Snow: The White Crow (3 page)

There were not many children with the werewolf contagion.  As none could be born to infected women.  The monthly transformation into a werewolf would abort any pregnancies, I hear the transformation is worse than death for the infected.  Like every cell in their body is torn and reshaped.  So the only child wolves were ones who survived an attack.  I hear tell of a cult down near Texas who was purposefully infecting hundreds of human children because they believed it was God's Will or some insane ranting like that.

I heard rumors of a woman in a red cloak descending upon that cult-like a wraith, leaving none of the cult leaders alive and freeing all of the enslaved, infected children.  That was about the tenth time over the centuries I had heard the whisperings of the Red Hood.  If it were true, then it was good to know that there were others like me.  Not werewolf, but something different, something that has walked the world for centuries, trying to balance the scale that was overbalanced by the werewolves so long ago.

As we started over the floating bridge to the gates of Seattle, she tilted her head and her brow knitted. “Your arm is glowing.”

I blinked away my musings and looked down at my left arm.  There was a dim white glow emanating from the sleeve.  I absently covered it.  I glanced at her then exhaled.  She already knew I was something other than human, she saw me working magic.

I uncovered my sleeve then pulled it up so she could see the glowing white crow brand.  It looked to be a stark white tattoo, illuminated by an unnatural light.  I shrugged.  “The crow glows brighter the more nature magic I expend.  A warning of sorts.  I used an awful lot tonight to save Jamie.  It is my life force if I use too much I start to lose my humanity, into the crow form.”

She squinted at me as I put my jacket back on to hide the glow.  Then she asked, “What do you mean?  You'll become a bird?”

I offered up a hand in a throw-away gesture. “I don't really know.  It is what I was told and I have never pushed it past my limits.  I don't think I ever want to find out.”

She nodded in some sort of understanding then said, “So you're what?  A witch?  Is there such thing as witches?  Or are you like the Red Hood, some sort of being of vengeance?”

I pointed at the huge platform that seemed to merge the bridge into the wall blocking the tunnel into the city.  “If you give me a ride back to my camp after this, I'll tell you what I can.  You shared more than you were comfortable with me, so it is only fair I reciprocate in kind.”

The platform was an artificial jetty of land, maybe two or three acres.  With a security checkpoint and turnarounds for the largest of cargo trucks.  There was also a designated Visiting Station.  A structure where Clean Blood of the city can go visit with cursed family members and loved ones since they were not allowed into the city.  On the other side of the huge, silver veined gates into the city, was another platform about the same size.

Traffic was light, a few vehicles leaving the city unchallenged and a couple at the intake checkpoint being searched before entry into the city.  I remember when vehicle searches were added to the blood tests at the gates in the nineteen sixties after a terrorist group smuggled infected people into Denver and released the wolves into the city on a full moon.  President Kennedy mandated vehicle searches mandatory at all walled cities after that.

As we approached, I could see the Killians anxiously awaiting our arrival.  They were surrounded by various officials and representatives from the Seattle Police.  Rachel pulled into one of the parking slots marked 'for official use only' and I looked at the sleeping boy and gently shook his shoulder to wake him as I unstrapped him from the child seat.  “Jamie, we're here.  You want to see your mommy?”

He yawned then panicked, not knowing where he was as he woke up.  He looked around then realized what I was asking him?  “Mommy is here?  The wolfies won't hurt me no more?”  Rachel looked pained at that question.

She answered for me.  “Nobody is going to hurt you.  See over there by those giant gates?  There's your mommy and daddy.”  He turned to where she was pointing and then his eyes got wide in excitement.

We got out and I hoisted the little man to my hip and we walked to the intake area at the gate.  Mrs. Killian was crying and trying to get to us, her husband held her back on the inner side of the gates.  I automatically raised my hand so the intake officers could prick my finger with a silver needle to make sure I was not infected.  When my blood didn't foam from the silver contact, I stuck it in my mouth to get the blood off before they could see I had already healed.

They turned to Specialist Paige and she held her hands up with a grin and said in that smoky, raspy voice,  “Not going in.  I'm quite wolf.  It surprises me that I don't have a tail.”  Then the officer grinned at her playfulness and turned his attention to Jamie.

Jamie curled up against me.  I stroked his hair with my free hand.  “Jamie honey.  You need to let the nice man prick your finger.  Then you can see your mommy.”

He looked at me with big eyes.  “Does it hurt?”

I wouldn't lie to him and nodded. “Just a little, but just for a moment then it is gone.”

The officer held up a sticker of a teddy bear with a bandaid on his finger, and a lollipop.  He said, “You get to have these for being a big boy.”  That swayed Jamie more than my reassurances, I was glad they had programs like that to help kids through the test.

