Running with the Pack Part 14

I blink at her a moment. Didn't she want anything in exchange? She insists not and I make an unusual request which she grants. Did I tell you Lily's good people? Well she is.

After a stop at the p.a.w.n shop, I take my littles to Pennypack Park-a tiny snake of green in the middle of the city. I find a nice safe place for them, ordering them to stay quiet. They're handy against one intruder, but against five, one of them is bound to get hurt.

I return to the wolfhound about an hour after sunset. He's alert with his nose sniffing the cold breeze. Somehow, I know the professor and his goons aren't going to arrive with the wind, so I sit close to Logan and keep watch downwind. The others are nowhere in sight. That homeless sixth sense accurate once again.

As I wait, my heart is chasing its tail, running fast and going nowhere. It's not too long before five black shapes break from the shadows and approach. They're easy to see in the bright moonlight.

My insides turn gooey, but I draw in a breath. n.o.body messes with mine. Not anymore. I stand as they slink toward me. No, I'm not being dramatic. Slink is the perfect word. Five big brutes just like Logan. Ma.s.sive jaws and s.h.a.ggy hair. The professor isn't in sight, but a tawny wolfhound leads the group (give him two pairs of loafer's and he'd fit the part of the professor).

Now you're gonna to tell me something like this just doesn't happen, and I'd agree with you every other night. But not tonight.

The pack fans out, and I've seen enough street fights to know if they surround me I'm dead. I raise the gun, aim, and fire. I'm a pretty good shot. Thanks in part to my foster father. Unlike all the others before him, he'd taught me a few life skills and I'd loved him until . . . well, you know.

The tranquillizer dart hits the shoulder of the far left hound. (If you thought I'd shoot them with bullets, then you haven't been paying attention).

I squeeze off a couple more darts, picking off two more wide receivers before the remaining two catch on and rush me. Dropping the gun, I palm a dart in one hand and pull the silver knife I reclaimed from the p.a.w.n shop, exchanging it for the lost professor's gun.

Then it's all hair, claws, and teeth. The wolfhounds are fast and it's like fighting a giant yet silent dust devil. I jab the dart into dog flesh and strike, stab, and slash at anything I can reach with the knife. The tawny grabs my wrist with his teeth while his last goon is overcome by the tranquilizer.

Tawny bites through my skin like it's paper. I yell and drop the weapon. He pushes me over and stands on my chest. Breathing with his weight on me is an effort, and my heart lodges in my throat. He stares at me for a second with regret in his gaze, giving me just enough time to thrust my arm between his sharp teeth and my exposed neck.

A bit of surprise flashes in his black eyes as he latches on. I'd coated my sleeves and pants with Tabasco sauce. Useful for keeping pups from chewing things. In this case, not so smart as the burn makes Tawny angrier. The pressure increases in my forearm and I'm convinced my bone's about to snap in two when the brute is knocked off.

Logan and Tawny roll together. And the fight's no longer silent as they growl and snarl. I worry about Logan's shoulder as I dive for the tranquilizer gun. Lily showed me how to wrap up his leg to support his weight, but it's not much.

I'm outta darts. With Logan injured, the fight isn't fair. Most things aren't. And I guess that's the only way Tawny can win.

I spot a glint just when Tawny pins Logan. Sweeping up the knife, I lunge toward Tawny and bury the blade in his hindquarters. Up to the hilt.

He yelps and bucks. Logan presses his advantage and regains his feet. In a blur, Logan strikes and silences Tawny. Logan's muzzle is dripping with blood. I meet his gaze and can tell by his expression that he's sickened and sad. He's not a killer, but Tawny forced him to be one. Why couldn't he just leave Logan alone?

I'd asked my foster father the same thing. He said I was too irresistible so I ran away when I turned sixteen, removing the temptation. I'd thought I was smart, but no one knows about his inability to resist. It's been two years. What if he has a new foster child? Staring at Tawny's ripped throat, I realize a person has to stay and fight until there's a clear winner and loser or else you're problems don't ever go away.

