Wilding Page 9

  Becky was looking at her now as if she thought she was crazy. Deborah didn’t blame her; she probably was crazy. Deliberately, she took some of the blood from her cheek onto the tip of her tongue, smeared it across her front teeth, and grinned. The taste and feel of her own blood were always oddly comforting.

  Becky said, “Oh, gross.” Then, obviously, she made a decision, but Deborah couldn’t tell whether it was not to believe any of this or to believe it totally. “Well, Deb, whatever. You can’t stay here, that’s all I know. My mom’s kind of a bitch sometimes. Sorry.”

  There was a lot more she could have said. My family’s a bunch of werewolves. I might be a werewolf, I don’t know yet. This baby’s either a werewolf or we’ll eat his heart and smear his fat on us to give us power. What do you think of that? Do you believe that? But she’d already said too much. “Fine,” she said, giving up, her throat and eyes burning. “I’ll leave tomorrow, okay? As soon as I figure out where to go.” I want to say good-bye to Armando. I want to bite his balls off

  Becky looked down. “My mom said if you’re still here when she gets home from work today she’s calling the police.”

  “Just ‘get out’? No warning, just like that? God, your mother really is a bitch, isn’t she?”

  Becky’s eyes flashed, and it didn’t seem to Deborah that she much minded having to say, “Well, actually, she’s been telling me this all along, ever since you showed up here. I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Thanks a lot. You’re a good friend.”

  Becky had had enough. Deborah had seen that look lots of times before and it was almost a relief. “Just get out, okay, Deborah? Just get out of my house, right now. Nobody wants you here.”

  She didn’t have anything to pack or anybody to say anything to, so getting out was easy. In a grim sort of way, she liked that. She just walked out of Becky’s house and over to Broadway, where she got on the first bus that came. It was rush hour, but for some reason the driver let her on for only fifty cents, which was a good thing because all the change she had was fifty-five. She looked at him suspiciously, hopefully, but he kept his eyes on the traffic and brusquely motioned her to get on.

  She had settled into a seat across from the back door before she thought about getting a transfer so she could ride longer and farther without having to pay any more. She felt really dumb having to go all the way back up to the front, but she did it. Everybody was watching her, the driver in his mirror, the old man pretending to be dozing in one of the sideways front seats, the woman reading the newspaper. She bumped into some lady getting on with a baby and was too embarrassed to say excuse me. They weren’t supposed to give you a transfer once you’d left the fare area, but for some reason this driver did. At first Deborah was stupid enough to think he was being nice to her, but she couldn’t detect any real kindness or even any particular interest.

  The lady with the baby had taken Deborah’s seat. Of all the empty seats on the bus, she’d had to take that one. Irritably, Deborah sat down across the aisle and propped her knees against the back of the seat in front of her. The lady was having a hassle with the stroller, trying to fold it up and get it out of the aisle. The baby was fussing.

  But the lady and the baby both smiled at her. She caught herself smiling back, and for some reason thinking about her father. Once she’d been a little baby like that; her father must have loved her then, before he’d found out what she really was. She wondered if this was a boy or a girl, and what kind of life it would have.

  “Is your baby a boy or a girl?” Why did she ask? Why did she even care? It wasn’t her baby.

  “A boy,” his mother said proudly, and kissed the top of his head. “Matthew.” She was kind of old to have a little baby like that.

  “He’s cute,” she said, to be polite, but it was a boy and she was a little afraid of him, a little repulsed.

  “Thanks. He is, isn’t he?” His mother gazed so tenderly at the boy baby’s ugly little face that it made Deborah sick. She wanted him to be her child instead of the one she carried. She wanted to grab the baby and smash his head on the floor, turn him into something else, see how cute his mother thought he was then. “You know,” the lady was saying to her, “I was just thinking how much you look like a young Audrey Hepburn.” “Who?”

  “Oh, that’s right, you’re too young to know who she is, aren’t you? She’s a movie star, getting old now, and when she was young she looked a lot like you. Slim, beautiful auburn hair.”

