Chapter
Five
The day promised to be a hot one. There was no
dew on the fields, and only a few birds were singing from the
roadside brush as Dr. Connor Macleod struggled to drive, stay
awake, and keep tabs on the bundle on the seat beside him. He’d
been called out of bed to deliver twin calves and discovered there
were actually three in the tangle. Two were already dead and it had
taken the better part of the night to make sure the lone survivor
wouldn’t join them. The first-time mother had completely refused to
bond with the undersized calf. Now it was wrapped in a blanket on
the front seat, another orphan to be nursed at the North Star
Animal Hospital. At least the weather was good—cattle producers in
the Peace region tended to calve their herds in either January or
May. If he had to get up in the middle of the night to attend a
calving, Connor certainly preferred it to be at this time of year.
Thank God for Birkie. He was going to
be late for his surgeries but at least the North Star Animal
Hospital was in capable hands. The receptionist’s efficiency
bordered on the superhuman. By now, Birkie would have opened the
clinic, noticed his absence, checked his whereabouts with
dispatch—and formulated a battle plan. Anything that didn’t require
a licensed veterinarian would be passed to Caroline. Anything that
did would be rescheduled.
And next weekend Connor wouldn’t have a
single qualm about directing their dispatch service to call the new
vet instead of him. He was pleased with how well Jillian had fit
into the practice in such a short time. She was highly skilled,
passionate about her work, and eager to learn more. A potent
combination in his books. He’d just have to keep an eye on her to
make sure she didn’t work herself into the ground.
Meanwhile, it would be a real treat not
to work himself into the ground. Before he’d
married Zoey, Birkie had often been on his case about putting all
his passion into his practice. It had been hard not to. The work he
did absorbed him; he lived and breathed it. He still did, to a
degree, but he had to admit he’d rather spend time with Zoey
whenever possible. She was busy too, and loved her newspaper as
much as he loved animals, but nothing else existed when they were
together at the end of the day. Sometimes they just collapsed on
the couch like any hard-working couple. Most of the time, they
called the Change and chased each other all over the farm and
throughout the river valley.
To run as a wolf was freedom and joy
and a tremendous sense of wholeness wrapped together. And it was
all the more so now that Zoey was by his side. He’d lived a very
long time, but nothing he’d experienced held a candle to the
wonders of having a mate.
Like all of the Macleods, Connor was
far older than he appeared, would live beyond several human
lifetimes, but there were few Changelings left in the world. Most
of his kind built relationships with humans. Fortunately, a human
could become a Changeling too, could share in the gifts. Just like
in the old werewolf tales, anyone bitten by a Changeling would
become one. Their saliva contained a unique peptide. A single bite
could inject enough of the substance into the bloodstream to
activate a gene, one that existed in every human being. Not all
human partners chose this path, but most did.
There were success stories all around
him. The Pack leader, Jessie Watson, had Changed her human mate,
Bill. Within his own family, Connor’s mother had done the same for
his father half a millennia ago. Both had been well prepared and
welcomed the gift of the wolf with joy. It had been different for
Connor’s wife, Zoey. The gift was forced on her by a Changeling
gone rogue, before she even knew that such creatures existed.
Despite such a rough beginning, however, Zoey loved her new life.
She’d not only adapted well but displayed a talent for
shapeshifting beyond Connor’s own abilities.
James and Evelyn had discussed the
Change many times, but then she became pregnant and they had
decided to wait until after the baby came. Connor had wondered for
years if Evelyn might have been able to save herself if she had
been able to call forth the Change. Did James wonder that as well?
Was it one more weight added to an already unbearable burden?
Connor questioned anew if his brother was ever going to return to
his human self. Would he ever even want to after losing so much?
Jessie seemed so certain that James was improving but Connor just
couldn’t see it.
Come to think of it, he was probably
too tired to see anything. Even Changelings had to rest sometime.
