The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (2 page)

The
loft, on the sixth floor, had been Ilene’s idea. He knew the old building, with
a security guard, parking garage, solid steel doors, and concrete floors were a
form of protection—isolation—that they both craved after that night. Another
old home with long, dark corridors would have never done.

Ilene spoke
little of the night, though he knew, like he, she was traumatized. He awoke
some nights, still feeling the rope burns around his wrists. He could smell the
smoke drifting across the lawn, as he lay helpless, as his children were
trapped inside. Jason clutched the edge of the counter, fighting the panic that
swept him whenever he recalled too vividly that night. He winced, just thinking
of the night, and took a calming breath. “Ilene,” he called. “I’m heading out.
Are we still meeting for lunch?”

She
emerged from their bedroom down the single hall in the front of the loft where
the two bedrooms and guest bath entered. She ran her fingers through her short
hair. “Yes, yes,” she answered breathily. “Of course.”

He
studied her a moment, her hair now so short and streaked with gray, like his
own, now gray at the temples, though his blond hair hid it well. He kissed her
briskly on the lips. “I’ll see you at noon.” As he rested his hand on the
doorknob, he called over his shoulder. “Say hello to Adam for me.”

“I
always do,” she replied, and he could hear love, gratitude, and anguish compete
in her voice, like the subtle notes of a fine wine.

Ilene
locked the door as Jason left, and she walked down the hall to the living room.
The morning sun beating through the window panes painted a lattice on the floor
and across her skin as she walked to the window. She looked down on Woodward
Avenue and could see it flow around Campus Martius. A wan smile brushed her
lips as she looked down on pedestrians scurrying against the cold, the fountain
shut off for winter, and the statues in the plaza covered in a glimmering sheen
of ice.

Alec,
Jared, and Lucy sat around the table in the back bedroom used as a study. The
piles of papers they had poured over countless times remained as much an enigma
as the day Alec and Jared absconded with them from the barn. Jared pointlessly
shuffled the pages in front of him, as if the mere act would help him make
sense of the symbols jotted down in perfect script.

Over the
past few months, he cataloged the paperwork. Most was written in the
indecipherable runic language. Only a few medical reports were written in
English, and while interesting, they offered no direction for finding the pack.
If he and Alec were to continue their search for other members of the pack, he
needed something that mentioned them specifically.

Jared
closed his eyes, concentrating, hoping to force a vision. He breathed deeply
trying to force out his negative thoughts that he had tried this exact, futile
exercise dozens of times. The silence around him finally made him speak.
“Nothing,” he said.

“Do you
think something’s blocking you?” Lucy asked as if the question had not been
asked a dozen different times in a dozen different ways.

“I
don’t know,” he replied. He looked across the piles of papers between them on
the table where they sat in the back bedroom they used as a study.

“What
we do know,” Alec said, “is that your gift allows you to hone in on someone,
even from great distances.”

“Right.”

“What
if the problem is that there are too many smells.”

Jared
looked at Alec thoughtfully. That was a new suggestion. “How do you mean?”

Alec
lifted one of the pages. “Look how old these are. Hundreds of people have
touched them over the years. What if it’s, like, sensory overload.”

“Alec,
that’s brilliant!” Lucy said. She turned to Jared. “You need to hone in on a
smell.”

“I don’t
know how.”

“Just
try.”

Jared
shoved the page away. “Well, not while you two are sitting here staring at me.”
He frowned. “Sorry. I’m just frustrated. We sit here and look over this
stuff”—he gestured over the stacks of papers—“and get nowhere.”

Alec rubbed
Jared’s shoulder. “I know. I know.”

“There’s
a pack out there, and we need to find it.”

“But
you found Alec.”

“I
trailed Darius,” Jared corrected. “
He
found Alec.”

“And
you could trail Darius—” Lucy continued.

“Because
he was my father.”

