17. STOLEN DANCE

 

I try my best to drag Marrock’s body out of sight and into the overgrown foliage at the side of the tracks before he’s discovered by the police. After pulling off the top half of his clothes, I make an attempt to cover him with leaves. I don’t know how long he’ll be out, but all I can hope is that when he wakes up, he knows which way to go. I quickly slip back into the borrowed NYPD hoodie and hustle to get back into the corridor. The officers will surely be searching for us by now.

As I walk toward the scene of the firefight I see the remaining snipers have been taken into custody. The Interpol logo is emblazoned on the backs of the police jackets. Marrock was banking on the Luparii to overstep their jurisdiction. To neutralize them, he knew a heavily armed paramilitary group like the Luparii could easily be red-flagged as an international terrorist organization. I tried to argue the move, not seeing how we could let our existence be known to yet another human agency, but it turned out that Marrock understood the Luparii a lot better than me. One of their primary objectives is to protect the human population, not just by culling our numbers but by ensuring that our very existence is kept from public knowledge. When Marrock called the threat in to his French counterparts, the explanation he gave didn’t have to stray very far from the truth. He flagged the Luparii as a threat that the NYPD had tracked to Paris and unearthed their involvement in the murder of a corporate CEO. Roul was a high-profile target as head of Fenrir Pharmaceuticals. Boguet held a similar position at his biotechnology firm. It was easy to show a correlation between the two and point to the Luparii attempting to extort these billionaires in order to fund terrorist operations. I was painted as a trust fund kid from New York who had come into Roul’s inheritance and was being strong-armed into cooperating lest I meet the same fate.

Now that the members are in custody and under investigation, the Luparii’s funders will have no choice but to disavow any knowledge of them. Their accounts will be tied down. The remaining werewolf hunters will be cut off from their finances and, more importantly, access to Wolf’s Bane. It’s still a risk to assume they won’t reveal our existence, but a calculated one. The risk that we underestimated was the body count at the end of the day. Officers begin to lead the captured snipers past me as I reach Boguet’s body. I stare down at his lifeless form, strewn across the train tracks. He knew full well that the Luparii wouldn’t let me walk away from this, and he stood in the crossfire to protect me. Like Trajan said, I represented his life’s work — not just Wolf’s Bane, but something more. The goose with the golden eggs. He would rather lay down his life than see the potential my DNA holds come to an end. One of the agents steps over to speak with me.

“Monsieur, êtes-vous blessé?” he asks.

I shake my head numbly. “I’m ... fine,” I answer in French. “Just a minor wound.”

“Where is Captain Marrock?”

I look the man in the eyes, trying not to give away the captain’s location, hoping to send this guy and the other Interpol agents far from where Marrock’s body is hidden in the moments before he wakes as a wolf.

“He pushed me down when the shots were fired,” I say, trying to sound shell-shocked. “He saved my life. After, I think I saw him chasing some of those men down that tunnel.”

The agent shouts orders at two of his unoccupied colleagues, who head immediately into the dark underpass. With a sympathetic smile he steers me in the opposite direction, back toward where Marrock really lies. I pull away from him and stop in my tracks to buy more time.

“Don’t you need a statement or something from me?”

“Yes, of course,” he says. “One of my officers can bring you to the station.”

He gestures for me to continue moving, but I hesitate as the bushy overgrowth rustles. When I turn back in a panic and pretend to double over in pain, the agent’s hands go out to prop me up.

“Are you sure you’re alright? Let me call for a medic.”

“It’s nothing a stiff drink can’t fix,” a familiar voice calls out from behind me.

I turn to find Marrock standing on the rail bed, staring at me fully clothed and fully human.

“Captain Marrock,” the agent says in English, surprised. “We thought you were in pursuit.”

“Got away from me.” He puts on a feeble smile and dusts off his uniform. “Guess I’m not as agile as I used to be. What do you say I get the kid’s statement while you wrap things up over here?”

The officer glances around as if piecing something together, but lets it go. “Certainly.” With a curt nod, he pats me on the back and resumes his charge of the operation.

I walk over to Marrock, trying to keep a neutral expression. When I get to him, he throws his arm across my shoulder for support as we slowly walk back the way we came.

“What the hell happened?” he asks groggily.

