"Afraid not."
"A special deal with the butcher?"
"The FDA would likely disapprove. Sadly, we're stuck getting our meals the old-fashioned way."
"Ah."
"Ah, indeed," she said with another laugh. "Yes, I drink it straight from the source. Some rules, though. No children. No one under thirty. Makes it more sporting."
"Did I mention I'm twenty-eight?"
"That's not what I heard." She grinned. "No need to worry. Common courtesy dictates that we never drain the lifeblood of anyone to whom we've been formally introduced."
She cut a few bits of chicken and moved them around on her plate. "To be honest, I've tried animal blood and blood banks. They don't work. Living that way is like subsisting on bread and water. We exist, but barely. Some still do it. I'm too selfish. If I'm alive, I want to be completely alive. The only apology I can make is that I try to choose those who welcome death, the old, the sick, the suicidal. I'm deluding myself, of course. I can tell that a man wants to die, but I have no way of knowing if he's about to climb a twenty-story building or is temporarily depressed over a broken affair. Life would be so much simpler if we lost our souls when we were reborn, if we forfeited the ability to feel, to know right from wrong. But I suppose that's why they call it a curse. We still know."
"But you don't have a choice."
"Oh, there's always a choice. Self-annihilation. Some do it. Most consider it, but the will to survive is ultimately too strong. If it means the choice between their death and mine, altruism be damned. The motto of the truly strong. Or the incredibly selfish."
We were quiet a moment, then she said, "I take it werewolves aren't cannibals, then?"
"You mean eating humans, not other werewolves, which strictly speaking, would be cannibalism."
"You don't consider yourselves human?"
"To varying degrees. Myself, I still think half-human, half-wolf. Cla-Others don't. They consider werewolves a separate species. I'm not avoiding the question. Pack wolves are forbidden to eat humans. We wouldn't anyway. It doesn't make sense. Eating humans wouldn't serve any other purpose than to sate a hunger that can as easily be satisfied with a deer."
"It's that easy then?"
"I wish. Unfortunately, there's not just the hunger. There's the hunting instinct, and I'll admit, humans satisfy that far better than any animal."
Cassandra's eyes glittered. "The Most Dangerous Game."
The thought struck me then, how odd it was to be discussing this with another woman. I shook it off and continued, "Trouble is, it's hard to hunt without killing. It's possible, but dangerous, risking the chance you won't be able to stop yourself before the kill. Non-Pack werewolves hunt, kill, and eat people. The temptation is too great, and most aren't interested in controlling their impulses."
The server came out then to get our dessert order. I was about to pass, as I usually did when dining with other women, then realized it didn't matter. Cassandra wouldn't care if I ate three pieces of cake. So I ordered tiramisu and a coffee. Cassandra seconded the coffee. As the server turned to leave, Cassandra reached out and grabbed his wrist.
"Decaf actually," she said.
As she spoke, she kept her hand on his wrist, thumb outstretched across his pulse. The server was young and Latin-handsome, big dark eyes and smooth olive skin. Did he notice she held his arm too long? Not a chance. As she called him back and changed her order, she kept her eyes on his like he was the most fascinating thing in the room. And he stared back like a mouse entranced by a cobra. If she'd asked him to step into the back alley with her, he'd have tripped over his feet to obey. When she finally released his arm, he blinked, then something like disappointment crossed his face. He promised to hurry with the coffees and returned to the dining room.
"Sometimes I almost can't resist," Cassandra said after he'd gone. "Even when I'm not hungry. The intoxication of power. A nasty but unbreakable addiction, don't you think?"
"It's… tempting."
Cassandra laughed. "You don't have to pretend with me, Elena. Power is a glorious thing, especially for women. I spent forty-six years as a human woman in seventeenth-century Europe. I'd have killed for a chance at power." Her lips curved in a wicked grin. "But I guess I did, didn't I? The choices one makes." She leaned back and studied me, then smiled again. "I think you and I will get along quite well, A rare treat for me, meeting a huntress who isn't another self-absorbed vampire."
