Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (5 page)

“Yes,” she
nodded. Tisane could tell by the clouds and how they crowded the
mountains if rain would come, her eyes narrowed at the greying sky.
She changed the subject. “How was Cres?”

I recalled we
hadn’t had time to discuss our meeting. Lately I had been like a
ship in the night passing in and out of the house. I paused. “Same
old, same old.” Then I recalled, “She predicted a girl and a
betrayal.” I resisted to mention the man on the news.

“Same shit
different day?” I looked at her surprised and she smiled. “It
wouldn’t necessarily be Caroline,” she suggested with a shrug.

I noted with
annoyance that she was quick to defend her. “I didn’t think it was.
I take this stuff with a grain of salt.” I turned my face away.
“Did you tell Caroline I had a sharp tongue?”

“I knew you
would be defensive.”

I looked at
her.

“You did pull a
gun,” she reminded me. I knew with a twinge it was true.

We fell silent.
I knew with a broken laugh resistance was futile. I cracked my neck
“Why do they toy with us?” I said as it cracked.

“Who, the
Gods?” she guessed, watching me stretch. She sighed, “If I was up
there I would eat every kind of chocolate and sweet food and never
gain any weight,” she smiled crookedly.

“Really?” I
said bemused. I laughed under my breath as a weak smirk twisted my
lips. “Is that what you think about?”

“Wouldn’t
you?”

“Ummm,” I
chuckled under my breath. “I would wish to be - I don’t know, to
change places with a God,” I tapped my hand on the railing. “It
might just be good to be free, normal again.” I looked at the
carving over the door. “Maybe I would have…wings?”

“Come on Lila
were you ever normal?” she said reticently. I gave her a quizzical
look. She shook her head and glanced at the artwork “As for the
wings maybe you should ask Demeter?”

“Was that your
grandmother?”

“No. There was
a story, a legend that says when the Goddess Demeter’s daughter
Persephone was taken, she searched high and low for her and she
even gave the sirens wings so that they could help find her.”

“Is that why
your grandmother added the wings?”

“Maybe...who
knows?” Her eyes were wide with the childish possibility of the
Gods being real entities, and she shrugged.

“Did they find
her? Persephone?”

“Yes, she had
been kidnapped by the lord of the underworld.”

“And did the
sirens save her?”

“No, she was
trapped by Hades. He gave her the seed of the Mortis Lily to eat on
the night he was to set her free and she was forever trapped in the
underworld.” She paused. “But the story goes that she was the
goddess of spring growth and without her the earth would not seed,
so she was allowed to leave Hades for half the year and when she
goes back to the land of the dead, the earth becomes cold. When she
returns to Olympus, it is spring again. She is the goddess of
spring growth. The three curses are making it harder for her to
control the seasons.”

“Because Zeus
controls the clouds.” My brow puckered.

“He and Apollo
are changing the atmosphere.”

“You mean it’s
not all global warming?” I joked.

“If Apollo
wins, the earth will be hot, and if Zeus continues to overpower him
it will be too wet.” She advised with gentle frown.

“The seasons
can’t come.” I thought a moment. “Can’t she stop them?”

“My mother said
that to break the curse, Artemis would return to the earth in
search of her lover, helped by satyrs sent secretly by Persephone
from the underworld and they would break the thousand year old
curse of Shade.”

“If only she
had sent them,” I humoured her. We stared at the forest, the scent
of pine and eucalyptus drifted as the sun warmed. “What do they
look like?”

“What?” She
pondered.

“Satyrs?”

“In legend they
are the creatures that guarded Hades in the underworld.”

I indulged her
make-believe for a moment. “Maybe they could fight the wolves?” I
caught her eye, “They sound pretty scary.”

“My mother said
Persephone sent them in her likeness.”

“Why didn’t she
just send a lot of them to fight then?”

“Because Hades
would stop her and only the huntress can undo the curse.”

I huffed “What
if she can’t?”

“Lila I know it
doesn’t mean much to you now, but in order to learn in each life
what we have not experienced in the last, we must overcome
challenges. Somewhere in the realm of unconsciousness our souls
decide to be reborn into these situations.” She held my glance.
Previously I had asked Tisane why life was as it was, and she had
told me that she believed we lived many lives.

