Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (3 page)

The Ace of
Wands. Pulled second in a short reading it represented the present.
“Persephone, power inspired, fear and darkness be retired…pull
again,” Tisane urged smoothly.

Death. “Renewal
and rebirth is in your future.” Really the card depicted an unhappy
ending, or just taken less literally as movement to another world.
Tisane hid the flicker of concern the image evoked, which was made
much stronger by the spilt blood on the table. “Release my
soul…renew my powers,” she noted. “Don’t fear this card,” she
assured her quickly, snatching it back into the pile and sweeping
up the entire deck.

There was no
need for a full spread. Tisane piled the cards to the side.
Immediately she uttered something inaudible and reached for the
deck again, delicately shuffling them, concentrating. Separating
the three piles and shuffling them once more, she focused on
channeling.

“Artemis,
Aphrodite and Persephone. I accept these gifts from mother earth.
Power inspired. Fear and darkness be retired. Release my soul,
renew my powers. Tell me what I see before me. So mote it be,”
Tisane muttered to herself and spread the cards. She immediately
flipped one for herself.

Strength. The
Queen of Beasts, “Courage and perseverance.” Spiritual strength
would be needed. The cards often represented the entrance of a
person with similar qualities into the life of the one who sought
its answers. Girl of strength has now entered my life. Perhaps the
Demigoddess had sent Lila what she needed. Lila would have more
reason to slow her attack on the Cult, something that Tisane had
desperately wished for. Perhaps Lila was no longer the only
huntress in Shade. Young Caroline would need training.

In the early
hours I strolled into the house from the dark forest, the waning
crescent moon over my shoulder. The familiar cedar smell welcomed
me. Something wasn’t right. Reflexively my hand reached for the gun
in the back of my belt, sharply, I readied my stance.

“Lila, this is
Caroline.” Tisane presented what she had discovered. A small
teenage girl with a tiny smattering of freckles looked at me
anxiously. I ignored Tisane’s introduction with a fierce
expression. Her guest was dressed in a baggy grey jumper with the
words ‘Mad Dogs’ printed on the front. I stepped further into the
room, my gun pulled. I released the safety with a click.

“What are you
thinking?” I hissed at Tisane. We had an unspoken arrangement. She
knew no one was allowed to see me. I hoped the girl was just a girl
– though in that lay other problems. “What is she doing here?” My
voice was coated in accusation as my finger found the trigger, my
veins filled with adrenaline.

The glasses
were a disguise.

“Please, Lila.
It’s not her fault that she is here.” Tisane urged.

“What the hell
is going on?”

Tisane
interrupted, “She’s cold.” My eyes darted to her. “She’s a
huntress,” she advised. I threw her a fierce questioning look. If
it were true, then Artemis had sent me a child, not a warrior. “She
is strong, like you,” she encouraged. But I wasn’t so easily
convinced.

“Is there
anyone else here?” I asked with unease.

“No,” Tisane
alleged steadying me with her eyes.

I addressed the
girl. “Why did you come here?” My heart rate increased.

“She was
searching for answers.” Tisane’s voice was almost breathy as she
answered for the girl. Her wide blue eyes told me to be still. I
looked at our visitor and my gaze searched her skin for visible
scars, the lack of which indicated immortality because the wolves
were unmarked and smooth, they wore their scars on the inside, only
under more beautiful skins.

I ignored
Tisane, keeping my defiant stare firmly, towards the girl, but my
lips asked Tisane, “How did she get here?” My chest rose and fell
more rapidly, anticipating her attack. Tisane confirmed, “She
ran.”

Unconvinced I
uttered, “Let me look in her eyes.” Lightning flashed behind me.
The girl looked at Tisane for reassurance. Tisane nodded urging her
forward. She shuffled closer to me “Slowly,” I ordered with intent.
She swallowed, understanding my request. Tisane stepped further
aside. Apprehensively the girl edged closer, with a dazed look of
fear in her eyes. I gestured for her to approach even closer still.
When she was in reach I looked down at her.

“Take off your
glasses.” Pensively she removed them and swallowed. I pointed.
“Look up.” She obeyed. I touched my left hand to her jaw carefully
and peered at the lay of her face. She smelt salty and of
strawberry shampoo. I felt the tepid temperature of her soft skin
through my fingertips. I pressed her flesh firmly, as I tipped her
head from side to side. Inspecting her neck; it was free of fresh
visible bite marks or wounds, no scars and no tell-tale signs.

