Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (2 page)

The passive
aggressive She Wolf was the medicine they needed. He chose her to
empower the pack, to be his queen, and though he stood out as the
leader, soon everyone knew it was she who pulled all the
strings.

Her mind
churned and she had a fierce survival instinct. She was a more
natural wolf than she was a housewife. Blood and the elixir of life
flowed through her again. She seethed when angry, but channeled it
well. She was fair and strict as long as she was obeyed and got
what she wanted. She harnessed her popular voice as leader. She was
respected and feared. Paws had chosen better than he could have
ever imagined. Until, in a twist of irony, he almost resented how
good a choice he had made.

If Apollo is
the sun, Zeus the storm and Artemis the moon, then perhaps the
wolves are the dark night. Where the Artemis rolls through the
green farmland hills into the heart of Shade, the people are shut
away in their houses because when the sun sets the wolves stalk the
land.

On a full moon
night, under gloomy cloud, a tabby is standing on the footpath,
feeling the warm pavement under his paws, when suddenly he
vanishes. The street is deserted in a breathy plume as a massive
wolf-like beast strikes him from the earth. Wind rustles the poplar
leaves above.

The hushed
night is broken by a loud rumble, as a clap of lightning flashes in
the sky and a distant howl echoes through the valley.

We all have our
demons. Some people chase dreams but I run from them. Thunder often
woke us from sleep. I awoke with a start that morning, despite the
lack of it, and exhaled deeply. It had been a full moon and I had a
feeling the wolves had wreaked havoc. I gritted my teeth. It was a
hot and I was plagued by nightmares. Summer was covered by clouds,
dark silver and angry. The earth’s nearest star warred with Zeus
and the result was a humid atmosphere. I had heard the wails from
the mountains in the dead of night.

My demons were
real.

Filtered
daylight reached in the window. I’d had the dreams again – where
the black wolf chased me. I threw my legs over the edge of the bed
and pulled on Tormey’s worn in, mud-soiled boots. I gazed through
the curtains. Tisane’s house was hidden, we couldn’t see the blue
trees of the mountains, and that meant neither could the wolves see
us. But they wouldn’t remain at bay forever. The sky was never
clear anymore, and nor were my dreams.

I paced to the
bathroom where I splashed my face. I rubbed my tense neck, with
cold fingers and felt for the dog tag. I held it and stared at the
crescents, proof I was undeniably part of Shade's curse.

Crunching on a
cold piece of toast, I flicked on the old analogue T.V. The Sunrise
news came on. If the wind blew up from the nearby coast, or a storm
was brewing, the temperamental reception often failed. Needless to
say it was rarely worth turning it on.

Tisane was
asleep. Nowadays we woke at dusk and slept at dawn, as the sun
rose. She tended to wait up for me. I kept the volume down, when
she did sleep I dreaded to wake her. Though she was always pleasant
no matter how grey the prints under her eyes were.

The Morning
Show was shot in Horkum. Shade was rapidly becoming a blip on the
radar of our major city, due to the fact that we had an abnormally
high incidence of crime for such a small population. It was my job
to keep the perpetrators under control and currently I was
outnumbered.

In a corner of
the room beside the rusted rifle, now leant a bow. The handgun
travelled with me but I had taken to rediscovering the arrow;
Artemis’s silent weapon. I had spent hours perfecting the string
and carving the bow and still my attempt was poor at best. Tisane
was an artist, she took my bad handy work into her work room and
toiled. Managing to produce something masterful from my clumsy
prototype design.

My face was
positioned too close to the flickering television screen when I was
confronted by the last thing I had ever expected to see. My
interest spiked immediately as I heard the name.
Daniel Angus
Lovett
. Daniel Lovett, I couldn’t forget the name. I leant in
to turn the dial up, listening intently.

“
...Has been
reported missing under what is believed to be suspicious
circumstances. The man in question had missed a court date two
weeks ago and police are on the hunt.”
His image glanced
blankly at me from behind the screen and I looked at the fuzzy
image, into the absent eyes and face of the man I had obliterated
with a bullet, all those weeks ago in the mountains with Cres. The
news castors half-jokingly mentioned they hoped it wasn’t the
mysterious wolves of Shade.

