Blood for Wolves (14 page)

“Caroline, what the hell is going
on around here?” Alex shouted.

Beside me, Wolf snarled, sounding
very nearly like a real wolf.

“Stop! That’s my step-brother.”

He growled. His upper and lower
canines had extended, his eyes glowed redder than I’d ever seen. I stepped
closer to him.

“Caroline,” Alex said, a warning.

“Shh.”

I took Wolf’s face in my hands and
forced him to look at me. I murmured to him, staring at his ruby red eyes and
stroking his hair. He began breathing more slowly, his canines retreating to
their normal size.

“Jesus fucking Christ Caroline,
what the hell are you doing?” Alex asked behind me, his voice a mix of worry
and disgust.

I ignored him and kept focusing on
Wolf. I kissed his forehead, continuing to run my fingers through his hair. Finally
he heaved a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they
shifted back to gold, and then faded into hazel.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Trust
me.”

I knew he would obey, but he kept
his frown and glared at Alex, who stared at us with horrified fascination.

“Now,” I said, feeling like we
could finally do things normally, “Alex, why are you here?”

He flinched as if I’d just asked
him the most unfathomable question in the world. “Why am I here?
Why am I
here?
I was following you! You stopped using your radio and I got worried,
so I went to that wolf den you’ve been talking about for the past three weeks
and picked up your trail and somehow I ended up here. And I don’t even know
where the hell
here
is!” He waved his arms around in a mildly crazy
fashion.

“Liar,” Wolf snarled, unable to
contain himself any longer. He pointed at Alex. “You wear the black coat of the
wolf killers. You’re a Sentry for the House of Hood.”

I grabbed Wolf’s arm. “Whoa, Wolf—”

“What, this?” Alex’s face filled
with scorn. “Some crazy old lady gave this to me back in some village.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“You jumped at me out of the
fucking bushes, buddy. And you’ve got red eyes and fucking fangs. Of course I
tried to kill you.”

Wolf bared his teeth in response. “You’re
a hunter. I can smell it. I can smell the blood on you, the rabbits, the deer,
the birds.”

“All right,” I said loudly. I kept
my grip on Wolf’s coat, afraid that if I let go he’d go ballistic again.

“What of it?” Alex said, unwilling
to back down.

Wolf paused. He seemed to be
picking apart information in his brain, things he’d gathered from Alex’s scent.

“You smell like wolves…not a lot,
but some…and it’s mixed with Caroline.”

“That’s only because that’s where
she was when she went missing, and that’s where I went.”

Wolf breathed in a few more times. “You
don’t kill wolves.” A statement, not a question.

“What? Of course I don’t kill
wolves. They’d throw my ass in jail for that. And then Caroline would scratch
my eyes out.”

Finally both men shut up. I looked
back and forth between them.

“All right,” I said again. “I think
we can safely establish that my brother is not a Sentry for the House of Hood. I
think he must have met the same old witch that we did.”

“A huntsman that doesn’t hunt
wolves,” Wolf said, unsure of how to process the information.

Alex pointed at him. “You know,
that’s what that crazy woman said.” He paused. “What do you mean, ‘witch’?”

I shook my
head. “Come on Alex. Just walk with us. I’ll explain on the way.”

I made sure to walk between Wolf
and Alex as I explained where we were and what was going on. In turn, Alex told
me how he’d ended up here.

He’d found the pond, tried to
retrieve my radio from the bottom, and fell in instead, arriving in this world
just as I had. After picking up my trail, he’d used every skill he had to keep
on it, following the scuffed up leaves and soft LaSportiva boot marks in the
soft earth. He’d found the cottage and pressed on from there, concerned about
the scuff marks in the dust on the cottage floor and the blood at the window. Eventually
he walked into the giant’s lair just as I had, almost getting caught in the
process. Luckily for him, Wolf had been right about giants being clumsy and
falling down. They’d tripped over one another, giving Alex time to run away. Now
I knew the real cause for the rumble Wolf and I had felt the day we’d faced the
slave traders.

“I thought I’d lost you after
that,” Alex said. “I was about to turn right back around and go back to that
pond when I found this.”

He flipped me the can of bear mace
that Wolf had thrown out. I half smiled.

