The Night Has Teeth (9 page)

Once en route, I keep glancing back at the road for
signs of the wolf that is Arden. In the rear-view mirror all I see
are the eyes of the cabby. And me. I’m cagey, sweaty and winded.
Under normal circumstances he’d probably be thinking they’re all
signs that point to a fare he wished he hadn’t stopped for. The
last thing I need right now is to be left on the side of the road
in an unfamiliar neighborhood, so I try to get it together. Which
is just as well, because I need my wits about me. My attempts at
small talk are met with non-communicative grunts, and, after I’ve
paid my fare in cash, the taxi screeches away before I can even
fully close the door.

I’m left standing on the sidewalk in front of
Madison’s boarding house. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the
mansion is cast in an eerie light. The sun won’t be up for another
hour at least. There’s a gentle breeze that hushes through the
trees. As I enter the premises, the front gate groans open. I don’t
really know what to do next. Ringing the doorbell is obviously not
an option. Of the dozen dorm rooms in the place, I have no idea
which one is Madison’s. Breaking and entering isn’t exactly on my
Top 10 Things To Do Before You Die list, but considering death is
at my proverbial doorstep, what choice do I have? I creep among the
shadows, my socks dampening with the dew of early morning, until I
reach a point of entry at the side of the mansion. A staircase
leads up to the balcony out back, and I take the steps cautiously.
Hopeful though I am, the French doors are locked from the inside.
Taking stock of my options, I am considering ways of breaking glass
without making a noise when I notice one of the windows on the
floor above is open. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I
climb up the side of the wall, using a combination of the masonry
and the wrought iron balustrade for grip. Somehow I make it in
through the window without killing myself.

In the first bit of luck all night, it turns out to
be Madison’s room. There’s nothing about the space itself that’s
telling. In fact, it’s a very traditionally decorated room with a
distinctly princessy feel about it. But beneath a lavender bed
canopy is her bright red hair. She’s lying on her side. At some
point she must have tossed off the sheets, because I can see that
she’s dressed in flannel pajama bottoms and a camisole. I’d almost
say she looked angelic, if her eyebrow ring didn’t have a
skull-and-crossbones at the end of it. In any case, file this under
the “do not attempt at home” category. As I reach out to gently
shake her awake, she springs on me. In a few quick motions, I’m on
the cold hardwood floor pinned down with her knee on my throat.
Really, I should have known better.

“What are you doing here?” she manages to whisper
in a way that still sounds like she’s yelling at me.

I answer in the only way I can: flailing my arms,
wildly trying to get her off my larynx. Her eyes widen as it dawns
on her that the instinctive reaction to crush my windpipe was
overkill. She leaps back, gesticulating as though she’s not sure
what to do with her hands.

“You can’t be here, Connor!”

“I―”

“Shh! Madame Lefèvre is going to freak out if she
finds you here. I’m already in trouble enough for breaking
curfew.”

I sit up on the floor in front of her, quietly
insisting, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“How did you get in here anyway?”

With a shrug, I tell her, “I broke in.”

She blinks. Then she reaches back to her bedside
table for her cell phone and starts typing quickly. I stare at her
incredulously, about to berate her, when a few seconds later my own
phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out. A text from Madison
reads:
KISS
.

“W ― what?” I ask, completely
dumbfounded.

“Keep It Simple, Stupid,” she hisses, with
emphasis on the last word. “Next time, just text me.”

I guess that would have made a lot more sense than
what just happened. Not very much else is sensible at the moment,
though. Through the open window I hear the long, lonely howl of a
wolf and spin around with a gasp. A pillow goes over my mouth and I
try to push Madison away. She’s surprisingly strong for a petite
girl.

“It’s just the wolves from the zoo,” she murmurs
into my ear.

When I calm down, she releases her grip on the
pillow and pulls it into a hug instead. There are a million things
I want to tell her right now. A few of which are completely
irrational. Where to start, though? There are things that shouldn’t
even exist. Not in this world, anyway. From the hallway someone
knocks on the door. We both freeze. Her eyes scan mine and I search
for a place to hide.

“Mademoiselle Dallaire?” It’s Madame
Lefèvre.

