“Home, again. Home, again, jiggety-jig,” James puffed as they stepped into the drawing room once more. He immediately headed for a pair of settees near the pianoforte and laid his uncle down on one and his lover on the other. Then he stood between them looking lost and helpless. “What now? They need medical help, right? Or will they heal up on their own if given time?”
Des shrugged, laying Ruby down on a couch then nodding toward the pianoforte. “Dunno. But we’re gonna move that big fucker in front of the door, just in case.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” James agreed, stretching once, till his back cracked.
The two of them wheeled the instrument to the door and blocked it in a matter of moments. Afterwards, James went back to the settees, finally settling at Jake’s side and taking his limp hand.
“Baby, come back to me,” he whispered, tears welling in his eyes again. “I need you. I love you. Come back. Please…”
Des looked away, feeling like an intruder in a private hospital room. She found herself staring moodily back at the secret entryway, and thinking of Phil and Holly, and even Nathan, who could take better care of himself than anyone Des had ever met.
“Des?”
“What?” She started, looking back over at James, who was still sitting, still holding Jake’s hand. “What’s up?”
“I said, ‘You’re going back down there, aren’t you?’”
“Maybe.”
James nodded. “Thought so. If you can find Dr. Simms…”
Des nodded back, striding toward the secret entrance.
“Hey, uh, do you want my shirt, or something?” James offered delicately. “You’re naked.”
Des didn’t even bother looking around, let alone stopping. “I do my best work naked.” She heard him snort behind her. The stairway was more than just that, of course. According to a slightly breathless James, it ran as a series of stairways and passageways throughout the labyrinthine Lenape Hall. One could get from wing to wing, floor to floor, front end to back end of the Hall without ever having to leave the secret network.
To Des, whose sense of direction as a Hume was practically nonexistent, this sounded nightmarish. But she was pretty certain she could back-trail by scent the way they had come. The scents of gunpowder and blood proved stronger than her trail. Those got her to the mosaic even faster than she had been travelling, and finally she was groping for the stone lever that opened the wall. Before she pressed it, she bent all her hearing on whatever might be happening on the other side of the wall.
Nothing. At least nothing that her Hume ears could pick out.
She pressed the stone and quickly slipped out into the hall, then pressed the outer button again. The wall slid shut behind her once more with a dull, heavy click.
The front hall looked exactly the way she and James had left it, littered with the things people had been too frightened to pick up as they ran away. No bodies, though, or blood. Not here. Nor a living soul, either.
Sniffing, Des crept carefully down the hall and to the library. Except for the moans of the semi-conscious, she heard no sounds from inside, but that meant next to nothing. Loups knew quiet, oh, yes. Wishing for her switchblades and pistol, Des peered around the post of the entryway and beheld the devastation that had begun not fifteen minutes ago.
Most of the Alphas were still lying where they’d been felled, at least twenty of them. Most had been head-shot or heart-shot. The former were already starting to twitch and moan as their injuries healed. The latter would never twitch or moan or heal again. Among those, she saw Samson Dawes and Beau Madrigal-Chen, with bullets in their hearts. And other places.
Shaking her head, Des dropped to hands and knees and slunk across the floor, over the champagne glasses and dropped accessories, over spent bullets and around spent bodies, and through splatters and even puddles of blood, till she got to her abandoned weapons. She could only handle two of the three weapons at a time, so she took the pistol and the larger of the two switchblades, then she scented the air again.
Finding one scent in a cacophony of them, some of which included the anodizing scent of charred silver, was a bitch. But Des had to try. And while she tried, she slunk her way over toward the ten freestanding shelves of books. If there was anywhere to hide in a library, that’d be it. And sure enough, the closer she got to the stacks, the easier it became to single out not one particular scent, but two of them.
Only one of them smelled wrong, somehow.
Crawling as quickly as possible, Des passed all the shelves till she was at the aisle between the last shelf and a row of shot-out windows. Holly Black Lodge was huddled in the corner beyond the body with the wrong-scent. She was covered in blood, the ends of her dark hair tacky with it. In one hand, she held a broken champagne bottle, and the other held a bloody carving knife that’d likely been part of the buffet.
At first, she didn’t seem to recognize Des, brandishing her weapons in tightly clenched fists. But then she blinked and relaxed somewhat, her shoulders shaking as she started to sob.
“What’s happening?” she asked, tears rolling down her unusually blotchy face. “Why are they trying to kill us?!”
“Shh. They, whoever they are, may still be here, and they’ve got us outnumbered and outgunned,” Des said quietly. For the moment, she ignored Philomena’s body on the floor between them. She could do no more at the moment, than refuse to acknowledge it. “Are you okay?”
Holly nodded once, looking at the body. “If it wasn’t for her and your father bringing me over here to chew me out over you, I’d be out there—” Holly gestured at the wider room. “Dead. You saved my life. Again.”
Her full eyes began to brim over, and she let out a soft sob.
Never having been able to watch Holly cry, Des looked down, and found herself looking at the body, reaching out toward it hesitantly but unable to stop herself from doing so.
She had no idea what to expect of her hand and was surprised when she simply closed Phil’s lifeless eyes and caressed her cheek. Her skin was soft and cool and strange—gray and bloodless.
“How long…?”
