Moonlight Medicine: Inoculation (19 page)

30

As Evelyn got closer she spotted movement just inside the back entrance to the woodlot that she hoped was Kim and David. The light was fading rapidly and Evelyn was glad that there wasn’t any traffic along the next road, because she didn’t slow her pace as she crossed. Pain started to spread from her head and stomach along her limbs, and Evelyn grunted and increased her speed. Her hiking boots gripped the soft dirt as she reached the gate where Kim was doubled over and David was bending down to talk softly in her ear. Evelyn knew that she had waited too long, and was disappointed that David hadn’t already left and taken Kim deeper into the woods.

“Go! Go!”

David gripped Kim’s arm and tried to get her to move, but she only stumbled along a few feet then dropped to her knees. Evelyn caught up to them and clamped onto Kim’s other arm. Together they dragged the other woman onto her feet and got her walking forward. David moved along without difficulty, but Evelyn had to focus all of her efforts on keeping both of her feet moving as they hastened along. Staggering, but mostly dead weight, Kim’s breaths were loud and ragged with interspersed cries of pain. Evelyn felt for the girl, but they had to get further away from the gate. Without warning, Kim thrashed her arm out of Evelyn’s hold and dropped to the ground, pulling David down with her. Evelyn lurched forward another few steps and then skidded to a stop on the muddy ground and turned around. Kim was on the ground in the fetal position, heaving and shrieking, and David was struggling to regain his feet. Evelyn ran back over and attempted to help David lift Kim up.

“Can you carry her?”

David didn’t speak, but gave one sharp nod. He let go of Kim’s arm and instead scooped his arms underneath her from behind as Evelyn helped to lift her up from the front. Letting out a groan of effort, David and Evelyn hoisted Kim into David’s arms. David shifted her weight and then started forward again at a labored jog. Evelyn led the way, but she was barely able to keep her eyes open. Every step flashed pain through her body and caused a bright white light behind her eyes to momentarily blind her. Behind her she could hear David’s strenuous breathing and Kim’s screams, and she was amazed that any Wolfkin had the discipline to hold off the change for an entire night. A slope loomed ahead and Evelyn angled herself to avoid it when a bolt of pain stabbed through her. She tumbled forwards and felt herself rolling down the hill as the world seemed to go dark and silent. The excruciating pain of the change was amplified by every bounce of her shifting body off the ground, small stump, or other obstacle. Evelyn couldn’t perceive anything but the agony, had no idea which way was up, and was no longer in control of her limbs. She didn’t even know whether or not she was screaming.

*

Evelyn woke to a rumble and a whine with something nudging her face. The dark of night had fully fallen but Evelyn’s Wolfkin eyes soon adjusted and she saw David’s dark brown wolf form hunched over her. She didn’t spot Kim, a light brown Wolfkin with blond highlights, so immediately she feared the worst and struggled to push herself onto her feet. The movement caused a myriad of tiny aches to flare all over her body and she let out a soft whine, and sat on the ground. It was then that she saw a highly agitated Kim dancing off to the side behind David, looking like she was hanging on by a thread and needed to run. Evelyn tentatively tried to stand again but the throbbing throughout her body began anew and she snorted and shook her head. David reached out to help her but she growled and he hesitated. Motioning at Kim with her head, Evelyn barked at him. David glanced at Kim and then back at Evelyn and whined again. Evelyn growled, this time lower and with more menace.

Taking the hint this time, David rose to pad over to Kim. He yipped at her and the two of them began running. David glanced back at Evelyn over his shoulder just once before they disappeared into the trees. Evelyn sagged when they were out of sight. Anger and frustration roiled in her chest, but she closed her eyes and breathed in the cool night air in an effort to control her emotions. In the air were the fading scents of David, earthy and musky, Kim, lighter and almost citrus, the green living trees and their new leaves, the deep rich chocolate of the muddy earth, the near herbal aroma of small mammals, the nutty tones of old logs and decaying plant matter, and many other nuanced odors. To her great relief, Evelyn didn’t detect any humans.