Madison motions silently for me to move. We both get
to our feet at the same time, bumping our heads together as we do.
It’s sort of a comedy of errors. Only I’m not laughing. A second
later, the door swings open. I try to back away, but the only exits
are either through the door or out the window again. The woman
enters the room, a force to be reckoned with, even if she is
wearing what appears to be a floral muumuu. There’s nowhere for me
to go. She grabs me by the hairs at the back of my neck and drags
me out of the room. By now, we’re drawing an audience as lights
turn on and girls emerge from their dorm rooms.

“Back to sleep, ladies!” she orders, yanking at me
to follow her down the steps.

“I swear this isn’t what it looks
like!”

“It matters not,” she explains in French. “There
are rules, Monsieur Lewis. And as a young lady of this household,
Mademoiselle Dallaire is responsible for ensuring they are
upheld.”

With one hand she swings open the front door and
with the other she pushes me past the threshold. I’ve been tossed
out of the only safe haven I could think of in my hour of need. No
shoes, no jacket and a wolf somewhere out in the dark. I look
between her and Madison standing in the doorway, helpless, before
the door closes on me. On the front lawn, I collapse onto the wet
grass. I need to figure out what my next steps are.

I could just man up and face my death. I’d meet with
Amara and just accept whatever horrible end Arden has in store for
me. But remembering how terrified I was when I figured out what he
is, I’d probably just wind up screaming like a girl before I died.
Not a dignified option at all.

Or I could simply leave the city. I’d go back home
to my normal life surrounded by regular teenagers, not
shape-shifting dog-people. A sudden and overwhelming feeling of
homesickness passes through me at the thought, and I decide this
option is the one I want most. Sometimes there’s no shame in
running away from your problems. Particularly when your problems
have sharp fangs and claws to match. Why couldn’t I have just
settled on a mediocre existence and stayed in New York?

My fingers hover over the call button of my iPhone
as I think about what I’m going to tell my parents without
revealing too many unnecessary and unbelievable details. I’ll have
to play on their heartstrings and admit to being homesick. Even as
the phone rings, I go over what I’m going to say when they pick up.
Thing is, they don’t. Maybe my dad’s overseas. Heck, maybe my mom
is too. It’s not like they would have thought to tell me or
anything. I leave what I hope is a nonchalant message about wanting
to come home. The last thing I need is for them to fly to Paris to
make sure everything is alright. Especially when everything isn’t.
I get up, turn toward the gate, and stop dead in my tracks.

At the top of the walkway stands wolf-Arden. A
sinking sensation collapses in my chest. In an instant I spin
around and race to the back of the mansion toward the woods. All I
can feel is the burning in my legs and lungs. Just as I make it
past the neatly trimmed green space of the estate and into the
brush of the woods, he reaches my heels. As it turns out, the
probability of me outpacing a wolf is
exactly
slim to none. In the fragment of a second I take
to glance back, he leaps up at me. All I can do is prepare myself
for the fall and whatever happens next.

8. Things
Ain’t Like They Used To Be

I
collapse under his weight, one arm beneath me bracing
against the attack and the other reaching out to grab him. My
fingers manage to get a grip on the fur at his throat, and I hold
my arm outstretched to keep him at bay. His front paws are planted
firmly on my shoulders, and the force pushes me onto my back. He
just stares me down, perfectly calm. The throb of my heartbeat
pulses in my ears. A kind of numbness washes over my mind and body
as I lie against the moist earth. I’m trapped. The thought of dying
at the age of seventeen without having had the opportunity to make
any sort of a mark on the world seems grossly unfair. The most
disconcerting thing about this whole situation is, now that we’re
up close and still, I can see him ― the man within the wolf. It
isn’t just the eyes. There’s something about the angles of his face
and the way he fills space with his presence. It makes me hopeful
that I might be able to reason with him. His ears pivot backwards.
I angle my head to look past him and catch sight of a shadowy
figure entering the woods.

“Connor?”

My brain stammers before I can finally get out a few
hoarse words. “Call him off, Amara.”