“Since this whole nightmare started,” Holly said softly. “It was a heart-shot. She…she probably didn’t feel it, it was so fast.” She sighed and another sob slipped out. “I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry.”
“Has Nathan been back?”
Holly shook her head.
“Fuck.” Des closed her eyes for a moment then opened them again. Phil was still there, looking less like she was dead and more like she was merely sleeping. But probably that was just Des’s own wishful thinking. “Fuck. Nathan’s lost his mate and unborn children in one night. He probably ran out there on a fucking suicide mission.” Des buried her face in her hands, digging the heels of her palms into her eyeballs till they ached and burned. “Moon Above, this’s all so fucked!”
And for the first time in her life since her mother died, Des felt like she might break down and actually cry.
But before she did, someone beat her to it, high and querulous—
*
Des bolted awake from the memory couched in a nightmare—in a cold sweat and to the sound of crying.
From next to her in bed came a soft, petulant groan. “Baby…”
Heart still racing, Des pushed back the coverlet and rolled out of bed. “I know, I know, the twins are hungry again. I got it.”
“Okay…”
Barely awake, Des stumbled across her room, to the twin bassinets.
In the thin moonlight peeking in from under the drapes, Des could easily see her little brother and sister, the former whimpering around the fist in his mouth, his big dark eyes opened wide and unseeing. The latter was still crying lustily, her tiny fists raised fretfully above her head.
“Ah, you’re only crying so hard because you know you’re gonna get picked up second,” Des told her sister.
There was a soft knock at the door and Des smiled, scooping up a sibling in each arm. “It’s open,” she called just as softly.
The door cracked, spilling in gentle light from the hallway, and Ruby poked her head in, smiling. “Hungry?”
“Hungry,” Des confirmed.
“Kitchen?”
“Kitchen.”
Ruby’s smile turned bright and fond as she made cooing noises at the crying, flailing child crooked in Des’s right arm. “Then let’s go-go-go! Whee!”
Des carefully, gratefully, handed Ruby the louder twin—who, as always, grew silent immediately once in Ruby’s arms—and they were off to the kitchen.
*
“How’re those bottles coming, Big Sis?”
Ruby asked it quietly, practically crooned it at the twins, who watched her with wide-eyed wonder. Des grinned and tested each bottle then licked away the formula on her arm. “Il perfetto!”
“You hear that, guys? Il perfetto! Yes, it is! And all for you! Yay!”
Des brought the bottles over to the kitchen counter, where the twins were laid, tiny limbs all a-flail. Ruby kissed the bottoms of their little feet until they made those low, breathless, baby chuckles that still had a way of bemusing and surprising Des. The twins never laughed for anyone except Ruby.
“Here, let’s get ‘em fed before we play kissy-feet.” Des tried to be gruff, but Ruby smiled up at her brilliantly, and it made her breath catch as always.
“Aw, but Big Sis, after bottle time, it’s burpy-belly time, not kissy-feet time! Kiss-kiss-kiss!” Ruby followed word with deed, and the babies chuckled, waving their arms.
Des placed the bottles out of flailing reach and sat on the stool next to Ruby’s. “You look ridiculous, by the way.”
Ruby rolled her eyes, but continued kissing the twins’ feet in an exaggeratedly noisy fashion. “Better than looking like a big ol’ grumpy-puss. Besides, Winkin’ and Blinkin’ love it.”
Her eyebrows shooting up, Des crossed her arms. “Winkin’ and Blinkin’, eh?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I guess that makes you Nod?”
“Or you,” Ruby said, casting Des a sidelong glance and smile. This was the eighth set of placeholder names they’d gone through—Sonny and Cher being the most memorable—since The Purge, the night the Council of Alphas was all but exterminated. Everyone had been at Des and Jake to name their siblings, but neither of them were in any rush to do so, preferring instead to wait for Nathan to do the naming.
When he got back, that was.
After three days of not knowing whether Nathan would return or when, a hasty private funeral had been held for the twins’ mother. In the fifteen days since that funeral, an ongoing search was being conducted for their father, who had not been seen by anyone since Des spotted him leaping through one of the Lenape Hall library windows. Temporary Alphahood had been conferred upon Jake in Nathan’s absence. He and James now had the day-to-day running of Pack business divvied up between them.
The seven Alphas remaining who’d been Alphas before that awful night were all convened in Lenape Landing or its outlying suburbs despite the danger of this set-up. It was agreed that it was best for them to be at the Dyre’s service, should she call for it.
“I don’t know what I’d call them for,” Ruby had confessed to Jake, James, and Des after one awkward conference call.
“Mainly, it’s a show of solidarity on their part,” Jake had said comfortingly. Then he’d frowned. “Even though I’m pretty sure Clara Kitchener still isn’t really a fan of yours.”
“Isn’t a fan?” Des had snorted sarcastically, cracking her knuckles and glaring out the window. “I’m gonna have to put that bitch in her coffin if she becomes any less of a fan.”
“Oh, I’m sure she won’t be looking to do anything as stupid as Challenge Ruby. Not after The Purge, right?” James had looked from Jake to Des then to Ruby, who’d shrugged.
“Well, at least the other Packs are too busy choosing new Alphas through Right of Contest to want to Challenge Ruby’s legitimacy. One good thing to come out of this clusterfuck,” Jake had muttered wearily, nearly breathlessly.
