The Thing About Weres: A Mystwalker Novel Page 9

  Chomp. Knox’s mouth dropped open, and he took a quick step backward, which gave my amulet all the time he needed to burrow back under my T-shirt. Once under its meager cover, Ralph tore down his chain—zing!—swung over to my boob, and scuttled for cover inside my bra cup.

  Knox snapped to Fatso, “Hold her tight!”

  My heart began to beat like a cornered bunny’s as the Were in Black reached for the sleeve of my T-shirt. Grimly, Knox funneled his thumb underneath the fabric and kept going—his ragged nail scoring a line of pain along my bicep and shoulder—until he’d pleated the fabric all the way to my neck. The shirt dug into the back of my neck as he pulled the wad of jersey taut.

  He lifted the knife then paused.

  He’s teasing me with it. I registered that and, absurdly, that the skin over Knox’s flared nostrils was potted with big pores and that—oh look at that—moonlight can make a silver blade gleam in a deadly and beautiful way. My belly tensed as he pointed the tip at my shoulder. It’s going to hurt, it’s going to—

  It didn’t.

  Because it wasn’t my Fae blood he wanted—not right away, not yet. First he wanted me to curve my tail in shame. His sharp, moon-bright blade sliced through the T-shirt’s bunched material before I even had time to finish the thought, Oh my Goddess, he’s really going to stick me with that thing. My shirt fell apart. At least the right side of my bodice did. It flopped down like it was the bib of a pair of overalls, folding over itself, exposing my shoulder and a good part of bra.

  Someone laughed.

  My skin goosefleshed, since it was, as I’d said before, a particularly cold night—not because I was twenty-two years old and it was becoming painfully evident that next year, when my birthday passed, it would remain uncelebrated, but because the air suddenly felt frigid, as if death were passing its fingers over me, pinching me to see if I was done yet.

  People keep wanting to kill me. Why is that?

  Poor Ralph didn’t know where to go. There was no place to hide, because with another fabric fold and a quick slash of Knox’s blade, there went the other side. Two more slashes and my shirt wasn’t a shirt anymore. The shredded garment slid down to my hips, paused at the curve of my ass long enough to sign the separation papers, and then split in two. One tattered scrap ghosted down the back of my legs, hell-bent on kissing the earth. The other, Knox held aloft, speared on the tip of his shiny blade.

  “Let those who doubt her guilt smell this,” he said, offering my white flag of shame to Rachel Scawens. “She doesn’t carry Trowbridge’s scent on her skin like a true mate should. She has to wear his clothing to fake you out. Test it! His signature is there, but it’s old. Didn’t anyone notice that? What did she do? Conjure up your obedience? Cast a spell on the pack? Mislead you through her magic?”

  Rachel brought the scrap of fabric up to her sharp little snout with both hands, closed her eyes, and inhaled. She kept it there, for one long second, and then her lids lifted. A dark hope—the type that hones cruelty until it’s dagger sharp—had swelled in her heart during that deep breath. Without comment, she passed the shredded bit of Trowbridge’s shirt to her daughter, and then stalked toward me, hips swinging. Her face was alight, no longer pulled down by gravity and sorrow. She leaned in, took a long, insulting sniff. “She has no scent of her own!”

  The cheering ranks opened up for Rachel Scawens. She accepted the scrap of T-shirt from her daughter, and held the shredded T-shirt over her head as she walked deep into the throng. As Weres go, she was only moderately tall. Her head disappeared as they clustered closer. I heard her shout, “Smell it!”

  The hair went up on my nape as one of the pack unleashed a howl.

  It turned into a wolf mob. They crowded her, pushing at each other in a frenzy of eagerness to have their turn at the prize. Their humanity—that thin veneer over what they really were—fell. From deep within their midst, I heard her yell, “It’s my brother’s shirt! See, it belongs to Robbie!” She must have tossed it up high—I saw it flutter in the air—and someone caught it and tossed it again, and then it became a game, my white flag of shame flying over the heads of the gathered pack.

  “The Fae will come!” a man bellowed.

