Black Wolf (57 page)

"Demon
attacks?" Sam asked gently, pausing with one back door open.

Aindry nodded
tiredly. "More and more." She'd have liked to assure Sam that they
were okay, that she shouldn't worry and didn't need to feel so bad,
but didn't think she could make it sound even remotely
plausible.

"Want Jess,"
Jaisan said, visibly torn, perching beside Aindry. "But don't want
demons in Haven."

"We've already
got 'em," Sam said grimly, reaching inside to fiddle with the catch
that held the rear seat in place upright. "There we go." She folded
the rear seat forward and down. "And I suspect we need all the
demon-wolves we can find to stop it before it gets worse."

"We can't
fight right now. Can't even hunt food."

"Of course
not! The coven Jess lives with have a house with massive and
ancient shields, it was Alessandria's house. You'll be safe there,
and we can get a healer to look at the pair of you. Now. Are you
okay if I go look? Eat what you want but
go slow
. If Alfari
tells you to stop, pay attention to her."

Aindry gave
her a faint smile. "Been hungry before. Know what happens." The
thought of how painful it would be for either of them to start
throwing up right now was enough to counter any drive to stuff
themselves indiscriminately. "You can prob'ly search faster with
help."

"I'd rather
have her here. I hate letting you out of my sight at all and I
wouldn't for anything less important. Just in case I really am
seeing ghosts and there's no sign of you when I get back. Hop
inside out of the wind and I'll close the door, I'll leave the tire
out of the way so you can open it if you need to. Stay together,
stay with Alfari, and all of you stay here with the car for
anything short of hostile demons showing up, okay?"

"We will."

Clumsily,
Jaisan crawled up into the carpeted back, lying on his less-injured
left side, and Aindry joined him, keeping her weight on her
right.

"I'll be back
as fast as I can," Sam said, as Alfari leaped up on top of the
cooler. "Eat something. If you fall asleep, it's okay. I'm going to
get you to Haven and Jess and a healer as quickly as I can, I
promise." She heaved the back hatch down, but as promised, didn't
replace the tire holder.

Aindry watched
her walk away, long rapid strides, in the direction of the
creek.

"Really Sam?"
Jaisan whispered, raising his eyes to hers. "Really Jess? Not a
demon trick? Not dreaming?"

"Yeah. Real.
Demon-luck. Last-minute rescue." It was so improbable that she
could feel mad laughter trying to bubble upwards, but forced it
away ruthlessly. "Food, please, Alfari?"

55

Kevin
retrieved the now-finished sheet of chocolate-chip cookies from the
oven with one hand, replaced it with the next batch, and set the
former on the table next to Deanna. While he went back to
contemplating possibilities for things to make that might help with
Jesse's frustration as well as his healing, Deanna started
transferring cookies off the hot sheet so they could cool.

Even though
Kevin had made sure, through most of the previous winter, that
there was always a pot of soup on the dining room woodstove for
random meals and warming up, he strongly suspected that at the
moment, soup would only make Jesse feel like he was being treated
as an invalid. The wolf was going to need to eat more than usual,
though, and that was more likely to happen if there was something
easily available.

If he'd had
any idea what the wolves had planned to do earlier, he'd have done
this last night, to make sure Jesse got a balanced meal before
being helped up to his bedroom. But then, if he'd had any idea, he
probably would have done his best to prevent it and keep Jess from
ever leaving the house.

Wolves and
their status and fighting and rules. If they had to challenge
Rebecca, couldn't someone else have done it? But oh no, that's not
part of the challenge conventions.

Damned wolves.
The more you love 'em the more you want to grab them and shake them
sometimes.

Aha, chili,
and I'll get someone to run to the store tomorrow morning and get
fresh rolls.

He set the big
old cast-iron pot on the stove and rummaged in the freezer for
ground beef. It was going to be a lot easier to make now, with Bane
out running, Flynn with Cynthia asleep in her bed and Gisela in
Deanna's and Shaine with Jesse, than it would be while the kitchen
was a high-traffic zone.

