Skin of the Wolf (6 page)

A
h.” Spencer watched the group enter the room where he now sat comfortably on the sofa, dressed and shod, a snifter at his elbow. “Please, everyone, have a seat. Michael, Father Kelly, would either of you care for a brandy?”

Both the priest and Michael stopped and stared. Really, thought Spencer, Thomas Kelly, who’d been all but initiated as a Noantri—would have been, if he’d requested it—should have known better. Spencer supposed that understanding something was possible and seeing it happen were two different things, but the priest had seen Noantri healing on a smaller scale the day Spencer met him, and he had no business standing in the doorway with his mouth open.

Michael, on the other hand, had a right to his amazement.

Not that anyone who didn’t know him as well as Spencer had come to, and didn’t have, in addition, Spencer’s Noantri ability to sense changes in body temperature, adrenaline level, and heartbeat, would have been able to read Michael’s reaction. Michael’s people had a reputation for stoicism. To Spencer’s mind that was, like any stereotype, rooted in erroneous expectation: in this case, that the outward expression of emotion was identical across cultures.
However, it couldn’t be argued that Michael was doing an admirable job of keeping his face blank.

Thomas Kelly bestirred himself and sat, as invited. Livia also moved into the room, poured two more brandies, and took a seat on the sofa. Michael, though, stayed standing. He stared and finally shook his head. “Spencer. You look much better. I’m glad. But I have to go.”

“If you’re in pain, Livia is quite handy with things medical.”

“I’m fine.”

“I doubt that, but on the other hand, equally implausibly, I am. Michael, please, I’d like you to stay for a bit. I’m sure you’ll find the topic of discussion interesting.”

“No. I’m sorry, but—”

“It concerns that wolf.”

Michael’s eyes widened. Spencer was sure that even Thomas Kelly, with his Unchanged senses, could tell Michael’s surprise was feigned. “In the park? That was a dog. A husky, or some kind of—”

“It certainly was not. It was a wolf, you spoke to it in some ancient language—no doubt the words of your people—and what’s more, it understood you.” Michael didn’t react, so Spencer added, “Though it didn’t seem disposed to agree with your remarks. It snarled and snapped and returned its attention to the task of tearing off my head. At which point, Michael, you uttered some loud imprecation and became a wolf yourself. Now please, sit down.”

L
ivia studied Michael Bonnard, waiting for his reaction to Spencer’s words. If he chose to turn and walk out the door there would be nothing she or Spencer could do. Or would try to do.

The monumental implications of what Spencer had seen—that the Noantri and the Unchanged were perhaps not the only categories in the human typology—had long been whispered in both Noantri and Unchanged circles. But so had, among the Unchanged, the notions that the Noantri did not appear in mirrors and could fly. The Noantri found these false characterizations useful as diversions and as shields. Revelation of the truth had proved, over and over through the centuries, to be terrifyingly dangerous.

If Michael Bonnard had the power of what could only be called shapeshifting, he also had the right to reveal or conceal that power.

He didn’t leave. But he didn’t sit, even though from his drawn face and set jaw she suspected he really ought to. Nor did he agree with Spencer’s account. “You were delirious,” he said. “You’d lost a lot of blood. The dog—”

“Please, stop,” Spencer interrupted. “As you say, I had lost a lot
of blood, and with it much physical strength. I was not, however, in any way intellectually impaired. I am now well on my way to the complete restoration of my health, which will be fully accomplished, no doubt, by morning.” He pulled at the neck of his sweater to show his scars, now almost completely healed. “As has happened to me on other occasions of bodily harm. To one of which Father Kelly was a witness.”

Bonnard turned to Thomas. The priest was white as a sheet, brandy notwithstanding, but he managed to nod.

