Black Wolf (7 page)

"So much for
that," Jaisan sighed, pulling over his head the oversized,
once-blue sweatshirt they'd found in a thrift store.

"We have a few
dollars, we can grab some fries in the nearest village, or
something," Aindry said, hoping human-type food might break Jaisan
out of his slowly-deepening melancholy. Last time he'd gotten truly
depressed, it had taken what felt like forever for him to come out
of it. A couple of years of constantly moving, surviving by their
wits, was claiming its due price.

Jaisan
shrugged. "It might be better to keep it, and maybe we can find a
fool begging to be parted from his money. It's not like they're a
dying breed."

"Maybe so, but
I want something more to eat."

"Sure,
whatever."

They
backtracked, stealthily covering the ground between the last of
their cover and the nearby road. They tossed the bags over the
page-wire fence, scrambled over at one of the posts, and started
walking along the road.

It didn't
matter which direction; every road led somewhere, and one
destination was as good as any other.

Some time and
a few roads later, they spotted a small restaurant. They paused
outside to count available funds.

Two cups of
hot chocolate, a plate of fries, and a bacon-and-tomato sandwich,
the food shared, did much to improve not only Jaisan's spirits but
Aindry's as well.

One day at
a time,
she reminded herself.
Tomorrow might never get here,
and yesterday's gone. Think only about right now, and we'll survive
somehow.

Jaisan felt so
much better that, while they were lingering over the chocolate, he
produced from his pockets three walnut shells and a small polished
amethyst. Aindry played along, the two of them giggling over the
game.

A shadow fell
across the table, a man in his mid-twenties or so, smelling of car
oil and gasoline.

"Are you any
good at that?" he asked Jaisan curiously.

"What, this?"
Jaisan looked down shyly. "I practice. Sometimes I can win."

"Show him,"
Aindry said coaxingly. "Come on, you're better than you think."

"If you want."
He set the amethyst down—not for anything would he play this with
anything else, insisting it gave his luck an extra boost—and placed
one of the shells over it. He shuffled them around casually, looked
at the man, who of course pointed out the right one. The second
time, Jaisan put a bit more effort into it, but again the stranger
chose the right shell.

"I have an
idea," Aindry suggested, putting all the charm she could into it.
"Give him a reason to try harder." She dug around in her pockets,
found the single loonie left from paying for the food, and laid it
down.

The stranger
placed a second dollar coin beside it.

"Where does
this highway go?" Aindry wondered aloud, timing it carefully. The
man glanced briefly at her, and Jaisan's hands flickered faster
than she could see, switching the shells. Bingo; some could find
the stone if they kept watching closely enough, but as soon as
someone looked away for even a heartbeat, it was hopeless.

He told her a
name that meant nothing to her; meanwhile, Jaisan raised his hands
from the shells and gave him an expectant look.

"I think...
that one." He tapped the one on the left.

Jaisan picked
it up and showed him—nothing. The amethyst appeared under the
centre shell.

Of course,
Jaisan made a show of being surprised and delighted at his success;
of course, once the man laid another loonie beside Aindry's, he
just had to try again...

They won from
him the amount they'd spent on the meal, and a few dollars extra,
before the owner caught on and threw them out.

That being a
fairly typical reaction, they shrugged, wished her a good day, and
departed.

5

Jesse
pretended to himself that he'd never tried to run away the night
before, while he had breakfast with the others, then helped
collapse the tent and stow everything back into backpacks and bags.
In less time than he expected, there was little sign that they'd
ever been there, only the well-buried fire ring and the flattened
circle where the tent had been, not much else. He wondered how fast
the grass would recover and spring back, hiding even those
traces.

As it turned
out, there was a dark green van parked on a narrow little road not
too far away. The back of the van was entirely empty except for
thick green carpeting on the floor and up the sides, with a few
rings peeking through the carpet here and there. Everything was
piled in the very back and then tied with silky-looking rope
through the rings to keep it from shifting, which left the centre
of the van for Deanna and Jesse and Flynn to sit in.

It seemed like
an odd thing to do to a van, but on the other hand, there was
enough padding under the carpet beneath him that someone could
sleep in here easily, and you could probably pack either a lot of
friends or a lot of groceries and stuff in here.

The house that
Bane pulled up in front of was, well, it would be pretty big in the
city, but seemed about average around here, from what he'd seen on
the drive. It was all red brick, and seemed to have a lot of
windows.

As Bane shut
the van off and Deanna slid the side door open, the front door of
the house opened. The young woman who emerged was tall like Deanna,
but very slim; platinum blonde hair, almost silvery in the
sunlight, fell absolutely straight to about jaw length and then
turned into a cascade of loose waves from there to her elbows,
completely unconfined as far as he could see—and it wasn't
bleached, even her lashes were almost invisibly pale. Her skin was
probably pretty light naturally, but it was somewhat tanned—less
than evenly, he could see lighter areas where her cherry-red
tank-top showed off territory that had previously been covered by
short sleeves. She looked fragile and cool and aristocratic, and
unlike Deanna, he could imagine her easily dressed as a princess,
or maybe a queen or high priestess or something—weighing someone's
fate, calm and impassive.

The impression
shattered completely when she smiled. There was nothing cold at all
about that. "Welcome home! Oh, hello."

"Cynthia,
Jesse," Deanna said. "Jesse, this is Cynthia. Cynthi, we met Jesse
while we were camping and he needs a place to stay for a few more
days or so."

Cynthia
nodded. "Hi, Jesse. Sure, not a problem. We don't have any extra
beds, but the couch is comfy and the kitchen's always full of food.
Make yourself at home."

