Chapter 8

More Than Beasts

Quinn Shalom...

As dawn broke, cold and still, under deep sapphire skies, I took Richard and Julia's baby and walked to the grotto where Saul and I placed the ashes of so many others. I brought the sharpie Saul used to write the names of those we buried on the wooden planks of the walkway that surrounded a small reflecting pool. It seemed like hundreds.

The Ravers stopped at the entrance, milling nervously as if they were afraid to come into the sacred feeling place. I placed the bin on top of the concrete cistern that held the ashes of the Monarch Mountain pack. One by one, I made the Ravers come in and stand. None of them moved from where I placed them. Last of all, Joshua entered on his own. Standing behind the others, he watched me with sharp intensity. I felt like he was judging everything I did, but I didn't care. I was doing this for Richard, who was in a weird way, my friend.

"Today, we are placing Richard's son with his mother and sisters, and the rest of the pack who died on that terrifying night. We have all lost, we have all suffered, and we have all done great harm. It can't be changed, but we need to move forward, we can be different from who that night made us. I know you are all good wolves. I won't say it will be fine, because it won't be, not ever again. But it will get better, we can get better together. We can be okay again someday."

I pushed the heavy concrete lid to the side and laid the tiny bundle on the ashes. Saul and I almost filled it in those five days.

"Here is Julian Richard Wems-Vanguard, to sleep with his pack and may he go to the Moon in peace," I repeated what I heard Saul murmuring over and over again, as we put wheelbarrows of ash into the large concrete tank.

I took the sharpie, and I wrote Julian's name next to his mother's, trying not to think about all the blank baby pages Julia decorated with his name and initials in expectation of his birth. Richard hunched over the spot, running his claws over her name. His Raver's tears fell on the wood. He howled, and they all howled with him. The sound was deafening in the small rocky area. Then one by one, they all left except Joshua. Finally, I pulled at Richard's arm.

"Come Richard, it's time to go home."

As I pulled the lumbering beast along, I talked randomly about my baby brother and how his name was Beauregard Justice, but I called him Beau because I had a slight speech problem growing up and couldn't say Beauregard properly. Then I stopped walking, I knew of a way to help him and myself. He had taken three more steps before realizing I wasn't beside him. I looked up at him as he turned around, staring into the green hidden behind the glaze of white.

"Richard, I was going to name my son after my brother but can I... may I... name him after your son too? Justice Julian Vanguard is a nice name, a strong name. It... it..."

I stopped talking as he stared at me. I didn't know whether to run or stand still as he raised his lip over his fangs. I backed up a small step when he lowered his head and slowly stalked toward me, holding his face almost touching mine. For a moment, I couldn't decide if I should faint or pee myself, then he licked my cheek and I noticed his tail was wagging. I burst out laughing, he leaned back in surprise, but I hugged him.

"Oh Richard, your breath is terrible, you must let me brush your teeth."

Joshua made a strange coughing sound behind us, and we both just stared at him. It almost sounded like he was chuckling. I'd never heard a Raver laugh. Richard picked me up and carried me back to the cottage. I rubbed his cheek before he bounded off into the woods. Joshua rubbed his head on my shoulder, sniffing over the scar where Jacob bit me, and then Joshua followed Richard at a slower pace. I sighed as I closed the door behind me.

Looks like the Alpha Ravers and I are having a baby together. Heaven help me, my world gets weirder every day.

VvvvvV

Richard's giant Raver stalked between the boards at the hanger where Greyson and the Revelation Night researchers assembled all the information they gathered. He squatted in front of the boards on Ravers and eyed the new data. Something had been added to the Raver Rage board. He looked at it carefully, clicking his toe-claws on the concrete floor. The almost-human gesture reminded Greyson of all the time Shalom would tap her fingernails on a surface when she was deep in thought. No one else was working tonight so Greyson picked up the information he had written down and walked over to the beast.

"He's in bad shape, Alpha Wems, very bad shape. So bad that his own family is discussing putting him down permanently," Greyson explained.

Richard rumbled unhappily and reached up to carefully pluck the picture of Jacob's Raver in a cage from the board.

"You need to bring her back here or to the prison where we contain those with the Rage. He isn't coping well. He needs her, or he will be lost... Please." Greyson handed him the notes he had transcribed. "I will get his family away for a few days, so she won't have to deal with them, then she can leave again, but she needs to come."

Richard's Raver clicked his teeth together. He knew James too well. If the Ravers brought Shalom back, James would imprison her to keep the heir safe. He did not know if he could trust this ancient fae, as he considered the picture and the notes. His mind worked on a way to keep Shalom safe and to save his brother-by-mating. The only Fae the Raver's trusted was Joshua's cursed friend. He could sense that the Fae expected some form of response, so he bowed his head and lumbered out of the building with the picture and papers. Suspicious and untrusting, he went home by a circuitous route just to be sure this wasn't a trap of some kind or way to steal Shalom and her baby from them.