“You were hit with Wolf’s Bane,” I reply in a hushed voice.

“I got that much. Thing is ... the wolf’s still in there. I can still feel it in me.”

I glance over at him quickly. “How is that possible?”

“You tell me.”

I honestly have no idea. A SparkNotes rundown on all the science I’ve had to learn these past few months would come in handy right about now, or a quick call to Trajan if he’s still up. My mind goes over the information that’s been passed down to me from various sources. To my knowledge only three werewolves have been hit by Wolf’s Bane without any affect: me, because the cure is based on my freak DNA, Madison because I accidentally bit and updated her genetic marker first, and now Marrock because—

“I bit you,” I blurt. “You can’t be cured because I bit you.”

“When exactly did that happen?”

“Back when we first met. We both drew blood. My venom must somehow alter the genetic marker in born werewolves too.” I smile, trying not to appear overly proud. “My guess is it inoculated you against Wolf’s Bane.”

With a wide smile, he squeezes my shoulder. “Looks like Rodolfus did right by all of us when he laid down his life to save you.”

“Didn’t help Boguet in the end,” I correct him.

“He made his choices a long time ago.”

We reach a long-abandoned section of subway platform. Our exit is just up some stairs and a fence hop away, but Marrock sits against a backdrop of graffiti on the concrete ledge.

“This is where I get off, kid,” he tells me. “I’ll finish up with Interpol and make sure everything’s kosher, but it’s time for me to go home.”

I agree. Marrock already risked a lot to be here, and things could have gone badly for the American pack had he not returned. His work here has dealt with the threat of the Luparii. It’s not a permanent fix and no doubt they’ll reform in the future, deeper underground, but we’ll be better prepared. The packs will be inoculated against Wolf’s Bane and the Luparii won’t have the same resources to develop something else.

I decide not to make this a long goodbye, but before I set off, I say, “If I get out of this battle with the Hounds alive, I expect we’ll meet again.”

He nods. “I’ll leave Ben with you. Some adventure will do him good. Promise me you’ll send him home after. The Appalachian pack will need their chieftain.”

His candor brings a smile to my face. “I could send him back now.”

“No, I think it’s time the young Wilds knew about what we left behind over here.” He pauses to look down the long-abandoned tracks. “I want to believe we’re all born innocent, and free of outside influence, we’d stay that way our whole lives. That’s what the Wilds have — what I’ve tried to give them anyway. The outside world has a way of forcing its way in. I knew this day would come eventually, so I trained them to protect themselves. They never understood against what, though. Keeping the Wilds in the dark about the past does none of them any good. Just promise me about Ben.”

“I will.”

Without so much as a word of goodbye, we part ways. I race up the steps, jump the fence and make my way to my parked Bugatti. My side doesn’t even ache anymore. It’s a lucky thing that a medic wasn’t called to treat the wound, because I wouldn’t have been able to explain it. There’s a forty-minute drive ahead of me before I rendezvous with Amara and the others. I still haven’t heard anything from her, and I don’t know what’s waiting for me at the hideout. It’s the most logical place to find Madison and Arden. My only hope is that he got through to some of the packs and convinced them that there’s honor in standing together. Or something like that. Goussainville-Vieux Pays is on the opposite side of Paris and I have to fight heavy traffic to get there. Before I left for New York I had searched for safe places to assemble the packs, and this ghost town easily made the top of my list. Charles de Gaulle Airport is only two miles away, and over the years the noise from the planes slowly drove the farming community into leaving. By the 1970s the town was completely abandoned and apparently forgotten. It’s a ghost town now — the perfect place for creatures like us. When I finally arrive, I follow the landmarks that Arden relayed to me. A cement storefront bears the name of a long-closed business in faded black paint: Au Paradis. In Heaven. I turn left and park the car in front of a house with a mailbox on the front gate and a sign that reads Chien méchant. Beware of dog.

The roar of a jet flying low overhead assaults me as I step out of the vehicle. My ears eventually pick up the low murmur of wolves before they come into view. At least a dozen, possibly more, stalking toward me down the street. Although I’m fairly certain they’re all part of Roul’s pack, most are strangers to me. I recognize the golden eyes of the bouncer from La Pleine Lune, the one with the reverse mohawk in her other form. In the same way that Amara and Roul could smell the change in Arden when he was cured, I recognize now that there’s not a hint of human left in them. They are wolves, through and through, every last one of them. My heart sinks. I’m too late. The creatures pace anxiously around me, unable to shift, but they don’t seem aggressive, so I don’t have the urge to shift or get back in the car. The slow creak of the nearby metal gate catches my attention as Arden and Amara step out to meet me. I let out a sigh of relief for small mercies. Amara is still in human form.