Unlike Ruby and LaFours, whose bodies had quickly expelled the silver bullets, Jake was still recovering from the near fatal wound he’d received. The bullet had been close enough to his heart to damage one of his arteries, and it’d taken him days to expel the bullet and wake up, not that anyone had been certain he would. His weakness still showed in the small details, such as being unable to catch his breath sometimes, and his haggard, vaguely unwell face and slowly-fading pallor.
Then he’d shooed them all out of his office. Des and Ruby, at least, had obeyed, but James had not. From that day, on, they’d been handling the affairs of the Coulter Pack the way an Alpha and his life-mate would, as a team.
They spent hours of their days attending to Pack business, drilling Ruby in Loup history and protocol and law. She applied herself diligently and was proving to be an apt student, according to her teachers.
“Really, it feels more like we’re reminding her of things she already knows, not teaching her something she has no familiarity with,” James had told Des quietly one evening over dinner in the kitchen. At the other end of the counter, Jake and Ruby were discussing the finer points of Loup history like two old hands.
“Lucky you,” Des’d said around a mouthful of steak. She, herself, was physically and mentally drained from trying to teach Ruby how to fight and defend herself. It was as if Ruby not only lacked any and all physical grace and instinct, but as if she was actively resisting trying to get them. She spent more time on the mat than she did on her feet.
And unlike the Ruby of before The Purge, this Ruby wasn’t even sarcastic or disdainful, merely apologetic and absently self-effacing, as if none of it—the training, the conditioning, Des—were even blips on her radar.
It was maddening.
Well, at least she’s good at playing nanny, Des brooded, watching Ruby tickle and kiss Winkin’ and Blinkin’. Moon Above knows Jake and I aren’t exactly wards of the year. Between the two of us, we can barely keep the twins fed and diapered—and even that Ruby’s done the bulk of. She’s a natural mother. And I’m certain Thierry LaFours has noticed, if no one else has.
Des frowned at the two bottles she’d just warmed up.
In the aftermath of The Purge, Jake had offered Thierry LaFours the Coulter hospitality during his indefinite stay in Lenape Landing.
Des didn’t like it.
And it wasn’t to say the man hadn’t made himself spectacularly useful, spelling Des on Ruby-training duty.
Des definitely didn’t like that.
And he’d even helped overhaul the manor’s security system. The LaFours specialty was the tightening and breaking of security. Half the damn Pack were cops and the other half thieves, it seemed like. Thierry spent his free time patrolling the manor like any of Nathan’s goons.
Des freely despised the man for it.
He’d also offered his extensive network of spies and stoolies in Ruby’s service. She’d only asked they be used to track down any information on the conspirators in The Purge and to find Nathan Coulter.
So far, when it came to either of those things, LaFours’s people, who even Des was willing to admit were practically the Loup FBI, were turning up nothing.
For the first time ever, Des was worried about Nathan.
“He’ll be okay, Des.”
Des blinked, and came back to the moment to find Ruby watching her, Winkin’—or was it Blinkin’?—in her arms, a bottle in hand. On the counter, the other twin was looking up at Des as if to say, pick me up and feed me, already! but not crying the loud, lusty cries of his sister.
So Des picked him up and fed him, and Ruby fed his twin. For a while, all Des could hear was the sound of the babies nursing, and everything was quiet and peaceful. A typical three a.m. at Coulter Manor.
“He’s never come up against anything he couldn’t handle. A team of assassins with silver bullets may just be that thing,” Des said finally. “What if he’s dead? What if he’s on the run, too tired and wounded to fight, but too harried to get home? What if—”
“What if he’s doing the same thing Thierry’s spies are doing? Trying to track down the Loups responsible for the massacre?”
Des shook her head. “It’s a nice thought, but…”
“But?”
“But, I don’t wanna get my hopes up.” Des shrugged and shifted her brother. “I already lost my mother. I don’t wanna lose Nathan, too. I mean, we don’t really get along, but he’s one of my constants. He’s always there, you know?”
Ruby nodded. “You love him.”
Des sat back, shocked. “I…”
Ruby quirked a knowing eyebrow and Des blushed.
“Fine. I love him. There. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
Des rolled her eyes and Ruby laughed.
“There’s nothing shameful in loving a parent, Des.” Ruby’s smile turned wistful. “Even if the relationship with that parent is tumultuous and unconventional. Nathan is a good man. The kind you can trust with your life and your girlfriend.”
Des snorted. “Trust me, Nathan and I didn’t have anywhere near the same type. Hell, except for the fact that I’m here, and Winkin’ and Blinkin’ are here, I’d have thought the man was a eunuch.”
Ruby laughed. “Well, it’s good he found someone to love. After my mom walked out on us, my dad never found anyone else,” she offered tentatively. Des tilted her head.
“You never talk about him. Is it painful?”
Ruby shrugged, this time, holding Des’s sister close. “Kinda. But it feels good, too, to—you know, talk about him to someone—to keep his memory alive. To keep my memories of him alive.” She hung her head. “I haven’t had anyone to talk to about my father since George died.”
Des bit her lip. “If you want, you can talk to me about him. And maybe sometimes I could tell you about my mom?” she said.
Ruby’s eyes lit up. “You mean it?”
