River Marked (29 page)

HAD WE BEEN HOME WITH THE WOLF PACK AROUND, we’d just have stripped and changed, but I wasn’t comfortable stripping in front of strangers anymore. Even if I’d been willing to, Adam would not change in public.

Bran had requested the wolves refrain from changing where others could see. The werewolves were beautiful—but the change is horrific. No sense in scaring people with what they were, Bran said, not when the wolves were still trying to be tame for the news cameras.

So we left Stonehenge and climbed over the drop-off just beyond, which hid us effectively from Calvin, Hank, and Fred—as long as the hawks stayed on the far side of the henge.

Still, we were exposed. There were no trees nearby, and we could see all the way down to the river and beyond to the highway—miles and miles. Darkness ensured that no one down there could actually see us, but it felt like they could.

Beside Adam, who was doing the same thing, I took off my clothes, folding them tightly to discourage any bugs attracted by the leftover warmth. I stuffed my socks in my shoes.

“I’ll stay human until you’ve shifted,” I told him. So I could guard his back or run interference if I had to.

Shifting to coyote wasn’t without its cost. I could do it several times a day, but eventually I wore out. I could also stay human for a long time—months if I had to. Wolves are different.

Werewolves are moon called. They have to change during the full moon, and it is harder for them to control the wolf during that time, too. However, a lot of werewolves only shift during the full moon—two or three days a month. The shift is painful and takes a lot of energy. Shifting more than a couple of times a week was beyond a lot of wolves’ abilities. Adam had been changing much more than that lately.

His shift was a lot slower than usual—and it looked as though it was a lot more painful, too. I sat beside him on the pad my folded-up clothes made. Maybe I should have left my clothes on, but since, tonight, at least, I wasn’t wet, it wasn’t cold. I stayed close to him, but not so close I’d touch him inadvertently and hurt him.

The pulse of Stonehenge’s magic was growing more regular, like a beating heart. I thought it was getting even stronger, too, but that might have been because I was sitting on the ground. My own heart sped up a little until it kept beat with the magic. It wasn’t unpleasant, just disconcerting.

“Mercy?” Calvin called.

“Not yet,” I told him.

“How long?”

“As long as it takes,” growled Adam, his voice hoarse and deep as he was caught halfway between wolf and man.

The flow of magic paused, as if it had heard him, then took up its beat again. I didn’t like it.

“Are you all right?” I asked, very quietly.

He didn’t say anything, which I took as answer enough.

His breathing grew labored until I started to be seriously worried for him.

“It’s the earth’s magic,” Coyote said, sitting down beside me on the side opposite Adam’s struggle.

Adam growled, a hoarse and pained sound that was nonetheless a threat.

“No harm to you or yours,” Coyote told him. “I stand guard for you. They were supposed to tell you to change before you came here. I suppose the instructions got garbled in the translation from Jim to Calvin. Mother Earth does not change easily—that is an aspect of water or flame. Earth magic is interfering with his change, but it shouldn’t make it impossible.”

Impossible wasn’t good—but I buttoned my lips because even I knew that intent and will played a part in any kind of magic. No sense putting doubts into Adam’s head until he really failed to shift.

“What are we doing tonight?” I asked Coyote to give myself something else to think about.

“Probably wasting our time.” He didn’t look at me but stared out over the world spread beneath our feet. I noticed that he seldom spoke directly to me. Half the time it felt as though he addressed the open air instead.

“And if we aren’t wasting our time?” I waited a minute, trying not to listen to Adam’s struggles because he wouldn’t want me to hear him. I could feel the claustrophobic panic that he was repressing. He couldn’t afford for me to panic, too. “Come on, Coyote. It isn’t a secret because even Calvin knows.”

He laughed, slapping his leg. “Point to you. Fine. Fine. I’m hoping to call a little help. We aren’t what we once were, and some of us never were much for interfering with people. But Raven is curious, and Otter should feel he has something at stake.” He paused, glanced at me, and continued, “Nice black eye, Mercy. Upon reflection, Otter might be on the wrong side. That would be unfortunate.”

“You’re calling the others like you?” I asked.

“There are no others like me,” he returned. “None as handsome or strong. None as clever or skilled. None with so many stories told about them. Who was it brought fire down so people could roast their food and keep warm in the winter? But I’m hoping to call the others, yes.”

“Other what, exactly?” I asked. “Just what kind of creature are you?” The fae, some of them, had set themselves over the early residents of Europe as deities. The Coyote stories never had that feel to them. Coyote was a power but not one who asked to be worshipped.

“Have you read Plato?” he asked.

“Have you?” I returned because the idea of Coyote reading
The Republic
or
Apology
was absurd and somehow totally believable because of its very absurdity.

“You are familiar with his theory of forms,” Coyote continued without answering my question.

“That our world isn’t real but a reflection of reality. And in the real world there are archetypes of things that exist in our world, which is how we can look at a chair we’ve never seen before, and say, ‘Hey, look. It’s a chair.’ Because in the real world, there is an object that is the epitome of chairness.” I used my history degree about twice a year whether I needed to or not.

“Close enough,” he agreed. “I am the reality of all coyotes. The archetype. The epitome.” He smiled out into the darkness. “You are just a reflection of me.”

“They should have called you Narcissus,” I told him, trying not to flinch at the sounds that Adam made. “Too bad
you
aren’t the enemy we need to defeat. We could just put out a mirror for you to admire yourself in.”

