Roadkill

impressively far. “I’d tell you again it’s none of your business, but hell.” He rubbed at bloodshot, tired eyes. “I did cure him. Five years ago Catcher was off at some damn college retreat in the Amazon. He loved crap like that. Save the planet. Whatever. He’s Wolf and wolf-Were and not; guess he comes by it naturally. He’d been gone almost a year. Long time.” He leaned down and rubbed Catcher’s stomach. “We’re the only family left, except for some Kin uncle.” He curled his lip. “Thieves and murderers.”

“Catcher?” Niko prodded.

Rafferty exhaled and pushed the hair from his eyes. He was long overdue for a haircut. I don’t think he noticed. I know he didn’t care. “He came back with leukemia. ALL: acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We Wolves heal fast and we rarely get sick, but we do get sick. Once in a blue moon.” The grim joke flashed across his lean face and was gone. “By the time he got home and was just starting to show symptoms, it was too late. He’d had it for at least eight months. You know what the average survival rate is even with treatment? Not good. I thought he’d have a better chance of being healed in wolf form. We’re stronger then. But as good as I am, and I’m fucking good, don’t you ever doubt it,” he said matter-of-factly, “it wasn’t enough. He was slipping away and-shit. He’s my cousin, my only damn family. I couldn’t let him go. So I went deeper… to the genetic level… where healers aren’t meant to go.”

“And?” I said when he went quiet.

“And that’s where I fucked up,” he responded flatly. “I healed him. I healed him like no other werewolf has ever been healed. Did you think we were like vampires-a pasty anemic branch that split off from the human race? Did you think we were extra- hairy humans and along the way developed a mutation that allowed us to change to wolves?” He shook his head. “We were wolves first. We started that way. We evolved as wolves and along the way a mutation did occur. We did split from the primary race… but that primary race was wolf.”

“Then you’re not werewolves; you’re were people?” I asked with a healthy dose of skepticism.

He rotated his head and massaged the back of his neck. “Why do you think some werewolves want to get back to wolf, and nothing but wolf? It’s how we began, fifty, sixty million years ago. I did cure Catcher of the leukemia by mucking around with his DNA. Only trouble is I cured him too well. I cured the mutation. I can’t cure him now because he’s not sick. He’s how we were meant to be. And I can’t go the Suyolak way. I can’t force him to mutate. I might get a werewolf back, but it wouldn’t be Catcher. His brain would be altered-his personality. I don’t think he’d ever be fully human again when he changed. I’m good. Goddamnit, I’m the fucking best, but I did too good a job the first time and there’s no undoing it now. I’ve looked everywhere. Talked to everyone. No fucking undoing it. At least that’s what they say. I don’t have the power. I need more.” He propped an elbow on his knee and rested his forehead in his hand. “Somehow I have to prove them wrong,” he muttered so low that I barely caught the words.

Catcher slept on and for once I managed to keep my mouth shut. Rafferty had to know that no one could restore Catcher if he couldn’t, but he wasn’t able to admit it. He’d traveled the country, looking for a nonexistent cure and watching every day as bit by bit his cousin slipped away. One day he would look into the passenger seat and see nothing but wolf eyes looking back; no human intelligence; no memories of their past. Still, they were family. That they would never lose, but his cousin would be gone and an instinct-driven animal left in his place-an animal that thought, but certainly not in the same way humans thought.

He’d never remember the ski trip.

I’d never known Catcher as anything but wolf, but I’d seen a picture in their house of Raff and him on the ski slope. He looked like a good guy. A prankster. I’d bet Rafferty’s skis had disconnected from his boots halfway down one of the difficult slopes-Black Diamond all the way. I’d seen that glitter in Catcher’s eye in the photo. He was someone I might have liked… a rare finding; someone I might’ve trusted… especially rare. But I wouldn’t know now, and that was one damn shame.

“You.” It was breathed in a tangle of worship and disbelief, distracting me from my thoughts of skis, snow, and a guy who was already on his way to being half gone. “You are true. You are right. You are Wolf.”

