Blood Kin (4 page)

I chuffed, disconcerted that I’d neither heard them, nor scented their arrival. Torn between remaining wolf and shifting back to my human shape, I scooted next to Tucker, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, formidable at six foot four, despite his nakedness. Tucker acknowledged the two with a nod.

“Tucker, I presume?” Daffyd’s expression remained neutral. “You have a look of your sire about you.”

“You know my father.” Tucker’s voice was as neutral as Daffyd’s, not a question, but a statement. I wasn’t sure what Daffyd meant, since our father was a tiny Pict of a man, dark-skinned and dark-haired with black eyes, who barely came to Tucker’s shoulder. Not a one of my brothers resembled Dad. I’d always figured they’d taken after their various and very different mothers.

“I do,” replied Daffyd with amusement. “Your father had the same mien when we negotiated with him and Branwen.”

Branwen? My mother? I shook my head, having had enough of not being able to speak. Shivering and concentrating, I forced my body back into human shape, all the while my lizard brain protesting, as it was still enjoying being wolf.

“Fuck me, it’s freaking cold,” I muttered as I wrapped my arms around my nude self.

Tucker chuckled. “You should’ve stayed wolf, Keira.”

“I should have,” I retorted, “but then I couldn’t speak.”

“Try a warming spell.” My brother smirked. “After all, you are—”

“The bloody Kelly heir, yeah, whatever,” I snapped back and closed my eyes to concentrate. I muttered a few
words and immediately felt better. Warming spells. I’d learned the words years and years ago, as a child sitting on my Aunt Jane’s lap as she’d made me chant the small spells, one after another: warming, cooling, breeze, quiet, a whole list of others. Rote learning so eventually I could at least do those, even if I didn’t become a spellcaster when I Changed. I’d always figured that Jane had been trying to distract me with kindness because, underneath it all, she was worried that I’d be different, have no magick, just like my mother’s people, the Sidhe, said. I guess I’d fooled them all.

I shifted my posture, still uncomfortable, even though I was warming up. Most of my Clan was as comfortable in skin as clothing, but I’d been raised among humans and still wasn’t quite at ease with my nudity. Plus, although Daffyd was technically family, I’d met him only a few days before when I’d discovered him in a cave where he’d lived for years, having been sent to keep an eye on me. Unlike my own babysitting of Marty, Daffyd had watched over me all too well.

“Me, too, please,” Tucker said, shivering. His posture was relaxed, but he had goose bumps on his skin.

“You can’t?” I was surprised.

He shook his head. “The ability vanished when I Changed.”

I nodded and muttered the warming spell in his direction.

Daffyd spoke up. “I’d heard that sometimes you can keep the smaller abilities when you Change.”

Both Tucker and I looked at him. He was right. After Changing, most of us inherited one major Talent, but often kept a few of the more homely charms and hexes learned as children. Warming was one of them—not that I
personally was limited now. As heir, I had access to all the Clan Talents. Tucker was a shapeshifter, but I didn’t really know much about what else he could do.

“You seem to know a great deal about us,” Tucker said, back in his belligerent stance.

“May I approach?” Daffyd held his hands out from his body. A gesture of peace? Perhaps.

Tucker said nothing. I knew my brother well enough to know he was letting me take the lead here. It wasn’t because I was heir, either, but because—in some sort of twisty way—Daffyd belonged to me now. I’d given him a life, thus saving Daffyd’s own. I was responsible for my Sidhe cousin and he felt he owed me fealty.

I couldn’t hate Daffyd, even after what he’d done to Adam. He hadn’t realized, hadn’t known that the power, the energy he’d been living on was draining my vampire lover into a coma, and nearly absolute, never-come-back-from-it death. When I’d asked Daffyd to stop, he had—to his own detriment. Without the energy, he’d fade and become nothing—in effect, he’d die, and his human companion would die along with him. He’d accepted that fact with aplomb and because I’d asked him. Maybe that’s why I let him take Pete Garza.

“You look well, cousin,” I ventured.

Daffyd inclined his head slightly. “Thank you, Keira. I am still strong and will remain so for several decades now, thanks to you.”

Gary smiled at Daffyd’s response.