“Michael,” Spencer continued. “I saw you wrestle with the wolf. Two wolves, contending together. I also saw this: when the other ran off, you—wolf-you—started after it, but quickly returned, to stare down at me. At that point, to my eyes, you ever so briefly lost definition just as you had in your first transformation. Then you were back, Dr. Michael Bonnard, a man of whom I’ve grown quite fond, and you ministered to my wounds. Which you could not have failed to notice were already healing. I myself could not help noticing your valor in leading the wolf away from me as soon as it showed itself, nor the effort it cost you to overcome it. Not the least part of that effort was your clear desire to vanquish that wolf without hurting it, although for its part it appeared ready to kill both you and me. That wolf is the cause of some distress for you. I extend my sympathy, but more than that, Livia and I have . . . a number of unusual gifts, shall we say. The Laws of our people dictate that we not reveal ourselves thus, but we both believe this is a situation extraordinary enough that we are willing to contravene those Laws. If we may be allowed to put ourselves at your disposal? Whatever your troubles, you may find us surprisingly helpful.”

What surprised Livia was something she was sure only she
caught, though that had more to do with her long friendship with Spencer than with her Noantri senses: a tiny quaver in his voice. He had told her he was touched by Michael’s bravery and attentiveness and felt that a debt was owed. But this was something more.

Spencer was in love.

T
homas wondered if he himself, not Spencer George, was delusional. Was he really sitting in a New York town house listening to two European vampires accuse an Abenaki Indian of being a werewolf?

To be fair, it wasn’t phrased as an accusation, and only Spencer George had said it. Livia, though, didn’t look shocked, wasn’t suggesting gently to Spencer that he might want to go lie down. Her gaze stayed steady on Michael Bonnard, with a look on her face that Thomas could only read as guarded hope.

In Rome, having finally acknowledged the truth of the Noantri and what they were, Thomas had asked Livia about other peoples whose natures might be beyond what Thomas had understood, up until that day, as “human.” Her answer had been that if such others existed, the Noantri had no knowledge of them. Thomas had accepted that; contemplation of the Noantri nature itself was more than enough spiritual labor for a lifetime.

What had not occurred to him until this moment, seeing Livia’s face—and Spencer George’s, for that matter—was what the Noantri might feel, if such others were found to exist.

The Noantri were alone. For millennia, each individual had
been literally alone, unaware of others, forced into furtive and degraded lives by hungers they couldn’t control. With the signing of the Concordat they’d slowly begun to gather, to create a Community. The ability to live openly—their natures still hidden, but their lives assimilated into the world of those they referred to as “Unchanged”—was, Livia and others had impressed upon Thomas, an enormous relief and a joy to them. No Noantri lived isolated any longer, unless he wanted to.

Still, Thomas suddenly understood, the Community did. In spite of their wide geographical distribution, living in every corner of the earth, at roughly ten thousand, their numbers were small. The overwhelming majority of humans were of one nature; they were of a different one. The discovery, if such it were, of another—what to call it? variety of human?—would fill a void for them that Thomas could only begin to imagine.

It would, if it happened. But this could not be that. Michael Bonnard, standing before them in this room, could no more be a shapeshifter than Thomas himself. Spencer George, weak and delirious, had obviously dreamt what he’d seen in the park. Bonnard’s brooding dark gaze as he regarded Spencer, then turned to Livia and lastly, now, to Thomas, expressed concern for a man he cared about and a hope that his friends could help. Nothing else.

Secure in that thought, Thomas was stunned by the words Bonnard finally spoke.

“You should have died,” he said to Spencer. He looked around the room. “Now, you should all die.”

L
ivia saw Thomas grow pale when Michael Bonnard spoke but she heard no real threat in Bonnard’s dark tone, saw none in his stance. She threw Thomas a warning look. He met her eyes and stayed silent.

Spencer smiled. “Why, Michael. I rather thought you’d grown fond of me, too.”

Bonnard locked his gaze on Spencer. “You spoke of the laws of your people. In the tradition of my people, one who sees what you say you saw—the Shift—must die. The identities of Shifters, our stories tell us, must be protected at all costs.” No one moved, no one spoke. Slow-drifting headlights of a car out on the street swept the room, briefly illuminating dim corners, then vanished.

Bonnard grinned. “Luckily, you were hallucinating. I’m just a guy who chased off a dog. Nobody Shifted and nobody saw it. So everyone’s safe.”

