Overwinter Page 30

  But wolves never lack for willpower.

  The black lifted her face out of the snow as the pack approached. She snarled a warning. They should stay away. She was not one of them.

  The male took a step closer. Off to one side, the white female cut a wide circle around the prostrate black wolf. Getting behind her—just in case. The gray came up by the male’s flank, where she could support whatever move he made.

  The black wolf growled, now. Barked at them like a dog. They should stay away—she was making it quite clear she did not want them near. The male took a tentative step closer, then looked off to the side. His face, his ears, his tail showed boredom. The saddle of fur on his back lay flat.

  It was an offering. He was giving the black female the opportunity to join his pack. To come under his protection. She need only come forward and lick his chin. Show deference.

  The white wolf stood up very tall, stretching her legs. She didn’t like this, didn’t want the black female in the pack. As the most submissive wolf in the pack, she would be suspicious of any newcomers, of course. She would worry they would force her even farther down the pecking order.

  The male didn’t acknowledge her concerns. He just stood there, waiting. The gray lowered her head and licked at the snow, her eyes drinking in everything. She was ready if the black wolf tried to challenge the male’s dominance—or to just attack.

  The black wolf got one leg underneath her. Pushed herself up out of the snow. It stuck to her fur, flakes getting caught in the long guard hairs that stuck out above her thick undercoat. Her eyes were glassy. She got another leg underneath her. Stood up.

  That was when the gray saw why she had faltered. The wound in the black wolf’s chest was soaked in blood. The fur there had fallen out in great clumps, and the skin around the bullet hole looked charred and cracked.

  Silver, the gray wolf thought. She had silver inside her body. Soon she would be dead.

  There was still a chance for her to save herself. If she could somehow get the silver bullet out of her body, she would heal when next the moon changed her. It wasn’t something she could do on her own, however. There was only one way for a wolf to get a silver bullet out of her body. The male would have to bite it out. Tear it free with his powerful jaws and enormous teeth. The pain would be extraordinary for both of them, but the gray knew the male would do it, if the black wolf would only agree to join the pack. She knew it because once, the male had done it for her. It had felt like he was killing her. Like he was tearing her to pieces.

  It had been a gesture of love. Of the feelings one wolf of a pack shared for another, which were more profound than any human words could convey.

  He would do this for the black wolf. She had only to submit. Join him.

  Still acting as if he didn’t care one way or another, the male started walking toward the black wolf, sniffing at the air, twitching his tail back and forth. As if he had better things to do. The laws of the pack made it clear he could not show any sign of concern. He could not evince the slightest desire for the black wolf to join the pack. Yet because he was resisting the siren call of the north, and because he had already ignored the black wolf’s growling, it was obvious to them all. He wanted desperately to save the black wolf. To accept her.

  She had only to submit.

  Yet her eyes, her ears, her tail, sent all the wrong signals. She growled low in her throat. Her saddle stood straight up, and her tail was tucked tight between her legs as if she was afraid the white female was going to bite it off. She turned to the left, then to the right, as if looking for an escape route. Some direction she could run that would get her away from the pack.

  The male let her make all these signs without challenge. What she was doing was the height of rudeness—or it could symbolize true aggression, true hatred. He was letting her burn off her excess pride.

  But there was a limit to how far this could go. The male yawned, his long tongue curling out of his mouth, his eyes squinted shut. Shaking his head, he walked over to the black wolf, well within range of her claws and teeth. He turned to face her and suddenly the intensity of his gaze would have melted ice. He walked up beside her and pushed at her side with his forehead.

  She was so weak that she fell over. He shoved at her legs, at her ribs, trying to get her to roll onto her back. Maybe he intended to bite the bullet out even without her consent—which would be unthinkable.

  All she had to do was lie down and lick his chin. The gray wolf leaned forward on her legs as if she could urge the black wolf to obey, to submit, by only desiring it.

  The black wolf didn’t submit. Instead, she wheeled around with the last of her strength and tried to sink her teeth into the male’s throat.

