In the Mouth of the Wolf Read online

  “What about the Clan in Friuli? Are they okay?”

  “They are all fine.” She stopped and swung the flashlight back and forth. “One of us—the Concilio—stayed behind to assist them. This way,” she said and pointed her light into a dense thicket of trees.

  “How do you know? Have you been here before?”

  She didn’t answer me—just stepped over a patch of muddy snow. Somehow, her boots had stayed clean. I looked down. My Converse sneakers were so filthy you could barely tell they were once bright blue suede. Nerina flicked an errant leaf off her coat sleeve. She and Jenny obviously shared the same fashionista gene. It had skipped my mother’s birthing room the day I was born.

  “Here we are.” We had reached the low wall that marked the edge of our property. Nerina walked its length, sweeping her light over the crumbling stones.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “I could’ve gotten us here without the flashlight. I know every inch of this farm.”

  “You don’t know this inch,” Nerina murmured as she scanned the wall carefully, taking in every nook and cranny between the ancient stones.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “The door, of course.”

  The door? What door? Was she nuts? I shot a look at Heath, but he was focused on Nerina, his lips pressed in a thin line.

  “Ah. Here it is.” She set the flashlight on the wall, its light beaming upwards. Shadows skittered in its circular white glow. Nerina knelt beside the wall and reached her hand into a break between two large stones. She tugged, and there was a loud creak, like something awakening that had been asleep for a long, long time.

  My breath caught. The ground below the wall shifted and moved. A narrow space appeared, big enough for a person to squeeze through.

  A door.

  “How,” I said, squinting at Nerina, “did you know that was there?”

  She grinned up at me, not answering as she lowered herself into the space. I peered into it. A staircase spiraled down—to what, I had no idea.

  Heath grabbed the flashlight and disappeared behind Nerina. I looked up at the sky. The faintest line of pale blue sky stretched over the treetops. Daybreak was not far off. Pretty soon, Lidia would be awake. And where would I be? “Underground like a hedgehog,” I muttered and lowered myself onto the first step.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the space opened up into three rooms with concrete floors and walls. Retro furniture populated the rooms, a small but fully equipped kitchen and a comfortable sitting area. The bedroom was dominated by a vanity I could imagine Marilyn Monroe sitting at. But the bed was covered with a quilt that had a huge peace symbol stitched into the center.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I didn’t know the DHARMA Initiative had a hatch here.”

  “Where’s the button we have to push every hundred eight minutes?” Heath asked.

  I put my hand over my heart and fluttered my eyelashes at him. “I’ve never been prouder of you than at this very moment.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Nerina flung her coat over one of the orange plastic chairs in the kitchen.

  “Haven’t you ever seen Lost?” I asked.

  “I have never been lost,” Nerina said, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle in her skirt.

  “It’s a TV show.”

  “The Concilio has better things to do than watch television,” Nerina said with a sniff.

  I clenched my jaw. If she was going to hole up in a secret hideout on my farm, she needed to drop the attitude. “So what is this place? And how come I never knew it was here?”

  “Darling, I doubt anyone else alive knows this is here,” Nerina said, running a forefinger along the kitchen table. Her fingertip blackened with dust. “We built it during the Cold War.” A little laugh escaped, as if she were a baby bird learning to chirp. “After all, why do you think the Russians and the Americans were at odds to begin with?”

  “Um, Communism?” I said.

  Heath shot me a watch it look. I’d probably be in for a how-to-treat-your-elders lecture later. But Nerina wasn’t much of an elder. I watched her go through the drawers in the kitchen. She looked barely older than me, maybe a few years younger than Heath.

  Nerina moved on to the sitting area and started plumping pillows. Dust billowed. “Is this how you train her, caro mia? To be rude and impertinent?”

  “Don’t call me caro mia,” Heath shouted so loudly that I jumped. “I am not your caro mia. The Concilio made damn sure of that—”

  “Do not raise your voice to me—”

  “You can’t just barge in here and take over—”

  “What did you expect—?”

  “—and act like you’re still my Guide.”

  “I am still your elder!”

  “Stop it!” I threw up my hands.

  They both looked at me. Heath’s fair skin was mottled; even his hands were blotchy. Nerina had the same look on her face that my mother got when she was about to throw a full-fledged Italian fit.

  I took a deep breath. “Look, I know you two have history, but, Nerina, if you’re gonna be staying here, you gotta get along. I can’t play peacemaker all the time.”

  Heath ducked his head. “She’s right.”

  Nerina mumbled something in Italian.

  “I’m not a child. I’m old enough to be a Benandante, so don’t treat me like a kid.” I gave her a little twisted half smile. “And, yeah, I speak fluent Italian.”

  “So I see,” Nerina said, folding her arms.

  “Besides,” I said, “you’re not much older than I am. I didn’t realize the Concilio elders could be so young.”

  Nerina dropped her arms and looked at Heath. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “Don’t start. She didn’t need to know.”

  A little throb started at the base of my skull. “Know what?”

  Nerina came around the coffee table and stood in front of me, so close I could see every nonexistent pore in her unlined face. “Do you not know what magic the Friuli site holds, cara?”