“Michael,” Spencer said gently, “we can go around like this as many times as you like, or we can move on to more important matters. If the Shift is what you call it, then the Shift is what I saw. If on that account your tradition requires my death, however—and by extension, the deaths of my companions, now that they’ve heard me
speak of it—we have a conflict in which I’m afraid your tradition must be the one to step aside. While the death of Father Kelly is possible, it is not something that will be accomplished in this room without a good deal of opposition. The deaths of Livia and myself are flatly outside your capability. Michael, we do not die. I suppose your people have their own name for our kind. We call ourselves ‘Noantri.’ The English word is ‘vampire.’”

Closely, Livia watched Michael Bonnard receive this news. A brief flash in his dark eyes was the only visible evidence of astonishment, but Livia sensed the almost-undetectable tightening of his shoulders, his back. It was a victory of self-discipline that he remained still.

“You’re bleeding, Michael,” Spencer said. “Your wound was not as bad as mine, yet under that bandage your flesh remains torn. I’m almost completely whole. As a scientist you can’t be trying to deny that sort of evidence.”

“I grew up on the reservation. I’ve seen a good deal of healing that science can’t explain.”

“Not like this. I know it. Unless you had Noantri among you. Which, now I think of it, is of course possible.” Spencer leaned forward, tugged open the drawer in the coffee table, and removed the brown bottle. “This is what Livia fetched me from the cellar. It’s human blood. Sniff it, you’ll see.”

Thomas blanched and turned away. Bonnard took the bottle, looked at Spencer, and did as instructed.

“It’s blood,” Bonnard confirmed. “Whether it’s human, I can’t tell. All it proves is that
you
believe you’re a vampire. Or that you’re straight-out kinky.”

“In the weeks we’ve been together, have I done anything to make you think I might be ‘straight-out kinky’? Our condition,
Livia’s and mine, is the result of a micro-organism introduced into the body. The presence of Father Kelly notwithstanding, it has no inherent spiritual or mystical dimension. Come, you’re a scientist. Surely you’re willing to grant the possibility of phenomena outside your current field of vision?”

Bonnard didn’t answer.

“Michael,” said Spencer. “This is an historic event.” An imploring note crept into his voice. “Maybe not for you. Maybe you’ve met a dozen different strains of human, maybe your people have a rainbow of abilities the Noantri haven’t even dreamt of. But for us. For Livia and myself. Whatever your secrets, we shall keep them. Father Kelly is a priest, he can be counted on to keep secrets, too. Please, Michael. Acknowledge the truth of this stunning moment.”

“I might,” Bonnard said, “if it were true.”

Spencer gripped the arm of the sofa and blew out a frustrated breath. He turned to Livia, but she had no idea what to do, how to help.

Breaking the silence, Thomas Kelly spoke in a strained voice. “But it is true.”

All eyes turned to him.

Thomas spoke slowly. “I refused to believe it when I first found out,” he went on, his voice wavering but resolute. “I had to have it proved to me, and even then I tried to twist what I’d seen and been told to try to make it mean something else. I don’t know what your truth is, Dr. Bonnard. Whether Dr. George is right about what he saw in the park, or whether it means what he thinks it means. But what he’s saying about himself and Livia, I know that to be true.”

Bonnard kept his gaze on Thomas for a long moment. He shut his eyes and his lips moved, saying words too soft for Livia to hear. Then his eyes opened and looked at Spencer, at Livia, at Thomas.
Slowly, he nodded. He lowered himself into an armchair with the air of an exhausted swimmer finally reaching shore. In that moment Livia understood the effort the past hours had cost him.

“Michael?” Spencer said gently. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.”

Livia rose and brought him the brandy she’d poured earlier. He was ashen; sweat had broken out on his forehead. She said, “I wish you’d let me look at that shoulder. I think that wolf did you some damage.”

“Not as much as he wanted to.”

Livia slipped the jacket from Bonnard’s shoulders and began removing his bandage as Spencer asked, “That wolf—you know it, am I correct? You’ve encountered that same beast before?”

“I’ve known him all my life,” Bonnard said. “He’s my brother.”