  “Chain her to the tree!” someone else yelled.

  I spun my head toward Cordelia—her mouth was open, she was shouting something to me. Biggs’s head was doubled over his chains; he was visibly writhing in pain. Harry’s head was thrown back, the tendons on his neck strained.

  “Let them go,” I said to Knox. “They’re not part of this.”

  “Too late,” he said.

  “Magic, come to me!” I screamed.

  Knox nodded to Rachel, and Fatso gave me a shove in the mob’s direction. It was like tipping a fox out of her cage at the start of a hunt. Five or six of Trowbridge’s pack rushed me. I flailed out blindly, and then gasped as Lucy Danvers’s elbow caught my head. Stunned, I found myself being lifted by a group of angry pack members. My body was turned, and I was carried facedown—my head spinning—right over to the old oak tree.

  “Cover her eyes,” someone hissed. Hard hands pinned me to the tree as another’s stinking shirt was thrown over my head. They still think I have a flare. I heard the clink of the chain, and then someone went around and around the tree with it, like a reveler circling a maypole, painfully binding me to the tree at three points; once around my hips, another loop cutting into my waist, and the final spot a hard pressure across the top of my chest.

  It was hard to breathe again. This is how Bridge must have felt.

  “She is your Alpha’s mate,” Harry yelled. “She doesn’t—” His voice broke off into a sudden grunt.

  Some bitch with filthy paws was trying to secure the shirt covering my head. I caught a bewildering mix of scents: the female’s breath on my cheek as she fumbled to tuck the ends around my chin, Knox’s dominance, the pungent spice of Weres on the brink of surrendering to the moon’s call. I heard a snick of lock and felt its cold weight added to the steel that bound me.

  My inner-Were was cringing, remembering the last time such aggression flowed.

  Enough. Me and my wolf were chained to a freakin’ old oak tree.

  And they think I have a flare.

  With a snarl that would have put any Were to shame, I whipped my head away from the woman’s ministrations. The woman—works in the post office, eats a lot of Slim Jims—reached out for my face again, her intention obvious.

  I didn’t have all my magic, but I had rage, and I had a morsel of flare left in me. It wouldn’t last long; I’d better make the best use of it. I summoned it. No preburn itch in the eyes, no slow buildup. Bam. Here I come. Green light poured hot from my eyes. Post office lady stared back at me, her gaze nailed like a deer staring at the feathers of the oncoming arrow. From the back of her throat came a high-pitched whine.

  “Release me, right now,” I said. “Or I will—”

  I heard it first—dribble, dribble, dribble, splat—in concert with something warm and wet soaking my shoes. And sue me, but if someone peed on your foot, you’d break your gaze, too—is that pee on my foot?—just to check it out. Which is when post office bitch spun away with a shriek, and pushed past the others in a panic. “Come back here!” I followed with my glare until her tight little ass disappeared into the woods.

  The one bitch I could have controlled and I let her go free.

  I had to hurry; already the younger ones were beginning to change. A girl shucked her dress off and lifted her face to the sky. The teenager beside her was fighting with his zipper. Behind them another puppy was already on his side on the ground, his legs jerking.

  Once they became a wolf pack, they’d circle my tree and attack me from behind. I gritted my teeth against the bite of the chains as I tried to twist my hands free from my bindings.

  “You,” I yelled to one of the cheerleaders in the front. “Come here!”

  My intended target fell to her knees with a faint moan, and held her hands up to the
sky as if she were at a revival meeting, as her face started to ripple. She wasn’t a kid, succumbing to the moon. She was an adult. Goddess, Biggs would be changing.

  “Cordelia!” I screamed.

  “Run!” she screamed back. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t she see that? I was bound like her, surrounded like her. Her voice had changed to a man’s—strained and forceful, as she fought her transformation. I lunged and squirmed, but there was no give to the chains that pinned me to my tree—steel as thick as my baby finger held me captive.

  “I am the mate of your Alpha. Release me!” I let my fading flare drift over those still upright, freezing them in the act of pulling off their clothing. “Free my second and my friends. Right now!”

