Page 35 of A Little Red
“Pax… I don’t want to go, but right this minute I don’t think I should stay. I’ll try it again next weekend or something. Maybe by then one of us will have cooled down. Just do me a favor, and look over those warlock files, will you? And pass them on to whoever is on patrol? As I tried to tell Mom earlier, I think they’re trying to re-form the circle up here and that means we should all keep our noses open.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” said Paxton looking worried. “I still don’t think you should leave.”
“Sorry,” said Liam, shrugging. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He felt better once he was on the road and decided that he would be even better, or at least happier, if he drove straight to Scarlet’s. He slowed as he reached the on-ramp. There was a large F-150 behind him, silver gray and driving in a jerky way that Liam didn’t like. At this hour of the night the driver was probably high or texting.
He swung onto the on-ramp and saw a van parked on the side of the road. It was an off-white, used moving van, with the ghost of an old decal still clearly in evidence. It was oddly perched half in and half out of the lane and while it was hard to smell over the stench of engine and road grime, there was a whiff of something he didn’t like in the air. A man got out of the van and waved at him.
Something in the man’s face triggered a tickle of memory. Liam found his canines lengthening and he slowed the car further. He was debating his next move, when the truck behind him suddenly gunned its engine and slammed into him. The Tesla screeched as he applied the brakes, but the truck behind him didn’t stop, shoving the smaller car toward the edge of the on-ramp.
Out the window he saw the back doors of the van swing open and two men emerged. They loaded up a rocket launcher and he caught the heavy smell of skunk.
Liam unbuckled his seat belt and swung open the door, preparing to jump free. He transformed as he leapt and hoped that he was fast enough.
Episode 18
The Wolf
Scarlet
Scarlet woke up feeling like something was wrong. She paced the tiny space of her apartment and fondled the leaves of her plants. They all seemed OK. She stood still and tried to feel the drum beat beneath the soil, but everything was too loud and distracting. She needed to get outside and get her feet actually on the ground. She was still off from the protest with the trees. She would rather die than admit it to Azure, but that little stunt had left her unstable even after three weeks. It had also left her prone to zoning out, communicating with trees, and forgetting she had legs. She was getting better, but she knew she had spaced out at least once in front of Liam. Fortunately, he’d just thought it was cute.
The thought of Liam made her sad. She wished desperately that they hadn’t left things like they had on Thursday night, but she wasn’t sure what else she could have said in front of his family. Friday at work without him had been lame, and now she had to go through an entire weekend before she saw him again. Her plan was to stay in all weekend and stream Hallmark movies while eating homemade kale chips and apples dipped in maple syrup—the vegetarian equivalent of total crap.
Instead, she found herself pulling on her running shoes and heading outside in the half-light of a winter dawn with a nervous feeling in her stomach. She headed down to the park. She didn’t actually like the park that much. It reminded her of bears in a zoo—too little space, not enough care. The trees were sad and depressed. But it was the quickest route to any green space, so she took it.
She was half-way around when she got an odd flicker in her peripheral vision, something dark and moving quickly. She turned to face it, but there was nothing there. The air smelled of weed and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. It really was a waste of a plant. She knew other people disagreed, but reality was magical enough without altering it with drugs. She didn’t know why people bothered. She turned back to the path and went a little further. There was a man standing by a bench ahead of her and Scarlet felt a tremor of unease. He lifted up his hands as if declaring a goal and a blackness rose out of the shadows, knocking Scarlet off her feet and onto the frozen grass.
The blackness reared above her buzzing like a thousand swarming bees, Scarlet screamed in terror and brought her arms together, pulling power out of the roots beneath her. The blackness slammed down onto her shield and then reared back, preparing for a second strike. She heard running feet and saw that the man was now running at her with a long knife in one hand. Scarlet sent the nearest tree root upward through the rough, icy dirt and he tripped over it sprawling out across the path. They both scrambled to their feet and as Scarlet prepared to face him, there was the sound of running feet and fierce and frightening growl. An instant later a wolf seized the man and threw him to the ground, savagely tearing at his neck and throat.