Opening her eyes, her internal turmoil at least muted, she tried once again to get to her feet. Ignoring her extreme discomfort, she was able to stand, but after three horrifically uncomfortable steps, she sat back down on the ground. Evelyn tried to assess why she was in so much pain. She was almost certain that no bones were broken, especially since she was able to stand and walk. The pain also wasn’t isolated to one specific area. Considering nerve damage or a slipped vertebral disc, Evelyn soon dismissed those ideas because again the symptoms just didn’t seem to fit. She huffed in confusion, but having the entire night to think about and diagnose her incapacitation, she began a personal physical evaluation. She started small and wiggled a finger. No pain or stiffness. Next she clenched her fist as best she could with elongated and clawed fingers. A little bit of pain radiated from her wrist. Flexing her wrist, the pain intensified and crept up her arm. Evelyn flexed, palpated, rotated, and hurt over the next hour while she came up with a theory for the confusing pain and stiffness.

Eventually Evelyn came up with an explanation that was bizarre yet plausible. She guessed that she had been in the process of changing into a Wolfkin when she toppled down the slope. Her malleable body may have been deformed by the multiple impacts her frame underwent as it bounced down the slope. The more she thought about it the more sense it made. She had never been in motion while transforming before, never attempted to transform in an enclosed space that would have put pressure on the bones and muscles as they restructured and could have caused distortion. Shuddering, Evelyn thought about the possibility that the Vulke had experimented with this mechanic at some point, to torture other Wolfkin or just to see what would happen. It also reminded Evelyn of when they first found Kim impaled by a large stick in the forest in Tennessee and had narrowly avoided her metamorphosis with the branch still through her abdomen. Evelyn’s scientific curiosity was piqued by the desire to know what would have happened had they not removed the stick, but at the same time she was utterly repulsed by the idea.

Trying again not to dwell on such horrific thoughts, she fidgeted and tried to find a more comfortable position, but as her mind shifted focus it settled on Clem and what he might be going through. At least she was outside and in control of herself and not trapped in a cage ripping apart a stuffed animal. Evelyn took in a deep breath and cleared her mind to steer her thoughts to a more pleasant subject. She wondered what David and Kim were getting up to, out running free in the woodlot, and imaged David helping Kim to hunt some small game. It was too late for there to be rabbits still about, but maybe a skunk or an opossum, which weren’t nearly as fast and fun to hunt. They might have gotten lucky and had some fun chasing a flying squirrel, but those were barely worth the bite of meat to actually eat. It was also possible that deer had managed to invade the woodlot, though the tall fence and narrow entrance gates tried to discourage the animals from making the area their permanent home.

Evelyn was getting restless, so she closed her eyes again and tried to reach her senses out into the night. An owl, possibly a great-horned, hooted close by. Feeling the gentle night breeze ruffling her fur, she opened her mouth and tasted the motes of soil and plant matter drifting on the wind. In the distance she heard a yip and a bark, probably Kim and David gallivanting through the trees. A soft whine escaped Evelyn’s throat as she felt the pangs of loneliness and jealously. Her frustration almost made her try to stand again, but then she considered the internal damage that it might do to try to move around in her misaligned form. A whine escaped her lips again, but then she growled an admonition for feeling sorry for herself. Evelyn rolled her eyes as she appreciated the fact that even as a Wolfkin, she still talked to herself aloud. Then she heard something that made her heart skip a beat. Not close, but close enough to definitely have come from within the woodlot, Evelyn heard voices.

“There! I heard it again. Did you hear it? What if there are coyotes in here?”

“Don’t be such a wuss, coyotes don’t attack humans anyway. I told you this place was creepy at night.”

“Why did we have to do this at night again?”

“That’s why it’s called a night cache, Becky. The coordinates only get you kind of close to the cache, then you have to shine your headlamp on reflectors that take you to the cache. It’s supercool!”

“Except ya know, for the having to sneak into Baker after hours, stumble around in the dark, and hope that you don’t break an ankle or wander through a nice patch of poison ivy.”

“You want some brie with that whine?”

“Shut up BJ.”

