Black Wolf (45 page)

"I had sort of
wondered about that."

"When I went
back, Shaine said I could live with him all the time, and we
survived okay. I really truly tried to stay clean, but sometimes on
the street things can get so bad, you don't know how bad... I
didn't slip
too
often. It helped that it was harder every
time. And then I was wolf, and nothing worked anymore, which has to
be the ultimate way to stay clean. Only, I was so frustrated and
Avryl had this bottle of wine, and it did work on me, and I wanted
to not drink any more but I couldn't, and I don't remember anything
after that. I
tried
, I really did..." A couple more tears
got away, matching the urgency of his voice, and his hand around
Kevin's clenched tight.

All the power
of fire and sunlight, waiting for him to call on it...

Carefully,
ready to pull back, Kevin slid his free arm around him; Jess
resisted briefly, then sagged against him, and Kevin wrapped both
arms around the shivering werewolf.

"All I could
think was, I fucked up again, nobody'll believe me..."

"Jess. You
aren't bad or useless. I'm damned proud of you for what you
have
managed to do, and the more I find out the more proud I
get. I think I know what you mean. I can call more power than most
mages, and it's an incredible high. It gives power-tripping a whole
new dimension. I came
so
close, when I destroyed the
constructs that were chasing you, only Gisela reminded me there
were more important things to do. We aren't quite as different as
you think."

"Maybe not."
It trailed off into a sob.

Kevin just
held him while he cried, wondering how long it had been.

"I promise,"
he whispered to Jess. "I'm not ever again going to let you down
when you need me, wolf-cub. I promise I'll be here always."

It took a very
long time for Jesse to finally quiet, still sniffling and trying to
catch his breath.

"I'm
sorry..."

"How did I
know that would be the first thing you'd say? Don't be. You needed
it."

"I'd tell you
everything if I could," Jesse said, voice low. "Only I can't,
there's some things I just can't say..."

"It's okay.
I'm here if you ever need me, but take it easy on yourself, would
you? Old pain that goes that deep takes time."

"I think I'm
about to fall asleep." He pulled away.

"I'm not
surprised."

Jess got up,
swayed briefly, then caught himself. He paused by the door. "Hey. I
know Gisela's mad at Shaine for how he acts with me, and I bet she
told the rest of you he treats me really badly or something. Leave
him alone. I know him too well for it to hurt. If he didn't care
I'd be dead a million times, and lots of those times he would've
been safer staying out of it."

Kevin thought
of Shaine standing alone between an unconscious Jesse and an angry
demon-summoning elvenmage. "I hear you. Sleep well, Jess."

41

The sunset
ahead of them was gloriously colourful. Aindry watched it with a
lingering sadness that it was only she and Jaisan to appreciate
it.

There were no
cars on this road, so little known, to disturb the peace of the
moment. They could simply walk quietly, each lost in their own
thoughts, Jaisan toying with his favourite amethyst.

Ahead, she saw
orange lights blinking.

"Jais?
Look."

He pulled
himself out of his daydreams to obey. "Looks like a car."

"That's what I
thought, too. It has the hazard lights on." A number of times,
she'd picked up extra cash by being in the right place at the right
time when someone was stranded by car troubles.

Both quickened
their strides to a walk that was just shy of a lupine trot.

It was a
mini-van, in fact. A blonde woman in a stylish skirt and blouse was
busy with two children, one about twelve and one a few years
younger; she didn't notice their approach at first.

Aindry called
a greeting; the woman spun around, panic flashing across her face
briefly, then relaxing into wariness.

"Not a good
road to be stranded on," Jaisan observed.

Aindry gave
him a dark look, then smiled at the woman. "Anything we can help
with?"

The woman
hesitated, then shrugged and said, "My car just up and died on
me."

"Can I take a
look? It might be just something simple."

Another shrug,
this one followed by a helpless smile. "Please. I unfortunately
know nothing about how cars work."

"Do you have a
flashlight?" Her night-sight was good, but not quite
that
good, and even if it were she wasn't about to give it away.

"In the glove
box." The younger child, Aindry thought it was a girl, tugged at
the woman's hand, sniffling, and the woman made a gesture Aindry
interpreted as, "Get it yourself."

She found it,
in the cleanest glove box she'd ever laid eyes on, and swept it
over the dashboard. Still half a tank... she wasn't out of gas, at
least.

It took only
moments of looking under the hood to find the problem.

"I can fix
this pretty easy," she called to the woman. "The wires to the
distributor cap are loose, that's all. Jais? Can you grab my
backpack?" There were a few tools she kept in it for such purposes,
stolen from various hardware stores.

He brought it
to her, but leaned close and murmured, "Something doesn't smell
right."

"What do you
mean?" She sniffed, found only the strong familiar scent of oil and
metal and gas. Jaisan had been edgy to the point of paranoia
lately, constantly tense; was he going to start jumping at shadows
now?

"Them, I mean.
Something's not right. I can't get close enough to really smell
them. But I can't find any scents on the car, either."

Come to think
of it, he was right: even inside the car, she'd noticed no
particular scent. Maybe this time it wasn't just nerves.

"I think we
should get out of here," Jaisan whispered urgently.

Aindry
hesitated. She didn't like the idea of abandoning a woman and two
children over paranoia, but in order to survive the increasingly
frequent and tricky demon attacks, they had to suspect everything
and everyone.

"Hey, lady?"
she called. "Could you come here? I need someone to hold the
flashlight."

The woman
started towards them, then the older child burst into tears, and
she had to turn back. "I'm sorry," she said apologetically.
"They're just so frightened..."

