Renegade Page 11

  I thought I saw a shadow, smaller than the others, a flash of green eyes, dash across the trail below me and I wanted to shout because it might have been her, but I didn’t dare. I started down the rocky incline, half sliding, half scrambling on my heels and hands, and then my foot caught something slippery and went out from under me. My shoes plowed a bloody path into the eviscerated carcass of a goat; my hands, grasping for purchase, caught nothing but entrails, still warm from the kill. When I leapt to my feet, gagging and frantically trying to wipe my hands on my shorts, my feet were squishy inside the blood-soaked sneakers. I turned then and ran, my breath like sobs in my throat, half-blinded by tears of fury and shame and disgust and cowardice, for home.

  That was when I found her. She had been trampled in the melee, caught in a squabble, or had simply fallen from one of the island’s many rocky precipices; no one ever knew for sure. She was unconscious and helpless in her human form, entangled in brush at the bottom of a broken trail a few hundred feet ahead of me. She was bleeding from an ugly gash on her flank, and a young blond wolf stood over her, powerful paws planted astride her, his voice raised in a victory ululation.

  What I did then was born of fury and instinct, not heroism. This was my Lara, they had done this to her; I was responsible, and it was enough; I could bear no more. With a great cry of rage and anguish I rushed down the hill and I flung myself on her, striking out at the wolf with my shoulder and forearm with enough blind force to knock him aside. I smelled the air turn to fire but my eyes were buried in Lara’s hair as I gathered her to me, her cool damp skin sending shivers through my soul. When next I looked it was Nicholas Devoncroix crouched beside me on his haunches in naked human form with his long golden hair streaming around him and his blue eyes crackling in the dark and his teeth, still shiny with streaks of blood, bared at me. I said in a low choked voice that shook with repressed fury and blazing determination, “Get out of my way.” I picked up my poor broken little Lara, hardly feeling her weight as I crushed her to my chest, and staggered to my feet. “Get out of my way.”

  I don’t know whether he did or not. The pack was streaming in and I held her close, looking neither right or left as I pushed forward, a lurching Odysseus in my Motley Crue tee shirt and blood drenched Nikes, fueled by outrage and bitter, bitter betrayal. I carried her through the press of hot furred bodies and the yellow-sulfur flash of Change and the smell of blood and dead flesh and scalding breath and I didn’t look at them, I didn’t blink. I held on tight to Lara even though she was heavy and I stumbled; even when the princess knelt before me and opened her arms I shoved past her blindly and I kept on walking until I carried Lara safely home.

  So they tell the story in the pack to this day of how I faced down Nicholas Devoncroix and proved my courage and my honor on hunt night. And even though I was only a scared thirteen-year-old boy consumed with guilt for what I had made Lara do, the pack loves a hero and I could not shake my reputation. I won’t begin to speculate how many doors have been opened for me throughout my life because of that night so many years ago.

  Because what happens in the hunt is never forgotten.

  They took her away from me, the princess and the female nurses, and I went to my quarters and stood under a scalding shower until my skin turned red, until the hand-milled soap formed a puddle of foam that reached to my ankles, until I had no more tears to cry. When I came out they all were there, milling about in their civilian clothes in the upstairs lounge and all along the terraces downstairs, drinking martinis and nibbling cheese cubes on a stick and laughing and talking among themselves as though nothing at all had happened, as though they were human. I hated them.

  I wound my way past them, looking neither right nor left, and if their gazes followed me or their conversations paused I did not notice. I opened Lara’s door without knocking, as though I belonged there. And, in my mind I did.

  She was fully recovered, of course, and sat up in bed in a pretty rose-sprigged nightdress with lace around the neck and her hair all combed out and gleaming on the pillow around her. There were dishes of ice cream and chocolate and sweet cakes stuffed with fruit and whipped cheese, and the princess was trying to tempt Lara to eat more, and even more, because a loup garou, after the expenditure of energy that’s required to heal an injury like hers, requires enormous amounts of calorie-laden carbohydrates to replenish her reserves. Lara saw me, and smiled, but it was a slow, sad thing that clutched at my heart.