Our coffees and my dessert arrived then. I asked Cassandra what it was like to live as long as she had, and she regaled me with stories for the rest of the meal.
After dinner, Adam repeated Paige's offer to join them on the way back to the Legion Hall. Again, I was about to decline, but this time Jeremy overheard and insisted I go along, probably hoping the two youngest delegates would talk more freely without their elders around. In an aside, he promised to follow us in the Explorer.
***
Unlike Jeremy, Adam hadn't found parking in the small lot behind the restaurant, so the three of us left the others and headed up a side street. Ahead, on the other side of the road, I saw the old Jeep from the Legion Hall parking lot, the one with the California plates.
"Yours?" I asked Adam.
"Unfortunately."
"That's some drive."
"A long drive. In a Jeep, a very, very long drive. I think I shook loose two fillings this time. Getting above the speed limit is nearly impossible. And passing? Forget it. It'd be easier driving over slow traffic. Next time, I'm saving my pennies so I can fly out."
"You say that every time," Paige said. "Robert would buy you a plane ticket any day, but you always refuse. You love driving that piece of crap."
"The blush is wearing off the romance. One more-Shit! "
I looked up to see a massive Yukon backing into the spot in front of Adam's Jeep. The gap was barely big enough to fit a compact. The behemoth SUV kept reversing until it was mere inches from the Jeep's front bumper. Another car was parked less than a foot from the Jeep's rear end.
"Hey!" Adam called as he jogged toward the Yukon. "Hold on!"
A forty-something woman in the passenger seat turned and fixed Adam with an expressionless stare.
"I'm stuck in behind you," he said, flashing a wide grin. "Could you just pull forward a second? I'll get her out of there and you'll have lots of room."
The passenger window was down, but the woman didn't answer. She looked over at the driver's seat. No words were exchanged. The driver's door opened and a man in a golf shirt got out. His wife did the same.
"Hey!" Adam called. "Did you hear me? You boxed me in. If you can pull forward, I'll be out of there in a flash."
The man clicked his remote. The alarm chirped. His wife fell in step beside him and they headed for the restaurant.
"Assholes," Paige muttered. "Own a fifty-thousand-dollar gas-guzzler and you own the whole damned road."
"I'll talk to them," I said. "Maybe he'll listen to a woman."
"Don't." She grabbed my arm. "We'll catch up with the others and come back for the Jeep later."
"I'm only going to talk to them."
She glanced at Adam, who was starting after the couple. "It's not you I'm worried about."
The man turned now, lip curling as he threw some insult at Adam.
"What did you say?" Adam yelled back.
"Oh, shit," Paige murmured.
The man turned his back on Adam.
"What did you say?" Adam shouted.
As Adam advanced on the man, I made a split-second decision to interfere. We were trying to lie low and couldn't afford to call attention to ourselves with a brawl that might involve the police. Adam should have known this, but I guess even the most easygoing young men can be subject to surges of testosterone.
As I turned to go after Adam, Paige grabbed my arm.
"Hold on," she said. "You don't-"
I shook her off and started running, ignoring her trailing footsteps and warning shouts. As I drew closer to Adam, I smelled fire. Not smoke or burning wood or sulfur, but the subtler odor of fire itself. Ignoring it, I grabbed Adam's wrist and whirled him around.
"Forget it," I said as he turned. "Jeremy can drive us-"
Adam faced me now, and I knew where the smell of fire came from. His eyes glowed crimson. The whites were luminescent red, sparking absolute, bottomless rage.
"Get your hands off me," he rumbled.
There was no trace of Adam's voice in the words, no sign of him in his face. Heat emanated from his body in waves. It was like standing too close to a bonfire. Sweat sprang from my pores. I turned my face from the heat, still holding his wrist. He grabbed me, each hand gripping a forearm. Something sizzled. I heard that first, had a second to wonder what it was, then blinding pain seared through my arms. He let go and I stumbled backward. Red welts leaped up on either forearm.
Paige grabbed me from behind, steadying me. I shoved her away and turned back to Adam. He was striding toward a vacant alley.