VvvvvV

Quinn Shalom...

It was late May, or maybe early June, since I had no phone, and no computer; I had no idea the date. The radios I found picked up nothing but static or signals too garbled to make out. I realized I was at the mansion in the mountains almost a month, maybe a little more. It was early NBA playoffs when I got taken from the jeep crash after fleeing from the Ravers and now the snow was mostly melted out of the high country.

My bump was bigger than a basketball, but I was sleeping better since I arrived here, especially with Jacob's comforter on my bed. I rolled my eyes remembering how Joshua kept stomping snow and mud through Julia's house and putting it on my bed or following me around with one of Jacob's flannel or denim shirts harassing me to put it on. After I had a particularly bad round of nausea, I conceded that I needed Jacob's scent. But I still refused to live in his house, even though Joshua would bring me things from it every week, and every week I would take them back. It was a war of wills between the crazy preggy hag Luna and the feral Alpha Raver of Monarch Mountain.

Last week, after another disagreement about whose house I was to live in, Joshua disappeared for a few days. When he came back, Richard left. I didn't know where they went, and they couldn't tell me. I had been trying to get Richard to come in the house, but he wouldn't. However, he did sleep on the porch when he wasn't gone. He seemed better. He and the other Ravers would go to the grotto now. Most of the Ravers wouldn't go into the houses of their pre-Revelation Night lives, but I was trying. I figured out the names of all but three of them and put human faces and families together with the terrifying, hulking creatures that only acted with gentleness toward me. We had a few stray Ravers wander into the territory, but they were torn to bits and eaten before I could do anything to stop it. The Ravers hunted almost every day and always brought me fresh meat, even though there is enough food in the freezers and pantries of the homes left to feed me forever. I never expected that werewolves were preppers. Kenneth would have been right at home with them.

I laughed a little at my thoughts as I carried a bag holding jars of home-canned fruit back to Richard's house. My craving of the week was bacon and peaches. The crispy, salted savoriness of the bacon and the succulent sweetness of peaches together was so good, so perfect. It made me drool like a Raver to think about it, but before I could eat, I had something else to do.

Matthias was following me around today. There was always a Raver within the sound of my voice, I tried not to let myself get freaked out by it. If they ever turned on me, I would be d-e-a-d, dead. I walked over to the house that belonged to Matthias. I coaxed him onto the porch and brought out the pillows from his old bedroom. He killed his mate and child inside their home, just like Rand did. I spent a whole day scrubbing the blood up before the first time I tried to get him to come in.

"Come on Matthias, come inside." I used my gentlest voice, one step at a time, I remind myself. The big taupe Raver whimpered and stepped inside slowly. "You're doing a good job. One more step," I coaxed while holding the pillows out, just beyond his reach.

He wanted to sniff them. Another tentative paw-foot moved forward. He stopped just before the place where the body of his mate had lain. Her name was Nora, their son was Martin. Naming pups after the father's family seemed to be a thing here. He knelt, running his claws over the place where Nora died, making the same chuffing sound that I associated with Raver grief.

I patted him and rubbed his ears, as he squatted on the floor. "It's okay, she knows you didn't mean it. It was an accident."

I really didn't know what to say to these broken creatures, I don't know how much they understand. They seemed very intelligent, but savagely feral too. They killed their families and neighbors under the influence of whatever the Elm Street chemical was. I couldn't judge them, I shot my own daughter that night. I put the pillows down next to him and left him with his grief, propping the door open with a shoe. Never shut a Raver in a house unless you want the door removed or a new one made. I learned that the hard way with Carl. As I walked back toward the house, Ryan took Matthias' place as my giant drooling shadow. I stopped on the porch and took off my shoes, reaching out to scratch Ryan's ears. I talked out loud to them all the time, as much to hear my own voice as to keep from going crazy.

"Hey Ryan... Still have mange?"

He growled slightly, not a threatening growl, but a 'stop teasing me' whiny growl. I spent days scrubbing him and medicating the infection that caused his fur to fall out. He had spots of peach fuzz all over where his fur was growing back.

I laughed, "It's okay, I won't tell the cute girls you caught cooties."

He huffed indignantly. Ryan was the youngest of the Ravers, too young to be mated. He and his father Rob look so much like Richard, only smaller and leaner. He followed me into the kitchen and started sniffing around the counters. I knew what he was after, so I opened the door to the pantry, and pulled out the cookie jar, retrieving a couple of oatmeal cookies. He waited while I spread them with peanut butter. His whitened eyes intense as he smacked his lips and licked his face with his giant tongue. He was the only Raver who ate anything besides raw, fresh-killed meat. He was a kid really, only sixteen when everything went wrong. He still slept in his room at their almost demolished house, but Rob won't go in it or hardly near it. I couldn't help my smile as the teen Raver wolfed down his favorite treat.

