Black Wolf (36 page)

Sam shook her
head slowly. "Do you really think he will?"

"No, not
really. Evaline and Caitryn are trying to track him, but I don't
think they're going to get anything useful either. He headed south,
he went back to the city, I'd bet a lot. We can't find him there.
Flynn's willing to relocate indefinitely to search from there, and
Kev's willing to go with him in case that helps, but that's
dangerous and pointless. There's much too much noise from too many
other people for Flynn to get a fix, and he does know it, he just
doesn't want to admit it."

"Nothing's
impossible," Sam said softly, stroking Alfari absently.
"Demon-luck's pretty powerful."

"His life
takes him on enough of a roller coaster ride that I guess you could
call it demon-luck, but I'd rather not place much faith in
luck."

"Neither would
I."
Not even demon-luck.

30

Gisela had
been lingering on the fringes of Deanna's covens for as long as she
could remember, a pattern broken only for the time Deanna had been
with Rebecca.

Not since
she'd first heard it proclaimed that Coven Sundark had been born
had she seen anything more than the usual disagreements within any
close-knit group.

Certainly
nothing like what she was faced with now. Not wanting to be alone,
she'd walked out to Sundark's house to wait for them to finish
their usual once-a-week circle.

Curled up on
the couch beside the woodstove, soaking up its heat, she could hear
the voices from the next room, loud and angry. She winced; it might
give them a chance to release some of the tension, but doing it
this way was only going to leave bad feelings behind. In a sense
she could understand it: worry for Jess was gnawing at her, too,
though she did her best to maintain the calm serenity a healer
should show. She just wished they'd find a different outlet.

On second
thought, being alone might not be so bad after all; she wasn't sure
she wanted to be here when this circle ended.

Wearily, she
uncoiled herself and made her way back out of the house. Tomorrow
she'd see what she could do about the chaos; no one was likely to
be very receptive tonight.

She trudged
home, not even the bright moon she normally loved walking under
doing much to dispel her gloom. Her family was concerned, but she
fled to her room and closed her door. She knelt by the window,
petting the fluffy grey-brown tabby sprawled full-length on the
sill. He raised his head, began the low thunder of a purr.

"You've got it
lucky, furball," she murmured. "You have people to pet you and feed
you and spoil you, and you don't have to worry about much of
anything. The people who spoil you have all kinds of things we have
to worry about." She rubbed his pale gold belly, and he twisted
over on his back so she could reach more easily.

"Jesse can't
be gone forever. We're bound together, me and him and Kev.
Something'll happen, he'll be back."

* * *

The next day
didn't go precisely as she hoped.

What she
wanted
to do was talk to Sundark, and try to get everyone to
see that attacking each other wasn't going to undo the damage,
while working together just might find Jess.

She walked to
the village proper, letting the internal pull guide her towards
Kevin—too bad they couldn't use that same link to find Jess, but
that would take more than a spider-silk thread.

She found him,
and she also found Rebecca and Moira. The latter pair were leaning
against Donovan 'Sky-Drum's store Arachne's Loom; she didn't think
Kevin had noticed them yet, too tangled in his own depression.

"Dear me,"
Moira said loudly, with blatantly false solicitude. "Poor Sundark.
Should've been more careful about who they called a friend."

Kevin whipped
around, his melancholy melting into anger. "Damn you, Becky, you
did this! You sent Avryl to vamp him! Why? I thought all that was
finally over!"

Gisela saw a
dark look flicker across Rebecca's face, then she smiled
charmingly. "You should never take me for granted, you should know
that. Anyway, Avryl set up the trap, but you closed it. It was a
transparent trap, and you walked right into it. I don't know
whether he can change, but apparently you can't."

Kevin whipped
a ball of scarlet mage-fire at her; Moira deflected it. Gisela
watched most of the people on the street turn wary, many of them
edging away or leaving the vicinity outright. She knew Kevin would
notice, too, despite his current focus, and that it would only feed
the fire.

"Come on,
Becky," Kevin hissed. "You want a fight? Let's have it out. You and
me, right here, right now. Come on."

"Why should
I?"

"You a coward,
wolf-bitch? You a dog under all that red fur, killing chickens by
moonlight? How are the wild male wolves? Better than I was? Do you
have to dominate them first?"

Rebecca bared
her teeth in a savage snarl. "You little..."

"Stop it!"
Bryan commanded, interposing himself, Deanna a step behind him.
Gisela released the breath she'd been holding; t
hey
wouldn't
let Kevin fight. "A fight here would endanger too many innocent
people. I thought you'd learned better by now, Kevin."

"Leopards
can't change their spots. Why should I care if others get
hurt?"

Deanna stepped
in front of him, and met his gaze with hers; Gisela felt the
fringes of it as Deanna mentally threw the full force of her anger
at him. Much like a physical slap, it rocked him back a step, and
brought tears to his eyes—of shock as much as pain, Gisela thought.
"Damn you, mage, you're doing this on purpose! Punishing yourself!
Now grow up and get a grip on yourself or so help me..." She
trailed off, tears on her cheeks. "Oh, hell. Let them go, Bryan.
Maybe they'll hurt each other badly enough to learn something."

"Not here,"
Bryan insisted. "You want to fight, you go elsewhere. Alone."

Rebecca
regarded them all haughtily. "It's not worth the energy. Come on,
Moira."

Rebecca and
Moira left in one direction; Deanna strode furiously away in
another.

"There's only
one way you'll find Jesse," Bryan said. "And that's together."

"There'll be a
fight right here if you don't get out of my way," Kevin said
savagely. "Take care of your own coven and leave ours to us!"