“And then they wouldn’t call you Mercy anymore,” he said. “Your name would be She Who Traps Coyote.” He reached over and took my hand, and said in a low voice, “It won’t be much longer. But I’d wait until he invites you to look before you gaze into his eyes.”

“Are your sisters really berries in your stomach?” I asked him.

“Ah,” he said delightedly. “You need to find someone to teach you the rude versions of my stories. They are much more entertaining. Modesty prevents me from telling stories about myself.”

I laughed, as he meant me to.

“My sisters aren’t speaking to me right now,” he finished with great—and I suspected entirely feigned—dignity, “so it does not matter what they are.”

Beside me, Adam rose with a snarl. I lowered my head to show that I was no threat. After a bad change, it would be a few minutes before Adam had a leash on his wolf. To my surprise, Coyote bowed his head as well.

“I like this man, your husband,” he told me. Maybe it was an explanation. “He would have attacked me for putting you in danger—even though the wolf knew exactly what I was. And yet, when you asked him to have patience, he did. It is proper that men listen to the counsel of women.”

“Like you listen to your sisters?” I said, as the wolf put his nose just under my ear. I tilted my head to give him my throat. Sharp teeth brushed against my skin, and I shivered.

“Wise women,” Coyote agreed. “But sometimes pushy and easy to rile. I think they need to develop their sense of fun. They do not agree with me, so maybe they are not so wise as all that, eh?”

Adam shook himself hard, his ears making a flapping sound—a signal.

I turned to look at him, and he jerked his nose up toward the monument. I changed into my coyote self—which did seem to take a little more effort than it normally did—and followed Adam up the hill, Coyote striding beside us.

At least he wasn’t Baba Yaga or Yo-yo Girl, I thought.

GORDON WAS TALKING QUIETLY WITH CALVIN AND JIM when we walked into the henge’s circles. Jim was barefoot, dressed in new dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that looked to be blue in the light of the candles, though my coyote eyes are not always trustworthy with color at night. Gordon’s boots, for instance, looked black, but I thought they were probably the same red boots he’d worn the rest of the times we’d seen him. He wore a flannel shirt over a plain T-shirt.

“I was beginning to think that it was time to leave,” said Gordon coolly, as we approached.

“Earth magic isn’t the best thing for a change when you’re a werewolf,” Coyote said. “Which is why I told Jim to make sure he was a wolf when he got here.”

“You said to tell Mercy to bring the wolf,” Jim said, sounding irritated. I was beginning to think that everyone sounded like that after a while of dealing with Coyote.

Calvin’s eyes widened, and he looked as though he expected Jim to get hit by lightning.

Coyote just laughed. “Mercy, you go sit up on the altar, would you?” He looked up at the hawks. “You two go sit next to her.”

Gordon didn’t seem awed or surprised by Coyote, either. “Whatever you do in front of Hank, the river devil will see.”

“Let her watch,” Coyote said indifferently. “But if nothing else happens tonight, I think I can get Hank fixed. Hawk owes me a few favors.”

I hopped up onto the altar next to the hawks a little hesitantly. There was a bronze plaque on top, but it was too worn to read in the dark. Adam hopped up beside me and curled around me protectively, keeping the bulk of his body between me and the other predators.

“Adam,” said Coyote, “not being Aztec, we are not going to sacrifice your bride on the altar. She just can’t be touching the ground when Jim performs the dance. However, should Wolf answer this call, it would be disastrous if your head were higher than his. Usually he shows up in human or humanlike form, but he is one who often prefers his wolfskin. Would you mind taking a position just in front of the altar, between it and the fire?”

Adam snarled soundlessly at the hawks, a clear warning, and slipped off the altar to sit where Coyote had asked him to.

Gordon’s eyebrows had risen almost to his white hair. “A polite Coyote?”

Coyote growled something in a foreign language.

“I thought you were not her father,” Gordon said placidly. “That makes him not your son by marriage.”

“Say, then,” said Coyote, “I respect him and don’t fancy getting in the middle of a dogfight tonight if I can help it. Now let us get this done.”

He changed. His shift was even faster than mine, I thought, though I couldn’t be sure. Between one blink and the next, there was a huge coyote the size of a Saint Bernard. He stalked over to the monolith that was on one end of the horseshoe and hopped up on top of it.

Gordon looked sour, then he became the largest eagle I have ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen some huge golden eagles. As a bird, he stood taller than the man he’d been. I couldn’t say what color his feathers were though they looked as if they were several shades darker than the hawks’. Then he spread his wings, and I realized Gordon wasn’t an eagle after all. No eagle ever had a wingspan that large.

“Thunderbird,” said Calvin reverently. “Grandfather said you were Thunderbird, but that was when he was calling me by my father’s name more often than not.”

Thunderbird.

The bird leaned forward and rubbed that wicked sharplooking beak against the side of Calvin’s head. Since Calvin’s head stayed on his shoulders, I had to assume it was a gesture of affection. With a movement that was half hop and half flight, he landed on the monolith opposite Coyote. He made the standing stone look a lot smaller. Gordon, who was Thunderbird, nudged the candle until it was situated where he wanted. The candlelight turned his feathers a warm dark chocolate. He rocked back and forth a bit, stretching his wings out, then settled into stillness.