gutted bodies, daubs of it clinging to dirt and leaves. Lexie
raised her head, fear driving her adrenaline, “What happened
here?”

Archer paced the ground, nose and brows
twitching as she reconstructed the attack. She followed the trails
of odors faster than Lexie would have been able to, even as a wolf,
working backwards from the grisly result to redraw the details of
the crime. Her tail swung in a wild arc, stirring up new scents,
new clues. She snuffled quick and shallow before expelling it all
in a great whuffing snort through her nostrils.

Four boys, she chattered in her wolf
tongue.

Lexie leaned forward again,
divvying out the scents that layered over one another like
scattered cards. Underneath the blood and viscera, one scent
emerged as the most potent: the dyed leather and wool of new Milton
varsity jackets. Layered under that scent was another, that of
beer. Others, peppermint gum and musky cologne, swirled among them.
Brian. The smell of him moved in all directions. Alongside his
smells flowed others: vodka, hair gel, marijuana, printer toner,
hot dogs and golf gloves. Michael and Kevin, the other new Phi
Kappa Phi brothers. She remembered them from the soccer game with
Brian and Duane.
Duane. Oh God, where was
Duane?

A dozen pairs of footprints danced over
the dirt. Law enforcement, wildlife experts, hunters, and press had
all been there to observe the grisly scene. In seconds, Lexie
parsed out what had probably taken the police a round of forensics,
fish and wildlife personnel speculation, and homicide expertise to
figure out: four boys out camping, stalked and killed by a lone
rare wolf. Two mauled, one partially devoured. The fourth,
gone.

Here
. Archer padded over to the tracks of the werewolf, broader
than her own, but not the same scent as the male they had
encountered at the mountainside. A third werewolf. Archer was
putting the pieces together while Lexie was falling to
them.

Did you know them?
Archer chattered.

Lexie dropped to her hands and knees,
grinding her nose into the soil, pulling more hints of the crime
into her body, drawing truths from the particles still clinging to
the earth, searching for her friend.

“
Yes,” Lexie said,
stumbling over to Archer’s side to slump down on the dirt. Her
fingers dipped into the werewolf’s track. “Duane was my friend. I
knew the others. They went to Milton. Duane . . .”

Tears felt inadequate in the face of
this horror, but they were all Lexie had to release the panic that
rose in her chest. Her tears spilled over and dripped to the
leaf-scattered ground. Archer nudged her, and Lexie buried her
fingers into thick fur.

Lexie whispered, “I’ve known Duane
forever. He grew up in my town.”

“
And you smell him
here?”

She nodded.

“
Which one is
he?”

She shook her head. “I don’t
know.”

“
Have you seen him since
you changed?”

She nodded.

“
Then you
know.”

Lexie paused, searching the surrounding
trees for answers. “He’s always eating fruit,” she said.

“
What kind?”

“
Apples mostly, green ones.
He smells sweet, like the sugar from fruit, and clean--soap and
this strange, intense shaving stuff.”

“
Do you smell any of that
here?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Yes you do. Take a deep
breath.”

Lexie sniffled, struggling to inhale
more through her tears. “Kevin died there.” She pointed to a clod
of dirt, where a claw had ripped clean through his body, leaving a
gash in the earth and brown, crispy blood caking the
soil.

“
One of the others,
Michael, was there.” She pointed again, near the base of a tree.
More disturbed earth, deep prints, gashes, and claw marks. “And
over there, and there . . .” she pointed to two different places,
“Brian was torn in half, and the wolf carried him there to . . .
eat.” Lexie swallowed back a bout of disgust, the taste of bile
crawling up her throat. “Duane’s scent is everywhere, but nowhere.
Just circles.”

Lexie sank her face into Archer’s
fur.

Archer nuzzled her,
“Trust your senses. Try again. Close your eyes
and see.”

Lexie screwed up her mouth in
disbelief. Though her nose was stuffed with snot, she tried again,
opening her mouth to breath, letting the scents swirl over her
palate and up to her sinuses. She pressed her nose to the ground,
discovering the sweet scent of green apples, drifting gently on top
of the rest. The odor was frail compared to the stench of
decomposition.

Though her face was burning, Lexie
shivered, wanting so badly to disappear into herself like that
night at the mountainside. She fell onto her back, watching the
clouds cruise above the canopy overhead. Archer rested her body on
top of Lexie’s, covering her with warmth, forcing away the cool
curl of shock that was clutching at Lexie’s mind.

With Archer a comforting weight atop
her, Lexie released her held breath and let the odors tell her the
rest of the story. Who was this killer? Why did it kill two to eat
a third? Why attack four strong young men? Where the hell was
Duane?

Lexie lay beneath Archer, sifting
through smells she didn’t yet know how to parse together into a
story. Her muscles stretched under the press of Archer’s weight.
Her vertebrae lengthened, her breath squeezed in and out, mingling
with the hot moisture of Archer’s breath. Beneath Archer’s body,
Lexie felt safe to expand her senses as far as they would go. She
breathed in any lingering clues and extended her hearing to its
furthest edges.

It was through this seeking that Lexie
heard the mechanical ‘click’ from the trees. The sound was measured
and deliberate, made by someone who wished to remain unheard. Lexie
knew the sound well. She’d heard it a hundred times when hunting
with her father: the sound of a bullet being chambered in a
rifle.

Archer tensed atop Lexie,
ears perking as she recognized it too. They both froze and looked
in the direction of the sound, just in time to hear a
BANG!