  I’m not slim, Deborah thought fiercely. I’m skinny, and now I’ve got a potbelly. I look like an Ethiopian. And my hair’s brown. “Thanks,” she said, and cleared her throat.

  Incredibly, alarmingly, the woman was holding out her hand, “I’m Fawn.”

  “Deborah,” Deborah said, thinking what a pretty name Fawn was, and she actually shook Fawn’s hand. Then she got up and moved all the way to the back of the bus. She half expected the boy baby and his mother (Matthew, Fawn) to follow her, to trap her there, and she didn’t know what she’d do then. But they didn’t, although Fawn did turn her head and stare at her for a few minutes. That made Deborah really uncomfortable.

  Her legs were even more cramped than usual, the long muscles down the tops of her thighs aching. Lately no matter what position she put her legs in they hurt, except sometimes when she crouched. She couldn’t very well squat on the seat or the floor of the bus. Everybody would look at her.

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  Annoyance turned almost immediately into fury. She did mind, asshole, but she didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She swung her feet down, turned her body toward the window, which was dirty and tinted but she could still see through it a little. There was like a little pocket on the inside of her cheek; she bit into it.

  At first the asshole sat too close to her, and his body heat and body odor made her stomach turn. She thought about clawing his eyes or his throat. Deliberately she laid her left hand open on her knee so he’d see the long nail on the little finger. She wondered if he could tell it was black under the chipping red polish, if he’d know what that meant about her. But then he smiled at her, showing brown teeth, and moved to the far end of the seat.

  The bus was filling up now. Some people looked to be on their way to work: suits and nerdy purses, a couple of guys in construction company jackets. High school kids, maybe college; Deborah shrank away from them. An old man walked all the way to a seat almost in back instead of taking one of the “Please Offer These Seats to the Elderly and Handicapped” sideways seats up front. Deborah always resented having to give up her seat when she sat up there, and half the time didn’t—teenagers had rights, too—but now the old man’s shuffling stubbornness made her mad.

  She hated old people. They had secrets. She wanted to know what Nana knew, and she didn’t want to have to wait till she was ancient and deformed and ready to die before she knew it. She wanted the heirloom wolfskin, soft from so many women wearing it for so many years, soft from all the unguent. She wanted the unquestioning power. She wanted to be able to take what she wanted without feeling dirty. She felt dirty all the time, and she never got what she wanted.

  But that night—running through the city with Nana, killing that bum (killing), she had known, and it had been too much.

  Now people were standing in the aisle. Two guys crowded into the too narrow space between the back seat where Deborah was and the sideways one in front of it. One was white and one was black. They were seventeen or eighteen, maybe, and they didn’t look at her, didn’t look at anybody, didn’t have to. Deborah pulled her feet in as far as she could, but the white guy was leaning back hard against her knees, his buns practically in her face. He smelled like weed and dirty jeans. He was wearing a huge black coat, or maybe it was some weird cape thing. He didn’t even know she was behind him. She thought about biting him. He and his friend were blocking the window so she couldn’t see out, but that didn’t much matter because she didn’t know where she wa
s anyway, hadn’t recognized landmarks or street signs for a while now.

  “How ya doin’?” The guy standing in front of her was looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t exactly looking at her, but she could tell he was talking to her. She ignored him. The guy turned around lingeringly bumping into both her knees. He leaned over her a little, and she stuck her bloody tongue out the corner of her mouth just a little. “You’re fine,” he said, and licked his lips.

  “Gee, thanks.” Deborah tried to sound sarcastic enough that he’d leave her alone if he was pranking her but nice enough not to make him mad or hurt his feelings if he meant it.

  Big man, being cool, he wasn’t holding on to the bar or anything, and when the bus lurched he practically fell in her lap. “Wanna fuck?” he asked, casually, like asking for the time, and loud enough for everybody in the back half of the bus to hear. A few heads turned, but most of them thought she was asking for it. His friend’s back was still to Deborah, and he snickered. Deborah kept her eyes warily on the dude who was hassling her, but out of her peripheral vision saw the asshole with the bad teeth lean forward to watch the show.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Deborah answered at once, just as casually and just as loud.