“Not many people draw moustaches on
their canisters.”

“I get bored.”

Wolf snorted unhappily at the can.

“Then I found a village that looked
like something out of the pioneering days,” Alex continued, “and I wasn’t even
there very long when some creepy old woman bumped into me. She called me a
‘Huntsman who does not hunt wolves’ and told me which way you went. Then she gave
me this getup and the hardware and a weird badge, but said not to put it on
until I was out of sight of the village.” He rubbed his face, disturbed. A few
days worth of stubble had darkened his skin. “She told me to hurry up too.”

I couldn’t fathom why she’d given
him such an outfit when it clearly made him a target for wolves. At my left,
Wolf continued to frown, occasionally sneaking suspicious glances at Alex. He
relaxed a fraction when I reached down to hold his hand.

“This,” Alex said at length, “is
messed up.”

“I know it is,” I said, “but we
can’t turn back now.”

“Uh, yeah we can,” he stared at me
like I’d lost my marbles, “we just go back to that pond and go home.”

“You didn’t
see
that thing
that took Marianne, Alex. There is something serious going down around here,
and I want to help.”

“Help? We don’t even know where
this place is! It’s like we’re in fucking, uh, whatever that place is called.”

“Narnia?” I said helpfully.

“Yeah, Narnia. We don’t know the
rules here, sis. Whatever we do here could have some serious consequences.”

I scowled. “She’s just a kid.”

“Yeah, kidnapped by something a
sorcerer conjured up.”

I stopped. “Okay, so, what then? Do
we just skip on home, go to mom’s birthday party, and act like this never
happened? Meanwhile some poor eight-year-old gets murdered or sacrificed or
whatever they plan to do to her? I thought you were supposed to protect and
serve?”

Alex shifted, uncomfortable.

“I think it’s too late now, Alex. I
mean,” I gestured at him, “you’ve even got the right costume.” I put an arm on
his shoulder. “This is more important than anything going on back home. Besides,”
I chuckled a little, “it’ll take them a while to notice I’m gone.”

“That’s not funny, sis.”

“Sorry,” I said.
But it’s
probably true.
“Either way, I’m looking for Marianne. You can come along or
not, your choice.”

We started walking again.

“Well, hell I followed you this
far. Might as well go the distance. How far away is she?”

“She’s in a small town. We should
reach it by sundown,” Wolf said. He linked his fingers with mine, his thumb
gently rubbing my skin. I tried not to smile.

“By the way,” I asked Alex, “do you
have an extra shirt?” As good as Wolf looked without a shirt under his coat, if
we ended up anywhere near people, I didn’t think it would seem very
inconspicuous.

“Sure.” He pulled the canvas sack
off his shoulder and pulled out a navy shirt with a Park County Sheriff logo on
the left breast. I handed it off to Wolf, holding his coat as he put it on.

“How many pockets does this coat
have?” I asked, examining it. Each one looked like it contained something.

“Seven. It’s a very good number.”

“Hey, um,” Alex said, “I know we’re
kind of in a hurry, but do you think we could eat something? The last time I
had something to eat was when that old woman gave me this getup.”

“Of course,” I said, giving Wolf
his coat back. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked earlier. I stopped at the
edge of the path to remove my pack and rummage through it, handing things to
Wolf as I dug around. “We’ve got a lot in here. We can always cook something
later, but for now we have some jerky and a bit of bread.”

I looked up. “Alex?”

He was walking away from us,
pointing at some mushrooms. “Are these things edible?”

Wolf eyed them for a brief second
before dumping everything on the ground and running after him. “Stop! Don’t go
near them!”

“Why?” Alex took one last step and
disappeared.

I screamed and dropped my pack,
rushing over to where Wolf stood.

“What happened to him?” I cried.

Wolf frantically searched one of
his pockets. “Fairy ring. See how the mushrooms are arranged in a circle?”

They were. Little clusters of
mushrooms arced to create in a faint circle, including part of a tree. I
realized the bark on the inside of the circle had a silvery sheen.

“So what’s that mean?” I asked.

Wolf yanked out a pouch and grabbed
a handful of black powder. He flung it into the circle.

