"You wanted magic, didn't you?" she asked, not expecting a reply. She was compelled, as if a full moon hung in the sky. "You wanted something special to happen, but you never thought it would. Well, I can show you what you've never seen before. Something beautiful, and wild, and beyond imagining."
His eyes half closed and his lips parted expectantly.
Vivian laughed. "No, silly. I want to show you what I can turn into." Excitement took over now that there was no turning back.
She kicked off her shoes, then took hold of her hem and lifted it, wriggling a little to bring the dress over her Head. She tossed her dress aside and stood in only her panties.
Aiden let out a short breath more sigh than moan.
She slid her panties to her knees and let them slither down her calves. She stepped out of them and the blush of the change crept like an itching rash across her chest. Sweat trickled down her sides despite the chill air.
Aiden held his arms out to her. His breath grew harsh; his eyes burned with fever. She wanted to give in to his desire; that would be so much simpler than explanations; but her body had other plans. "Not yet," she said, and twitched. "When I change back. First I will show you my secret."
He frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but she hushed him.
"Remember your poem, 'Wolf Change'?" she asked. "This is your poem."
Her heart picked up speed. She flexed her hands as they filled with her hardening pads; stood on tiptoes as her soles roughened. But when she felt the first prickling of hair on her back she had a rush of doubt. What if he didn't love her in her wolf-skin? Was ancestral hate ingrained too deep in them all? She glanced outside to take strength from the high-flying three-quarter moon. No, he would see the beauty.
A jolt of painful ecstasy doubled her over, and her arms wrapped around her belly. Aiden sat upright in bed. "Are you okay? "
She grinned up at him through her tumbling hair. A sharp tooth pricked her lip. "It's all right," she said. "Wait and see." Her voice held a throaty rasp.
A shivering tickle of hair grew over her shoulders and crept down her arms. Her elbows popped.
Aiden looked puzzled.
The change came fast then. Her arms lengthened, her legs shortened, her joints reformed. She uttered a guttural cry of pleasure as her spine extended into tail, the bone quickly wrapping itself with flesh, then fur. She felt the creaking, crunching as her jaw extended, and her eyes now saw the rainbows around each candle flame. She looked to see Aiden's amazement and pleasure.
Aiden's face was white in the flickering candlelight, his eyes large. He drew his limbs close to his body. Awkwardly he shifted away from her, crushing his back against the headboard. His mouth opened into a gash and from it came a hideous whining sound. Naked and wormlike, he cowered on the bed like a nightmare view of an asylum inmate. He stank of fear.
Her thudding heart grew cold in her expanding chest. She tried to reverse the change but her body wouldn't listen. "No," she called to him. "I mean you no harm." But the hand she held out in love grew claws.
He screamed.
"Wait," she said. "I know. I know. I look odd now but the end is gorgeous." But the words came out in a hollow growl from a mouth not meant to speak. Spittle flecked her muzzle with the effort.
As she completed the change, Aiden began to cry, silent tears coursing down his stricken face.
The bile of self-loathing rose in her. How could she be such a fool? Mixed with her disgust at herself was contempt for Aiden's cringing, then guilt because she had caused it. Her heart broke for him because he feared, because he couldn't see the wonder, then raged at him because he made her feel unclean.
I came here for you to comfort me, she howled. I thought you'd understand. But she could tell from his face that all he saw was a savage beast. I am not like them, she cried.
He groped for the table beside the bed, his eyes on her face.
Look, I am lovely, she begged him. She whimpered and wagged her tail like a dog.
He flung a mug at her head.
No! she howled as it smashed on the wall behind her.
He hated her. He loathed her. She brought him pain. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere. She had to get away.
The quickest way out was the window. She didn't care what lay below. The last thing she remembered was a shattering, and she flew through the air amid glittering shards of glass.
Chapter 19
19
Vivian woke with the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. She frowned and groaned, then opened her eyes. She closed them quickly when bright daylight sent a lightning stab of pain through her skull. Her head throbbed in the aftermath.