“We choose the
lives we ultimately live?” I recalled.

“Yes,” she
confirmed.

“So it’s
fate?”

“No,” her tone
was serious as her blue eyes widened. “We can always change things,
but you have to choose what you will and won’t resist; the harder
it is to avoid, the more it is fated.”

“Because of
reasons bigger than us.” I wondered why I got into these
conversations with her, they never seemed to change anything. How
could I be fated to love and murder? I wanted to accept the path I
had been seemingly born to, but neither did I really have a choice.
“So I shouldn’t waste my time fighting it?”

“Not unless you
have to,” she was certain. “Some people are made stronger by
hardship.”

I sighed. Light
rain began to fall in a fine veil around the house.

“Why do you
help me,” I was completely serious now, “when you know your sister
is...gone?” Though she wasn’t dead she had been turned and not just
to wolf, but also to the dark.

“I believe you
will end the curse.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.
I am superstitious?” she offered. Her face stilled and her eyes
widened in honesty. “It’s human nature to think the grass is
greener. Lila, we all wish we were something we’re not. I believe
you were chosen for this.”

I was inwardly
frightened and touched by her genuineness. “Fine, I will believe
and blame the underworld for all of my problems and take it in my
stride.” I straightened up. “What’s for breakfast?” my lip curled.
If anyone was going to end the war, I had my bet on Caroline.

“I’ll make some
tea and toast,” Tisane offered pleasantly, as though it was a cure
for all ills.

I gave a
reassuring smile as she headed for the kitchen but I wondered what
the view was like from the clouds as the rain pattered on the roof.
My eyes traced the silvery clouds. If Caroline was the huntress she
would return to us. I knew it.

The Gods were
patient, if I was some prophet, then why was I the last to know it
and why had it taken so many hundreds of years? How was I to break
something that had lasted for so long? In my heart I held a secret,
so absolutely against the huntress’s legacy – I knew I couldn’t be
the one. I was sticking to my guns. If Caroline came I would train
her, but only to take my place. Tisane was right, there was no
choice, there never had been. I would have done anything for the
huntress but he was a sacrifice I wasn’t willing to make. Anything
could happen.

The old pack
was like a magnet that pulled you back in. Aylish watched the
scenery through the car window as the desolate waving hills slowly
became forest and then trees, which signalled the valley was coming
closer. The temperature dropped as it only does in dense forest,
especially on the mountain as they descended into the Valley Shire,
past ferns and miniature creeks lined with moss, which ran only
when it rained.

She had not
intended to return so soon. It was, and had been, safer for them
away from Shade Valley. Somehow, Sam had convinced her that the
pack was the best place for them now.

Dieter had a
plan and they had been seduced into believing he had somehow made a
better life for the wolves now, and was convinced they were needed.
The more she thought about it, the more she knew they should have
stayed away. For some reason she found herself in the black car
being driven back into the arms of the pack she had abandoned, her
original territory, and her brow crinkled.

She knew she
wasn’t there in the back seat willingly, but returning for Dahlia’s
sake? She told herself she would leave again soon, when the time
was right, because surely a holiday would be fun? But she sensed in
herself a seediness that wasn’t only caused by the car swaying into
the depths of Shade, down Brown Mountain that guarded the valley
from the wastelands and led to the sea. She had a sixth sense that
told her something sinister was afoot and she told that part of
herself there was little she could do now they were in the car, so
close, with Sam at the wheel. Yes indeed, she had the distinct,
dreadful feeling they had been trapped back to the pack. She
remembered the promises Sam had used to persuade them back and she
knew she had not even wanted to hear them.

When Sam had
appeared at the door, Dahlia’s striking blue eyes had said it all
as they lit up like Christmas lights. Sam asked them how old they
were, as immortality made it hard to tell, but when they didn’t
answer, she realized they didn’t have to. They wore Ra Ra skirts
and ripped jeans, it was easy to tell in which decade they had been
turned.

“I’m done with
Shade,” Aylish said.