Nodding, Des found herself unable to meet the pure, simple joy that illuminated Ruby’s dark eyes. It made her stomach do flip-flops, and her heart beat faster. “Of course. What’re friends for?”
“Loaning money and providing alibis,” Ruby deadpanned then laughed. “But do you mean it? Are we friends?”
“As fast as there ever were. We’ve bonded over many late nights and dirty diapers.”
Ruby wrinkled her nose. “Too right. So, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
Eyes cast down at the baby in her arms, Ruby flushed. “Your wife…”
“Holly,” Des said, and so saying, flushed herself.
“Yes, when did that happen? You’re only, what? Twenty-three?” Ruby took a deep breath and forged ahead. “And does it have anything to do with why so many Loups seem so wary of you?”
Des blinked. Then she sighed, realizing that maybe the time had come to tell Ruby just who her protector really was. I just didn’t think it’d come this soon. Well, better it comes from my lips than anyone else’s, I guess. Des rocked Blinkin’ for a few minutes, trying to figure out how to begin.
“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” Ruby said softly, frowning in concern. “Just know that whatever you tell me won’t change the way I think of you. You’re my friend, and you’ve saved my life more than once. I think the world of you, and nothing could change that.”
Des blinked away a curious stinging in her eyes. “You may think that now.”
“I know that. Always,” Ruby said, her voice firm and grim, as if daring Des to prove her wrong. She reached out and caressed Des’s cheek lightly. “I know it.”
That unsettled feeling in her stomach and chest came back, and Des wondered if she needed an antacid or something.
“It’s just…it’s hard to know where to begin,” she murmured, not wanting to disturb Ruby’s touch. It felt nice.
But Ruby sat back, blushing, withdrawing her hand, anyway. “Well. Begin at the beginning. That’s usually the best place to start.” She smiled that gentle smile, but with a hint of wryness at the corners. “How did you find out you were a Loup?”
Des winced. “Ah, that beginning. Okay. Here goes. When I was fourteen, I was what you might call an at-risk kid.” Des paused and snorted. “The fact is I was rotten. Always in trouble, running with a bad crowd. I was skipping school and failing every subject except math. And the only reason I wasn’t failing that was because I aced all my math tests.
“I was a drinker and a partier and a stoner. I stayed out all night and slept all day. The only reason I wasn’t sexually active was because I had no opportunity to be. Not that that stopped me from trying.
“Anyway, six months before I turned fifteen, I was in school—only because my mother had begged me to try harder, to at least hang on till high school was over—when I got called to the guidance counselor’s office. ”
*
Des sat in the creaking, uncomfortable chair across from Mr. Tremblay and stared passively into his squirrely gray eyes. “What’s shakin’, bacon?” she asked, when all he did was sneak glances at her and wring his neat, pale hands. “I haven’t done anything lately. I’ve been a good little girl.”
“Ah. Ah-ha-ha,” he said—actually said, instead of really laughing. “Yes, I’m certain you have. But, Jennifer, I’m afraid I have some terrible news….”
Des rolled her eyes. “Who died?”
When Mr. Tremblay merely wrung his hands some more and looked at her pityingly, Des went cold. “Who died?” she asked again, even though she already knew. Why else would the news be coming from Mr. Tremblay, instead of from the one person whose death would actually matter to Des?
“WHO DIED?!” Des screamed suddenly, when Mr. Tremblay didn’t answer right away. Startled, he took off his glasses and began to polish them with his tie.
“Listen, Jennifer, I need you to try and be calm—”
But he didn’t get to finish telling Des what she should try and be. She’d already sprung and leapt over his desk, tackling him to the floor. She alternately screamed at him and throttled him.
Shortly after Des was tasered into immobility by a school security officer, Tremblay, with hand-shaped bruises already forming around his thin neck in a pretty purple ring, told the security guard who’d done the tasing, Officer Elizondo, that Jennifer had seemed much stronger than such a small young woman should.
“Like, Vulcan-strength,” he had said shakily, betraying both his youth and his overabundance of imagination. Officer Elizondo had merely rolled his eyes and made sure not to note that in his report.
In the end, a social worker officially gave Des the news about her mother at the police station. She spoke with a dispassionate mix of wariness and weariness that Des was to come to know over the next several weeks.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Jennifer,” the social worker said finally, edging her way to the door of the small room, which was used for the questioning of suspects and smelled like it: a mix of sweat, fear, and resentment.
“Yeah, whatever,” was Des’s numb reply. She hadn’t looked up at the social worker once, but instead stared down into the cup of watery hot chocolate one of the PAs had brought her. It tasted like shit and did nothing to warm her cold right hand.
Her left hand, also cold, was cuffed to a table leg.
*
It was an aneurysm, a different social worker told her two days later, this time in the bedroom of a temporary foster home. She shared it with three other girls who were sporadically attending the same high school as Des had.
Des hadn’t been back to school since she’d tried to wring Mr. Tremblay’s weedy neck. She’d been expelled.
“It was a time-bomb waiting to go off,” the social worker, Flora Hart, had said with genuine compassion. Meaning the aneurysm. Flora Hart was, Des had sensed, still relatively new to the job. She looked it, anyway. “There was nothing anyone could’ve done to predict or prevent it.”
“Okay,” Des had said. Yet she secretly believed that the stress of working two jobs to support a child who treated her efforts with disdain and profligacy contributed to the time-bomb “going off.”
