Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (23 page)

Agnes went
forward to the pile in his hands in an attempt to take them, but
Bert asserted claim irreverently for the wrinkly pile and handed
them to her. “There are more female clothes in the room at the
end,” Sky started to say, but Agnes had already pulled on the
sweater and then the dress was yanked over the top. She didn’t seem
to mind, though, from her expression. She seemed to realize her
mistake light heartedly and then shrugged. Sky wondered too late if
he should turn. Before him was the thin, hairy and badly dressed
mountain pack in Blair’s dirty weekend t-shirts and track pants and
his jeans.

The flighty
blonde guy who seemed steadier on his feet asked, “Well where’s
Dieter? He invites us in and then doesn’t greet us?”

“He never was
polite,” joked the other long-haired male confidently.

As the familiar
thuds of footsteps came up the stairs, Narine, Shelly, Blair and
Paws appeared. Shelly looked a little messy, she had been promptly
released when their guests arrived rather stealthily. Paws didn’t
wish to let them know he still practised cruelty.

“Ha, ha, Sam
didn’t seem sure you would come!” Dieter laughed as though greeting
old friends invited to stay.

“Patrick!” Paws
bellowed.

“Long time no
see.” Patrick accepted his hand slap handshake, if not more
reservedly than it was offered.

Dahlia appeared
from the bathroom and timidly eyed the group. Christian the toey
blond took her in with a sleazy stare. She flipped her long dark
hair and batted her matching lashes as she gave a shy smile. Shell
and Narine were standing beside Paws but Dahlia took a place
further from them on the couch. Her face sparked a desire in
Christian that he hadn’t forgotten these many years. He was without
a mate.

Paws introduced
everyone starting with Narine his mate, then Shell the lop-eyed
brunette and then Dahlia. Sky was the broad shouldered one with a
kind manner who had brought them clothes; they nodded at him when
he was introduced.

“You have
become more tenacious in your older years, Dieter,” commented the
lead male Patrick. His shoulders broadened as a large black wolf
came over the balcony behind them and moved slowly to stand beside
him.

“Greta,” Paws
greeted with a nod but he did not smile. In fact his expression
gave away the discomfort of fear.

“We don’t want
any fighting,” Narine urged breaking the air in a womanly voice
with a wiser tone than her face suggested in its youthful
immortality.

Greta shook and
grotesquely bent and formed into the figure of a woman in the
middle of the gathering. All moved instinctually wider to
accommodate her space to re-mould. Patrick then held her hand
tenderly as she crouched like all the others had done when they
first entered the house adjusting her sea legs. She looked like a
new borne foal. Unlike Patrick, her skin was alabaster white and to
the unwise, she looked almost delicate like a nymph or a mermaid
without its tail. She regained her sense of bearing and she looked
weak under the weight of her waving black hair. But it was the way
one was after transforming for the first time in decades. She was
more wolf-come-human than the other way around.

“Here.” Sky
bravely offered the remaining clothes. Bert, the other dark haired
male, took them and the woman, Greta, slid them on, pulling her
extremely long hair out of the way.

“Is there
anything else we can get you?” Narine announced smoothly. “Water?
Food, shoes?” Sky discreetly looked at their long nailed feet.

Christian
smirked and out of the corner of his eye he watched the shy girl’s
reaction. Dahlia resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably; instead
she kept her head down.

“Meat?” said
Patrick. They all smiled, as though about to laugh.

Narine noted
their humour at her offer. “A bath?” she retorted, as the grime and
oiliness of their skin made them reek of a strange musk and sulphur
smell of rotting plants. She had been careful not to say it at
first, but when she was met with mockery, she narrowed her eyes at
them calmly and looked them up and down with barely masked
disdain.

“Brothers and
sisters, welcome to our home.” Paws clapped, dispelling the
tension. “We have a lot to discuss. Beers, Sky?” he suggested with
urgency in his eyes whilst holding a friendly smirk over the tense
air.