“They were supposed to be safe here,” I say.

Neither of them looks at me. Instead, Amara wraps her arm around Arden’s waist and leans into him. These are their pack mates. For her I imagine they came with Arden, like extended family. For him, though, he’s been with them his entire life. They’re everything to him. And now they’re lost. Maybe not entirely, though. Their lack of aggression suggests otherwise.

“Do they ... know?” I stammer. “I mean, do you think they understand what’s happened, or are they just wolves now?”

“It is still possible to communicate as wolves,” Amara responds. “You may still lead them in that way, but beyond that...”

“How long ago did this happen?” I ask Arden.

He’s silent.

“Was it before we left for the States?”

He nods slightly. He knew all along that they were cured in a way none of us had anticipated. The puzzle pieces connect in my mind now. That was why it was so easy for him to send Amara overseas with me. She was out of the sights of the Luparii there, and safe.

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”

“Wolf or ... not. It shouldn’t matter,” he answers. “Wolf’s Bane robs us of who we really are.”

I wonder if he’s pieced together yet that his blood is half-human, like mine. He must be questioning by now why he’s not like the others. Out of an obligation to Roul, I still can’t say anything about it. He had pledged to Arden’s adopted father, their former pack leader, that the secret of his heritage would remain that way, and that ancient promise passed to me. I’m bound to say nothing until Arden figures it out himself.

“Madison?” I get out the simple question.

“She’s here,” Amara tells me, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

I don’t think I even realized until now how much it really weighed on me, not knowing. My muscles relax for the first time in a long while.

“We’re all safe, then,” I say. “The Luparii threat is over and Boguet is dead. Wolf’s Bane shouldn’t be a problem without him to produce it, or anyone left with the will to use it.”

“There’s still one more threat,” Arden says.

I look at him blankly, disappointed that my revelation couldn’t just be accepted at face value so we could put an end to the months of living in fear. “What are you talking about?”

“Breber is mobilizing the Hounds. The chaos gave him an opportunity. He’s making a big move. One that he’s wanted for years. They’ll march on us, forcing the packs to submit to their rule or die.”

I should have expected this move, but the Luparii were a bigger threat that required my full attention until now. “Will they submit?”

With a Gallic shrug, he says, “To have full control, he’ll need what only you can give him. To be one among us, not cursed as the bitten.”

A brutish figure emerges from the abandoned house, his feet crunching loudly across the crumbling pathway as he makes his way past the gate to join us. From his features alone it’s clear that he’s a born werewolf.

“Who’s this?” I ask.

“An equal,” he says with a thick Slavic accent. I take it as code for ‘pack leader.’ He has the appearance of an ancient warrior, wearing a stretched-out sweater over a loose cotton shirt and wool pants.

Arden clears his throat. “This is Vukašin from the Plitvice Lakes. A strong pack, with influence. There are others here as well. Eleven packs in total, ours included.”

Figures begin to emerge from the crumbling buildings around us. These other packs and their leaders must have been here for a while, long enough that their presence doesn’t disturb the wolves. At least that gives me an indication that they’re not a threat. Not an immediate one, anyway.

“We came to bear witness to Wolf’s Bane,” Vukašin declares formally, loud enough for the others to hear.

“And now that you’ve seen for yourselves?”

“And now,” the Slavic leader starts, stalking toward me. Everything about him predatory and focused. “I say, para bellum!”

Others follow his lead and join in a chorus around us, their voices — dozens upon dozens of them — rumbling through the quiet streets of the ghost town. I have no idea what size the Hounds’ army is, but for once I have a sense that we just evened out the playing field. Madison will have to wait as I summon the pack leaders together to discuss our strategy. They’re a rough-looking group from all parts of Europe, clearly warrior stock and more like the Wilds than the Parisian pack. They’ll at least have kept Ben good company. Arden leads us indoors to what was clearly once a mansion but now stands in horrible disrepair. We climb a pile of rubble and through a half-boarded window into the ruins of a formal room. Light beams in from the bay windows, bathing the debris at our feet in a warm glow.

