Authors: Donna Boyd
Tags: #Fiction, #Horror, #New York (N.Y.), #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Werewolves, #Suspense, #Paris (France)
The Passion (13 page)
In this way, Tessa had observed, the loups-garous were far more sensible than humans.
Stil , as he turned to go, she caught his arm. "How can you do this?" she begged. "How can you leave me here alone?"
He looked at her with a mixture of affection and exasperation. "
Chérie
, you are the most aggravating, exciting, complicated, confusing and enchanting young female I have ever met. If for no other reason, I beg you would al ow me leave to col ect my breath!"
At her involuntary dimple, he smiled. "There. That is better."
He took her chin in his hands, as he had done the very first time they met. "I wil have returned before you've scarce had time to miss me. Meanwhile, apply yourself to your studies and make me proud."
And then, with hardly any warning whatsoever, he bent down and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
"Beware,
chérie
," he said softly, smiling down at her. "It is said that the kiss of a werewolf can make you mad."
Tessa did not answer. She did not speak again as she watched the last of his luggage being loaded onto the carriage, as he swung himself inside with a last wave of his hand to the assemblage, as she watched his carriage drive away. She stood at the door with her fingertips pressed oh so lightly to the place where his lips had rested, and she tasted his kiss far into the night.
PART THREE
Siberia
Winter, 1897
Civilization is our only accomplishment
—ALDRICH BAYLOR-LYNCHON, WEREWOLF
1643
Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.
—G. C. LICHTENBERG, A HUMAN 1765
ALEXANDER
Chapter Five
I can perhaps be forgiven the fact that, once out of Paris, I barely gave the human Tessa a backward thought. My mind was far too occupied with concerns about what lay ahead of me to dwel much upon what I had left behind—except perhaps, in brief regret: an eiderdown bed, opening night at the theater, the taste of chocolate on a crisp morning.
There were moments, once I left Paris behind, when I wondered whether I might ever know any of those things again.
I travel ed by rail in my private car across the misty fields and sooty cities of Europe, with only a handful of servants to assist me. There was my chef; a couple of boys to attend to the luggage; and Gault, who entertained me with card games, philosophy and his own brand of evil wit. I tried, as I was wont to do with most things in life, to make the journey as pleasant as possible, and I did my best to avoid dwel ing upon what lay at its end. Gault did not ask foolish questions, which is why he was my most trusted personal servant. I knew very wel why Denis had summoned me, and it was not something I wanted to discuss with anyone.
The politics of our race are a complex yet beautiful y structured thing. In a time recal ed now only in song, a vast pack roamed the ice-locked tundra of Siberia; many believe we are al descended from that original pack. What is known is that for many centuries—perhaps more than we can guess—the pack leadership was passed down through the family Antonov of Siberia. What life was like during those ancient times one shudders to speculate; suffice it to say that werewolves had their Dark Ages, too, glimpses of which might be seen even now if one looks hard enough into the depths of human fairy tales. But we emerged into a renaissance of the spirit and a new understanding of the value of what we now cal civilization; perhaps inevitably, the rebirth was not accomplished without conflict.
Some twelve hundred years ago, when the human population was greatly occupied with riding out in metal armor to conquer whatever was in its path, when the great cathedrals of Europe were mere piles of stones waiting to be shaped and polyphonic music was a concept only dimly grasped, there came the defining moment in werewolf history, one which is general y seen to represent a giant step forward into the abundance we now al enjoy. The Russian Antonovs, who had ruled through power and force for centuries uncounted, were overthrown by the French Devoncroix—who were then known as Devan, Devon, or Devox—through a combination of craftiness, cunning, and perseverance.
Unlike human jousts for power wherein thousands upon hundreds of thousands are maimed and kil ed in battle, werewolf contests are decided in a much more efficient and clear-cut manner. A leader who cannot defend himself certainly cannot be relied upon to protect the pack, so al that is required to assume power is to overthrow a single werewolf. By tradition, the chal enge must be formal, the battle public, and death the outcome. The Devoncroix waited until a combination of fortune and timing favored him: the old and powerful leader broke his neck on an ice slick, leaving behind an adolescent heir who was easily defeated in the chal enge. This display of wit and skil is something no werewolf can fail to admire, and the pack ral ied behind the Devoncroix immediately.
It must be remembered that the Antonovs brought the pack through the most brutal periods in this earth's history and are, in fact, the only reason we al survived to take advantage of the more beneficent age ushered in by the leadership of the Devoncroix. Eventual y the two lines intermarried, and many more simply adopted themselves into the Devoncroix family—which is why a ful third of the pack bears the surname Devoncroix or a variation thereof—and the Antonovs were al but forgotten.
Certain of us have not forgotten, however. I am a direct descendant of the ruling Antonov who lost his throne to that long-ago Devoncroix, and my brother never al owed me to forget.
For twelve centuries the pack leadership remained unchal enged. Change for its own sake is not something we embrace, and no one had found serious cause to question the leadership of the Devoncroix in al this time. One could not fail to notice, however, certain similarities in the situation that arose with the last Antonov and the circumstances that presented themselves in 1897, with the death of Sancerre Devoncroix.
Though I was loath to do it, because I knew the vast, lonely and sometimes dangerous path that awaited me on the last leg of the trip, I left Gault and the others at the last rail stop, in St. Petersburg, from which place I would make my own way across the plains to Siberia. Because of our enhanced hearing, it is difficult to keep a secret from a werewolf, and there were certain things about Denis and his companions I did not want even Gault to know. It was therefore necessary that I meet my brother alone.