"He's okay," Paige said. "He'll get it under control now."
The Explorer rounded the corner. I waved my arms for Jeremy to stop and yanked open the passenger door before the SUV hit a full stop. As I jumped in, Jeremy's gaze went to my burned arms and his mouth tightened, but he said nothing. He waited until I was inside, then hit the accelerator.
DISSECTION
As Jeremy drove, I explained what happened. Once outside town, Jeremy pulled into a gas station, parked in front of the phone booth, and got out. A few minutes later he returned and took us back onto the highway.
"Ruth?" I asked.
"I told her we're not returning to the meeting tonight. She heard what happened. Very apologetic. She asked if we'd come if they meet again tomorrow. I said I didn't know, so she wants me to call back tonight and see what they decided."
"Will you?"
"Probably. My first priority is protecting the Pack. To do that, we may need to join these people temporarily, while they investigate this threat. They have resources we can't match. At dinner we discussed this astral projection the shamans do, and it sounds like an invaluable tool for learning more about these men you encountered in Pittsburgh. Beyond that, though, I have no intention of sticking around to help them. We fight our own battles."
In the silence that followed, I reflected on our day, on the overwhelming things we'd discovered. Overwhelming for me, at least. Jeremy seemed not only unfazed but unsurprised by it all. I could chalk this up to his usual equanimity, but his response to everything seemed too calm, even for him.
"You knew," I said. "You knew there were other… things out there. Besides us."
"I'd heard rumors. When I was a child. Long nights, after a Meet, occasionally talk would turn to the possibility of other creatures, vampires, spell-casters, and the like. Someone remembered an uncle who once encountered a being with strange powers, that sort of thing. Much the way humans might discuss aliens or ghosts. Some believed. Most didn't."
"You did?"
"It seems improbable that we'd be the only legendary creature with its basis in reality." He drove in silence a moment, then continued. "Once, not long before his death, my grandfather told me that his grandfather claimed to have sat on a council of what Ruth would call 'supernatural beings.' My grandfather suspected the story may have simply been the confused imaginings of an old man, but he thought he should pass it on to me. If it was true, if other creatures existed, then someone in the Pack should be aware of the possibility."
"Shouldn't everyone in the Pack have been aware of the possibility?" I said. "No offense, Jer, but I really would have appreciated a warning."
"To be honest, the thought never crossed my mind. I never tried to discover whether my grandfather's story was true or not. The point seemed moot. I have no interest in other beings, and we're safer if they have no interest in us. Yes, I suppose one of you could accidentally come across one, but considering how few of us exist, and how few of them exist, the chances of not only meeting but recognizing each other seemed infinitesimal. Certainly it's never happened before, not in my lifetime or my grandfather's. Now it appears these witches have been aware of us for a very long time. I never considered that possibility."
"Are you admitting you made a mistake?"
His lips twitched in the barest smile. "I'm admitting to an oversight. It would only be a mistake if I considered the possibility and chose to ignore it."
"But if werewolves did sit on this council at one time, why isn't it in the Legacy?" I said, referring to the Pack's history book.
"I don't know. If as Ruth says, werewolves broke from the council, they may have chosen to remove that portion of their history from the Legacy."
"Maybe for good reason," I said, brushing my fingertips over my burned arms.
Jeremy glanced at me and nodded. "Maybe so."
***
At the cabin, Jeremy washed and dressed my burns, then asked if I was ready for bed or wanted to stay up longer.
"Were you staying up?" I asked.
"If you were."
"If you were, I will, but if you're tired…?"
"Are you tir-" Jeremy stopped. A small half-smile flitted across his lips and I knew what he was thinking. We could go on like this all night, neither of us willing to voice an opinion that might inconvenience the other. With Clay or Nick or Antonio, I made my wants and opinions known without hesitation. Survival of the loudest. With Jeremy, his unerring civility resurrected my upbringing, and a simple choice could evolve into an endless "After you," "No, I insist, after you" farce. If Clay were here, he'd make up our minds for us before the second round of the dance. Without him, we were on our own.
