“I might make you an offer.” Cernunnos rode out of the sunset as well, ash and silver cutting a mark against gold. He wasn’t, though, speaking to me: his gaze was for the woman dying at my side.
Being a master of discretion, I gave a bleat of protest and managed to turn it into words as he dismounted and glanced at me. “She’s not exactly up to a bargain, Cernunnos!”
“There is no bargain to be made. No cost for what I will ask, because it is to my benefit as well as hers.” He knelt on Méabh’s other side, head heavy with horns as he lowered it toward hers. “Do not die here, Queen of Connacht. Instead give up this land, this world and become a creature of my earth instead. It will sustain you and all your kind for as long as I exist, and I am not an easy thing to end.” He glanced at me as he spoke, emerald eyes fiery. Not easy, but not impossible: I had almost seen his end, and that was a deep bond between us. That acknowledgment made, he looked back to Méabh, voice softer still. “You know already that the aos sí do not exist in Joanne’s world, in Joanne’s time. The choice is yours, for all your kin: fade away under the hills, or come beyond the sunset—”
“‘And all the western stars,’” I whispered. “‘Until I die.’”
Méabh’s gaze sharpened on me and she laughed. Breathless ugly sound, but a laugh. “A poet and a warrior. Write my song, then, Granddaughter. Write my song, as I go. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. I’m glad I got to meet you. And the poem’s not mine.” And I’d mangled it anyway, but it was close enough for the moment. I struggled for the right thing to say, finally blurting, “I’ll say it for you, though. On the old holy days, darkest night and brightest day.”
“Then I’ll go.” She looked at Cernunnos, and for the first time I saw the woman soften. I sympathized, even as my heart wrenched. We’d gone through a lot of adventure together in the past day. I didn’t want to have yanked her out of time only to have gotten her killed. The thought made me give Gary a look of guilty relief. He beetled his bushy eyebrows at me.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to explain that while I didn’t want to have gotten Méabh killed out of time, I could live with it, whereas I couldn’t have forgiven myself for doing the same to him. A jolt of bewilderment finally hit me: I didn’t even know how he and Cernunnos had gotten here. Especially since I was still pretty sure “here” was the Lower World, where I doubted Cernunnos belonged at all.
“My people,” Méabh said to Cernunnos, “my people aren’t mine to call. I wouldn’t be one of them, not in my heart, not in my soul.”
“But you are in the blood,” said the god of the hunt, and then, to me, “Give her strength enough to survive the ride across the stars. That alone, and no more. Tir na nOg will do the rest, and she will be better for it. More, the land will come to know her people through her blood, and they will leave this world for mine. It has long been lonesome,” he murmured, and I couldn’t meet his eyes. I only nodded, reaching for my magic.
Half to my surprise, power responded promptly, leaping awake with a rush of enthusiasm. It poured through me, starting in my fingertips and sizzling up my arms. I had about a nanosecond to recognize that usually it went the other direction.
Then I turned into a werewolf.
It happened so fast I didn’t know what had happened. A bolt of pain, but not the drawn-out agony from before. Just a clear pure explosion of it and then the world was a simpler place. Bright sharp smells overwhelmed me: blood and dying magic and surprise and dust and grass and stone and sky. I sneezed once, sending some of the scent away, and focused on the important things.
Like getting out of the itchy human clothes. That was the work of a moment, while I growled over the nice warm lump of bleeding flesh right in front of me. It would sate the hunger in my belly. I’d been so long without food as a human I’d temporarily forgotten the need to eat. Shifting awakened the need, and the bloody, barely breathing body on the floor looked like lunch.
Gary put his hand on my ruff and pulled me back as I dipped my head toward Méabh’s gut wound. I snarled and turned on him, teeth snapping a whisker from his nose.
He didn’t even flinch, just scruffed my spine and then my furry cheeks. My angry wolf brain went blank for just a moment. This was not how prey was supposed to act. I lost some of my aggression, and inside that moment of confusion, Gary said, “You ain’t gonna bite me, darlin’.”
No. No, I wasn’t. That was Gary. My friend Gary. Gary, who’d come back. I kept to short ideas, important thoughts. Gary was my friend. I wouldn’t bite him. I would never bite him. I would never make him a monster. I wasn’t a monster. Not if I could keep from biting Gary. Over and over, the same litany of promises: I had Gary back. I would never risk him again.
Inch by itching inch, my hackles flattened. I edged my front feet forward centimeters at a time until they, too, lay flat, and I had my chin on the floor. Gary kept hold of my face, just like I was still a real girl. He even smiled, all calm and natural, as if holding off a crazed werewolf was all in the line of duty. “There you go,” he said in approval. “That’s better. Now, what’s goin’ on, Jo? You said shapeshifting. Didn’t think that meant eating your buddies.”
I didn’t think much at all, but his voice was soothing. I listened to it, an easy rising and falling cadence, and began to fall asleep. A hint of danger flared as I recognized the oncoming nap, but it was too late: the wolf’s thoughts became stronger than my own, more focused. Food would come later. The old human would weaken. He could be taken then. The Master would be pleased. The Master knew this old man. His scent was familiar. Familiar to all the Master’s creatures. The old man had fought the Master once, long ago. Before my ancestors had come from the earth to do the Master’s bidding. Killing this man would be the Master’s desire. If I brought this man to the Master, he would forgive me and all my kind for their weakness in being captured by Méabh.
Familiar scent flared again and my eyes opened wide. Méabh. The Master knew the dying woman’s scent, too. My kind would be elevated above all others if I brought him the dying woman and the old man. My tail hit the floor once, hard. I gathered my feet under me and sprang away, out of the old man’s reach. Out of reach of the food/dying/Méabh-woman, too, but that wouldn’t matter soon. I made my throat long, gathering breath for a triumphant howl to the sky.
Something I couldn’t see kicked me in the head.
I wobbled, too surprised to howl or whimper. Nothing nothing nothing: my senses were afire, searching for what had attacked me. No scent. No body. No footstep on the floor. I backed away, shoulders hunched, head lowered, teeth bared. Growling at the nothing. Willing it to go away. Willing it to be seen, so I could fight it.
Its scent came first. Heavy, earthen, animal. Prey animaclass="underline" deer. But not weak, not a doe, not a fawn. A stag. In his prime, musky scent growing stronger. Not easy prey. Not wise prey for a single wolf. A pack could take him, but I had no pack. My kind scattered from each other after the change was forced on us. We hunted alone now. We did not hunt the healthy, the strong. We did not hunt the stag.
But there was the old man and the dying woman, and the promise of the Master’s forgiveness. I was young. Strong. Perhaps I could take the stag. It would fill my belly. I crouched lower, growling.
Something wrong came into the scent. A not-prey smelclass="underline" dominance. So strong I almost lay down, almost rolled to expose my hungry belly. Maybe it would think me a puppy. Forgive my mistakes.
No. I had to remember. Master. Old man. Dying woman. I sprang up again, snarling.