Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (17 page)

“Welcome and God bless you,” he said. “What brings you to the monastery? It has been years since we had visitors.”

The mayor and the healing woman explained their cases, his for and her against the family who was still referred to as “new,” even though they had been there for two years. The Father Superior nodded and stood. They did also.

“We will need to investigate this matter,” he said. “Return in one week’s time, and I will have an answer.”

“But how will you investigate?” the healing woman asked, exasperated. “You never leave the monastery walls.”

“One week’s time,” Father Superior told her with a gentle smile. The monk who had led them in took them out and gave them each a squash and a round of fresh mozzarella for their trouble.

The healing woman decided she would watch the monastery for evidence the monks had taken her complaint seriously. She gathered wild herbs around it for the first few days, then, when the plants were picked to the point she dared go no further for fear of killing them, she pretended to harvest the leaves. One afternoon, tired from the heat and her strange vigil, she curled up under a tree on the mountainside overlooking the monastery. She struggled to keep her eyes open, but a cool breeze caressed her cheeks, and soon she was asleep.

When she woke, the moon was high in the night sky, and she leapt to her feet, startled she had slept so long. What she saw next frightened her more: a band of gray wolves roamed the mountain between her and the village. They circled the walls toward the village, and she sank to her knees in prayer, sure the livestock would be scattered and maimed. She braced herself for their cries, but she heard nothing but the wind through the trees. The wolves returned to the side of the monastery away from the village and entered one by one through a crack in the wall. She tensed again, waiting for the monks to cry out, but again heard nothing. She waited for an hour, and when nothing else happened, she made her way back to the village, where everything was peaceful, although the animals rolled their eyes at her when she passed.

The only cottage with a light on was the blacksmith’s, and when she passed, he opened the door, wringing his hands.

“Oh, please Wise Woman, help my wife, for she has been gravely hurt!”

The healing woman’s curiosity got the better of her, and she entered, not sure what she would find. What she did see was herbs hanging from the ceiling in bundles, a collection to rival her own, but ugly-looking plants with spiked leaves and black flowers. They seemed to whisper as she passed under them. The woman lay in a bed in the back, and she was bandaged from head to toe like she had been in a great fight.

“You,” she hissed at the healing woman. “You have brought this upon me!”

The healing woman had a sense of these things and knew she had been right. “You’re the one who was causing the drought. You and your husband have been trying to destroy our little village. You come not from the North, but from the devil!”

The blacksmith’s wife’s breath labored in her chest. “Beware,” she said. “For you have upset the balance of the village more than I by calling down the
Benandanti
upon us.” She gestured to her wounds. “They will demand their price.” With one last, rattling breath, she died.

The blacksmith and his boy cried and wailed, but the healing woman felt justified, especially when she walked outside and into a soft rain. She offered up a prayer of thanks to whatever had stopped the witch.

The next morning, the blacksmith and his son had gone. The cottage was empty, and the tools the blacksmith had forged or sharpened had gone back to the dull state they had been in before he arrived. The people crossed themselves and offered prayers of thanks to whatever had saved them.

A monk appeared at the healing woman’s cottage and bade her to follow him. She did so with some anxiety, remembering how she had seen the wolves entering the monastery through the crack in the wall. He brought her to the Father Superior’s office, where she waited again. Soon he appeared, and he had a gash along one cheek.

“Welcome, and God bless you,” he greeted her and gestured her to sit, which she did.

“Father Superior, your cheek!”

He dismissed his injury with a gesture. “It is only a scratch. As for you, my dear, are you satisfied with your work? It seems your suspicions were correct, and the blacksmith’s wife was a witch, but she has been taken care of.”

The healing woman nodded. “Yes, Father Superior.”

“Then it is time to discuss the price.”

The witch’s last words came back to the healing woman, and she turned white. “Price?”

He unfolded his left hand from his sleeve, and she saw it was not human, but rather a wolf’s paw. She shrank back in her chair as far as she was able.

“I am
Benandanti
and was cursed by a witch long ago such that I always carry a sign of my true nature, even in human form.”

Again, the healing woman’s curiosity got the better of her. “What is
Benandanti
, Father Superior?”

“It is a secret order within the Church, but on the edges of it. We are able to go into trances and, in our spirit forms as wolves, fight witches and wizards who would act destructively and steal animals and crops to take to hell.”

She remembered the witch’s injuries. “Was your cheek injured then, in battle with the witch?”

He nodded once. “You are very perceptive. She fought us as a snake, and one of her fangs grazed my face as I fixed my fangs on her throat. Whatever happens to us in spirit form also happens to our physical form.” He touched his cheek with his human hand and winced. “I fear I am not long for this world, for her venom was powerful.”

“That’s more than a scratch, but I can help you. I am very good at healing snakebites.” She sat forward eagerly, hoping that was her price.

Father Superior shook his head. “I’m afraid the price is not up to me. As you see, we are growing old, and we need more young men to join us. You will marry, and you will have children. One from each generation will be destined to be a
Benandanti
.”

The healing woman laughed, then, for she considered herself to be well beyond childbearing years. “I accept your price, then, Father Superior, for it will take a miracle for me to get married and have children at this point. What of your paw?”

He wrapped it up again. “That was to prove to you what I am. Need I tell you what will befall you if you share our secret?”

Her mouth became dry. “No, Father Superior. I will keep your secret.”

“Good. We will come for the young
Benandanti
when they are ready, around the age of thirteen.” He stood. “Good day, Signora.”

She didn’t miss that he had used a married honorific. “Good day, Father Superior.”