The burning pain in my arm snaps me back to my current problems. I inspect the damage. Ragged, bleeding flesh too mangled for eighty-proof and Band-Aids, but I don't have another option. Once Logan's cleaned up-his st.i.tches have ripped again-and hidden under the blanket, I hurry to the Humane Shelter.

Lily's working late and I suspect she's there for me. She sends a couple volunteers to pick up the sleeping wolfhounds. I return the tranquilizer gun.

"A pack of wild dogs that are all the same breed is so unusual," she says. "Usually they're a bunch of mongrels." She slaps her hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean-"

I smile. "I know. Nothing wrong with mongrels."

Lily sees my arm and insists I go to the emergency room. I almost laugh. Invisible on the streets, I'm nonexistent in an ER. No money. No insurance. They'd fix a c.o.c.kroach's broken leg before attending to me. I lie and say I'll go, but she sees right through me. Despite my protests, she escorts me to the ER and stays until I'm seen. The ER doctor gives me thirty-two st.i.tches. Funny how the number of st.i.tches is always reported like it's a source of pride.

By the next day, my life returns to, well, not normal, but back to the same-taking care of the pups. Logan is healing faster than me and eating like a horse. I feed him my share most days. Don't matter to me, my stomach's upset anyways. Tomorrow-one week after I found Logan-I'm gonna tell the authorities about my foster father.

I'd rather face a pack of wild dogs, but I'm determined to grab the man by the throat and not let go, finally doing what I should have done two years ago.

Five days later, Logan takes off and doesn't return. The hurt cuts deep and reminds me of how I'd felt moving from one foster home to another. Crazy lady that I am, I'd been talking to him about the police and the lawyers and the questions. No one is quick to believe me, and I don't have much proof so it's been rougher than I thought. Somehow telling my problems to Logan made the whole ordeal bearable.

But he's gone, and my resolve to go after my foster father wavers. But there is also a tiny bit of relief inside me. Keeping the wolfhound fed was hard. And with one of life's little twists of fate and timing, I find the missing black Lab after Logan left. Lily handles the reward money. Without Logan to feed, there's plenty of money to keep my pups in Science Diet.

Three-maybe four weeks after the night I helped Logan, a stranger enters the parking lot. Wearing blue jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket, he doesn't hesitate, heading right for my bridge. His black hair hangs in layers to his shoulders, and his stride is familiar.

I'm searching my memories to place him when my pups race toward him. Good. Except they don't bite him. They dance around, tails wagging and yipping in excitement. He crouches down and pets them! I grab my bat.

He glances up as I swing and dodges the bat with ease. Strike one. I pull back for another.

"Mongrel, stop," he says. "It's me."

I freeze and study him. He's a few years older than I am, about six feet tall and lean. Good looking enough to attract the girls. His gray eyes don't belong in the face of a man though.

He opens his jacket, and pulls his collar down, showing me an almost healed scar on his right shoulder. "Fifteen st.i.tches."

I lower the bat. "Logan."

"Yep."

He moves closer and I back up. Logan pauses. "You weren't afraid of five werewolves, but you're scared of me?"

Werewolves. Saying the word out loud made it real. Before I could explain them away as really smart mixed breeds.

"Guess I'm better at trusting . . . werewolves than men," I say.

"One man dooms the whole species?"

"What about the guy . . . wolf after you?"

"He wanted to be in charge."

"And that's my point. Dogs . . . or wolves'll fight it out. One dominates and the other slinks away. The human side of him tried to cheat. Right?"

Logan says nothing.

"He used a knife and then returned with a gun. Very un-wolf like behavior."

"Let me prove to you we're not all b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"Why?"

"You saved my life three times."

I tap the bat against my leg. "So buy me a couple bags of Science Diet and we'll call it even."

"No. I owe you much more than that."