Des knew that she’d killed her mother. Nothing ever could or ever would change her mind about that.
*
Seven weeks after going to live in Santa Fe with her great aunt Clastine—older than dirt and tougher than nails—Des was still comfortably numb. She attended her new school without missing a day and avoided the kind of crowd she’d have been queen of at her old school. Her grades improved from straight Ds to straight Cs, but for an A average in Math.
She got a part-time job as a cart-wrangler at the local supermarket and managed to get neither fired nor written up. With her aunt’s help, she opened a bank account and began saving her money for a rainy day. Maybe for college, though she had no idea what she was good for.
In other words, she was, for the first time since fifth grade, making an effort to be the kind of daughter her mother had deserved, even though it was too late.
She did her chores at Aunt Clastine’s house without complaint, and was mostly left to herself. Aunt Clastine was of the mindset that children were better neither seen nor heard, and since Des managed to do both of those things most of the time, her aunt was satisfied that their arrangement would work. So was Des’s latest case worker, another nameless, weary, wary woman whose lipstick was always smeared from worrying at her lower lip with large, square teeth.
One evening, after a perfunctory visit by the caseworker, Des was pushing her dinner around her plate and sighing. So much that Aunt Clastine, who could be counted on to ignore anything that wasn’t outright mayhem or disobedience, looked up from her own efficiently cleaned plate and asked her what was wrong.
Des had opened her mouth to say, “nothing, ma’am.” But what came out instead was: “Do you know who my father is?”
Aunt Clastine had sat back, the only indication of her surprise the raising of her drawn-on eyebrows. Finally, after a minute of stunned silence, Aunt Clastine had sighed and leaned forward, (elbows on the table, something she normally despised). “What did your mother tell you about him?”
Des fidgeted under the old woman’s glare. “Nothing, except that he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was, and she’d left him when she realized he’d never change.”
Aunt Clastine snorted. “Well! I could’ve told her that from the beginning, and did!”
Des fought not to roll her eyes. “What was he like? What was his name?”
Smiling mirthlessly, Des’s aunt took a sip of her water. “He was a proud, uppity man. Liked to put on airs. Neither tall nor short. Handsome enough. Real good at finding things.” She frowned now. “Eerie-good. But he was an architect by trade, and he was in town to build a new office complex.
“His name was Coulter. Nathan Coulter.”
Des’s own eyebrows shot up. “A gringo?”
Aunt Clastine nodded. “Irish or Scottish or something.”
“Huh.” That explained why Des was so ghost-pale, even in the summers—except when she burned. Excited, now that she had a name to go with, she leaned forward. “Do you know where he was from?”
Aunt Clastine huffed. “From back East. Lenape Landing. And didn’t everyone just make a big ruckus over that! Huh. Lenape Landing. Same as the ninth concentric circle of Hell, if you ask me. That city is a cesspool of corruption and decadence and—what’s with all the questions about ancient history, Jennifer?”
Putting on her most innocent face, disinterested face, Des shoveled a forkful of peas into her mouth. “Nothing. Just curious.”
“Well, curiosity killed the cat.” Aunt Clastine stood up with her plate. “Now, hurry up and finish so I can wash these dishes.”
“Yes, Aunt Clastine,” Des said around another mouthful of peas.
Later that night, after a surprisingly short amount of time spent online, Des had not only found the one architect Nathan Coulter with a website, but she had a phone number for him. Probably for his office or secretary, but it was a number.
In slightly more time, she’d managed to suss out an address that was for one—one—of his homes. The one in Lenape Landing.
By eleven, Aunt Clastine was snoring.
By midnight, Des was buying a bus ticket.
*
Lenape Landing was the largest city Des had ever been in, and even the air was different.
From the moment she stepped off the final bus, twenty-six hours after her initial boarding, she sensed her destination was like nothing she’d ever seen. And the evidence was all around her. The buildings were taller than in Santa Fe or Tucson, and the people moved faster, like they had mercury in their veins instead of blood. The streets were dirtier, with actual grime, not the ever-present dust and grit of the Southwest.
She walked around unafraid at four a.m. in the morning, duffle bag on shoulder, in an awed daze. She had her old trusty switchblade and could handle herself in a fight. She’d never before been afraid of the night or what it held, and she never would be.
Sun up found her in a twenty-four hour diner, slurping hot coffee and tearing into a breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, and pancakes. Spread out next to her plate was a local bus-map she’d brought with her from the depot. It confused her eyes, at first, but eventually she could trace a route from where she was, to the outskirts of Lenape Landing, where the larger homes and mansions were.
Breakfast safely put away, Des made her way to the nearest bus stop. Two hours later, despite rush-hour traffic, she was at the foot of Old Route 31, the last stop on the LL107 bus. From there, it was a half-mile walk to Nathan Coulter’s estate.
*
“Yes?”
Des peered up into the lens of the CCD camera, her finger still hovering at the intercom button she hadn’t even pressed. She had, in fact, been dithering over whether she should even be there, and she was seriously considering making her way back to the bus depot and thence to Aunt Clastine’s. She’d be in a metric shit-ton of trouble, she knew, but it might be better than the rejection possibly waiting behind the formidable gates at which she stood.
