Moonshifted(63)

“Junior’s twelve. He’s in fifth grade.”

“He’s a pretty cute—I mean, handsome wolf.”

Helen laughed. “Thank you. He’s a handful, but I love him dearly. Everyone does. It’s very kind of Lucas to travel here to hold his place.”

We made our way down the stairs near the cafeteria, then cut down toward the lobby. “Do you all homeschool?”

“No. My pack’s philosophy requires forced integration, coupled with strict control. Packs that isolate themselves lose the economic means to survive. We may play in the parks come the full moon, but on a day-to-day basis we’re out there being productive citizens, paying taxes, driving on public roads.” She sounded like she’d given this talk before, and she was walking by herself now. It seemed our conversation had given her strength—that or the coffee.

Speaking of roads—“Where was your father coming from the day that he got hit?”

She reached the bottom of the stairs and turned toward me with a shrug. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

“It looked like he was coming from the hospital.” He’d been on the same corner that Charles and I had on our way to the Rock Ronalds.

“Did it?” she asked, her voice surprised.

“Kind of, yeah.” Not that there weren’t other buildings on our block.

Her head bowed and her posture slumped. “I guess now we’ll never know,” she said sadly.

We reached the lobby together. It was full as usual with visitors and vagrants—and a few of them stood at Helen’s arrival. I heard someone whisper “Mother Helen!” and a handful of people crowded up, reaching out to Helen with their hands like she was a lost pop star. “How is he? Is there anything new?” They were an eclectic group: one looked like a biker, another looked nearly homeless, a third was a soccer mom, and three others were varying shades of gray.

Their attention seemed to bring fresh life to her. Like a wilting flower put in water, she revived to stand tall. I wondered how much of it was real—being surrounded by friends in bad times helped—and how much of it was her feeling like she needed to put on a strong act. Maybe there wasn’t that much different between Helen and Luz.

The guard up near the front of the lobby glanced our way, but he had obviously seen everything before. It wasn’t his job to be the bad cop, even though he wore a badge—he was just supposed to keep the peace, and the visitors weren’t misbehaving, even though I thought they were crowding Helen. I bet it helped that I was wearing scrubs, and they were all acting like they were about to get bad news. Guards gave bad news wide berth.

Helen reached out among them like Mother Teresa, hugging and petting them, individually and together.

I likely wasn’t going to get a better chance than this to ask for her protection, even if it felt like I was invading a private moment between her and her people. This was not my place, these were clearly not my friends—I could tell by the looks they were giving me. More than I hated visitors—I hated feeling like one.

I stood to the side of the group and cleared my throat. “Helen—I know this is a bad time for you—but—”

The lobby doors opened and a woman in a parka came in, hood up. She walked past the guard’s desk and slowly turned. The badge on my lanyard lit up like candles on a birthday cake.

I shoved into the group of weres and grabbed hold of Helen’s arm. “Sanctuary—please!”

Helen turned her head to look at me in surprise. Behind her I could see the parka woman lower to all fours. Humans were not supposed to move like that. She didn’t lope awkwardly like a werewolf from a horror movie—she glided, picking up speed, jumping over orange couches in the way. Her mouth opened, so wide I could see teeth, teeth that were not right, teeth that were racing out as quickly as their owner to meet me.

“No running!” the guard yelled after her.

“Sanctuary!” I pleaded.

“Sanctuary?” Helen said, as though she hadn’t heard me, then looked behind herself. I didn’t know if the wind in the lobby shifted, or her were-senses tingled, but she shoved her nearest packmates away, sent them sprawling, and changed.

In the time it took for her coffee to fall to the ground, a blond middle-aged woman going sour with repeated loss turned into a yellow-gray wolf. In this new form, Helen crouched as the parka-woman leapt into the air to meet her.

The lobby strobed.

For a fraction of a second it was full color—orange couches, pieces of bright abstract art framed on the walls—and the next it was black. A were near me started howling. Moonlight filtered in through the skylights I always forgot our lobby had. The blackness was like a mist—I could see it—a cold, damp fog that smelled faintly of digestive juices. And then color resolved anew.