He's serious and I suspect stubborn as well. "Go away, Logan. You don't belong here," I say.

"Neither do you."

I huff and squash the sudden desire to take another swing at his head. He thinks my silence is an agreement 'cause he's now standing a foot away. And my heart's acting like it's scared. I expect him to crinkle his nose at the smell of dog on my clothes or for him to try to hide his disgust at my unkempt appearance.

Instead he takes my hand in his and pushes my right sleeve up with his other one, exposing the jagged purple scars on my wrist and forearm. I didn't heal as fast or as well as his did. Logan traces them with a finger.

A strange teeter-totter of emotions fills me. My first impulse is to flinch away from his touch, but his familiar scent triggers fond memories of the big wolfhound I cared for.

Logan taps his thumb on my arm. "You've been bitten by a werewolf deep enough for his saliva to mix with your blood."

"So?"

He quirks a smile. "You accepted our existence with ease, yet you don't know the legends."

I gesture to his shoulder. "I believe what I see."

"You've been infected, but one bite isn't enough to change you into a werewolf." All humor is gone as he stares at me with a sharp intensity. "For you to become one of us, a bite from two different werewolves within a month is required."

He turns my arm over, revealing the light underside. His canines elongate. "I've never offered this to anyone, and it's a h.e.l.l of a way to repay your kindness, but it seemed . . . right. Interested?"

My mind races. He's giving me a choice. "What about my pups?"

Another smile. "Only you would think of them first. They can stay with you."

"Here?"

"No. My pack has a network of places. We try and keep a low profile, but we'll support you in going after your foster father."

"Why?"

"Because you'll be part of mine and I protect mine."

I grin at the familiar words.

Logan adds, "It's not an easy life, and there is no cure. No going back. We don't belong to the human world or the wolf world."

"So you're a bunch of mongrels?"

"Yep."

"Then I'll fit right in." I raise my arm to his mouth, and he sinks his teeth into my flesh.

DEADFALL.

KAREN EVERSON.

My name is Olwen Ap Howell, and I am the last of a very old family.

That in itself is nothing special, I know. The American South is full of Old Families. People boast ancestors antebellum, revolutionary, colonial, lineage that traces back to English or European n.o.bility. My family has its roots in legend, but I learned pretty quickly I had to keep quiet about it. Old families have their particular rules and expectations, here where tradition still casts long shadows. My family's traditions are cloaked in secrets, and they throw shadows longer and stranger than most.

Secrets are tough for young kids. Mom drinks, or Dad lost his job. . . . Try "My Dad can turn into a wolf." It gets more entertaining when you can turn into a wolf. You can't share that, not even with your Best Friend in the Whole Wide World.

There are variations on the theme. Do not let anyone outside the Family see you Change into a wolf. Before you Change, hide your clothes, so they will still be there when you Change back.

Always remember where you hid your clothes.

Never, ever Run on an empty stomach. You may eat something you'll regret later.

The rule I was thinking of breaking was another important one: The family does not deal with its enemies by trying to eat them.

Okay, I wasn't really planning to eat anybody, but I knew that what I did want to do was a Bad Idea. I couldn't bring myself to care. I didn't see any way I could endanger my grandfather with what I was planning, and he was all the Family I had left. There was a limit to how severely I could be disciplined for my actions-after all, I was the Last Ap Howell. I belonged to the land, Blood-Oathed by my ancestors who had founded this town. I was necessary.

So was action on my part. Rob Merrow and his two friends had badly hurt someone I cared about, and they had gotten away with it. What went deeper than my sense of outraged justice, and what I would never have admitted to anyone, was that Rob had given me my first taste of true physical fear, and a vision of my future that had left me shaken and sick. I wanted to return the favor.

That night was my chance. Word had come through the high school grapevine that Rob and his crew were laying claim to the Deadfall. With the reputation they had, no one else would venture anywhere near the place. I would have them to myself, in the night and the forest. I would not be a prisoner inside my human skin, the way I had been when Rob and his crew jumped 'Rion and me.