She was in her room, that was certain. She could tell she was naked and uncovered on her bed, the sheet twisted around her ankles, but she couldn't remember how she'd gotten there.
The air was thick with a stench too jumbled to separate and identify. It hurt to try. Why did her whole body ache? What did she do last night?
Aiden! She remembered the way he'd cringed from her. "Sweet Moon," she moaned.
But what next?
She had leaped from his window, she knew - it was a stupid, crazy thing to do - but the Moon looks after her own and she'd hit the ground running. And that was all she remembered - running, running, running.
Or was it? She thought she saw Rafe's face in there somewhere. Or was that a dream she'd had?
The room was filthy hot. She would love to turn on the air conditioner, but every nerve end cried out to her, "Don't move!" Ignoring the caution, she shifted slightly, and her stomach heaved. Okay, okay, I'll just lie here, she told herself. The heat's not that bad. Maybe if she was lucky she'd fall asleep again and wouldn't have to think or feel.
She wasn't lucky. She lay bitterly awake on the cusp of nausea as the events in Aiden's room replayed over and over within her head.
I'm so stupid, she thought. So stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
She tried to move past that moment and on to events beyond, but the night opened up like a black pit of nothing with no landmarks and looped her back to the scene in Aiden's room. Time had passed, that was all she knew, and a chunk of her life had been torn away while she'd been mobile and mindless and in despair. It was as if she hadn't existed for that time. Was that nothingness like the nothingness of death? She tried to imagine a forever of non-being with no conscious moments ever again. She shuddered despite the heat.
She had heard of this happening - a change coming on so violently that it wiped away the human side and the animal reigned supreme. That was in stories, though, and triggered by great passions like jealousy or rage. She'd never known it to happen to a real person. And - the nausea rose again unbidden by movement - usually something terrible happened during the blackout.
Stop being an asshole, she told herself. Obviously the stories were based on reality, but the terrible parts were there because they were stories.
She was sticky and gritty and dehydrated. I need a shower, she thought. She imagined floating in a bathtub full of water and ice. The image was so comforting she held on to it and almost lulled herself back to sleep, but it also woke a tortured thirst.
She opened her eyes again, slowly this time and only halfway, and peered through the slits. Her head still hurt, but if she moved carefully maybe she could stand the pain. Right now water from the bathroom tap promised to be sweeter than ambrosia. She smiled slightly at the thought, and something cracked and crumbled around her mouth. She raised her hand to her lips and found a rough crust there. She inspected her fingers and saw rust-colored flakes. A hollow thud increased its tempo within her.
I must have bitten my lip in the jump, she thought. That's it. Or maybe I caught a rabbit. Yes. And underneath, in the back of her mind, another voice cried, Let it not be human.
She sat up, ignoring the screaming pain that went with the action, and the cold sweat that ran down her back. She looked down and found she was streaked with the remnants of blood. The sheets were blotched with it, dry and brown amid the evidence of vomit. She could smell the blood clearly now amid the sweat, puke, and tears. It was unmistakable. It was human.
She heaved over the side of the bed and weakly grabbed a handful of sheet to wipe her mouth. "Oh, sweet Moon. What have I done?" she moaned. Then a colder fear grabbed her. Not Aiden?
She scrambled off the bed, becoming entangled with the sheet, and barely missed treading in the pool of her vomit. At the door she realized - I can't go to the phone like this. What if Esmé sees me?
She grabbed her robe from the back of the door and fled to the bathroom, reaching the toilet bowl in time to throw up again.
Her shower wasn't the peaceful bath of her fantasy. She scrubbed her skin raw as she tried to erase even the ghost of a stain, and washed her hair till the roots hurt with the wringing. All the while tears streamed down her cheeks. I couldn't have, she told herself. I wouldn't have hurt him, no matter how much he hurt me. But she wasn't sure.
She approached the phone in the upstairs hallway swathed in towels.
"Is that you, hon?" Esmé called from her room.