  The princess got up and kissed my cheek. I stiffened when she touched me; I couldn’t help it. If she noticed, she said nothing. The prince, who sat at the foot of his daughter’s bed, squeezed her blanket-covered calf when I approached and moved away, giving us privacy. I did not look at him.

  “Hello,” I said to Lara, standing awkwardly beside her bed.

  She said, “I’m not dying, you know.” And she patted the place beside her on the bed. She was trying hard to act normal, but her lips were pale, and there was something in her eyes … or not in her eyes. Something that made my chest cramp, that stabbed an ice pick through my stomach, and made me wonder what had happened to her out there. That made me wonder, with a horrible and roiling dread, what I had done.

  I sat down. “You scared the shit out of me,” I said roughly.

  She fumbled for my hand and grasped it tightly. Her eyes were dark with things unsaid. It was a big room and the prince and princess were far on the other side of it, but they might have been hovering over us, so intently were we aware of their presence. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I added.

  She said softly, “Thank you for taking care of me.” There was numbness in her eyes.

  My throat convulsed in on itself in a single painful knot, choking me. “My God, Lara,” I whispered raggedly. “What did they do to you? What did they do?”

  She simply turned her face away. She couldn’t even meet my eyes.

  And then I couldn’t stand it. I dropped down close to her, my fingers tangled in her hair, my face only inches from hers, and I whispered, “Lara, I’m so sorry. You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay. I’m sorry for what it was, whatever it was, that happened to you, I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I didn’t …” And because I knew they could hear us, they would always hear us, I finished simply on the softest of breaths, “I’m sorry I didn’t … do what you asked me to, this morning.”

  She looked confused. “But you did. You watched over me, you …” And then she understood, and her features softened. That horrible emptiness was still in her eyes. “It’s all right now, though, isn’t it? You were right, I had to do it, and now it’s done, and it’s all right. I wasn’t very good at it though, was I?” she added tiredly. “I knew I wouldn’t be.”

  I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know how she had done or had not done because I was too busy stumbling about in the dark, reeking of my own vomit, sliding into the carcasses of dead beasts, and weeping like a child in terror and frustration. But just then I caught sight of Nicholas Devoncroix just outside the door, and I told her, “I thought you were great.” I kissed her boldly on the forehead. “The best of them all. Truly. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  She nodded, drowsy with exhaustion and stress and sugar and the effort of pretending to me that everything was all right when in fact it was not, and it never would be again. I started toward the door, my eyes on Nicholas Devoncroix, rage thumping in my ears.

  The prince was beside me suddenly and silently. “Before you do that,” he said quietly, “you should know that it was Nicholas who first found her. He was summoning the pack for help when you came along.”

  And now I couldn’t even hate him. My rage was dark and impotent and completely irrational, because if I could not blame the Devoncroix for what had happened to Lara, who was I to blame? Myself? If I could not hate them for this vicious twisted nightmare of the people I once had called my own, who was I to hate?

  The prince reached out a hand to touch my arm but I jerked
away. He did not react. “Perhaps you are familiar with a saying,” he said. “‘If you would be our friend, first know what it is to be our enemy.’”

  We looked at each other for a moment, my gaze turbulent and confused, his serene, even distant. Then he turned and went through the glass doors that led to the terrace. In a moment I followed him into the night.

  I thought I could smell death on the air.

  He took out a cigarette and lit it. Tobacco is used as a pleasure drug among them, its effects much like the ones cannabis has on humans. The prince rarely smoked. I wondered now if it was a ritual for him peculiar to the hunt.

  He said, inhaling thoughtfully, “Did it occur to you to wonder why I allowed you to come with us this summer?”

  I watched the plume of smoke disperse into a mist and drift over the terrace and into the garden. I said, tightly, and the words surprised even me, “I think it was a test, sir.”