The sun was well down when I crossed my private Rubicon, the dirt lane that separated my Family's safely fenced private acres from the wild forest that still covered so much of our small town's land. I hurried into the protecting shadows, heart thumping. I could already feel the wolf-fire turning my eyes to hot gold, the p.r.i.c.k of canines growing longer and sharper in my soft human mouth. I could have held the Change back, but I was eager for my other self, my swift silence and sharp teeth. Sheltered by trees and a dense clump of dogwood I began shedding clothes, stuffing them into the pack I carried. My shoes went in on top and I just had time to hide the pack before the wolf rolled me under.

The world, all sense of time and place, was lost in the roil of the Change. There's no real pain, but there is a moment that feels like drowning, of being lost in an element so foreign that survival seems impossible. From that chaos the Self bursts out like birth, flesh or fur, into a world rendered new. Touch told me less of fine texture, more of substructure that meant silence or sound beneath my paws. Sight told less of color and detail and more of ma.s.s and movement. Scent was multiplied and magnified into a revealed language of enormous complexity.

I lifted my nose. The spring breeze brought me the scent of the James River, even though it was ten miles distant. The Deadfall was near the river. A few miles was no matter. I set out in the wolf's easy hunter's lope, the night and vengeance stretched out before me.

The Deadfall was the name given to a forest clearing, older than I was, made when an enormous, ancient oak had been felled by lightning. The clearing had quickly become a beacon for the young. It was an easy hike from the road, but deep enough into the forest that even campfires were not readily visible. Lightning had struck the trunk seven feet from the ground, and the ma.s.sive, ragged stump formed a kind of shelter, the humped roots a natural cl.u.s.ter of seats and tables, some of which had been whittled and carved to better serve those purposes. The enormous trunk sloped from the top of the stump for yards before coming to rest on the forest floor. A tarp tossed over the trunk and staked on either side made a satisfactory tent. Dogwood, wild rose, and redbud bordered the clearing, beautiful in the spring, but human use had kept the center clear of brush and saplings.

Rumor had it that the Deadfall had been a lovers' trysting place at first, then a camping spot. For my own generation it had a more sinister reputation. Gangs like Rob and his crew gathered there to drink or do drugs or settle disputes with fists or knives. Other people stayed away then, unless they were looking for trouble.

I was looking to make trouble, so that was fine.

Rob and his friends were already drunk and noisy. I was careful anyway, but sneaking up on them was easy. I could have done it even in human shape. All three had their backs against the huge stump of the Deadfall, a good six-to-seven feet tall and at least that wide. The fallen trunk, still hanging from the top of the stump, stretched away like a broken gate to their right. It was easy to angle myself so that I could track them through the gap between the trunk and the ground. Their small fire deepened the shadows for me to hide in while it spoiled their night vision. Their firewood was too green to burn cleanly, putting up thick coils of smoke. My nose sorted the thick, layered scents of their camp: several kinds of burning wood, sharp sap and sharper lighter fluid, Wild Turkey and Budweiser, and the funk of sweat and p.i.s.s.

The stink of their flesh and the sudden blare of their laughter nearly undid me, flooding me with memories so visceral that I shrank down onto the forest floor, nearly shocked backed into a girl. I bellied into the punk beneath the trunk of the Deadfall, shivering, holding tight to my wolf-shape while human memories rocked me, breathing deep the smell of ancient wood and damp humus while I remembered the stink of blood and violence.

They'd been waiting for us, Rob and his followers Lee and Jeth, hiding in the woods along a lonely stretch of Old Route 15. It was a road we'd walked together since grade school, me and Orion and his older sister Athena. But Athena had graduated and gone north to college to study pre-med. That left just 'Rion and me, a black boy with a white girl, walking and talking alone together.