  I shook my head.

  She touched her face, as though to remind herself of what she looked like. “One taste of the juice from the sacred Olive Grove, and you will stop aging.”

  I swallowed hard. My throat felt dry. “When—? When did you stop aging?” I whispered.

  “When I was eighteen.” She smiled. “Anno Domini 1575.”

  Chapter Two

  Where Do They Keep the Self-Help Books for Sisters of Super-Villains?

  Bree

  I slammed the book shut and tossed it on the floor. Why were all the novels these days about emo girls who lusted after vampires/werewolves/angels/some-hybrid-supernatural-hottie that just made the rest of us feel bad about our own lives? I reached for the next book in the pile on the nightstand and read the back cover. It was about an anorexic girl. Who was in love with a succubus. I flung the book across the room, where it landed on the thick carpet with a soft thud. Who had possessed my body when I’d checked that out of the library? I looked over at the nightstand. The only book left was Witchcraft of Italy.

  I stared hard at its ominous cover, black with the white silhouette of a witch flying by moonlight. Yeah, right. Witches didn’t fly by night on their broomsticks. No, they were much more sly and insidious. They escaped through second-story windows and ran through the woods on four huge black paws. They lived in your house and slept one room over.

  As if he could hear my thoughts, I heard a gasp. Barely audible—no way would my in-denial parents ever hear it—but I heard it. My senses were all too finely tuned these days.

  I eased out from under the covers and tiptoed to my door. The hallway was cold and silent, the still-unopened boxes making uneven shadows along the wall. I crossed to his doorway in two gazelle leaps. His door was locked, but a quick jiggle with a hairpin fixed that.

  Inside, Jonah sat on his bed, gasping for air as he clutched at his chest. Anyone else might have thought he was having a seiz
ure, but I knew better. Shit, did I know better. I wished I didn’t.

  “Get . . . out.” It was hardly a whisper.

  I stood in the doorway watching him. Anger, disgust, and fear all raged for space inside me. That could have been me. That should have been me. Thank God—or whoever—it wasn’t me.

  I moved to the side of the bed. “Jonah.” He looked up at me, and our gazes locked. In the depths of his green eyes, I saw something rare: shame.

  It’s not so cool being a supernatural hottie after you find out your girlfriend is your mortal enemy, is it? But I didn’t say that. Instead I touched his arm and leaned over him, my long hair like a dark curtain around us. “Don’t go,” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “No choice,” he gasped out.

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Not . . . for me.” He fell back on the bed and went limp. An instant later, in a flash of silver light, the Panther stood on the bed, his huge paws wrinkling the bedclothes. He blinked once at me, then leapt out the open window. By the time I crossed the room, he was only a dim, silvery glow on the ground below.

  I stood at the window for a long time. The air was cold as a witch’s tit—damn, but Maine was cold, colder than any place we’d ever been. In more ways than one. Finally, I backed away from the window and dropped into Jonah’s desk chair. I switched on his little banker’s lamp and examined the stack of books on his desk. No vampires, werewolves, or supernatural hotties. Who needed to read about them when you were one? With a sigh, I picked up A Clockwork Orange. Mr. Foster, the English teaching assistant, had raved about it the other day. I flipped it open and read the first page. Oh yeah. This was much more soothing than vampires.

  A loud thump against the window woke me with a start several hours later. A Clockwork Orange slid off my chest to the floor. The Panther stood on the windowsill, his bright green eyes narrowed at me. I scrambled to my feet and watched him. He stepped onto the desk, his huge paws knocking books aside, then sprang onto the bed. For a moment there were two Jonahs—the one I knew and the one whose life was a mystery to me.

  A flash of silver light blinded me for an instant. When I could see again, the Jonah I knew was back. I folded my arms. “Nice night?”

  Jonah ran his hands over his face. “I’m not in the mood, Bree.”

  I pressed my hand to my chest, my eyes wide. “Oh no! Did something happen?”

  He glared at my sarcasm and pushed himself off the bed.

  “I thought everything was sunshine and daisies in the land of the Malandanti,” I said, following him to the closet.

  “Just leave me alone.” He grabbed a clean shirt and tossed it on the bed.

  I blocked his path when he tried to get around me.

  “Come on, Bree. Not this morning.”

  “Then when? What morning works best for you? Do the Malandanti have a secretary who keeps your calendar?”

  “God, Bree.” Jonah threw his hands up. “You’re like a pit bull. You never let up.” He sidestepped me and grabbed a towel from the back of his chair. “This is none of your business.”

  Why couldn’t he see that everything he did was my business? He and I had shared a womb; that bond didn’t go away after the doctor slapped our asses. I crossed swiftly to the door before he could reach it. “It is my business. It’s my business now, and it’ll be my business the day you don’t come back through that window.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Yeah, like it didn’t happen to the person you replaced.”

  Jonah’s eyebrows shot up.

  I leaned back against the door. “What, you conveniently forgot that someone had to die before you could get Called?”

  Jonah looked at the floor. “They could’ve died of natural causes.”

  “And next Christmas you won’t get a pair of flannel long johns from Aunt Cindy. Wake up and smell the hazelnut latte.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to wake up,” he muttered. He bit his lip and turned his head.