Her hand goes to the gold chain around the wolf’s
neck, but instead of pulling him off me, she kneels by our side.
It’s almost maddening how impossibly nonchalant she looks. Her hair
is pulled back in a haphazard ponytail and she’s wearing a pair of
jeans and a cream sweater. As Amara looks down at me, Arden lets
out a long yawn. Like we’re boring him.

“We need to talk,” she says.

“No, we don’t.”

“I think it is very important that we
do.”

“Why?”

There’s a long pause. “Because there has been a
significant misunderstanding.”

Understatement of the year! “No, I think you were
right, Amara. I think we should just forget I saw anything. We can
do that, right? Just pretend? I swear, I won’t say a word to
anyone.”

Even though my words come out in a desperate flow, a
hopeful momentum builds in me as I wait for her response.

“I am afraid it is not quite that simple,
Connor.”

My heart sinks. “I really wish you could believe it
was.”

After a moment she pats Arden’s side, nodding at
him. He casts me a look like a warning shot. It’s all he has to do
to let me know that if I try to make a run for it, I’m toast. Then
he lopes off, slumping at the base of a tree to lick the bloody
wounds beneath the torn gauze. Our eyes don’t leave each other as I
sit up.

“I do not know precisely what you saw,
but―”

“No,” I interject firmly. “No, n-no, n-no. Do not
try to explain away what I saw, Amara. I know what I saw. What I
saw was Arden with bandages wrapped around his chest, wearing that
chain with the ring on it. And then I saw the exact same thing.
Only on your so-called dog.”

“What is it that you are proposing that you
saw?”

“I’m not
proposing
anything, Amara,” I say defiantly. “I know what I
saw.”

“And what was that?”

I throw up my arms in frustration. “Don’t play this
game with me, Amara. You and I both know damn well that Arden is
some kind of a werewolf.”

There, I said it out loud and I’m glad of it. The
burden of this terrible secret weighed heavily on me. Now that it’s
out in the open, I feel lighter. But when I see the look on her
face, of horrified concern, it’s almost enough for me to take the
words back.

“Ugh! I should have known, too. Who names their
dog Lou?”

“I never said his name was Lou,” she corrects. “I
told you I called him Lou.”

I raise my hands in confusion. “What?”

“Loup
,” she repeats and it registers. Wolf in
French.

In a low voice, I continue. “Regardless, what I
don’t get, Amara, is how you could be with him.”

She furrows her brow.

“I mean, aren’t you scared?”

“Of what?”

“Of Arden,” I say.

Her eyes search mine futilely until she understands.
“Oh, Connor...”

“What?”

“You do not understand,” she says
despairingly.

“What?” I repeat. She looks at me pityingly
without moving. My frustration increases, but still I hesitate
before carrying on. “What do you mean?”

Rising to her feet, she says, “I should show
you.”

Amara steps out of her shoes and pulls her hair
loose. Then she peels off her sweater and tosses it aside. It takes
a second for me to register that she’s undressing.

“Wh ― what are you doing?”

“Humor me, Connor,” she says as she continues to
strip.

I promptly look away, not really knowing what else
to do.

“Watch me. For just a moment, can you put aside
your American prudishness?”

My eyes flash back to her, focusing on her flowing
black hair, which covers most of her nakedness anyway. “Hey, I’m
not―”

The words stall in my mouth as Amara’s exposed form
suddenly crumples forward. With a gasp, she throws back her head,
and I witness the most terrifying and surreal scene of my life.
It’s like watching stop-motion photography as hair flows from under
her skin and her bones melt and fuse into different shapes
altogether. I stagger back, realizing instantaneously what I’m
looking at: the transformation of a werewolf. I stumble in
disbelief and barely notice as I crash into a fallen tree. Right
before my eyes, in the middle of a public park, is a sleek black
wolf. I feel my heart in my throat. It can’t be real. If it is, I’m
in deep. The wolf paces forward and I tumble sideways, falling back
onto the forest floor. My legs scrabble around as I attempt to gain
purchase on the wet foliage and move away. Here it is then. The
end, and I didn’t even see it coming. With my back against a tree
trunk, I sit up and there’s nowhere left to go. The wolf
pauses.