Lili St Crow - Defiance

It was Shanks’s turn to make a little dismissive noise. He folded down, crouching, dark head cocked and the emo swoosh hiding his eyes. Readiness ran through the rest of them like oil over the surface of a plate, tension gathering. Nat rolled her shoulders twice, glancing at me. The last couple runs she’d kept pace right beside me, and once she’d grabbed my hand just as I was getting ready to launch myself over a couple of elevated trains.

Don’t ask. Anyway.

Shanks threw his head back and howled. The rest of them joined in, a rising chorus of high thrillglass baying, their throats swelling and their eyes lambent. Even under late-spring sun, that cry filled my head with moonlight and plucked deep below the conscious surface. It teased and taunted and tweaked and pulled at that . . . thing.

The low, furry, clawed thing inside all of us that remembers the joy of night-hunting.

My chin was up, my mouth open, and a spear of silver ice wound through their harmony, a svetocha ’s distinctive cry. It was uncomfortably like a sucker’s glassine hunting scream, but I was helpless to stop it, and they never said a word about it.

Nat yanked on my arm, and the world turned over. It rushed underneath me, my boots touching down every so often, and my heart leapt against my rib cage like it wanted to escape. Feathers brushed every inch of my skin, and I hurled myself forward in the middle of the shifting, leaping pack of wulfen.

They closed around me even on daylight runs, arms pumping and the change rippling over them like clear heavy water, fur not quite breaking free of the surface. We poured around the edge of the Pond and the whole green length of Central Park unreeled underneath us like a treadmill’s belt. As always, it was oddly silent, just the wind in my ears, stinging my eyes, all of them suddenly welded into one creature running just for the heart-exploding joy of it. If you’ve ever seen a cheetah going all-out, maybe you can guess what I mean.

Breath tearing in throat, I jumped and my right boot skimmed the top of a granite boulder, barely brushing the moss. My leg uncoiled, pushed me forward like a slingshot. The rest of them leapt, Evan catching a tree limb and jackknifing, launching himself into clear air. He landed with sweet natural authority and was neck-and-nose with Shanks for a few steps, but he fell back as the leggy boy veered and we burst out of the Park’s green into the concrete jungle.

We ran, flashing through hot gold sun and gray exhaust-scorch shadow, and for a little while I could pretend someone else was running with us. A boy in a long black canvas coat, his green eyes alight and the change never quite breaking through his skin—because loup-garou use the Other for mental dominance, not for the physical morphing.

We ran, and the ghost of Graves ran with us. If tears slicked my cheeks, I could pretend they were stung free by the wind. We hit the Brooklyn Battery toll tunnel and poured through in merry violation of several laws, relying on sheer outrageousness to keep people from really looking as we blurred single file on the skinny walkway next to honking traffic. Nat right behind me, matching me stride for stride, every once in a while sending up her own peculiar cry that trailed off on a soprano note like crystal just before shattering. Cars whizzing slowly behind us, the glare of a summer day gone as some of the boys even veered out into traffic, playing tag-me with the cars whose drivers would only catch a glimpse or a flash of bright eyes or tossing hair. Brakes squealed, but we were already free of the tunnel, lunging up into sunlight, and the touch flamed inside my head.

We broke south as soon as we hit the entrance, and Stuvy’s tangle flashed by in random bullets of impression—a dry cleaner’s, a boarded-up nightclub, a row of brownstones frowning as we tore down the street. My mother’s locket bobbed against my chest, a warm forgiving touch. The song of wind in my ears and the world unreeling under me shut away every nasty thought, every pain except the stitch threatening in my side and the sweet thrill of my heart working so fast it might explode with delight.

He almost made Coney Island. I almost had him, too, but he jagged right when we were half a block behind him, running all-out but not realizing he was boxed yet. Shanks leapt past me, clearing a bicycle rack and barely touching the street as he uncoiled, going airborne again. My breath came in high harsh rasps, my entire body sang, Gran’s owl gave a soft cry. The rest of them closed around me like a warm coat, and Shanks brought him down in Calvert Vaux Park with an ebullient whoop that was equal parts wulf and boy. They went rolling in dusty grass on the outskirts of an overgrown baseball diamond, a cloud of gold puffing up around them, and we all put on the brakes, skidding to a stop.

Beer for everyone, then. My sides heaved. Half of us bent over, gasping for breath. And when I looked around at all the faces, glowing with excitement and sweat and the poreless healthy shine of wulfen, it was a shock right below my breastbone when Graves’s green gaze didn’t meet mine. Nat flung her arm over my shoulders and Alex leaned against my other side, the prohibition against touching gone for a few brief seconds as everyone collapsed together in a heap.

But I wasn’t wulfen. I was still lonely.

Well, I’d had a half hour of not thinking about him. I guess it had to be enough.

The pizza parlor looked faintly familiar, even though I could swear I’d never been in there before. It was on the fringes of Augie’s old neighborhood, a dingy hole in the Brooklyn brick wall where the fat balding proprietor cracked bottles of Corona without demur for the boys. Nat and I stuck to club soda, because she didn’t like pop and neither of us liked beer.

Beer makes you, in her words, “muy, muy flat ulent-o, kiddo.” And we would both crack up.

I leaned over the air hockey table, my fingers still greasy from the three slices of pepperoni-plus I’d bolted, and popped the puck back at her. The aspect was warm oil over my skin, my teeth tingled, and the bloodhunger was a rough spot at the back of my palate no matter how much club soda I washed it with. Nat was fierce when it came to air hockey, and she had a wulf’s speed and reflexes. With the aspect all unreliable, I had to jump to stay ahead of her, and she still beat my ass six times out of ten.

Those other four times, though, I killed her. And right now, I was on a winning streak.

She snapped the puck back at me, lips drawn back from her teeth and her blue crystal earrings bouncing. I was already there, the touch flaming inside my head, and the puck shot back, banked, and thwopped neatly into the goal right past her guard.

Nat snarled, and I grinned. It felt completely natural.

“Oh, you bitch.” Her eyes glowed, and I caught a glimpse of Shanks watching us from one of the booths. Evan jostled him and he jostled right back, still staring at Nat’s back.

Or, more precisely, a little lower than her back.

“You’re going down ,” she continued. “Is someone looking at me?”

I’d say he’s trying to undress you visually, but that’s just me. “Totally. Or at least, looking at part of you.”

The puck spat back out, she popped it hard, leaning a little further over the table than was strictly necessary. With her jacket gone, creamy skin showed above in an indigo silk spaghetti-strap tank top, the shoulder holster looking just like a decoration. Muscle rippled decorously in her arms. “Great. He stares, but he won’t talk.”

“Are all wulf boys like that?” I slapped it back to her, the jolt going all the way up my arm. She leaned to the side, her hand flicking out, and the sound of puck meeting the mallet was the crack of a rifle shot.