Falling Silver (Rising Bloodlines Book 1) Page 13

  “You were there? You actually lived through that?” Karina turned from the warm fire to place her full attention on Gwen.

  “Oh, I did indeed. Here, honey, keep your moon clothes nearby or change now, whatever’s easier.” Gwen tossed Karina a small pile of clothes consisting of a billowy shirt and wide pants tied loosely at the ankles. “At some point, like when we’re not safe in camp, you’ll want to try going au naturel, the way we usually do, so we can’t be seen at all. You know, the Fullmooners try to keep their pants on, but that only works sometimes.” That sent both Gwen and Quinsey further into laughter. Gwen caught her breath long enough to add, “I suspect you are something of the modest type, though, am I wrong?”

  Karina, grateful for not having to explain herself, moved off toward the trees. “Thank you. I’ll be right back.”

  “No bras!” Gwen and Quinsey shouted in unison, and Karina had to smile as she slipped behind a stand of pines to change. She’d never had sisters or close women friends, and was utterly unused to female companionship. In spite of everything, this could almost be fun.

  Selena had retreated by the time Karina reappeared and Gwen refilled her glass. “Supper’s ready — there you go. Eat up, ’cause if you don’t you might go after something else. Chipmunks come back up on me,” Gwen turned to Quinsey. “Do they do that to you?”

  Quinsey stretched out, “No, I go for rabbits. Only if I have to! Don’t be stingy, girl, hand over some of that fish!” Her ebony arm glowed against the flames in the waning afternoon. She was wearing a loose, deep blue track suit that somehow looked stunning on her. Catching Karina’s eye, she laughed. “You know, Gwen’s right. If you really want to blend in, you’ll want to go completely natural. It’s actually safer that way.” With a wink, she added, “Okay, maybe not tonight. But heck, I’m only wearing this because we have company!”

  Gwen turned on Quinsey and looked her up and down. “Ugh. You are not wearing that old thing again!”

  “Why not? What do you want, a werewolf in a red bikini?” And they almost fell over laughing again. “Don’t! Don’t spill it, this is the good stuff!” Quinsey spluttered.

  Sayuri joined them briefly, and declined the wine. “Selena and I will patrol tonight before sunset,” she explained. “We will be sure that nobody is nearby.” Her gray-streaked hair was tied up in a braid and she wore a loose outfit similar to Karina’s.

  There was still a good ninety minutes to go, but everything seemed ready. The pack seemed to be using the time to get into a good mood, teasing one another and telling stories.

  “How are you doing, honey?” asked Gwen sympathetically, breaking from the hilarity.

  “I think I’m okay.” Karina untangled her long shirt, which had crumpled underneath her as she turned back and forth to speak with her new pack members. “How will it be tonight? My grandmother — well, Selena — told me the first time is usually the worst, and it’s not as bad after that, once you get used to it. And then, after after a while, it can be kind of —”

  Quinsey and Gwen snorted champagne through their giggles and waited for her to continue.

  “But I still feel a little nervous.” The source of her new friends’ mirth dawned on her and she blushed a little, her last comment having just made things worse.

  “Suuuuuure,” Quinsey observed, cheekily. “Well, don’t worry, girl, soon it will be the best fun in the world! Well, the second best.”

  Karina tried to derail the conversation. “Um, how did it happen to you … if it’s okay to ask …”

  “The night before Prohibition, of course!” laughed Gwen, still on the conversation’s blue note. “My sweetie said, we do it now or we do it sober, and I said, now!” and both she and Quinsey clinked glasses and laughed uproariously.

  “Why, honey, you really are a shy one, aren’t you!” Gwen relented. “Remember your first time? Wait.” She sent Karina a searching look. “Haven’t you ever been with … well, now, you never have! Honest?”

  Karina was red as a beet by now and fervently wishing for the sun to set.

  “Really!” Quinsey perked up. “But aren’t you and that Fullmooner a couple?”

  “No,” Karina shot back. “Sorry. I mean, no. We’re not.”

  Both women nodded sympathetically. “Oh, he’s the one, though, isn’t he?” Gwen asked gently.