I clicked the
safety and put my gun into the front of my jeans. I pulled Tormey’s
pen torch from my front pocket; shining it across her pupils. There
was no fluorescent green glow. I swallowed before daring to peer
carefully, deep into her irises. I dropped the arm with the torch
to my side. I was momentarily relieved to see the absence of
crescents, but they could take their time in appearing. If Tisane
was right she couldn’t have had the demigoddess in her for long,
she was too freshly cursed for me to tell. I sighed soundlessly,
and let down my hand. “Show me your arms?”

She peeled back
her sleeves. I saw a new looking Bandaid around her finger, a human
sign. The skin over her arms was otherwise pure and mark free. I
touched it with my fingertips.

“Take off your
jumper,” I asked quietly.

She gave Tisane
a worried look. “Don’t look at her. If you’re not a wolf, prove it.
Take off your clothes.” She tucked her spectacles into her pants
pocket, slowly she unzipped her jumper and pulled off her
undershirt. She swallowed. She stood before me wearing a purple
bra.

“Pants,” I
nodded and my lips tightened. Again she shot Tisane a help-me
expression and then hesitantly she unbuttoned and removed her
Jeans, sliding them down. To reveal white floral underpants.

“That’s
enough.” I gestured a hand out for her to still. “Stand up.”

She carefully
straightened her pale legs. I marched around her running my eyes
along her skin in the silence as she held her breath.

I felt a
sensation in the bottom of my stomach. Tisane was right, she wasn’t
a wolf, I could see a tiny scar on her lower back, it was small but
it was enough. I came to a halt and ran my eyes up her body one
more vigilant time. I sighed, “Put your things on.”

She pulled up
her trousers. As she tugged her jumper on again, I cut to the chase
“What’s with the Bandaid?”

She looked
wide-eyed, but before the girl could reply Tisane answered clearing
her throat, “That’s my fault.” I looked at her questioning. “I
nicked her to see the blood. It was clear,” she offered. I was
impressed, but I didn’t show it.

“Why are you
here?” There was a hard edge to my tone.

The girl slid
on her glasses, her eyes fell. “I was looking for Tisane.”
Cautiously her wide gaze lifted and met my face.

“She came for a
reading,” Tisane confirmed, “that’s all.”

“Who is with
you?” I asked, searching the windows for trouble. I was keeping my
eyes peeled.

“No one, I came
alone,” she rasped with a woeful expression as the words died on
her lips.

“How old are
you?”

She looked
guilty and shifted a little. “Fifteen,” she mumbled, “and a half,”
she admitted, bravely meeting my face.

I looked her up
and down, it seemed about right. Maybe she was too young to be a
wolf, anyway. “And you came here uninvited in the middle of the
night despite the curfew? All the way from Shade?” I tapered my
stare. “By yourself?”

“No, Tarah,”
she corrected, looking to Tisane as though she would help her.

“From Tarah?
And you claim you ran here?” My eyes narrowed like slits now,
suspicious, focused on her every twitch.

“Yes, I did,”
she said shifting.

It didn’t smell
right. Someone had sent her. “Alone?” I tensed my jaw and grasped
my gun. “Why?” The line of my jaw tightened. Any sign that she was
a wolf, any hint and I would shoot her dead in a second flat. No
one traipsed the forest, let alone by themselves. Not in Shade, not
unless they had a death wish.

“I don’t know.
I wanted to know what was wrong…with me.” Her waiting eyes dimmed
and then met mine, hopeful.

I decided to
believe her for the time being. My fingers relaxed. “When did you
realize you were different?” Intrigued, my hand released the
grip.

“I started to
notice it a few months ago,” she pouted. She reached and slid her
glasses back up her nose. I noticed that her short nails were
painted pink and chipping.

“Do you know
what you are?”

“No,” she said
hesitantly.

A small chuckle
escaped under my breath that stopped abruptly in frustration. “Tell
me, what you’ve noticed?” I rubbed my ear.

“I have
energy.” She lifted her shoulders slightly, thinking. “I am
strong.” She concluded.