Jamie held his shaking finger out and the man took it gently then looked at Jamie and distracted him.  “Is this your first time outside of the gates?”  Jamie nodded as the man gave him a quick jab.

Jamie looked down quickly as the man said, “All done.  You were really brave.  Here you go.”  He put a bandaid on his finger then handed him the goodies that Jamie gleefully took.  I set him down and held his hand as we stepped toward the gates where his mother was almost beside herself in anticipation.

Jamie suddenly pulled away from me and ran to Rachel and he wrapped his arms around her leg in a big hug.  “Thank you for bringing me to mommy Police lady.”  I don't think you could measure the size of the smile on her face nor the brightness of her eyes.

She squatted to his level and said, “You are very welcome.  Now I think your mommy wants to see you.”

He looked over to where his mother and father were behind the line and nodded and took my hand again and I walked him through the gates into his mother's arm.  They were both bawling as Mr. Killian took my hand.  “Thank you so much, Miss Snow.  You are a godsend.”  I just shrugged as the authorities took me away from the celebrating family to debrief me.

It took the better part of an hour.  The Killians left immediately, but every agency wanted me to repeat the story over and over.  I had appointments with a couple of them in the coming days.  I informed them all that Issaquah PD had all the information they needed and would coordinate with them later.

I was a little surprised when I returned to the gate to see Rachel was still there waiting for me.  She was sitting cross-legged on the ground at the gate in front of two intake officers who were sitting cross-legged in front of her.  Were they playing poker?  Good lord, they were.  I chuckled as I walked up.  They dealt the cards on the thick white line painted at the gates, the neutral zone.

She looked up when I approached and she grabbed a stack of cash from the neutral zone.  “Sorry gents.  I hate to take your money and run, but my passenger is here.”  They made anguished sounds as they stood then she offered her fist into the neutral zone and they each bumped her fist, gathered the cards, and returned to their posts.

I grinned at her pocket as she stuffed the cash in while I stepped out of the city and we walked toward her truck.  “Very enterprising of you.”

She snorted and paused at the driver's door.  “Stop yer yammerin' and get in smart ass.”  I gave her a pleased smile and did as she asked.  A minute later we were heading back across the bridge.

Rachel looked over at me, studying me, keeping the road in her peripheral vision.  She looked away and prompted, “Camp?  You're not staying in the city?”

I shrugged.  “No, I prefer having nature surround me.  It is part of me and it recharges my energies.  I'm just outside of Issaquah.  If you just circle under the freeway overpass onto Front Street, I'm just a mile out of town.”

She nodded, I could tell she understood partly just by what I had shared about the white crow brand.  Then she tilted her head toward me and asked, “Will you be staying in Issaquah or Seattle come  the full moon?”  I grinned, was she worried?

I turned my palms face up on my lap with a gesture of indifference and replied with, “No, I'll stay at my camp.  I'll be moving on after I get a chance to speak with the Red Hood.”

Her sudden jerky motions indicated that she almost slammed on the brakes but stopped herself when her foot was halfway to the brake pedal.  She looked at me and the freeway incredulously.  “Are you insane woman?  The woods are still crawling with thousands of ferals from infected Slater had compelled to converge on Seattle.  Do you have a death wish?  Their wolves would kill you in a second, or... worse.”

I could hear the familiar haunted tone to her voice on the last part.  I have heard it many times over the centuries from old wolves that lived before walled cities, and buildings protected by Full Moon Bars and panic cages.  Of a good person who finds it hard to live with the monster they become three nights a month.  Of the lives they took before Clean Bloods learned to protect themselves better on the lunar cycle.

She honestly believed that the curse was a fate worse than death, and they couldn't even take their own lives to end their suffering.

Werewolves were tough, even in human form.  It took a hell of a lot to kill one if you didn't use silver, whose purity was anathema to them.  Anything short of a beheading could be regenerated.

Over the years, some had tried drowning or hanging, even shooting themselves in the head.  They always regenerated.  If they took enough physical damage, they could die, but it was rare to sustain so much damage that they bled out before the lycan contagion could clot the wounds and start healing them.

I assured her, “I have no fear of werewolves.  My camp is well protected and not even a roaming pack could get to me.  Wolves I understand, all instinct and hunger.  I know what drives them, it is humans I fear.  There is no beast more treacherous or cruel than a human can be.”

I explained, “Look at what happened to Jamie and the others those men had kidnapped, tortured, killed, or infected.  That was not because of their infection.  That was not the wolves, that was their human aspects making a conscious choice to do evil.  Wolves are not evil... true they are killing machines, but they don't do it for spite. They do it because they are hungry, ravenous, and their instincts tell them to kill and hunt.”