  “No, not really.”

  “Uh-hunh.” Quinsey leaned back into the cushions again. “Well, you have bigger things than that to worry about right now.” She couldn’t help herself and started laughing again.

  “All right, leave the girl alone!” Gwen came to Karina’s rescue with a smile. “You wanted to know how it happened. Well, most of us have good stories, all right. Mine was leaving the midnight show in Chicago – I was a dancer; I still am, you’ll see! – and I was taking a back alley route. I liked to avoid the Stage Door Johnnies, you know? All those grabbers. I figured the darker the night, the safer I’d be. Easy to sneak through the back streets.” She sighed. “Who knew? So, I pass this big dark dog rummaging through the trash, and then …” she trailed off.

  Quinsey picked up quietly with, “I was running. Fall of 1862, I was trying to get out of South Carolina. We traveled by the darkest nights possible. There were always spooky stories, but we thought they were trying to scare us into staying put.” She stared into the fire. “I was the only survivor. I’ll tell you what, though,” she reached over to pick up the bottle and refill her glass, “crazy as it is, this life is still better than that one. By a thousand times.”

  Gwen continued with Sayuri’s story. “She’s newer. She was in an internment camp in Santa Fe in the early forties. She told me she wanted to see her brother, you know they separated everybody, right? She sneaked out of the women’s Quonset hut one dark night, ’cause someone told her they were taking him away somewhere else and she wanted to say goodbye to him. Poor Sayuri …” she smiled ruefully. “Her bitewolf wasn’t hunting her, it was hiding from her. She didn’t see it and she stepped on its tail.”

  “Oooooooh!” Everyone winced.

  “As for me, I wanted to see my son.” Selena’s voice came quietly across the camp as she moved into view. “He was at the Catlinite School, where they kept all the Indian children. Everyone, from everywhere, just little ones. I tried to sneak in to the grounds.

  “Karina, you may not be surprised to hear that it was Simon who helped me get there, once he knew my story. He knew about this – this Vertigo animal, you see.” Selena paused. “And I told Simon about my son being taken to the school to be ‘re-educated and assimilated.’ Simon promised to help me get him back.

  “He was following me, to help me if he could. It was the darkest night of the moon. I was … stopped. Taken by the bite, there and then. Like you, I killed my bitewolf. But I let Simon be. And then I disappeared.”

  Karina stared at her, swatting to the back of her mind all the questions about how her grandmother and Simon had met in the first place. “I thought … we were told that you and Dad couldn’t get along because he wasn’t of the people anymore. Because of the school. And because he married my mother.”

  Selena looked deep into her granddaughter’s eyes. “Yes. It is what I let everyone believe, after that. Of course, I did stay nearby. I think you remember once, when you were about five? It was the last time.” She turned away, unable to continue.

  A dreadful silence enveloped the group.

  A man’s voice called over, “Too quiet over there. Smile, sweeties!” Quinsey shouted, “Come over here and say that, Baby! I’ll eat you up!” A chorus of laughs floated from the men’s fireside, and the overall mood rose a little. Soon they were back to a more comfortable state as the sun lowered, and they began to separate.

  Karina stayed near her guardian, as a new wolf should, and the night proceeded without incident.

  The Unholy Alliance

  “Don’t they call that sleeping with the enemy?” Harris stretched his tall frame across two chairs in what used to b
e Karina’s kitchen, leaving small mud cakes everywhere. Dishes were piled in the sink, and Harris was drinking sun tea from the same jar he’d been using for two weeks. The first night of the full moon was approaching at sunset of the following day, and Adam’s remaining three followers were still arguing among themselves about plans to destroy the last of the Howlers.

  “And your idea is what, Genius?” observed Vasquez to Harris. “Boss, I think your idea could work.” Mighty big of you, thought Adam. “Yeah, it could. Get Vertigo and his Howlers on our side to take out desRosiers, then ambush ’em all. I like it.”

  Adam, sporting a two-week beard growth, rubbed his hand across his chin but said nothing.

  “Who’s going in first to talk to them, then … Genius?” Harris sulked back.