  The guy laughed and put his hand on her thigh. “Oooh, hey, bitch, think you’re tough, don’t you? Think you’re a cock-tease, don’t you? Hey, bitch, hey, little bitch.” He didn’t show any sign that he was going to stop talking, and he was squeezing her thigh hard enough to hurt.

  Deborah raked the back of his hand with her long black fingernail. He swore and jerked his hand away. Seeing blood, she realized how clearly she was thinking here. She’d pulled her feet up under her and was crouching on the seat, lips pulled back just enough that if he looked he’d see the points of her teeth, which she hoped were still coated with blood.

  The aisle was full and the driver couldn’t see what was happening back here even if he wanted to. The woman beside her kept on reading the paper. The guy squeezed himself down between them in the seat, his scratched hand in his mouth. His coat or cape or whatever it was wrapped around them (wrapped around the baby, too), and as far as she could tell it hid them from everybody else except maybe the asshole with the bad teeth who was trying to push through to help her. Stay away. Just stay away.

  The guy was staring at her, his scratched hand in his mouth. His eyes flickered and flickered, so he couldn’t look very long in one place.

  “Leave me alone, dickhead,” she said, but her voice was so scratchy he probably thought she was just clearing her throat, crying or scared or something. Most of the time when Grandma talked like that Deborah could understand her, and sometimes Nana, but only because she’d been living with them and listening to them most of her life.

  “Hey, hey, you’re my kind of lady.” He’d taken his hand out of his mouth but it was still bleeding. There was a scallop of blood on his lower lip. “So what’s your name?”

  “Werewolf,” she sneered, and got right in his face and growled.

  His eyes widened a little, but he laughed. “Well, come on, werewolf bitch, let’s you and me be lovers, whaddaya say? Let’s do it! Had a better offer today? Had a better offer in your whole life?”

  “Leave me alone, dickhead.” This time it was clear.

  “How about a kiss, then? Just one little kiss?” He grabbed her chin with his bloody hand, twisted her face toward him, and brought his mouth down hard over hers. His blood was getting on her, sticky and warm.

  Deborah shoved her right hand around to the back of his neck, grabbed his greasy hair, and held his head in place. Under his grinding, insulting mouth, she opened her lips and then her teeth. With her left hand she jerked his zipper down and reached inside his fly to wrap her fingers around his hard dick. He made a sound.

  She bit down then, as hard and fast as she could around his pursed lips, and at the same time inserted the long, sharp nail of her little finger under the elastic leg of his underwear and scraped it across his balls. He made another, louder noise and tried to pull back, but she had him by the hair and by the dick and for several long, satisfying seconds he couldn’t get away from her.

  Finally he did. His mouth was ringed with blood. He pulled his fist back to hit her, but he was too close to get a good angle. There was blood on his cheeks and chin, too, and on her teeth, tasting like metal, feeling slick. Her left hand was still inside his pants so she closed it into a fist, which drove the long nail into the head of his penis with a nice little pop.

  He yelled and got his hands on her neck, but his friend was pulling him off. The woman with the newspaper wasn’t there anymore, had gotten off or moved to a more peaceful seat. The asshole with the bad teeth pushed the guy from behind. Deborah held on to the dick for a Few more seconds, reveling in the feel of it, marveling that it was still hard. But she finally had to let it go, and the bus stopped and the dude and his friend got off without even looking back at her.

  “Are you all right?” the asshole with the bad teeth wanted to know. Just because he’d helped her out a little he thought he had some kind of claim. He stunk; his smell made her nostrils flare. He had such a gentle smile that she could hardly stand to look at it.

  “Leave me alone, dickhead,” Deborah snarled. Her feet still up under her, she turned herself away from him and put her long nail in her mouth. Her teeth were still slippery from the guy’s blood and her own, but when she ran the points of her teeth over the nail a scum came away easily, the faintly salty residue of the skin of his balls.

  Deborah’s mind was very clear, and different somehow. Almost wordless. Almost thoughtless.