Crap
, thought Evelyn. The area was seventy-eight acres total, but that wasn’t as much space as you would think for two Wolfkin to run around. Evelyn considered trying to howl to warn David and Kim of the approaching couple, but she wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t backfire and call them to her, and Evelyn was closer to the people than David and Kim were liable to be. She could try to move and find them to warn them, but not only might she seriously injure herself in the process, but she might not be able to move fast enough to catch up with them and only draw attention to herself. If the man and woman spotted her, Evelyn wasn’t sure that she would be able to get away from them in her current state, and she couldn’t think of any outcome of that encounter that wasn’t bad. In the end, Evelyn dragged herself behind a log and covered her body with leaves and bark as best she could. She waited and listened, hoping that David or Kim’s sense of hearing or smell was much better than her own, that they would sense the pair long before feeble human eyes or Kim’s control issues would cause a problem.

31

Kim lashed out at the Wolfkin approaching her and sprang to run from him, but then she caught his scent and froze. That scent hit a familiar center of her brain and all thoughts of fleeing vanished. Suddenly drawn to him, a fog in her mind cleared away.
David
. Staring into his yellow eyes, he nodded to her and she nodded back enthusiastically. He turned and she followed him down a slope, loping easily along after him until a different scent invaded her nostrils. This one was also familiar, but evoked a fresh response. Her hackles raised, and when David knelt beside another Wolfkin, for an instant the rage blinded her. Kim struggled for control.
No, that’s Evelyn. Evelyn is my friend. She saved my life.
The wolf inside of Kim didn’t agree. It growled deep within her that Evelyn was a rival.

Memories of kissing David flashed through her mind, but she fought her emotions with logic. It was wrong. Evelyn and David still had feelings for each other.
But I’m only human, well mostly human anyway, and I can’t just turn off my emotions like a spigot
. She paced while David tended to Evelyn, who was hurt, and though it sickened Kim, part of her was glad.
If Evelyn is weak, David will see that I’m a better—No! I can’t think like that! What’s so great about David anyway?
Ignoring the forest enticing her with new sights, sounds, and smells and the adrenaline coursing through her body, Kim thought back to multiple other boyfriends that she’d had over the years, and pondered if it was really David’s bad boy past that hooked her. His checkered past made him just the kind of man Kim found herself attracted to, but he also had the added aspect of being a werewolf, which was more bad boy then she had known to be possible up until now.

Kim’s pulse raced.
That isn’t helping! Get a grip Kim, in two days, werewolves are going to try to rip your head off and you’re obsessing over a man you hardly know? Pathetic.
A low snarl ripped from her lips, but at that same moment Evelyn let out a yip as she tried to move, so David and Evelyn didn’t hear her. Huffing in deep breaths, calm eluded her as her feelings shifted from longing to self-loathing to a burgeoning fear as her thoughts drifted more to the upcoming battle. The Vulke thought nothing of shooting a police officer in the head or infecting small children with a deadly virus. Knowing the violence she felt herself capable of in Wolfkin form, images raced through her mind of what kind of brutality was probable on the battlefield, and the fear mixed with a darker feeling of wanting to be in the middle of it all, her claws red and her muzzle dripping…

Kim felt a grip on her arm and wrenched it away. Through a haze of crimson, David’s Wolfkin face appeared, his eyes focused on hers. The bloody pictures of war faded and her emotions calmed. He motioned to her and moved a few paces away from Evelyn. Kim blinked down at Evelyn but didn’t make eye contact, then shot off towards David. Minutes later, as she ran and the wind rippled through her fur, Kim had forgotten about Evelyn, why she wasn’t with them and why they’d left her. For a time she and David just sort of played tag and raced around the forest, with Kim winning most of the races. She’d been clandestinely doing leg strengthening exercises religiously, since she couldn’t properly exercise with her flank injury. Thinking about the wound in her side now, she couldn’t feel it at all, which made the exercise all the more invigorating.

After a good long run round and round and back and forth, David slowed and made exaggerated sniffing motions in the air with his muzzle. Kim mimicked him, taking in deep long breaths through her nose as she did. She was amazed at the incredibly rich bouquet of the forest, and struggled to pinpoint the specific scent that David might be referring to. Eventually she honed in on a scent that was very woody and almost sour. It was definitely the scent of an animal somewhere close, and Kim darted off in the direction she thought the scent was coming from. David barked at her, but she ignored him and continued to run. The smell of the animal all but filled her nostrils and she knew that she was getting close. Imagining biting into sweet meat, Kim’s mind clouded and she heard a low growl escape from her. Then suddenly she was on the ground and David was on top of her.