The female
presenter laughed in an abrupt way that made me think she wouldn’t
be in a rush to make a live report from our valley. Shade was
becoming as infamous as the Bermuda Triangle. I watched the
following segment on the weather, which had become increasingly bad
along with the atmosphere – this was slowly becoming the wettest
summer on record and some statistic was given about lighting
strikes.

But my mind was
elsewhere. My victim had been accused of raping a minor three weeks
before we hunted him – I contemplated this information intently.
Maybe I should have felt better right then. But Cres hadn’t been
honest with me. I considered my dear friend, her absent stare of
guilt and my heart dropped. Something had always been wrong with
that hunt. I doubted that he was even turned by the pack. Her
blanched face and the cadence of her voice had always spoken the
truth. I huffed. He was probably nothing more than a manufactured
distraction. I dreaded to think what she had done. It went against
the grain.

This latest
information strained my faith in her. I turned off the television.
Right now I had no choice but to cautiously trust her, though she
had betrayed me in the past. But perhaps my judgment was as clouded
as the sky.

Tisane heard
the whisper of the wind brushing the oak trees as the belly of
Shade growled in an echo that vibrated the leaves. Maybe I felt it
whisper, but she heard it roar.

Something
stirred in the silence around the cabin, Tisanes eyes stilled on
the page as the tree trunks creaked and swayed in the outside
breeze. A feeling of trepidation inched its way inside, creeping
through her skin. Her mother’s framed picture stared at her from
the bookshelf. She placed a tarot card to mark the page in her
book.

The sound of a
bird fluttering its wings past the uncovered window, followed by
footsteps on the floorboards of the verandah alerted her to a
visitor. A hollow knock came at the door - tap, tap. She stood
barefoot and walked toward the beat, pausing to whisper under her
breath as she reached for the handle,
‘Protect me and mine from
harm’
. Lightning lit the sky.

She swung the
blue door open to reveal a teenage girl in the glow from the house.
Her visitor stared back at her hauntingly from the verandah. Tisane
looked past her guest for a vehicle – though she hadn’t heard
one.

“I would like a
reading?” The girl’s voice cracked timidly. She was wearing
glasses, shoes and was dressed in a grey hooded jumper that looked
at least two sizes too large. The glasses and sandals were a good
sign, the jumper wasn’t.

“No
appointment?” Tisane frowned, seeing in the dimness, she was
completely alone. Her eyes narrowed, distrustfully.

The girl looked
through Tisane “You weren’t taking any,” she responded in a
dissonant tone.

“Do your
parents know where you are?” Tisane examined her pale features.
“This time?”

The girl
suddenly looked more forlorn, her eyes as dark as the black water
of the inlet. “Please, I need help; you are the only one who can
make sense of this...I’d like a reading please?” She uttered
through soft childlike lips.

“I asked you
not to come.” There was a crescent moon, a night typically free of
wolf calls. It was as though the girl had just simply appeared - an
unsettling illusion. “How did you get here?”

“I ran.” Her
soft face betrayed nothing.

It was against
Tisane’s beliefs to turn her away. Dubious, she stepped aside to
invite the visitor into from the night. It occurred to her that
since their last meeting the girl may have been thinner, as her
clothes hung from her body. She shut the door firmly.

Tisane cleared
her throat slightly. “Normally I can only take appointments, but
I’ll give you a reading just this once,” she lied, gliding over to
the kitchen. The girl nodded reservedly and pushed her glasses up
the bridge of her nose, following.

“Sit,” Tisane
cleared a pile of papers and a few dirty cups. She placed the tarot
on the end of the table - a sign a reading would begin.

The child took
a seat as she spoke “Please, just tell me what you see?” Without
being asked she offered her spread palm. After a moment Tis gently
took the offered hand. It was soft and cool, from the outside
breeze perhaps? Tisane quelled her apprehension. She glanced at the
child’s lifeline. It was noticeably short.

She ignored the
lines. “What is it you are seeking to know?” Tisane closed her eyes
momentarily, taking a breath in through her nose, and out through
her lips readying herself for the energy that was to come.

