Kiss of the Silver Wolf (7 page)

"Know what?"

"Don't play games with me. He proposed to you, didn't he?"

Charlene felt her mouth open and close like a fish out of water. “How did you know that?"

"
Everyone
knows he wants you to marry him.” Shoshannah's pretty face scrunched up in a frown. “Honey, he's the most eligible bachelor in town."

"It seems like he's the
only
bachelor in town."

The librarian cleared her throat. “We lost a lot of our young men to genetic diseases."

Charlene felt heat rise in her face at her poor choice of words.

"We're depending on you to do the right thing. Make him an honest man. How long do you think you can string him along?"

It was time to change the subject
. “Oh my! Look how dark the sky is. I have to get the boys home."

A short time later, as Charlene negotiated a sharp turn in a hollow, miles away from her first drop-off, she drove into a green fog and almost hit a large pack of black dogs crossing the road into the woods. She jammed on the brakes, the bus fishtailed, and the world went dark.

She awoke to the sound of someone banging on the door of the bus.

"Ma'am? Are you okay in there? Ma'am?"

Her head pounded and something trickled down her face. She touched her temple and looked at her hand in the light of the setting sun. Blood covered her fingertips. Still in a daze, Charlene twisted in her seat and stared at the dark haired woman in the black suit through the still-closed door of the bus.
Where did she come from?
“Who are you?"

"I'm an agent with Homeland Security. Would you like me to call for an ambulance?"

Charlene turned to check on the boys. Joey's chair sat on its side, the security straps ripped off, useless. The other boys, safely seat-belted, whimpered, whined, and cried. A long, low, agonized howl erupted.

"Joey! The boys! Oh my God!” Charlene stood. Her head throbbed, and her vision blurred. She groped at the back of her seat to stand, and made her way to Joey. “Are you okay?"

As she rolled him over, she sucked in her breath. Her eyes had to be playing tricks.
She had a concussion. That was the only explanation.
She had
never
seen her brother
this
hairy. Long canines jutted out from his mouth, and his eyes were deep orange. He pulled his lips back, growled at her, and lunged for her face with claw-like fingers.

She jerked back and screamed.

"Ma'am, I'm going for help.” Footsteps crunched away on the gravel.

Help? No. She had to handle the situation by herself. No one could see him this way. “Joey, it's me, Charlene!"

Recognition glimmered, and he signed, “Moon, moon, moon!"

Tears blurred her vision. “Yes, it's a full moon. And I've got you."

At last she was able to slide him back into his chair, despite her sudden fear that he might revert to the creature she
thought
she saw. The sunlight faded, and Charlene felt the full force of all the warnings about getting them home before dark. Moving as fast as she dared, she checked each frightened boy with caution. She was terrified at the changes she observed—fuzzier faces, shinier teeth, longer nails—but was determined to get them home to their families safe and sound.

A screeching sound pierced her ears. She turned. A soldier wearing green camouflage was attempting to pry the door open.

"Stop!” She pulled the lever and opened the door. “I've got everything under control."

The agent stepped in front of the men, looking skeptical. “Are you sure? Looks like you could use some medical attention."

"No, I'm fine.” Charlene tried to smile. “Just banged up a bit."

The woman peered into the bus and seemed to be staring right at Joey. “What about everyone else?"

Charlene reached down, picked up Joab's oversized baseball cap, and placed it on her brother's head, pulling the bill down to hide his face. “All good, thanks. But I
really
have to get them home. They have special needs."

The agent nodded, seeming to be satisfied. She reached into her pocket and extracted a card. “You see anything odd out here, call me."

Charlene read the card:
Special Agent Eliana Solomon, Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate.
“All I saw was a green fog and a pack of black dogs in the road. I swerved to avoid hitting them. Looked like they were heading into those woods."

Solomon's eyebrows shot up. She shouted orders to the men standing alongside the road. Weapons at the ready, they began a cautious march into the forest.

Charlene gave a sigh of relief and plopped into the driver's seat. After multiple grinding attempts, the bus started and she maneuvered it out of the bushes and back onto the road. The radio began to work when she made it to the top of a ridge.