"Jesse's my
friend too! There are a lot of people worried about him! Haven't
you realized yet just how many lives he's become a part of? Coven
Sundark does not have some exclusive claim on him! Sam's frantic
trying to find him!"

"Then I wish
her best of luck and she can talk to him when she does!" The mage
whirled away.

Gisela went
after him, had to run to catch up. Kevin barely glanced at her.
"What do you want?"

"A hug?"

He stopped,
actually looked at her this time. After a pause, he offered both
arms. She hugged him hard, resting her head against his chest, and
tried to send him as much love and reassurance as she could.

"We'll find
him," Kevin told her firmly. "When and how I don't know, but we'll
find him."

"Not this way
we won't. Sundark all together maybe could..."

He pulled
away, the walls coming back up. "Teamwork is a bit hard when
everyone is more intent on calling names."

"So stop
calling names."

"Go home,
'Sela. Let us worry about our own coven."

"But..."

"Stay out of
it." He turned away from her, too, and she let him go.

She tried
Flynn, and got a similar reaction; despondently, she gave up, and
detoured to the pet store to get hamster litter so she could clean
their cages.

Sam's eyes
were red from crying; mutely, she rang in the litter, and accepted
the money Gisela gave her. The healer fled, unable to stand yet
another bout with intense grief just now. She went home, found
Deanna there asking their parents if she could have her old room
back for a while.

This was too
much. She closed her bedroom door, and lost herself in playing with
her hamsters on the bed while the cat slept on her pillow and
completely ignored them.

* * *

Usually on
Thursdays, she went out to Sundark's house, had supper with them
and Jess, and afterwards Jess walked her home on his way to the
Brewery.

This Thursday,
she stayed in her room, and the only ones who were happy were the
cat and the hamsters who were getting more spoiled than usual.

She jumped
when someone knocked on her door.

"Yeah?"

Samantha
opened the door, closed it behind her, and came to sit on the edge
of the bed. One of the hamsters ventured over to investigate.

For a change,
Sam looked more determined than depressed.

"This nonsense
has gone on long enough. The only way we're going to find him is to
use everything we've got. Which means you and I are going to have
to go beat Sundark over the head until they behave themselves. Up
for it?"

"They won't
listen. I've tried."

"This'll be
both of us. We can't give up. We'll make them see." She stroked a
hamster with one finger as it climbed onto her denim-covered leg.
"Are you going to make me do this alone?"

Gisela sighed.
"No, I'll come, but I don't think it'll do any good." She got up,
and started catching hamsters to return them to the complex of
cages and tunnels that covered one corner of her room. Sam helped,
and they left the house together, Gisela calling to the first
person she saw—her little brother—where she was going.

Sam,
interestingly enough, had Coven Winter's dark-plum van; a good
thing, though, once she thought about it, since otherwise Sundark
might finish circle before they ever got there.

The front door
was unlocked, as it generally was since the wards had been
reactivated in the outer walls. They went in, found Sundark in the
usual room, all sitting on the carpeted floor; they paused in the
doorway, and no one noticed. Under normal circumstances,
interrupting a coven circle was unthinkably rude, but these weren't
normal circumstances—and this was, very obviously, not a normal
circle.

Kevin and
Deanna sat in sullen silence; Bane and Cynthia were quarrelling,
interrupting each other so much it was impossible to make out what
the problem was. Flynn surveyed them all with a weary
expression.

"Do
something," Cynthia demanded of Flynn. "You're supposed to be
leading right now."

"Why? Face it,
no one wants to be here. Kev, I'm sure, would rather be off
challenging Rebecca. And Bane would rather be killing something out
in the forest. Personally, I think I could be getting farther at
home with my cards and my runes and a bowl of water. What about
you, Cynthia? Dia? Where would you prefer to be?"

"Anywhere
alone," Deanna said tightly.

"I don't give
a damn about Rebecca," Kevin said angrily.

"Then where
would you like to be?"

"Back in time
about two weeks."

"To hurt Jess
all over again?" Cynthia asked.

"Like you
would've done anything else!"

Gisela
flinched. What a mess. Why did they have to act like this, trying
to hurt each other?

"All of you be
still," Sam commanded.

They all
froze, turning as necessary to track the intrusion.

Samantha
strode out of the hall; Gisela followed her. "This is truly
pathetic," Sam scolded. "Dia, I know you went home to Helix. Bryan
tells me, Bane, you're back with your parents, and that according
to Lori, Kevin, you've been at your grandmother's for the last
week. What exactly is that supposed to accomplish? What is all this
fighting
supposed to accomplish?"

Gisela
wondered why Sam wanted her there, since she seemed to have
Sundark's full attention on her own. Moral support, maybe?

Only silence
answered Sam's demand.

"Do you really
want to find Jesse and leave all this behind?"

More
silence.

"Yes," Flynn
said. "What did you have in mind?"

"I want full
agreement. That it's irrelevant who did what and whose fault it is
and that what matters now is finding Jesse and convincing him to
come home."

"I definitely
agree."

"Me too,"
Deanna said unwillingly.

One at a time,
grudgingly, so did the others.

Sam nodded
curtly. "Remember that. Then right now, we are going to get to work
looking for that wolf-cub. Kev, 'Sela, you two are the best chance
we have of getting a fix on him. So help me, we will try every
night until we find him."

The circle
shifted, left space for Sam and Gisela.

Ah, so this
was why Sam had wanted her along.

It was
intensely frustrating, though. Her abilities useful only at
immediate range, Gisela could only sit still and be patient while
they used the bond between her and Kevin and Jess as a starting
point.