A Witch's Blood

Chapter 7

Carl Wilson

While I was hunting last night, I picked up the scent of a fairly fresh deer kill. There was no smell of spilt blood, no stink of illness, just a kind of staleness that animals often have about them before decomposition sets in, with its characteristic sickly-sweet reek. I don't scavenge except under the most desperate of circumstances, but curiosity drove me to delay my hunt for fresh meat to check it out.

I found the kill site, saw that the deer had been dragged a short distance away to a clump of bushes and hastily covered up. I don't think very well in wolf form, so I did my best to memorize the location and marked it before moving on in search of livelier quarry.

This morning, there's a small window of time before school starts where I've got enough daylight to go to the site and check it out.

My memories of the night before get me close to the dead deer, and then I use the claw marks I'd made on several trees to bring me to the precise spot. Judging by the way the leaves are kicked up, something must have tackled the deer, but there wasn't much struggle after that. The motionless animal was then dragged into a heavier clump of bushes and hastily covered up with leaves and other detritus. I clear it off and examine it. It was a young buck, maybe a year old, so not very big yet.

It looks like it's been here for about a day. I can tell immediately that its neck was broken. Deer, even one as young as this, are strong animals. It would take considerable strength to kill it that way. Anywhere that I can see its skin, it is very pale. That and a few other signs tell me it had been drained almost completely of blood. I immediately look closely at the neck, and find two fang marks.

Looks like zombie Ben is supplementing his human diet with wild game. Still, one drop of blood from one of the local people is one too many. He needs to move on. Unfortunately, it's now clear that he has eyes on Ivy, and nothing makes a male – man or zombie boy – linger in a place like a pretty girl.

The one credit I must grudgingly give to Ben is that it looks like he took the deer down gently, and gave it a quick end instead of leaving it weak and vulnerable from blood loss. When I hunt, my strength and power usually kill my prey suddenly, but it's also very bloody and gruesome.

I leave the deer where I found it and continue to examine the area. It was dry and calm last night, so I'm still able to make out the track the deer took, but it takes me a long time to find the place where Ben had waited to ambush it. He was careful, and tread very lightly. I mentally note this, and wonder at his background that he can leave almost no trace under these conditions, stalk a wild animal, and take it down by hand. Once I realized Ben was a zombie, I felt he must be one of the older ones. Easily old enough to have fought in the Great War between my kind and his. So how old is he, really.

I had to learn a lot about vampires during the Great War, their habits and psychology, their physiology. Judging by the size of the deer, I figure Ben can go at least a week now before he he'll need to feed again. I don't want him near Ivy when the compulsion starts to get strong.

It's time for me to head in to school. As I walk back to my car, I curse Ben for taking up so much of my morning. I'd spent most of the night out on the prowl, and would have really liked to have slept in. One more reason for me to not like him.

*****

"You're looking a little rough this morning, Graylock," Kate says to me. "And Ivy isn't here yet, either..."

"Don't even with that," I tell her. "You know it's not like that with us." This is a very tiresome joke of Kate's. Sometimes I think she borders on mean-spiritedness with that. She's generally a decent person, but seems to take a perverse thrill in taunting me this way.

"I'm just saying that you two are often running late on the same mornings."

"I have no idea what Ivy was doing last night," I say. "I was out enjoying the woods under the full moon. Alone."

"Were you out until dawn?" Kate asks. I notice she's looking at my pant leg. I must have brushed against a pricker bush while I was checking up on Ben's kill this morning.

I have to think of something quick. "I think a coyote took out a raccoon last night, left it half-eaten in my yard. I took the remains out to the woods so they don't stink my place up." Inside, I want to slap myself for pinning my morning on a coyote. Ben doesn't deserve to be compared to any canine, not even a lowly coyote.

"You can stand doing that?" Kate asks.

"If it has to be done, it has to be done," I say.

"Well, I'm calling you next time we get something like that in our yard. I don't like having to deal with those messes, and my dad's even a bigger priss than Mom and me, and I don't like to ask Nathan to handle dead animals."

"Unless I'm cooking one for you," Nathan says, swatting at Kate with his fingertips.

"Graylock Carcass Cleanup is always available," I say.

"What would Ivy think if she saw you flirting with Kate like that, especially after the night you two had together?" Nathan asks.

I am just about to tell Nathan to lay off when we see Ivy pull her car into the lot, right as the first bell rings.

"Ivy IQ is never this late," Nathan says. He's got a genuine look of concern on her face, and I know that all joking about last night is at an end. He's right, though. Ivy is never tardy for school unless something is terribly wrong.

I look back toward Ivy and notice Ben's motorcycle right behind her. Ivy finds two empty spaces side by side, and they pull in next to each other.

"Oh..." Kate says, as we watch Ivy get out of her car while Ben parks his bike. There is very definitely something different about the way they are interacting this morning. "Come on, Carl," Kate says. "We'll be late for class."

I can't take my eyes off of Ben and Ivy. They both keep looking our way as they talk.

"Carl!" Kate says. "Let's go."

"It's Ok," I tell her. "I can tell what's going on, too."

"Then go to class," Nathan says.

I don't move.

"We're mad, too, Carl. We don't want her with that freak any more than you do, but getting into it here and now isn't going to help."

"Let us talk to her. It won't do anybody any good for you to lose your temper at her," Kate says.

"Or at him," Nathan adds.

