Wolf at the Door

  But no matter what it is, what paranormal stereotype he encounters, it’s always both more than it seems, and less.

  “This time I was able to warn them—the vampires—and they warned me. They knew you were out there.”

  “Aw, man.” He shook his head with a rueful half smile. “And here I thought I’d been so sly.”

  “Nope. Don’t feel bad; you weren’t bred for that sort of thing. That’s when I—” She paused. Took another look at his expression. “Well, they told me that one of them was taking care of you. I was—I didn’t know what that meant. I was afraid I did know. So I . . .”

  “Rode to my rescue?” Edward clasped his hands to his chest and sighed as he fluttered his eyelashes. Typical of men who don’t give a shit about such things, he had long, lush eyelashes, the lucky bastard. “Did you, Rache? Ride to my rescue on your . . . uh . . . steed?”

  “Turned my back on one of them long enough for her to clip me with a sturdy knife handle,” she said dryly.

  “Her being the vampire queen?”

  “Oh, no. No, it was her friend, the beautiful little blond girl who dresses like she’s late for Catholic school.”

  “Um . . . okay. We’re gonna circle back to that, because I didn’t get to meet that one, wouldn’t you know it.”

  “I can’t see the queen throwing a knife at anyone,” she admitted. “A bottle of nail polish, maybe.”

  “But one of them did.”

  “Yes. My own stupid fault for turning my back on people I knew to be predators. I deserved worse for forgetting such a fundamental rule of survival.” She shook her head, disgusted. “Must be old age setting in.”

  “Ha! What are you, twenty-four, twenty-five?”

  “You’re adorable. Thirty.” Of course, the jailbait vampire could have a hundred years on her for all Rachael knew. “It was humbling beyond belief.”

  “One of them . . . just so I’m following the sequence of events, here . . . one of them threw a knife. At your head.”

  “Well, yes. But it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “Rachael!”

  “It’s not,” she insisted. “For one thing, she could have flipped the blade. Having the pointy end zip through the back of my skull would have put a sizeable damper on my day.”

  Edward was pressing his hands to his face. “I’m pretty sure you’re giving me a migraine. I’m . . . I’ve got to tell you . . . aw, man, I’m having a freak-out aneurysm here! I can’t decide which thing to yell at you about first.”

  “There is kind of a long list,” she admitted. “I’m sorry for adding to it.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “I woke up in an orange parlor.”

  “What?”

  “No. Stop. Let me think.” She closed her eyes, saw the room in her mind, smelled the mouse poop in her mind. “Peach. It was a peach parlor. The sofa and the walls and even the carpet. It was like waking up inside a womb.”

  “Okay, that’s so weird I’m actually trying not to picture it.”

  “And the vampire queen had measured my feet while I was unconscious and gave me a pair of blue flats to wear home.”

  “She did not!”

  “You’re right, now that I recall . . . she loaned me the shoes. She didn’t give them.”

  “Rachael! Of all the weird, idiotic, and/or scary things you’ve told me, that’s the least believable. And think about the list of things you’ve told me!”

  “You’re right, you’re right . . . it’s a terrible long list. No wonder you’re getting a migraine.” She stole another glance at the moon. She was closer, now. Well, of course she wasn’t, not really; it was an optical illusion. But it was a beautiful, sweet illusion and one she cherished. The moon looked closer because her Change was closer. It would come closer still, and then Rachael would be the moon, be in her. And then for three nights she would be herself, her true self.

  “Oh, ya think? Listen . . . no, wait. Are you okay? You’ve got a really strange look on your face.”

  I’ll bet I do. She almost laughed. “I’m fine, relatively speaking.”

  “Okay, good. But like I was saying, I haven’t actually met the woman, which you’re gonna rectify for me just as soon as—”

  “I certainly will not,” she said sharply. “You’re to stay away from them, Edward. We’ve both been careless enough.”

  “Yeah, hold your breath and see if that’ll happen. But listen, I don’t know her, but I do know this: the queen of the vampires doesn’t just hang out in her big spooky mansion to drink smoothies with zombies who are taking care of the pregnant woman who also hangs out there (I assume for prenatal smoothies). And she sure as shit doesn’t give visiting werewolves pairs of shoes!”

