Child of Man: Chapter 5, Part 2

As the two neared where the map said Deer Run began, the air grew cloudy, smoke from the forest fire turning the blue sky to a cobalt grey. The side of the road fell inward toward a mountain, and Watcher sat upright on the seat. “Pull over here; we walk from this point.”

Alex could only shrug, abandoning the car, pocketing the keys and doing his best to follow the tan-furred werewolf as he slipped from the back and sank to his knees beside the road, pawing at the earth. Alex cocked his head to one side, then mirrored Watcher’s movements, observing with surprise and no small wonder as the wolf began to chant quietly, the same unknown tongue in which he had prayed over Alex, back in his apartment.

Listening to Watcher’s words, his own pulse stilled, and then they were in some broken parody of the forest, any trace of green turned black from a blaze gone mad. What little scent of smoke had hung in the air before now assaulted his changed nose full-force, making him wheeze, each breath scalding his throat. The feeble cry of a wolf came to them on the hot wind that blew through the skeletal trees, and Watcher howled in response, immune to or ignoring the sooty air. The wolf then set off at a jog towards the call, his hinds kicking up plumes of ash as they touched the scorched earth, Alex the bear lumbering behind him.

Within minutes, another wolf joined them, this one moving on all fours, hints of grey and white fur peeking out from beneath the coat of soot that covered him. Watcher fell to his knees and did his best to clean off their companion, with Alex helping as he could. The two exchanged words, briefly, and then Watcher gently closed Shadowdance’s eyes with an admonishment to sleep, rising again to his rear legs.

The world turned in on itself, and they were again beside the car, Watcher rising quickly to his hinds. As Alex moved to follow, the tan wolf seemingly vanished into the trees, headed presumably towards the wolf with whom they had just spoken in the spiritscape. He wondered how the two of them would sneak past whatever cordon the firefighters had created to stop tourists from entering the danger zone, but the bear-mind told him not to worry. Deer Run was Shadowdance’s Protectorate, and he’d granted them both free passage. They would simply walk in; they had permission to be there. It sounded so naive, but the bear-mind made the issue sound moot, and so he trailed behind Watcher, tracking the wolf as glimpses of tan-gold fur moving through the woods.

Time lost any meaning as he walked. At intervals, Alex wondered how far the two of them had travelled, whether his car would be there when he came back, if he was even coming back, and if he cared. The bear-mind accepted it all with a calm stoicism. If he needed to return to his car, he would. If he didn’t, it would do him no good to bring it. If it was gone when he went back to where it was, he’d find some other means of transport. The simplicity with which that part of his psyche lived was a curious change of pace, and a welcome one away from the cares of his old life.

His old life. It truly seemed that way, now. He tried to imagine returning to his office, dutifully answering calls from the police about the state of his apartment, and acting as if he’d never met the tan-furred Child of Wolf. The thought felt hollow, a denial of some unspoken truth he had finally accepted. Thoughts of the life he had led up until a month ago simply felt empty, lacking some basic element he’d never known he had been missing, until the night that rabbit had invaded his dreams.

“Mr. Demont?” Watcher’s voice pulled him from his woolgathering. “We’re here.”

Alex focused his attention ahead, past the wolf and through the trees beyond, to a semi-circular open patch bordered on its flat side by a swift-flowing shallow stream. A well-preserved leather tarp, crudely stitched from prepared hides, hung from a low branch near the water’s edge, curled with pegs to form a sheltered space. Animal scents, layered atop each other like paints on a canvas, hung in the air, hovering over the ever-present smell of smoke from the fire across the water. Underneath, something rancid tugged at Alex’s nose hairs. Probably whatever chemical had been in that other tanker, he thought.

Something tickled at his memory, that unspoken awareness that had grown in the days since Watcher’s first visit, and he inhaled deeply through his nose. One of the scents that hung in the air struck a familiar chord in his mind, an earthy scent, slightly sweet, a little heavy. The feel of a soft pelt beneath his pawpads rose unbidden from the bear-mind’s memory, and he glanced down at his hands as if expecting to see them changed. They hung from the ends of his arms, pink and human, defying his vision.

