Howl for Me Read online

“You think so?” he asked the air. “I don’t know, she… well, all right.”

  Heaving a big sigh, Poko turned back to me.

  “I think you’re close to understanding more than you think you do. So does my friend here – or over there – wherever he’s gone. When you travel, what do you see?”

  He leaned so close that his shoulder touched mine.

  “Well, mostly just whatever I’m passing. It’s like a movie camera watching everything. And then if there’s anything that my vision decides to focus on, I follow that around.”

  “Good,” Poko said. “What color is your vision? When you take another skin, I mean. When you look through the eyes of your host?”

  “Host,” I said, laughing. “That makes me sound like a parasite, or something. Anyway, I don’t really remember. When I’m inside someone, it feels like there’s hazy smoke all around, and then when it’s over I don’t remember anything.”

  Suddenly, Poko stiffened.

  “Oh,” Poko said. “That’s… not what I expected to hear you say. Lily,” he began, and then reached for his cane. “Help me up.”

  “What, Poko?” I asked. “What’s happening? What’s got you so worried?”

  “Nothing, Lily,” he replied, and waved his hand. “One of my bodiless friends has just told me of something on the winds.”

  All I could think was that Damon was in danger, somehow.

  “Damon,” I said. “He went off to Louisiana, or someplace, looking for Devin. I heard him talking to someone on the phone and then he just left. I figured he was talking to you.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think this was happening so quickly. My vision is so clouded with age tht I can’t see as I normally can. We need you, Lily. We need your gift.”

  “Why? I mean, okay, sure. But why?”

  As I spoke, I got up and helped him to his feet, and held on until he’d steadied himself on his cane.

  “Is there somewhere we need to go?”

  “No,” he said. “I need to use your eyes – your gift. There’s a great journey I need to take, but obviously, can’t take myself. Something about us, being who we are – Skarachee – has our minds clouded and blind. But your blood is different. Your blood is from Maridati. That’s how you say her name with a human tongue.”

  “I… I what?”

  I could hardly think, much less speak.

  Poko chuckled. His shoulders shook.

  “You did not think yourself human, not completely, not with your skill of possession, did you? Lily… you’re the last of the line, descended from Maridati – Queen of the Green Fae.”

  My feet immediately turned into tent stakes, jammed straight into the rock floor beneath me. In honesty, I suspected something wasn’t quite everyday about me, but… fae? Is that even a real thing?

  “Like a fairy? Are you serious? Witch, sure, some kind of… I don’t know, magic witch. But, a fairy?”

  “No, no,” Poko said. “Not a fairy.”

  Poko shook his head as we emerged from the cave. I hadn’t even realized my feet were moving. “Fae and fairies are quite different. As it happens, your home is quite far from Fort Branch.”

  “I was… adopted?” My thoughts turned to the only parents I’d ever known, and how helpless and hopeless I’d been after they had the wreck that changed my life, the one that left me alone in the world until Grandpa Joe took me in. The one that left my heart broken until Damon put it back together.

  “Given, more like. But, there’s no time to explain. Not now. I need your help, Lily. The Skarachee – we need your help. You’re fated to bridge a gap that’s existed for a thousand thousand years, between our kinds. And already, you have.”

  His words caught me by surprise.

  “Already have? What do you mean?”

  “The baby you carry, you… No,” he said again, shaking his head. “No time. Later. Please, Lily, crouch as I showed you. I need you to tell me exactly what you see.”

  “Right now, all I see is the ground,” I said, as I knelt. The cold, hard ground crunched under my knees. “Okay, here goes.”

  “Good,” Poko said, laying his hands across my closed eyes. “Now breathe out. Let your spirit soar free.”

  I did as he said – in, and then out. Slow and deep.

  The vision behind my eyes started to shake, to vibrate.

  “Good,” he repeated. “Now, dream with wings.”

  His thumbs dug gently into my forehead, and for the first time, when my soul erupted out of my body, the whole world was green.