  His face was in shadow, and difficult to read, but I thought I saw the quirk of an eyebrow. “You are as clever as ever.” He drew again on the cigarette, enjoyed it, released the smoke. “It was also an essential step in your education. You do understand that, do you not?”

  I said nothing.

  “We are, all of us, shades of dark and light,” he said. “Your kind, and mine. We choose each day, most of us, to live a careful balance between the extremes. Until you know the depth of your darkness, you cannot know the light. And you cannot choose. It is as simple as that.” And then, oddly, I thought I saw him smile as he lifted the cigarette to his lips again. “We are not the only beasts in the jungle, little man,” he said. “We are not even the most dangerous.”

  He smoked a time in silence, his gaze beyond me, on the figures behind the glass doors inside the room. Then he looked back at me, his eyes dark and somber. “Tonight, young Emory,” he said, “you are no longer a child. You will leave this place with more knowledge than any human of your time, if that is what you choose, and no one will stop you. We will find you a safe human school, and see that all your needs are met, and you will grow secure and strong among your own kind and, eventually, you may look back upon your time with us as nothing more than a vague oddity, hardly worth remembering.” He paused, and let the significance of what he was offering sink in. I simply stared at him.

  “But if you stay,” he went on, “you do so knowing full well what we are, and what you are, and you will bear the responsibility for that knowledge for the rest of your life. Do you understand that?”

  I looked at the beautiful elegant creatures inside the house, with their long upturned necks and sly smiles and their tailored trousers and martini glasses and throaty laughter, and I hated them, and I loved with them with a fierce passionate awe I cannot, even to this day, put into words. To leave them, to be banned from their world, to forget about them … I could no more imagine it than I could imagine ripping off my own arm and walking away with nothing but a bloody stump. I looked at Lara, now almost asleep on her pillow, and the princess, with the smile of a mother’s love on her face, sitting beside her, stoking her hair. To leave her? To leave them? It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t even a possibility.

  I didn’t answer the prince. Not then, not ever. I stood for a moment in silence, and then I turned and went back inside the house. I walked over to the bed and looked down at Lara, the crescent shadows of lashes on her cheeks, the gleam of tumbled hair, the smooth familiar features. I said to the princess, quietly and without removing my eyes from Lara, “I’ll sit with her.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and then she rose, and left the room. I sat down beside Lara and sought her hand, and held it throughout the night.

  Here is the truth about these creatures, the thing I had always known but until that moment, until I had to choose, had never understood: they steal your soul.

  They steal your soul.

  _________________________

  Chapter Twelve

  The Present

  Rolfe stopped him with a lift of his finger and a small moue of distaste mixed, in a manner that was not altogether convincing, with concern. Emory touched a spot of moisture on his upper lip and felt the slick texture of blood. Rolfe passed him a folded handkerchief.

  “How uncouth of me.” Emory blotted the blood from his nostrils, folding and refolding the fine lawn cloth. Surreptitiously, he examined the handkerchief for a monogram, but found none. “That, unfortunately, is what you get for dining with humans.”

  Rolfe smiled, feigning sympathy. It was another one of those smiles that never reached his eyes. “You came in with a small brain bleed,” he said. “It sealed itself spontaneously, and doesn’t appear to have affected any vital functions. Amazing,” he mused, “how little surface of the brain is actually used by humans. You might have had a half dozen strokes this past year without even noticing.”

  “Reassuring,” said Emory. The nosebleed seemed to have stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and he folded the handkerchief into quarters and offered it back to Rolfe. Rolfe held up both hands, palms out, in protest. Emory smiled briefly and tucked the blood stained cloth into his pocket.

  Rolfe was thoughtful for a moment. “Clarify something for me, if you will. On this Aegean holiday, you never overheard the prince and the Devoncroix discussing their secret? Surely this is why the pack leader came, and why Fasburg allowed it—so that they might share information.”

