Robert Charrette - Find your own truth

"There's no more Janice. She's kawaruhito, a changeling no more a part of anybody's family than of polite society. What's left found someone to care about her. Someone who didn't run away and hide when he knew what she had become. But that someone is dead now. Remember?" "Whatever face Hyde-White showed…"

"Dan Shiroi!" she shouted, erupting explosively from her huddle to tower over him.

Sam looked up into the dark face that twisted with emotion. She still clung to her vision of that wendigo as a protector. As long as she did, his influence over her remained. "Whatever face he showed you, he was evil. He was a killer who sought to enlist others in his villainy. However kindly he seemed to you, he was consumed by his wendigo nature. He was a liar and a deceiver. You know that what I say is true." "You killed him," she said flatly. "I swore once that I would never take an innocent life. And I don't think that I've broken that oath. He was no innocent; he was a murderer, and he would have made you over in his own image. Killing him was the only way to end the threat he posed to you and many true innocents. It was the only way to free you from his influence."

"I didn't want to be free. Dan loved me." Sam remembered the scene in Hyde-White's retreat where the wendigo that Janice knew as Dan Shiroi had come back from the brink, of death, or perhaps from beyond, to keep her from attacking Sam and Hart as they lay wounded and helpless. "That may be so, but only at the end was he worthy of your love. As a wendigo, he understood the danger to your soul. But it wasn't a wendigo that saved you. It was too late for him, but he knew that you should not be like him. He gave you a chance to change things.

"You say he loved you. I love you, too. I want to see you saved from this wendigo curse, and IVe come to tell you there's hope. I think we've found a way to change you back. We've built a ritual to save you, but you must come to Mount Rainier."

"Save me?" Her lip lifted to reveal yellowed tusks, but Sam couldn't tell if it was a sneer or a snarl. "It's too late. Where were you when they sent me to Yomi?''

"I didn't find out you were going through kawaru until it was too late. Then they wouldn't let me see you. I tried everything to find you."

"But you didn't succeed, did you? Not until you could take away everything that meant anything to me."

"I did what had to be done."

She turned her face away. For minutes she was quiet. Then, she said, "I'm staying here."

Sam was appalled. "Staying here? What have you got here? I'm offering you a way to get your life back."

He reached out to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her, but his hands couldn't grip her. She turned at his ethereal touch and glared at him.

"You can't be serious. Nothing could ever be the same. Your precious little sister Janice Verner is dead. She died before you left your cozy corporate cocoon at Raku. She was replaced by ASN1778, who went to Yomi and got a new life, but even that non-person is dead. Abandoned, like the one who had gone before. Why would I want either of those lives back? I had happiness and you took it away."

"You weren't happy. You were enthralled by the wendigo's false promises."

"How could you begin to know what I had?"

"I know the sister I grew up with, I know the parents who raised her. I know what they taught us, and what they would think of anyone who succumbed to the wendigo nature. And because I know all that, I know what you must think of what has happened to you. You can't give in, Janice. Don't let despair win. There's hope."

"I don't want hope. All I want now is peace."

"You can't have it as a wendigo."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly with a rumble that was half growl and half moan. Her eyes left his face and traveled along the distant horizon. " There is peace here."

Sam looked around. Astrally, he could feel the emo 62

Robert N. Charrette tions of the place. The air was filled with despair, hopelessness, sorrow, spite, and hate. There was not a trace that he could identify as peaceful.

"You're wrong, Janice. There's nothing for you here."

"No, you're wrong. There is safety here. This was Dan's place, his refuge in the lean days when the magic wasn't strong enough to let him walk among you norms. The hunger is weak here. In the quiet its absence creates, I can sleep the dreamless sleep. As I was doing until you disturbed me. You should be happy that I'm here. As long as I stay hi this place, you and all your kind are safe from me."

Sam suddenly understood why she refused to leave. "You're afraid."

She growled, but there was no spirit in the sound. He saw his opening, a way to persuade her to do what must be done.

"What is your totem, Janice? Mouse?" "I have no totem."

"That's a lie. Your change into a wendigo has awakened power in you. I can see it. I've learned enough about wendigos to know that their power molds most easily to the shamanic mode. For all his warped vision, your Shiroi was a shaman. I know he taught you because I've seen your magic. You can't do that magic without a totem."

She growled again, a warning sound. "Leave Dan out of it."

"What's your totem?" Sam insisted. At last she said, "Wolf."

"Wolf?" He hoped his voice did not sound falsely incredulous. "Wolf isn't a coward's totem. Are you sure you don't focus through Ostrich? That would be more suitable for someone who ignores what's going on around her. You're a disgrace to the Wolf nature." "Wolf understands," she said sulkily. "Wolf must be appalled at your lack of strength."

The growling returned, stronger than before. "If you don't want to feel my strength, leave." "Not without you."

She glared at him, still growling. Her eyes radiated heat but Sam felt chilled, like a mouse under a hawk's stare. Had she gone so far? Had he pushed her too far? Was he no more than meat to her now?

She shifted suddenly and he took a defensive step backward, having forgotten that his astral body was impervious to physical harm.

The growling stopped and she laughed, the sound brittle and without humor. "Are you going to take responsibility for me?"

He sensed that this was the turning point. His answer would decide her. Could he take responsibility for what she might do? Hadn't he already? There was only one answer he could give.

"I will."

"That's the fool I once had as a brother. Haven't you learned yet that everyone is responsible for themselves?"

"Families are responsible for each other."

"Very Japanese. I would have thought you'd given up your fascination with their culture when you ran away from their corporation."

"I haven't given up on my sister. Are you going to come or not?"

Janice shrugged. "What have I got to lose? YouVe roused me now. I doubt I could rest here peacefully."

"I'm telling you there is no peace here."

"How little you know," she said softly.

"You'll have peace when the ritual restores you."

"I certainly won't get it until you dance your dance."

Tinged with something undefinable, her words echoed strangely in him. He forced the uncomfortable feeling away, concentrating on the matter at hand. Janice had agreed, and it would be to no one's benefit to delay. "Hart has arranged a plane. The course will be laid into the autopilot and die computer will do the flying. All you have to do is board, sit back, and enjoy the ride."

She bared her teeth in a grin that made him uncomfortable. "No pilot? What's the matter? Afraid I might eat him?"

Sam tried to tell himself she was just joking, just needling him, but he could see those teeth. "The fewer people who know about your entry into Salish-Shidhe Council, the better. They have a bounty on wendi-gos."

"And on those who aid and abet wendigos," she said.