“Yeah, well.” What was I expected to say in this kind of situation? Gee, glad I could send a man to his death so you could live, even though said man was a murderous asshole?

“I came to look for you,” Daffyd said. “We saw the both of you playing and running.”

Gary stepped forward. “I—we’ve—been walking around a bit, now that we can,” he said. “Since your vampires sleep in the day, we’ve taken advantage of that. It’s nice, you know, being out.” He looked around at the scrub brush and live oaks. Not much to look at but still, outside was outside and when you’d been imprisoned in a cave for about a decade …

“Thank you, by the way.” He looked at both of us.

“No need to thank us,” Tucker answered before I could.

“Yes, there is,” Daffyd cut in. “Keira, I did come looking for you,” he repeated. “I wanted to present my services.”

“Your w-what?” I stuttered, shivering as an icy blast of wind cut through my humble warming spell. “Damn it, that was—look, it’s ridiculous to stand out here in the cold. You obviously want to talk to me about something. Let’s go back to the ranch, go inside the house and talk.”

Tucker gave me a quizzical look. I ignored it and shot him a determined glance of my own. I knew what he was thinking. Bringing Daffyd back to Adam’s house when he’d been the one to nearly cost Adam his life might not be such a brilliant idea. Maybe not, but I didn’t want to keep standing around here, naked and cold. I wanted to be on my own turf, clothed and in control.

“Daffyd. Gary. If you’ll come to the house?” I motioned vaguely in the direction of the main ranch complex … I thought. My sense of direction as a wolf didn’t seem to be any better than it was as a person.

Daffyd and Gary exchanged a silent communication similar to Tucker’s and mine. In this case, Daffyd was the determined one.

“We will come.”

The Musician

T
HE CITY IS MORE
than he’d bargained for, much more. He’d been used to something less frantic, more like Cardiff or Swansea. For some reason, he’d expected Vancouver to be less of a modern city. Didn’t know where he’d gotten that impression. Perhaps the thought that Canada was sparsely populated overall lent itself to the idea. He supposes, as in many places, the population congregates in the coastal cities. Vancouver seems to be no exception.

Two young women brush by him, animatedly chatting about some sort of exhibit at the art museum. An elderly man smiles at the girls, sharing his enjoyment of their youth with his own companion. Three middle-aged citizens in loose clothing practice some sort of flowing movement exercise in a small patch of grass.

So many of the people here seem to be relative newcomers to Canada—from Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, exotic places he’d never been to, nor ever cared to see, each person speaking a language so musical in all its diphthongs and syncope, yet so sheerly
foreign.
Very different from his quiet homeland, where most people tended to look the same and come from similar backgrounds, despite the fact that only a few at home spoke his ancient language and the taste of the Old Tongue
was but memory for most. The stories of his homeland are all the same; the music, centuries old. He wonders how many wonderful kinds of music there are to discover here. He scowls as he remembers. His task here is not to gather music. This is simply a short interlude before he moves on. The one for whom he waits has not yet arrived. He has at least a day or two to spend in the city.

Nearly everyone speaks English here, the main difference being the range of accents. He needs to remember that and not slip into his own language; too easy to do so when one comes from a land of dual tongues, like here. Although in his own country, the signs were not written in two languages as they were here, in both English and French. He’d been worried he wouldn’t fit in, but there are so many different kinds of people here, some even look like him—tall, rangy, long hair, pale skin, light eyes, wearing leather, boots and carrying musical instruments.

He supposes that music festivals in the New World aren’t much different than
eisteddfods
or the random
ceilidhs
in his country. Musicians tend to look alike all over the world. Some are better dressed—the concert pianists, the orchestral types—but those solitary musicians who carry their instruments with them—whether string or wind or simply voice—often march to the beat of a different dressmaker. He’d seen them for years, looking as though they were wearing the clothes of the old ones: flowing shirts, trousers tucked into lacedup leather boots, men’s hair long and as beautiful as the women’s. He doesn’t know if this was vanity, or simply a way to remember what once was; to conjure the power of the old bards in a world that has lost its connection. It doesn’t really matter, though, as long as he manages to blend in with the crowd.

