The Dire Wolf's Mate (3 page)

"We're here," Jim said, pointing out a spot on the map. "And you need to get here," he said, setting his thumb down on a second spot. "Hand me that pen, will you?"

She did.

He drew a line connecting the two points, circles promising an end and a beginning. It wasn't so far as she thought.

She would also need to go miles out of the way in order to reach a road.

"Myra, honey, go pack up for Rain, will you? We'll need to get her going pretty quickly."

"Oh, I don't want to make you -"

"It's no trouble," Myra took her hand and squeezed it gently, then picked up her walking stick from where it lay to the side of the door.

*

She was packed - a backpack that Myra had produced from somewhere. She'd missed the monthly supply run - Jeb had already taken the truck and left that morning, and he didn't have a cell phone. He liked to stay overnight in town, but there was no way of knowing where he was, and no way of getting the vehicle back for her use. There were three motor bikes available to her, but she didn't know how to drive one. Most families used horses, and Rain hadn't questioned that before, chalking it up the peculiarities of the village, but now it made her pause and wonder.

She only had Hiram. She could pick her way down the trails and to the road, or she could pick her way over the mountain in unfamiliar territory.

"There is another option," Myra said quietly.

Jim looked at Jamie. "There's really not," he said flatly.

"Don't you think she deserves to know?"

"Don't you think he deserves protection?"

Jamie sat down in between them, his head pressed up against Rain's side, and growled at them both petulantly.

"What do I deserve to know?" Rain said. "Is this about- " she stopped, unwilling to make herself say it.

"Go on," Myra urged.

Rain opened her mouth, shut it again. "I- there's something strange here. I see...things."

Myra smiled. "Tell me. What do you see?"

Rain ran a hand through her hair. "This sounds crazy."

"Who cares?"

"Sometimes I think people have scales. Or wings. Or I blink once, and they're green, and again, and they're normal. Sometimes I think I'm seeing a dog out of the corner of my eye and I turn around and it's just - "

"Just?"

"Just a person."

Jim sighed and scowled at his wife. "Woman, you know she didn't deserve to find out like this." Then he tapped Rain's forehead and her vision exploded.

It was like she took everything in at once. Everything seemed more real, more tangible. The cozy warmth of the cabin was suffused with tones of copper and gold, gleaming brightly. Myra's hair, a whiteness she'd always admired, suddenly shone silver, richer,
more
somehow; her walking stick looked some fabled magician's staff. Jim's face was wizened in a way it wasn't a moment ago. And when she looked down at Jamie, rich ruby threads connected their bodies before they vanished into thin air. "Wh-what happened?" she whispered.

"You're seeing things as they really are," Myra said gently. "We're not human, and you're not human either. Well, not completely, anyway.

We were so
surprised
when you came into town. Humans can't see the town, you see. You thought we were one of those new eco-villages that the humans have, and we never corrected you. The truth is, we are a village of people who live close to the earth. We're just made up of fey and shifters."

"Don't forget the dragons," Jim reminded her.

"And dragons."

"And Jamie?"

"Shifter."

"But I've never - he - have I met him?" Rain asked.

"He hasn't taken two legs in thirty six years. He might not even be able to anymore," Jim said regretfully.

"But, why?"

"It's not my place to say."

Rain coaxed her stiff fingers to move. She felt numb, frozen in place, but she reached out, trembling, buried her fingers in Jamie's fur. His head was ducked, his posture rigid beneath her skin.

"We can get you to her faster," Myra said firmly. "If Jamie will act as your tether."

*

Rain wasn't sure why Jamie needed to act as her "tether" - she was told that it usually only applied in spirit world travel, but not why it applied here, although it was implied that it had something to do with the amount of distance she would need to be moved. Myra went to fetch Romhilda - the only mage in the village - after saying regretfully that had she been a couple hundred years younger she could have taken care of it without any problem, but that she didn't want to take any chances, now did she?

The whole business was taken care of very quickly, and the details were fast becoming a blur to her. The visions Jim had given her with the tap on the head had faded, and very soon she was handed a necklace containing an intricate circular pendant with moving parts and instructed on the movements and spell she needed to say to take her to the hospital, and the one which would take her back to Jim and Myra's cottage. "Just be careful," Romhilda winked. "Those two can get into some crazy shenanigans in the middle of the night."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Jim puffed up his chest.