“What
about this?” Lucy said, palming the Meredith Stone. She lifted the stone to the
light and studied the intricately carved facets. “The symbols on here match our
paperwork.” She turned her attention to Alec. “Darius sent this to you. Why?”

Alec
shook his head. “I don’t know. He didn’t say anything. It’s not like there was
a note, saying, ‘Here. Use this to decipher our secret language.’”

Jared
perked up. “But what if that’s exactly what it’s for? What if it’s like the
Rosetta Stone?”

“The
Rosetta Stone was like a key,” Alec said. “How did it work?”

Jared
sat back hard, rocking his chair as frustration coursed through him. “The
Rosetta Stone was helpful because it was also translated into a language
archaeologists already knew.” Jared sighed. “We don’t have that.”

“What
if this isn’t it?” Alec asked.

“What
isn’t it?” Jared asked.

“What
if this isn’t the complete stone?”

Lucy’s
head snapped up. “This is only one part of the translation. One language. This
language,” she said, tapping a stack of papers. “We still need the half in
English.”

“The
name bothers me, too,” Alec said. “The Meredith Stone.” He looked from Jared to
Lucy. “It can’t be a coincidence that Meredith is our mom’s middle name.”

“I’ve
always felt that she knows more than she’s told us,” Lucy said. “But I’m not
ready to go down that road. Not yet.”

Jared
said, “But where might we find the other half of the translation?” He looked at
the table, hoping they wouldn’t notice he changed the subject.

“Did
Darius ever send you anything?” Alec asked.

Jared
shook his head. “No. He counted on our connection.”

Lucy
kept her eyes fixed on Jared a bit too long, before she added, “Then we’re at
square one.”

“Where
the hell’s the rest of the pack?” Alec asked, pushing back from the table and
standing, signaling that he was too frustrated to continue.

Neon
was giving Nadia Demeter a headache. It sparkled on her skin. It shimmered in
the fountains. It rippled across the skyline. It flashed in the corners of her
eyes.

She
avoided eye contact with the hordes of enthralled tourists as she strutted down
The Boulevard. Day slipped lazily into night, and the chaos she felt coming off
the crowds around her was—annoying. She was running late, per usual, for her
act, and her mother, Helena, with whom she performed, would be irate.
Too fucking bad for her,
Nadia thought
sourly. Nadia glanced up at the happy faces briefly. Las Vegas was a
wonderland. A playground. 24/7 joy...unless you lived and worked there. Then,
it was a job. A place to exist.

A place to wait until something
better happened in your poor, pathetic life other than running a freak show
with your mother.
Nadia loved her mother—desperately—it was just the two of them. But she had the
ache to leave Las Vegas. To do something different and new, even something
conventional. But she also knew that her mother needed
her
for the show.

The Dazzling Demeters
.

In
flouncy, sparkling outfits, she and her mother read minds, predicted futures, and
cracked quite a few not-too-bad jokes. Their rapport was excellent. The crowd
loved their Sonny-and-Cher, Dorothy-and-Sophia quipping—a pairing that had
worked for comedians for centuries. Nadia was the straight man, and it suited
her. She could deliver a dry, stinging barb with a finesse that made even
mothers in the crowd laugh (though they were glad
their
daughters didn’t speak to
them
that way).

As she entered
backstage, Helena said, “You’re late. Always late.” She stubbed out a
half-smoked cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. “Where do you go all the
time?”

“Around.
Away. Relaxation. You should try it some time.”

“Hey!
We’re not on stage,” Helena warned.

Nadia
kissed her mother on the cheek. “I’m dressed. See?” She said as she opened her
coat releasing the sparkles of her outfit.

“Now
let’s go dazzle these people. Let’s get some extra readings and sock money away
for a trip.”

“Mother,
now you’re talking my language.”