"Yeah, Mom," Vivian answered reluctantly. The words came out as a croak.
"Are you sick?" Esmé asked.
In a big way, Vivian thought. "Yeah, Mom."
"Then go back to bed," Esmé answered, and ended the order with an inappropriate giggle.
Great Moon, she's got someone in there with her. For once this didn't annoy Vivian. At least that would keep Esmé out of the way.
Vivian picked up the phone, then panicked. What do I say if his father answers? "Hi, this is Vivian, is Aiden dead?" She swallowed a hysterical laugh and punched out his number. The receiver trembled in her hand, and the ringing shrieked through the soft tissues of her brain. It went on and on and on. They're at the police station, she thought. Or the hospital. His father's identifying the body right now.
Then someone answered. "Hello?" It was Aiden.
Vivian slammed down the phone. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," she whispered to the Moon.
But if it wasn't Aiden's blood, whose was it?
She found a fresh pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt and got dressed, listening to a news station on the radio, but all she heard were endless baseball scores. After she'd mopped the floor with her towel, she bundled it up with her sheets and dragged the lot downstairs and threw everything in the washer. She switched on the local cable TV news and sat through reports of another shooting downtown, sexual harassment in the federal government, and some stupid boat show at the conference center.
Then, as she was trying to force some cereal down, a siren wailed through the streets close by then another, and another. She pushed her bowl away and reached the door in time to see an ambulance tear by, followed by a motorcycle cop. She took off after them.
The midday heat seared her lungs as she ran, and the world was a white blast of sun. She could hear a dying siren up ahead and crackling radios. She turned right at Dobb's grocery to find Tooley's bar, on the corner of the next block, surrounded by a thousand flashing lights. It looked as if every cop from the surrounding three townships was there. Two fire engines rumbled like dragons waiting for lunch, and there was a rescue squad truck idling alongside the ambulance. A crowd was gathering.
She stumbled along the cracked, mossy sidewalk, gasping for air. Her hand trailed along the brick of the barbershop as if its roughness could summon reality as well as balance. When she reached the cross street, one of the fire engines let out a squeal and she flinched. It belched once, then pulled away. She saw that the remaining activity seemed to be centered around the back door of the bar, which opened onto a small yard containing a Dumpster.
As she reached the upholsterer's directly opposite the yard, a policewoman strung a plastic yellow streamer across the entrance. Sweet Moon, Vivian thought. Is this my doing? She turned away and pressed her forehead to the filthy shop window.
Behind her came a clatter of boot heels and a jingling of chains. She whirled to face the noise and saw the Five. The twins and Gregory almost danced, they were so full of electric excitement.
"Hell, Vivian. You look like shit," said Finn.
She flipped him off.
"Ooooh, she's sooo tough," Gregory responded.
Willem shoved him. "Leave her alone."
"Better not let Gabe know you're still sweet on her," Gregory told him.
"Yeah. He'll kick your ass," Finn said.
Willem spat at his twin. Finn dodged the wad.
Rafe hadn't spoken a word. He just stared at her with a look of smug amusement on his face. Ulf stood beside him fidgeting.
"What's happened here?" Vivian asked gruffly.
Ulf finally spoke. "They found a body behind the Dumpster." His voice was squeaky. "Some guy."
Vivian felt a cold lump in her gut.
"We didn't get to see it," Willem told her. "But there's a lot of blood."
"A goddamn river of it down to the drain," Gregory added with relish. "I heard some cop muttering about wild animals." He cackled with delight.
Across the street an ambulance took off quietly. One of the police cars followed. Lucien Dafoe came around the corner. That didn't surprise Vivian; Lucien was Tooley's best customer. He leaned against the door-jamb of the bar entrance and grinned at all the activity. He should have the sense to look shocked even if he didn't care.
Vivian realized then that Rafe had asked her a question. "What?"
Rafe folded his arms and cocked his head. "I said, did you see anything, Viv?"
"Huh?"
"Down here. Last night. I saw you in your wolf-skin under the bridge. You were heading this way."