“She broke a
plate.” Tisane encouraged. My expression must have been perplexed
“With her bare hands. Clean in half. She is stronger than you would
imagine.” She seemed insistent.

I indulged
Tisane’s claims. Walking over to the kitchen I saw the floral plate
broken in two on the dining table, a knife with blood on the tip
and an uneaten plate of cake. I wouldn’t be easily placated. “If
she’s strong she could be wolf.” I announced the obvious to the
broken pieces and touched my finger to the crimson drop on the
table. I swirled my forefinger and thumb and examined the blood. I
raised my voice addressing the girl. “Tell me, do you know about
the wolves?”

Again Tisane
answered, “She doesn’t.” I ignored her.

“Do you have
any bite marks?” I looked at the girl’s face sharply. She appeared
empty, waiting for me to provide some sort of explanation. Maybe
she was a spy. Perhaps Sam had hypnotized her.

“The cards
suggested she is – special,” Tisane advocated. I noted their
placement in a pile on the table by the blade of the athame. I
turned and walked to the sink. I rinsed my finger and fixed myself
a glass, taking a moment to think, moistening my dry mouth. Tisane
and the girl stood as though frozen where they were. I took
another, longer drink and put the glass down on the counter. “We
can’t be sure until the Crescents come in.” I thought of what to do
as I leant on the edge of the bench. There was still the
possibility that the Goddess had sent her. She had come to Tisane’s
door as I had. Possibilities spun before me.

“We can talk
outside,” Tisane urged. Her voice broke the tension.

I pushed off
the bench and walked outside, my boots clomped over the verandah. I
looked out into the night for reflective eyes lurking in the trees
around us, suspicious as adrenaline lingered warm in my veins. We
left the door wide open. I turned to look our guest over in the
light of the lounge room. My eyes traced her from our distance.
“Are you sure about this, she’s not a spy?” I said low when Tisane
joined me, her long hair catching in the wind.

“I cut her
finger...” she admitted.

Blood was a
definite sign, “And?” I was curious to know what she thought.

“There was no
trace of gold in the blood,” she urged, convinced as she grasped
her hair from her face.

“Maybe you
didn’t cut deep enough?” Though I had examined it myself, and she
was right. I wondered exactly what was going on here with growing
confusion.

“I don’t think
she is a wolf,” Tisane insisted holding her wayward hair.

I narrowed my
eyes. “What is she then? They haven’t got to you have they?” My
voice low and my steely gaze boring into her blue eyes.

“No.” She
breathed, stilled by the accusation.

I considered
the circumstances, growing frustrated. “What the hell do you expect
me to do?”

“Lila, do you
see what I see here?” she asserted. “She came for a reading once
before, months ago. She knows she is strange. She had nowhere to
go, she came to see me, unannounced because I haven’t been taking
readings.” Tisane’s tone suggested this was as I well knew. “Be
grateful Lila,” she concluded.

Tis had decided
that she was on our side. I couldn’t be so sure. No one was above
suspicion.

“Tisane, don’t
tell me not to be wary,” I whispered with a harsh tone. I couldn’t
afford her kind of blind obedience to the goddess. I decided to
give the theory the benefit of the doubt, albeit while on guard. I
began to consider that if she was somehow a new huntress, she was
very young and something I definitely had not expected.

“What do you
think?” she asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

“I’m not sure
what she is.” My words were distant. “I prefer to know what I am
walking into,” I said. Perhaps taking a dig at her, though she
couldn’t have known herself that another huntress was coming. Only
Shade knew. I looked out over the balcony.

“You’ve looked
at her? What else could she be?” Her insistent expression urged me
to listen as my eyes rested on the moon.

I pinched my
lips assessing the implications, “No...No. I won’t train her.”
People tended to bring more problems to my life than they had
solved. I liked being lonely for a reason. I wondered if Cres knew
about this, she had spoken about a girl in her vision, but she had
spoken of betrayal, so I wasn’t about to trust anyone, except maybe
Cres.

I turned to see
the girl had sat back down on the lounge room sofa.

“It doesn’t
mean she isn’t a gift,” she persuaded tentatively.

I wasn’t Cres.
I wasn’t prepared to train another huntress.