And Esme remembered in a rush -- the wolfsong, the haunting, lyrical spirals of it in the dawn quiet and the feeling of euphoria that had attended it. Even in recollection the howling uplifted her like the crescendo at the end of a symphony and made her heartbeat quicken. Eyes wide, she nodded. "This morning," she said. "That's what woke me."
Mab's eyelids fluttered like she might faint. She steadied herself with one hand splayed upon the floor and gasped for breath. "No, oh no," she said very faintly. "They've found us." She rose suddenly, went to the window, and scanned the street below before winching the curtains closed.
"Who's found us, Mama?" asked Esme.
Mab turned to her. "I didn't want their ugliness in your mind, my darling. That's why I never told you about them, about my life before --"
"You mean the people who raised you?"
"They aren't peopled Mab snapped. "They can hear the blood moving in your veins a mile away. They can smell the color of your hair in the dark. They're hunters, Esme, and they never grow old, they never die, and they can't love. They're empty, and they're vicious, and I ... I stole you from them!" Her hands went to her slim stomach, cupping it as if her arms were remembering a time when it had been round and full. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Fourteen years ago I escaped from them with you like a treasure inside of me. I used to be so afraid they'd find us, but I ... I'd started to believe we were safe."
"You ... you think they've found us now?"
"The Druj take many shapes, but the hunters are always wolves. And their eyes ... their eyes are always blue. Pale, pale blue. Like yours."
Stunned by all she was hearing, Esme let her hand drop from her eye. Mab cringed at the sight of it. "Druj daevas!" she hissed. "Cover that up, Esme! I can't stand the sight of it! It's just like hers."
"Whose?"
"Never mind. We have to leave. But first, bring me some scissors."
"Why?" Esme asked with a quaver in her voice, her hand pressing protectively against her eye.
"Just bring them, darling." Trembling, Esme did as she was told.
Ten minutes later they went down the fire escape and left their small, sweet world behind. Esme wore an eye patch hastily cut from the velvet bedspread, and they both carried violin cases filled with such essentials as nightgowns and passports and their saltshaker full of diamonds. Everything else they left behind, their fairy tale books and their dresses and violins, and, dangling from the chandelier, they left two long, long, red, red braids. Crossing the street, they looked like musicians hurrying to rehearsal, swinging their violin cases.
Esme kept reaching up to touch her head. She felt so light without her hair, like she might float up into the sky, but Mab grabbed her hand and held it tight, and Esme knew she'd never let her drift away.
Two Fangs and Love
The howls of the hunt had died away with the dawn, so I Mihai relaxed his surveillance of Esme's window. He was stiff from crouching atop the church steeple all night; such a job as this was better performed as a crow, but he didn't shift shape anymore -- not even to wolf shape, however much his body craved the change. He lived each moment in human cithra, comfortable or not. It was who he was now. It had its limitations, but it had its benefits too. He was certain the Tajbel wolves, snuffling now into whatever dark place they had found to pass the daylight hours, would agree.
He smiled grimly. They'd caught his scent last night and circled the church baying, but they couldn't scale the walls and get him, not as they were, and anyway, it wasn't him they'd come for, but Esme. Even so, he thought, they'd be happy to tear off his head for what he'd done to them fourteen years ago. The Druj taboo against killing their own did not apply to exiles, and it certainly didn't apply to traitors.
He saw Esme's small shape hurry past her window and he thought of gliding right across the street to her fire escape, but he hesitated. All these years, and the time had finally come. There were actually butterflies in his stomach! He could have laughed at himself -- a Druj hunter, nervous, and not because the wolves had finally found him, but because of this one small girl!
He would have to get her away before nightfall, before the wolves came out again. It was just past dawn now. He had time. He decided to go for a cup of tea first and settle his nerves.
Thinking the church courtyard below was deserted, he climbed down the tower headfirst like a lizard, but some nuns were coming out through an archway and gasped at the sight of him. They crossed themselves and stumbled back in panic -- all but one of them. One steely-eyed crone marched right up to him as he leapt to the ground. "Druj devil!" she spat. "Leave this holy place!" And she took a pinch of ash from a pouch and flung it in his face.
Mihai coughed, surprised to find a city nun armed against the Druj. City humans almost never recognized his kind or knew how to protect against them. She must be from the mountains, he thought, from far away to the south and east where a human's life could depend upon a firebrand and a pouch of ash. He brushed the grit from his eyelashes, gave her a polite bow, and went on his way. She stood rooted in place and watched him go. She was flummoxed, and he knew why. The ashes had stung, but they should have burned him, sure as acid. Once, they would have, just as they would any Druj. Once, Mihai had been like the others, but not anymore.
The girl in the tea shop flushed when she saw him, and he knew she'd been watching for him. "Good morning, blossom," he said in his soft voice, smiling just enough to show his sharp canines. In the cheerful light of the shop he looked feral and deadly. The fangs, his stature, his long black hair, and his eyes, pale as a Siberian husky's against his black lashes and brows, made Mihai hard not to notice, and hard not to think about after.
"Good morning, you," the girl said, blushing from her bright blue hair to her throat and down into the shadow of her blouse. Following the blush down, Mihai could see the small ink spike of a tattoo emerging from the cleft between her br**sts. It looked like it might be the point of a star. "Did you hear the wolves?" she asked him.
He lifted his gaze and raised his eyebrows, feigning surprise. "Wolves?"
"Just before dawn," she said. She was pretty. Her eyes were large and bright, just the kind that had always called to him, and Mihai found himself thinking from old habit that she'd be so easy to slip into. He shook off the idea. "We all heard them howling," she told him. "It was mad."
"Wolves in the city?" He gave her a skeptical look. "That is mad. Maybe it was all a dream."