And so, after a day spent feasting my eyes upon the elegant, cosmopolitan sights and sounds of that most beautiful of cities, and gorging my bel y on al its culinary delights—a practical necessity, considering what awaited me—I said a casual goodbye to my servants and struck off for the wilderness beneath a bril iant ful moon.
Our ability to travel great distances in relatively short periods of time by changing from one form to another is, of course, one of the great advantages we hold over al other creatures on the globe. In human form we can take advantage of the technology which causes machines, rather than our bodies, to consume energy, which saves wear and tear on the latter. But in wolf form we can go where machines are unable and where humans dare not venture, where flying creatures nest and crawling ones burrow and where those who can't outrun us quickly become our fuel. We are virtual y tireless in this form, and can run for days without stopping.
There is a certain danger, in fact, in succumbing to the ecstasy that grips us while running for a long time without end; some of our couriers have been known to literal y run themselves to death.
And yet there is nothing more empowering, more stirring or irresistible than the pul of a dark night and the open countryside; there is no anticipation in al the world more glorious than that which grips us at the beginning of a long journey unencumbered by human form.
I recal the beginning of that journey specifical y.
Once clear of the city lights, I shed my clothes and neatly folded them into a leather bag, which I stowed beneath a rock. Al things being equal, I would return for them and assume my human form before returning to the city. Such are the minor nuisances of living in modern society; one must always remember where one leaves one's clothes.
There is no sensation in al the world like that of cold night air on naked skin after weeks of being confined in layer upon layer of human clothing. I reveled in it, stretched to embrace it, drank it in like rich dark wine. My dread, my anxiety, the burden of my human intel ect dropped away and were swal owed up by the night. I threw back my head, I raised my arms, I let myself
be
.
And, ah, what words now can I find to describe this Change, this miracle, this wonder we cal the Passion—for uncounted centuries our poets and chanteurs have tried to describe it, and words have failed them even as they do me now. Yet eternal y we are compel ed to try to capture the ephemeris, to memorialize the ethereal in a clumsy shel of words.
It is almost as though we yearn, in some indefinable way, to share this, the most defining moment of our being, with humans. As though in the tel ing we might impart the miracle and in the hearing they might receive it. A foolishness, I know, for why would we want such a thing? And impossible as wel . Nonetheless, we continue to try.
The Passion, whether triggered by pain, high emotion, joyous wil or the simple relaxation of our human form, is always a magnificent thing, an earth-stopping wonder that no outsider can ful y comprehend. That is, of course, its essential magic
—that it is now and wil forever be a grand and glorious mystery.
The fire rises up from the bel y, a swel ing hunger, a rol ing wave of intensity that sucks dancing sparks of energy from the air and sets in motion a whirlwind of power, pure and unvarnished. In this moment of transmutation, as we are caught up between one world and the next, universes dance on our fingertips, angels pause to bow to us; we are creatures of neither heaven nor earth yet masters of both. We are the savage and the god, the beast and the poem; we are the essence of al creation. The Passion, with al its many metaphors and philosophical implications, with the lessons and variations of a thousand lifetimes to tel , is quite simply the reason for our existence. It is why we are Nature's most perfect creation.
The hunger, the joy, the longing redoubles on itself until it becomes an explosion of pure emotion, a vortex of light and color that has the power to transcend the laws of matter and energy. In the blink of an eye, the clap of a thunderbolt, the space of a sharply indrawn breath, we grasp the power and claim it. We pass from one state to the other; we Become. We master,
I had heard it said, and I had no reason to question, that those rare humans who have been privileged to witness the Passion undergo a kind of rapture of their own, that its effect upon them is an enchantment which many found impossible to break. I could certainly understand how this could be, and looking back, I wondered if that might not have been the case with Tessa. I thought about her on that cold bright night as I shed my clothes and my human form and gave myself over to the ecstasy of being once more. I thought about her briefly, and let her go. And from that time until I reached my brother's house I grateful y thought about nothing at al .
It was not an easy journey, even in wolf form, which is why I did not make it very often. The frozen Siberian plain is every bit as unappealing as it has been portrayed, with winds that sweep down like tidal waves and stir up vast sheets of snow that can travel across the desert for mile after blinding mile.
At times the entire plain seems to undulate with a life of its own: eddies of snow, whirlpools of snow, driving, biting, whispering, snickering, howling, roaring, thundering herds of snow. At other times, the worst times, the world is so devoid of life, day into night, night into day, one wonders whether one has not accidental y stepped off the edge of the earth and is now condemned to wander some endless unpopulated netherland for al uncounted eternity.
I brought down an elk early on, and once or twice stirred up a burrow of winter rabbits, but as I moved deeper into the wilderness and higher on the plain, game grew scarce, and I had to content myself with bark and what few frozen berries the birds had left and an occasional ground rodent. The great disadvantage of travel ing in wolf form is the vast amounts of energy it uses and the corresponding number of calories required; had I not gorged myself for days beforehand, it is doubtful I could have survived on the meager findings of the land long enough to reach my destination.
I slept in caves or hol ow logs during the coldest part of the night with my tail curled around my nose to warm the air I breathed, but I never stayed stil for more than a few hours. The memory map in my head and the need for warmth kept me moving, not to mention the hunger that, toward the end, grew to be an al -compel ing force. Yet despite the discomforts, and there were many, there was a primal pleasure in it so simple and so intense it precluded al other considerations. The taste of the wind, the bite of the cold, the delicate sound the snow crust makes as it snaps beneath the step and the way it seems to echo forever—life is never as real as it is then, so rich and textured one could almost slice it up in slabs and live upon its multilayered nourishments during the long, barren months of winter. At times like those, we know
what
we are and
why
we are more clearly than we shal ever know anything again, and the knowledge itself is delicious.