  *

  “Tell me what you see, Lily, keep talking so I know you’re still with me.”

  Poko’s voice was a distant whisper, just a suggestion of sound. I closed my eyes and let the slow circling of his thumbs send my spirit into the sky.

  “Nothing,” I whispered. “Not yet, just… going into the air, leaving Earth behind.”

  “Do you see anything to the east? In the direction Damon went?”

  Warm vibrations coursed through me as my soul streaked past the trees, and skirted a mountain. I almost felt the rough scrape of rock on my belly. I moved past it, straight up into the night sky.

  “Just lights, I guess. Houses. But, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right for some reason.”

  “What doesn’t?” Poko asked, urgency marking his taut voice. “What’s bothering you?”

  “It’s just… seems like the places where all these lights are popping up, is in the middle of nowhere. I’m high up, looking down on this huge, giant swamp.”

  I lifted my hands and cupped Poko’s, as he rubbed my eyes and my temples.

  “There are… lights in the swamp? It’s green, very green, and dense, and…”

  I fell silent for a moment. My spirit stopped and just as quickly as I rose into the air, began to plummet.

  “I’m on the ground,” I whispered. “It’s hot. The air is almost greasy. There are lights…”

  “The houses you thought you saw?” Poko asked. “Or something else?”

  I tried to find the words, but couldn’t, for a second.

  “No,” I finally said. “They’re floating, little green orbs that… Wait. Wait, one of them is coming toward me, and… Now there are three of them. They’re circling, spinning, faster and faster.”

  Holding my breath for a second, I felt Poko press harder on my temples.

  “Stay with it, child,” he urged. “Tell me what the orbs are doing. Keep talking.”

  Sweat ran down the sides of my face, soaking my shirt. My hands on top of Poko’s were trembling so hard, I could hardly keep them in one place.

  “They’re spinning, going around and around and…”

  My stomach wrenched into a knot when I realized what I was looking at. They weren’t orbs at all. Not just lights, or swamp gas, or will o’ the wisps.

  “They have faces,” I breathed. “They are… Are these spirits?”

  Poko sucked a deep breath.

  Instead of answering, he asked, “Do you know them?”

  I shook my head, still clutching his hands over my eyes.

  “No, they don’t… They feel familiar, but I’ve never seen these faces.”

  He let out a long-held breath.

  “They’re stopping. The three of them. They’re all facing me now. Two of them have older faces – lined, just like yours. With the tattoos, I mean. And now, they’re leaving. Sinking back, like they’re retreating into the undergrowth. Through the trees. Through muck, and…”

  I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t describe the skeletons, the broken bones, and twisted bodies. I couldn’t do it.

  “What is it, Lily?” Poko asked. “What do you see? You must tell me. You must!”

  I swallowed hard.

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “It’s… I can’t look any more. Let me out. Please, let me out, Poko!”

  He held fast. “You must tell me, Lily. I know this is hard, but it—”

  “Bodies,” I said, with a trembling voice. “They’re
… They’re everywhere. Twisted, dried up, some just bones, they’re—”

  “The Carak,” he said, and released my eyes. “They didn’t scatter like I thought. They were called. Tricked.”

  “There’s more,” I said, keeping my eyes closed tight. “There’s something moving, something big… Old… All I can see is white fur and braids… It’s a wolf. He’s hunched over, but very, very big, and—”

  “Look no more, child!”

  With all his might, Poko shook me. I snapped back, instantly feeling my arms and legs tingle as I opened my eyes.

  “You’ve seen all you can,” he said. “All that’s safe.”

  “But… but where was Damon?” I asked him. “I thought I’d see him. Does this mean that Devin’s dead? If those were the Carak, then…”

  Poko narrowed his eyes, rubbing at his neck.

  “He lives still. So does Devin. I feel their life forces. What you saw is exactly what I feared. I’m sorry you had to witness that, but thank you for your strength.”

  “What was it? Some kind of graveyard?”

