Black Wolf (2 page)

Jesse gave her
a confused look. "Sorry?"

"Your status
card. If you want to skip the taxes, you need to have it."

Status… oh. It
wasn't the first time someone had taken one look at him and assumed
he was Native—he'd been told it wasn't just the skin tone or the
black hair, either, that something in the lines of his face
suggested it too. Maybe he was. Who knew? Well, presumably there
was a record somewhere of who his parents had been and what had
happened to them, but he had no intention of dealing with the
government any more than he absolutely had to, ever.

"Don't have
one," he said. "Don't worry about it."

She shrugged
and rang in the map and the chocolate bar. She shorted him on the
change, but it wasn't by a lot and he didn't bother pointing it
out.

"Can you show
me on here where we are?" he asked her, tucking the chocolate bar
into his jacket pocket for the moment.

She shrugged
again and helped him unfold the map onto the counter. She scanned
it intently for a long moment, toying with a red magic marker, then
stabbed at the map, leaving a red dot that bled outwards into the
paper. "'Bout here. There's the highway. We're not on there, but
we're about twenty miles north from this one here."

Jesse followed
the so-called highway south with a finger. A long way south. And
finally found the city.

"That's a bit
over a hundred miles," the woman said, watching him, and nodded to
herself. "Yeah, about that."

"I don't
suppose anyone from around here goes that way very often."

"Not on the
weekend. During the week, y'get the odd one off the reservation
goin' that way. That's about, oh, thirty miles north-east of here."
Helpfully, she showed him on the map. "We go down now and again for
supplies, but we're not goin' again for a couple of weeks."

Jesse groaned
to himself. This was definitely
not
a good situation, no
matter which way he turned it around in his head. That was a long
way to hitch-hike on a road that didn't seem to get used much.

Behind him, he
heard the door squeak open, and Rebecca came inside, followed by a
man who was probably the husband of the woman Jesse had been
talking to. They certainly looked like a matched set, although the
man was largely bald rather than badly dyed.

"Oh dear.
What's wrong, Jesse?"

Jesse sighed.
"Getting home is going to be a bigger problem than I thought."

Rebecca looked
at the old couple. "How much for the gas?" She looked thoughtful
while she paid, and when she finished she turned towards Jesse
again. "You could come with me," she suggested. "My friends won't
mind, and the tent's big enough for one more. Maybe between us we
can figure out a way for you to get home."

Jesse
hesitated.

Rebecca
smiled. "Do you have any better offers than partying alone with
three women overnight, having a decent meal, and maybe some help
getting back where you came from tomorrow?"

Well, when she
put it like that… "I think," Jesse said, "that's an offer I can't
refuse. Thanks."

"Not a
problem. C'mon, Moira and Avryl are going to wonder where I
am."

* * *

"Stupid moving
shade," Kevin muttered, looking up from his book to discover that
he was no longer lying in the full summer sunlight; the tree that
shaded Deanna was now casting its shadow across him as well.

He picked up
his book and the lightweight green blanket he was lying on, and
moved three feet or so to one side. With a sigh of contentment, he
stretched out again in the direct sun, feeling it soaking in
through skin so pale it was all but translucent, the warmth
reaching right down to his bones and giving him strength, power,
life.

"Happier now?"
Deanna asked in amusement, the notebook she'd been writing in so
intently still braced against one raised knee. No blanket for her;
she no more liked having something between her and the earth below
her than Kevin liked having anything shading him from the sun. She
was far more comfortable leaning against the old red maple that,
for her sake, brought them back to this clearing to camp, over and
over.

She reminded
Kevin more than a little of the maple itself, her skin soft brown,
her long heavy mane of hair dark auburn, her whole body what he
thought a perfect mix between muscle and softness. The comfortable
pants and loose short-sleeved top he'd made for her, woven out of
sunlight, were even various shades of brown, adding to the
impression. It wasn't so hard to see where the idea that dryads
were bound to a single tree for life had come from.