"A special deal with the butcher?"
"The FDA would likely disapprove. Sadly, we're stuck getting our meals the old-fashioned way."
"Ah."
"Ah, indeed," she said with another laugh. "Yes, I drink it straight from the source. Some rules, though. No children. No one under thirty. Makes it more sporting."
"Did I mention I'm twenty-eight?"
"That's not what I heard." She grinned. "No need to worry. Common courtesy dictates that we never drain the lifeblood of anyone to whom we've been formally introduced."
She cut a few bits of chicken and moved them around on her plate. "To be honest, I've tried animal blood and blood banks. They don't work. Living that way is like subsisting on bread and water. We exist, but barely. Some still do it. I'm too selfish. If I'm alive, I want to be completely alive. The only apology I can make is that I try to choose those who welcome death, the old, the sick, the suicidal. I'm deluding myself, of course. I can tell that a man wants to die, but I have no way of knowing if he's about to climb a twenty-story building or is temporarily depressed over a broken affair. Life would be so much simpler if we lost our souls when we were reborn, if we forfeited the ability to feel, to know right from wrong. But I suppose that's why they call it a curse. We still know."
"But you don't have a choice."
"Oh, there's always a choice. Self-annihilation. Some do it. Most consider it, but the will to survive is ultimately too strong. If it means the choice between their death and mine, altruism be damned. The motto of the truly strong. Or the incredibly selfish."
We were quiet a moment, then she said, "I take it werewolves aren't cannibals, then?"
"You mean eating humans, not other werewolves, which strictly speaking, would be cannibalism."
"You don't consider yourselves human?"
"To varying degrees. Myself, I still think half-human, half-wolf. Cla-Others don't. They consider werewolves a separate species. I'm not avoiding the question. Pack wolves are forbidden to eat humans. We wouldn't anyway. It doesn't make sense. Eating humans wouldn't serve any other purpose than to sate a hunger that can as easily be satisfied with a deer."
"It's that easy then?"
"I wish. Unfortunately, there's not just the hunger. There's the hunting instinct, and I'll admit, humans satisfy that far better than any animal."
Cassandra's eyes glittered. "The Most Dangerous Game."
The thought struck me then, how odd it was to be discussing this with another woman. I shook it off and continued, "Trouble is, it's hard to hunt without killing. It's possible, but dangerous, risking the chance you won't be able to stop yourself before the kill. Non-Pack werewolves hunt, kill, and eat people. The temptation is too great, and most aren't interested in controlling their impulses."
The server came out then to get our dessert order. I was about to pass, as I usually did when dining with other women, then realized it didn't matter. Cassandra wouldn't care if I ate three pieces of cake. So I ordered tiramisu and a coffee. Cassandra seconded the coffee. As the server turned to leave, Cassandra reached out and grabbed his wrist.
"Decaf actually," she said.
As she spoke, she kept her hand on his wrist, thumb outstretched across his pulse. The server was young and Latin-handsome, big dark eyes and smooth olive skin. Did he notice she held his arm too long? Not a chance. As she called him back and changed her order, she kept her eyes on his like he was the most fascinating thing in the room. And he stared back like a mouse entranced by a cobra. If she'd asked him to step into the back alley with her, he'd have tripped over his feet to obey. When she finally released his arm, he blinked, then something like disappointment crossed his face. He promised to hurry with the coffees and returned to the dining room.
"Sometimes I almost can't resist," Cassandra said after he'd gone. "Even when I'm not hungry. The intoxication of power. A nasty but unbreakable addiction, don't you think?"
"It's… tempting."
Cassandra laughed. "You don't have to pretend with me, Elena. Power is a glorious thing, especially for women. I spent forty-six years as a human woman in seventeenth-century Europe. I'd have killed for a chance at power." Her lips curved in a wicked grin. "But I guess I did, didn't I? The choices one makes." She leaned back and studied me, then smiled again. "I think you and I will get along quite well, A rare treat for me, meeting a huntress who isn't another self-absorbed vampire."