  Emory hesitated. “I did. Once. It made no sense at the time. I overheard many conversations. The pack leader was trying to buy one of the prince’s properties. The prince was a harsh negotiator. The pack was invested in one of the prince’s films. There were disputes. It is the way with them. They don’t consider a victory genuine unless it is fought for or stolen.”

  “The point?” prompted Rolfe.

  Emory said, “They guarded their words carefully around other loup garoux, because they knew how easily they could be heard. But around me, a mere human, it was often as though they forgot I existed. The prince and the pack leader had drinks one evening in the pavilion overlooking the sea. I was coming up from the beach, and hid in the rocks because, as I told you, I was terrified of breaking protocol and being sent home. I could hear their voices clearly. The prince said, ‘You may recall that once we discussed a mythological creature. I wonder if you have had any further insights on the matter.’ And the pack leader said, very shortly, ‘No.’

  “And then the prince said, ‘You are not the only one searching for him, you know. It would be most unfortunate indeed should the subject of our discussion fall into the wrong hands.’ And the pack leader said, ‘I know.’ That’s all I heard.”

  “You’re sure?” Rolfe’s voice was sharp.

  “I am.”

  “You should have told me before.”

  Emory shrugged. “My memory is not what it once was.”

  Rolfe scowled. “I am disappointed in you, Professor. I counted upon you for accuracy. I dislike a story told out of sequence.”

  Emory said, “I’m sorry.” He took up his wine glass, glanced at it, noted it was empty. He met Rolfe’s eyes. In another moment, Rolfe’s features relaxed. He lifted the bottle and refilled Emory’s glass.

  “On the other hand,” he said lightly, “you do have a flair for a dramatic tale. So I pray, continue at your pace and in your own style. When was it, exactly, that you decided to betray your own race? Not to mention, of course, the exquisite Lara, whom you professed to love.”

  Emory gazed at him steadily for a long moment. He sipped the wine. He said quietly, “You cannot imagine how much I loved her.”

  Rolfe said nothing. He simply waited.

  And after another very long time, picked up his story.

  _______________________

  _______________________________________

  Excerpt from DAWN TO DUSK: A TALE OF TWO SPECIES by Emory Hilliford, PhD:

  Here is the story of Eudora the queen and the human who loved her:

  His name was Louis Phillipe Mont
claire. He was a priest of human affairs, a student of science and arcane knowledge, a keeper of secrets. He was also a privileged member of a highly clandestine organization which , since the tragedy of Rome, had striven to restore the balance of power between humankind and werewolves. No one, not even the members themselves, knew how many of them there were, nor how many might be human and how many werewolf. The humans among them wore a small brand in the shape of a cross on the backs of their necks, easily hidden under their hair or beneath a high collar.

  Through the centuries they had quietly manipulated events that might improve the lot of humankind and restore to them what was lost when the loup garoux deserted them: a trade route that would not otherwise have been discovered for centuries might find its way conveniently into human hands, for example, or an obscure herb with particular efficacy on a certain human disease, or a crucial bit of engineering that would allow their ships to cross greater distances or their buildings to stand taller. But the ways in which they interfered in the course of history were always minor ones, gentle corrections to the course from which human and werewolfkind had strayed. The game they played was a delicate one, a constant juggling of the balance of power, and none of them could afford to lose sight of the consequences that could be wrought by a single misstep.

  Bound by a covenant of silence and the inviolable belief that Nature, in balance, was their strongest ally, they risked the wrath of the pack, the superstitious terror of humans, and even their own lives to do what must be done. They called themselves the Brotherhood of the Dark Moon, and they were such an anathema to the pack that their very existence was barely acknowledged; the penalty for belonging, should one be discovered, was death.

  Louis Phillipe kept his church at the bottom of the hill that was overlooked by a grand palais in the Valley of the Loire, conducting his affairs among the humans of the village and never overstepping his bounds. But he knew full well who, and what, the residents of the palais were. He listened with a thrill and yearning to the sounds of their wolf song at night, he watched them pass in their elegant human forms by day. He studied them from afar and adored them in silence.