“If these things are more than just a scare tactic, then I suppose anything’s possible. I kept watch all night. I should have seen something.”
“Were these here before last night?”
“I didn’t see any.”
I kicked the dirt, stubbing my toe on the ground. I let out a short growl at the pain. “This is driving me crazy,” I muttered.
“That’s probably the idea,” Cormac said.
“Huh. As if I’m not perfectly capable of driving myself crazy.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing stuck out here in the woods? Driving yourself crazy?”
It kind of looked that way. I didn’t have to admit that, though. I started picking up the crosses, searching for the next one around the circle, intending to find every single one.
“Kitty—” His tone made him sound reprimanding, like he was about to burst forth with some great wisdom. We both knew it: picking up all the crosses was probably futile. Until we learned who was leaving these things, there’d always be more.
“You should look in on Ben,” I said. “After his talk last night, he shouldn’t be left alone. Or you could get some sleep. Or something.”
He actually took the hint. After a moment’s pause, he ambled back to the cabin.
When I finished, I had sixteen barbed-wire crosses pocketed in the corner of my coat. Eighteen when I added them to the two Cormac had brought into the house. I found a plastic grocery bag, put them all in, tied the bag closed, and left it out on the porch. I didn’t want those things inside. Cormac’s idea of melting them to slag sounded wise.
Inside, Cormac and Ben were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, dead quiet. Cormac looked at Ben, and Ben didn’t look at anything in particular. I started fixing breakfast, pretending like nothing was wrong, trying not to throw glances at them over my shoulder. It felt like I had interrupted an argument.
“Eggs, anyone? Cereal? I think I’ve got some sausage that isn’t too out-of-date. Frozen venison?” Silence. My own appetite wasn’t what it should have been. I settled for a glass of orange juice. Finally, leaning back against the counter, I asked, “Who died?”
Then I wished I hadn’t. Ben looked sharply at me, and Cormac crossed his arms with a frustrated sigh. I couldn’t read the series of body language. Maybe if I could get them talking, then close my eyes and pretend I was doing the show, I could figure out what was wrong.
“No, really,” I said, my voice flat. “Who died?”
Ben stood up. “I’m taking a shower.” He stalked back to the bedroom.
That left me with Cormac, who wouldn’t look at me. I said, “You going to tell me what I missed, or are we all going to go around not talking to each other for the rest of the day?”
“I’m inclined to say that it’s none of your business.”
“Yeah, that’s why you brought Ben here in the first place, because it’s none of my business. Real cute. What’s wrong?”
“Ben and I worked it out.”
“Worked what out?”
“A compromise.”
I wanted to growl. “Will you just tell me why he won’t talk to me and you won’t look at me?”
Taking that as a challenge, he looked right at me. If I hadn’t been against the counter I would have backed up a step, so much anger and frustration burned out of his gaze.
He said, “After the full moon, if he still wants me to do it, I’ll do it.”
I had to take a moment to parse that, to understand what it meant. And I did. I still had to spell it out. “You’ll shoot him. Just like that. The only person in the world you trust, and you’ll kill him.”
“If he wants me to.”
“That isn’t fair. That isn’t enough time for him to adjust to what’s happened to him. He won’t be any happier after the full moon than he is now.”
“And how long did it take you to become the stable, well-adjusted werewolf you are today?” His tone dripped with sarcasm.
I crossed my arms and pouted. “Very funny.”
“It’s what we decided.”
“Well, you’re both a couple of macho dickheads!”
He stood. “Is it still okay if I sleep on the sofa?”
“I ought to make you sleep on the porch!”
He ignored me, just like I expected, and went to the sofa, wrenched off his boots, lay down, and pulled the blanket over his head.
So much for that.
I went to the desk and fired up the laptop. I started a new page and wrote a title at the top: “Ten Ways to Defeat Macho Dickheadism.” Then I realized that most of the world’s problems stemmed from macho dickheadism, and if I could defeat that I could save the world. It made for a pretty good rant, since Cormac and Ben were both refusing to get yelled at in person.
Ben came out of the bathroom an hour later, slightly damp and wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt that he must have borrowed from Cormac. It gave him this James Dean look. Or that might have been the only partially suppressed snarl he wore. I expected him to say something about me actually sitting at my desk and working. The old Ben would have said something snide and encouraging at the same time.
This new Ben just looked at me, then sank heavily into the kitchen chair.
I watched him. “Did you have breakfast while you and Cormac planned your suicide, or should I fix something?”
His voice was low. “I expected you of all people to have some sympathy.”
“No way. I’m a sentimentalist, remember? You’re the bitter, cynical one. I just can’t believe you’d go down without a fight.”
“I’ve already lost.”
I moved to the kitchen table and sat across from him, where Cormac had been. I stared him down. He fidgeted, nervous, and looked away. Ah-ha, wolfish instincts were kicking in. He didn’t try to challenge me back. Good.
“This is what I see: I have three days, plus a full moon night, to convince you that life as a werewolf is better than no life at all.”
“Kitty, this isn’t about you. It isn’t any of your business.”
“Tell that to Cormac. He’s the one who dumped you in my lap.”
