The Ascension (7 page)

Out of nowhere, strong arms wrapped around her, pinning Gem’s arms to her sides as they her, pinning Gem’s arms to her sides as they crushed her back against someone behind her. A glance back revealed a leering human face topped by goat horns. The satyr licked his lips. A second satyr approached Gem from the front.

“We’ve been watching you, little human,” the second one said. “Watching you ever since the hunt.

We’ve always wanted to eat human, we have.”

“Of course,” the one holding Gem said in a bleating voice, “that’s not al we’ve wanted. The way you humans smel … so al uring. We might have to keep you alive a while. After al , the Summer Court is known for its hospitality.”

It laughed at its own joke. Gem decided that talking her way out was probably better than trying to fight two magical creatures, both of whom were connected to the Summer Queen’s court.

“I’m not human,” she said. “I’m Anachronian.

More than that, I’m the Queen there. Do you real y want that kind of trouble?”

The second satyr shrugged
brusquely
.

“Human, Anachronian, who cares? It’s the same thing. As for being a queen… there’s only one queen around here.”

It took a step forward. It didn’t get to take a second. With a snarl, a large, grey wolf bounded forward, pouncing on the satyr. It bore the creature to the ground, pinning it there as the satyr thrashed. Its teeth fastened onto the satyr’s throat and there was a snapping sound.

The satyr holding Gem let her go, then stepped slowly towards the wolf.

“Nice wolf,” he
cajoled
, “good wolf. You just stay there while I-”

Gem stepped forward to place a hand on the satyr’s shoulder.

“Deleterious.”

The creature fel back, dead. Given what it had tried to do, Gem didn’t feel particularly
repentant
about it. It did, however, leave her facing up to a huge wolf that was staring at her with deep soulful familiar brown eyes and blood on its muzzle.

Gem tried to judge whether she would be able to make it back inside before the wolf could leap on her, and decided that no, she probably wouldn’t make it more than a yard or two.

It was at that point that the wolf made a low whimpering sound, wagging its tail as it did so.

whimpering sound, wagging its tail as it did so.

Unless the habits of wolves were very strange, it looked a lot like it was trying to be friendly. That certainly fit with the fact that it had just saved her.

Even so, Gem couldn’t quite bring herself to pat it on the head, and the two of them stayed there staring at each other for several seconds.

“Hey, where are the others?”

“Do you think they’ve found that human girl?”

“I hope so. Though if they start being
stingy
about sharing, they’l regret it.”

The bleating voices weren’t far off. Worse, they were getting closer. Gem knew that she had to get out of there before more satyrs arrived, so she turned back to the party. She found her way hampered by the sudden grip of the wolf’s teeth on the hem of her dress.

“What?” Gem demanded. “What do you want?”

The wolf let go and bounded away a few steps, then turned back to look at her.

“You want me to fol ow you? Of course you do.” Gem looked back to the party and the wolf growled, just a little. “Al right, al right, I’m coming.” The wolf yipped once and set off across the lawn. As it headed towards the waiting woods, Gem did her best to keep up.

Gem ran after the wolf for what felt like an eternity, though that was probably just the effects of trying to keep up with four legs when she only had two. She wasn’t sure what people back at the palace would say when they found out that she had
absconded
in the middle of their party, but right now she didn’t care. Not if it got her further away from those satyrs.

The trees flashed past as they ran, but eventual y Gem had to stop, leaning against one of them in exhaustion. To her surprise, the wolf stopped too, looking at her with those soulful brown eyes. It lay down, obviously waiting for Gem to recover.

Were wolves general y that
accommodating
?

As an experiment, Gem held out her hand to the creature. It hesitated only a moment before moving forward to nuzzle her hand and lick her fingers. The sensation of the rasping tongue tickled, and Gem fought not to laugh as she sat down at the base of the tree, folding her legs under her. The wolf responded by putting its head on her lap, looking up at her with what Gem could only
construe
as a contented expression.

Because the wolf didn’t seem inclined to
constrain
her from doing so, and because it was the first reassuringly normal thing she had run into since she had arrived in Myriad, Gem let herself enjoy the simple closeness of the creature. She petted it, running her hands through its fur the way she might with a dog’s, then hugging it close. The wolf didn’t seem to mind. In fact, it seemed to almost
relish
the contact.

Sitting there, Gem tried to keep her mind just on the wolf, but it wasn’t easy. Fragments of thoughts about Henry Word, her parents back in Manhattan, even Sparks and what he’d turned out to be ran round in her mind. With a start, she realized that sitting here under the shade of a tree was the first time she’d had to truly stop and think about things since Henry Word had told her the truth. More than that, it was the first time that Gem had
allowed
herself to think about it al . Back in Anachronia, it had been easy to pretend that there was too much to do, and that stopping to think meant being
remiss
in her duties as a ruler.

What did she think though? Truthful y, Gem wasn’t sure. Her feelings, as far as she could tel , were spinning round in a
maelstrom
, wil ing to forgive everyone involved one moment, then angry with them the next. How were you
supposed
to react to things like this? Gem shook her head, trying to clear it. Until she actual y found Henry Word- her father, she added mental y, trying the words on for size- there wasn’t much point in speculating. For now, it was enough to just sit there, cuddling a remarkably
congenial
wolf, and trying not to think about what might have happened at the party if it hadn’t arrived.

They stayed like that for long minutes, until final y Gem had to shift positions a little before her legs went to sleep. A growl escaped the wolf’s jaws, low and threatening.