"This is going
to do it for the chocolate chip," Deanna said, her voice breaking
the quiet. "I assume you have more cookies in mind. What kind?"

"Peanut-butter, I think. Head for bed, Dia, these days you never
know what's going to happen tomorrow and someone needs to be
alert."

"You think I'm
leaving you here to be up until sunrise?"

"I'm just
going to throw some chili together and leave it on the woodstove
and do one more batch of cookies."

"And I'm sure
you believe that. But that isn't what you actually do when you're
all restless like this."

"I admit I'm
tired. I just need to feel like I've accomplished something, then I
can try to get my mind to slow down so I can sleep. I have no
intention of being up until sunrise." He dumped two pounds of
frozen ground beef in the pot, put the top on, and rested both
hands on the rim, touching both parts and thinking
heat
into
them.

If he did that
enough, his coven would find him passed out and hypothermic on the
floor. Energy didn't just appear from nowhere on demand. Lose
enough to drop his body temperature, and sleep would no longer be
optional, it would be a fact.

Not the most
pleasant way to get to sleep, however.

"I know you
don't, but you don't watch the ti..." She halted mid-word as his
attention turned elsewhere. "What is it?"

"Someone just
came inside the walls. No Dandelion or Winter resonance."

"At this hour?
It's nearly midnight."

"I know." He
let go of the pot—it was warm enough to begin thawing the meat
anyway—and left the kitchen in the direction of the front door.
Deanna followed.

"That's Sam,"
he said in surprise, as they reached the big open hall just inside
the door. "And someone with her?"

Deanna
shrugged, passed him in a couple of longer quicker strides, and
pulled the door open.

The pair with
Sam cringed back instantly and in unison, and Kevin thought they
might have bolted had Sam not laid a hand on the shoulder of
each.

Startlingly
like Jess, especially the longer-haired one on Sam's left who had
his right arm in a makeshift sling; the shorter-haired one had an
alarming-looking bruise on her jaw, and was keeping her weight
carefully off her left leg. Both were dressed, more or less, but in
dire need of both a bath and clean clothing of better repair and
better fit.

Both looked
intensely anxious, nostrils flaring to pick up scents—though the
one in the sling flinched with every breath—and eyes flickering
everywhere except up to meet Kevin's or Deanna's. Something in
their body language, their expressions, screamed that they'd been
living wild for so long it probably felt more normal to them.

"It's okay,"
Sam said reassuringly, urging them back towards the door. "I
promise, I
promise
, you are absolutely safe here from
everything. No one in this house would ever hurt you. These are two
of Jess' closest friends. He trusts them."

The one in the
sling whined plaintively. "Smell Jess..."

"He lives
here," Sam said patiently, and looked at Kevin and Deanna—Kevin
wondered if they both looked as flat-out astonished as he felt.
"No, you aren't imagining things. Jaisan is Jess' twin, and
Aindry's their big sister."

Deanna braced
the door with her hip, and smiled at the two frightened wolves.
"And here we thought our wolf-cub was one of a kind." She offered a
hand. "I'm Deanna. This is Kevin. Yes, Jess lives here, he's
upstairs sleeping, although after the day he's had it would take an
earthquake to wake him up."

"I bet," Kevin
added, pitching his voice much the way he might to a nervous
animal, smooth and gentle, "some real food that you don't have to
catch first and a hot shower would feel wonderful."

Both
hesitated, gazes going back to Sam.