The man slashed at the wolf and Scarlet saw a red line appear in the animal’s shoulder. The black form knocked the wolf off his feet. Scarlet mentally reached for more power, hoping she wouldn’t damage the trees, and blocked the black thing as it struck at the wolf again. The form wavered and then shredded away like ashes as the man staggered upright and ran away, clutching his dripping neck and shoulder.
The wolf stood up and shook himself all over. He was a tall, long-legged gray wolf, of the kind that had been frightening children in fairy tales for generations. He trotted toward Scarlet and she stood her ground. She did not have Ochre’s whistle-while-you-work relationship with wildlife, but she had always gotten along well with most and this wolf seemed like he was here to help. He rubbed himself against her side, looking up at her with adoring warm, brown eyes. Scarlet took a shaky breath and looked around. No one appeared to have witnessed the attack, but the blood marks on the path were real enough. She looked back at the wolf and he licked her hand.
“Wolf, we need to get out of here before someone sees us. We’ll have to go back to my apartment. Are you going to be OK with that?”
He panted in apparent agreement, seeming to smile at her. Scarlet nodded and then tried to jog back the way she had come, but her hip hurt and she slowed to a walk. The wolf kept pace, his head swinging left and right, keeping guard. They made it back to her apartment without meeting anyone and she took the stairs up to her third-floor apartment, hoping that no one would suddenly pop out and comment on her odd companion.
Once they were inside, Scarlet grabbed her first aid kit and brought it to the couch. The wolf was trying to lick his own shoulder wound.
“No, sweetie, no,” she said trying to get him to stop. “No, I’ll do it.”
He reluctantly let her push his nose away and sat patiently while she tried to clean the wound. It was only then she realized his fur was covered in a black haze. She ran her hand over his pelt and came away with a handful of black gunk.
“Ewww,” she said and went to the sink. But it wouldn’t rinse off her hand, and it was only when she used her powers to force it off that it dissipated and dribbled down the sink. She went back to the wolf and cleaned up his wound, using her hands to collect as much of the black substance as she could. But even after he was bandaged, the black haze still hung in his fur and by then Scarlet felt as if she’d been inhaling car exhaust for three hours. Whatever the black stuff was, it wasn’t good.
Once she was done with the wolf, she went into the bedroom and took her clothes off. One hip was bruised and turning purple and her elbow was scuffed. Which wasn’t enough damage to justify how shaky and scared she felt. She was staring at the bruise and missed the wolf quietly padding into the bedroom until he had pressed his nose against one of her butt cheeks.
“Eeek! Wolf!” She swatted at his nose, but he jumped just out of reach. He tossed his head back in very evident amusement, his tongue lolling out in laughter. “Very funny! I’m sure you and Liam will get along perfectly.”
Thinking of Liam made her reach for her cell phone, but when she dialed him, it went directly to voicemail after one ring. She pulled on her pajamas and went back out to the kitchen for an ice bag for her hip. She opened the kitchen window and tried to breath in fresh air. The day had turned bright and sunny and this close to the holidays the roads were full of cars and people. Wolf stuck his head out the window too, as if to see what she was looking at.
“You need help,” she said to the wolf and he cocked his head, listening attentively. “And I should be able to help you, but I’m all messed up from the thing with Azure. That’s my sister. We tried to reconnect a bunch of humans to the web of life. Or I did. I mean we’re all connected anyway. I just tried to bring that connection fully back… you know, online. That’s not a very good metaphor.”
The wolf looked very understanding anyway.
“But basically, I jacked a bunch of my brother and sister’s power and used a ton of my own to save a bunch of trees and now I can’t help you. And I think if I take you outside, people are going to freak out that I’m walking around with a wolf.”