“Do you see
anything strange there? Can you treat me? I remember what you said,
what the cards meant, I thought it was accurate...” Her eyes
spheres of darkness. Whatever the girl sought, she would not be
satisfied with the mild undecided answers of the cards, or the
lines. Answers came only when you weren’t attached to a certain
outcome.

“If the answer
wasn’t brought forward last time, it is even less likely this
time.” Despite her words Tisane reached across the table top for
the cards that had been with her through thick and thin and
shuffled them unhurriedly with a familiar hand that then slowed.
Contemplatively she placed the cards back on the table. She
suddenly rose towards the kitchen bench.

“You must be
hungry?” she said with her back to the girl, “Running all that
way?” She fixed herself something to drink from a dark bottle on
the counter and swigged it down with a wince. She mumbled
something, before returning with a slice of cake. Rigidly she sat
back at the table placing it down. She tried to smile. “You have
the power to change anything…to be and achieve what it is you want
– no matter what the oracle says.” Tisane pushed the cards aside
and again took the girl’s soft hand and cupped it in hers. Assured
it was still colder than her own, she felt much safer. Her
expression became empathetic.

The girl
nodded. “It’s not something I’m sure I want to change.” She met
Tisane’s cloudy gaze.

In Tisane’s
other hand she held a decorated knife. Her grip tightened around
it. “Then it is nothing to be frightened of.” Tisane’s pristine
features crumpled. She lashed the knife across the table and
plunged the tip with a swipe into the girl’s hand.

Shocked,
Caroline reflexively pulled away, throwing Tisane a horror-struck
stare. She clutched the wounded hand to her chest.

“I’m sorry.”
Tisane swallowed, her face drawn. “Here let me get you a Bandaid.”
She turned and with panicky hands she found a drawer. The girl’s
frown grew deeper as she watched Tisane fumbling in the
dresser.

“Here…Bandaids,
see? I’ll let you put it on.” She placed a kit on the table and
slid it nearer, her face had paled.

“Why did you
cut me?” the girl whimpered staring at the cut in disbelief.

Tisane pinched
her lips “I needed to see the blood,” she offered and paused. “Why
you are out past curfew? Aren’t afraid of the wolves?” Tisane
serenely met her horrified gaze. The girl didn’t answer. “Are you a
wolf?” Tisane asked disinterestedly as she opened the first aid kit
on the table, and nudged it closer to her guest. She picked up the
knife and examined it closely. Caroline’s eyes dashed to the
blade.

Tisane placed
it down near the cards and cast her stare over the girl. “Why did
you come here?” she uttered, frowning back inquisitively.

“I’ll show
you.” Caroline’s scowl warned Tisane to stay back. She looked about
and picked up a dish from the kitchen bench, and making sure that
she was watching her, she tapped the dish to show its solidity and
then proceeded to snap it between her small hands as though it was
nothing but a loaf of bread. Tisane’s saintly countenance became
more certain. The girl placed the severed dish down in two pieces
on the old table.

“Put on a
Bandaid,” Tisane nodded and gave a small, encouraging smile. The
girl’s eyes hardened. It was a small cut, but a trickle of red
blood still ran over the luminescent white skin of her palm. She
sat. The wound trickled, landing with a single drop onto the
table.

“I had to
check. It’s just a nick.” She paused. “You should heal well. Please
forgive me,” Tisane implored. “Caroline wasn’t it? Pull a card.”
Her fingers expertly handled the cards with a finality that
promised a reading, she cut three piles and flicked them together
again. It seemed the wolf wasn’t in Caroline’s veins, but perhaps
the huntress was. Tisane’s eyes remained on the girl, quietly
appraising her as her hand swept to splay the tarot out like a fan
between their waiting fingers, ready for divination.

“Choose – it’s
what you came for.”

Caroline
hesitated, then leant forward and lifted her index finger. Her
short painted nail glided above the pattern on the back of the
spread, hovering and then suddenly she touched one, holding her
finger on it. Tisane slid the card back towards herself and looked
at it. She paused a moment.

“The Ace of
Pentacles.” Tisane gritted her teeth. Lila’s card. The card
Caroline had pulled coincidentally represented Lila to Tisane. Was
it a sign? She gestured with a nod for Caroline to pull another. “I
accept these gifts from Artemis and mother earth,” Tisane
canted.