Skin of the Wolf (26 page)

W
ith great care, Edward stacked the wood to build the fire. Once they’d chosen the location for the Ceremony—a level stretch of lawn between the house and the trees—he and Abornazine ferried firewood from a storage room.

“Stack it up high as you want, boys,” Lane said. “I have no use for it. Haven’t had a fire since I had the fire, you know what I mean?”

Hilda’s disapproval of the undertaking was obvious but Lane squelched her objections. “Come on, Hilda, where’s your sense of adventure? How can you resist this? This quack’s offering to turn a woman into a deer right under our noses!”

“Not a deer, necessarily,” Abornazine corrected him. “I can’t know until she shows herself.”

Edward wondered why Abornazine wasted his breath in discussion. If Katherine Cochran Shifted, Lane would have to believe. If not, he’d assume Abornazine was a fraud and no words would convince him otherwise.

“But,” Lane went on to the scowling Hilda, “what’s really going to happen is, Peter will dance and drum and make a fool of himself and fall flat on his ass! With my mask and his jingle-bell silver and his
lunatic friends here. Won’t that be tasty? I can’t wait! The real question is, what the hell do I do with the Ohtahyohnee once this farce is over? I have half a mind to hold on to it and see how high the bidding goes on Ted Morse’s little masterpiece. Let those morons spend their millions on a fake. I’ll say this one is a replica and I’ll sit with it every day until I die, and when I do, I’ll leave it to the Met because Katherine’s the one who found it. Of course, she’ll have to explain why the Met already has a phony one in the collection, but that’ll be her problem, won’t it? Where the hell did she go, anyway? Come on, people, what’s taking so long?”

Edward, striding past Lane with an armload of logs, recognized this chatter for what it was: a white man’s inability to bear an uncomfortable silence. Though he himself had never been sure which came first: perhaps that desperate need for talk was what made silences uncomfortable for them. The idea that moments not filled with talk were therefore silent was also an error. When the flow of words paused Edward heard footsteps, his own and Hilda’s. From the bare-walled living room he could make out the measured in and out of Katherine Cochran’s breathing as she prepared herself according to Abornazine’s instructions. Soft thumping came from another part of the house as Abornazine adjusted the heads on the drum, tried them, pulled their deerskin cords tighter. And on a night like this, the wind! The trees circling the mound of logs leaned and reached, now this way, now that, like people at a dance. The wind gave them voice, and they sang and howled, keened and whispered. Broken branches cracked, torn twigs whipped along the brown grass and scratched the sunroom windows. Lane’s blindness, his helplessness to be part of the preparations, Edward thought, contributed to his impatience. But a blind man filling silences with meaningless words, when so much more was available to his ears
than to most people’s—
the white world,
Edward thought, pulling open the door and stepping once again into the wind and the dark,
the white world, I could never live there
.

He arranged his logs and stood back, felt the wind push on him as though it were a friend inviting him to leave his chores and wrestle. The pile was complete. The low outer barrier around the fire site was laid, also. The fire would kindle and burn hot, just long enough for the Ceremony to be held. If Abornazine sang well and Katherine Cochran truly had the Power, she would Shift before the flames died down. About Abornazine, Edward had no doubts. The mask and the presence of a woman who claimed not just hope but experience, no matter how incomplete, had ignited his spirit as never before. Edward saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Abornazine would do the Ceremony as well as he ever had. If the fire faded and no Shift had occurred, the thing Katherine Cochran so desperately hungered for—the thing he and Abornazine wanted so badly, also—would not happen.

If that was the outcome, so be it. They’d take the Ohtahyohnee
with them and continue their work.

Once the Ceremony started he himself would keep a distance from it, not looking directly at the fire or the dance, far enough that the howling of the wind would interfere with the drumming and the chant. And the mask, especially the mask. He’d had to struggle to control the sensations roiling within him at his first sight of the Ohtahyohnee, and that was within walls, among unbelievers, lit by electric lights. Under the moon, at a fire, with the chanting, to see the mask as it was intended to be used—no, the prohibition on the presence of an awakened Shifter at a Ceremony was ancient and wise. If the need arose for him to Shift he would do it, but he would control the time and place.