  Jones, meanwhile, with his dark and self-important moodiness, had the unfortunate ability to remind Adam of his former associate William J. Moore; there was always one, wasn’t there? Still miffed that he wasn’t being officially deputized, Jones sat stiffly near the stove and contributed a very clear level of nothing.

  After a prolonged silence, Adam stood up, shouldered a regular shotgun, and checked his sidearm — briefly considering using it on all four occupants of the room.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he stated, striding out of the kitchen. His three companions armed themselves and hurried through the untidy living room and down the front porch steps to catch up with him. Adam pointedly ignored them.

  “Vertigo!” Adam shouted several times as he approached the Firewolves’ camp. “Coming in, need to talk.”

  “And we’re armed!” added Jones.

  “Here’s some advice,” offered Adam, quietly. “Shut up.”

  Filthy, rancid, and chaotic-looking, the Firewolves’ camp was enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Remains of animals lay in a pile under a bush, and apparently none of the pack members strayed too far away in order to relieve themselves. Strewn about were glossy magazines with images that Adam couldn’t bring himself to examine. The camp seemed to be deserted.

  “See, Adam?” trumpeted Jones. “Scaredy cats!” With both hands, he held his rifle triumphantly above his head and whooped.

  The firearm was immediately snatched from behind him.

  “Surrender, do you?” hissed Vertigo.

  Adam wheeled on them both. “Drop it, Padre.”

  For Vertigo, the world disappeared, and had no focus except for Adam Hunter. “What did you just say?”

  “You heard me.”

  Vertigo held the rifle out to one side and gently put it down. This was going to be a very interesting conversation indeed.

  ◆◆◆

  After the new moon cycle had ended, the Chimera band regrouped with Simon, Greg and the rest of their pack back at their caravan camp.

  New and happier plans were afoot, and everyone knew what was left to do before they moved on. Preparations to burn Tanis’s former caravan were well under way, since nobody else wanted to live in it. The former thrall men were gleeful at the thought of its destruction and the new freedom of simply camping outside.

  Selena’s Chimerae, knowing how to make the best of everything, had sent out a call to the approaching packs, so that this, the final night before the full moon’s onset, would be one to remember.

  As for the two packs eventually splitting up, the mountains were probably a good choice for Simon and his friends, Selena had told them. Far away, in Colorado. The Chimerae would consider heading back to their winter compound outside Santa Fe, instead of waiting for the cold weather as they usually did. They would see how Karina felt, given her unexpected instability, but it would be infinitely safer than keeping her here.

  This particular morning, Quinsey quietly left a large mug of coffee next to Karina, who was sitting in a tight ball beneath the roots of a tree, her head in her arms, sobbing.

  As Selena returned to the campfire, she spoke with Perry, one of Tanis’s four surviving former thralls, who shook his head sympathetically as he watched Karina. “I kind of feel that way myself today,” he observed to Selena.

  “No doubt,” replied the leader. “You have suffered in your own way, under the circumstances, and you are only now coming to terms with this as well.”

  “Can’t we do something?” Gwen appeared, looking as if she were ready to join in the tears.

  “What can we tell her that would possibly help?” Selena shook her head sympathetically, and gestured toward the caravan she now shared with her granddaughter. “This is her life now, and with no warning. She has lost everything. There is nothing to say. We can only be here to support our new sister.” She paused, “How are preparations coming for the bonfire?”

  Perry smiled, “Pretty well. The guys are building a fire break in the field where those farmers left. It’s too bad. They could have had a good crop this year, I think. Hey,” he interrupted himself, “did you all know that reinforcements were already here? I just met two of them, Patricia and Helen, I think their names were. They said they were waiting for somebody to arrive this afternoon.” With that, he hailed Quinsey and they went off in the direction of the farm.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Gwen observed. “Meeting who?”

  “I heard about this from Lorenzo,” Selena replied. “It is a very sad case. You will see.”

  “Lorenzo is here? Really?” Gwen nearly danced with joy. “Oh, tonight will be perfect! When can we tell Karina? Maybe the idea of a party will cheer her up a little. Oh, wait ’til she hears Lorenzo sing!”