Alex lifted his head and turned sharply to the wolf. “Where is she?”

Watcher smiled. “Your nose serves you well, Mr. Demont. Briar came looking for me here as soon as she met you.”

The would-be bear cocked his head to one side, unconsciously. “Why here?”

The wolf shrugged, an oddly human gesture. “No doubt she heard Shadowdance’s call and rightly assumed I would come to his aid as well. I do what I can to help our people, Mr. Demont. I consider it my duty. When Shadowdance called out for help, I answered as quickly as I could.”

“Your duty?”

Watcher’s ears went flat against his head, his eyes narrowing slightly. Then, he drew in a deep breath and sighed, sagging visibly, his tail hanging low behind him. In the span of moments, exhaustion had settled into the tan wolf’s stance, the same sort of weight that had so recently lifted from his own soul. “Ask me again, Mr. Demont, when the crisis of the moment has passed.” He forced a smile, perking his ears. “For now, let us attend to Shadowdance; he is, after all, why we are here.”

Alex nodded again, and Watcher strode to the makeshift tent and entered, the human behind him. Someone had dug a firepit, carefully clearing the brush away from it and making a ring of stones to act as a firebreak. Within it sat a small pile of glowing embers, faint wisps of sweet smoke circling above, a welcome change from the acrid haze that had clouded his nostrils on his walk. Next to it, a grey-furred wolf lay curled, whimpering softly in his sleep, his tail tucked between his legs. Patches of fur across his back and legs were missing, and white blisters surrounded by red skin filled the empty spaces. He batted at the air as if trying to run, and then suddenly his eyes snapped open and he cried out, “Hunters! Guns! Watcher!”

The tan-furred wolfman knelt, placing a paw on Shadowdance’s shoulder. “Easy, easy. I am here, Shadowdance.”

The wolf called Shadowdance snapped his head around rapidly, ears twisting on top of his head, and he panted heavily, breathing hard. “A dream… a dream.” He stilled, shaking, muzzle pointed past Watcher’s shoulder, towards the stranger with the familiar scent standing just within the tent. “A Lost One?”

Watcher nodded. “I believe so. He is known as Alex Demont, the bear you met earlier. He helped me find a cure for your sickness.” He stood again, then looked at Alex. “Stay with him; I’ll find what I need to treat him. I won’t be long.” Before Alex could protest, the tan-furred wolf was gone, his tail disappearing as the flap of the lodge dropped into place behind him.

Not knowing what else to do, Alex knelt where the wolf had been moments before and placed a hand against Shadowdance’s side, brushing at the fur with his fingers, carefully avoiding the patches of blisters and damaged skin. The grey wolf stretched, rolling stiffly onto his back, obviously enjoying the petting despite his injuries. His tongue lolled, and he growled playfully, paws batting at the air.

“You’re enjoying that,” Alex said, as much to himself as to the wolf.

The wolf’s only reply was to thump his tail happily against the ground, making Alex laugh.

“What’s so funny?” The wolf’s question startled Alex, whose hand stopped in mid-motion against Shadowdance’s belly.

“I’m not really sure,” Alex said after a few moments’ pause. “This still feels so unreal to me, at least in part. A month ago, I wouldn’t have believed in any of this. I was just this guy, praying to the “Great Bear Mother” in his living room. Now, I’m out in the woods, rubbing a werewolf’s belly like he’s an overgrown puppy-dog as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.”

Shadowdance growled quietly at the word “werewolf,” but his tail wagged again behind him anyway. “Do you think it’s not?”