  I should have felt triumphant for getting him to admit it, but I didn’t. Instead there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I stared at him. He kept his face turned. Shadows swam beneath his skin. And suddenly I understood. “You saw her tonight, didn’t you?”

  Chapter Three

  The Graveyard Revisited

  Alessia

  Ever since I had become a Benandante, I’d had a love-hate relationship with school. Love, because it—particularly, my friends—provided a great distraction from the life-and-death battle going on in my backyard. Hate, because it distracted me from the life-and-death battle going on in my backyard.

  It seemed pointless to worry about my GPA when I might not ever get the chance to put it to good use. But I had to keep up appearances, and the pre-Benandanti Alessia was an honors student, an award-winning writer, someone who wasn’t content to coast. I’d been coasting for months now, and that wave had had surprising longevity.

  But that Monday morning after Christmas break, the wave finally ran to shore.

  “Principal Morrissey would like to see you, dear,” one of the secretaries said when I walked into the office. I worked there first period and assumed Morrissey wanted to give me another soul-sucking filing job. Not that I minded. My brain still needed time to wrap around the fact that I had a four-hundred-fiftysomething-year-old immortal living underground on my farm.

  “Sit down, Alessia,” Principal Morrissey said when I sidled into his office. He had an open file on his desk. I slid into the seat opposite him and saw it was my file.

  I squirmed a little in the big comfy chair. Maybe I wasn’t being given a soul-sucking filing job after all.

  Morrissey steepled his fingers and fixed his gaze on my face. My skin grew hot and itchy. I felt as if I were back in third grade, when I had to go stand in the corner for passing notes with Jenny. It was the first and last time I’d gotten into trouble in school.

  “Alessia,” Principal Morrissey said, “I’m concerned about you.”

  I swallowed. “Um, why?”

  “Well”—he looked down at the file—“your midterm grades aren’t up to their usual standards at all.”

  Midterms had been the week after Jonah had broken up with me, after I’d transformed right in front of him. So, yeah. Not my usual standards. “That was a tough week for me.”

  Morrissey laid his palms flat on the desk. “Alessia, it’s not like you to let a boy affect your grades.”

  My jaw dropped. “How—? How did you know that?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not sitting up here in an ivory tower. I know what goes on in this school—and this town.”

  I looked at my hands in my lap. “He’s not affecting my grades.”

  “I beg to differ.” Morrissey tapped the file. “You’ve gotten practically straight As throughout your entire high school career.” His face softened. “Even after your dad died, which would’ve been completely understandable, but your grades stayed up. And now suddenly you’re struggling to get a B. What’s different? The boyfriend.”

  I pressed my lips together. The boyfriend wasn’t the only thing different. But I couldn’t tell Morrissey my schoolwork was suffering because I was out defending a precious magical site every night.

  Morrissey closed the file. “I need to see an improvement the first half of this semester, or your mother and I will have to have a conference. Understood?”

  I nodded. “Understood.”

  “Do you, Alessia? Do you understand? No boy is worth losing your academic status for. Or covering for in the office.”

  I looked away. “Sorry about that.”

  “I was young and in love once too.” His brow furrowed. “But if it happens again, I’m going to have to give you detention.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, focused on the edge of his desk. It was the first time I’d been in trouble since the third grade, and Morrissey had always been nice to me. My cheeks burned.

  “Good. I think Mrs. Peterson
has some filing for you,” Morrissey said. He spun his chair around and stuck my file back into one of the drawers behind him. “And speaking of young Mr. Wolfe, would you please send him in?”

  I froze, halfway out of the comfy chair. “What?”

  Principal Morrissey swiveled back to face me. “He’s back from his suspension. I hope that doesn’t throw you off your game today.”

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. I knew Jonah would have to come back from suspension eventually, but I had put off thinking about it at all. And after seeing him at the Waterfall last night . . .

  My heart thudding, I opened the door to Morrissey’s office. Jonah sat in one of the plastic chairs against the wall, his peacoat unbuttoned to reveal a grey T-shirt with Smokey the Bear and the phrase Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires! emblazoned on it. He rose when I came out of the office.

  “Principal Morrissey wants to see you.” I didn’t meet his gaze. I walked right past him to Mrs. Peterson’s desk and, though I heard him say thanks, I didn’t turn around.

  After first period, I counted the steps from the office to French class, feeling the weight of each one. Morrissey had for sure set Jonah on a strict course to good behavior, which meant he would be in the seat behind me in second-period French, his presence burning a hole in my spine.

  Jenny caught up with me outside the classroom door. As soon as she opened her mouth, I cut her off. “Jonah’s back.”

  She linked an arm through mine as we went into class. “Well, you knew he’d be back after the holidays.” She squeezed my elbow. “Do you want to switch seats with me?”

  That was why Jenny was the best friend a girl could ever have. I leaned my head onto her shoulder. “No, that’s okay. But thanks.”

  We broke apart as we reached our seats. Carly, the third member of our little foursome, slid into the seat in front of Jenny.

  “Don’t worry,” Jenny said. “We’ll shoot him looks of shame, won’t we, Carly?”