  “Lend,” she corrected. “She lent me a pair of shoes.”

  “Whatever! Vampire queens don’t do that stuff. No selfrespecting monarch of the undead would do any of that stuff.”

  “Up until seventy hours ago, I would have agreed. Now I can’t. I think that’s the trick.”

  “What?”

  “I think that’s why her reign is working. She doesn’t do anything the way you’d expect. It’s a pretty good trick.” More: she suspected that was Michael’s underlying motive in sending her here. Not just to keep an eye on things. To figure out why things were working the way they now were. Infinitely more valuable information to have. “It’s a trick I’ll bet my cousin would like to learn. But that’s a talk for another day. We’ve been out here as long as I dare.” She stood, peeked at the moon, held out her hand. “We have to go inside now. I have to, I mean.”

  “So you can change into a werewolf.”

  “Yes.” Change into always made her smile. Like it was something the Pack could take on and off, like a dress shirt. It would never occur to her to ask Edward to change into someone with white skin and blue eyes.

  “Yeah, well, I believe you when you say you’re not the vampire queen—I’m pretty sure—but I gotta call bullshit on this werewolf thing. Not that I think you’re lying,” he added when she opened her mouth. “I think you could take a polygraph and never bounce a needle. But that proves my point about you needing help. You can’t ask me to believe that every full moon . . . Let’s just say I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  Thirty-nine

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Forty

  Edward had tripped over the rolltop desk and hit the floor hard enough to actually see stars. Wow, he thought, rubbing the back of his head. Look at that! Actual stars. All those Bugs Bunny cartoons were telling the truth.

  It was his fatal mistake, of course, and his death was coming in the exact manner he had always known it would: he’d gotten killed doing something idiotic or clumsy or both. So he wasn’t at all surprised when the slavering she-beast of the night rushed over to him, jaws dripping foam, snarling her hatred for man, her ancient enemy.

  Except what really happened is that she let out a surprised yelp—

  (funny, weird and funny that it seemed more like a gasp of dismay than a yelp, funny how it was like she wasn’t all person and she wasn’t all wolf, funny how it was like she was something in between a creature that was both and neither, all the time, yes, very funny)

  —and rushed over to him, anxiously sniffed him, then tried to lick the back of his head.

  “Wh—aagghh—stop it, that tickles!” What he had first mistaken for slavering jaws dripping enraged foam was the friendly wide wolf grin (accompanied by a lashing tail) he’d seen on canines before.

  “Oh boy,” he said, bringing his hands up again to push her away, and letting them drop to his sides again. “Ohhhhh, boy. If you don’t devour me in a bloodlust born of a dire feeding frenzy, Rachael, I owe you a gigantic apology. Like, the Galactus of apologies.”

  She was still trying to get at the back of his head. “No, it’s fine, Rachael. Just a bump. You—you—” Scared the shit out of me! Made me watch my life flash before my eyes, and
y’know what? It wasn’t that great a life! “You startled me.”

  And it was his own damned fault. She warned you. She wasn’t cute or coy about it; she flat-out told you: I am a werewolf and I am going into my hobbit hole to change into the form of a wolf by the light of the full moon, so smoke ’em if you got ’em.

  Or words to that effect. But did he believe her? Noooooo. And why should he? It wasn’t like he had, oh, I dunno . . . firsthand experience in tons of weird paranormal shit due to the fact that he LIVED WITH an ex-cop/current-comedian vampire and an albino vampire slayer!

  Perish the fucking thought.

  No sooner were they in her apartment than she began stripping off her clothes. This had the (perhaps predictable) effect of every coherent thought fleeing his mind as blood raced from his brain into his dick. “Uh, Rache, not that I don’t love seeing you naked, not that I don’t love just the very thought of bluff sex—or would it be hobbit hole sex? Anyway, I think if we have sex now, it would fall under the taking-advantage-of-Rachael category.”

  “Please stop talking.”

