“You’ve got a smart mouth, girl,” Esmé called as she walked off.
Now Vivian was sure she was going.
He had phoned, and she wasn’t an outsider anymore-untouchable and strange, perhaps invisible. But why should she care so much? He was a human after all: a meat-boy scantily furred, an incomplete creature who had only one form.
How sad, she thought, and suddenly she craved the change.
Like all her people, at the full moon she had to change whether she wanted to or not, the urge was too strong to refuse. Other times she could change at will, either partway or fully. Right now the moon swelled like a seven-month belly, and she wanted to change because it was possible. She wanted to run for the joy of it.
She stalked through the backyard dusk, across the bat-grazed clearing in the narrow ribbon of woods out back, over the stream, up the embankment, and down into the wide grassy valley that held the river.
The grass was already high. Here and there might be nests made by kids making out or getting high, but she sniffed the air and smelled no human flesh.
Down by the river was a giant tumble of rocks that screened the riverbank. Behind the rocks, amid the shoulder-high weeds, she slowly slid off her clothes. Already her skin prickled with the sprouting pelt. A trickle of breeze curled around her buttocks, and her nipples tightened in the cool air off the river. She laughed and threw her panties down.
Her laugh turned to a moan at the first ripple in her bones. She tensed her thighs and abdomen to will the change on, and clutched the night air like a lover as her fingers lengthened and her nails sprouted. Her blood churned with heat like desire.
The night, she thought, the sweet night.
The exciting smells of rabbit, damp earth, and urine drenched the air.
The flesh of her arms bubbled and her legs buckled to a new shape. She doubled over as the muscles of her abdomen went into a brief spasm, then grimaced as her teeth sharpened and her jaw extended. She felt the momentary pain of the spine’s crunch and then the sweet release.
She was a creature much larger and stronger than any natural wolf. Her toes and legs were too long, her ears too big, and her eyes held fire.
Wolf was only a convenient term they had adopted. Those who preferred science to myth said they descended from something older-some early mammal that had absorbed protean matter brought to Earth by a meteorite.
Vivian stretched and pawed at the ground, she sniffed the glorious air. She felt as if her tail could sweep the stars from the sky.
I will howl for you, human boy, she thought.
I will hunt you in my girl skin but I’ll celebrate as wolf.
And she ran the length of the river to the edge of the city slums and back, under the hopeful early-summer moon.
By eight o’clock the large parlor of Vivian’s home was full. The pack spread around the room on couches, chairs, and the floor in a rough semicircle that faced the fireplace-except Astrid, who lounged apart on the seat set into the bay window at the front of the house, and the Five, who loitered to the side of the window, bantering and exchanging playful blows.
Among the crowd were strays who had gravitated to the pack when it came to the suburbs, and others Vivian didn’t know well who had worked at the inn when she was much younger. Many of those who had gone to join relatives when the trouble started hadn’t come back.
Vivian felt a pang of loneliness.
This is all that’s left of us, she thought.
And no one I feel close to. Not even Mom anymore.
She curled up smaller in her armchair.
Astrid laughed at the boys’ antics. When she tossed her head, her red hair flamed against the green curtains. With her sharp features and plump rear, she reminded Vivian more of a fox than a wolf.
Gabriel paced restlessly in front of the fireplace. Astrid glanced over at him repeatedly until she finally caught his eye; then she winked. His grin was slow and smoldering; she sat back with a satisfied smirk.
Vivian’s mother saw the exchange, too. “Bitch,” she muttered. She leaned across Vivian to complain to Renata Wagner, then looked over at Gabriel and licked her lips pointedly.
Renata laughed. “Stop it, Esmé.”
Vivian turned away, embarrassed.
“Can we have quiet, please,” Rudy shouted.
Jenny Garnier flinched and clutched her baby closer to her. She’d been as raw as a trapped rabbit since she’d lost her husband in the fire. Rudy reached out from his perch on the overstuffed arm of the couch to pat her shoulder reassuringly.
Everyone looked his way expectantly. Well, almost everyone.
Willem and Finn cackled and batted at each other to either side of Ulf, who dodged between them, a panicked look on his small, pale face. Rafe was telling the awestruck Gregory how big some girl’s breasts were.
Rafe’s father, Lucien, twisted around in the easy chair he slouched in. “Quit it,” he growled, and raised a fist. Rafe glared at his father, but he waited until Lucien turned away before he gave him the finger.
“The insurance money’s come through,” Rudy said into the silence. There was a brief hiss of whispers. “We’ve got enough to do what we want now.”
Vivian bit back a yelp of outrage. This was the news they’d been waiting for and Rudy hadn’t told her. They had eaten breakfast together, for Moon’s sake.
“And the funny thing is,” Rudy continued, “we wouldn’t have got the money if Sheriff Wilson hadn’t spent so much effort covering up the evidence that the fire was arson so his buddies wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“Three cheers for Sheriff Wilson,” Bucky Dideron called, to gales of laughter.
Rudy raised his arms. “Okay, okay.”
The room quieted.
“My agents checked out some viable properties,” Rudy said. “It’s time to choose where the pack will go.”
“And who’ll lead us,” Gabriel said. Vivian was irritated to see Esmé smiling. There was no mystery about who she supported.
On the floor in front of their oblivious mother, Gabriel’s sisters-disturbingly similar eight-year-old triplets-were intent on finding out who could sit on top of the others the longest. Vivian itched to go over and smack them till they yelped. Before she gave in to the itch Gabriel leaned over and whispered something to them and they settled down.
Old Orlando Griffin spoke up in a quavering voice. “Rudy, you’re the one who’s pulled it all together. You took us in when we were homeless, helped us settle in an unfamiliar place, found the lawyers, and found the agents. You’ve been a good leader while we’ve been here.” He pointed to Rudy with a burn-scarred hand. “I vote you leader for the move.”
“I appreciate your support,” Rudy said. “But I’m not going with you.”
“Rudy!” Esmé exclaimed.
Rudy ran his fingers through his badger-gray hair. “My life’s here. I was willing to help while I could and get things going again, but now it’s time for you to move on, and for that you need a different type of leader than I have the strength or the will to be.”
“You’re assuming a lot,” Astrid called from her window perch.
Rudy’s brow creased. “What do you mean?”
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