  He jumped back easily and her teeth snapped shut on empty air.

  The white female growled. The gray’s eyes went wide. If he gave the slightest signal, the two of them were ready to fall on the black wolf and punish her severely for her transgression.

  But instead, he just trotted away. Headed north. As if nothing, whatsoever, had happened.

  The black wolf had been given her chance. She would not get another.

  The three of them, the pack, headed north without a glance back. They left the black wolf there, dying in the snow.

  Because she’d made it very clear that that was what she wanted.

  92.

  The moon went down again, and the wolves changed back to human.

  Some of them.

  “Leave her,” Lucie said. “This is our last chance. You and I, cher, we can go away together. Where they will never find us. But we can’t take her with us. It will be like Élodie, again.”

  “No,” Powell said.

  Chey could hear them. She couldn’t open her eyes or move, but she could hear them talking.

  Then their voices faded away. Everything faded away. Her sense of her body. Her sense of time. The cold, the air on her face.

  All gone.

  For a while there was nothing. Not even a self. Then she returned.

  Chey found herself standing in the snow, staring at her hands. They looked like paws. No. They were hands, with fingers, with—they looked like paws. She felt fur bristling all over her body. She felt herself start to drop forward, to land on all fours.

  “Stop it,” she begged. “Just—just give me one more day. Let me be human one more time.” Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Her fur caught them, soaked them up.

  Her hands—her paws—flexed, the claws—the fingers—stretched out before her—the claws scratched at the air.

  “Please,” she said.

  Her ears twitched. Her tail—she didn’t have a tail.

  “Please.”

  And then, in a sudden burst of clarity, of light, the wolf was standing in the snow, and the woman stood facing it.

  Two of them. Separate bodies.

  It was a hallucination. It was very convincing. They stared at one another, both understanding. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. The wolf licked her lips, showing her enormous teeth.

  The wolf was going to devour the woman. Tear her up and eat the pieces. The blood would be slick in her throat. The flesh would go down in thick gobbets. The wolf would crunch the bones they shared, break them open and suck out the marrow. The wolf would eat her, her hair that was not fur, her tiny little round human teeth. Her human eyes. Her human tongue.

  “No,” the woman said. Chey said. She fought to hold on to her own name.

  Wolves don’t have names.

  “No,” Chey said again. Louder this time. The wolf’s ears went back. It snarled low in its throat.

  Fascinated, Chey crouched down to look deep into the wolf’s eyes.

  This wolf had a name. A soul. She was a soul.

  “You,” she said. “You’re Amuruq,” she said.

  The wolf blinked.

  “You’re—you’re afraid of me,” Chey said.

  The wolf started to fade. To vanish.

  “I can help you,”
Chey promised.

  The wolf crouched. Ready to spring. Promises. The wolf had heard promises before. She had been betrayed, before.

  “Please. Give me one more day. I’ll make it happen. No matter what it costs.”

  The wolf was gone. Amuruq was gone.

  Chey opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, in the snow. Powell was kneeling next to her, holding her hand. Lucie stood nearby, not looking at Chey. Chewing on her perfect little fingernails.

  They were all naked.

  “She wanted us to come here,” Chey said. “The only way she could make that happen was to possess me. To take over. She wasn’t trying to destroy me. She was trying to push me in the right direction.”

  “What?” Powell asked.

  Chey blinked and tried to sit up. Moaned. She hurt all over. “What?” she asked.

  He smiled at her. Rubbed at her wrist with his thumbs. Hard enough to hurt, a little.

  “You said something, just now,” he told her. “I couldn’t quite make it out.”

  “You were mumbling,” Lucie told her. “Raving in your sleep.”

  “I … don’t remember,” Chey said. The dream was there, the vision. The communication with—with someone. Something else. But as she reached for it, she lost it. She’d made a promise, or maybe a threat? She’d named something … it was gone.