"I trust
them," Sam said. "Jess trusts them. Go on. Nothing can reach you
while you're inside the walls. No demons, nothing else that would
mean you any harm. Don't start asking questions right now, there's
nothing so urgent that it can't wait until you're feeling more
alert. Let Kev and Dia and their coven help, just like they've been
helping Jess when he needs them for a while now. Okay?" She gave
them a small push towards the door. It didn't take a genius to see
that both remained uncertain, or that they were responding to Sam
very much as they might to an alpha. "They've had demons making
more and more attempts at killing them, so they've been avoiding
people even more than before to keep bystanders from getting hurt,
they're exhausted and badly injured and haven't been eating
regularly. And from the sounds of it, they didn't have a home even
before that." She handed Deanna a canvas backpack with something
inside; the attention of both wolves flicked towards it, following
its location. "Protect that. It's more valuable than I can explain
right now, and absolutely irreplaceable."

Deanna nodded
and passed it to Kevin. "We will." She stepped through the doorway,
and Kevin retreated a couple of steps; the two young wolves, with a
last uneasy look at Sam, obeyed her gesture and went inside.

So they didn't
see Sam watching them, or the sorrow in her eyes.

"It's been a
very long and draining kind of day," Sam said wearily. "I seriously
need my bed. Look after them for me, okay? Please?"

"You don't
even need to ask," Deanna said gently. "You know we will, just like
with Jess. Go get some sleep. 'Sela's here, I'll go wake her up and
we'll get them fed and into a hot shower and a warm bed."

Sam nodded and
turned back to what Kevin thought was his second-cousin Katherine's
car. Somehow, he suspected that the amount of faith she was placing
in Sundark, to take care of Jess' lost siblings and that backpack
in her place, was greater than he could readily grasp.

Deanna closed
the door, careful not to let the heavy old wood make any loud
thumps.

Both wolves,
Kevin thought, were straining for every scent they could possibly
pick up, normal wolf reaction to being on new ground but the
anxiety behind it was less typical.

"There's lots
of smells," Aindry said apprehensively. "Lots of people.
Wolves."

"All the
wolves you smell are Jess' pack," Kevin assured them. "They'll be
very happy to have you here, they aren't going to see you as
intruders."

"Water-people!" Aindry's head snapped up, and she backed towards
the door, wild-eyed. Jaisan spun to catch her before she fell, his
breath catching in a thin whine as her weight shifted towards
him.

"That's
Shaine," Kevin said. "He ran away from the lake because of what his
family did to yours. He spent a long time pretending to be human,
and Jess wouldn't be alive right now without him. He might be the
one person Jess trusts the most, to tell you the truth. I know he'd
never in a million years do anything to hurt you, and I'm pretty
sure he'd probably do crazy things to protect you. Sam knows him
and she brought you here anyway. Would she do that, or would Jess
live here, if he wasn't safe to be around?"

"Probably
not," Jaisan said uncertainly, looking to Aindry for a
decision.

"Of course
not," Deanna said briskly. "So that's enough of that. It's chilly
out. Come on in the dining room by the woodstove. I'll be right
back with a couple of blankets and I'm going to wake up our healer.
Kev will find you something to eat, and afterwards we'll start
looking at that shower, all right?"

Deanna,
apparently, had found an approach that worked: they went in the
direction she indicated without protest. She gave Kevin a quick
glance, and strode off rapidly deeper into the house—Kevin thought
he knew where she was going after rousing Gisela.

Both dropped,
awkwardly and with too-obvious pain, to the thick rug near the
woodstove, eyes closing as the warmth wrapped around them—which
didn't mean they weren't still hyperalert. Kevin set the canvas
backpack on the big old oak dining table.

"Stay here,"
he told them. "Sam's right, you're absolutely safe. I'll be right
back."

He removed the
sheet of cookies from the oven—they were slightly overcooked, but
not so much so that they wouldn't be eaten anyway—and left it on
the table, then filled a plate with still-warm cookies. Figuring
odds were very high that Gisela was going to want Deanna to make
painkiller-and-wolfsbane tea, he filled the kettle and put it on to
start heating. Then he took the jug of milk from the fridge and
grabbed two mugs from the dish-rack, and returned to the dining
room. He heard one or both talking, voices very low, but they
stopped before he was near enough to make out anything said.