I didn't see much. There was a rush of motion when they jumped us, a rustle of gra.s.s and weeds against jean-clad legs, a m.u.f.fled pounding of feet against the green verge. I had a glimpse of Rob's face, grotesque with excitement, the bigger forms of Lee and Jeth flashing past, going for 'Rion. Then I was down, my face forced into the dirt and gravel of the road's shoulder. My nose crushed sideways and soaked the dirt with blood. I could barely turn my head enough to get a breath. My right arm was pinned under my ribs, and Rob was gripping my left arm in both fists, using my own arm to hold my face in the dirt. Pain warred with outrage and disbelief. I was Olwen Ap Howell! My grandfather employed half the town. Bullying trash-talk was one thing-that was just high school. But I had never thought anyone would dare touch me, hurt me.

Rob had his full weight on me, and I couldn't move. Even through my slacks and his tatty jeans I could feel his erection as he ground his hips against my b.u.t.tocks. "Did I break your nose, b.i.t.c.h?" he growled in my ear. "Let's see you look down your nose at a real white man with your pretty face all messed up. You Ap Howells, sitting on your pile of money, thinking you're so much better than everybody else. Does the old man know you're screwin' the n.i.g.g.e.r help?" He pulled back on my arm and smashed it as hard as he could into the back of my head. I screamed and choked against the dirt.

He kept talking, all the things that Rob thought a "man" like him should be teaching me, but what was worse than the filth and pain and the struggle for breath were the sounds and the stink of what Jess and Lee were doing to 'Rion. He'd fought them, probably hurt them some, but they'd taken him down, and I could hear the thud of fists and feet hitting flesh and bone. Even with my own blood filling my nose and mouth with coppery fire, I could still smell my friend's blood. Even with Rob panting in my ear I could hear the grunts and gasps of pain 'Rion tried to hold in. Then there was the crack of bone breaking, and finally, 'Rion screamed. Rob and his friends hooted with laughter, as if that high, helpless noise was the best joke they'd ever heard.

Then I was fighting myself, fighting my wolf, all my training telling me to keep my Family's secret instead of defending myself and 'Rion. I fought, too, because part of me knew, if I loosed my wolf in the midst of all that pain and blood, I would kill all three of them.

A car saved all of us. Rob and the others ran. The driver-a black woman-stopped for 'Rion and me, took us home, where I lived and 'Rion's mother, Iris, worked.

Grandfather took one look at my face, grabbed my nose and pulled it out straight. He didn't say a word, and I bit off my shriek. We heal fast-but that doesn't mean broken bones won't knit crooked if they aren't set straight in time. I had cuts and bruises all over my face and body, but I was what I was, and I as I washed blood and grit from my wounds they were already beginning to heal.

'Rion was the one who had suffered. He was cut and bruised all over, with two black eyes and a split and swollen lip. They'd broken his left arm and cracked some ribs. He gave me one look that told me to keep silent, and refused to say a word about who had hurt him until the doctors at the clinic were done with him and we were all home again.

"We're not pressing charges," he told his mother and my grandfather calmly. They argued, but he held firm. "If we take this to court it will only make things worse. The parents won't think their kids did anything wrong. It'll be like when you promoted Dad." That shut even Grandfather up. Grandfather had promoted 'Rion's dad over several white workers who thought one of them should have had the job. There were mutters of favoritism, among other things, and both our houses had been vandalized. A few months later, at the start of deer hunting season, 'Rion's dad had been found dead in the woods, an "apparent hunting accident."

"It's only a few months until I graduate," 'Rion said. "I'll hang back when we're walking home, so it won't look like Olwen and I are together. I already talked to 'Thena and she says I can move in with her as soon as I'm done with school." He looked down, unable to meet his mother's eyes, or mine. But his voice was hard and bitter, and left no doubt of his intent. "Let the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds think they've won. Who cares? I'll be out of here, out of this G.o.d-forgotten town for good. Them? They're too stupid and too ignorant to even know they're trapped."