  The hair went up on my nape when another wolf howled. One of the braver young wolves—probably a freakin’ Scawens second cousin—darted toward me. “Back,” I shouted. He stalled, mid-charge. “Get back!” He lowered his body, but his hackles were raised. His tail was down, but his snout was wrinkled.

  My flare spat, flickered, and sputtered out. I closed my eyes briefly, feeling the itch and burn of my abused eyelids. How long would it be before the wolf attacked? A minute? Thirty seconds?

  A question left unanswered, because that’s when Casperella began to sing.

  Chapter Seven

  Ghost-girl’s mouth was open and from her lips came music so poignant it sounded like one of the Goddesses had come down to earth and decided to serenade us. So liltingly—well, hauntingly—I almost didn’t recognize the melody, until she broke into what I’d always deemed “the chorus.”

  The Weres stopped in their tracks, heads cocked.

  She knows the portal song.

  Faes don’t just go abracadabra, or pull a device out of their pocket and hit the button to summon the Gates to Merenwyn. They have to use their voice to call to the portal, and because they’re all Middle Earth, and have a tendency to add a bit of decoration to even the simplest thing, the portal summons wasn’t just a string of words in their language. It was, Goddess-curse-it, a song.

  She stood behind her tumbled wall, singing the call to the portal the way I’d never heard it sung before. Not even by Lou at the height of her power. This was in tune. With sweet passion and longing. With a voice that probably made the angels knuckle their eyes and weep.

  She knew all the words.

  The pack could hear her, even if they couldn’t see her. One of the wolves growled, but that threatening throat rumble turned into a whine through his snout. His distress call was picked up by another. Those already changed into their wolf form were the worst affected: they whimpered and milled about yipping. The Weres still in the agonizing throes of their metamorphosis heard the group anxiety and contributed some guttural moans. The old geezers still holding out in their pissing contests with the moon had conceded to the point they were getting naked with hunched shoulders and sucked-in bellies. Even Knox’s two buddies were shedding their clothing.

  “Mother of God, protect us,” cried the waitress from the hotel.

  Asses jiggled as they ran full out for the safety of the trees, leaving only those who couldn’t or wouldn’t follow. My writhing trio of friends, Casperella, me, and Knox, who was backing away with one hand fumbling for something inside his jacket. And, somewhat surprisingly, a fully clothed Petra Scawens. Unlike the other members of her family, she didn’t seem particularly shaken by the green sphere or the spook rendition of “Come to Me, My Portal.”

  If anything, curiosity was the biggest emotion playing over her features.

  Fatso had left his clothes ten feet away. He’d done what most of the Weres did—piled his wallet and watch under the tent of his overturned shoes.

  The keys were there.

  Biggs was howling.

  “They are your pack. This is wrong and you know it,” I implored Petra. “The keys are in Fatso’s pants pocket. Please let Cordelia and the boys go.”

  She chewed her lip, and then, I knew—in the firming of her features—she’d made a decision. With ruthless speed, she tracked down Fatso’s teepee of clothing. A shoe went flying as she made a grab for his bulky jeans. She jammed her hand deep in the denim’s pockets.

  Out came the keys.

  Oh Goddess, the misshapen thing pinned to Biggs’s tree was moaning, its jerking leg was part man, part dog; its toes were tipped with claws. Cordelia’s back was bowed, her face melted. Harry was panting, but holding on by a thread.

  Once committed, Petra was fast. She sprinted across the field to Biggs, stuck the key in the lock, and turned it. And then it was quick work—she tossed the lock, undid the chains, and stepped away. The thing that was once Biggs dropped to the ground, still moaning. Next she moved to Cordelia’s tree. Then to Harry’s. When she was finished, Petra Scawens dropped the keys to the ground and walked away, shedding her clothing as she did.

  What am I, chopped liver?

  “Are you guys okay?” I called. “Answer me!”

  I heard a grunt—Harry’s?—from their direction.

  Casperella was already at that little dip and dive at the end of a long stream of Merenwynian that I could never decode because the end of one word ran into the next.

  * * *

  Hurry up, I willed.

