Sisters Red (14 page)

126

CHAPTER NINE

SCARLETT

MY INNER VOICE SOUNDS LIKE OMA MARCH'S, AND IT
lectures me.
Yes. It'll be okay. Remember why you're here: to hunt Fenris, to stop the surge of deaths. You aren't here to be the star. Rosie deserves to try the front seat out for a while. She's a brilliant hunter. She won't end up scarred or broken, not with you and Silas to protect her. You can keep her close, you can keep her safe.

I doubt my inner voice, to be honest.

We cut through the business district, past the darkened skyscrapers where lone security guards patrol the building lobbies. The city smells like smoke and heat from the day, but I'm cold, even with my cloak. Sounds pick up, laughing, talking, and it's almost as though we've suddenly crossed a

127

magic line that let us into the city nightlife. Taxis fly by us, girls cry out to their friends, guys walk with bizarre swaggers and tilt their heads at ladies who swoon in response. There's a buzz with a few overheard conversations--girls recounting the recent murders, telling the details with relish. They don't think it could possibly happen to them.

I don't need to tell Rosie what to do--I've taught her well long before now. She cuts in front of us, dropping the hood from her head. Silas and I casually walk behind a row of SUVs, all customized to the point of ludicrousness, while Rosie sweeps past the pack of Dragonflies who are sipping cocktails and dancing flirtatiously on the patio of a bar. A few men turn their heads toward her. Most ignore her, but one seems drawn to her.
Way to go, Rosie.
The man--a Fenris, I can feel it--says something to the twenty-something woman he was talking to and sets his beer bottle down onto the table. They prefer their prey young. Lucky for us.

Rosie doesn't know he's there yet and keeps charging forward until she's broken free from the crowd surrounding the bar. Silas and I follow for a moment, then hang a hard right and sprint toward the park, which is better grounds for hunting, and duck behind the sign when we arrive. Rosie follows our lead and heads down one of the paved trails, raising her hood back over her head so that the Fenris sees nothing but a girl in crimson walking away. Irresistible.

The Fenris swoops around ahead of her, nothing but a shadow rushing through the dark night. My sister sees him,

128

finally, but doesn't let on. She meanders down the trail, the trees and shrubbery blocking her from view of the street. The Fenris steps out in front of her.

"Hey--you know the park is closed this late?" he asks flirtatiously. I lean around a magnolia tree to try to get a better view of his face now that he's in the moonlight. He's young.
Very
young--Rosie's age, even. His hair is blond, cheeks round, and he's got the gangly appearance of a boy just shooting through puberty who could be in a garage band or the like.

Rosie shrugs and twirls a strand of hair in her fingers. "I'm lost, thought I'd cut through here. Aren't
you
a little young to be out this late anyway?" she asks in a voice that's equal parts sexy and sweet.

"Maybe," the boy says in a voice more mature than his baby face implies. Rosie falters a little, and I see her scan over him again. She's not certain he's actually a Fenris. She catches my eye briefly, only a flash of a moment, but I nod. He has no soul.

"How old are you, then?" she says, taking a step backward, away from the street. She lets her hips sway alluringly.

"Let's call it fourteen," the Fenris chuckles, taking a few slow steps toward her. His fingers twitch, and even from here I can see his nails inching forward into points. He busies his hand, sweeping fingers through his messy hair. It'd be enough to make most young girls swoon. Rosie plays along beautifully, biting her lip and giggling.

"Fourteen? You
are
young," she answers. I see a wave of

129

pity cross her face; she tends to feel sorry for the younger ones, wonders who they'd be if they weren't wolves. The Fenris laughs, his voice hoarse and lacking humor, his hair a little darker. Rosie takes another step backward. A large fountain surrounded by flowers blocks my view of her. I strain to see, but then the Fenris steps forward and they're both out of my sight.

"Damn, we have to move," I whisper.

"Wait," Silas answers, clapping a firm hand on my shoulder and pulling me backward. I glare as I almost topple into him, but then I look in the direction in which he's nodding. Across the park, out of earshot but visible in the darkness thanks to a streetlight, is a group of three guys. They fidget and dart their heads around in a very animal-like way, and I catch one lifting his nose toward the air to catch a scent on the breeze. "What do you think?" Silas asks.

"Oh, yeah. Fenris." As soon as I say it, hair starts to sprout on the arms of one of them, but he gets the transformation under control and the hair dissolves back into his skin. They begin to walk away from us, and the panicky feeling rises. More of them are getting away.

"From around here, then?" the young Fenris asks Rosie, his voice barely audible over the sound of traffic. I can't hear Rosie's answer at all. "Ellison? Nice place, I've heard. I'm from Simonton."

"Lett... you should go after them," Silas says, pulling at the leathery-thick magnolia leaves as cover. He reaches to his back and pulls the ax out of his backpack in preparation.

130

"Wait, what about Rosie?" I hiss.

"I'll stay with her. You're faster than me--you can take that group a lot more efficiently than I can. I'll protect Rosie, I promise."

"Silas--"

"Lett, it's
me!
Come on. Nothing will happen to your sister."

I meet Silas's eyes for a long time, warning, threatening, then nod curtly. I can't just let three Fenris walk away. Silas is my partner. He can be trusted with Rosie's life. I slink away, crouched behind some azaleas, and Silas slips through the magnolias in the other direction. The pack turns toward the sound of my encroaching footsteps, their heads tensing forward in a very canine way, but they brush the sound off and continue talking.

I'm about to stand all the way up when they move toward me, still talking, and a word catches my attention:
Potential
. I sink back down in the azaleas, curious.