Delilah came across the asphalt, wrapped in an orange and green polyester bedspread that did nothing to distract from her tumble of pale hair and warm glow of skin or the tattoo of Celtic knots, curves, and wolf eyes that circled her neck. It was art. She was art. But none of that was aimed in my direction. She crouched beside Catcher and began to sniff the fur on Catcher’s chest, neck, and behind his ears. Then she was nuzzling deeply. Catcher’s eyes had opened, luckily human in their awareness. They rolled up to his cousin in question. You could all but see the Uh, hello? Then again, they were wolves. Maybe it was more like Mmm, nice, but you need to get her to move a little farther down.

“This.” Delilah looked up, her eyes brighter and more intense than the rising sun. “This is what we want. This is what we were. What we want to be again. I didn’t think it could be done. I thought the All Wolf hopeless. But it can be done. We can. How? How does this happen? Tell me!”

“By accident, and it’s not going to happen again,” Rafferty snapped. “You and the other Jurassic wannabes can look somewhere else for somebody to rip your intelligence out by the roots, because I am not doing that shit. Not again.”

“Actually, it was the Pleistocene era, not Jurassic, but point taken,” Niko said, spreading knowledge far and wide. My brother, he simply could not help it. He was more helpful when he snagged Delilah’s makeshift toga and pulled her up and off Catcher. Catcher shook himself, stood, shook again, and sat down at his cousin’s feet. Then he gave Delilah a wolf grin. I recognized that grin. Human, wolf, puck. “Hey, baby” transcended all languages and all species.

“ ‘Jurassic’ sounds better and, hell, no.” Rafferty knocked on the top of Catcher’s furry head. “Don’t you even think about it, Cuz.”

There was a throaty mixed rumble and snarl from Catcher. I added, “Especially not in front of me, fuzz-butt. I might not be good enough to officially date a Kin and she’s her own Wolf, but it doesn’t mean the pride wouldn’t take a hit seeing you two go at it in front of me.”

Niko gave Delilah a push back toward her room. “Not to mention in a parking lot that’s overlooked by the interstate. Jeftichew, why don’t you get Catcher in the car. He’ll look slightly more inconspicuous.” With the top on the convertible already down, Catcher gave the rrrowrr rrowrr that was a wolf’s complaint and jumped in without waiting for Rafferty to speak up, demonstrating in his good moments he knew exactly what was going on. The baring of the teeth said, “Don’t talk about me like I’m a damn Labrador.” The humiliation of being all there and other times completely gone-lost in the wilderness of his own unpredictable brain-had to suck.

“I apologize, Catcher,” Niko said, bowing his head in realization of how the Wolf felt. Catcher sighed and lay down on the backseat, averting his eyes from all of us. Anything else we could’ve said would’ve only made it worse.

Several parking spaces away, the Rom’s RV pink door popped open and Abelia- Roo peered around the edge, smacking toothless gums in disgust. “Two more dogs. I am underwhelmed with confidence. Useless gadje. Worthless as humans, worthless as monsters. If we are to save the world, we do not do it by forming a circus train, collecting a flea-bitten zoo.” The door slammed behind her as she turned and went back inside. “Gunoi grast!” That made it through the door without trouble and I might not know Rom, but once again, some things transcend. Filthy language is one of these things and a personal favorite.

Delilah disappeared with another door slam at the same time Robin weaved out of his and Niko’s room, Salome winding through his legs causing the half stumble. “And who do we have here?” He smiled… yeah, that same “Hey, baby” smile… at Rafferty. Then the smile disappeared. “Oh Zeus, it’s you. The Hippocratic ass.”

“You still hanging around, Curly?” Rafferty drawled. Robin had been there when Rafferty had healed my stab wound and hadn’t gotten far with him then either.

“Some appreciate my grandeur and glory, you spiteful bastard.” He straightened his already immaculate silk shirt with one hand and carefully tousled his hair with the other. “And it’s Robin Goodfellow. Pan. Puck. Goblin of the Hob. Your superior by name and measurement of any other kind.”

“Is that what you think, you horny goat?” Rafferty snorted. “How would you like my foot up your grand and glorious… holy hell, what is that?”