Wild Card (41 page)

I grabbed Alex and Jen.

“I want you two here with me. And I will not have you arguing.”

I guess being tired and drinking a few glasses of wine made me fierce. They were meek as kittens as they sat on either side of me. A few token glares may have been exchanged, but wine and warmth worked its magic.

I gathered a reluctant hand from both of them and hugged them to my chest.

Conversation fell to murmurs. Someone stripped the guest rooms of mattresses and pillows and scattered them around.

Must remember to get them to tidy up tomorrow.

Jen had been so laid back, but I was feeling guilty, between yawns.

Pia’s face floated past, grinning like a cat. Comforters appeared. I sank into a sea of contentment, my Athanate pheromones probably swamping everyone.

A nightmare made the strongbox creak, and I felt hands from both sides silence it, pressing it down. Down.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I am a creature of night and shadows. The day has long folded back. Edges become soft and blurred, walls insubstantial as mist. Souls glow. These, this warm cluster, that is me, many in one. A House. A pulse of Athanate pleasure. Yessss.

Hana lies in my lap, twitching, deeply asleep.

I look up and, with no more than a stretch, see through the veil of walls, to the quiet patter of the guards’ minds, bored but alert.

If that far, how much further?

The night is smoky with the haze of a million minds, like candles in the dark. Somewhere out there, I seek one that burns with malevolence, leaking poison fumes.

If we could just reach, could we not see?

“You do not have the strength.” The dragon’s voice calls me back. “Welcome, House Farrell.”

“Kaothos, you damn lizard. Am I always dreaming when we talk?”

“What is dreaming?” The sizzling of dragon laughter. “Walls are dreams.”

Her scaled body lies inside and outside the room, passing through walls. It is bigger than before.

“I’m not talking to you without Tullah,” I say.

“Wise,” says a voice I recognize; my great-grandmother, Speaks-to-Wolves, in her wolf form, pads into the room from the darkness. “Or at least wiser than you were, cub.” She sniffs Hana’s unresponsive body gently and turns to Kaothos. “Wake your host, Shaper-of-Flames.”

“I prefer Kaothos,” she says, but Tullah stirs and rubs her eyes.

“Oh, freaking hell!” she says. “What is this? Spirit Skype?”

“This is a time for careful decisions.” Speaks-to-Wolves. “And a time for apologies.”

Kaothos laid her head alongside Tullah.

“It is. I have damaged you, House Farrell and your spirit guide. Hana sleeps. She will recover.”

“And me?”

“I do not know. The path of energy through you may take away your ability to use energy for yourself. I did not know this. I am sorry.”

“And?” Speaks-to-Wolves says.

“And I may have damaged more. Your key for the energy is anger. You keep that hidden inside you. A secure place. I reached for it. I was clumsy. I may have made this place less secure.”

She’s talking about the strongbox, about where I imprison all those things that would make me weak, make me lose control.

“I may be able to fix it,” she says.

I hold up both hands. “Enough.”

Tullah’s mouth is set, deeply unhappy.

“You must accept boundaries,” Speaks-to-Wolves says to Kaothos. “You must be accept training and guidance.”

“The community?” Tullah asks.

Speaks-to-Wolves lowers her head in confirmation. Or threat.

Kaothos’ great lids sweep down and up. “I will.” The Athanate stirs in me, hugely pleased. Kaothos’ great eye fixes on me. “Does that mean that we will have the Athanate Blood that will empower us?”

“Maybe. In time,” Speaks-to-Wolves says.

“How can you be so sure you can control the Blood?” I ask.

“Little Hana kept you from turning for two years,” Kaothos replied. “I am much stronger and better suited.”

Speaks-to-Wolves nudges me. “Later, grand-daughter. You have too much to do. Rest.”

They become thinner, translucent reversed, the darkness showing through.

“How better suited?” I say. “How do you know?”

“What is the name of mankind’s greatest vampire myth?” Kaothos asks.

“Dracula.”

