Black Wolf (40 page)

"And you're
right, there's no chance Katherine and Tomas would believe an
accusation about Whitethorn from this direction," Lori said
unhappily. "We'd have to tackle them ourselves."

"I'd really
rather you didn't. I prefer you alive. I'll let you know if I have
any reason to believe they're placing anyone else at risk, and we
can re-think what to do."

"And you
seriously can't tell us how you know this?"

"I really
can't. I'm sorry."

Though Sam's
reticence about her past was something they'd all accepted long ago
as her own choice, Kevin wondered whether he were the only one
finding it considerably harder to take at the moment; he doubted
it. Still, it would take extremely persuasive evidence to convince
the Adepts, or most of the rest of Haven, that it wasn't an attempt
at retaliation.

He couldn't
find it in him to doubt her, though; for her to bring it up, she'd
have to be very sure.

"Great," Kevin
muttered. "Bane and I screw up, now Jess is out there in very bad
danger he doesn't even know about, and alone unless Shaine finds
him. I didn't think I could feel worse."

"Not useful,"
Lori told him firmly. "We've been over that. Back on track. Knowing
this, now what?"

"I think,"
Flynn sighed, "we're going to have to just hope like hell that he
comes home on his own or that we find him again and can convince
him to, and meanwhile trust to whatever luck has kept Jess alive
this long to keep him that way a bit longer."

34

On four feet,
Jess sniffed around in the small patch of wild weeds and stunted
trees behind a mini-strip-mall of half a dozen stores. He could
smell raccoon, was certain that it was close, and coon would
certainly taste better than rat or skunk or squirrel. Now, where
was it? He lifted his head from the tangled trails on the ground,
searching the air for any clues as to which direction he should
try.

A combination
of scents that had nothing to do with coon tore a growl from him
and raised his hackles even before his mind consciously registered
it: human terror, and the acid-sweet smell of a predator.

No way! I'm
obviously a failure as a wolf, too, why should I bother risking my
life?
He fought the overwhelming
need
to
hunt it,
kill it, protect,
but wolf instincts regarding predators ran
too deep for mere depression to bury. It clawed at him mercilessly,
worse than the memory of
need
for the uppers and downers
he'd once used to pretend his life was under control.

He spun around
and raced off in the direction of the predator scent; dinner would
just have to wait.

Not far away,
in a sheltered corner behind a laundromat, he found both predator
and prey. The human girl he recognized—she was about his age, and
spent a great deal of her time in the summer sitting on various
stretches of sidewalk with coloured chalk and her own fertile
imagination, creating fantastic designs. That explained the
interest of the predator: creativity, passion, fear, were all
acceptable sources of nourishment.

The predator
itself was different from the only one he'd actually encountered in
Haven, and he couldn't recall anything like it in the descriptions
his packmates had given him of various types, but so what? A
predator was a predator. This one was eight-limbed, four of the
limbs wide-pawed feet, four of them spindly long-clawed arms, the
whole thing massing probably roughly what he did; the glossy dark
hide gleamed unpleasantly like oil in the scant light.

Two hands held
the girl's arms, and the other two were exploring her body. Adding
to her fear, Jess thought in disgust. Spicing up the meal before
feasting.

All that took
only a second or two to assimilate; without a pause, he lunged
directly at the predator, aiming for the back of the neck—there
were very few creatures, according to his packmates, that could
survive having their central nervous system severed.

The head of
the predator swivelled around like an owl's, more than ninety
degrees from front, and three huge oval eyes fixed on him.

The lipless
slit that passed for a mouth opened, and it began to keen, a
high-pitched sound that made Jess whine softly even as his full
mass connected with the predator and flung it aside, off the girl.
It writhed, and wrapped arms and legs around Jesse's torso, still
keening.

Jess turned
his head and snapped savagely at it, but missed; all four paws
planted firmly, he shook himself, struggling to think past the
keening that abused his sensitive ears and made his skull feel like
it would split. It hurt, oh god it hurt, Bane had never told him
about a predator that used sound to attack, and the limbs wrapped
around his ribs were beginning to constrict, not being able to
breathe was not helping him clear his thoughts.

Come on, Jess,
get it together, or you're going to die, and going down in your
second ever predator fight is too pathetic even for you!

He shifted
back to human, bare skin crawling at the greasy feeling of the hide
against him; the predator, confused, didn't adjust its grip
sufficiently, and the keening didn't cause such acute pain, though
it was still uncomfortable. He twisted around, and slammed the heel
of his hand into the bottom of its jaw.

The mouth
closed with a small
snick
, and the keening faltered.

Thank
god.
He hit it again, aiming for the throat this time; dazed
and silenced, the predator's hold loosened, and Jess pried both
pairs of hands apart; he squirmed his way free, with only a couple
of shallow scratches to show for it. Panting hard, he shifted back
to wolf, and attacked, praying he could kill it before it started
that keening again.

He had to tear
one arm off to get it out of his way, which took time, but then,
all four hands were pawing at its throat and it was making hoarse
rasping noises, so it didn't matter, because it didn't appear to be
able to breathe properly, let alone hurt him. His jaws closed,
covering nearly the entire neck, and he braced himself and jerked
sideways and up, bringing the powerful muscles of his neck and
shoulders into play.

Head nearly
severed from body, the predator went limp, and in a matter of
seconds, dissolved into nothing.

Jesse shook
himself, pleased with his success—and he hadn't even gotten hurt
doing it, not really. Bane would be proud of him, when he
told...

Except that he
couldn't go tell his pack all about it and celebrate the kill with
them and tell them about this new sort of predator. He couldn't go
to his pack at all.