“Wel , I’m sorry,” Gem said, “but I can’t just sit stil forever.”

The wolf ignored her, leaping to its feet and growling louder. The growling wasn’t directed at Gem though, but at the woods around them. The growl rose to a
crescendo
as the wolf stiffened, staring out into the trees.

It was like the woods melted back to reveal them. One moment, there was only trees and earth.

The next, more than a dozen huge wolves padded into a rough circle around the tree where Gem sat.

Just one of them would have been a
daunting
prospect, but a dozen together was far worse. The circle of wolves tightened gradual y, apparently to
preclude
any chance of Gem escaping from it.

“You know,” she remarked to the universe in general, “just once it would be nice if I could get through the day without being thought of as a snack.” A shaggy, white wolf, that looked over the others with a confidence that made it obvious to Gem who the pack’s alpha male was, advanced
deliberately
from the circle, stopping just a short leap away from her. Gem stood careful y. She had had enough. A dozen
feral
wolves might prove to be too many, but she could certainly use a ruler word to make sure that the first one to move didn’t get anywhere near her.

A shiver seemed to go through the white wolf.

No, Gem decided, not through the wolf. Through the world around it. It trembled until Gem couldn’t quite keep her eye on it and then, the moment she turned away for an instant, the wolf was gone. In its place stood a muscular man in what had to be his late forties, though the long, white hair that hung halfway down his back probably added at least a couple of years. Gem found herself staring in
flabbergasted
shock, not so much at the fact that wolves could turn into people, after a couple of months around a dragon, that kind of thing struck her as almost normal, but at the fact that the man in front of her would wander around the woods like this wearing nothing more than a large loincloth.

Gem looked around, and found that the other wolves were gone too, replaced by younger men wearing no more than their leader. They were al muscular and tanned masculine perfection, but even so…Gem brought her hand up to her mouth.

so…Gem brought her hand up to her mouth.

Gem realized that she was rambling. Perhaps she had underestimated the shock of wolves turning into people after al . A series of movies of
dubious
quality probably hadn’t done much to prepare her for the reality of running into a dozen real werewolves.

Make that a baker’s dozen, actual y, because it was a fair bet that the wolf with her would have transformed too.

Gem looked round for him and found him kneeling beside the tree, apparently exhausted by the change. He was dressed the same way as the others, and Gem couldn’t help her eyes roving over him for a moment. He was just as muscular and tanned as the others, but slightly more slender. A tattoo of a mechanical claw ran over his left shoulder.

It was only when he looked up that Gem realized who it was.

“Rio?”

“Hi Gem,” Rio said hesitantly. “You know how I said that nothing much happened to me the last couple of months? Not entirely true. Don’t be scared, ok?”

Gem didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t believe that Rio was… wel , a
werewolf
. It seemed too much of a coincidence, on top of Sparks and her.

On the other hand, it did make a bizarre kind of sense. Far from making it seem like an
aberration
, Rio’s newfound werewolf status seemed to fit him perfectly. It took those currents of
vigilance
, control ed violence and
cunning
that had been in Rio before and brought them to the surface, turning them into something almost primitively dangerous. It was like seeing through a
façade
to something far more direct. Also, Gem had to admit, far more enticing.

Rio stood with difficulty, taking Gem’s hand for support. He kept hold of it as they turned together to face the white-haired man and his… would pack stil be the right word while they were human, Gem wondered, and decided, given the look of some of the young men, that it probably would.

The white-haired man’s eyes gave Gem a cursory glance, but most of his attention seemed to be reserved for Rio.

“You are one of us.” He snapped out the words, and Gem thought that he was simply being curt until it occurred to her that the clipped way he spoke was closer to a bark than anything. “Not this place, though.”

Rio shrugged.

“I come from East LA. It’s certainly not the woods.”

“No.” The man appeared to sniff for a moment, and Gem found herself thinking about how sensitive a wolf’s sense of smel would be. “You live with non-weres.” In an abrupt change, he nodded to Gem. “Who is she?”

“Gemma James,” Gem said, offering her hand. “That’s Rio. We come in peace.” The werewolf stared at the proffered hand with
circumspect
blankness, obviously unsure what he should do with it, and just as obviously worried by it. Gem didn’t think that this was the time to start explaining the gestures of
salutation
her culture used, so she decided instead to solve the problem by putting her arm by her side again.

“Good.” The werewolf leader looked at her closely then. “You’re not from Myriad either. Why are you here?”

you here?”

There was just a hint of chal enge to his tone, and Gem knew that it was important to give the right answer. For al that the people around her looked human, some tingling sense at the back of Gem’s mind told her that they would think at least as much like wolves as people. That would probably include wanting to defend their territory. It wasn’t a very
palatable
thought. Not when there were a dozen of them. As if to substantiate her fears, al the young men in the circle trained their eyes on her as their leader asked it. There was a clear sense of what would happen if he told them to attack.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing, Gem thought to herself, except that of course they were actual y wolves in not that much clothing.

“We’re here looking for my… father. He has disappeared, and we think that he came to this world. His name is Henry Word.”

“Many people come through Myriad.”

Since it wasn’t an outright denial, Gem decided to press on.

“He would have been in a wheelchair, a kind of chair on wheels, because he has lost both his legs. He is general y very wel dressed, he has short blond hair, and he has eyes like mine. Sometimes, his way of doing things can be a bit…
unorthodox
, so he would probably have stood out.” The werewolves’ leader appeared to think about it for a minute, he glanced around the group of young men, and Gem couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t to check whether they had heard anything.