  “It became one. I feared this – We,” he corrected himself, “feared this. Something older than me, dear child. Something older than the spirits you visited, older than the Skarachee and the Carak. It stirs. It must sense my weakening and hope to take advantage.”

  “What was it? And why wouldn’t you let me look? Seemed like just an old werewolf to me,” I said, taking Poko’s hand and standing up.

  “He’s powerful enough that he can cloud my vision, and the rest of them,” he gestured around with his head. “What you saw was the ancient king of the wolves, Jacarth, though he styles himself Joram Blight after one of his ancestors.”

  Just the name sent a shiver through me.

  “Is he going to hurt Damon? Or you?”

  At that, Poko started chuckling.

  “He will certainly try. He was long thought dead, but apparently was just hibernating. Some thousands of years ago, he ruled with an iron fist. A rebellion erupted, and he was thrown into exile. The packs separated. This is where we get the Skarachee from, and all the others.”

  I almost didn’t want to ask. “But now, he’s back?”

  “I’m afraid, child, that the old king wishes to retake his throne.”

  I didn’t like the way that sounded. Not one bit.

  “Is there anything we can do?” I asked. “If he’s so strong, it’ll…”

  “Take a miracle.” Poko finished for me.

  Poko’s voice shook as he began shambling back toward his cave.

  “If he’s to be fought off, it’ll take more than one alpha. Damon’s young and strong and proud, but he can’t do it alone. And I’m, certainly, no use.”

  “Don’t say that,” I protested. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Ha! You’re a wonderful soul, Lily.”

  Poko paused, facing the mouth of his cave, with his back to me.

  “He’ll need help from another alpha. One that I’m not sure will be quite willing.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I said. “Devin? There’s no way Damon’s going to trust him.”

  The hand gripping his knotted cane shook, and I heard Poko suck on his bottom lip.

  “I’m afraid it’s come to that. My sons must come together, at least for a time. Without both of the packs working as one, we’ll never push back Blight.”

  “Wait,” I said, as what he just told me finally processed. “Sons? Damon is… Devin is… Are you serious?”

  “And now, you know something more than either of them know. It’s why I can feel them so deeply. How I know they still live. They’re both my blood.”

  “But, what about Damon’s parents? I met them before… and Devin’s? How can all of this be true?”

  I just couldn’t believe it, of all the things. It just didn’t make any sense.

  Poko turned to face me, a stern, stony look on his old face.

  “They were meant to rule together,” he said. “They were meant to reunite the Carak and the Skarachee under peaceful terms. Doing that would prevent Blight from ever returning. Something went wrong, though. Both of their natures exist within me – Damon’s quiet pride, and Devin’s seething rage – Skarachee and Carak are two sides of the same coin. I expected balance, but I got chaos.

  I swallowed, hard, and nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Okay well, there’s nothing we can do to change what happened before. What can we do now?”

  “They’ll be arriving soon,” Poko said. “One of them – I can’t tell which – is hurt badly, and the other is bringing him home. To the only place he knows to go.”

  My heart quailed at the thought of seeing Damon again, and soon. I needed him worse than anything, worse than I ever had before. I needed to see him, needed to make sure he was healthy, he was whole.

  “What then?” I asked. “Is there some kind of cleansing ritual or something? I mean, some way we can cure Devin from being Devin?”

  “Unless you know of some way to give him a new brain, I think that’s unlikely,” Poko said, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “No, our natures are what they are. Fighting them just makes the pain into agony. No, we cannot change him. He can learn to focus his rage, but he’ll have to do it himself.”

  “Then what can we do? There must be something.”

  At that, Poko started laughing. Of course he started laughing.

  “First thing, I think, is to keep them from killing each other. Once we manage that, then we can worry about the rest.”

  -6-

  “You want a sandwich?”

  Grandpa Joe stuck a finger in his pipe and re-lit it as I walked up the steps.

  “Bought an extra for you when you said you were coming tonight. Everything okay?” he asked. “Or is the house just too lonely without the old meathead?”