  Images without meaning, nearly without name. Vivid colors, a rush of taste and odor, primal and marauding emotions. Fear, maybe. Fury. Love. The baby gathered itself inside her and kicked hard.

  She’d utterly lost any sense of time and place when a very light touch came at her shoulder and she whirled. The asshole with the bad teeth and gentle smile was standing over her. Deborah tensed to attack. He was reaching out his hand and she barely stopped herself from lunging at it, seeing only at the last instant that the palm was up, not threatening. “My stop,” he said quietly.

  Deborah didn’t understand.

  “I’m homeless. I have a little spot under a bridge. In this season, it’s actually rather cozy. If you have no other sanctuary for yourself and your child, you are welcome to stay with me.”

  Deborah hardly understood what he’d said. He’d lowered his hand and was backing slowly toward the door as the bus slowed down. She found herself getting to her feet, entirely off balance as she struggled against the lurching of the bus, the weight of the baby, and the sudden oddity of standing upright on two feet. She couldn’t tell whether there was danger here or not. There probably was. There was danger everywhere. But she had no place else to go.

  “My name is Julian,” he said.

  Chapter 7

  Mary was impaled on a fencepost.

  Driven by her own descending weight, the dull iron point had punctured the tough and almost hairless hide, soft flesh, and wildly sensitive nerves of her groin. The longer she hung there and the harder she struggled to free herself, the deeper the point drove. She was yelping, flailing. She might have been a huge, helpless dog.

  Marguerite said, “Will you look at that.”

  Not knowing at all what to do, Ruth nonetheless started down the alley toward her mother, who was outlined in the cool fleshy pink of the sunrise as the sky just turned from its thick nighttime gray-blue. But Marguerite held her back, heavy arm across her chest.

  “What do you suppose would happen if we just left her here?” Marguerite wondered aloud, not even in a whisper.

  “I—I can’t—” Ruth sputtered, and pushed forward, but Marguerite held her easily. For an instant Ruth felt as trapped as her mother, although there was no blood for her and no true pain.

  “Think about it,” Marguerite insisted. Her other arm came up, and she was embracing Ruth from behind. “Ruthie, you
’ve got to think about it. It’s our time.”

  Ruth’s head swam dangerously. Lack of sleep, she told herself. Lack of food—it had been too long since she’d really fed. Her mother always had complained that she was careless about things like that.

  Or simply this shocking contact with Marguerite, whom she’d known all her life, known better than anybody, and whose heartbeat she could now feel through her own back and into her own rib cage. She didn’t know what Marguerite was talking about.

  “Time for what?” she mumbled, half hoping her cousin behind her wouldn’t hear and so wouldn’t answer. On the stake at the far end of the alley, Mary howled.

  Marguerite did hear her foolish question, and Ruth felt anger in the surging of the heart, in the sudden rough tightening of the embrace that made her gasp painfully. Her own anger started, but it was unfocused and unusable. “Time for us to take what’s ours, cousin,” Marguerite rasped. “We’ve been talking about it all our lives, and now it’s our time. Time to claim the family.”

  Ruth was shaking her head in bewilderment. Marguerite read it as denial and squeezed her furiously, actually lifting Ruth’s feet off the ground. Ruth gasped, “No!” meaning not “No, I won’t do it,” but “No, stop it, I’m not your enemy.”

  Marguerite growled into Ruth’s ear, “This is our chance. You have to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. This is our chance. Let’s just leave her here.”

  “She’s my mother,” Ruth managed to say. “She wouldn’t die.”

  Marguerite let go. Ruth stumbled, scraped her knuckles on the gravelly pavement of the alley, then rose to her full height furious and clearheaded and ready to fight. But her cousin was talking. “I know you think Mary is immortal. Some of them think my mother is immortal, too. Personally, I think that’s a convenient legend they’ve used to give us the impression they’re invincible. There are ways to kill anybody, even Great-grandmother Ursule. But suppose, for the sake of argument, they are immortal. So what would happen if we just left her there? Would she hang on that fencepost forever?”