  The scent came first.

  Flowers. Freesias, to be exact.

  A howl was quickly stifled from the woods.

  I strained to listen. Yes. There. A rippling noise coming from the pond, as if water were being agitated. Above the pond, the air seemed to thicken, and then a mist was born. Faint, white, and transparent. It began to thicken in density and color, turning from just a hint of fog into a stream of white vapor that rotated in a circle above the surface of the agitated water. The empty hollow of the circle was filled out as the vapor swelled in size. Denser now and different in color, too.

  It will turn to pink and then deep purple.

  My heart started to pound in my chest as the vapor blushed. An uneven blush, I realized, looking down at it. Purple blotches, blooming like anemones in the stream of white-pink fog. They began to multiply, changing the hue of the rotating air from soft pink to amethyst.

  Bring the fireflies next, please, oh please, my Goddess. Bring the fireflies next.

  A bright, tiny spark of gold light. There. Just a quick blip. Then another and another. Here. There. Bright stars of iridescence splintering the dark plum-colored mass of swirling air. I watched them, waiting for the next step where the lights would grow in number, until the whole swirling purple mass would appear pinpricked with starlight.

  Casperella’s face split into a smile. She held a glowing palm up to the sphere—for all the world like Mariah when she was aiming for that top note—not quite touching, but close enough that I fancied I could see a faint electrical stream between her and that ball of my Fae magic.

  She hit a high note.

  And then everything seemed to happen all at once.

  The thing she called—the portal to Merenwyn—responded to her song and her magic. The purpled air began to swirl, the lights to multiply, and then she threw out her other hand—as if she were the telegraph pole between two long stretched wires of communication—and with a flash of light, the magenta mass consumed the fireflies, and the air turned violet-pink in hue.

  Rapidly, so fast that later I couldn’t be sure how long it took, the vortex changed in aspect. No longer a whirlpool, it separated and redefined itself until it was now a stage of sorts. A back wall of violet smoke surrounded by two billowing columns of fog and a lazy, wreathing floor of mist.

  I stopped breathing.

  I think everyone did. The frogs on their lily pads. The shivering wolves in the woods. Even the dark birds perched in the old elm fell silent. Not a single wing adjustment among the flock of them.

  Her song finished.

  There were just three final words for her to say. She’d called the portal—it’d returned to the exact spot it had disappeared from half a year ago. At the midpoint of the
oval pond, hovering a good ten feet above the surface of the water. Now all she had to do was utter the short command that would make the gates materialize. I knew two thirds of it. It was just that very last word that I could never duplicate. That heuh sound the Merenwyn Fae make with their palate was beyond the curl of my tongue.

  But for the record, she didn’t sing those final three words.

  I know she didn’t say them.

  Because I was shocked when—unbidden—the backdrop of mist started to curl in a clockwise fashion, and then clear in the middle, disappearing like the mist on your bathroom mirror when you held a blow dryer to it … from impenetrable to thinning, from thinning to frustratingly coy blotches of barely perceptible shapes, and from that, to a crystal-clear fifteen-foot round window.

  A picture window into another realm.

  Through it, I saw the field of Merenwyn, its grasses still long and green in eternal summer. The sky was blue. Why was it always daylight in Merenwyn? The Pool of Life shimmered down in the valley below. Dazzlingly pure, enough to make me close my eyes in pleasure. At the sound of chiming bells, I opened them, in time to catch a blur of movement inside the gates’ picture window. Two men were running up the hill full bore, shoulder to shoulder, with a little brown wolf keeping pace by their heels.

  One dark haired, one blond. Both tall.

  They’d been bound together, wrist to wrist. It should have made them awkward, but no, they ran smoothly, their legs in perfect harmony. The blond was fully dressed; from his toes—knee-high, glossy boots—to the natty bowler hat rammed on his head. But the other man … he was a wild, bearded warrior with long dreadlocks of dark hair. He wore nothing but a pair of tattered pants. The sun gleamed off his bare chest. His free hand gripped a rough rope that served as a leash for the wolf-mutt beside him.