The necklace was fastened around her neck, the backpack secured to her shoulders, and Jamie nudged his nose into her hand. Rain knelt down on her knees, fastened her arms around his neck, and smiled a watery smile when he licked a broad stripe over her neck and up to her ear.

*

As Rain power walked down the hospital corridors, she realized that she would most likely have a bit of a mental breakdown as soon as she had the time for one. She was amazingly calm. Probably too calm, given the recent revelations and the sudden awareness of having traveled a hundred miles in a span of a moment.

But then she was at Grammy's door, and she swallowed down her confusion, steeled her shoulders, and entered the tiny room.

"My Rain," came the weak voice, and Rain smiled tremulously.

"I'm here, Grammy," she said.

"I knew you would be," Grammy smiled at her. "And you've met someone, too," she started to laugh, and it turned into a hacking cough.

Rain found the pitcher of water they'd set on a tray, poured out a small cupful, and Grammy took it in relief.

"What's wrong?" she said. "Isn't there anything they can do?"

Grammy waved her off. "It's my time, child," she said. "They don't know what's wrong, but I do." She tapped her forehead, and winked. "A body is only made to last so long, you know."

"But you're only sixty eight!"

"I'm a bit older than that," Grammy said apologetically. "I hope you'll - " she began to cough again, shivers starting to rack her thin frame. "Forgive me," she finished, weak. "Dratted neighbors. I wanted them to call you, but I did so want to die at home."

"Grammy? You're not making very much sense."

"It's okay, child. I'm sorry. I thought I had longer, but I- Come closer."

Rain bent down, pressed a kiss to the soft skin of her grandmother's cheek. "Your father didn't get it, but you inherited your strengths from
my
side of the family," she said proudly, and then she lifted her hand to Rain's forehead, started to speak. The sounds were pleasing, the meaning lost as it was no language Rain had ever heard before.

As the last lilt of her voice faded away, Rain's head began to ache. She felt a splitting pain, saw only whiteness, and then there was nothing.

*

Rain woke up to a gentle nudge by a nurse. There was another in the room, unhooking the machines surrounding Grammy, and -

Grammy was still and silent, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.

"No," Rain whimpered.

"I think you must have fainted when she passed," the nurse said gently. "I know it can be a shock. Would you like us to give you a few minutes?"

*

She wasn't used to her new sight. A few minutes, like Jim had given her, was beautiful. Hours - days of it - was quite an adjustment, and it made her head hurt.

Maybe it was a blessing.

Oh, she would rather choose to see the world as it was than not, she could accept that. She could even accept that people she called friends had been lying to her for months - she didn't like it, still felt wounded, but she could see why such a secret as theirs must be protected. She liked to think that if Jamie -

Jamie was another sore spot. She'd shared things with him. She'd spent so much time with him, and he never once showed himself as human. It might not even be his fault; Jim had said... Rain swallowed. She liked to think that if Jamie could be human, he would have told her. Another part, the betrayed part, whispered to her that if Jamie was human, his behavior was stalking, not protecting.

But mostly what she felt was numb. Her grandmother was the last of her family, the only link to her past and a time of stability. She had friends; even had friends from high school whose social networking profiles she'd check out from time to time, who she might catch a drink with if she was near enough to them - she'd had one memorable night at a ladies night at a strip club a few years back in El Paso - but there was no one, nothing that could fill the void that Grammy left within her.

Grammy was well known in the community. Rain had received over a dozen casseroles - she was running out of room in Grammy's fridge and Grammy's freezer - and no one balked too loudly when she insisted that she could have a public funeral but a private burial. Rain thought, in the last minutes before she fell asleep, that she wasn't sure if she wanted the numbness to wear away, because if it did, she'd be angry. Angry that her heritage - whatever it was - had been kept from her. Angry that Grammy didn't call her back sooner, that she'd hid so many things. Anger that would burn a hole straight through her belly and six feet into the ground.