“Why should we
listen?” Greta asked abruptly. She cautioned him with a steady
look. “We have been wolves for many, many years now and it suits us
fine. We no longer hunt the humans, unless they come into our
land.” Her face remained steady but her expression was
piercing.

“And you may
return, Greta, just please listen to our plans. We have made great
strides, particularly with the huntress.” Sky handed out beers from
the fridge. On mention of the word everyone seemed to stop, their
flickering eyes fixing on him. “We plan to capture them and we have
kept them at bay by disabling them, a sort of blackmail, and it has
worked. They don’t come into our parts, and we don’t kill from
theirs.”

Greta looked
stunned, her dark green eyes widening. “Things always change and
yet they always stay the same.” She glowered.

Paws continued
to try to convince them. “You know we have always dreamed a bigger
dream for ourselves.” He took a breath. “Narine and I have made
strides to overtake the town. It’s been a slow transition, but we
acquire more selections for our cause from the town each month or
so. There is no reason to hide any longer my long lost friends. We
will make Shade ours.”

Greta raised
her voice. “But not yet? Not without calling us to duty?” Her posse
looked at her solemnly, their silence agreeing.

“Please shower,
this is your home. You will see I have not forgotten you. The attic
houses all your clothes and Narine and I have lovingly dusted your
photographs all these years. I have worked towards a better life
for us, one in which we don’t have to hide like we once did. Now
time is of the essence. We have reached a point where by we must
act quickly. Trap the hunters; conserve our race by taking
positions of power. We have a policeman, soon a politician, this
one here was a teacher,” he pointed to Shelly who kept her head
down under the weight of the unwanted attention. “We have a Nurse
too.”

“How can they
remain in their positions and who is to say you haven’t provoked
the Goddess?” Greta said angrily. “I see you are a politician
yourself now, too.” Greta was regaining her feet.

“No, what we
have here is a Cult.”

“You expose
your pack?” She narrowed her glaring eyes.

“Yes, as
something else…”

“We could kill
you for less,” she hissed harshly.

“I trust you
will hear us out before attempting it, and might I add that we,
here,” he gestured to the room, “are not all of my Pack.”

“We will find
them when we are done here and put them out of their misery too, or
leave them to the huntress,” Greta threatened venomously, her green
eyes glowing like emeralds. Her voice lowered, “How is it that you
manage these hunters? And who is to stop the other humans attacking
us? You risk too much, boy,” she sneered.

“Are we not all
your children?”

“Yes, and we
strive to prevent you making the same mistakes.”

“You have never
had what we have now – an opportunity and information to become
more,” he pleaded, impassioned.

“More what
Paws?” she clipped. “Most of us now in our age wish to become
less.” Agnes nodded slowly behind her.

“All I am
offering you is the opportunity.” He shifted, for the first time
revealing a slight lack of confidence peeking through the cracks in
his bravado.

Greta stood
steady. “Opportunity? To play your game, boy?” His face was
stern.

“You are not
dead yet, Greta.”

“And we have
chosen to live peacefully,” she scolded.

“But what is
this gift of eternal life you have if you do not take risks. You
can’t deny that you are not old. You will never die of your own
accord. Don’t you want to experience all you have been given?”

“You have a lot
to learn still, Dieter,” she cautioned.

“If you wish to
die, do it for a cause. Don’t just wish to wither or be a coward.
At least die for a reason. Otherwise, what’s the point? All we have
brought you here for is to listen to the plan. Retreat if you
want,” he said, sounding mildly defeated.

“None of us
wish to die for you boy,” she hissed.

“Neither us,
but that is because we are alive in every sense and if we risk our
hides it is for our kind – we do not slink away like dogs with our
tails.” He stopped.

Her voice
deepened. “I've heard enough.” Greta raised her voice,
“Enough.”

“If this works
we will have free range of the town. We won’t have to be animals.”
Paws pushed his argument. A long time ago he had developed this
idea to please her.

Narine spoke.
“We can be what we are,” she urged.

“For how long?”
Greta bellowed back silencing the room.

“Forever,”
Narine whispered.