T
homas felt less in a cloud than he had since arriving at Spencer’s home. Part of him wondered about that, given that he’d just heard a man identify a wolf as his brother. Maybe it was the brandy, two disorienting forces neutralizing each other. In case it was, he drank a bit more as Spencer said, “I see. A contentious sibling relationship?”

Michael Bonnard laughed. “You really are unflappable, aren’t you?”

“No,” said Spencer. “But I’ve seen a good deal. Nothing as momentous as this, in the scheme of things. Yet everyone’s life consists largely of personal concerns. History has seen many murderous sibling pairs. Did your brother come here to kill you?”

“I don’t know. If he did, I don’t know why.”

Livia, having cleaned the torn flesh on Bonnard’s shoulder, applied a fresh bandage. “That’ll do for now, but I think it should be stitched up.”

“No. I’ll be all right. I heal fast, too. I mean”—he gestured at Spencer—“nothing like that. That, by the way, is why I didn’t want to let you in, you and Father Kelly. Even in the park I could see something extraordinary was going on. I didn’t know what it was,
and until Spencer could tell me, my instinct was to keep everyone away. I’m sorry.”

“You were protecting my friend. I appreciate that.”

“I do, also,” said Spencer, with a smile.

Bonnard leaned forward again and addressed them all. “What you’ve told me—it doesn’t surprise me as much as you might think. Maybe not as much as . . . as what I am surprised you. There’s always been room in our world for . . . others. The vampire, the blood-drinker, he’s not part of our stories. But when we heard the white people’s stories we were ready to believe.” He turned to Thomas. “Just as we were ready to believe in Jesus.”

Thomas wasn’t sure how to respond, but Bonnard didn’t seem to expect him to. He went on, “Now that I’d hook up with one, okay, that’s unexpected.” He smiled at Spencer; then his face and voice grew serious. “I’m sorry. I want to stay and talk. Share our stories. Desperately, I do. But I’ve got to find my brother. It troubles me that he came here. He doesn’t like to leave our land, and he hates this city.”

“And you, apparently,” said Spencer.

“Yes, but I don’t think this was about me. He might not even have been looking for me, until he sensed that I was close. But he’d already Shifted.”

“What does that imply?” Spencer asked. Bonnard didn’t answer. He started to stand, got halfway, and his legs gave out. He crumpled. Livia caught him and lowered him back into the chair.

“I think not,” she said. “You may heal fast, but you’re not healed yet.”

Bonnard let his eyes close. “Damn city Indian. Getting soft.”

Spencer got to his feet, lifted a blanket from the sofa and tucked
it around Bonnard. “Please. At least give yourself an hour to recover. All right, perhaps half an hour. You can’t go out like that in any case. Give
me
a few more minutes and I’ll be strong enough to locate some clothing that will fit your admirable physique. While we wait . . .” He sat and gave a rueful smile. “I must compliment you, Michael. This news has me so nonplussed I don’t know what to ask first.”

Bonnard opened his eyes and reached a hand from under the blanket for his brandy. “Then let me ask you one. You said, ‘micro-organism’?”

Thomas blinked. All the possible questions, all the secrets, all the knowledge, and that was where Bonnard wanted to start?

Spencer, though, laughed. “Spoken like a scientist. Yes, a microbe. It alters our DNA. Our cells repair themselves endlessly. That’s one of the effects.”

“There are others?”

“Our capabilities improve. Strength, agility. And our senses. It’s all part of the same process. There’s no breakdown, you see. Another effect,” he added, before Bonnard could respond, “is the need for human blood.”

“But that bottle. You get it in bottles?”

“Courtesy of Father Kelly’s branch of the family.”

“I don’t understand.” Bonnard looked to Thomas.

“By agreement,” Thomas said, “the Church supplies the Noantri with blood from Catholic hospitals.” He was surprised to find his tone as steady as Spencer’s had been. “So they no longer . . . feed . . . on the Unchanged.”

“The Church? You’re telling me the Church knows? About them? Priests know?”

“Not priests. Only a very few Cardinals in the highest ranks. Some Popes have known, others haven’t. The agreement’s a closely held secret.”

