Black Wolf (6 page)

All that
activity left Jesse feeling exhausted again, though it was
certainly worth it. He stayed quiet while he joined the others for
lunch, and fell asleep while lying on his stomach nibbling grapes
for dessert.

* * *

The second
night Flynn was there, Jesse woke from restless dreams to the
darkness, and lay still, listening to the others breathing, all
quite soundly asleep. His internal clock told him it was very late,
past midnight.

What on earth
was he doing here still? He was much less tired now, and the weird
flashes in his head were getting easier to deal with. He didn't
belong here. There was going to be a price on all this, and it was
bound to be something he wouldn't want to pay. Tomorrow they were
planning on packing up the tent and going home, and houses were
harder to get out of than a tent was. There was no way anyone was
seriously going to be willing to drive a hundred miles each way
just to take him home.

He had to get
back to the city, back to Shaine, back to where he had some control
instead of being forced to depend on the kindness of strangers.
Trust was a stupid risk to take and the consequences of losing the
gamble were just too high. He'd learned that lesson well, too many
times—even the people you should be able to trust, like foster
parents, might be nice ones who treated you well, or might be… just
the opposite. And even the ones who treated you well and seemed to
care… they could leave, go away and leave you behind without a
second thought, just when it seemed safe to relax.

A hundred
miles was a long way, and it was going to be easier to do with a
little extra money.

Sorry, guys. I
do appreciate the generosity, like you'll ever believe that. But I
can only count on me, and this has gone too far already.

Stealthily, he
got up, picked up his shoes and his leather jacket. He slipped out
of the tent silently, zipped it closed again behind him. He had
some idea by now where to look for money; he found about seventy
dollars. He hesitated briefly, then grabbed Flynn's canvas backpack
and tossed in a mixture of Gatorade and granola bars.

There was
supposed to be a village, that way. It had to be on a highway or at
least have a road linking to it. He could get oriented from there,
and it couldn't be a big trick to keep the bright moon in always
the same place.

Nor was it. It
was simplicity itself.

So why was he
suddenly back at the clearing?

No big deal,
he'd just gotten off-track somehow. He found a distinctive
star-pattern—there were so many stars, out here in the country!—and
oriented himself by that.

He was back at
the clearing again, in short order.

Three more
times he tried, with the same results.

He stared at
the tent a moment. Had he been imagining the shimmering, as if the
nylon had its own light, that he'd caught just out of the corner of
his eye? When he looked straight at it, there was nothing special,
but his peripheral vision always got that eerie glow. This was
getting spooky.

Belatedly, he
noticed a similar glow, gold and white and the red of sunset, on
the ground around the clearing's edge.

He shivered.
Real
spooky. This would be a frighteningly easy time to
start believing in a lot of things. Like God and Satan and people
who seemed like angels...

Ridiculous.

But
still...

Trying to
quell rising panic, he tried different directions, away from the
moon, angles to either side. No direction worked any better. He was
completely trapped.

He wanted to
scream, to have something solid that he could actually fight,
instead of this unreasoning, unreasonable whatever-it-was confining
him. Something he could hit back at. This was too bizarre, he was
trapped inside a clearing in the middle of nowhere by something he
couldn't even see...

The sky was
beginning to grey, the quartet still sleeping in the tent could
wake at any time—Kevin especially, since he was always up with the
sun. If they found him up already, red-handed even, there was going
to be trouble. Some small, still rational part of his mind
counselled him to go back to bed and think about it later. Relieved
to have some course of action, he decided to take it.

He returned
everything to its place, and dug himself back in under his
blankets.

Sleep took a
long time to come, and he dreamed of invisible fences that kept him
away from something he wanted more than anything.

* * *

Kevin smiled
to himself, listening to Jesse's breathing slow as he attempted to
get back to sleep. Thank Brigid he'd set those wards to work from
either direction at night, and that he'd had enough warning from
Jesse's thoughts to make sure Bane slept through it all. Deanna,
beside him, had never moved, deep in normal dryad sleep, her
breathing so slow that someone uninformed might have been alarmed.
Flynn was probably awake, though Kevin didn't bother checking;
Flynn tended to know a lot of things he kept to himself, so it
didn't really matter.

It was so sad,
though, the screamingly-strong surface thoughts he'd been picking
up from Jesse just now. No one deserved to be so alone or so
terrified of trusting anyone. The nightmares Jesse had had while
unconscious, that Kevin had caught glimpses of while trying to
soothe them away, they were just as depressing—psychic damage
triggered nightmares but didn't provide the content. Haven was
hardly paradise, but some of what he'd seen would never have been
able to occur here; someone would have noticed and intervened. If
only there were some way to help...

Maybe there
was. It wasn't going to be easy, Haven had so many secrets, the one
thing they all agreed on was that the outer world never know some
things. He wasn't at all sure his entire coven would feel the same,
either. Still... he remembered Rebecca, remembered the hurt and
despair she could bring. He remembered, too, feeling alone and
desperate, certain that there was no way out and that no one was
going to help him escape the hole he'd dug for himself. But even at
the worst moments, he'd had the absolute certainty that Deanna was
there and always would be, no matter what. He knew that Deanna
would back him up completely, even if he told no one what he'd seen
in Jesse's nightmares—she'd trust him to have a reason. He had a
feeling that Flynn would as well, for reasons of his own.

He wasn't at
all sure he'd be able to help. But he was certainly going to
try.

The
Quicksilver Sphynx
Miscellanea, September 1993
Nick 'Winter

Heya, gang! What do
you think of the new layout Brittany came up with for the Sphynx?
Isn't it great? Not least because I have more space than ever to
play with! I can just see everyone bouncing with joy.