I explain that the Luparii threat is quelled, to grunts of approval. I don’t mention that Wolf’s Bane is out of play out of concern that their interest will wane without the threat. Instead I talk about Breber and his intentions. The Luparii forces are still in play, despite the takedown earlier this morning, and it won’t just disappear overnight. Arden fills us in on the movements of the Hounds, who were in a firefight with the Luparii last he saw them. He explains that they’re setting up camp in the mountains outside Quedlinburg, and I input the coordinates on my tablet, pulling up a satellite view that provides a profile of the terrain, hills and valleys all around, with the highest peak to the west of the plateau called the Brocken. The constant stream of planes overhead interrupts our conversation every few minutes.

“We should bring the fight to them, before they can mobilize on the other packs,” I say to general agreement.

The rest of the meeting becomes battle strategy, something they’re unfamiliar with. I’m inwardly glad since it allows me to lead without question. My human qualities are finally an advantage. I walk the leaders through my assessment of the situation, suggesting we situate the packs in a semi-circle west of the Hounds’ position. Arden runs down the manifest of weapons we received from Phenix Industries, including spider silk vests for both human and K9 units. The fear of Wolf’s Bane being in circulation outweighs any argument against them. Ben emerges from the window where we all came in and assesses our plan at a glance.

“I know a thing or two about hunters,” he notes, pointing at the map. “That clearing there’s about the worst place we can be. They could hold down their position in the grove and just pick us off easy from there.”

“So we need to draw them out of their cover,” I say, thankful for the counsel.

“We move in while they slumber,” Vukašin suggests, eager for the battle.

“I’ll lead a unit up to this plateau.” I point. “The rest of you will approach from here and here. I’ll draw them out.”

Some of the leaders grumble at the prospect of not leading the charge, but I’ll need to do this to earn their respect. The real question becomes what do we do once we ambush the Hounds. With the exception of Roul’s pack, the born werewolves have never used firearms before. They’ll want to fight as wolves. Am I really planning a slaughter? There has to be another way, but I don’t see it yet. My uncertainty is making me lose control of the situation. Vukašin, the Slavic leader, calmly steps forward.

“Kin of Aquila, others of less noble mettle would have fled and left us in ruin. The honor is yours to lead this charge.” He genuflects before me. “If you would have our hand in battle, the wolves of Plitvice Lakes will aid you on front line.”

Not knowing how else to respond, I simply nod once. Without a clear plan, I won’t be able to keep these wolves in check during the assault. I wish I had another day to formulate a better plan. The others know better than to argue again and disperse, bowing their heads at me as they pass toward the exit. Vukašin lingers, slapping me across the back.

“There is a human proverb my own kin rewrote many years ago: ‘Your prey shall die, your kindred shall die, you yourself shall die; but the fair fame of he who has earned it will never perish.’ Whether we are killed in this battle or a future one, I will one day meet you again in the hall of the slain where the brave may live forever.”

“Easy there, 300.” It’s Madison’s sarcastic voice.

She stands back only a few feet, but the lost expression on her face places her miles away. She wears a pink knit beanie over her shaggy hair, grown out over the past few months. Her hands are stuffed into the pockets of her pink puffer vest over a heart-covered white hoodie.

“How long have you been here?” I ask.

“Nice to see you too,” she responds wryly.

As she walks toward me, a stone is dislodged beneath her feet and skips noisily across the rubble. Vukašin gives me a knowing look and another hard slap on the back as he passes. He strides past her without even acknowledging her words. Behind the Slavic leader, the others make their way out to give us a private moment.

“Are you alright?” I ask in little more than a whisper.

She leans into me, hands sliding around my torso as her hot breath reaches my chest. Her response is nothing more than a bob of her head, and she says nothing for a long while. I wrap my arms around her petite frame. Within my embrace the tension in her shoulders eases.

After a pause she murmurs into my chest, “Breber wants you alive.”

“What?” I ask, annoyed at having to end our quiet moment to be pulled back into reality. “Why?”

