Renegade Read online

  It took Lara and me no time at all to discover that the window in my room opened onto a roof that gave way to a lower roof that was a mere springing step away from a wall we could scramble down to the street below. We used to sneak out of the house at night when we thought no one knew and stalk the streets of Venice, hunting rats, she in wolf form and I in dark clothing and bare feet, the better with which to grip the slick stones and vertical walls. From Lara I learned to be silent and swift, to melt in and out of shadows like a wolf on the prowl and to balance on a narrow ledge as though I had four feet instead of two. From me, Lara learned to be fearless. The two of us, together, were utterly reckless, completely unstoppable, and as foolish as any two children ever had been.

  We never guessed that Teacher, whose sworn duty it was to protect his charge, was never more than a hundred feet away. The night we learned the truth was a milestone in my education, in more ways than one.

  Venice is filled with blind alleys, bridges that cross and cross again and lead nowhere, narrow streets that wander forever in circles, and mists so thick they can swallow a child—or a young wolf—whole in an instant. At three in the morning, there is black water below and black shapes beyond, and very little else. It’s a world of sound and scent, not of sight. It’s their world, not mine. I knew this, and I was jealous. Jealous, and determined to prove my worth.

  If we had thought about it for even a minute we would have realized that in a city like Venice, one ten-year-old wolfling would not have been the only one on the prowl in the dark dead hours of the morning. The need to run in wolf form is a physical necessity for them, and in most of the major cities of the world there are green spaces designated for just such a purpose. In Venice there are rooftops and bridges, wholly unsatisfactory for the most part, which was why house parties in the country were such a popular form of entertainment. But nature would not be long restrained, and it was inevitable that we would eventually meet up with one of their kind who had the same idea we did.

  Lara scented them first, a group of three adolescents just beyond the bridge we were about to cross, and she stiffened and crouched low, her fur bristling. I knew her body language well enough by now almost to read her mind, and I dropped down low beside her on the wet cobblestones, listening for what had frightened her. I heard the drip of mist from an overhanging eave, the slap of water below, and, eventually, the soft snuffling and breathy growls of animals in the dark.

  Lara turned carefully to melt away back toward the direction from which we had come, but I held up a hand to stay her, and I crept forward. I don’t know why. I was curious. I was stupid. I was a boy.

  The young males had chased down and killed a small dog, and they were arguing playfully over the remains. Muzzles bloody, fur damp with the misty night, they postured and posed, tossing the carcass around, snapping and lunging and retreating and advancing; werewolves at play. They caught my scent before I even crested the rise of the bridge and abandoned their game at once, turning, crouching low as Lara had done, searching the blackness with narrow yellow eyes.

  They couldn’t see me if I stayed to the shadows, I was certain of it. I was also certain—for some absurd reason I cannot justify to this day—that if I charged them they would scatter. I was wrong on both counts.

  As though orchestrated by an unseen hand, they spread out in a semi circle, approaching me. I lunged up out of my crouch with a mighty roar, waving my arms and leaping toward them. In a sudden flash of perception, I imagined I could see malicious laughter in their eyes as they charged me, two of them dashing wide to circle behind me while the third crouched low with teeth bared. I turned and ran.

  I could not outrun them; I knew that much. But I had no other plan. I sensed, rather than saw, the brush of black fur as Lara raced past me and I heard the scrabble of claws on the wet stones behind me. My heart was thundering and my legs were pumping and my breath was screeching in my ears. I saw the shape of a building, its entrance half-illuminated by a shadowed street light, and as I ran toward it I saw it was a church. Churches were always open. I screamed, “Lara!” with the last of my breath and sprinted toward it. That was when the three hot-breathed wolves streaked past me, and I realized they were no longer chasing me, but Lara.

  I made it to the steps of the church and screamed again, “Lara!” I could not see her. I scrambled up the steps and onto the portico and that was when I saw her break through the mist, running toward me. One of the young males, a wiry looking brown-furred creature, was close enough behind her that I could see the gleam of his yellow eyes. I grabbed the heavy door and pushed it open. “Come on!” I cried. “Hurry!”

  Lara reached the bottom of the steps, and stopped.

  I was on the inside of the door, now, ready to push it closed the moment she was inside. “Hurry!” I shouted again. But she didn’t move.

  The brown one was close on her now, and from the left another one came, flowing out of the mist like a demon. I screamed at her, “Are you crazy? Get inside!” And when she just stood there, frozen, I left the protection of the half-closed door and started running toward her, to drag her inside by the fur if I had to.

  It was probably this that galvanized her into action, because with one frantic, desperate glance over her shoulder she bounded up the steps, pushed off with her back feet, and leapt toward me. I saw what she was going to do just in time to fling my arm across my face to protect my eyes and to swing out of the arc of her Change so that only my shoulder and the back of my neck caught its heat. She fell against me in a tangle of arms and legs, and we scrambled inside, gasping, and slammed the big door shut behind us.