“But you know. Wait, are you . . . what’s the word? Noantri? Are you one, too?”

“No. I’m in a—special position.”

“Father Kelly did our people a great service,” Spencer said. “In return the Conclave—our ruling body—has granted him access to knowledge the Noantri generally take great care to conceal.”

“I see.” Bonnard nodded slowly, a scientist digesting new facts. Thomas remembered his own panicked reaction the day he’d first heard this same news. “And the hospitals—where do they think the blood goes?”

Spencer said, “They only know they’re instructed to sell drawn and donated blood to certain private blood banks. Catholic hospitals are everywhere. The distribution is wide, the supply is steady, and the hospitals can count on a dependable source of income. The system has been working smoothly for six hundred years.”

“And before that?”

Thomas felt himself redden.

Spencer answered calmly, “We were hunted. Hounded. Driven out.”

Thomas saw a look of mutual understanding pass between the two men. “‘Noantri.’” Bonnard tried out the word. “And ‘Unchanged’? That’s the rest of us?”

“Well, it’s Father Kelly,” said Spencer, “and those like him. Perhaps, I venture to say, not you.”

Bonnard grinned. “No, I guess not. When did you . . . come to be?”

“Me, personally? In 1548.”

Bonnard laughed aloud. “It’s a good thing I never worried about dating older men. But I meant, the first Noantri.”

“Ah. Our scientists say possibly twenty thousand years ago. They’re still working on that question.”

“You have scientists?”

“Why, did you think all Noantri were effete arts-oriented intellectuals like myself?”

“Until tonight, Spencer, I didn’t think there was anyone like you at all.”

Spencer spoke in a voice that was quiet, hopeful. “Michael? Will you tell us your story?”

Bonnard sipped his brandy, looking across the room, to the window, to the dark night. “My people say stories have lives of their own. They know when they’re being told, and why.” A long silence settled. Just when Thomas was beginning to think Bonnard wouldn’t go on, he said, “We’re twins, Edward and I. Fraternal, not identical. To look at us you might not know we’re related. But we both have the Power. Shapeshifting, in English. You’d call us werewolves, maybe, I don’t know. We have a word in the Abenaki language but it doesn’t matter. We’re almost gone.”

“The Abenaki?” Spencer asked.

“No. Though Edward and I didn’t grow up on Abenaki land. Our father was Mohawk. The reservation we grew up on is a Mohawk one, that’s the language we speak. But the Shifters. The Shifters are almost gone.”

“There are—few of you?” Thomas heard a sad note in Spencer’s voice. Bonnard must have caught it, too; he looked almost apologetic when he nodded.

“I think it’s one reason Edward hasn’t killed me yet. He hates me. But without me, he’d be alone.” Bonnard finished his brandy.
Livia reached across and poured him more. “The Power seems to be genetic. It’s not clear why some children inherit it and some don’t, but I imagine it has to do with a cluster of genetic requirements.”

“And are you saying only the Abenaki have the gene? Among the indigenous people?”

“You can say ‘Indians,’ Spencer. We do. I told you that.”

“And I’ve told you, it doesn’t sound right coming from my mouth. ‘Indian.’”

“Sounds fine to me.”

The men’s eyes met, and Thomas could have sworn he saw Spencer George blush. That, he decided, called for more brandy.

“Anyway, no,” Bonnard went on. “My— The research is very new, so a lot of this is still hypothesis, but the gene seems to be widespread throughout the tribes. Not common, but widespread, like other genetic anomalies—somewhere between albinism and left-handedness, say.”

“But if that’s so, why are—”

“There’s another component. You have to be born with the gene, but the Power’s not automatic. You need to learn to use it. To bring about the Shift you have to create a specific, precise emotional state in yourself. A resonance, a pitch, like a tuning fork. It’s almost impossible to do without being taught. It can happen in flashes by accident, especially when you’re young, and it’s a spectacular feeling—like a cocaine high times ten. You’re invincible, tireless, afraid of nothing. You feel the astounding change to your senses in your animal form. Once you’ve felt it, you want it again, and again. But without teaching and practice you can’t sustain it. Some people, the stories say, can never reliably do it, even so. Edward always found it easy. For me it’s much harder.” He waved the brandy snifter to indicate himself, exhausted, blanket-wrapped. “And it always wipes me out.”