“No, and that still frightens me,” Alex admitted, his fingers resuming their gentle brushing through the wolf’s pelt. “Being here feels right to a part of my mind I never really knew I had, in ways I can’t explain. It’s like I’m supposed to be here, even if I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’re a Lost One,” the wolf said simply enough, using that phrase again. He’d said it right when they’d arrived back at Watcher’s makeshift camp, and Alex had wanted to ask then what he’d meant, but it hadn’t seemed like a good time for it. “You’ll learn what you need to know as you need to know it,” he continued, his words carrying a childlike innocence, not spoken in sarcasm but honestly believed. “Until now, you weren’t ready to learn. Now you are, and you will.” He wheezed, lying back against the ground.

Alex opened his mouth to speak, but his words were cut short by the shrillest shriek that had ever reached his ears. It sounded like a baby’s cry, but amplified a hundred-fold, desperate and needy. By the time Alex had risen to his feet, Shadowdance was already onto all fours and out of the tent, paws pounding the ground irregularly as he hastily limped towards the source of the sound, letting out a raspy howl in answer.

Alex quickly caught up with the injured wolf, and the two raced out of the clearing, deeper into the forest, following the repeated cry, and then out from the underbrush burst the rabbit, her eyes wide, ears flat against her head, heart racing. She staggered, limping, one of her hind-paws wrapped in a makeshift bandage. Her arms flailed wildly in front of her, fighting off some unseen adversary. She opened her muzzle to scream again, but the wolf leapt at her, knocking her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her.

“Grab her, before she runs again!” the wolf shouted hoarsely to Alex. In the time between when he left the ground and when he fell against the hare, his form had blurred the line between wolf and man, grey-furred arms wrapping around her, trying to pin her to the ground. “Briar! It’s Dancer!”

With a strength borne of fear and madness, Briar tore herself out of the wolf’s arms, but before she could rise, Alex had joined into the fray, throwing his weight on top of her; between himself and the wolf, they held her to the ground. She tried to lash out against her assailants with her good hind-paw, but Shadowdance trapped her legs beneath him, sitting astride her, holding her to the ground. “Briar! Relax! You’re safe! It’s Dancer!”

Briar drew in a sudden breath as if to scream, but something in the wolf’s words seemed to reach her. She blinked rapidly, her ears slowly righting themselves. She lifted her head, looking down at the wolf sitting astride her legs. “Dancer?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, weak from her panicked screaming. Then she turned her head, looking up at the man holding down her arms. Her eyes went wide, and for a moment Alex thought she might try to fight her way free, but then she said softly, “You’re the bear.”

Alex heaved a sigh, then shook his head. “Not really. What happened? Are you alright? What happened to your leg?” The questions came naturally, as did the desire to avoid thinking too much about the hare’s comment.

“Someone… lunged at me.” Briar’s eyes went wide again. “I didn’t hear anything, couldn’t smell anything. Just, there he was, and his fists were at my throat. He tried to grab me. I ran.”

“What’s this? Briar!” Watcher’s voice rang across the woods as the tan-furred wolf ran towards the trio, his arms laden with twigs, berries and needles. “Shadowdance! You should be lying down!” His tail snapped from side to side as he approached. “What happened?”

Alex looked down at Briar, then released her arms and stood, brushing the dirt from the legs of his jeans. “Someone tried to attack Briar, it seems. She said someone jumped her.”

Watcher’s ears went flat, and he looked down at the rabbit. “Is this true?”

Briar nodded, squirming out from under the wolf. “When I broke free, he ran, but he can’t be far.” Her voice was even, but her paws and ears still shook, and her breath came in short bursts as she recovered from her assault.

Watcher scowled, the corners of his muzzle tight. “I can smell no-one save the four of us, which makes me all the more concerned.” His tail curled tightly against his back in anger, his deep brown eyes narrowed to slits. “We must assume our presence here is known, which means it will likely not be long before they return, with reinforcements.” He looked around the gathering, catching each of the others’ eyes in turn. “They must know that you have all survived the attempts on your lives. The Shepherds are nothing if not persistent. That means they will try again, and soon.”