  “And not that—whoa, bra shooting past my shoulder! You ever notice that those can be used as slingshots? Wow, you’re really whipping them off, aren’t you?”

  “You’re still talking.” Her voice had gotten lower; she sounded pissed, so he figured shutting up wouldn’t be the worst idea he’d had, and then she, and then she, and then she—

  (Say it!)

  —and then she turned into a wolf.

  If he’d blinked, he would have missed it: one minute she was naked and hairless and cute and pale and pink, and the next she’d dropped to all fours and was hairy and grew a tail from somewhere and her ears got longer and her snout got longer and her teeth got much, much, much—

  (Why grandma!)

  —much, much, much bigger and longer and sharper, and then he was shrieking, not so much from fear, okay from a little fear, but also shock and surprise and the sheer joy of it; he was screaming with the knowledge that Rachael was beautiful in every mood, in every form Rachael was—

  (my God, Rachael, you’re so beautiful I didn’t know anyone could be so beautiful)

  —beautiful.

  Cue Edward staggering backward; cue Edward tripping over desk and hitting his big stupid skull.

  And now, he was locked inside the den with the she-beast! She’d led him back here in her treacherous human form, she had led him into a basement that didn’t have an exit for a wolf, she’d penned him up with her, and now he was trapped in the lair of the beast!

  The beast had taken a moment before devouring him to rush over and make sure he was okay. Oh, the deceitful cunning of this ravenous monster knew no bounds!

  Dude: lock it down, will ya? You’re embarrassing yourself.

  Good advice. “Quit it, Rache, I’m fine.” Again he brought up his hands, but this time found the courage to very, very, very gently rest tented fingers on her shoulder as he gave her a very, very, very slight push.

  Well, she didn’t bite any of his fingers off. That was something. Emboldened, he increased the pressure. She didn’t budge, nor did she devour.

  “Don’t worry about me, it’s my own stupid fault and it’s just a bump. But you can’t stay in here all night. Can you?” He’d never imagined such a thing. Maybe real-world werewolves didn’t howl and hunt. Or at least, howl and hunt during the entirety of the full moon. Maybe some of them stayed indoors.

  “Shouldn’t you be roaming the countryside looking for chickens? Ow!” He glared at her and rubbed the spot on his shoulder where she’d nipped him. “Okay, sorry about the stereotype. Not very PC of me. Listen—no, I’m fine.” He gave her another shove. It was like trying to knock over a fire hydrant. Then she gave him another nip, her teeth and jaws so quick he felt the mild pinch before he realized she’d moved at all.

  “Okay, o-kay! Jesus. You’re a nag in every form, anybody ever tell you that? Look.” He dropped his head and she sniffed the part in his hair. “Don’t worry, I cleansed myself thoroughly with Suave Mountain Strawberry. You may sniff me without fear!” She already was, so he figured he might as well give her permission.

  “Okay, I know what you’re thinking. But it isn’t like that! Okay, it’s a little like that.” He absently rested his hand on her lush dark fur. “Listen, this is gonna sound pretty dumb, but when I was in your bathroom the other day, I saw what you used for shampoo, so I went out and bought some for my bathroom so it would be like you were there. I know, I know. Just so lame, right?”

  That was when he realized what he was doing. He was speaking to her like she was a real person. Like she could understand him, like this was a conversation. How cool was that?

  Then he slapped his forehead, hard. Of course she’s a real person, you nimrod! What, you were expecting a hologram? Didja think she was a computer program?

  He examined the almost-invisible nip she’d given him with her teeth, Rachael-ese for, Do you think you can stop acting like a dumbass for ten whole seconds?

  “Y’know, that’s twice you’ve subjected me to your unholy jaws. What if I turn into a werewolf during the next full moon? Hey, is that it? That’s it, isn’t it?” He sat bolt upright with excitement. “That’s why you picked me! You want a boyfriend who you can run with by the light of the full moon, a mate who shares your passion for the hunt as well as a Quicken spreadsheet. It all makes sense now!”

  She laughed at him.

  Okay, it wasn’t exactly a laugh. Her canine grin widened and her expression got downright playful . . . amused, even, and he . . . he could just tell. She was laughing.