“Yes?” came the deep, patient voice again, and Des cleared her throat. No fear, she told herself, and she rolled her tense shoulders.
“Yeah, hi. My name is Jennifer Desiderio. My mother knew Nathan Coulter, and I’m here to see him.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Des snorted. “Do I look like someone with an appointment?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to make an appointment to see Mr. Coulter. He’s a very busy man, and doesn’t see anyone without an appoint—”
Des cut the voice off, irritation eclipsing fear. She’d come all this way, too far to be stymied by some voice in a security system. “Look, pal, I came here all the way from Santa Fe to see Mr. Coulter. Please tell him I’m here on behalf of Leandra Desiderio, and I promise you, he’ll want to see me.” Which may or may not have been a lie. After all, who knew how serious Coulter and her mother had been?
They may have just been fuck-buddies, Des thought for the first time, shuddering. Or it could be he left her because she got pregnant. Or—
Or a whole lot of things. There was only one way to find out.
“Please,” Des said quietly, desperately. “It’s really important that I see him, and maybe important for him to see me, too. Just tell him I’m Leandra Desiderio’s daughter. If he doesn’t want to see me after that, I’ll lea—”
The gate slowly, soundlessly swung open.
With one last glance behind her, at the slice of Old Route 31 she could see beyond the trees and hedges, Des scurried inside before the gatekeeper changed his mind.
She followed the cobblestone path up to the mansion she’d seen through the gates, feeling smaller and scruffier with every step she took. But too soon, it seemed, she was at the open front door. A man stood framed in the doorway. He was wearing an expensive suit and looked like a male model, with perfect posture and narrow, handsome features. Going from the pictures she’d seen on the internet, this was Nathan Coulter.
This was her father.
Des glanced briefly down at her grubby, off-white “Born To Rock” t-shirt and denim cut-offs, and wished she’d thought to wear something a bit less her. But she’d have to brazen it out.
“Nathan Coulter?” she asked politely. The man crooked an eyebrow, his nostrils flaring slightly. Then he smiled a sardonic half-smile Des had seen in the mirror and in photos all her life.
“Yes,” the man said in a low, pleasant tenor. “And you’re Leandra’s daughter?”
Des nodded. “Your daughter, too,” she added.
“Yes, we do bear a rather strong resemblance to each other,” Coulter said without any hint of surprise or dismay. “In fact, you look just like my mother.”
Des shrugged, since she didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Coulter crossed his arms and leaned against the doorpost. “How is Leandra, these days?”
“Dead.” Des said, and Coulter’s half-smile faded away, his look of absent amusement disappearing as if he’d taken off a mask. “It was an aneurysm. About four months ago. She didn’t feel a thing, they say.”
Coulter looked shocked and lost for a moment, then that mask came back on, minus the absent amusement.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said stiffly, almost uncomfortably, then turned and walked inside. “Well, I suppose you’d best come in.”
Des followed him inside, shutting the door behind her. It closed with a hollow boom.
*
Here, Des paused in her tale. The twins were fast asleep and false dawn was lighting the sky. “Um, let’s put the twins down for the night and I’ll tell you the rest over coffee?” Ruby returned Des’s crooked smile. Despite the tragic circumstances of the past few weeks, she’d been smiling more lately than she had since her father passed away.
“Okay.”
They made their way back upstairs to Des’s room. Ruby waited outside while Des put Winkin’ and Blinkin’ down, hesitant, as always, to enter Des’s room when Holly was there.
It was still strange to think of Des as being married. She hardly seemed like the marrying type. Not a month ago, she’d been willing to start a friendship-with-benefits with Ruby on the premise that such friends could sleep together without any romantic feelings involved. Just for the fun of it.
Well, Ruby didn’t know about that, but she did know she wasn’t built that way. She’d only ever been romantically entangled with one person, and she’d fallen fast and hard. She’d thought those feelings were mutual, but they hadn’t been. Casey Hampton had left her without so much as a backward glance.
In the end, it’d been easier and less painful to avoid anything that smacked of that kind of romantic entanglement, rather than have her heart so thoroughly broken twice in a lifetime.
“Alright, it’s java time,” Des said, shutting the bedroom door quietly behind her and interrupting the train of Ruby’s thoughts. Ruby shook herself a little, and it turned into an all-over shudder. Des’s lips pursed in consideration. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Why?” Ruby stretched long and wide, cracking her spine. Des eyed her worriedly.
“Nothing,” Des said with a shrug, “it’s just…the Full is in a few days, and you’ve already got the pre-show jitters.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most of us don’t get jittery until the night before the Full. But you’ve been all over the place for the past couple days. Groovin’ and movin’, hoppin’ and boppin’. Like you’ve got bugs under your skin.”
Ruby blushed, scratching her arms. “That’s how I feel, most of the time. Like there’re creepy-crawlies in my muscles, and my skin’s too small. Like no matter how much I stretch and flex, I can’t get comfortable.”
Des nodded. “That sounds about right. Your body is getting ready for its first Change.”
Ruby raised her eyebrows. “Will my voice get deeper? Will I get hair in funny places?”
“Smart ass,” Des laughed. “It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just something your body does, now. In a year or so, you’ll probably be able to control when the Change happens, even put it off entirely. Though that usually takes a few years longer.”