  She sat up and buried her face in her hands. “How long was I gone this time?”

  Powell shook his head. “A while. No wristwatch to time it.” He held up his bare wrist and smiled.

  She smiled back. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Take a look for yourself.”

  She pushed herself up farther on her arms. Looked around.

  They were on the snow-covered banks of a frozen lake. A big lake, with an island in its center, just a pile of yellow and brown rocks. On the far side of the lake a formation of gray rocks stood up in the shape of a hand with broken fingers.

  “We made it,” she said. “This is it.”

  “The wolves brought us right here,” Powell told her. “They knew. They wanted us to do this.”

  “No,” Lucie insisted. Shaking her head. She put her index finger to her mouth again and chewed vigorously on the nail. She knew something was up, obviously. Knew she was the only one who still didn’t know what was going to happen.

  “We’ve won, almost,” Chey said.

  “No,” Lucie told her. More determined, this time. “We have—”

  Powell stood up suddenly, interrupting her. “Look, over there,” he said.

  They all turned to look where he pointed. Out into the snowfield, into the ice glare. A figure was approaching, a human shape in a heavy parka and snow pants. His face was blue. Over his shoulder was a body, the body of an Inuit woman with long black hair that hung down at his side. She was wrapped in a white blanket thick with red blood.

  Varkanin, and Sharon Minik. Except Sharon was dead.

  93.

  Varkanin laid Sharon’s body down on the ground near the water. The snow didn’t melt against her cheek.

  He sat down beside her and looked out at the island. His blue eyes were hollow and he didn’t speak. Chey took a step toward him, thinking she could comfort him somehow, but before she could reach out to him he got up again and turned to face them. “I hid until they were gone, then followed you on foot. Your tracks were easy to find. Footprints in the snow and … and blood trails.” He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The soldiers will be here soon.”

  “Cher,” Lucie whispered. “Now, perhaps.”

  “Forget it,” Powell told her. “Listen, Varkanin, I want you to know—”

  Varkanin waved one hand at him in abnegation. “There is nothing to say. You have arrived here, as I said you would. Now you must go inside and find your cure. And hurry, please. The moon will rise again before long. Your wolves will not know what to do—and then all will be lost.”

  “The only reason he let us live was to cure her!” Lucie grabbed at Powell’s arm. When he brushed her off, she put her fingernail to her mouth again and bit down hard. “Do you think he will just let us go? Do you think he will let me live?”

  Varkanin turned to stare at her. His eyes were perfectly focused now. “I would break every bone in your body with my bare hands, if I could. I would flay you from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, and laugh at your screams. But I made a promise.”

  “Promises,” Lucie said, “are worth no more than the wind that carries them. I think, sir, that we will go into that cave and find this cure, and when we come out you will be waiting for me. To have your revenge all the same.”

  Varkanin glared at her for a while. Then he turned to face Powell. “I’ll hold off the soldiers as long as I can. That will not be very long—and the moon is coming. Go, now.”

  “Give me your word, that you mean me no harm,” Lucie mocked.

  “Lucie—this isn’t the time,” Powell said.

  Lucie lifted her finger to her mouth one more time. Chewed off a piece of fingernail and spit it out into the snow. “Help me kill him,” she said.

  “Lucie!”

  Chey laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out, yet? We can’t even hurt him. And I for one don’t want to. Hasn’t he suffered enough? Haven’t you made him suffer enough?”

  “I have done nothing to deserve his hatred, or the dangers he has brought down on us,” Lucie said. Even Powell had to laugh at that. “It was my wolf that injured him, not me. You think this a joke? Tell me, Cheyenne—tell me how you came to forgive Monty. How you forgave him for slaughtering your father, and cursing you?”

  Chey opened her mouth to speak. But she couldn’t answer.

  Was Powell responsible for what his wolf did? If he wasn’t, then what did that say about Lucie?

  “You hunted down his daughters,” she said, finally. “When you were human.”