He’d been out on farm calls almost every night this week, and the
second calving season of the year had barely begun. The tall vet
left off thinking about his brother and focused instead on hopes of
hot coffee and a hot shower as he pulled into the bay at the back
of the North Star Animal Hospital. He tucked the blanket more
securely around the tiny calf and carried it inside—and suddenly
every wolfen sense flared to attention. A Changeling had been
inside the clinic in wolf form. And it wasn’t just any member of
the Pack. There was no mistaking the white wolf’s scent. It hung in
the air, as three-dimensional as a holographic image to Connor’s
lupine senses. What the hell?
He blinked and found that Caroline had
already taken the undersized calf from him, and was asking
something about an IV. He rubbed a quick hand over his face and
found his voice. “Sorry, I’m not all here. Yeah, an IV would be
good. And I milked out some colostrum from the mother—I almost
forgot. Thanks.” He pulled the quart jar from a deep jacket pocket,
thankful that he’d remembered it before he broke the damn thing,
and handed it to her. “It’s not much. I left the owner milking out
the rest. He’ll bring it by in an hour or so.”
Calf and assistant disappeared from his
sight and his mind. Connor inhaled carefully, certain that thoughts
of his brother must have influenced his senses. But there was no
mistake. He walked slowly forward, following the airborne traces to
the large livestock area . . . the stack of bales . . . the
hallway. What on earth had brought James inside the clinic? He had
no answer for that.
A noise from down the hall signaled the
arrival of another truck in the bay. A moment later Jillian came
through the doorway with her knapsack and something else. The scent
of the white wolf enveloped her, swirled around her and preceded
her down the hall like a live thing. A human could never have
detected it, but to Connor it was as powerful as a punch to the
head. He found he couldn’t say a word or form a thought, only stare
at her.
“Hey there,” she said as she
approached. “I’m a little messy, but I don’t look that scary do
I?”
Connor shook himself mentally and found
his voice. “No, not at all. I mean, you look a little tired maybe.”
The scent of the wolf was overwhelming, the scents of the forest
strong as well. Connor could have named the places she’d been right
down to the plants she’d touched. “Did you get to see Elk Point?”
He knew full well she had.
“Sure did. It was great, even better
than you described. I’ll have to bore you with my thousands of
photos one day. Say, do you know that a wolf pack has been in that
area?” “Really?” Good Christ, there was white hair all over her
jacket. Had James lost his mind?
“Tons of prints
everywhere.”
Connor nodded, tried to act casual.
Normal. Anything other than how he felt. “You’re a pretty good
tracker for a city girl. Maybe you’ll get to see more. I know
you’re interested in wolves.” And one of them seemed to be
interested in her for some reason. How the
hell did she get so damn close to him? And why did he let her?
There were a hundred questions Connor was dying to ask the young
vet and no plausible way to do so. What on earth could he say?
Hey, did you see my brother the
wolf?
She didn’t give him any more
information either. Instead she studied him intently. “Are you sure
you don’t need me today? It’s barely Monday, and you look
exhausted.”
“No, you go ahead and enjoy your day.
In this business, you take your time off when you can get it. I’m
looking forward to having the next weekend when my wife will be
home.” Connor realized Jillian was looking at his stained
coveralls. He probably looked like he’d delivered a dozen calves.
“I was just on my way to get cleaned up.”
“Okay, well, I’ve got some errands to
run downtown. Thanks again for the use of the truck.”
“You’re going to use it often enough
when you’re called out to a farm. Might as well get some enjoyment
out of it as well.” She smiled at that, then continued on past him
down the hallway and into her apartment. When her door clicked,
Connor leaned on the wall for support and rubbed both hands over
his face, hard.
“Jesus. Sweet Jesus Christ.” He knew he
wasn’t going to get much more information out of Jillian, not
without raising her suspicion. That was okay. He would Change
tonight and go looking for his older brother himself. James Macleod
had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
Douglas sat in the kitchen and poured a
double shot of Jack Daniels into his coffee. Drank it down. Tried
to reassure himself that it didn’t mean a thing when Jillian had
said there were wolves. Of course wolves lived around here, just
like bears and cougars did. Good God, he had even hunted wolves,
ordinary wolves, when he was just a kid.