"Let's
go
, Aindry!" Even at low volume, Jaisan sounded really
alarmed.

Aindry nodded,
and retied the knot she'd just managed to get undone on her
backpack. Warily, they retreated away from the car and the woman
and the two children.

"Where are you
going?" the woman said. "Is it fixed already?"

"No," Aindry
said. "I was wrong. I can't do it. I'll call a tow truck when we
find a phone."

"At least let
me thank you for that much. I don't have a lot of money with me,
but..."

Aindry shook
her head. "No thanks. It's no problem. Really."

The woman
strode forward, her children at her heels, with much more speed and
force than either wolf expected. "Oh, I couldn't
think
of
letting you get away without expressing my gratitude." There was
something grim in her voice now.

"Jais,
change," Aindry murmured, making sure she was between the strange
trio and her brother. She heard his pack fall, heard him start to
strip quickly.

"Oh no you
don't." The woman reached forward; Aindry grabbed her wrist before
she could touch Jaisan, suddenly aware of the long stylish nails
that gleamed blood-red and looked wet.

The woman tore
away and growled, her form rippling and changing.

A creature
that bore a superficial resemblance to a horse, save the clawed
feet and tarnished-gold scales, reared above her and screamed a
challenge, showing carnivore's teeth that did not belong in an
herbivore's mouth.

Aindry held
her ground, determined to keep it off Jaisan long enough for him to
shapechange. She kicked off her boots, let her pack slide down her
arm to her hand, and shrugged her jacket off her shoulders, without
ever looking away.

The horse-like
creature dropped to all fours, and snaked its head towards her,
mouth open to grab her.

Aindry swung
her pack at its head, and heard a rather satisfyingly meaty thunk
as the tools inside connected and slammed the monstrous head
violently aside, drawing a grunt from it and leaving it visibly
dazed.

Jaisan darted
forward from behind her, ears back flat and teeth bared, to crouch
in front of her and return the favour. He snapped at the demon's
neck, and it jerked back reflexively. Aindry abandoned her pack and
peeled off her clothes as fast as she ever had in her life, and
willed herself wolf, while Jaisan held off not only the demon-horse
but two smaller demon-ponies as well.

Aindry
launched herself directly at one of the smaller ones as it reared.
It toppled over backwards, and by the time they hit the ground
Aindry had her teeth clamped tight around its throat. It squealed
and writhed madly, clawing at her. Jaisan raced over to help, and
got a mirror grip on its spine from behind.

In seconds, it
stopped struggling and melted away.

Aindry whipped
around to face the other two, and they halted just out of reach.
Jaisan shook himself, and turned to stand beside her.

Deadlock, each
pair waiting for the other to move first.

The smaller
demon broke it, by lunging at Jaisan. He evaded its attempted bite,
but his own attack glanced off the hard scales. Aindry gathered
herself, ready to go for its open side if Jaisan could just get it
to turn a little more...

The other
demon raked its claws down her side while she was distracted. She
yelped, and had to leave Jaisan to his own fight and concentrate on
her own.

Stupid,
Aindry, very stupid. You are not doing well today. Get with it
before you get both of you killed!

She and the
demon-horse circled one another, never looking away. It darted
towards her again, that deceptively long neck extended, and teeth
penetrated fur and skin on her left shoulder, shallowly, scarcely
damaging the muscle beneath at all.

Inspiration
struck: she yelped in more pain than she really felt, and stumbled;
when she caught her balance, she kept her left forefoot tucked up
under her body. It would hold her weight still, but the demon
didn't need to know that.

Clever though
it was, the demon fell for it. She retreated, her tail between her
hind legs, snarling defiantly.

You think you
can drink this wolf's wild blood, do you? You're about to learn
otherwise!

The demon
feinted to her right, then attacked from the left.

She evaded it,
made a point of staggering as she came down on her left foreleg,
and the claws missed her with no room to spare.

With a
high-pitched growl that made her wince in discomfort, it reared,
the obvious intent to come down on top of her.

Aindry waited,
praying to Cassandra and the Moonwolf.

At the last
instant, she writhed her body out of the way of the descending
forefeet, and twisted upwards to clamp her jaws on its throat. The
scales were finer there but still tough, she couldn't puncture them
but pressure alone should suffice if she could hold it long enough.
She bit down harder, grimly resisting all its attempts to fling her
off. The forefeet tore savagely at her, and she felt claws score
more than once, but if she let go she'd be in worse trouble. She
put all her strength into holding on.

Slowly, the
demon weakened, and finally went limp.

She didn't let
go even then; one of the first demons she'd ever fought had
pretended to be dead, and she'd barely escaped alive.

Sure enough,
after it laid quite still long enough that it realized she wasn't
convinced, it began to thrash again.

Jaisan limped
heavily over, favouring his right foreleg for real; as with the
first, she held it and he crunched its spine.

It melted away
into nothing.

Aindry shifted
to human, checking her wounds. Only one shallow bite, mostly
claw-marks, and since the faint cold fire she could feel was
centred around the bite on her shoulder, she suspected only the
teeth had poison.

Jaisan also
changed, on command, and held still to be inspected. He,
unfortunately, had a much worse bite on his right forearm, but
otherwise like hers they were all claw-wounds, and none were
serious.

"Get dressed,"
Aindry said. "Once we reach a gas station or something we'll get
cleaned up. Right now, since we can both walk, let's get out of
here." Two demon attacks ago, or maybe three, they'd had a narrow
escape when another demon appeared on the battleground just when
they thought they were safe. Better to get away from here.