"Until the sun
moves again, yep." He opened his book back up, and crossed his arms
in front of him, the book pinned in place. It was only
mid-afternoon, and it was August; he should have time to absorb a
lot more sun before it got too low to be helpful.

"Solar-powered
elvenmage," she teased.

"Hard to argue
with the truth."

He could feel
laughter against his mind, and glanced off to his right, where a
huge wolf with long dense chocolate-brown fur lounged in the shade
of a smaller maple nearby.

*Too bad you
aren't a bit more literally solar-powered,* he heard in Bane's
thoughts, the laughter threaded through the words. *It would
certainly help with the grocery bills.*

All they
needed for this to be perfect was for their two absent coven-mates
to be here. But Flynn was with his mother, who was under strict
healer orders to minimize movement until her ankle had finished
knitting back together; that would take far less time under healer
care than it would without it, but it still needed to be looked
after. Cynthia was wrapped up in something she and two other
witches, close friends, were doing together, and had promised to
come join them when she finished. Kevin let his eyes close, though
he wasn't sleepy. He could never feel sleepy while the sun was on
him, especially so strongly. But he could relax, let himself really
feel it, as if he could just let go and melt completely into the
heat and the brightness.

Unfortunately,
it could only last for so long. The sun dropped ever-lower, and
finally the trees blocked out the direct light.

Deanna
stretched and got up. "Mm, that's better. Maybe it will start to
cool off a bit now."

"Yeah," Kevin
sighed. "It probably will. Well, time for food."

Bane echoed
Deanna's stretch, and shifted to human where he lay, tanned and
brown-haired, his currently under-dressed state showing off all the
muscle that came from spending so much time running the forest on
four feet. "Imagine that. An elvenmage who wants to eat."

"We did bring
a ton of food," Deanna said. "I don't eat all that much, and I bet
at least half your meals while we're camping will be stuff you
hunt. So I guess Kev gets to make sure we don't have to carry it
all home."

"It's a big
responsibility," Kevin said solemnly. "But I'll try to live up to
it."

They settled
near the green nylon dome tent to each fill a plate from the wide
range of foods that Kevin had prepared and packed. Nothing was
going to go bad inside coolers that Kevin and Cynthia had worked on
together—Kevin with his affinity for heat and light, Cynthia with
hers for all four elements and all the natural world. Those coolers
were every bit as good at preserving food as the fridge at home,
which certainly opened up the options on what to bring.

Kevin held a
hand over Bane's cold roast chicken and channelled a little of the
sun's heat to it, warming it to the kind of temperature his
werewolf coven-mate preferred. Bane gave him a quick smile of
thanks, and bit into a strip of meat. Deanna preferred potato salad
and fresh vegetables, which was typical for a dryad; vegetarianism
came easily to them, though it wasn't a necessity. Kevin himself
constructed a pair of sandwiches with a little of everything on
them; a rapid metabolism forced elves to be aware of what they ate
and keep meals balanced between what would digest quickly and what
would keep them going for a while, and for a mage like him, it was
all the more delicate a juggling act.

The prices of
power didn't mean he couldn't use it for fun, though. As the
sunlight faded, he wove an image in the air, a glowing butterfly
with wings of emerald and amber, then another of ruby and amethyst,
and more, creating them one at a time and keeping the earlier ones
dancing lazily in the twilight as he crafted each new one. Finally,
though, he had to stop, feeling his concentration beginning to
stretch too thin; he let the ones already in action keep flitting
around at random, brilliant in the dim light.

Deanna smiled,
her pleasure warm and familiar against his inner senses. "That's
beautiful, Kev," she said softly.

"That's, what,
nine?" Bane said. "That's a new record for you."

Kevin nodded,
still carefully keeping most of his attention on the illusory
butterflies. "My control with little stuff is getting better all
the time."

"You're one
hell of a mage already, phoenix. It would be scary to think how
good you're going to be in a decade or three, if I didn't know
you'll use it well."