I almost growled. “But these... men...”  I almost spat the word. “Chose to do these evil things.  For money, for thrills.  They had Clean Blood accomplices who made the same choice, to be evil.  You have a mole in your own department who made the same choice, whether it is a Clean Blood or infected individual.”

I shrugged and reiterated, “So no, I don't fear werewolves, I fear the humans who turn their backs on their own humanity to do evil, they are the dangerous people.”  Then I turned an evil grin on her. “And it takes dangerous people like you and me to show them the error of their ways.”

She chuckled.  “I still think you are insane Snow, but I do like you.”  The look on her face belied her flippant tone.  She seemed to really be contemplating what I had just said.

Then she glanced over as we exited the freeway into the city of Issaquah as the first rays of sunlight crested the mountain peaks.  “Breakfast?  Let's get some food, you owe me a story.”

I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since I left Seattle yesterday to head up to the chateau where Jamie was being held.  Ever since I became what I now am, I haven't needed to eat, but I still enjoyed the tastes of food.  I nodded and she grinned.  “Okay, let me get into some civvies first.”

I smiled then looked at the city.  It always struck me how different the cities outside of the walled cities were.  In a walled city, every single building had silver-laced bars and shutters over every door and window that would slide down to bar entry on full moon nights.

These were known as FMBs or Full Moon Bars.  They were there in case wolves managed to somehow breach the thirty-foot high walls surrounding the major population centers of Clean Bloods.  A secondary line of defense.  Then as a fail-safe, every dwelling had silver-lined boxes for each family member.  These were known as panic cages.  The rich had entire panic rooms lined with silver in the walls.

In cities like Issaquah, where eighty percent or more of the population bore the lupus contagion, very few homes or businesses bore FMBs.  So it was easy to pick out the houses of the Clean Bloods or businesses that catered to traveling Clean Bloods, like hotels and motels.

The other difference was that every home had panic cages just like the Clean Bloods, only these cages were used by the infected on full moons to cage their beast so their werewolves didn't run free and terrorize the area.  Most of the infected took that seriously.  They never chose the curse, and they suffered from the knowledge they became a monster but wouldn't allow it to roam free like the ferals did.

We stopped off at the Police station for Paige to clean up and change.  I had to stop myself from staring as she came out and walked me to her personal vehicle wearing some tight jeans that clung to her long legs and hips like they were painted on.  A plain white t-shirt that did nothing to hide her feminine curves and the toned muscles beneath the straining fabric.

I wondered about that for a moment.  When you are cursed, you are locked into the form you were at the time of infection.  She said she had been turned at the start of the prior century when women were expected to be soft and feminine.  Then I realized, she had mentioned she was working on the walls of the city.  Being a mason's assistant would do it.  It was hard work moving the large silver ore stones in place.  I approved of the result.

She didn't wear a coat, most wolves didn't since they could run around comfortably until the temperatures dropped below freezing.  The service weapon on her hip made the overall effect... umm... enticing.  She stopped before we got into the Jeep CJ7.  “What?”

I snickered and just hopped into the passenger seat saying, “Oh nothing, you just clean up good.”

She got in and looked me over with an unreadable expression, like she was trying to figure me out,  then shook her head in exasperation and started the car.  “Drive through then my place?  I doubt you want to share your story in a public place.”

I grinned. “Lay on, Macduff.”

She did a double take at that and cocked an eyebrow.  “Shakespeare?  And you didn't misquote by saying 'lead on.'”

I deadpanned, “Truly a droll man with an abysmal sense of humor.  He died owing me five pounds sterling.”

She squinted at me and then shook her head, her nostrils were flaring. “I can't tell if you are joking.”  I grinned.  When people try to deceive, the really old wolves can tell by a change in their scent.  Since I was telling the truth, I had her stymied.  I just grinned.

After a few seconds, she shook her head and returned the grin.  We pulled through the Golden Arches drive through.  She ordered four Big Macs raw and a cola then turned to me.  I could tell she was curious how I would order.  She was trying to gather information about me.

On the outside like this, most fast food places catered to both the infected and non.  You could get your orders “raw” like she did.  Which meant the meat would be heated but not cooked. Or “cooked” which was self-explanatory.  One drawback to being cursed was some bleed over of the wolf, like the craving for raw meat.  Though one positive was enhanced senses and more speed agility and strength than a normal human.

I ate in an attempt to feel human.  Nature sustained me, the magics nourished me.  But I did still enjoy the aroma, taste, and texture of food.  I learned over the years to eat whatever my hosts did so they didn't feel self-conscious.  It was all the same with me so I decided to play with her a bit.