Sam knew it was
unnatural for wolves to live in the city, but she resisted saying
it.

“Paws needs
you, needs all of us to work together. Once we have the town under
our thumbs and the hunters trapped, we will no longer have to live
in fear; we will be the police, the law, and the hospital.” The
copper flecks in her eyes glimmered. She secretly wondered how they
could stand the tiny confines of the unit.

Aylish knew it
sounded too easy. “There is danger in everything.”

“No, we have
already done the hard part, taken all the risks. We just need the
numbers, the support of our kind.” She glanced at Aylish’s
expression, “You can be given an easy role if you like - and the
pack will be bigger than ever, stronger than ever,” she preached
passionately.

“No, we won’t
go back.” She looked at Dahlia who had been listening on the fringe
of the room and she knew this saddened her as she looked downward,
her black lashes sweeping her deep caramel cheeks on her overly
made up face.

“We are happier
here, away from all that…pain,” she said to Sam, but her sharp
words were for Dahlia, to remind her.

“Very well, we
will just have to find support elsewhere, or if need be, take a few
more members to make up numbers.”

Aylish imagined
Sam stalking Queenbeyan for fresh blood. “You know that may spawn
another huntress.” Secretly, she hoped the hunter wouldn’t appear
near their place in the city, instead of in Shade. If the wolves
began to break ranks and multiply, it was possible hunters would
follow.

“If you are so
frightened, why not join us? There’s strength in numbers.”

Aylish just
looked appalled at Sam. “Safety in numbers,” she repeated glumly.
She knew numbers could turn on their own and Aylish only trusted
herself.

It was then, in
the car swirling down the mountain road, that a feeling struck her,
like she had forgotten something and silent terror made her panic.
Lonnie. For some reason they had left him. She looked about as if
in a dream, only to see Dahlia in the front passenger seat and Sam
at the wheel. She recalled vaguely the way they had packed
suitcases and Sam had helped load them in the car, but Lonnie
hadn’t been home and they hadn’t spoken of him, had they? They
hadn’t left a note. Something wasn’t right. Why had they left
without at least discussing it with him?

She touched her
temple. This wasn’t right; she did not want to return to Shade.
Only horrible memories awaited her there. Sam had used some
witchery to get them here in the car with her. Aylish felt as
though she had just awoken, but her eyes had been and remained wide
open since they had left their home in the dark car. She recalled
in a daze the last few hours since Samantha had arrived at their
door with her long white hair, and with a wave of creeping nausea,
she knew perhaps Lonnie would think they had abandoned him. But
then she was hopeful he would follow, and then frightened he would
be as hypnotized as they were. Would Samantha return for him?

Suddenly she
couldn’t stay quiet any longer in the silent car. One of her pack
was missing.

“Where’s
Lonnie?”

Sam glanced at
her as she navigated a corner swiftly with the wheel, “The other
one? He's coming,” she soothed with painted lips as her phone rang.
Promptly she answered it.

When the black
car rolled down the gravel road into the compound, Aylish had no
choice but to emerge with Sam and Dahlia as the doors opened and
Paws, with a small toothy smile, greeted them. Aylish gritted her
teeth hard inside her tightly closed mouth.

“Sam, only
two?” he teased upon seeing them, arms out. Like Aylish had never
left, there he was, frozen in time, except his hair was longer and
he hadn’t shaved. She had to remind herself neither had she changed
in all these years, her face was always the same every day in the
mirror. He tried to hide the edge in his voice as he plastered a
fake smile over his concern and greeted the girls.

“Two’s better
than none,” Sam said, lightly kissing his cheek. They exchanged a
momentary tense glance as something unsaid passed between them. He
patted her back as he gestured wide with his right arm for the
other girls to enter the front door. Sam went ahead and met Narine
inside. Aylish still felt wide-eyed, like a deer in headlights and
the sun hurt her eyes in the dimming daylight of afternoon.
However, she knew exactly where she was, but not why she was here.
Somewhere inside herself she sensed she should have been more
fearful. It wasn’t the dream state that allayed terror in her, but
the fact that she had faced horror before, more brutal and gut
wrenching than anything they could force upon her.