  There were candles flickering in the narthex, and the whole place smelled like beeswax and musty incense. The luminosity of stained glass caught the gleam of candles here and there with a spooky effect. We leaned our backs against the door, chests heaving, hands braced against the carved wood as though we might at any moment be called upon to hold the door closed with our brute strength. Then Lara gasped, “They won’t … follow us in here.”

  I shot a skeptical look at her. “They can try.”

  She shook her head, swallowing once, regaining her breath. “We’re not allowed.”

  Cautiously I opened the door just a crack, and peered out. She was right. The three of them had stopped at the bottom of the steps and were pacing angrily, muttering and snarling to themselves. But they made no move to ascend the steps toward us. I closed the door softly again.

  “We can’t enter a church in our natural form,” Lara explained, shivering a little in her bare skin.

  I stared at her. “Why not?”

  She drew breath for an answer, and closed her mouth, looking faintly puzzled. “I don’t know.”

  “Will you, like, burst into flames or something?”

  “I don’t think so.” But she didn’t sound all that sure. “It’s more like … bad manners.”

  I knew enough about their strict regard for manners and protocol not to take such an edict lightly. I had read stories in which loup garoux had willingly sacrificed their own lives before committing a breach of etiquette, so great was their dedication to, and their regard for, the tenets of civilization. Still, the whole thing was beginning to sound suspicious to me, particularly with three angry werewolves pacing the stones outside, and I demanded, “But it’s not bad manners to enter a church naked?”

  She shrugged.

  I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and tossed it to her. Now I was cold, my skin prickling in the damp interior of the church.

  “You should have left them alone,” she accused, tugging on the sweatshirt. “Now what are we going to do?”

  I opened the door a crack, peered through and closed it again. They were still there. I closed the door and tried to remember what I had learned about the architecture of cathedrals. Was there a back door? All I could remember was that the concept of the flying buttress was designed by a werewolf called Helios in a place called Byzantium in AD 320. We only had an hour or two be
fore dawn and if we were caught missing … I’d almost rather face the angry werewolves. Lara, having changed so precipitously into human form, would be unable to change back for as much as an hour, and until then I was responsible for keeping her safe. My mind raced, my eyes scanned. I caught Lara’s hand.

  “Run,” I told her abruptly. “Run as fast as you can.”

  Without giving her a chance to question or to lag, I burst through the church door at a dead-out charge, propelling Lara with me. The portico was about fifty feet wide, and the small pack below easily outdistanced us as we raced across it, knowing that when we came to the rail we would have no choice but to climb over and drop to the ground—and into their eager, waiting maws. But as we approached the railing I shouted at Lara, “Jump!” and held on to her hand as tightly as I knew how.

  She sprang into the air and so did I, although her leaps were so magically strong there was very little effort required on my part. It was as close to flying as I have ever felt. Our feet struck the rail with just enough momentum to push off again and we soared over the narrow walkway below, screaming with terror and exhilaration all the way down.

  We hit the black water of the canal feet first and with enough force to sink straight down. There was a heart-stopping moment in the cold darkness when I lost Lara’s hand, but then I broke through the surface and there she was, looking shocked and scared but then laughing to see me, and I grabbed on to her and laughed too with the sheer thrill of it all.

  But our delight was short lived. The three werewolves paced the wall of the canal above us, angrier now than before. As we watched, one of them crouched and prepared to dive in. Too shocked to turn and swim, paralyzed with dread, we caught a sudden silent flash of movement, a single, impatient snarl, and a fourth wolf-form streaked around the corner of the church. He was long and black and efficient in movement; he snatched the brown one by the scruff of the neck and threw him against the side of the building. He turned on the other two in a fury of bared teeth and flying saliva and they rolled and tumbled and screamed for nothing more than five or six seconds, while Lara and I watched with dirty canal water lapping into our open, astonished mouths. Then there was silence, and the three adolescent wolves ran away.

  Huge grins spread over our faces and we gripped each other in celebratory joy, hardly able to believe our good fortune. Then the long black wolf turned and looked at us with cold and steady eyes, and our grins faded.

  It was Teacher.

  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, while Lara practiced ballet, I had fencing lessons. The princess had learned from one of her human friends that fencing was the sort of thing well-bred young human children were taught at an early age, and she thought it would be amusing to bring in Monsieur to instruct me twice a week. We had our lessons in the third floor ballroom, a vast empty space with shiny wood floors and tall arched windows lining either side, which were open on this bright spring day to the sounds and smells from the streets below.

  The prince strode in as I was preparing an elegant thrust and snatched my foil out of my hand as one might catch a fly in mid-air. “Good day, Master Emory,” he greeted me, and bowed slightly to Monsieur. “Bonjour, Monsieur Forcat. Allez–vous, s’il vous plait.”

  It’s always been fascinating to me that the loup garoux, who have no need for language in their natural form, have such a quick ear for it that they effortlessly learn to speak any human language upon hearing it only once or twice. Lara was fluent in seventeen languages, including Chinese, before I mastered French.

  Monsieur saluted him with his upraised foil, bowed, and departed the room. I reluctantly removed my mask from my sweaty face, and made myself stand tall. I knew I was in trouble, as any sensible boy would.