Kaothos gives her sizzling laughter as she fades away. “The name means ‘son of the dragon’,” she whispers.

Chapter 42

SATURDAY

I’d always found Coykuti Ranch spooky. The way the pines seemed to reach down from the mountain behind. The screen of maple and cottonwood that shielded the main house from view. The quiet. It wasn’t silence; the wind coming down the mountain whispered words on its cold breath.

Traces of morning mist trickled down from the pines as if a huge beast slept beneath their dark cover.

I shivered. Last night’s dream conversations included, I had enough to worry about without getting over-imaginative.

I’d nicknamed the farm worker Leatherface when I’d first come here, in keeping with the horror movie setting. He was leaning against the door of the nearest farm building, watching me get out the car.

The house felt empty, so I walked over to him.

“I’m here to see Felix,” I said.

Well, doh!

He reached behind the door and pulled out a shotgun. Nothing fancy, an old under-and-over Remington. Good for bird. More than adequate for a hybrid that didn’t fall in with the pack’s rules and way of doing things. He rested it on his shoulder and headed around the buildings and took the dirt track up the slope behind the house with me trailing after him.

There were more maples and cottonwood dotted around here too, but they stopped about half way between the back of the house and the start of the pines.

Leatherface stepped off the path and gestured up to the right with a lift of his chin.

Okay. He wanted me to walk on, with my back to him and his shotgun.

Was it a test, or had Felix had enough? I could imagine him saying—
don’t shoot her in the house and get blood over everything. Take her out back.

I stared at Leatherface.

His face betrayed nothing, but I could sense he knew exactly what I was thinking. Was there a sniff of wolfish amusement leaking from him?

I walked where he’d indicated, my back muscles tensing. As if that would do any good.

The ground to the right flattened out, which formed a little hollow, hidden from the house and the track. There were conifers here too. Not the dark pines of the slopes above, but small, tended yew trees. They were grown to form the shape of a crescent moon, tall ones at the back, tapering down to knee-high bushes at the tips of the two horns. Their green foliage was lightened by crimson berries.

Inside the barrier of yew, there was a neat border of flowers. Indian blanket razzled with cheerful red-orange-yellow flowers waving in the breeze. Scarlet leadwort echoed the berries in the branches above them.

And inside the enfolding arms of somber yew and bright flowers, Felix Larimer stood silently in front of three weathered gravestones.

I joined him. His senses would have alerted him that I was nearing long before, but he made no sign to acknowledge me. His deep-set eyes were fastened on the middle grave and one dark lock of his swept back hair had escaped to arc over his forehead.

I felt I had intruded on a private ceremony, but Leatherface had sent me up here and Felix had been expecting me.

The stone was blank and old, but not crusted with lichen. It was swept clean regularly, probably as frequently as this little cemetery was tended.

I knelt down, glancing back to see if he objected. When he didn’t, I trailed fingers over the worn front, feeling out the letters.

Candace Lis Larimer

Beneath that were dates.

Aug 30 1822 – Oct 3 1853 – Jan 5 1918

Born. Turned? Died.

Beloved wife of Felix and mother of Vincent

Vincent’s grave was on the right. He’d been born before his mother changed of course, and he’d died on the same day in 1918.

On the left, the headstone was newer. I could make out the lettering without touch.

Donna Helene Larimer

Jun 1 1931 – Jul 8 1958

Beloved wife of Felix

“She couldn’t change,” he said. His voice was hushed, as if it had picked up the soughing of the wind in the pines. “She died right here, trying.”

“And your first wife and son?”

“Killed by Athanate.”

Oh, shit.

“Not Altau,” he added as an afterthought. “Basilikos. Now you’ve met all my family; my sister gave you a lift into town the other day, and that’s my nephew back there.”

Leatherface was propping up a cottonwood, hugging the shotgun angled over his shoulder. Not close to us, but wolf hearing is good.

“I need to talk to you, Felix. Without anyone else hearing.”

“About yesterday?”

“Some.”

