Hair of Gold: Just Right (Urban Fairytales Book 6) (2 page)

The others straightened a little. I chuckled. They were like a bunch of kids. They enjoyed me reading them the journals that the Grimm Brothers had accidentally left behind the last time we saw them.

They were the stories of the Avatars of days gone past in their own words. They were always so fascinating, and all had tidbits of information that we have been able to use in our fight against the Trickster. I glanced at Raz and Eve fondly. They were also what had given us two more family members.

I sighed in mock resignation and pulled out the thick leather satchel that I sort of view as mine now, and I thumbed through the leather-bound journals as I sat on the bed, Ella-Marie behind me, running her fingers through my hair and acting as my pillow. I looked up at Rapunzel then back at Ella, “Goldilocks perhaps?”

Raz shut off my cell and turned to me, and the others found comfortable places to sit and gave me their full attention in the overcrowded room.

I pulled out the ancient book and opened the creaking leather cover to the parchment pages bound into it. Faded, rusted brown ink colored the pages in an elegant loopy script. It was in old English like the brothers Grimm insisted all of the Avatars use, but I had lots of experience reading that now and substituting the proper words.

I looked around the silent room then back down at the book, grinning, and started the way I always did, being surrounded by all of these fairytale princesses like I was, “Once upon a time...”

Please forgive me as English is not my first language, it is more difficult for me to relay my story than in my native Slavic tongue of Russian. Those fucking Scales were adamant that I write down my story in this journal so that other protectors in the future could learn from my quest in Europe.

My name is Katiana Inanov, formerly Katiana Tvardovsky and I may ramble a bit as I have used my amulet too often in my hunt for the dark sorcerer Baird. I fear that soon I will have to pay the toll that the Scales have warned me about.

I have tracked Baird through the past years, and he has a penchant for slipping out of my grasp like a fog in the morning light. But now, here in London, I may finally lay to rest my sworn vengeance on the man for what he did to the three men who were my protectors when I was but a little girl... my brothers.

I get ahead of myself. I should first tell you of how I came to be the wielder of the Kodiak Amulet. It began when my family was immigrating from Russia to Romania, near the Ottoman Empire in the early years of the Lycan Contagion which terrorized the world, setting werewolves upon the people every full moon.

As a small girl, I had never known a time before the wolves, I had just assumed that was how the world had always been. Mankind hiding out in stone cellars, praying each full moon that it would not be the night that wolves came for them.

When I was seven, father heard of the communities throughout the world who were starting to erect walls of silver ore around their cities, to keep the wolves at bay so that the cities would need not fear a reaping by the wolves.

We had packed all of our earthly belongings onto our hay cart, pulled by our old chestnut nag and headed southwest. It would be a long two-month journey to Bucuresti.

Father would sing as we traveled and it always brought such a smile to mother's face that I just knew that was what love was. It was such a happy time. Father traded his skills in woodcraft, repairing wagons and shaving spokes for wagon wheels along the way for food, and lodging. Mother would trade her needlepoint at the various markets.

It was my job to make sure our swayback mare was tended whenever we stopped. I did so with great enthusiasm. I was tiny and did what I could, but Father told me that I did him proud. That I was his Volosy iz Zolota, his Goldilocks, because of my wavy golden hair which looked so much like mothers.

I wish I could go back to those times, to live when life was so full of wonder and happiness. A life before the wolves had found us and a time before Baird stole the last of my hope.

We had reached the lands near the border of Romania by the second full moon of our journey. We were just a ten miles outside of Chernivtsi when our horse split a hoof on a stone along the trail. She had been lamed, and it was almost three hours before sunset. We had planned on weathering the time of the werewolves in the town.

Mother said carefully, “Peter, the Wolf Moon approaches.”

Even as a child I could tell she was keeping panic from her voice so she didn't scare me. But I knew things had to be bad the way father kept looking to the forest and clenching his huge fists.

He mumbled, “Da, Adelina.” He took a moment to think then he nodded once and grabbed a couple sacks of things and his giant woodsman's axe from the cart. He unhitched the nag and sent her limping off into the forest.

