Chapter 5

Were they connected to the dead woman?

"Get her out, please?" Her body hit the window again, and I recoiled.

Selkie hung his modest robe on a hook at the entrance to the water, wrapped himself in a seal skin and dived into the ocean. 

A few seconds later we saw him swimming through the strong tide, pushing his body against the square hatch in the floor of the bar. It was held in place by a magical membrane. Ocean nymphs and other water fairies could cross back and forth, but the water never crossed the barrier.

He pushed the body towards the entrance. Leaning forward, I grabbed it and pulled. She slid a few meters across the floor before rolling onto her back.

Milky eyes looked up unseeingly. Her body turned blue and swollen. Bloodless incisions exposed muscles, ligaments and organs. The cuts were torn. Who knows how long she stayed in the water. Her wounds may have been the result of being hit by rocks or by sharks. Their size, though... the thought of my own clothing-hidden scars flashed through my mind.

A dwarf named Grim offered me a blanket, which I kept behind the counter. I nodded my thanks, unable to say a word. Shaking the blanket, I covered my body with it. "Do you know her?" Owen asked.

In a shaky voice, I replied: "I am not sure." She is a wolf. I can smell her under the seaweed and sea water. I'll call my uncle, see if any of his pack is missing.

One, lost in the cold dark ocean. If she's not his, I guess I'll have to contact the Bodega Bay pack. This pack under Damius Clive. How did this woman end up here?

Owen put his hand on my back. "How can I help?"

I tensed. I didn't like being touched, even when I needed it. Maybe even especially at times like this. It's been seven years since I was attacked and turned. Werewolves, like many other supernatural beings, are not supposed to age. I was seventeen when I was converted, but now I looked older. 

Being a lone wolf in pack meant I didn't have anyone to teach me the difference between fact and fiction. Perhaps the books were wrong about werewolves aging. Be that as it may, my body may have been an absolute horror, but it was a strong, healthy twenty-four-year-old body. Emotionally? Well, there are things you never recover from.

After the dead woman was photographed, wrapped and placed in the far corner of the cold store, I sat down in my office. Breathing deeply, I tried not to remember the soft click of the knife as it entered the skin and cut through my body, the sharp breath when the teeth tore and the claws ripped open. No. Better to be intimidating than intimidated. I will not go down this path again.

I straightened up and wiped the tears from my face. Enough. I forced my pulse to slow down. I needed to call Marcus. I barely knew him, only seeing him before I was attacked and then driven away. It reminded me of too many things I tried to hide.

I didn't realize it growing up, but the reason my mother never let me see or talk to Uncle Marcus was because she knew he was a werewolf. Immediately after her death, when I was seventeen, he extended his hand, wanting to know me. 

I didn't remember my father. He was gone before I could form and entrust to memory more than the most vague memories. No matter how much I asked, my mother did not talk about my father, saying that it was dangerous to give too much of yourself to the dead.

Even though I promised my mother never to contact Marcus, when he sought me out at her funeral, it was like a second chance to have a family. He seemed kind to me, but I should have listened to my mother's advice. I agreed to visit him in the territory, which, as I later learned, belonged to his pack. I was attacked, tortured, raped and turned by a werewolf whom Marcus could not identify and who he could never find.

Looking at the Degas-style postcard on my office wall, I forced myself to think of delicate ballerinas in blue suits, letting them take the place of suffering and humiliation. 

When my hands stopped trembling, I uploaded a photo of the dead woman and sent it to Marcus. Suddenly he knows who she is. If not, then I have no idea what to do with it. We have never handed over our dead to human authorities. The less they know about us, the better.

The phone rang six times, but then the answering machine turned on, demanding to leave messages. 'Marcus, this is Ariel. I fished a dead woman out of the cove in front of the bar. Just sent her picture to your email. If she's not one of yours, I'll contact another Bay Area pack.'

Clenching my fists so that my short nails dug into my palm, I fought with myself, not knowing how to continue: "I guess I just didn't want her to be alone." I cleared my throat. “Anyway, could you let me know if you recognize her?” I would be very grateful to you. I put the phone down on the hook.

* * *

After the bar closed, I decided to go for a run. I needed normality and control over my own body . Exercising to the point of exhaustion helped me sleep. I didn't let the memories isolate me from the world again.

I ran up the stairs and took a deep breath. I stretched on the edge of the cliff. A cold, salty wind blew in from the ocean. After that, I went for a run. Muscles warmed and relaxed, I quickened my run, fast and hard, away from the open country and through the woods. 