The bullet seared through the damp air,
penetrating Archer’s haunch and knocking her off of
Lexie.

Archer yelped and Lexie shot to her
feet, scanning the woods downwind of the clearing. Crouched behind
a pile of brush, shadowed by the impending evening, she saw three
men training rifles on Archer. Lexie stepped between the men and
their target.

“
Girl, get away from that!”
one of the men shouted, lowering the rifle a notch.

Lexie recognized the voice as her
father’s hunting buddy, Hank. She had known him for years; he had
often joined in on their father-daughter fishing trips. He was a
good man, but a lonely one, with a dead wife and a junkie son. That
was all she knew, and all she’d ever wanted to know. Even as a
child, she had sensed that Hank treasured those rare trips with
them. They saved him from the loneliness of a one-bedroom apartment
and an arthritic cat.

Now that gravely voice was high with
tension as he yelled at Lexie, the only obstacle between three
nervous men and a wounded beast.

Lexie, get out of the
way!
Archer growled at her.

“
No!” Lexie
shouted.

“
Listen, girl! Come here!
Don’t be stupid! That thing’ll kill you!” another of the hunters
shouted.

Lexie, go to them,
Archer chattered.
They’ll
do something stupid.

To human eyes and ears,
Archer’s snapping language looked like threats. Another bullet
slipped into a chamber with a loud ‘
shink
.’ This time, one of the other
hunters pulled the trigger. The shot cracked through the forest,
the bullet whizzing by Lexie’s torso to clip Archer’s foreleg. She
yelped, falling onto her back.

“
Stop it!” Lexie screamed,
spreading her arms to create a bigger shield. Tears streamed down
her cheeks.

“
Get over here, you idiot!”
the younger hunter shouted back.

“
Hank, tell them to
stop!”

“
Lexie Clarion? Christ,
Lexie, get away from that thing! It’ll kill you!”

“
No, she won’t!
Stop!”

Another bullet whizzed by Lexie and
skipped off Archer’s back.

“
Shit, Randy, stop
shooting. You’ll hit her!” Hank shouted.

Another
‘
shink’
of a
reload said Randy wasn’t listening, too intent on bagging the beast
that killed those boys. He shot.

Fire slid along Lexie’s flesh, as the
bullet sliced through her deltoid. Lexie soared backwards and hit
the ground, blood splattering from her wound. With a bestial growl,
Archer bounded over Lexie’s prone body and launched herself at the
hunters.

Lexie rolled onto her good shoulder,
struggling to rise as she watched Archer’s forepaws drive Hank into
the ground. Her swinging tail, like a medieval mace, smashed Randy
across the face. Teeth, blood, and spit flew. Archer twisted her
body to the side, using her haunches to knock the third hunter onto
his back. Before Lexie could fight through the pain to scream at
Archer to stop, the older man was unconscious, Randy rolled on the
ground clutching a broken jaw, and Hank was on his back,
silent.

Archer ran back to tend to Lexie,
whining and licking her wound, a simple slice beneath all the
blood. Lexie pushed Archer’s furry snout aside, gaping at the
results of Archer’s outburst.

Are you okay?
Archer chattered.

“
What did you do?” Lexie
said.

He shot you.

“
Is Hank
breathing?”

I don’t know.

“
Is he
breathing!”

No.

“
Oh my god.” Lexie
struggled to her feet, clutching her wounded shoulder, and ran to
the men.

“
Oh my god,” she repeated,
dropping to her knees in front of Hank’s body. Next to him, Randy
wheezed and moaned, shut-eyed as he managed the pain.

“
You killed him,” Lexie
said, touching his neck with her fingertips and leaning her cheek
to his face.

We have to get out of
here.

“
These guys need to go to
the hospital! Fuck, Archer, you killed him.”

I just knocked him
over.

“
He’s dead,
Archer!”

Archer stepped over to investigate. She
nudged Hank’s head to one side. It rolled like a ball on a string.
Beneath it, a pine-strewn plane of rock was wet with blood. The
back of Hank’s balding head was dented like a hardboiled
egg.

Shit
, Archer muttered under her breath.

“
Shit? Shit?! Yeah, bad
luck, huh? You killing a man like that. What a bummer,” Lexie
shouted through tears.

Archer tilted her head, wolf ears
swiveling as to try to make sense of the sarcasm.

I didn’t mean to--
Archer chattered, shamed.

“
I don’t care what you
meant to do! You’re just an animal, and you made me forget. You’re
not human. You don’t care about human life.”

I do. Of course I
do,
Archer whined.

“
Bullshit!” Lexie shouted,
an unfamiliar rage burning her skin more than the bullet
wound.

I value your life over
anyone’s. Over mine.

“
They wouldn’t have hurt
me. They couldn’t have.”

Yes, they could have! I
wasn’t going to let them take you from me. Not them. Not now. Not
like this.
Archer’s gemstone eyes sparkled
with moisture, though she was incapable of producing
tears.

“
You’re just a beast. A
monster!” Lexie screamed, regretting the words the moment they left
her mouth.

You wanted this from
me,
Archer whispered, as timid as a scolded
child.

“
I was wrong. I don’t want
this anymore. Go away, before anyone else dies.” She should have
never asked Archer to turn for her, never asked her come to this
place, never should have expected Archer to defend her. It was all
a mistake, the greedy affectations of a silly girl in love, and now
a man was dead.

Archer whined deep in her throat,
waiting like a puppy for Lexie to pat her head and tell her she did
a good job.