He smiled down at me, but his smile didn't quell the worry in his eyes. He said in a cheerful voice, “Come my little Volosy iz Zolota, we must make haste if we are to find shelter before the Wolf Moon.” He put one of his huge hands down and took my hand, then we all started walking quickly down the trail.

I kept looking back at all of our things we had left behind, including my dolls and blankets. I didn't understand, but I knew that mother and father were trying hard not to scare me, but that just made the anxiety and fear start creeping in faster.

Mother asked quietly, “Perhaps we can find a cottage along the way who might take us in?”

Father nodded. “Da.”

We went until I couldn't walk anymore. The sun was low on the horizon when we crested a rise in a clearing and could see Chernivtsi below. People were busy shuttering their doors and windows and bringing all the livestock into the buildings with them so they would be safe while the wolves roamed.

Father looked worriedly at the sun then down at me. He gave me a warm, reassuring smile as he handed the sacks to mother then lifted me onto his shoulders and we started down the hill into the forest at a quicker pace, racing the sun.

At first, it was fun, riding up so high, I thought I could touch the sky if I just raised my hands a little higher. That is until I realized that we were not going to make it to a proper cellar before the sun extinguished itself over the horizon.

I could hear mother making distressed sounds beside us as she looked at the last rays of the sun vanish behind the mountains, leaving us in twilight and the threat of the full moon as it seemed to fill the entire sky in my terrified sight. I started crying.

Father and mother were running then.

Mother shouted, “There!”

I looked to where she was pointing. An old cottage was perhaps two hundred yards down the path. I bit my cheek to stop from crying. I knew that sound would attract the werewolves. Every child is taught that.

We had gone perhaps fifty yards when the first of the howls pierced the night. My blood went cold as my parents froze in their tracks and looked back toward the howl. It was close.

Then it was answered by another, then another, and another. They were all around us! A large silver wolf came out of the shadows near the cottage, sniffing the air. We all stopped breathing, and it snapped its head toward us, and it snarled and howled as it charged toward us.

I had never known terror like that before. I believe it was the first time in my young life that I thought I would die. That thought chilled me to the bone, I didn't want to die, and I felt so helpless to stop it, I just knew it was my end.

I looked desperately at father, surely he would know what to do. He was so big and strong and unwavering. What I saw on his face made my tears start flowing more rapidly. Fear. Not fear for himself as he looked at mother and me, but fear that he had failed us and was going to lose us.

His brow furrowed into a look of determination and anger as he made a decision, as answering howls and growls closed in on us faster than any animals should have been able to move.

That look gave me hope. He Looked at a mighty oak tree and pointed as he handed me off to mother. “There! Adelina, Katiana, get into that tree, climb as high as you possibly can, both of you!”

Mother pulled me to the tree as I sobbed and father unslung his great axe from his back and backed slowly to the tree, keeping himself between the charging were-beast and us.

I just knew he would protect us. That gave me strength to climb when mother lifted me to the first branch. She prompted, “Get to the highest branches baby girl. They can climb, but they are heavy, and the higher branches cannot support them.”

I didn't even see it, it happened so fast, one moment mother was there, the next there was a blur of motion and a snapping, gurgling sound as something huge pulled her away from my grasping hands. I screamed and screamed.

Father bellowed, “Adelina! Nyet!”

He started to turn toward the second beast dragging her limp body into the trees, but the silver wolf had reached us at inhuman speed and father had to turn back to it as he yelled to me, “Climb, Katiana!” His first mighty sweep of his axe came down on the skull of the charging beast.

Even as a child we are taught that without silver, it is extremely difficult to kill a werewolf, they can heal from almost any injury, it takes catastrophic amount of damage to stop them from recovering even from an axe blade to the skull like that. The only sure way to dispatch them is with silver, fire, or... father brought his blade down in another vicious blow that separated the wolf's head from its shoulders... decapitation.

I smiled through my tears as I started to climb again with renewed energy. Father would protect me, there wasn't another man as big and strong as him. The forest seemed to go still, and I froze, pushing aside my terror and shock over the loss of my mother and listened. There were no more animal sounds, no birds, not even the crickets that filled the nights with music. The howling had stopped.