Jesse managed
a rather shy greeting, completely at a loss to explain why he found
her so intimidating. After all, she was acting welcoming
enough.

She also
helped with bringing everything inside, demolishing the idea that
she was in any way fragile. Those smooth slender limbs showed
surprising muscle tensing under the surface when she added her own
hands to theirs. She was the one who took charge, and even Bane
obeyed her directions without hesitation. Everything was piled
neatly at one side of the living room, to be sorted through
properly later. Then Cynthia sent them off to shower, while she
drove Deanna and Flynn home.

"Is there
going to be enough hot water for three showers?" Jesse asked
doubtfully.

"You shower
first," Kevin suggested. "I'll go last. I don't mind if there's no
hot water left at this time of the year."

Jesse
considered protesting, then thought of how good a hot shower would
feel, and decided to take Kevin up on the offer.

It felt every
bit as heavenly as he'd expected. He fought the temptation to
simply stand under the hot running water, and got himself clean and
presentable as quickly as he could. Flynn had left him another
fresh set of shorts and T-shirt, and once he was finished and
dressed, he felt almost human again.

The sheer
ordinariness of the rest of the day, other than his dozing off
periodically and no one reacting to it at all, was almost surreal
in itself. He made himself as useful as he could between naps,
helping with the laundry and general cleaning up, and tried to
ignore how good it felt to both be accepted and to be thanked.

The thought
surfaced at moments, though: what was it that had trapped him in
the campsite last night?

* * *

"You sure
you'll be okay alone?" Kevin asked, scooping up his bag of
books.

"Why wouldn't
I be?" Jesse asked, trying to cover exasperation with patience and
sure he was failing. "You'll be late if you keep standing here
asking dumb questions."

Cynthia, Bane,
and Deanna were already waiting outside, with the van. Kevin
sighed.

"You're right.
Have fun. We'll be back about three."

"You already
told me that. Twice."
At least.

"Catch you
later."

"I'm not going
anywhere."

Jesse watched
from the door while Kevin slid the side door of the van open and
ducked agilely inside. In a moment they were gone.

He couldn't
quite believe that they'd been naive enough to trust him in the
house alone. Not that he intended to take anything, not after that
weird experience the other night. But maybe he could find out a
little. Information was a kind of power, after all, and feeling
less powerless would be an enormous relief.

And
information would be all the more welcome given the general
strangeness around here. The evening after they'd come back to the
house from the campsite, he'd been—gently, tactfully, but quite
unequivocally—evicted from the living room for over an hour.
Flynn's explanation was that it was a sort of spiritual thing that
they typically did once a week, and that it was complicated to
explain and the details would probably not interest him. Being
asked not to interrupt them for that long seemed fair enough, all
things considered, but he'd peeked from the kitchen while grabbing
a drink. To him, it had looked like some sort of group meditation,
the five of them in a circle on the living room floor close enough
to hold hands, no one moving or talking at all. As religious stuff
went, it probably beat a lot of lectures on what to do, but it was
nonetheless odd.

He prowled the
house, room by room, careful to return everything to its former
place.

The kitchen
was very ordinary, until he took a closer look in the cupboard that
had neat hand-labelled bottles of spices. In front were ordinary
things, like oregano and basil and savory. In behind those were
many odder-looking jars of dried plants he didn't recognize the
names of. Vervain? What was that? St. John's Wort? Sounded real
appetizing. Lemon balm? Why would anyone without a cat bottle
catnip? Or bottle willow leaves, for that matter? Hawthorn, red
clover flowers, something labelled pansy that looked like small dry
purple, white and yellow flowers. That was interesting, and not how
he'd always used the word. Wolfsbane, which for some reason he
thought was poisonous.

Maybe they
were into making brews, or poisoning people, or something. Or
expecting an invasion of werewolves.

Yeah, sure,
Jess. Get a grip on yourself.

There was
nothing else of note in the kitchen, that he could find, nor in the
laundry room past the kitchen.

The dining
room... he checked the cabinet, glanced briefly through the
obviously old china. It was actually rather pretty, white with a
border of green and gold and red leaves like a wreath.

Somewhat
surprisingly, there was nothing of obvious interest in the living
room. It was an ordinary kind of place, a couch, two chairs that
matched each other but not the couch, a coffee table and two end
tables that didn't match in any combination, a stand that held TV
and VCR and the movie collection, a new-looking computer on a desk
in the corner farthest from the window. All on worn wall-to-wall
carpet, one wall almost entirely taken by what he thought was
called a bay window. Dominant colours all earth-tones, greens and
browns and greys and the russet of the carpet, which suited the
plants hung in the window and in corners and standing absolutely
anywhere they were unlikely to be tripped over. About the most
unusual thing here was the collection of silky, lightweight
blankets thrown over the backs of the couch and chairs, and they
were most often in vivid primary and fiery colours instead. He knew
they were warmer than they should have been, since they'd been
abundant at the campsite and he'd been sleeping here on the couch
under one of them; he also knew that they made his skin tingle
faintly, in a not unpleasant way. They reminded him of stuff he'd
seen around Shaine's, but he'd never felt that tingling before.

Where next?
The basement was half utility room, half Deanna's
irregularly-occupied bedroom, all green and russet and brown, plus
a half-bath; he decided to go upstairs first.

He expected
nothing in the bathroom, and other than a few hand-labelled bottles
of what appeared to be bath oils, it didn't disappoint him. The
oils smelled rather pleasant, actually, nothing musky or perfumy
that irritated his sensitive nose at all.