  “I defended myself after he tried to kill me. Always I have sought to find a way to release myself from his pointless vendetta. I came to you for help, when I could not defeat him myself. Only to have you make an alliance with this man, who wishes to torture me to death! But I have kept my peace. I have understood, I must defend myself, as always. I have been watching him, for some time. Studying him. Is it so strange?” Lucie asked. “He is my enemy. I have looked for his weaknesses. His blue skin is like iron to us. We cannot hurt him where he is blue.”

  Varkanin pulled the blanket over Sharon’s face. He didn’t even seem to hear what Lucie was blathering on about. Some of it must have gotten through his grief, however. Finally he stood up and faced them.

  “I have noticed one thing,” Lucie said. She flexed her hand in front of her, as if testing its strength. “I have seen that his tongue is still pink.”

  Varkanin looked puzzled as to why she would care. He opened his mouth to speak.

  And that was when Lucie struck.

  Chey understood what was happening even as she realized she couldn’t stop it. Lucie hadn’t been chewing on her fingernail because she was nervous. She had been sharpening it. Biting it down to one razor-fine point.

  She lunged forward and stuck her index finger in between his teeth. He tried to reel backward away from the attack, but she was too fast for him. His eyes went wide even as smoke puffed out of his mouth. Lucie withdrew her finger—Chey saw it was burned down to the bone where it had touched Varkanin’s lips—and spun around with madness in her eyes.

  Behind her, Varkanin dropped to his knees, clutching at his mouth. Bright blood leaked from one corner of his lips.

  “Now I have given you my curse,” Lucie told him, her back still turned to him. “Even the slightest scratch will suffice, non? But what will become of you when the moon rises, I wonder? What happens to a werewolf who transforms when every cell in his body is suffused with silver?”

  He stumbled trying to get back to his feet. Chey looked at Powell, but he seemed as shocked as she was, and as unable to do anything to help. What could th
ey do? Lucie was right—even a small scratch could transfer the curse.

  “Will you explode when you change?” Lucie asked. “Will you simply disintegrate into a pile of ash?”

  Varkanin’s shoulders shook wildly, as if he was going into convulsions. He managed to get to his feet. He reached for the gun at his hip.

  “Perhaps you will hurt. Perhaps the pain will be unimaginable,” Lucie said, her nostrils flaring. She turned around and waited for him to draw the gun from its holster. Then she reached over and plucked it effortlessly from his grasp.

  He could only stare down at his empty hand, as if wondering what had happened.

  “You bi—” he tried to say, but before he could finish the profanity his mouth filled with blood and he had to spit it out.

  Chey started to rush to his side, but she stopped when she realized that Lucie had the gun trained on her chest. Slowly she raised her hands.

  Lucie didn’t speak to Chey, however. Instead she addressed Powell. “Come with me, cher. The time for silly games and little infatuations is over. You must have known, even from the start, it would come to this. Every time you let your human heart take the place of your brain, it comes to this. Everyone dies. Except us.”

  “No,” Powell said. “We’re going to cure ourselves. We’re going to be human from now on. No more bloodshed. No more guilt!”

  Lucie swung the gun around to point at him. “But I don’t want to be cured,” she told him. “Did you suspect, even for a moment, it was otherwise?” She watched his face for a while. Studying him, perhaps trying to work out the right words to make him join her. For the first time Chey thought perhaps Lucie really did love Powell. That she wasn’t just obsessed with him, or thought of him as her possession. That she wanted him to be happy. That she wanted him to want the things she did, and that it caused her pain when he did not.

  It was the only way she could find to explain why Lucie stared at Powell so intently that she didn’t notice Varkanin coming up behind her.

  The blue Russian was clearly crippled by pain. The curse must already be at work inside him, transforming him, fighting with the silver in his body. But he was not the kind of man who let pain control him. He had managed to get to his feet. He had managed to drop into a crouch. And somehow he found it within himself to tackle Lucie, knocking her to the ground and sending the gun flying.