The biggest news of
the month: Eleanor 'Moonstone and Darcy are getting handfasted! No
news on whether Darcy will be joining Coven Moonstone or staying
solitary, but everyone wishes you all the best either way. There's
going to be an outside circle on the night of the full moon (for
anyone not paying attention, that would be the thirtieth) starting
just before sunset in the park, the rest of Moonstone is leading,
everyone is invited. Okay, which witch is going to take
responsibility for making sure the weather is good? There'll be a
party after, of course, potluck-style. If you need more info, give
Thera 'Moonstone a call.

Other upcoming
highlights: Exotica have been working on a new play called "Wild
Hunt." I snuck in to see a rehearsal, and it looks downright
fascinating. I don't want to give anything away, but Cari
'Dragonfire makes a wonderful Huntress. Cari tells me they'll be
opening on Thursday the sixteenth at eight in the school gym, usual
sliding scale, $3-10. Since they're doing it hands-on interactive
(remember "Calliope"? Same idea) they're limiting the number of
people, so they're going to run it for five nights, longer if
there's demand. Advance tickets available, get in touch with anyone
from Exotica.

I'm hearing rumours
that we have our first new coven of the year already, although I
gather none of the people involved are new at the college this
year. I'll try to confirm, but I heard it includes a wolf, a dryad
seer, a human telekinetic, and an elf, which is probably more than
enough info to identify them if you know them but unfortunately I
don't. What? No witch? What's a coven without a witch? (Eva, don't
you dare say "quiet!")

Katherine recently
accepted Miguel Lioren as her newest student, which will give us a
total of I believe 19 active mages in Haven. Anyone actually
surprised at the idea of another Lioren mage?

Leif 'Artemisia tells
me they have some new ritual tools in at White Stag, primarily
metal (knives & cups, a few metal wands & pentagrams) but
they're expecting some of the wooden kind soon (wands &
pentagrams, a few cups). Sounds like you could pick up a nice set
for someone who uses them.

Events for the equinox
are fairly plentiful (wait until next month, for the Samhain
activities!), there's a full list on the back page.

Historical notes for
September: Morgan Dominique, honoured ancestor of virtually every
witch in Haven, was born Sept. 17, 1767. Yes, Morgan of Coven
Starluck which founded our fair village was born a full century
before Canada's birthday. One year ago Sept. 19, Flynn 'Sundark got
his first acceptance letter for a short story (thanks for reminding
me, Cynthia). Fifty-six years ago, Haven College began its first
year as a recognized private post-secondary school with our own
schedule for holidays and various programs tailored to and
practical for the abilities and needs of the mixed village
population—my highest respects to those who pulled
that
trick off! How many of us would go noisily insane
if we didn't have our own college to rely on, and to bring in our
own kind from the other five Canadian mixed villages, they being
not so fortunate, and occasionally from farther afield? Without it,
we'd be more inbred than we already are, and I would never have
come here from Ravenrock to meet my coven!

Have fun back in
school, kids, and I'll get back to you in October. Ciao!

4

Aindry woke
sharply, lay still to try to find what had disturbed her. The
familiar musty smell of hay, loose ends of which they'd scraped
together to make a bed, and the smells of the cattle below... the
animals were stirring, though, and there was a human scent now,
faintly.

"Oh, damn.
Jaisan, wake up. Wake up!" she whispered.

"Mmm?" Coiled
warmly against her, Jaisan opened his eyes. "What?" he asked
drowsily.

"We overslept.
The farmer's up."

Immediately,
he twisted away from her, sat up and brushed away as much of the
hay as he could. "Let's get out of here."

The barn was
an old one, with a ladder down to the lower part, and two huge
doors for bringing the hay in. Aindry thumped with the heel of her
hand at the solid hook—over her head, and she was five-foot-six,
why did they put them so
high
?—until the rust on it
surrendered, and the door swung open. They slipped quickly out, and
Jaisan found a rock to brace the door closed with.

There they
paused, all senses alert, scanning the area. Aindry touched
Jaisan's arm, indicated a cedar-rail fence liberally overgrown with
brush and trees; he nodded acknowledgement, and they darted across
twenty feet of open space to it. A short distance along it, they
stopped and crouched.

"Near miss,"
Jaisan whispered. "We should've been awake a long time ago."

True, but not
so hard to explain. Cold, hunger, and general fatigue made a
powerful team.

"We'll just
have to be more careful," Aindry murmured back, putting all the
reassurance she could into her voice. "Besides, what's the worst
that could happen? We get thrown out. No one's going to catch us.
We'd just have to move on a little faster than we would have." She
ran a hand over his hair, the long midnight mane forever getting in
his eyes, but he refused to cut it short like hers. Given the
strong resemblance between them, it wasn't unusual for strangers to
get them confused. Even more common was being thought younger than
her and Jaisan's twenty-one and seventeen years respectively.

He shifted
under her touch, restlessly; she kept stroking, and slowly he
relaxed.

"Let's go
farther back," she suggested. "Maybe there'll be a woodlot or
something that will have prey we can hunt."

Silently, he
followed her along the fence. It opened into a tree-edged lane.

Some distance
back onto the farmer's property, they found a possible hunting
ground: large flat glacial rocks with trees growing between them,
and places where dirt had piled up to provide footing for various
sorts of brushy cover.

They shed
their clothes and shifted to wolf-form within a heartbeat of one
another. Their clothes and half-empty backpacks they left there,
and they went in search of food.

Aindry
startled a scrawny rabbit out in front of Jaisan, and he grabbed it
neatly; they shared it, as they always did, and kept hunting. Each
snatched a few mice, but nothing else offered itself. Still hungry,
they gave up, and went back to where they'd left their clothes.