"You're late. The parents are frantic."

"The boys are okay. A little shaken up, but the only one hurt is me.” She told him about the pack of black dogs.

Zack began to curse.

"Please don't be angry with me. The windshield is smashed, but the bus is drivable. Tell everyone the boys are on their way."

"I'm not angry—I'm worried. Drive as quickly as you can. When you're done, go straight home.” His voice was urgent. “Don't go back to the bus depot. It's not safe for you to be out tonight. I'll be at your house when you get there."

"No. Please
don't
come. Not tonight. We need to talk when I can think straight.” Before he could insist, she snapped the radio off. The last thing she wanted was for Zack to see Joey like this. She was on her own

Joab's mother stood at the side of the road, waving at the bus. Charlene pulled up, opened the door and called to his mother. “Something's wrong with the boys, we need to move fast."

The woman jumped up the steps, looked at Charlene's forehead and gasped. “What happened?"

"Not now. Long story. I have to get these other kids home."

An hour later, the full moon crested the horizon as Charlene pulled the bus into her driveway. Wild-eyed, Joey whimpered, huffed and rocked back and forth in his wheelchair. She'd
never
seen him this agitated before. Maybe he wanted the pig? She whistled and clapped, but the normally social Trotter failed to appear.

She had to stay calm and focus on getting Joey into the house.
Over and over again she heard Mrs. Morton saying,
"Doesn't he remind you of Lon Chaney when he played Wolfman?"
Then the medical examiner's astonished voice rose up in her head, joining Mrs. Morton's high whine,
"I've only seen this sort of thing in books about cryptozoology. Always thought it was the stuff of fiction and crazy people. Was you mother on any medications to control her—um—condition?"

She covered her ears and whispered, “There's a logical explanation for this. He must be starving. That's why he's so agitated.”
Act normal.
“Are you hungry Joey?"

His eyes gleamed orange, and he growled.

"I take that as a yes. Let me see what we have.” She pulled a container of raw hamburgers out of the refrigerator. “Dinner will be ready in a jiffy."

At the sight of the box, Joey clawed the air and bared his teeth.

Shaken, she placed the entire package on the table within his reach and stepped back. She turned and plugged her ears with her fingers to cover the snapping sounds and snarling. At last, when the noises ceased, she glanced back over her shoulder. Joey slept with a smile on his furry face. Careful not to wake him, she rolled her brother into his room, covered him with a blanket and locked the door.

Charlene stuffed her fist into her mouth to stifle her rising hysteria and ran into the bathroom. She flipped on the overhead light, and the world came to a halt. She gasped at her own slanting green eyes filled with sparks of orange. She pulled off her jumper, determined to leap into the shower and scrub away the dreadful events of the day—and recoiled at the image of her hairy arms and legs in the full-length mirror. The little room whirled around her.

"I'm hallucinating.” She barely recognized her own voice, a low husky growl. She turned the light off and stood with her back to the door so she could think.
Think, dammit! Be rational. Use the scientific method.
When did these changes become noticeable? Was it the night Zack made her dinner? “The food. There must have been something in the food."

Then, as if her mother stood in the dark space with her, Charlene heard her words. “Secrets within secrets within secrets."

Terrible memories sucked her back in time, back to her home in Baltimore. Her mother growing hairier, locked in her bedroom at “that time of the month,” the muffled sounds of howling, the syringes for her mother's “migraines.” The shame and fear her beloved mother was some kind of side-show freak, mutant, insane or worse. She recalled her race away from the unknown, her rush into the embrace of hard science and the loss of it all to an out-of-control car. Unbidden, images of the syringes she found in Joey's room after the accident came to mind.

Leave Eden. Go back to Baltimore, back to the life of science.
She pulled herself up on the sink. That was the only thing she could do.
Take Joey away from this place—get him some help.
She touched the doorknob and stopped.
Joey. She couldn't take him tonight
—
not like that. She couldn't abandon him. What was this place doing to him? To her? If she left, where would she go?

Jethro's words floated up in her mind. “
Blood will tell, Charlene."
Jethro. What was he hiding from her?