“I told him off about that already.”
“You really think he made a mistake, bringing you here?”
He pursed his lips. “I do. He should have taken care of this back at Shiprock.”
Ben had always been there for me. Now, when it was time for him to accept help, he was throwing it back in my face. Well, screw that.
“You know what, Ben? You’re wrong. This is my business. You know why?” He gave the ceiling a long-suffering stare. That was okay, the question was rhetorical anyway. “Because I’m adopting you. You’re part of my pack, now. That means you’re under my protection and I refuse to let you go off and kill yourself.”
He blinked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Wolves run in packs. You’re in my pack. And I’m the alpha female. That means you do what I say.”
“Or what?”
“Or… or I’ll get really pissed off at you.”
He seemed to consider for a moment. In a mental panic, I wondered whether I could take him in a fight, if I had to back up my oh-so-brave words. He wasn’t yet used to the strength he gained as a werewolf. He was still sick, still finding his feet. I had experience with this sort of thing. The thing was, I didn’t want to have to assert my position by fighting him. I wanted to be able to just talk him into it.
Finally, he said, “Why do I have this urge to take you seriously?”
“Because the wolf inside you knows what’s best. Trust me, Ben. Please.”
“I thought you didn’t have a pack.”
I smiled. “I do now.”
chapter 6
Come on, get your coat,” I said, grabbing my own and my bag.
“Why?”
“We’re going out. Quietly—don’t wake up Cormac.”
He went to the bedroom and came back with a jacket. He looked sullen, but didn’t argue. That
scared me a little. Was he really buying into the whole alpha female thing? I thought I’d been bluffing.
“Where are we going?” he finally asked when we were on the road.
“Into town to buy groceries. You guys are eating all my food.” That wasn’t all; I’d put the bag of barbed-wire crosses in the car. I planned on getting rid of them.
“Why do I have to come along?”
“Because part of being a werewolf is learning how to function in the real world. It’s a little freaky at first. McDonald’s will never smell the same.”
He wrinkled his nose and made a grunt of disgust.
“Also, I’m not going to leave you alone and let you kill yourself just to spite me.”
“I made a deal with Cormac. I’ll stick it out through the full moon. I won’t go back on that.”
I sighed. “You’re doing it again. You’ll stick it out for Cormac, but not for me. I think you just don’t like me.”
He paused to consider. “You know you’re crazy?”
“I’m not the one who wants my best friend to shoot me in the head!”
He turned away to stare out the window.
I’d been through what he was going through now. I’d awakened after being attacked by a werewolf, with my whole world turned upside down, and I hadn’t wanted to die. I hadn’t even thought about it beyond the vague, unserious half urges that came with depression. I had a life and I wanted to keep it, lycanthropy or no. What was wrong with Ben?
Nothing was wrong with Ben. He was right to be afraid, to want to avoid it. This was about me. I was the problem. Ben knew what was coming, because he’d seen what it did to me. I couldn’t blame him at all.
I said, “I’m a werewolf—am I so terrible that you’d rather kill yourself than be that?”
“No.” He glanced at me, and his look was sad. “You’re not terrible at all. You’re…” He turned back to the window without finishing.
I’m what? I almost yelled at him to make him finish. But what would that get me? An answer I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. You’re not terrible, you’re… confused.
I pulled into the driveway of Joe and Alice’s store and parked. It was midday, but we were the only ones there. Small favors. I’d already gotten out of the car when Ben said, “I’ll just wait here.”
I put my hands on my hips. “That defeats the whole point of you coming along. And I need you to help carry groceries.”
He lurched out of the car, slouching in his coat like a sullen teenager, his hands shoved in the pockets. I walked across the dirt parking lot, and Ben fell into step beside me. Halfway to the front door, though, he paused and looked up, turning his nose into the faint breeze. His brow furrowed, faintly worried, faintly curious.
I could filter it all out, the hundred smells that I encountered every day: spilled oil, gasoline, asphalt, the garbage Dumpster, drying paint from the shed around the corner, somebody’s loose dog, a feral cat, the earth and trees from the edge of the woods. A normal human wouldn’t be able to differentiate them at all. Ben was smelling it all for the first time.
“You okay?” I asked.
After a moment, he nodded. Then he said, “What do I smell like to you?”
I shrugged. I’d never tried to describe it before. “Now? You smell like a werewolf. Human with a little bit of fur and wild thrown in.”
He nodded, like that sounded familiar—he could smell me now, after all. Then he said, “And before?”
“I always thought you smelled like your trenchcoat.”
He made a sound that was almost a chuckle.
“What do I smell like to you?” I said.
He cocked his head for a moment, testing the air, tasting it. He seemed puzzled, like he was still trying to figure out the sensation. “Safe. You smell safe.”
We went inside.
Ben hesitated at the door, once again looking around, nose flaring, wearing an expression of uncertainty and also curiosity. I looked, hoping to see Alice, bracing for Joe and his rifle.
Behind the counter, Alice looked up from the magazine she was reading. She smiled. “Hi, Kitty, how are you today?”