  “Meathead” was my grandpa’s favorite nickname for Damon. Back when we were just dating in high school, he couldn’t help himself, and since we got hitched, he relished every chance he got to trot out the old name.

  “I was going to say ‘No,’” I said, as I sat a duffel bag on the rickety, old woven-iron table. “But, when you said sandwich, my stomach started growling. I guess I haven’t eaten much of anything today. Or the day before.”

  “Hard couple of days?” He shoved the chair opposite his out with his foot.

  Grandpa pushed a wax-paper-covered sandwich across the table. As soon as the smell of fresh rye, sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing, crushed garlic, and horseradish hit my nose, I needed that thing in my mouth.

  “Want to tell me about it? I’m here to listen if you do.”

  “It’s complicated,” I said, groaning a little as I chewed. “God this is good. I have no idea how I forgot to eat for a day and a half, but I solemnly swear never to do it again.”

  “Well, good. You shouldn’t be starving yourself.”

  Grandpa lit his pipe for the second time, and took a few puffs, letting the spicy smoke drip out the corners of his mouth, and then folded up his newspaper.

  “I know,” I said, around a mouthful of Reuben.

  What I didn’t say, was why I knew. No matter how badly I wanted to tell someone about the baby, it didn’t feel right. Not with everything that was happening.

  “Anyway, it’s just complicated. Stuff with Damon and… Well, all that sort of thing.”

  He leaned back, smiling, and drew on his pipe again.

  “Seen Poko lately?” Grandpa asked. “He doesn’t look so hot these days.”

  “Yeah.” I took another bite. “I was there earlier. He told me something that kind of stuck in my brain. About, you know… about me.”

  One of my grandpa’s caterpillar-like eyebrows started twitching.

  “Oh?”

  “About my parents, and—”

  Before I could finish, Grandpa said a simple, “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s not that. I’m not upset about it. I’m just… I mean, why didn’t any
one tell me? As soon as this crazy, mystical world started to open up in front of me, I thought I was either insane, or living in one of your radio shows.”

  He laughed so hard, in obvious relief, that the pier and beam porch started shaking.

  “I just didn’t want to do anything to upset you,” he said. “Your parents – and they are your parents – loved you more than I’ve ever seen two people love a baby. They didn’t care where you came from. And neither do I.”

  For some reason, hearing Grandpa’s placid admission that I really was from somewhere else made it all very real.

  “Poko didn’t say anything bad about them. He just kind of let it slip. He’s got me doing these exercises where I zoom around outside my body and look at things.”

  “Your mother could do that, too,” Grandpa Joe said, softly, rubbing the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. “They knew all about you – your mom and your dad. I guess my old friend didn’t tell you that your dad was just as surprised, the first time he wandered in and saw your mom floating halfway between the floor and the ceiling?”

  Nothing – and, I mean nothing – makes me stop eating a Rueben. But that? That got me to quit.

  “You mean mom was… Really?”

  “About all I can really say,” he said. “I can’t even pretend to understand all that stuff. All I know is that she was special, your mom.”

  “Poko said that I had…”

  I stopped short. I just couldn’t say it out loud. Fae blood? That I was the daughter of some Fae queen? No, it was just too ridiculous. Even in the face of werewolf packs at war, that was a step too far.

  “Whoever it was that gave you to her, they chose her because they knew she understood,” Grandpa said slowly, his eyes fixed on his pipe. “Or at least, that’s what she told me. I never saw my girl so happy, never heard her act like that.”

  “Wait, you mean… they just called you and said ‘Surprise! You’ve got a granddaughter!’? Really?”

  He laughed.

  “Yeah, something about like that. My Elsie always wanted a baby. Since she was a little girl, she wanted one, but somehow or another, it just didn’t work out. She and your dad tried for years, but gave up. Then, one day, she called me and said she had a dream about being pregnant. She woke up, had herself some morning sickness, and took a test. There you were!”