Alex suddenly materialized,
stumbling out of the mushroom ring and falling flat on his back into a cluster
of ferns.

I ran over to him. “Alex?” Behind
me, I thought I heard angry chittering mixed with a bit of laughter.

“Are you all right?” Wolf asked. “Did
they do anything to you?”

“Do anything?” I said. “He was only
in there a few seconds.”

“Time flows differently on their
side. That and fairies are fast workers.”

I helped Alex to his feet. He
looked dazed, and after a few moments, managed to refocus some. He looked at
me.

“They said they liked my outfit.”

I led him around the ring and back
to the spilled contents of my daypack, Wolf at our heels. I sat him down.

“Will he be okay?” I asked Wolf.

“That was wild,” Alex said.

Wolf slipped the pouch back into
his coat. “He’ll be fine. There are strange things in Fairy. He just needs a
bit of time to readjust.”

“What was that stuff you threw in
there?”

“Iron filings. Fairy folk don’t
like iron.” Wolf glanced down at Alex. “I guess that really does prove that
you’re not a Sentry.”

He looked up
at us bleakly. “Could I get something to eat now, please?”

Thankfully Alex came to his senses
rather quickly, though when I asked him what he’d seen within the fairy ring,
he just shook his head and said he wasn’t able to explain. I let it go, and we
continued. He was safe, and that was all that mattered.

“Are you sure they came this way?”
I asked as we left the trees and entered open grasslands.

“They did. I can smell her. Her and
sheep and little lambs,” Wolf said, his voice trailing as much as his thoughts.
“Playing in the fields so innocent and juicy—”

“Wolf.” I stopped, eyeing him. “Are
there
farmers
out here?”

“Farmers?” he asked, as if he
didn’t recognize the word for a moment. “Oh. Yes. Farmers. Yes, they’re here. Out
there, tending their crops, tending their flocks. Feeding their chickens, plump
breasted and tasty and clucking...”

“Okay,” I said, interrupting him. I
watched him. His gaze darted about as he sniffed, like a dog that had just
gotten outside for the first time in weeks and could sense everything. Somehow
between this morning and now he’d lost a lot of his human side, going more
feral. Erratic. He’d said that the full moon was coming. Tomorrow, actually. I
didn’t like the idea of waltzing into a farming town with him like this, even
if we would need his help handling the magic beast that had taken Marianne.

I sidled up to Alex and whispered,
“We can’t bring him in there like this.”

“What?” Alex whispered back, though
he didn’t know why we were whispering. “What do you mean we can’t?” He scowled.
“I thought this guy was our guide.”

“He is, but I don’t trust him like
this. Wolves aren’t received well here, Alex. If they notice he’s part wolf,
they’ll burn him alive or something.”

“I don’t like any of this Caroline,
I want you to know that.”

“Will you shut up? I know, okay? I
know. But we need to find somewhere to stash him. I mean, look at him.”

Wolf crouched on the ground,
silent. But his eyes flickered gold, and a grin somewhere between horribly
excited and creepy was plastered on his face. Alex sighed in a dejected
this-is-too-fucking-weird-for-me sort of way, but resigned himself to the idea.

The sun slipped further and further
over the edge of the horizon with every passing moment. The last thing I wanted
to do was fall asleep and let Wolf roam the countryside, eating chickens or
sheep if that’s what he really did. Rather disturbing ideas considering he was
only a half-wolf. I didn’t think he could change into a real one. Of course,
what did I know about this world so far? Not much.

“Hey,” Alex said. He pointed toward
a shallow valley. “How about there?”

An abandoned barn sat in the
valley, a few holes in the roof and its windows broken. The barn was
surprisingly big. It seemed strange for it to be deserted, but I wasn’t going
to argue.

“Okay, that’s fine.” I looked
around.

Wolf was several feet behind us,
looking intently down on the farming town below. I called to him.

“Come on. We’re going to go to that
barn.”

He looked at me sharply. “Why? Everything
we want is down there.”

“Yes, but you’re not exactly in top
condition to visit them, are you?”

He snorted. “And who are you to
judge? Little missy wolf scholar. Think you know everything, do you? Keen on
locking me up while you play with the locals?”

“Caroline,” Alex muttered.