However uncomfortable he feels around so many people, it is good that he has a few extra days here, before going further north. A music festival gives him the opportunity to once again practice his talents, be part of what made him. He can endure the crowding for a few days. After all, even at home he wasn’t as isolated as some of the others of his kin.

“Hey, there, you.” The raspy voice cuts into his thoughts. He looks up to see two men—well, boys really, they couldn’t have forty-five years between them. One stands near to his height and is square built. Worker, he thinks. Someone who builds with his hands. A quick inspection of the boy’s fingers confirms his supposition. Cuts and calluses map the skin, thicker on the pads of the fingers and palms. This one is no stranger to hard work. The other boy’s skin barely covers his bones, stretched tight, near emaciation, the yellowed dryness of his flesh indicative of some disease. Malnutrition, perhaps? The whites of the boy’s eyes remain clear, though—no sign of jaundice.

Both boys sport dusty denim pants and jackets over worn and filthy cotton T-shirts, tears and half-mended holes marking the clothing as likely to be their entire wardrobe. Neither boy looks to be dressed well enough against the late afternoon chill. It is March, and the weather has stayed mild, as it always does in this part of Canada. Nevertheless, the breeze brings whispered reminders that winter is barely past and tonight promises to be wet and cold. He wonders if the boys are tramps; those that call the outdoors home. What is the word again? The musician searches his memory. It is a word often used in news articles, in stories broadcast on televisions he has watched in different store windows
during his travels. Homeless, that is the word. People who have no permanent dwelling but live in parks, in alleys, under bridges, using paper and twine for tents and carting their belongings about in wheeled trolleys, often stolen. In his day, in his world, these would be the Travelling Folk: restless wanderers who never settle, roaming lands in caravans, bringing their families and all their belongings with them. These two boys don’t have any belongings with them, just themselves. Perhaps they are merely boys needing some help.

“You here for that?” The skinnier short one spits the words out, along with a globule of phlegm. The other one, taller by only a few centimeters, elbows the first.

“Dude, stop spitting. You don’t want—”

Skinny’s dark eyes narrow at Tall. “And who died and made you a Mountie, eh?” He pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. “I’ll do what I want.” Skinny turns back to the musician and repeats the question. “You here for that?” This time, he points to a paper notice tacked on to a display board next to the park bench.

“The folk music festival?” asks the musician after perusing the sign, reading the printed words. It advertises the same event he’d read of at the visitors center mere hours ago.
“Yndw.”
He nods his assent, never noticing that his answer is in his home tongue. “You as well?”

“Nah, we’re helping to provide that what you need,” put in Skinny. He takes a huge lungful of smoke from the now-lit cigarette and lets it back out, his mouth working oddly. To do what exactly? A wobbly ring forms finally and the musician smiles at the boy’s demeanor. Some things truly are global. He recalls a certain afternoon with his da and elder brother, learning to load, tamp and light a pipe.

“And what would that be, exactly?” he asks the boy, his smile reflecting his amusement.

The tall one darts a few glances around them. The musician smiles again. There is no one nearby, no one within earshot. The two old men had moved on. Perhaps boarding a bus, perhaps walking away. He’d not noticed. On the far side of the path, the three middle-agers still move slowly in their ritual patterns, each of them absorbed in the poses, paying no attention to anyone else.

He’d been sitting on this bench for about twenty minutes, attempting to discern how to find lodgings from a small paper map of the city. Earlier, one of the musicians he’d encountered on a bus had mentioned something about a hostel at the corner of Burnaby and Thurlow, but he is having trouble locating it.

“You not from around here, eh?” Skinny tosses the cigarette down onto the ground and crushes it with the tip of a worn trainer. The canvas of the shoe had once been white, guesses the musician. Now, it is as gray as the circles under the boy’s eyes.

“I came to visit—it is not important,” the musician says as he recalls his duty. “I am attempting to find lodging. I must admit, I am a bit lost. The city …” He lets his words trail off. No need to explain how confusing he finds the streets, the traffic, the lights, the signs. So much information. So little understanding. He isn’t sure of the rules here. The words are English, a language he reads, but so few things makes sense. He should have taken his kin’s advice and gone directly north to his ultimate destination, but on the way here, he’d heard about the music festival. The travel to this place had been such a hardship. Without some sort of respite, he is afraid he’d not last.