But the woman had been looking for a
white wolf. White. Maybe he didn’t hear her
right. Maybe she was mistaken completely, maybe she saw just what
she suggested—a dog or a calf or who knows? But he knew who she
must be. He’d heard about the clinic’s new lady vet and figured
that anyone who made it through seven years of veterinary college
wasn’t stupid or prone to seeing things. If she thought she saw a
white wolf, she likely did.
“But so what?” He refilled his cup with
more Jack Daniels than coffee and pondered the question. So what if
she saw a white wolf? Wolves were known to come in a wide variety
of colors, and white wasn’t uncommon. Hell, most of the wolves in
the arctic were white for Christ’s sake. And none of them lived for
thirty fucking years either. It wasn’t the same creature, it
couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible.
But then he hadn’t thought it possible
for werewolves to exist. And he wished for the millionth time that
he had never seen one.
Wished he hadn’t heard the back door
close just after midnight. Wished he hadn’t been so fucking nosy,
wished he hadn’t crept outside to find his father loading the
Remington 12-gauge as if to go hunting—and hunting for something
big too. Jesus, he’d all but begged to go along. After all, they’d
stalked deer and moose since the boy was old enough to walk,
sometimes even bear or wolf. Maybe the old man was going for the
cougar their neighbor had spotted recently. His father had
hesitated at first, tried to make him go inside. Then he
relented—and told him a story that made his young blood chill. He’d
grown up thinking his mom had simply left them. His sister, Rosa,
was old enough to remember their mother, and said she had run away
when he was still a baby. His father had never said anything at
all. Roderick had refused to talk about her or answer any
questions, had refused to even let the subject be mentioned. But
now his father was telling him that his mother hadn’t run away at
all, that she’d been killed, and not by anything ordinary. By
werewolves. Holy fucking crap, werewolves
for real, just like in the movies and the comics. It was terrifying
and exciting at the same time. No way could
Douglas stay home.
But when they’d made their way to the
Macleod farm, it wasn’t what he expected, not at all.
“Dad, she don’t look like a wolf,” he
had dared to say at last. He didn’t look at the crumpled figure in
the middle of the bloody floor but saw it all too clearly in his
mind. Douglas had owned a rifle since he’d been large enough to
carry one, gone on countless hunting trips and had never once been
squeamish. But this was different and his
stomach felt like it had crawled into his throat. “Isn’t she
supposed to turn into a wolf after she’s dead?”
“That’s an old wives’ tale. They don’t
change unless they want to. Don’t need a full moon either, but
they’re stronger at the full moon. That’s why we had to come
tonight, when the moon’s getting small.”
“But she . . . she looks like Rosa. She
looks like Rosa and you shot her anyways.” Dougie’s voice quavered
in spite of himself. Rosa was married now and expecting his niece
or nephew any day now. At fourteen, he thought it was going to be
really cool to be an uncle.
His father turned on him at once,
shoved him hard into the wall and gripped the front of his shirt.
The old man’s voice was a whip. “Don’t you go feeling sorry for
these damned creatures. That’s how they fool you, by looking like
us. You get it through your head that they’re predators, deceivers
and predators through and through.” He gave the boy a sharp shake
to underscore the words, then tossed him back to slam against the
wall again. “Once a pair starts breeding like this, we’ll be hip
deep in the bastards before you can blink. You want that, Dougie?
You want them going after our livestock? Maybe going after Rosa
like they did your mother?”
“No, no, I didn’t mean—”
“You watch, boy, you just stay right
here and watch. You haven’t seen these animals like I have. That’s
why you can’t believe. You wait. And then you’ll see and you’ll
know. We’ve taken care of one and now her mate will have to come here. He’ll be drawn here and we’ll be
waiting for him.” The man stood in the shadows of the darkened
house, the pump action shotgun resting across his arm, watching
both the front and the side windows.
