Red, The Wolf

Part 11: The Jailbreak

Night descended over Queston, yet the Garrity household remained brightly lit.

"Deborah," Burch urged, "Come to bed."

The silver-haired woman sat by the fire, rocking back and forth with anxious energy, her eyes fixed on the front door. "But what if she's been killed? What if that wolf got her at last? It's been three days, Burch--she's never away that long!"

Henny lay curled on the sleeping mat behind the curtain that separated the "bedrooms" from the rest of the house. She had "gone to bed" a while ago, but sleep had eluded her ever since the encounter with Red in the alley, and the fight she'd had against Marc. He'd almost killed her--and it was all Henny's fault! How had she not seen his volatile temper before? How had he convinced her to trust him so blindly? Had Red, in her pursuit of the white wolf, accidentally encountered Marc in the mountains, and he'd taken his revenge?

The candles were lit, but no Wolf came... Where was the Guardian, and what would Queston do without her? 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Red slowly regained consciousness, still breathing deeply--though she smelled the scents of normal air--herbs, fresh dirt, morning dew, and the woody smell of rafters and floors and furniture.

She opened her eyes and saw Greta standing over her, as she lay on her side. Red shifted her gaze to her limbs extended before her--and saw, as she had for the past three mornings, a pair of wolf paws. She lifted her head and whined in confusion. Why had the potion not worked? Would she be a wolf forever?

Greta's eyes watched Red closely, as she gently stroked the wolf's side. "You are wounded," she remarked.

Red didn't flinch as the woman actually extended a finger toward the section of unmarked fur, touching what appeared to be a perfectly healthy limb. "Right there," she said.

What should have been a light touch was so precise that Red felt the thrust of a knife-blade right underneath it, clear to the bone. It felt like getting stabbed by Marc all over again--but why? Had his blade carried some kind of poison she didn't know about?

"That's why the potion didn't work," sighed the thaumaturge. "There is something about that wound you carry upon your human form that would kill you if you were to shift before it is dealt with. In this sense, the blockage is saving your life--but I'll bet you still want to be able to shift into human at some point, don't you?"

Red lay her head back down again and gave a grunt, flopping her tail on the table behind her for good measure. She did indeed wish to be human, by any means necessary.

"As I expected," Greta mused. "I'll have to go deeper to find the source of the injury, and it will hurt--but you can trust me."

Red lay still, and turned her mind to memories of Queston. She felt Greta's magic slicing into her like a handful of the sharpest knives imaginable, but she deliberately detached from that sensation, focusing intently on seeing Burch and Deborah again, feeling Deborah's warm embrace, and Burch's weathered, rough hands rubbing her shoulder proudly. She thought about seeing her old den again, and the pile of mixed furs, the feeling of bathing in the quiet mountain stream and washing Rascal's stench and filth off her body completely.

Rascal... There was still the matter of Justin stealing from Queston that Red wanted him to answer for--but he couldn't do that from the Callica prison, and she couldn't very well call him to account while still a wolf. She needed her human body back, and soon!

"All finished!" Greta announced, moving away to wash her bloody hands. Red looked down to see her side all stitched and bandaged closed, with a blood-soaked shard of metal resting on the table beside her. She sniffed at it. The blood gave off a coppery smell, but there was another scent underneath, one that gave the Red Wolf a sense of real danger.

"It's silver, all right," Greta confirmed, returning to her side. "I'm guessing you were fighting somebody, and a piece of their silver knife must have broken off in your shoulder. You didn't know it, and shifted shortly thereafter, and in the process, the shard slipped into the muscle very close to your heart, where I found it. The way it was situated, any attempt at shifting would have just rammed the shard deeper into your heart and killed you at once. You're lucky you found me when you did--a wound that bad sustained in another form would have slowly weakened you to death, anyway; not to mention the psychological dangers of spending too much time in one form." She stroked the top of Red's head. "Are you ready to try shifting again?"

In answer, Red the Wolf closed her eyes and recalled what it felt like to be human, the shape and balance of her human body, the feel of her clothes... A shiver ran the length of her spine, and she felt her bones twisting and stretching...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>