There was a growl by the door, Richard was back. He didn't like Ryan or any Raver in his house. I think it is a 'dad of daughters' thing. From the slant of Richard's head and ears, I knew something was wrong beyond the cookie-holic teenage Raver in the kitchen. Ryan slouched down and slinked out, tail tucked under. Peanut butter and oatmeal cookie-drool dripping on the floor. I honestly had begun to believe Ravers drooled worse than mastiffs.

"Be nice to your nephew," I scolded. "He's too young for all this." I was not sure Ryan was Richard's nephew, but I knew they must be family somehow. I wish the pack offices hadn't burned, so I could find the records.

Richard cocked his wolf head at me and bared his teeth. He didn't like it when I corrected him, typical Alpha behavior, but I just planted my hands on my hips and scowled at him, before smirking, "Do you want me to brush your teeth again?"

He grunted, then bowed his head slightly, grumbling, that was when I noticed he was holding something. "What's that, Richard?"

He gave me some crumpled papers and a photograph.

It looked like the stuff from the hanger where Greyson, Lance and I put all the research. Richard whined, as I read it. Greyson's neat script was describing how Jacob succumbed to the Raver Rage episodes that affected all of those who recovered; it was basically werewolf PTSD. But instead of lasting hours, Jacob's first episode lasted eight days. He shifted between his wolf, human, and fighting forms multiple times every day. He woke up human and was normal for less than an hour before he had to be caged again. I sank down onto the barstool by the island. He only had seventeen human hours in the last twenty days. He had not shifted back from his Raver to his wolf or his human for six days and Greyson feared the change may be permanent as with those made Ravers on the Revelation Night.

"How long ago were you there?" I looked up from the notes to Richard's hand then at the photograph.

The picture was of a giant silvery-gray Raver that looked exactly like Joshua, pathetically curled up in a cage. In his clawed hand, something yellow, perhaps a ball. He was looking straight at the camera, and all I could see was the pain in his eyes. I may hate Jacob for what he did to me, but I would never want anyone to go through this. Not even him. My worst nightmare had just been realized as reality. Jacob was a Raver again and maybe forever. I flipped through the rumpled pages, rereading them, and I knew they were going to kill him soon.

Joshua was standing behind Richard when I looked back up from the report. On the last page was a note to me, asking me to come back and explaining why. Greyson was told this had happened with several of the survivors who were taken to someplace called the Mid-America Pack. He was going again to speak to their Doctors and the Council of Nonhuman Species about his experience with Clark, Rand, and Will going through the Rage. Their current policy was that if Jacob didn't recover, he would be put down like the others were. Greyson was hoping that his work with the Monarch Mountain Ravers would convince them to do otherwise.

"They're going to kill Jacob if he doesn't recover from the Raver Rage. Greyson is going to try to talk them out of it," I sighed heavily. Justice moved inside me and poked his foot toward his uncle, who reached out to pat my belly where his little foot tapped. If I didn't know any better, I would think I was due any day, not next month. "They want me to come back to West..."

Both Ravers snarled their disagreement before I even finished. I sighed, internally grateful they agreed with my wolf that I should not move back. "Richard, do you think we can get him out?"

Richard nodded.

"I need a car or truck, we can drive and be there in a few hours."

A deep growl interrupted me, Joshua obviously didn't like my idea. "Joshua, they have him in a cage, they are going to kill him. He's gone Raver. He hasn't shifted back to either his wolf or his human for six days when this was written three days ago."

Joshua tipped his head and raised his lip to show his fangs in hostile question. "Yes, I still hate him," I snapped, "But I don't want him to die. He's my son's father."

Joshua just stared at me in that unnerving way he had, then he huffed. He pointed at me and then at the floor, his chest rumbling menacingly.

"Fine, I'll stay here, but if you aren't back in four days, I am going to get him myself. They only let them live for two weeks if they go Raver and don't shift back to either human or wolf," I snarled back at him. "He only has five days left if we don't get him out of the old prison in Walsenburg."

We glared at each other, until Richard clicked his teeth, then we both looked at him. I knew staring down an Alpha wolf was the fastest way to end up with teeth in one's neck, but I didn't care, I was giant and grumpy, and I wanted an avocado like I needed air. Richard left first, and Joshua followed. I watch them lumbering off to the southeast, several other Ravers followed. Rob and Ryan remained standing outside. All I could do was wait and pray that enough of Jacob was left to get him back, hoping against hope that he was more human than monster.