I'll have four Big Macs as well, two raw two cooked, a large fry, and a coffee.  She cocked an eyebrow.  Whether it was the confusing mix of cooked and raw which told her nothing or the fact I had ordered wolf portions.

As we pulled up to the window, she grinned. “You did that to confuse me didn't you?”

I gave her a toothy smile back. “Yup.  Did it work?  You thought you were all sneaky and cop-like.”  I cocked an eyebrow at her in challenge.

She chuckled and said, “It did oh mysterious one.”  Then we fought over who was going to pay.  I relented when she actually growled at me.  She paid while I exploded into a fit of laughter.

She was smiling and trying to be grumpy when I kept laughing.  “What?  It wasn't that funny!”

I snorted as I got my laughing under control. “Yes it was.  You old wolves always try to intimidate with a wolf growl.  But from you, it was just cute.”

She almost pouted but growled, “I'm not cute.”

I pursed my lips and fought off another laughing fit.  “Says you.”

She murmured, “I hate you.”

I nodded in mock agreement. “Says the woman who growled at me just to be able to pay for my meal.”

She looked frustrated then just said, “I'm going to shut up now or I'll be brought up on assault charges.”

I couldn't help it, she left a huge opening, and I blurted out,  “They don't arrest you for beating yourself up.”

She fought off a smile and refused to look at me until the food was handed out to us.  The smells were mouth watering.  Then she said into the long silence as we pulled into traffic.  “Shut up.”

I burst out laughing again to her smile as she drove us to the edge of the city to a little property bordering the forest.  It was a tiny green house with a slate roof that was kind of charming.  It was so small, it had to be a little one bedroom house.  But the majesty of the mountain it backed up to, gave it a certain storybook feel.

I carried the bags as she led the way to the old brown painted door and unlocked it.  The moment we stepped in I immediately put the bags on the little table by the door and drew my sidearm and a silver blade as quickly as I took the room in.  It was in shambles, someone had ransacked the place.

On my cue and with the lightning fast reflexes of a wolf, Rachel had her weapon drawn too.  She scanned right as I scanned left.  I could see a wild glint in her eye, she loved the hunt.  Then as we slowly turned taking in the small space that seemed to serve as both the living room and kitchen with two doors to the back, she whispered to me,  “What is it?  Did you hear something?”

I did a double take at her, she seemed confused but more than willing to take action on a moment's notice.  I looked at the mess again, realization dawning on me as I looked at the clothing strewn about on the floor and draped over the back of the little couch.  The pizza boxes stacked haphazardly on the little coffee table.  Shoes lying around or sitting on top of stacks of bills on the floor near the couch.  Socks draped over the television.

I hesitated as I looked at her, looking at me for an explanation.  No... it couldn't be.  I grinned sheepishly as I holstered and sheathed my weapons.  “Umm... you're a slob?”

She realized what I had reacted to and chuckled as she holstered her sidearm. “Guilty.  I live alone and don't have anyone to impress.”

I shook my head and grabbed the bags of food and clarified, “I thought someone had ransacked your house.”

She chuckled and grabbed one of the bags from me and flopped back onto the couch, and using an arm, swept some pizza boxes off the coffee table and set the bag down, pulling out the contents and placing them in front of her.

I grinned at the self-satisfied look on her face as she looked at me and motioned her head beside her.  I rolled my eyes, set my bag on the coffee table and picked up some discarded clothing from the couch cushion and stacked them neatly on the arm of the couch and sat beside her.

She took a huge bite of a raw Big Mac and grinned a toothy grin.  Okay, I admit, I laughed at that.  Then we ate.  She switched on the television and changed to a movie channel where Singing in the Rain was playing.  Then we just sat there, no real talking, just watching the old classic and eating in a shared camaraderie that I missed at times.  I would occasionally leave the woods of whatever part of the world I lived in at the time to engage in social activities and live among people just so I didn't forget that I was human... for the most part.

I usually enroll in self-defense classes, or weapons training classes to hone my fighting skills while affording me human interaction.  I found myself wondering the last time I saw a movie in the theater as I watched.  Breakfast at Tiffany's? No... it hadn't been that long ago had it?  Nineteen sixty-one?  What the hell have I done in the decades since?

I stopped eating and stared down at the food, then at the program.  I felt insecure about my humanity because of a stupid movie?  I pressed my back into the couch and just felt the cushions against me for the reassurance of civilization.  I thought of my last time I had stayed in a city for more than a week.  It was just three years ago.  To take some weapons training and re-qualify for my Wolf Hunter permit.  I usually just came to the cities to get my next job as a recovery specialist.  Had I become nothing but a weapon of violence?  Was I no better than a wolf on the full moon?