Ruby sighed and started walking. Des followed her. “It all sounds so…”
“Weird?”
“Yeah. And painful.”
“Well, it is, I won’t lie. But you’ll come through it like a trooper.”
“You think so, huh?” Ruby grinned and Des grinned back brightly. Ruby’s heart did calisthenics.
Be quiet, you, she told it, ignoring the way it just beat faster and made her feel hot all over. After three weeks of this, she was quite used to the sensation. She got it constantly around Des, and sometimes even around Thierry. She was afraid to question what the feelings meant but was even more afraid she already knew.
*
The first few weeks at Nathan Coulter’s home were an adjustment for Des, to say the least. She didn’t know what she expected of a relationship with a father who hadn’t even known she existed, but there seemed to be a thousand miles between them, even when they were in the same room together.
He didn’t insist that they spend time together, though he didn’t seem to mind when she joined him in the gym for exercise and training. He even began training her. Working out and sparring was the closest they ever really got to bonding.
After a month, Nathan’s adopted son, Jacob, moved back home, ostensibly because he missed Lenape Landing, but likely to get to know Des. She didn’t know whether to appreciate or be suspicious of him. But after getting to know Jacob “Jake to everyone” Coulter, she decided on the former. He was a cool guy—gay as the day was long, but without being annoyingly flame-y or bitchy—and always willing to spend time with her. He was also the one who drove Des to and from the expensive private high school in which Nathan had her enrolled.
Des made few friends there, but she didn’t mind. She had Jake.
After three weeks in Lenape Landing, Aunt Clastine had come to visit Des and see how she was getting on. Surprisingly, she and Nathan got along well, despite whatever was in their shared past. In the end, Aunt Clastine signed over her guardianship rights to Nathan. In what would have probably been worth some celebratory family hugs with any other person, Nathan had calmly invited Des and Jake to his country club for golf. Jake gently suggested to Nathan they go shopping for a new civilian wardrobe for Des, first and foremost, which had resulted in Des getting a platinum credit card via courier a day later.
By the time Des turned fifteen, everyone had established a routine, of sorts. Nathan wheeled and dealed and designed buildings. Jake worked on his pre-doctoral opus, and Des went to school and stayed out of trouble.
It was stable until the morning Des had woken up feeling under the weather and headache-y. She had shuffled through her morning routine, picked over her breakfast, made her lunch—a rare steak sandwich and an apple—and dragged herself out to Jake’s sporty red Prius.
“You look awful,” he’d noted, starting up the car and pulling out of the garage. “Late night?”
Des had sighed. “Nah. I just feel crappy.”
“You look crappy.”
“Your face looks crappy.”
“Witty comeback, on opposite day.”
“Blegh,” Des had replied then threw up her breakfast on Jake’s dashboard. For several drawn out moments, neither of them had said anything. Just stared at the puke.
“What say we keep you home today?” Jake’d finally asked, backing the car into the garage once more and shutting off the engine.
“Blegh.” Des added green bile to the puddle of used breakfast dripping from the dashboard and onto her legs. Then she passed out.
*
“Well, well. It lives.”
Des woke up in her own bed to blurred vision, a temperature, nausea, and a pretty young black woman with short dreads, leaning over her and smiling.
“What the fuck happened to me? Who’re you?” Des croaked. The woman’s bright smile grew brighter.
“You ralphed all over your brother’s car and fainted.”
Des remembered that part pretty well. “I mean after that. Are you a doctor?”
“Of sorts.”
That wasn’t very reassuring. “So, what’ve I got? Flu?” Having never had the flu, Des could only go on what she’d observed and read. Sure sounded like the flu to her.
“No, not the flu,” the woman said. “My name is Philomena Simms, and I’m kind of a…general practitioner. They call me on the rare occasions they get sick.”
Des tried to sit up then flopped weakly back. “And who’s they?”
“Oh, lots of people,” Philomena said, patting Des’s hand. “Your father can explain better than I can. In the meantime, you’ll be weak for at least the next few days.”
Des thought that over and found it to be unacceptable. She tried to sit up again. This time she made it, though she was sweating and the room was spinning. Philomena watched her with what looked to Des like a mix of amusement and disapproval.
“Where’s Nathan? Or Jake? I wanna see them,” Des said, pushing back the blankets covering her and surprised at the chill in the room. She shivered hard, and the room spun even more. “Ah, fuck.”
Philomena pushed her back down to the bed without any real effort, and pulled the covers back over her. “I’ll get them for you. Just try and relax.”
Des stared at Philomena hard, taking her measure then nodded.
When Philomena left the room, Des closed her eyes for a moment and didn’t open them again for nearly a day.
*
The next time she woke, she wasn’t in her right mind. At least she didn’t think she was. It was the middle of the night, and her bedside lamp was on its lowest setting. Laying on her legs was a dog.
No, a wolf.
It was ridiculously huge and heavy, yet its weight didn’t bother Des. It was russet brown, and watching her with intelligent hazel eyes.
“What the fuck?” she rasped dryly, her parched throat clicking. The wolf whuffed quietly and leapt off the bed. It went over to the slightly ajar door and barked. A minute later, a smiling Philomena came in with a teapot and a cup.
“Is that your wolf?”