“Oh, fine. I have friends visiting. Alice, this is Ben. Ben, Alice.”
Alice smiled warmly and extended her hand for shaking. Ben looked stricken for a moment—to the wolf side, it was not the most harmless of gestures. In fact, it looked a little like an attack. I waited to see how he’d react and let out a bit of a sigh when he recovered and took her hand.
“Good to meet you,” he said. He wasn’t smiling, but he behaved in a straightforward enough manner.
“Let me know if I can help you find anything,” she said.
“Actually, I did want to ask you something. Do you know any blacksmiths around here? Someone with a forge who could melt down a bunch of metal for me?”
“Well, sure. Jake Torres is the local farrier, he’s got a forge. What kind of metal?”
This was going to be hard to explain without sounding like a loon. But I was crazy, according to Ben anyway. Maybe I should just embrace it. “I’ve got a bunch of pieces of barbed wire that I’d love to see completely destroyed. You think he’d do that for me?”
She creased her brow. “Oh, probably. What kind of pieces?”
“They’re in the car, I’ll go get them. Ben”—I grabbed a plastic shopping basket from the pile by the door— “here. Find some food. Whatever looks good.”
He took the basket, looked at me quizzically, then headed for the shelves.
Feeling like I was finally accomplishing something, I ran to the car, grabbed the bag of crosses, ran back to the store, and dropped the bag on the counter in front of Alice. It landed with a solid, steely thunk. She pulled out one of the crosses, studied it, and looked increasingly worried. That made me worried.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “What is it? You look like you’ve seen one of these before.”
Shaking her head, she dropped the cross back and quickly tied up the bag. “Oh, you know. Folklore, local superstition. Crosses are supposed to be for protection.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s been dumping them in a circle around my cabin and I don’t feel very protected. Friend of mine thinks it’s part of a curse. Like someone isn’t happy with me being around.”
Alice’s eyes widened, startled. “That’s certainly odd, isn’t it?”
“I just want to get rid of them. Melting them down seems the way to go. You think your farrier will do it?”
“Jake stops in here once a week. He’s due in a couple of days. I’ll ask him myself,” she said with a thin smile. She put the bag under the counter. It was out of my hands now.
That was easy. A weight lifted from me. “Thanks, Alice. That’d be great.”
I went to check on Ben. He was standing with the still empty basket in front of a shelf full of canned soup, chili, and pasta sauce.
“Nothing sounds good,” he said. “I just keep thinking about all that venison in your freezer. Is that normal?”
I patted his arm. “I know what you mean.”
We stocked up on the basics—bacon and eggs, bread and milk. Ben gamely carried the basket for me, and Alice rang up the goods, her demeanor more cheerful than ever. We made it back to the car without incident.
“There,” I said as I pulled the car back on the road, “that wasn’t so hard.”
After some long minutes of driving, Ben said, “I could hear her heartbeat. Smell her blood. It’s strange.”
I wet my lips, because my mouth had gone dry. Even smelling him, smelling him change into something not quite human, even seeing the bite wounds and knowing intellectually what was happening to him, it didn’t really hit me until that moment. Ben was a werewolf. He may not have shape-shifted yet, he may have been infected for less than a week. But there it was.
“It makes them seem like prey,” I said, aware that I was talking about people, normal people like Alice, in the third person. Like they were something different than Ben and r />
I. “Like you could hunt them.” Like you could almost taste the blood. “Does that happen every time you meet somebody?” he said. “Most of the time, yeah,” I said softly. He didn’t say a word for the rest of the trip home.
When we entered the house, Cormac was awake, sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning a gun or three. As soon as the front door opened, he stood and turned to us. I’d have said he was in a panic, if I didn’t know him better.
“Where’d you go?” he said.
“Shopping?” I said, uncertain. Both Ben and I hefted filled plastic grocery bags, which we brought to the kitchen. “You want to help unpack?”
He just stood there. “You couldn’t have left a note?”
“I didn’t think you’d wake up before we got back.”
“Don’t worry,” Ben said. “She looked out for me.”
“Should you even be out?” Cormac said accusingly, almost motherly.
I nearly snapped at him, something juvenile like what’s your problem? Then I realized—I’d never seen Cormac worried before. At least, worried and actually showing it. He was downright stressed out. It was almost chilling.
Ben slumped into the other chair at the kitchen table. “I survived, didn’t I?” Cormac scowled and looked away, which prompted Ben to add, “I’m okay, Cormac.”
“At least for another three days,” I muttered as I shoved food into the fridge. I put the groceries away loudly and angrily, as if that would make me feel better. The guys ignored me.
“You need help with that?” Ben indicated the spread of gun oil and gun parts on the kitchen table. Cormac had put paper towels down first, so I couldn’t even get mad at him for messing up the table.
“I’m done.” Cormac began cleaning up the mess, packing everything away into a metal toolbox.
Ben watched for a minute, then said, “If you’d just shot me, you wouldn’t have to deal with this crap now.”
“You are never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“We had a deal—”
Cormac slammed the toolbox on the table, making a wrenching crash. “We were sixteen years old when we made that deal! We were just kids! We didn’t have a clue!”