As the
emcee announced the duo, Nadia pirouetted across the stage. Helena shuffled
into the spotlight, dismissively waving her hand at her daughter’s antics.
“This one takes dazzling far too literally. If I did that, I’d dislocate
something.” She waited for the few chuckles. “So, you’re here, not to see my
daughter’s interpretation of
La Boheme
—”

“
La Boheme
’s an opera, Mom,” Nadia
interrupted petulantly.

“And
this is Las Vegas. Everything here is
La
Boheme
,” Helena delivered with such thick distaste that the crowd couldn’t
help but laugh. “Anyway, you’re here to get a glimpse at what a real psychic
can do. Well, we’re both psychics. And my mother was a psychic. And so was her
mother.”

“You
know what the worst thing about being a psychic is?” Nadia blurted out to the
crowd. “Blind dates. They never are,” she shook her head sadly.

“You
can tell she’s not a mother yet, if she thinks
that’s
the worst thing about being a psychic.” Helena turned to the
packed room. “Our show demands audience participation.” She shielded her eyes
to peer more intently at the crowd. “Sober or not.”

“Preferably
not, so you think we’re really psychic,” Nadia said with her hand to her mouth
as if she were telling a secret.

Helena
rolled her eyes. “I
knew
she was
going to say that.” She clapped her hands. “We’re not your run-of-the-mill
psychics. We don’t read tea leaves and promise you Mister Right. Or a ton of
money. We read minds.” She smiled devilishly. “Who wants to be our first
victim?”

A
clearly drunk, middle-aged woman raised her hand fervently. She had on stretch
pants, too much make up, gaudy jewelry, and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the
faces of toddlers and the words, “We love our Nana!” A huge gold purse was
slung over her shoulder.

“Mother,
pick her,” Nadia said, winking to the audience. “She’s the type that’s gonna
believe we’re psychics.” She smiled as the crowd laughed and the woman seemed
to miss the joke at her expense.

“Ma’am,
what’s your first name?”

“Why do
you have to ask?” A man called from the back.

“Because
she isn’t a plant,” Helena answered without missing a beat. “If I paid her to sit
there, I could call her Jehoshaphat and she’d say yes. Name, please.”

“Stella.”

“Stella,
I’d like you to dig deep in your purse—”

“Mom,
you sound like a televangelist.”

“Pick
out an object. But don’t show us. Keep it hidden in your palms so no one thinks
there’s a spy camera or what-have-you. Show it to the audience.” Helena watched
the drunken woman. “No, the audience is behind you, dear.” More peals of
laughter. “Eyes closed, Nadia.” Nadia and Helena closed their eyes. Stella
turned, showing the first few rows of people whatever she pulled from her
enormous gold vinyl purse. “Has she shown the crowd?”

“Yes,”
the boisterous crowd cheered.

“Now we
need silence as we concentrate on the thoughts inside Stella’s mind.”

“Why do
I suddenly have a craving for a gin gimlet?” Nadia asked. The crowd roared.

“Nadia,
silence! Please...”

A hush
fell over the crowd as Nadia and Helena stood, stone-faced, under the harsh
spotlight. Their dresses sparkled. The crowd shifted tensely, whispering to
their neighbors. Several seconds passed—only 10, but for the crowd it felt an
eternity. “Silence...” Helena cautioned again. She could feel the restlessness
of the crowd. They would lose them soon.

“Stella,
you made it too easy,” Nadia announced. “It’s a keychain photo of the same two
adorable grandkids on your shirt. Nicky and Ricky are their names.”

“Yes!”
Stella cried gleefully. The crowd cheered.

Nadia
looked over the crowd and smiled though her mind throbbed behind her eyes like
a manic drum. She could read the faces of those in the crowd. Some, their faces
shifting with doubt, wondered if Stella (unknown to her and her mother) was a
plant. Others, their faces aglow with wonder, believed in psychics.

They
were all so dreadfully wrong.

Their
whispers were like a torrent over a cliff onto a pool. Babbling. Babbling.
Babbling.