I listened more carefully, and I heard from all around us something coming closer on almost soundless feet. Then all at once, no less than ten large wolves broke out onto the path and the snapping, growling and snarling again filled the night with sound.

I screamed and started scrambling higher into the tree, the branches swaying in the wind. Father seemed to hesitate then tightened his grip on the handle of his axe and he bellowed out a challenge, turning all of the wolf eyes on him, and he charged into their masses, bloodied blade smashing into them, knocking them aside, burying deep into their flesh.

I saw another wolf head, freed of its body, tumble from the fray. For an infinitesimal instant, I had hope. But then that was pulled away from me as they all dove onto father, jaws snapping, teeth shredding. I barely heard father's last words as he stared up at me, a hand reached out toward me as the flood of wolves overwhelmed him, “Katiana... climb.”

I screamed out, “Father! Nyet! Nyet!” But I did as I was told and I climbed as high as I could into the tree holding on to the highest swaying branch for dear life. I was in shock. In less than a minute, my life had changed, turned into some dark nightmare as both of my parents had been taken from me.

Wolf eyes snapped up to the sound of my sobbing and unlike normal wolves, who cannot climb, the werewolves extended their long recurved claws, and a couple of them started making their way up the tree toward me. I heard a little girl screaming. I wished she would stop screaming, or the wolves would get me. I didn't understand at the time that it was me screaming.

A mangy red furred wolf was no more than six or seven feet up the trunk of the tree when the entire valley was filled with a roar so deep and rumbling that it shook the very ground around us. From the darkness of the trees and a bear like no other came charging toward the tree.

Even the wolves backed off a bit, circling, seeing this monster bear who had such a roar it could be heard for miles, as a threat. Werewolves are just animals like any other animal, driven by the basic needs.

All animals are wired for fight or flight, it is just that werewolves are usually the biggest and baddest animal out there, so they are usually stuck in fight mode. It is rare they come across something even bigger and badder than themselves like this, so they hesitated. They kill and eat just about anything, generally going after the weakest first. I had hope that this bear would chase them off to hunt for easier game than a little girl with no meat on her bones.

The bear slammed one of its huge paws across the nearest wolf. I heard snapping and bones crushing under the impact as the wolf yelped as it tumbled into two others, sending them all sprawling. The bear stood on its hind legs. It was a Kodiak! This far south? But it was unlike any Kodiak I had ever seen, it had to have been ten or eleven feet tall. It bellowed again, and some of the wolves skittered back a few feet showing their fangs, curling their lips back in snarls, their tails tucked down.

The bear tore the red furred wolf from the tree and crushed its skull into the ground with its great paw. It made a sickening crunching sound that still haunts my dreams. The bear bellowed in triumph and challenge toward the second climbing wolf that looked prepared to launch itself at the bear. It did just that as it snarled, leading with its razor sharp claws.

It made a glurking sound as a second Kodiak which came out of nowhere stood and intercepted the wolf in mid-leap, bringing its own jaws down on the wolf's midsection, crushing its ribcage. I was breathing so fast I was getting light headed as I watched the carnage below.

The other wolves had had time to decide against the urge to flee, they were enraged now, seeing their pack members being killed true dead by trauma not even their werewolf healing could recover from fast enough.

They started circling, looking for an opening. The two bears kept their backs to my tree. I blinked in realization as I slowed my breathing. They were protecting me.

Just when the wolves started tensing in preparation of leaping forward at my unlikely defenders, another great bellow sounded from just behind them, as a third bear, larger than the first two came slamming down on the apparent leader, driving its skull into the hard packed ground, crushing it like an eggshell.

The other two bears added their challenge to the fierce roar of the newcomer, and they charged at the other wolves. Apparently, they had had enough, because the wolves retreated, knowing they had been bested. I listened as they crashed through the underbrush to escape the fate of their packmates, growling the whole way.

The biggest bear stood on its hind legs and huffed in satisfaction as it watched them go. It was an odd, almost human gesture. The bears looked at the bodies of the dead wolves that were now returning to human form. One looked up the tree to me then started dragging the bodies off into the underbrush.