“Need I tell you whose great ancestor that was?” Max asked me. His question brought me back to the present with a start—the view out of the window was more shadow than mountains. I had been on a different sort of mountain with yellow soil and rocky paths.

“No, she’s obviously mine, but that doesn’t tell me why they’re after me.” I looked at him. “She paid her price, one per generation.”

“Ah, but the
Padre Superiore
underestimated her, as I suspect others underestimate you.”

“How so?”

“The healing woman, whose name has been lost to us other than that she was called Benedicta, counter-cursed him. She did end up getting married to the next blacksmith who came to the village, who fell in love with her when she helped cleanse his house of the negative energetic residue left by the evil family.” Max looked into middle distance and frowned. He looked like a schoolboy trying to get the story exactly right. “When she gave birth to her first child, a boy, she remembered the price the
Padre Superiore
made her promise, and she tried to protect her family.”

“Obviously she only succeeded in pissing him off.”

“We don’t know exactly what she did, only that she knew she was not strong enough to prevent the talent from emerging in her descendants. She did ensure each would have a guardian to help them avoid joining the
Padre Superiore’s
pack.”

“Like Aunt Alicia had Gladis Ann.”

“Right, and like you have Wolf-Lonna, although she is hidden from you. The problem was that some of the bad witch’s evil stayed in the house, and the spell was turned into a curse. Again, we don’t know how.” He spread his hands. “As long as there is a descendant of Benedicta’s alive, the Padre Superiore will not rest in peace unless he can claim the previous descendant’s soul after death. Obviously that’s never happened—your guardians are too good.”

A chill went down my spine. “Does whoever did this to me know about this? Do they know they’ve put me in grave danger by separating me from my guardian?”

Max shrugged, and then he caressed my cheek. “It’s a good thing I’m here, then, isn’t it? Assuming you don’t go running off into underground caves and get killed by angry ghosts.”

I leaned into Max’s hand. “Hey, I took care of myself, mostly.” I tried to blink the tears away—knowing I could change and having no control over it was more frustrating than the original problem—but they kept coming. “You being here keeps me from being completely alone.”

“I wish I could help you reconnect with yourself, but the block is for you to deal with. Your survival instincts broke through part of it, but there’s no guarantee that will happen again, and even if it did, that’s no way to live—mostly cut off from an important part of yourself.”

I nodded, but before I could say anything else, my phone rang. It was Joanie, so I answered.

“How are things with your aunt?” she asked.

“Not so good. She died.”

“Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.” I got up from the couch and moved to the window seat. “What’s going on with you? How are Leo and the baby?”

“Both are doing well. The last ultrasound showed a strong heartbeat…”

We got through the social niceties, and then she hit me with the reason for her call. “We got the toxicology results on what was in those tranquilizer darts you and Matthew got hit with.”

“Oh? All that seems like such a long time ago I’d almost forgotten.”

She snorted. “Sounds like you’re having some interesting adventures. You’ll have to fill me in when you get back.”

Her easy assumption that I would be back almost started the water works again. “So what did I get hit with?”

“There was a sedative-hypnotic, which we expected since you were out for so long. The surprise was a powerful antipsychotic, which Leo only found because he threw the kitchen sink at the testing.”

“Which one?”

“Which kitchen sink?”

I couldn’t help but smile. If she was silly-joking, things must be okay with her and Leo. “No, silly. Which antipsychotic?”

“Luridatone. It works by blocking dopamine and acetylcholine transfer in the brain.”

I remembered some of that stuff from the psychopharmacology I was always sure to pick up as part of my continuing education, but I didn’t have the pathways mapped out in my head. I suspected she’d already hit the books and the Internet to figure it out. I also knew her well enough to say, “So this is a clue as to what the change does to our brains?”

“Exactly! And how we can help get Wolf-Lonna back. Dopamine is the main neurotransmitter in our motivation and rewards system.”

I clenched my fist with the other implications of her discovery. “But if she’s gone underground as the result of an antipsychotic, doesn’t that also mean she’s a hallucination? I mean, none of you have anything like her. You just change, and there you are. Your mind doesn’t talk back to you like mine does.” I took a deep breath. “Or did.”

A pause, so I knew she was thinking. When she did speak, it was so softly I had to move away from Max to hear since even his breathing was too loud. “I wouldn’t have said this a year ago, Lonna, but there are corners where science and magic meet.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Max, who had said something similar. He leafed through one of the
Cabin Living
magazines he’d found on the claw-footed coffee table. He looked so comfortable, like he belonged there, and I wished it was a normal domestic scene.

“Thanks for not calling me crazy,” I told Joanie and turned my view to the window, where the last of the light streaked the sky and turned the ridge across the way into a mass of serrated shadow.

She laughed. “You’re the sanest person I know.”

“That’s frightening.” But she’d made me smile again.
That’s what friends do—they make you smile when you’re down.

I turned back to Max and intended to rejoin him on the couch, but a sensation like someone running cold fingers across the back of my neck prompted a full body shiver. My palm and left heel burned. I stumbled, and Max rose, concerned.

“Are you okay?” Joanie asked. “You just gasped.”

“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I need to go, though. Max is here, and it’s dinnertime.”

“Max is there? You can catch me up later.”

We said our goodbyes, and I hung up and rubbed my neck.

“I won’t intrude on your conversation with your friend,” Max said, “but what was that?” He gestured to my neck. I put the phone on an end table and looked at my palm, where I still had a tiny mark from where Peter had changed me. It tingled.