A rectangle of light sliced onto the lawn as the back door opened. Bradford Lane, swathed in a thick down coat and a giant scarf, lifted his feet over frozen tufts of grass. Beside him, holding his arm in a vise grip, Hilda radiated disapproval into the night. Her disgusted scowl made Edward wonder if she should be barred from the circle. It, plus Lane’s cackling cynicism, created a sizzle of ill will like a second, maleficent fire. But no. The strength he felt in Abornazine tonight, the power of the Ohtahyohnee—what was mistrust born of ignorance against them?

Hilda went back in and returned with two folding chairs, for herself and Lane. They sat; then the door opened again and Katherine Cochran emerged. Her feet were bare, her face hard and set. She hugged a thick blanket around her; under that, Edward knew, she was naked, but if the cold reached her she didn’t show it. Abornazine came out last, carrying drum and mask. At the sight of the Ohtahyohnee a flash of fear, of excitement, of yearning, raced up Edward’s spine. Katherine Cochran stepped into the circle and knelt in the place Abornazine showed her. The wind picked up in sharp gusts, as though impatient, now, with any delay.

Edward stepped into the circle, also. He looked from his friend to the kneeling woman. Then he turned his back to them. He raised his arms and sang a prayer to the wind, to the moon, and last, to the fire that was to come. Finished, he knelt and put match to tinder. A gust made the flame shiver but he’d laid the wood so that the wind wouldn’t blow out the spark, but make it roar to life. He waited, not long; soon the center began to glow and fingers of fire cast conflicting shadows across the frozen earth. Edward stepped back, hearing the crackle, watching the dancing light. He met Abornazine’s eyes one more time, and the light was in them, too. Edward walked past
Abornazine, past Katherine Cochran, over the barrier, out of the circle and away from the growing fire. He didn’t stop to watch Abornazine don the mask. Behind him the voice of the drum started to rise, and soon, over it, came Abornazine’s steady, insistent chanting, echoing through the Ohtahyohnee
.
The Ceremony had begun.

M
ichael hunched into his coat, staying in shadow on the curving Riverdale street. Blocks away he’d paid off the cab that had brought him here from Fordham. Better to approach on foot, taking stock.

Riding across the Bronx, many things had weighed on his mind. He had no doubt the priest he’d found lifeless in the chapel was Father Maxwell; the cross and moon on the priest’s gold ring told him that. He had no doubt, as he knelt beside the body, that the man had only been dead a short time; if Michael had moved faster he might have saved him. And he had no doubt the open box on the pew nearby had once contained a mask. The true Ohtahyohnee? How, and why? And where was it now?

And was the inert form of Father Maxwell, with its staring, frightened eyes, another disaster to lay at the feet of his brother?

He wished he hadn’t called Spencer. It was weakness, his need for connection masquerading as a desire to keep Spencer from trouble. The same flaw had stopped him from leaving last night as he should have, as soon as he’d gotten Spencer home from the park and been sure he wasn’t going to die. It was a failing compounded of many parts: a man’s affection and a scientist’s curiosity, plus a
researcher’s hope to be able to continue his work and, he knew, a Shifter’s arrogance. It seemed complex but it amounted to a simple thing: greed. A white man’s disease. Michael had wanted to have everything, to give up nothing. All his life Michael had denied his brother’s charge, but it was true: living in the white world had changed him.

But now he’d do what he should have done already: he was going to disappear. If, first, he could confront Edward here, he would; if not, he’d go back north. He’d follow his brother and van Vliet until he found them and stopped them. After that, whatever path presented itself was the one he’d take.

He wondered suddenly if the real reason he’d called Spencer was to say goodbye.

A whisper in the dark: his name. Michael snapped his head up, sprang back ready. A shadow stepped from under a linden tree.

“Relax. It’s me.” Lou moved into the light.

“Jesus. Lou, I told you to leave.”

“Fat chance. The hell good’s a recon man doesn’t pass his intel on?”

“You already did that when you called.”

“I have more. Tried to call again but you didn’t answer.”

“I threw the phone away. I can take it from here, Lou.”

“Maybe, maybe not. There are five of them in the house.”

“Five?”

“Didn’t know that, did you? The old man, his housekeeper—or maybe she’s his bodyguard, she looks it—your brother, that white wannabe he hangs out with, and a lady who just came.”

“A lady?”

“Short white hair, scratched-up face. In a hurry. Carrying something heavy in a deerskin sack.”

“How big?”

“Big. Like this.” Lou spread his hands.