Philomena laughed. “Actually, he’s his own wolf. Perhaps if you’re extra good, he’ll let you pet him.” She sat at Des’s bedside and poured her a cup of tea. Meanwhile, the wolf leapt up on the bed again and leaned up to lick Des’s face.
“Eww,” Des gasped in surprise. As if understanding her, the wolf licked her face even harder and faster. “Back off!”
Philomena laughed again. “All right, Jake, stop torturing Des and let me get this Feverfew into her.”
Des started. “My brother’s name is Jake, too.”
“Hmm,” Philomena said. The wolf finally stopped licking Des, turning around in a circle before settling at the foot of the bed. Then Philomena said, “Here. Sip this.”
Des opened her mouth when the teacup touched her lips. Philomena’s brew tasted vile. She would’ve spit it back into the cup, but her surprise at its taste made her reflexively swallow.
“Ugh. God, what is this shit?” she demanded.
“Feverfew tea. It’ll bring down your fever and make the Change easier on you.”
Des frowned. “What change?”
Suddenly Jake-the-wolf leapt off the bed again and paced around in front of the window, in the moonlight. He stood on his hind legs, pawing at the air for a few moments, then he seemed to…elongate. To stretch. Des would’ve thought she was hallucinating, but for the sounds of cracking bones and the pained whines coming from the wolf.
Soon, not just its body was rearranging itself, but its face, too. The features, aside from becoming elongated, were also flattening, becoming almost human.
Familiar.
“That Change,” Philomena said drily.
“The fuck!” Des watched in horror as the wolf’s tail shortened, the brush of fur disappearing into skin that likewise disappeared into the area just above its rump. In fact, the hair all over its body was being absorbed into its skin. Paws turned into long hands and black nails retracted, lightened, and became clear. The same happened to the wolf’s feet.
Bones cracked as legs and arms lengthened and straightened, and the wolf let out a howl of agony that wavered until it became a human yell, hoarse and broken. Its snout shrank into the restructured bones of its face, and its ears pinned themselves back, rounding off and gaining lobes.
Finally, the fur on its head gained a wave, and lengthened until it hung halfway down an all-too-human back that was narrow and knobby of spine. And there, at last, in the cold, silver-white moonlight, stood a naked man, panting, shaking, and sweating, even in the seeming chill of the room. He braced his hands on his bony knees and groaned, his hair hanging in his face.
After a silent, charged minute, he glanced over at Des, and smiled tiredly.
“Hiya, Jenny,” her brother huffed out breathlessly. For the third time in two days, Des fainted.
*
Ruby gaped at Des, who smiled a little and shrugged.
“You fainted? Three times?” Ruby asked, and Des snorted.
“Okay, not the question I expected you to ask, but yeah,” she said, crossing her arms. “It was a very trying time, and I was sick.”
Ruby waved her hand. “Excuses,” she joked, then grinned. “I totally didn’t faint when you showed me.”
“Yeah, you just ran like your ass was on fire, and your hair was catching,” Des snorted again.
Ruby picked up her coffee and took a prim sip. “Well,” she said, “you were intimidating.”
Des preened a little. “Really?”
“Yes. Of course. You were a werewolf, Des. And a big one.”
“Ah, go on,” Des blushed. “I’m actually small for a Loup. You should see Nathan when he Changes. Big as day, black as night. Or Jake. Holy shit is Jake big. The size of a Shetland pony.”
“Sheesh.” Ruby shook her head. “So the next time you woke up, was Jake a wolf again?”
Des sighed. “No. But I was.”
*
She was having a dream.
No, a nightmare.
She was in agony all over, so acute and deep she barely felt it when she rolled out of bed and hit the floor.
She started screaming for help, but nothing came out of her mouth except a croaking whisper. The agony in her face ramped up another few notches, as it felt like every bone in her face was breaking and grinding against the tatters of muscles and nerve-endings.
The bone-breaking, bone-grinding pain spread down her body, to all her joints, even the ones in her toes and fingers. And suddenly her skin felt as if it was on fire, burning and itching and tight. She tried to scream again. This time, something loud and only marginally human came out.
Frightened, Des rolled onto her hands and knees, trying to get to her feet. She’d just made it when it felt like her spine was being split down the middle and her ribs began to cave in, before they began to arch and curve, and bell out, respectively.
Panting and moaning, Des could only lay on her stomach as pain rolled over her for what felt like eternity.
Scents and tastes began to wash over her: carpet cleaner, shoe-leather, her own sweat and fear, and other scents she’d had no idea she’d even noticed or catalogued. Nathan, Jake, and the sweet, spicy scent of the woman who called herself Philomena.
These scents were soothing, calming. They meant she wasn’t alone. Indeed, she heard voices from all over. They were outside the house, inside the house, in Nathan’s office and in the kitchen.
The kitchen smelled like food, and after two days of not eating Des was ravenous.
She opened her eyes and saw—
Colors, bright and bleeding.
The colors of her throw-rug, which far from feeling comfortable, suddenly felt scratchy and synthetic, and smelled like a chemical-dump.
The bone-grinding sensation reached a crescendo so sharp and high, Des thought her heart would just give out before it abated with a near audible click as every one of her bones stopped moving and grinding, and all but snapped into their new places.
Shaking her head, Des got to her feet—all four of them.
All four of them?
“Oh, fuck,” she said softly, and it came out as a soft, resigned whuff.