The
satisfaction turned to pain, an aching sense of emptiness; he
heaved a sigh, and turned to check that the girl was going to be
all right.

She was
huddled against the wall, watching him with wide eyes, tears
streaking her cheeks and her breath coming in half-hysterical sobs.
The fear scent was overpowering, he could pick up nothing else.

She's as
scared of me as she was of the predator,
he realized. This
wasn't Haven, where she'd have thanked him and been concerned about
the blood streaking his sides, even if it wasn't deep. To her, he
was as alien and terrifying as the thing that had attacked her,
regardless of his having protected her.

He whirled
away, and bolted, not caring where he was going, as long as it was
somewhere else.

Instinct took
him to a little-known baseball field, tucked in behind a couple of
huge government buildings. He stood in the middle of the field, and
howled his anguish and confusion to the stars, until a couple of
strangers came into the park and yelled at him; he fled again, back
to where he'd hidden his backpack and clothes under the seldom-used
back steps of a coffee shop. In the shadow of the garbage cans, he
curled up as tightly as he could, too miserable to care about
hunting. What difference did it make? What difference did anything
make, now?

* * *

Jess sank down
on a bench in a different park, under a moon that had passed from
near-new to full since he'd seen Kevin and Shaine, grateful for the
shadows that concealed him.

This was
killing him by inches. Living like this wasn't worth it—sleeping
furform in hidden corners, hunting the small wildlife of the city
or shoplifting chocolate bars, hating the thought of being around
anyone. It was a twisted version of his blissful days alone in
Haven's forest, and that only made him loathe himself and his life
more.

He wrapped his
arms around his knees, shivering. He should've known better. Every
time life began to look brighter, every time he was happy, his feet
got kicked out from under him again, usually followed by a kick to
the head. Being adopted after so long being bounced through foster
homes and waiting for his real parents to come and find him, only
to have what seemed at first like heaven turn into a worse hell
than that younger Jesse had ever dreamed could really happen. Now
it was happening all over again, except that this time, the heaven
was still real, only he'd exiled himself from it. Shaine had made
it quite clear that he was tired of babysitting him and he was no
longer welcome. That left nothing but surviving the streets alone,
with no hope of any change. Not even the temporary escape of acid
or alcohol or anything else; he knew enough about wolf physiology
to know that it would take drastically more each time, and not long
for his body to build up a complete immunity to it. And it just
might have something to do with Kevin and Shaine both being there
last time, and he desperately didn't want that.

Wolf. He could
shift to wolf, run far from the city and lose what was
Jess
in the animal mind...

No, he'd still
be running alone, and the memories would never lie completely
quiet. He could no more be entirely wolf than he could be entirely
human. Better just to get it over with, save himself all the pain
between now and the inevitable anyway.

He took his
knife out of his jacket, shrugged out of the jacket itself, and
pulled out the largest knife-blade. The ragged sleeves of his worn
sweatshirt he pushed up out of his way. Now, which way was best?
Across? No, wolf blood would clot too quickly, he had to do more
damage than that to kill himself.

He didn't
notice the footsteps, but he caught the scent; only that saved
Shaine from getting the knife in his guts.

"Don't be such
a fucking idiot. Put the knife away." Impassive as ever, Shaine sat
beside him.

"Go away. You
don't want me around. No one does."

"I never said
that. I said I was tired of taking care of you. It would've been
more real if I said I was tired of seeing you need somebody to look
out for you. You were s'posed to stay in Haven and get your life
straightened out. So why the fuck are you back here?"

"Because
nobody trusts me. They said they did, but they don't. They lied and
you lied and everybody lies and nobody's even going to notice when
I'm dead."

"Give it a
break, Jess, you don't want to die and we both know it. Get the
jacket back on before you freeze, put the knife away before I take
it, and come on. We're going home."

"I don't have
a home," Jesse said halfheartedly, but he obeyed anyway. He went
with Shaine, back to the apartment. Nothing had changed.

After his room
in Haven, it was awful, but at least it was familiar and
trustworthy.

"There's
probably something edible around," Shaine said.

Jess shook his
head. "I'm okay." Though it was out of place to say it, he wasn't
going to eat if he wasn't hungry. Bane had told him true wolves
could survive for over a week without food and python it when they
could; werewolves tended to be tougher than true wolves. The coon
he'd devoured last night would keep him comfortably until
tomorrow.

He didn't want
to think about Bane.

Shaine
shrugged. "Your life. Go have a shower, you've obviously been
sleeping rough and you need one. Badly."

Too empty
inside to care, one way or the other, Jess obeyed. Memories stirred
again, of trying to get clean after two weeks in the forest, but he
buried it ruthlessly. He just couldn't cope with that right
now.

The clothes in
his backpack weren't noticeably cleaner than the ones he'd been
wearing, but he could figure out what to do about that tomorrow.
Right now, he left the bathroom, to find that all the lights were
off, leaving only the glow of the streetlights outside through the
two small windows, and Shaine was in bed already, waiting. He
curled up against Shaine under the blankets, shivering a bit;
Shaine slid an arm over him, sharing warmth. Well, what physical
warmth Shaine ever had to share; with a body temperature that
reminded him more of a dryad's, Shaine was certainly no elvenmage.
But the other kind of warmth, that was another matter.

"Shaine?" he
said, after a few minutes.

"Hmm?"

"I really
really need to tell you something."

"What?"

"I'm a
werewolf."

"Oh. I was
scared maybe you were gonna say you're back on those fucking drugs
again."