Greta's eyes
widened. “Forever? Life is cyclical. At one point or another we
will have to hide,” she remarked cynically.

“Not if
everyone in the town is wolf.” There was a momentary, audible
silence.

“The hunters
stop it.” She seemed to be explaining this to everyone in the room
as a warning.

Narine stepped
forward. “I said we have found a loop hole,” she pleaded.

“Except for
Lila,” Sky added from the kitchen, before he realized what he had
said.

Narine
bristled. “She will be back under the thumb soon enough,” she spat
and she cursed him with a piercing scowl that threatened more
punishment later.

Greta turned
and was out the door. Her pack, as though on a loose string,
automatically followed. Patrick stopped, facing the door.

“We sleep in
the forest, tonight. We may see you tomorrow,” he muttered to the
room and his dreadlocks followed him out the open screen door.

“We will
prepare a breakfast,” Paws smiled after them and looked at Shelly,
recently released from the basement, who was the unofficial
chef.

Christian
lingered further back. “We deserve to come out of the dark,” he
agreed. “Once they would have been so excited by this,” he said to
Narine.

But times had
changed. The human mind wasn’t designed to handle living more than
one life time, and the Mountain Pack were now old ladies and men.
Tied by obligation to their venom son and trapped in youthful
bodies, all they longed to do was sleep and wander mindlessly in
the home they knew until accident took them. They had no emotional
or mental desire to start a war but their bodies were young,
preserved. Standing still in time, intimate, edgy bodies that
seemed so disjointed from who they had become. Gret was tired but
her blood was not.

“Aw, she’ll
come good. Old Gret,” Paws assured his weary pack, as the intensity
in the atmosphere subsided.

We converged on
Lily’s house for a meeting. I was nervous. Cres found a key under a
clay pot with a succulent in it just as Reid was about to break in.
The door was a little stiff and the stuffy air that stagnated
inside was pushed aside by our rude awakening. Lily’s home was as
she had left it the morning she had died. The only difference was
the dust, which now coated the shelves and bench tops.

The last record
she had ever listened to sat in the player atop others, coated in a
thick layer of grey dust. Reid carefully touched the top of the
vinyl with his finger and wiped the excess on his track pants. The
fridge had been cleaned out by Sam after the funeral and remained
switched off and open, but everything else sat as she would have
left it that morning. A ghostly reminder of mortality, if not with
a more painful sting, as it could even strike the immortal.

We stood about
awkwardly as Cres found the light switch and discovered, with a few
flicks, that the power wasn’t on. Reid went out back to the meter;
there were cobwebs hanging from the corners of the ceiling. Jackson
was the first to sit down, inviting himself it seemed, while Cres
and I stood facing the lounge area and an oil painting of Lily.
There was an energy to this meeting, Cres had her arms crossed, and
I glanced about. A wire mobile hung in the kitchen window,
ornamented with a glass sea horse and beach wood. The mantle was
decorated with white starfish and shells. I noticed a lot of the
furniture would have been classed as antique but it had a lovely
modern feel and I spied a few Better Homes magazines beside the
couch.

“Well
electricity’s on,” Reid announced but he didn’t sit. He stood on
the edge of the sitting area as if readying for physical action,
when we were here for a meeting.

I wanted to
take down Paws, but if they wouldn’t help me I would have to try it
alone with C.J, a very dangerous mission - two against a pack. I
wasn’t about to risk upsetting my allies by saying anything
unnecessary. C.J was hiding outside in the scrub, armed: my
emergency backup should things go awry.

We all jumped
when we heard a jingle of keys, but it was only Giny. She looked
well, dressed in a neat skirt and top with her hair up and
sunglasses on her head, although it was now dark outside. She
looked casual at first and then apprehensive; I could see she was
nervous at seeing the new wolf, Angele. It occurred to me she may
have thought one day she and Jackson would make a good couple when
she was turned, and I knew in that instant she still wanted it,
just like I had. But here we were, almost still the same, still
just two mortal humans desiring the one thing we couldn’t have.
Despite my earlier criticisms, I knew Giny was just like me in that
way.