  The prince regarded the foil that was in his hands thoughtfully for a moment. “I’ve never understood the foolishness that requires you humans to put such faith in your weapons.” He took the foil and snapped it effortlessly in two over his knee. The discarded pieces clattered upon the floor. “Only a coward relies upon steel and iron to fight his battles for him,” he said.

  And then, in an abrupt change of demeanor, he declared airily, “I have come, Master Emory, to seek your counsel.”

  I was wise enough to say nothing, but to watch him closely.

  “What would you do,” he inquired, with every appearance of sincerity behind those dark, earnest eyes, “if you were the father of a young daughter who had been bullied and terrorized by three young rogues twice her size?”

  I remember an enormous wash of relief. It was about them, not me. I said without hesitance and with a great deal of force, because I had been terrorized, too, “I would have them arrested, and put them in prison without delay.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, tapping his index finger across his lips, regarding me. “Sadly, we have no facilities for incarceration. Our means of justice are much more direct.”

  When I looked confused, he explained “Life or death.”

  “Then,” I offered immediately, “I would kill them.”

  Perhaps a slight amusement twitched at his lips. “I see.”

  I wondered if I had said something wrong.

  He said, “Shall I tell you why murder among my species is so rare as to be almost extinct? There is a peculiar physio-chemical reaction that occurs at the moment of a violent death, in which the thoughts, memories, passions, fears and joys—in essence, the entire soul—of the dying werewolf flows into the mind of his killer. In order to kill another, you must be willing to live the rest of your life with him inside your mind, as part of you. Very few of us are willing to accept those consequences for a moment of rage or revenge, so we do not kill each other. The same thing happens, oddly enough,” he added casually, “during the mating bond, which is why, although we may have sex with many, we love only one. I believe quite the opposite is true among your people.”

  I nodded absently, far more fascinated with violent death than with sex. I was a child. That would change.

  I thought about it for a moment, and inquired, “But if you can’t put them in prison and you can’t kill them, how do you punish criminals?”

  He smiled. “There are, of course, exceptions to the death penalty.”

  And before I saw him move, without a flicker of a lash to give me warning, I was flying through the air and out the open window, dangling by my wrist alone three stories above Venice. There was a moment, approximately a heartbeat, when I did not believe it, when I simply did not react. And then I saw the people below me like dolls on the street, and the sunlight glinting off the water, and two levels of window boxes, tumbling with flowers, on the buildings surrounding me, and I felt my body sway, unsupported in the void. I couldn’t swallow, or make a sound. My testicles shrank into my body. How I managed to avoid soiling myself I’ll never know. I was a mass of sheer, quaking terror.

  The prince gazed down upon me, dispassionate. “We have a vastly different moral code, young Emory,” he explained to me. “You will do well to remember that.”

  My nails dug into his wrist. I felt myself slipping.

  “If I were human, for example,” he went on, “I would open my hand, and let you drop. I would watch your bones splatter onto the pavement below and feel what? Perhaps less than a twinge of regret. I would take my chances with your courts and my own capricious conscience and be done with it. However …”

  With a single effortless haul, he lofted me over the windowsill and back into the room. I staggered when my feet met the floor, and he released me.

  “Fortunately for you, I am not human,” he said. He took out a handkerchief to wipe his hand of my sweat, and glanced at me in passing. “And as a matter of interest, did you know that one of the few remaining crimes for which death is sanctioned among our kind is the intentional harm of a human?” A shrug. “I’ve always found it fascinating that we value your lives so much more than you do.”

  He was close to me suddenly, his dark eyes like a volcanic fire that consumed everything in its path—my w
ill, my thoughts, my courage, my self. “Listen to me, little man,” he said lowly. “You will never be stronger than we are. You will never be faster. You will never be smarter. You can’t outrun, out swim, out jump, out fight or out think us. Your only chance, if you are to survive among us, is to earn our respect.”

  His finger darted out suddenly and tapped my forehead. His touch was like a bullet to my brain. “This,” he told me, “is your weapon. Learn to use it.”

  One might think, after such a terrifying display from one who had previously shown me only kindness, my trust would have been shattered forever, my affection for him dissolved. The opposite was true. Because there was no rancor in his actions, no vindictiveness or anger, I understood that this lesson was as much a sign of his love for me as were his kisses, his patient supervision of my studies, his carelessly expensive gifts. They are harsh teachers, the lupinotuum, but fair. It is far kinder to strike a child once for biting a human than to condemn her to a life of the desperate savagery and ostracization that results from a lack of inhibition. Was the prince’s lesson a cruel one? No doubt. But it was one I never forgot.

  He stood, and added casually, “Cleverly done, by the way, running into the church. How did you know they wouldn’t follow you?”

  I swallowed hard. “I didn’t, sir. Not until Lara told me.”

  He seemed surprised. “Then you have luck as well as cunning on your side. An unbeatable combination, most would say.”

  My fencing whites were drenched with sweat and my hair was plastered to my eyes and my guts were swimming with residual fear, but those few, approving words from him were all it took to make the world right again. I struggled mightily to keep my voice steady and was desperately proud when I succeeded. “I would never let anyone harm Lara, sir.”