“How is one taught?”

“There’s a ceremony. An Awakening, it’s called. It’s remarkably similar across tribal cultures, and not much else is. That says to me it can’t vary much or it’s not effective. It involves music, chants, dances, certain objects. Ritual objects. In the past, most tribes had someone who could perform it, or if not, a neighboring tribe did. A medicine elder. Not a Shifter—it’s dangerous for a Shifter to even be there.”

“Why is that?”

“A lot of the training goes into learning control. It’s a knife-edge in any case. Like driving too fast. Like downhill skiing. You almost
want
to lose control. To see how far you can take it. The Ceremony is designed to draw the Power from a Shifter who doesn’t know he’s got it. To hear the chants, see the dances again once you’ve learned—the stories say it can drive a Shifter mad.”

“I see. And once you’ve been trained?”

“Once you learn, the Power can be accessed anytime. Edward and I will be able to Shift for the rest of our lives. But traditionally there’s a prohibition against Awakening adults. A life lived without the Shift, suddenly interrupted by it—most people’s minds can’t take it. They never learn to adequately control the Power. Children are different. The world’s magical to children anyway, in the sense that pretty much everything is inexplicable. So why wouldn’t you turn into a wolf, into an eagle?”

“What is the Awakening process?”

“Traditionally, women brought each child at five or six. The children were told it was an initiation ceremony. If nothing happened, then that’s all it was. If the Shift occurred, no matter how brief or incomplete, the child was given as much instruction as he or she needed to be able to access the Power, to control it. The instructions were secret, of course. Everyone in the tribe knew about the
possibility, but no one except the medicine man and the Shifter ever knew whether it had happened.”

“Not even the child’s mother?”

“No. What I said before was true—the identities of Shifters were always protected.”

Bonnard stopped and wiped his hand down his face. He looked spent. Now that he’d begun, though, he seemed determined to finish.

“You can see the problem, can’t you? It’s the Ceremony that’s been lost. Few still remember how to perform it, fewer with each generation. It’s not clear why they stopped, unless it’s just that all our ceremonies and feasts are in shreds. Some of the medicine elders can still do it, in some of the tribes, but even so they might not have the objects. Those are all in museums now. And if they know, and have what they need, no one brings the children anymore. Edward and I were among the last.”

“Who did the Awakening Ceremony for you?”

“One of our grandfathers. Technically, a great-uncle, though that’s not a term we use. Our Grandma’s brother.”

“Your parents are Shifters?”

“Our father wasn’t, according to Grandfather. Our mother may have been. She died when we were born. Grandma raised us.”

“Ah. Are you the younger?”

“I know what you’re asking, but no. I was first and my birth was normal. Edward’s was complicated. Unexpectedly. There was no doctor on the rez then. By the time the one from town got up there, there was nothing he could do.”

Spencer shrugged. “It was too trite a psychological cliché in any case. But can you tell us, why does he hate you so?”

“If you asked him he’d say it’s because I’ve sold out. He thinks
I’m what we call an ‘apple Indian’—red on the outside, white on the inside. Boarding school, college, grad school, postdocs. City living. Everything he despises, everything that destroyed our people.”

“That’s what he’d say was his reason. Would it be true?”

“Not entirely, I think. It may be now, but we’ve always fought, from my earliest memories. It’s as though I’m a part of him that he’s been trying to tear out, shake off, leave behind, but what that would mean—killing me—he can’t quite bring himself to do.”

“He tried to, tonight.”

“No. He tried to kill
you
. I was vulnerable before I Shifted. It was his chance, but he didn’t take it. He’s had that chance before.”

Spencer nodded thoughtfully. “Michael, you say Shifters are very few. Have you met others?”

Bonnard shook his head. “I’ve heard rumors. If others do exist, they must have also, about Edward and myself. But my brother is the only one I know.”