Our coffees and my dessert arrived then. I asked Cassandra what it was like to live as long as she had, and she regaled me with stories for the rest of the meal.
After dinner, Adam repeated Paige's offer to join them on the way back to the Legion Hall. Again, I was about to decline, but this time Jeremy overheard and insisted I go along, probably hoping the two youngest delegates would talk more freely without their elders around. In an aside, he promised to follow us in the Explorer.
***
Unlike Jeremy, Adam hadn't found parking in the small lot behind the restaurant, so the three of us left the others and headed up a side street. Ahead, on the other side of the road, I saw the old Jeep from the Legion Hall parking lot, the one with the California plates.
"Yours?" I asked Adam.
"Unfortunately."
"That's some drive."
"A long drive. In a Jeep, a very, very long drive. I think I shook loose two fillings this time. Getting above the speed limit is nearly impossible. And passing? Forget it. It'd be easier driving over slow traffic. Next time, I'm saving my pennies so I can fly out."
"You say that every time," Paige said. "Robert would buy you a plane ticket any day, but you always refuse. You love driving that piece of crap."
"The blush is wearing off the romance. One more-Shit! "
I looked up to see a massive Yukon backing into the spot in front of Adam's Jeep. The gap was barely big enough to fit a compact. The behemoth SUV kept reversing until it was mere inches from the Jeep's front bumper. Another car was parked less than a foot from the Jeep's rear end.
"Hey!" Adam called as he jogged toward the Yukon. "Hold on!"
A forty-something woman in the passenger seat turned and fixed Adam with an expressionless stare.
"I'm stuck in behind you," he said, flashing a wide grin. "Could you just pull forward a second? I'll get her out of there and you'll have lots of room."
The passenger window was down, but the woman didn't answer. She looked over at the driver's seat. No words were exchanged. The driver's door opened and a man in a golf shirt got out. His wife did the same.
"Hey!" Adam called. "Did you hear me? You boxed me in. If you can pull forward, I'll be out of there in a flash."
The man clicked his remote. The alarm chirped. His wife fell in step beside him and they headed for the restaurant.
"Assholes," Paige muttered. "Own a fifty-thousand-dollar gas-guzzler and you own the whole damned road."
"I'll talk to them," I said. "Maybe he'll listen to a woman."
"Don't." She grabbed my arm. "We'll catch up with the others and come back for the Jeep later."
"I'm only going to talk to them."
She glanced at Adam, who was starting after the couple. "It's not you I'm worried about."
The man turned now, lip curling as he threw some insult at Adam.
"What did you say?" Adam yelled back.
"Oh, shit," Paige murmured.
The man turned his back on Adam.
"What did you say?" Adam shouted.
As Adam advanced on the man, I made a split-second decision to interfere. We were trying to lie low and couldn't afford to call attention to ourselves with a brawl that might involve the police. Adam should have known this, but I guess even the most easygoing young men can be subject to surges of testosterone.
As I turned to go after Adam, Paige grabbed my arm.
"Hold on," she said. "You don't-"
I shook her off and started running, ignoring her trailing footsteps and warning shouts. As I drew closer to Adam, I smelled fire. Not smoke or burning wood or sulfur, but the subtler odor of fire itself. Ignoring it, I grabbed Adam's wrist and whirled him around.
"Forget it," I said as he turned. "Jeremy can drive us-"
Adam faced me now, and I knew where the smell of fire came from. His eyes glowed crimson. The whites were luminescent red, sparking absolute, bottomless rage.
"Get your hands off me," he rumbled.
There was no trace of Adam's voice in the words, no sign of him in his face. Heat emanated from his body in waves. It was like standing too close to a bonfire. Sweat sprang from my pores. I turned my face from the heat, still holding his wrist. He grabbed me, each hand gripping a forearm. Something sizzled. I heard that first, had a second to wonder what it was, then blinding pain seared through my arms. He let go and I stumbled backward. Red welts leaped up on either forearm.
Paige grabbed me from behind, steadying me. I shoved her away and turned back to Adam. He was striding toward a vacant alley.