“Hell.” A shift in the wind brought the pulse of drumming. Michael listened: a chant began. Ice raced up his spine. “Oh, my God.”

Lou cocked his head; he’d heard it, too. “What?”

“Nothing. Lou, I’m asking you, leave. It’s my problem.”

“You have more problems. Two cops in an unmarked car, over there. Eyes on the same house.”

Michael followed the direction of Lou’s nod. “Dammit.”

Lou held up night vision binoculars. “I’ve been watching them. They must’ve seen Eddie go in but they haven’t reacted.”

“I don’t think they’re looking for him.”

“Then who?”

“Me.”

“You? Doc Bonnard, on the wrong side of the law? Give me a minute, let me call Pete. He’ll laugh his head off.”

“It’s a misunderstanding.”

“I think I heard that inside.”

“But it would take time to unravel it and I don’t have time.”

“Guys on the inside had nothing but time, never got theirs unraveled. Seriously, Doc, you in some kind of trouble?”

“Go home, Lou.” Michael started forward.

Lou grabbed his arm. “Not that way, for God’s sake. At least make them work for it. Come on, I can get us down to the house and they’ll never know we were here. Can city Indians climb a fence or you gonna need a boost?”

Michael stopped but didn’t answer.

“Doc, what’s it about? What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“I think I know, though. Ivy’s dream.”

“What?”

“I think this is what she meant and I think you need help, whatever it is you’re supposed to do.”

“Lou—” Then the words of the river came back:
Accept the hand that’s offered.

What if he sees?

Then he was meant to see.

Michael looked at Lou’s angled eyes, evidence of the blood of two continents carried in him, and his cocky grin, evidence of who he was in himself. “All right,” he said. “You hear the drumming? What they’re doing—it needs to be stopped. Disrupted. If they have a wooden mask, take it away from them if you can, but don’t damage it. Leave Edward to me. Do not go up against him.”

“Eddie? Why would I? Ivy said to help him.”

“Don’t go near him. You get me?”

Lou raised his eyebrows, but just said, “Yessir.” He turned. Michael grabbed his arm.

“Lou? Whatever you see, it’s real, you’re not losing your mind. But you can’t, ever, talk about it.”

Lou grinned again and took off, leading the way.

J
ust those three,” the uniform in the unmarked sedan told Charlotte, as she leaned in his window. She read his nameplate: Petersen. “The two men, then the woman.”

“Describe them.”

“The men, they had some Indian thing going on. Both of them with long hair in braids. The young guy was big, wearing a leather jacket. The older guy was smaller. He had on some fringed thing that looked like what I had when I was a kid. I wanted to be a cowboy.” He laughed and nudged his partner but Charlotte’s look stopped him and he swallowed and went on, “The woman, short hair, white or blond, in a helluva hurry.”

“And the thing the woman was carrying?”

“Looked heavy,” said the driver, a chubby guy named Klein. “Wrapped in something. About this big.” He spread his arms wide.

“Okay. Your captain says you’re our backup. Come on.”

“On foot?” Petersen made that sound like an idea he’d never heard before.

“I don’t want them to see us.”

“They’ve got a locked gate. How’re you planning on getting in?”

She scorched him with a look. “How’re you? Floor it and crash through?”

“That’s not what I—” He stopped when Framingham shook his head. Grumbling, the two uniforms climbed out of the car.

“And shut up,” Charlotte said.

Half a block closer, she could hear drumming. The wind brought chanting, too, and the smell of burning wood. Big houses like the ones around here, a lot of them would have fireplaces; but that’s not what it was and she knew it. Another half block and she could look straight through an iron picket fence to a plant-filled glass extension on the side of the house. Beyond its foggy windows, on the lawn in the back, a fire blazed. A few yards from the fence she stopped. If the gate had a security camera she didn’t want it to find them. She edged around the fence to where she could see the fire. Two people sat in chairs; a blanket-wrapped figure knelt; and someone in a wolf mask sang and beat on a drum. Tahkwehso?

“Holy crap,” said Framingham.

“You shut up, too. Can you climb this?”

“I—”

“You,” Charlotte said to Petersen. “Come boost him over. You two, can you climb it? Oh, shit, forget it. Matt, Petersen, come with me. When we get inside, Matt, you come back around here and open the gate.” She took off at a run to the north side of the house, where they’d be hidden from the glass room and the fire.