  “Fine, I guess I deserved that.”

  Her eyes were exactly the same.

  He looked closer. Yes, it was true. She was a little different on the outside, but her eyes, those gorgeous tip-tilted pools of deep brown, and what was behind her eyes, was the same.

  In that moment, he knew that for the rest of his life he would always be able to spot a member of Rachael’s family, her Pack. It was nothing he could have taught someone. It was nothing he could have described. Recognizing Pack was like riding a bicycle: it couldn’t be taught, you had to learn it yourself . . . and once learned, you could never un-learn it.

  Her fur was also deep brown, lush and thick as the hair on her head when she walked on two legs. He gently flattened his hands on her pelt, then smoothed it, then stroked it. It was like stroking a combination of velvet and wool. Wolf fur, he realized, was like the taste of chicken: hard to describe, but unmistakably its own thing. It wasn’t velvet and it wasn’t wool; it was wolf fur; it was Pack.

  Bolder, he ran his hands all over her, curious and fascinated and awed all at once. Her ears were scuffed velvet and pricked forward alertly. Her long sleek snout was much darker than the rest of her, and—

  “Wow. Just how many teeth do you have, Rache? I would not want to meet you in a dark alley. Okay, I absolutely would want to, but I wouldn’t want to meet another Pack member in that alley. Though I bet you could take ’em.

  “And speaking of taking ’em, how lucky was that vampire dumb enough to throw a knife at you? You could have bitten her whole face right off! I mean, you could have run home and waited a couple hours for the moon to rise and then changed into a wolf and then run back and bitten her face off. And serve her right,” he added, enraged all over again at the thought of someone throwing a lethal weapon at Rachael’s head.

  Though he admitted to some bias: he wouldn’t have liked it if someone had thrown a nonlethal object at her, either. Like a packet of shoelaces, or a baby’s pacifier. Oh, the humanity! Wait. Did that even apply here, when one of them wasn’t human?

  “You just wait. Once you get me back over there, that vampire’s gonna apolo—ow! No. No,” he added firmly, rubbing his now-stinging elbow. “I’m not bending on this one, Rache. You can nibble on me until I’m skeletonized, you’re still taking me over there and introducing me to those knife-wielding psychopaths.

  “I mean, how could they
? You came in peace, right? Me acting like an asshole is one thing; I’ve acted like a true dumb shit this whole time. It’s not a new thing to the world. But they’re supposed to know better. They’re . . . they’re the grownups! And me, I was just...”

  He shook his head and ran his hands over her fur again. Then he buried his face against her side. “You’re so beautiful, Rachael. How could I not have seen it? How could I have been such a hateful dumbass?” He thought of the things he’d said earlier and went cold. “Mine was the face to bite off, if anybody deserved having their face bitten off. If you forgave me, it’d be a miracle.”

  He sighed into her fur, which smelled like soap and green grass and werewolf, Rachael’s own special smell. “If you forgave me, I’d spend the rest of my life trying to make it right. If you forgave me, I’d never take your good faith for granted. If you could just give me that one chance, Rachael, a chance I’ve done nothing to deserve.” He swallowed a sob and rubbed his eyes, hard. On top of everything else, he wouldn’t subject Rachael to his ongoing immaturity, his babyish lack of control. He didn’t want forgiveness as a result of her pity and his shame. Lock it back, dumbass. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She only looked at him, then leaned forward and snuffled behind his ear, the exact spot she’d pressed many kisses in the last week. Then she yawned, circled once, and curled up beside him.

  And then she went to sleep.

  After a few minutes, he said, “It’s wrong to find this anticlimactic, right? Grateful is the emotion I should be going for, right?”

  Then he leaned back against the wall and dozed off, his hand resting on her back.

  Forty-one

  Rachael opened her eyes, surprised to find herself a) in her bed, and b) alone. Now last night of all nights, where would Edward—

  She heard the door open, heard his light, eager step stop outside her bedroom door. He poked his head in and brightened when he saw her. “You’re awake! And you’re the other you again! Awesome.”