Anger boiled up in her chest, filling her with fresh energy.
Enough of this mumbo-jumbo.
She pulled her shoulders up straight, stood, and splashed cold water on her face. She stared at herself in the mirror. “I'm good at research. There is a
scientific
explanation for this and I'm going to find it."

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Chapter Eight

Secrets

After a sleepless night, Charlene fed, dressed and rushed the now back-to-his-usual-self Joey onto the bus. She raced to Jethro and Rebekkah's house after daybreak—before her resolve wavered. She stormed up the front porch steps and pounded on the oak door.

"Jethro,” she shouted. “Get out here."

Moments later she heard heavy footsteps, then the old man stood in the open entry, still in his nightshirt, wide-eyed and wrinkled from sleep. Rebekkah peeked from behind Jethro, her normally impeccable bun gone, her iron gray hair draped in shiny waves over her shoulders.

"What's wrong? Is Joey sick?” Jethro craned his neck to see beyond Charlene.

She put her fists on her hips. “I don't know. You tell me. He ate two pounds of raw beef last night and nearly snapped my fingers off. You think that's normal?” She held out the holy books. “What are these doing at my house? What do they mean?"

Jethro sucked in his breath, his eyes flared green, and he took a step back.

Charlene moved in, matching him step for step. “What's happening to Joey? And, who the hell is Oblis?"

"You want answers?” Jethro spat out. He turned and pointed at his wife. “Ask Rebekkah. It's her Koran, her Bible. Don't know why she had to go and do that."

Thin-lipped, ashen-colored, the old woman refused to make eye contact with Charlene, instead staring at the floor as she spoke in a near whisper. “It was the right thing to do. She needed to know...about...about
him
—and
Them
."

Jethro stomped into the kitchen, cursing under his breath.

She stomped in right behind him. “Who is Oblis?"

He kept his back to her, grabbed a coffee pot and began to fill it with water.

Charlene reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder.

The old man turned and stared at her, a stricken look on his face. “Please. You don't want to know. Just knowing about
Them
puts you in grave danger."

She refused to look away, stared deeper into those color-shifting eyes. “Rebekkah thinks I need to know. If Fred Johnson wasn't Joey's father, then who the hell
was
?"

Jethro's voice fell to a harsh whisper. “A sexual predator. He crawled out of a hole in the ground, slithered into town, and took our girls’ innocence."

"How did he get away with it?"

"He went after our girls at night. Got them alone, told them he'd kill them if they cried out. Raped them. And vanished."

"The police didn't help?"

He snorted. “State Police couldn't track him.” Jethro looked off into the distance. “He was a disappearing, reappearing snake.” He shook his head. “A terrible, evil piece of work he was."

Her lips trembled, but she forced herself to speak. “Was? Where is he
now
?"

He clenched his fists, and the black signet ring stood out in stark contrast to his white knuckles. “Dead and gone."

Charlene wrapped her arms around herself, afraid to ask the next question, but unable to stop. “What happened? I need to know the truth—Grandfather."

He flexed his left hand, made a fist, and adjusted the ring. “I caught him with your mother. I killed him."

Charlene's stomach dropped, and she grasped a counter to steady herself. “The boys—Joab, Jehud, Julius, Josiah, Justus, Jared, Joey—all his?"

Now weary looking, he nodded. “He left the girls—all of them barely eighteen—broken and pregnant. The families kept it secret—until the babies were born, all the same, all marked by this—this
creature
. I never had the chance to tell your mother why I did what I did.” Tears filled his eyes. “She ran away. I couldn't find her—not until she contacted your Aunt Jessie. She was pregnant with you. Wouldn't speak to me. She thought I wanted to kill Joey, too. I would have never harmed my grandchild—no matter
what
his father was."

He passed a shaky hand over his face. Charlene's heart twisted.

"She blamed herself. Thought she should have known better than to say hello to a stranger. But he had this
power
. He whispered in her ear and led her to the woods. When I realized she was missing, I tracked them and saw him with her. I went mad, killed him with my bare hands.” The old man broke down and sobbed. “Oh, my poor baby. My poor child."