Fallen pine needles littered the ground. In the distance, a foghorn roared dully. It should have calmed me down, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. A rustle in the trees made me stop abruptly. I sniffed the scent of the wind. She froze, listening. Nothing.

Running again, I made my way through the long shore grass, twisting in a strong wind along the cliff. The growing moon shone in the thickening fog. A couple of kilometers from the bookstore, I smelled a wolf and braked sharply.

My heart was pounding, I couldn't stop thinking about the woman we fished out of the bay. I desperately wanted to reincarnate, to protect myself, to acquire claws and fangs. But it will take too long. I will be vulnerable to attack until I complete my transformation. Lifting my head, I sniffed the scent of the wind again. The smell got stronger. The wolf was coming, and I didn't have time.

I rushed back to the cliff. A kilometer from home, I heard the booming patter of paws on the sandy ground behind me. Will anyone hear if I scream? The fog swallowed up the screams. I ran headlong into the trees, frantically looking for some kind of weapon. I will not let anyone overcome me, hold me back - never again. Paws rumbled along the path.

Ahead, I saw the silhouette of a woman. I rushed to her. Moonlight shone on strands of blond hair. I felt instant relief, deciding that they would help me. But then the smell of hatred emanating from her hit me in the nose, and I realized too late that I was driven into great danger. I didn't know who she was - the wolf smell was too strong - but I knew she wasn't human.

Realizing that death loomed right in front of me and behind me, I turned sharply to the right and rushed to the bush growing on the edge of the cliff. I felt the wolf fur touch my ankle as the wolf darted past. He slid, turned around and rushed after me again. Having no choice, I rushed to the cliff and rushed down.

My heart stopped in free fall. I had three or four seconds to question the wisdom of my plan before I plunged into the icy sea water.

Rapidly plunging into the depths, my body hit the sloping edge of a cliff deep under water. I pushed off, started to float to the surface, otherwise my lungs would burst. It was difficult to breathe on the surface, the waves rolled over me, pulling me under the water. 

I spit out sea water. Knowing that I wasn't that far from the entrance to the bar, I swam, hoping the wolf hadn't followed me off the cliff.

Like a rag doll, I was thrown, pulled down, and then lifted up again by the seething ocean. Something slid down my cheek, something long and flat, and I begged for it to be seaweed. I only got a glimpse of it before being thrown aside by another wave.

Algae or something like that scratched me on the back of the neck. I cringed and brushed it off, but again and again I was pulled under the water. I fought the relentless undertow. I surfaced and realized that a curly whip was wrapped around my neck, and it tightened my neck more and more until my body swirled in seething waves. 

Staying on the water as long as possible, I began to look for jagged rocks, scanning the dark face of the cliff for the entrance to the bar. It was hidden from view, enchanted to look like nothing more than rock, but there was a deep groove, bisected by a forty-five degree cut that almost formed an X where the landmark was. The entrance to the bar was directly under the cross in stone.

Spitting out the water that got into my mouth, I pulled on something curly that was already beginning to choke me. 

The creeping whip moved again and tightened. When I pulled, the whip did not sway like a plant. A scream stuck in my throat as my larynx was crushed by what I hoped, in the name of all that is holy, was not an eel. Intelligent underwater algae scared me less than an eel wrapped around my neck.

Needle teeth dug into my arm. I froze in horror for only a moment, but it was enough to drag me under the icy waves. My fingers went numb, and I, like a wild animal, rushed to the creature wrapped around my neck. 

I felt bites on my neck and arms, but I didn't care, so big was the deciding factor. With a final tug, I yanked the now motionless pieces of God-if-if-the-eel off my neck and tossed them out of my bloody hands.

A wave rolled in and I was under water again. Parts of the eel floated away, but what caught my attention was a shiny thing falling straight down. My hands flew to my neck. There was nothing there. My mother's pendant. I plucked it when I was killing an eel. 

It was the only thing left for me; my only connection to her. Diving down, I grabbed the water with insensible hands, but somehow managed to catch the pendant by the stone pendant before it plunged into the gloomy depths of the bay.

Freed from the eel and clutching my mother's pendant, I swam to the entrance to the bar. Even though I was supernaturally strong, the journey was slow and difficult. Luckily, the wolf didn't follow me off the cliff. 

When I finally found the entrance, I dragged my tortured, battered body inside and collapsed to the floor, gasping and trembling. Who are the two above? Were they connected to the dead woman?

"The Killed Sheep" was protected to the highest degree. My wards - a kind of magical security system - were synchronized with me as a key. Over time, they began to react to my intentions as well as to my words. I locked them tight and dragged myself to my apartment to take a long, hot shower.