“For your venom,” she explains as I pull back from her reluctantly. “So you can do to him what you did to me. He doesn’t want to be cured. He wants to become like us so he can take control of the born and the bitten. They’ll just be slaves to whatever power-trip agenda he’s on.” Madison pauses while I contemplate what she’s said. “Will you kill him?”

“What choice do I have? Roul knew this would come to war before he died.”

I expect her to argue and wind up running through counter arguments needlessly, because she doesn’t. She just peers up at me, touching my hand. Her expression is hard to read, as always, but it’s as close to devastated as I’ve seen.

With a bitter smile she says, “It doesn’t make all of this less crazy.” Her fingers weave through mine. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me what happened in New York.”

Maintaining her expression, she steps backward toward the exit, pulling at me to join her. Not trusting myself to speak, I give in and let her lead me outside. We take a walk through the ghost town. Some of the packs have camped out within the relative privacy of the dilapidated buildings, while others roam the forests. We stop for a while in the middle of town to watch the Iberian pack show off its gravity-defying parkour skills. In their human form, they look like heavily tattooed members of a street gang, but the atmosphere here is high-spirited and amicable. Ben watches the moves, eager to learn. Full of bravado brought on by spectators, one pack member runs toward a wall then jumps and pushes off with a foot to reach an upper window. He hangs from the ledge then vaults up and onto his feet. The others lunge and leap and roll over obstacles, making a show of it. Some shift between forms, turning the spectacle into wolf parkour. Madison and I continue to meander around the narrow and winding streets, talking into the afternoon and filling each other in on what’s happened since we parted ways. I didn’t expect her to have had so many unhappy experiences. For a second I fool myself into thinking if she’d stepped on a plane and come straight to Paris like she was supposed to, things would have unfolded a lot easier for her. I have no assurances that the Luparii or the Hounds wouldn’t have just taken her hostage anyway. At least this way, because of her determination not to be pushed out, Arden was able to track her down. We walk on as the sky begins to darken and my thoughts return to the war ahead and my imminent departure.

“I should head back.” Pausing in our tracks, I pull out my wallet and fish out a key, which I hand over to Madison. “Here, take this.”

She gives me a funny smile as she stares at it. “What does this open?”

“The front door to Roul’s mansion,” I say, folding her fingers around the key.

Her smile wavers. “You mean your place. Aren’t you moving a little fast, player?”

I don’t want to point out the obvious — that she has nowhere else to go, that I might not be coming back. These are all the things we’ve been avoiding all day.

“When I get to the Brocken, it’ll be all-out war. If things go wrong...”

“You said we wouldn’t talk about it.”

“No, you said that. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be safe — hiding from who I really am — afraid of my own shadow. This life I’ve been handed isn’t perfect, but I have to live it for as long as I can, not just be shelved away like a specimen in a jar. It’s literally in my DNA.”

Not willing to continue the conversation, yet not quite ready to let go, she slips our hands together again and leads me to the outskirts of town. It’s dusk by the time we wander into a long-abandoned farm field, the mottled indigo sky bleeding into an orange glow along the horizon. A jet flies low overhead and I pause to let it pass before speaking again.

“Do you know what ‘libere vivere’ means?” I ask, knowing her fascination with languages may help me with this one puzzle piece left behind by Boguet.

Madison looks up at me, the glow of sunset behind her like some kind of ethereal halo. I almost forget my question. “Live free,” she responds. “Or maybe free to live.”

She lets out a long breath before planting herself in the wild grass, pulling me down with her. As we sit on the cold earth, our voices hoarse from talking, everything is right about this moment. Having her by my side, holding hands, somehow it makes up for the time that was stolen from us. The sunset glimmers gold in her hazel eyes. She huddles close to me, and I wrap my arms around her, smiling at the pink and black yin yang eyebrow ring peeking out from beneath her overgrown bangs. I want her never to feel alone again. Leaning down, I press my lips against hers. Madison parts her mouth slightly, teeth brushing gently against my flesh. This isn’t the short and sweet first kiss back in Quedlinburg. We’ve been standing at the precipice of this moment for so long, it’s like the edge finally eroded, and now we’re free-falling into the rabbit hole, not a care in the world about what’s on the other side. As darkness blankets the sky I lose myself, knowing we might not have another such moment and trying to capture every future kiss in this one.

It ends too suddenly, cut off abruptly by the sound of gunfire.