  Selena placed a motherly arm around Gwen’s shoulder. “I don’t think it will help very much. This morning, when she mentioned that her womanly time had not yet come, I had to tell her … ”

  Gwen looked over at Karina’s shaking form. “Oh …”

  Selena nodded. “That was the breaking point.”

  It had been devastating news. While Karina had never made plans for children, hearing that all hope of bearing her own had gone was indeed the final straw. It didn’t matter that she’d had no real hopes beyond Simon — and that set her off into a fresh round of agony — or that she’d told herself that later in her life would be better. The awful, cold reality of it was as bad as the bite that had cost her all the rest of her former life.

  Gwen wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not sure I have ever gotten over that myself.”

  “I know that you haven’t,” Selena smiled gently. “I know.”

  “Aren’t we supposed to be stronger than this, though?” Gwen asked.

  “According to whom?” Selena moved to the fire to retrieve the coffee pot and bring the ongoing needed boost of more hot caffeine to her granddaughter. “Why not see if you can help Sayuri hunt for dinner? Tonight’s burning will be cathartic, if nothing else.”

  Well, Gwen went to her caravan, checked her supply of arrows and pulled her bowstring taut, ready for whatever game might appear. If nothing else, I suppose it will be.

  ◆◆◆

  “Send your pack away,” Adam ordered. The stench was gagging him and his eyes watered as he held the rifle on his quarry.

  “You are not in the position to order anyone to do anything,” Vertigo almost simpered the words.

  The two adversaries’ attendants, some in gray, the rest in various filthy rags, had all stepped back to form a circle, eyeing one another with extreme disgust. Each tramp and Hunter was imagining a particularly enjoyable demise for the other — the Firewolves having the upper hand in every possible way.

  “We only have a day,” Adam began. “You and I both want desRosiers. Which of us is he coming after, I wonder? Why don’t we both bring him in?”

  “We don’t need you for that,” hissed Vertigo. “I have it on good authority that there is a highly dissatisfied associate of desRosiers who will help me do just that.”

  They eyed one another.

  Vertigo continued, “So why should I assist you?”

  “Because, Padre,” sneered Adam, and watched Vertigo stiffen
his spine, “I know all about you is why. And I also know what actual name goes with that title. Third time’s the charm, right?” and he laughed heartily. “Let me know when you are ready to continue this conversation, all right?” Somebody snarled.

  “All right,” Vertigo raised a hand and his crew relaxed. “Leave us,” he commanded, and the Firewolves melted into the brush. “Out of earshot!” There was a little more rustling, and the woods fell silent.

  “Everyone. You, too,” Adam ordered his Hunters. They scuffled away, a great deal more noisily and, quite enthusiastically, much further.

  “You seem different,” the ancient werewolf’s eyes burned into Adam’s with all the fire of the underworld.

  Vertigo waited until the last of the footsteps faded.

  “Now. Speak to me … my son.”

  Nessun Dorma

  In the late afternoon, the day before the first night of the full moon, three Chimerae scouts were discussing the protection of the field from intruders.

  “Intruders like what?” Perry was disappointed to be excluded from the evening’s festivities, but accepted it as he shouldered his quiver. “Waltzing woodchucks?”

  “Disco caterpillars?” offered Helen, adjusting her arrows and testing her bow.

  Selena just shook her head, “You had plenty of fun the last time. Oh, Patricia; I hear your package arrived safely. Is everything settled?”

  Patricia nodded, aiming a perfect shot at a passing rabbit. “Greg knows about it. Right now, it’s, um, hidden in the woods and will stay there until he picks it up tomorrow.” She strolled over to the fresh kill and put in in a pouch secured around her waist. “Lunch,” she smiled.

  “I don’t really care for that arrangement,” frowned Selena, “but under the circumstances I cannot think of another way. Be aware of Vertigo, please. Even in human form he is formidable.”

  She wished the team luck and waved them toward their posts.

  “All right. But if anything looks as if it’s having more fun than I am - I don’t care what it is - it’s tomorrow’s dinner,” declared Perry, but he was cheerful enough as the trio headed off in separate directions.