He grunted, and turned.

I got up and followed him. He took the track up into the pines. Leatherface was still behind us.

“You know, the Celts called yew the tree of life,” he said, as the slope steepened. “And yet the wood made longbows and the berries are poison. I never figured that out.”

“What made you choose them for the cemetery then?”

“Candy loved them. They don’t grow too well up here, or there’d be more.”

We walked in silence awhile. I didn’t want to start talking about the possibilities of a sociopathic werewolf with Leatherface in hearing distance, but neither was I comfortable not talking.

“Where does the track lead?” I asked.

“There’s a cabin at the top of the mountain. Old hangout for the pack when we ran here. Only Doc Noble uses it now. We’re not going that far.”

A minute later we left the trail and made our way through the woods.

Great. Even better place to kill me, deep in the woods.

Although there was no track, I got the sense that Felix came here often. He moved through the trees like a ghost.

Slowly the noise of a stream grew until we emerged from the thick covering pines.

Felix sat on a rock and motioned me to sit across from him.

Leatherface could see us, but he wouldn’t be able to hear unless he came right alongside our position.

I looked back as he emerged from the pines, still cradling the gun.

“Is he necessary?”

Felix shrugged. “Silas’ insistence. He’s right that I can’t look both ways at once. There have been three attempts to kill me this year,” he smiled frostily. “Down on five from last year.”

“Who?”

He shrugged again. “Confederation? Kansas Plains pack? Crescent Lake? This is prime werewolf territory.”

He looked tired, almost resigned, and I wondered how long he and the Denver pack had been a target for others. Year after year, that would grind anyone down.

“Thank you for coming out here,” I said.

He nodded.

“I don’t want to make things even more difficult—”

“But you will,” he interrupted. “It’s what you do, even if you don’t mean to.”

I bowed my head, refusing to get angry. He deserved that, at least.

I managed a weak smile. “I’m sorry,” I said.

His mouth twitched. Any more of this and we’d be best pals.

“I took a decision yesterday to spare the Matlal Were,” I said. “Seemed the best choice at the time. I realize it may not seem that way to you.”

Felix laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, quiet and deep, from his belly.

“It may surprise you,” he said, “but I do think about things. Sure, when Ursula called, I had the same knee jerk reaction she did: Why didn’t you kill the bastards? Are you trying to sabotage us?”

He stopped to pick up a stone and hurl it accurately at a crow on the opposite side of the stream. It flew off, cawing insults back at us. Leatherface tracked it with his shotgun, but let it go.

He brushed his hands on his jeans. “But you made the right call. We ended up with no injuries to the pack. A lead on the rest of the Matlal Were. The Confederation handed a ticking bomb and sitting there crapping themselves over the nightmare of thousands of Athanate hunting them down on every side. Not bad.”

I wasn’t sure how to deal with this calmer Felix. It wrongfooted me.

A different crow came riding the air current down the path of the stream. Felix reached for another stone, but the bird banked high and disappeared over the tops of the pines.

“Why do you chase the crows away?”

“Ask the Adepts.”

I bit down on the retort my demon came up with and tried a more gentle approach.

“I’m getting a lot of run-around from one group to the next. It means I’m always less informed than I should be. Could you just tell me?”

He leaned his elbows on his knees. “That mind-leeching stuff Athanate do…” he hesitated, probably remembering he was talking to one of those mind-leeching Athanate. “Some Adepts can do that sort of thing too, but a bit different. They can see through animals’ eyes, listen with their ears. They like crows for it.”

That was so cool. And disturbing.

“I’ve met with Adepts and I can’t—”

“I’m sure you’ve met some of the locals, and I’m sure they’re very pleasant people, but Adepts have no territories.” Something of his wolf reaction to that trickled through to me and made me shudder. “There may be Adepts in Denver who have nothing to do with the local covens. Adepts who work for whoever pays them. You wonder how what we do is known by the rogue?” He waved at where the crows had gone. “That’s one possible way.”