An hour went by in silence, then two.
Finally his father spat in disgust. “It’s been too goddamn long. I
don’t know where the son of a bitch is, but I’m not waiting any
longer to destroy the den. We’ll have to go after the male another
night.” He gathered up the gas cans and headed for the stairs. “You
stay here and keep watching, hear me? I don’t want any of those
bastards sneaking up on us.”
The boy turned to the window again,
feeling both older than his fourteen years and much, much younger.
He was grateful that the smell of the gas covered up the stink of
blood in the air, glad for the beginning crackle of flames above
that almost drowned out the thoughts whirling in his head. His dad
was nuts, completely and totally a nut case, shooting some poor
lady thinking she was a werewolf. Using a shotgun of all things
like she was dangerous, like in some movie. He should have stopped
him, should have made his dad stop—but he hadn’t stopped him, oh
Jesus, he hadn’t even realized what the old man was going to do
before it was done . . . and neither had she.
The boy welcomed the waft of smoke that
stung his eyes, gave him an excuse for the tears that filled them.
He rubbed them and tried to focus on the line of trees beyond the
barn. The moon’s light was weak and the forest looked black and
ominous. Suddenly there was a flash of white and a great silvery
shape sprang from the darkness, running hard.
“Hey—hey, there it is. I see it!” He
stared at it, terrified and fascinated at the same time. “Holy
shit! It’s big, it’s fuckin’ huge.”
His father was beside him at once.
Thick smoke was now hovering near the ceiling and there were loud
popping and crackling noises as flames consumed the rooms above
them, but the old man was determined to finish what he’d
started.“Get back behind the wall over there. Let him come all the
way through the door, then pull the trigger. Got it? Aim for the
head if you can.”
“But the fire—” It was getting hard to
breathe.
“There’s time, we can get him. We
gotta get him. Listen to what I tell you.”
The old man ducked back to the other corner of the dining
room.
Seconds later the front door burst
inward as it was struck by the massive animal. Dougie flinched at
the explosive noise of shattering wood and nearly dropped the gun.
He swallowed and forced himself to peer around the corner, his
heart pounding so hard it hurt his chest. A great white wolf stood
in the doorway, nearly filling half of it. Then abruptly,
instantly, it became a tall, blond man. It was almost more than the
boy could do to remember to breathe and yet keep from gasping
aloud. His throat constricted with the effort. Holy
Jesus. Dad was right. He was fuckin’ right! The teen pressed
his back to the dining room wall and gripped the rifle in one
shaking hand and his crotch in the other, praying he wouldn’t piss
his pants like a baby. That’s when he heard the sound—not a sound
he’d ever heard in his life and not one he ever wanted to hear
again. A wild keening of terrible grief, unendurable pain. The
unearthly howl pierced his head, stabbed at his heart. He couldn’t
stop himself from peering around the corner again. The blond man
was kneeling on the bloody floor, cradling the woman’s body,
rocking back and forth.
Without warning the old man sprang out
and fired twice in deafening succession. The son stepped away from
the wall as well, but his .22 was slack in his nerveless hands. He
watched as their quarry slumped to the floor in a strange kind of
slow motion. Even dead, the man seemed to curl himself protectively
around the woman.
Dougie’s father shouted at him, urged
him to shoot, shoot now, but the boy could
only stand and stare through the thickening smoke with helpless
tears running down his face.
Suddenly an ominous crash sounded right
above them and a great shower of sparks and wood collapsed into the
stairway. His father grabbed his arm and hustled him out the back
door, both of them coughing and choking. Dougie nearly fell twice
as they ran across the backyard and into the forest beyond where
the truck was hidden. And all the way home he could still hear that
terrible outcry of grief in his head.
Thirty years later, Douglas Harrison
still heard that howl in his dreams. Still woke up sweating,
sometimes in tears like the boy he had been. Tears were running
down his cheeks now, as he held his coffee cup in front of him with
both hands as if in supplication, praying for
forgetfulness.