"He's okay," Paige said. "He'll get it under control now."
The Explorer rounded the corner. I waved my arms for Jeremy to stop and yanked open the passenger door before the SUV hit a full stop. As I jumped in, Jeremy's gaze went to my burned arms and his mouth tightened, but he said nothing. He waited until I was inside, then hit the accelerator.
DISSECTION
As Jeremy drove, I explained what happened. Once outside town, Jeremy pulled into a gas station, parked in front of the phone booth, and got out. A few minutes later he returned and took us back onto the highway.
"Ruth?" I asked.
"I told her we're not returning to the meeting tonight. She heard what happened. Very apologetic. She asked if we'd come if they meet again tomorrow. I said I didn't know, so she wants me to call back tonight and see what they decided."
"Will you?"
"Probably. My first priority is protecting the Pack. To do that, we may need to join these people temporarily, while they investigate this threat. They have resources we can't match. At dinner we discussed this astral projection the shamans do, and it sounds like an invaluable tool for learning more about these men you encountered in Pittsburgh. Beyond that, though, I have no intention of sticking around to help them. We fight our own battles."
In the silence that followed, I reflected on our day, on the overwhelming things we'd discovered. Overwhelming for me, at least. Jeremy seemed not only unfazed but unsurprised by it all. I could chalk this up to his usual equanimity, but his response to everything seemed too calm, even for him.
"You knew," I said. "You knew there were other… things out there. Besides us."
"I'd heard rumors. When I was a child. Long nights, after a Meet, occasionally talk would turn to the possibility of other creatures, vampires, spell-casters, and the like. Someone remembered an uncle who once encountered a being with strange powers, that sort of thing. Much the way humans might discuss aliens or ghosts. Some believed. Most didn't."
"You did?"
"It seems improbable that we'd be the only legendary creature with its basis in reality." He drove in silence a moment, then continued. "Once, not long before his death, my grandfather told me that his grandfather claimed to have sat on a council of what Ruth would call 'supernatural beings.' My grandfather suspected the story may have simply been the confused imaginings of an old man, but he thought he should pass it on to me. If it was true, if other creatures existed, then someone in the Pack should be aware of the possibility."
"Shouldn't everyone in the Pack have been aware of the possibility?" I said. "No offense, Jer, but I really would have appreciated a warning."
"To be honest, the thought never crossed my mind. I never tried to discover whether my grandfather's story was true or not. The point seemed moot. I have no interest in other beings, and we're safer if they have no interest in us. Yes, I suppose one of you could accidentally come across one, but considering how few of us exist, and how few of them exist, the chances of not only meeting but recognizing each other seemed infinitesimal. Certainly it's never happened before, not in my lifetime or my grandfather's. Now it appears these witches have been aware of us for a very long time. I never considered that possibility."
"Are you admitting you made a mistake?"
His lips twitched in the barest smile. "I'm admitting to an oversight. It would only be a mistake if I considered the possibility and chose to ignore it."
"But if werewolves did sit on this council at one time, why isn't it in the Legacy?" I said, referring to the Pack's history book.
"I don't know. If as Ruth says, werewolves broke from the council, they may have chosen to remove that portion of their history from the Legacy."
"Maybe for good reason," I said, brushing my fingertips over my burned arms.
Jeremy glanced at me and nodded. "Maybe so."
***
At the cabin, Jeremy washed and dressed my burns, then asked if I was ready for bed or wanted to stay up longer.
"Were you staying up?" I asked.
"If you were."
"If you were, I will, but if you're tired…?"
"Are you tir-" Jeremy stopped. A small half-smile flitted across his lips and I knew what he was thinking. We could go on like this all night, neither of us willing to voice an opinion that might inconvenience the other. With Clay or Nick or Antonio, I made my wants and opinions known without hesitation. Survival of the loudest. With Jeremy, his unerring civility resurrected my upbringing, and a simple choice could evolve into an endless "After you," "No, I insist, after you" farce. If Clay were here, he'd make up our minds for us before the second round of the dance. Without him, we were on our own.