"I'm just saying, he's been here, I can smell it. That means we've got to be closer than Arrow, right?" a physically old Fenris grumbles, glancing at his hands anxiously--they're covered in greasy, matted fur. He shakes them with a frustrated expression, and the fur vanishes. Without the fur, he's handsome. He looks as if he could be a doctor or a lawyer or something, with speckled gray hair and deep-set eyes that look almost steel colored in the moonlight. I wonder how many women in the midtwenties crowd he's lured away.

"That doesn't mean we can eat whenever we want to.

131

It's our night to look for him, not to hunt," another Fenris answers. He looks worn almost, as though he's irritated and tired--and hungry. "Come on, we've got to go get the kid. Alpha will kill him if he finds out he went after a girl on our patrol night. We can hunt tomorrow--hell, it's not like there aren't five million more where that chick came from. We're running out of time; the Potential's phase has already begun. If we miss out on this one
again
..."

"Whatever," the third Fenris grumbles, a younger one who looks about Silas's age, with sleek black hair and biceps that show through his T-shirt. "If the jackass would stop wandering around the entire fucking city... are you
sure
someone scented him in Atlanta? I'm still saying, the guys we've got out in the country think--"

"You tell the Alpha that, then," the second Fenris growls, his voice hardly human. "Want to explain that you were too busy skirt chasing and gave the Potential up to Arrow, when they're already growing? They took over Sparrow. You want them to take control of us too? Just let them get more powerful, steal our members, find the Potential for themselves?"

The other Fenris says nothing. They glare at each other, like dogs waiting for a fight, until the gray-haired Fenris turns sharply and storms away. The others follow suit, and I see the young Fenris that had been following Rosie scurry out from a side path and join them, an apologetic look on his face. His nose contorts in and out of a canine snout, and I see him glance back longingly at the spot where my sister is.

They're going to run. Any moment now, they're going to

132

disappear--they're going to leave me standing alone again with a hatchet and nothing accomplished. I'm not the bait, not anymore--I'm just a hunter. I stand up, my red hood falling away from my face. The wolves turn toward me, curious. I take a few strides out of the leaves and into the moonlight.

"What have we here?" one hisses. His eyes jump from the red cloak to my face, drawn to the color but repulsed by my scars. Forcing him to change out of lust won't work, but he'll change out of anger.

I charge forward, hatchet raised. The Fenris who was after my sister can't control the transformation, and he bolts forward to meet me. Before he gets too close, I release the handle of my hatchet. It whizzes through the air and slices into his arm, deep enough that he falls to the ground. He flips back and forth, human eyes becoming a beast's, always holding on to the darkness, the hatred. The other three Fenris seem to snap out of their confusion. They transform in one fluid motion.

They won't escape me--not this time. They won't fold into the night because I'm unable to bait them. The scent of their fur fills the air, and I dive forward to grab my hatchet from where it lies beside the youngest Fenris. My shoulder dips into a pool of his blood, and he lunges at me through the pain, jaws snapping. Won't be long till he's shadows, with his veins open like that.

I hear a growl behind me, followed by an angry, roarlike bark. The three Fenris gather, the largest in the center--I don't know which wolf was which human anymore. They

133

take slow, even steps toward me, heads low and teeth bared. The two flanking the outside branch out. I grip my hatchet and unsheathe the hunting knife.

Can't let them get behind me. I take a sharp step backward, let them think I'm running. The two outside wolves jump forward, one at my throat and the other at my legs. I lean out of the way, allowing one to sail by my face, but a claw manages to sink into my shoulder with a ripping sound. I cringe, but the lower wolf is already on me, his mouth stretching open around my thigh, eyes wide and teeth yellowed and razorlike, and I barely have time to jump out of the way as his teeth chomp together. Before he can try again, I sink the hunting knife into his back.

The largest wolf slams into me on my blind side. My hatchet is knocked away, and for the first time I wonder where Silas is.
Rosie, he's with Rosie. She's safe
. I feel something crack in my chest and hear the scrambled sound of claws on pavement as the other wolves stand up. The largest wolf pants, lines of saliva dripping from his mouth onto my neck. His eyes are yellow, vibrant, and there's so much white around the irises that he looks almost insane. With a deep, low growl, he presses a paw down onto my chest and slowly begins to drag it downward, slicing through my skin.

I want to scream. But I won't, not with the way he's looking at me, with joy, with anticipation. A breathy, raspy sound chokes from his throat--a laugh? It seeps into my skin, makes me angry, makes my blood feel hot.

I swing my right fist toward the wolf's face. It makes

134

contact with his lower jaw, and I see several teeth flung into the night. My fingers open up, begin to bleed from the impact, but it's enough to have distracted the wolf for the tiniest moment. I draw my feet in and kick hard into his lower abdomen, a soft spot that sends him skittering off me and gasping for air. I stagger to my feet. There's only one wolf left unwounded.

Only there isn't just one wolf.

All four--even the two I hacked into--are looming before me. Their shoulder blades roll as they lurch forward.
What's happening?
They're ready to continue.

But I'm not sure if I am. I press a hand to my chest to try to stop the bleeding and try to see my hatchet and knife without taking my eye off the wolves. The wolves are actually
healing
somehow. They're stronger, stronger than me, stronger than most Fenris. I harden my stare, try not to let the all-encompassing fear show on my face. I can't take them alone.

A knife whizzes through the air beside my head but misses the largest Fenris. Rosie's knife. She and Silas run up behind me, alarmed, confused. The knife is the beginning of an avalanche of motion. The Fenris spring forward as a single unit. The youngest wolf, the one who was the blond boy, heads toward me, while the others lunge for Rosie and Silas. I kick the Fenris's back legs out from under him, buying myself just enough time to grab my hatchet. His mouth opens; he's coming for my head this time, for my face.

I wait until the last instant before his jaws will close