Kevin glanced
at him and smiled, aware that Bane could see him perfectly well in
the eerie illumination of the butterfly light though he couldn't
say the same in return. "Thanks to my very forgiving and endlessly
supportive coven." He reinforced a sapphire and silver butterfly
that was starting to fade, brought it back to full strength.

Deanna
giggled. "With great power…" she began the quote.

She didn't get
a chance to finish; Kevin sent the butterflies at her in a
multi-hued cloud, all at once. Deanna laughed and ducked. "Attack
of the killer butterflies!"

Kevin let go
of the butterflies, and they melted into nothingness, leaving them
in twilight that might just as well have been midnight to elven
eyes. Being an elf, though, he could see his companions as thermal
images, Deanna a bit cooler which was normal for a dryad. With the
extra effort of invoking mage-sight, he could have seen them in yet
another way, as well as the bright glittery cords of energy that
bound a coven together, but it hardly seemed worth it right now.
"Well, I guess I'm about done for the day. I never did get much
reading done today, I'm going to just curl up in the tent with my
book. You nocturnal types can do what you like."

Bane chuckled.
"I'm off for a run, then."

"Summer
evenings are wonderful," Deanna said, "except for the mosquitoes. I
suppose I could get someone to rub repellent in all over for me,
but there's not much point if I'm going to be all by myself. I'll
just come inside."

"Don't wait
up," Bane said, and shifted back to furform—Kevin saw the
heat-image flare briefly and then settle into an altered outline.
He nuzzled both coven-mates affectionately before trotting off,
probably to see if any of his pack or other potential hunting
companions were out and about yet.

Kevin created
enough light, in the form of a hovering glowing golden sphere, that
he could see to help Deanna clean up, although there really wasn't
much that needed cleaning up. No wildlife would brave both Kevin's
wards and Bane's scent. Then they retired to the tent. Since it was
intended for six, and had held their coven of five more than once,
there was plenty of room for the two of them to get comfortable;
Kevin sent the sphere to melt into the supporting ribs, causing
them to glow with gold-tinted light. He'd done it so often that it
didn't take much power to set up or sustain anymore.

There wasn't
really any need to talk. They'd known each other practically all
their lives, had been together through wonderful times and
real-life nightmares. It was enough just to relax and enjoy the
company and the peace.

* * *

Rebecca drove
a bit farther along the highway, and then turned left onto a dirt
road that must be just a nightmare in the winter. It wound its way
through the trees and up and down slopes and once over a small
bridge with a wide stream underneath.

Finally, she
pulled over in a spot where there was a grassy area right next to
the road.

"Moira and
Avryl have the tent and all," Rebecca said, pulling back the side
door of the van. "All we need to bring is my sleeping bag and the
cooler."

Jesse hefted
the cooler, which wasn't really all that heavy, and he was stronger
than people tended to assume when they saw him, no more than medium
height and less than medium build. "No problem."

Rebecca slung
the sleeping bag on one shoulder, locked the van, and led him into
the forest.

He would have
expected her lightweight, loose pants to be more of a problem in
this than his jeans were, but somehow she moved through the brushy
stuff without difficulty, while trees and bushes tried to trip,
slap, and otherwise abuse him. Rebecca was sympathetic and did her
best to help.

They stepped
out into a small clearing in the middle of the trees. He could see
a blue and white dome-shaped tent set up at the far side; closer,
on a spread blanket, were two more women around Rebecca's age. One
was very slender and probably very tall, with shoulder-length
brassy-blonde hair and very white skin and the kind of high
pronounced cheekbones that a modelling-wannabe would cheerfully
commit murder for, looking quite out of place in a soft-looking
long dress of multiple swirled shades of blue. The other was much
more softly curved, with longer tawny-brown hair neatly confined in
a long braid, rounder features, her eyes with a faintly Asian
slant, and she was wearing khaki shorts and a well-worn white
T-shirt with a faded picture of flowers on it.