I stand up and walk toward the front door. I risk a quick look back just as I'm inside the building, and they're holding hands as they walk.

It takes everything I've got to keep walking to class. In the end, it's remembering what Grandma told me the other night that gets me to walk away. If I harm Ben, they'll take it out on Ivy. As mad as I am at her as well, it would kill me if anything ever happened to her.

I let my morning classes distract me from my mood. Ironically it is because of Ivy that I find those classes so calming. My morning is Music, Shop, English Lit, and Graphic Design. Ivy is the one that first showed me that the arts could be something much more than mandatory classes that weren't going to get me anywhere in life. When she told me some of the stories behind her favorite piano songs, and played certain passages over and over again, telling me how the composer used different sounds and patterns to create emotion, I finally understood why it was important.

From there I figured out that it's not just sound that can affect people that way. Words can do it, images. The way Ivy could explain these things to me in ways no teacher ever could was part of why I so admire, and honestly, love her.

I get to the lunch table that Ivy typically shares with Kate, Nathan, and me, and pretty soon my mood sours again. She never shows. I'm so worried about her being with that zombie that I barely touch my lunch – something very unusual, since my wolf blood gives me a pretty indestructible stomach. Even Nathan notices it, and seems to back even farther off from his teasing.

"Carl, I know you don't want to hear this, but let us talk to Ivy about Ben," Kate says. "I know you very legitimately care for her, but anything you say about Ben is going to sound like you're just jealous that he gets her and you don't." I know she wants to add more, about my tendency to get pretty hot headed, but she bites it off.

I know they're right. Kate and Nathan are right, Grandma is right, everybody is right. If I try to come between Ben and Ivy, I'm going to just push her farther away from me and ever closer to him. I still chafe at being told to do nothing about a problem. Problems are meant to be solved, not watched.

Of my afternoon classes, only the hour of Gym set between Algebra 2 and Physics offers me any distraction from my feelings. Even Gym is tough, though. We're in the middle of a month of wrestling lessons, and while it's good to get to tangle physically with someone, I have to keep reminding myself to play nice, to hide my actual strength, to not just let myself go on some poor kid who doesn't deserve it.

By the time the day ends, I've gotten myself completely worked up. I walk out the door, and there I see Ben and Ivy, walking hand in hand again. The zombie isn't wearing his absurd glasses and is bare headed. I look out into the parking lot and see a helmet sitting on one of his motorcycle's mirrors. The zombie is obviously trying to play like he's a nice, respectable boy, riding his bike like an old man now, and wearing a lid. He's also outside in full sunlight now, which vampires simply cannot stand. A tiny voice inside of me briefly says, 'No,' but I ignore it, and catch up with them.

"Ivy, Ben," I say. It's taking everything I've got to stay calm and cool when I approach. They turn to look at me, still holding hands. "Mind if I take a minute," I ask Ben, keeping it civil, trying to sound as natural as I can.

"Sure," he says, squinting into the sun, trying not to wince in pain. I'd intentionally approached with the sun directly behind me, so it would be in his eyes whenever he tried to talk to me. "I'll call you later tonight," he says.

Both of them are polite enough, or maybe just scared enough of me going off, that they don't kiss goodbye right in front of me. Ivy just says, "Yes. I'll look forward to it." Her eyes follow him as he scurries off to his bike to cover up from the mean old sun and go back to his little crypt.

"Since Grandma's gone, want me to come over and keep you company for dinner?"

She turns her eyes from Ben to me. "Thanks, but I'll be fine tonight." She gives me a really awkward smile. The kind that always says, 'I want to let you down easy.'

"He's not coming over, is he?" I ask.

"Not like it's any of your business, but no. Grandma's rules, no boys over to the house when she's on the road."

"Well, no boys you have any chance of doing anything with," I say. It sounds way more petulant and whiny than I'd intended. I sound weak.

"You're family, Carl. And she likes you coming by when she's gone, because she trusts that nothing could ever hurt me while you're there."

How can one word be simultaneously the best and worst thing anybody could call you? I lost my family when I was five. Murdered by vampires in the great war. A couple other werewolves took me in to foster, but they weren't family, and they never let me be a child. From the moment my parents died, I went into training to be a soldier, a vampire killer. They didn't love me, they didn't care for me, they just molded me.

When Grandma calls me 'Family,' nothing in all of the world makes me happier. To have a woman I look up to consider me as close as her own blood fills me with such pride. But when Ivy uses that word with me, it's something else. It's a limitation, a cage. Sisters don't love brothers the way I wish Ivy could love me.

That one word, 'Family,' out of her mouth is a future I long for rendered impossible.

"I should come by, then, so Grandma can relax knowing I'm there."

"No," Ivy says, sharply. "We both know what's going to happen. You're going to just bad mouth Ben all night long. Maybe you'll start politely, but you're not going to stop, and I am sick and tired of everybody constantly pushing me about this."

I open my mouth to say something.

"Shut it," she says. "I can take care of myself. I can date who I want to date, whether you or Grandma or anybody else likes him or not. I see something in him that I really like and that I don't see in anybody else." Ivy looks down at her shoes and bites her lip.

I know what she's about to say next, and I don't want to hear it out loud, but I also respect her enough to not walk away from her right now.

"Not even you, Carl."

Behind me, I hear Ben's little toy drive off. She finally looks up, not at me, but to watch him go. I'm furious at him for using all the skill at charming women he's certainly picked up over his many years to turn my sensible Ivy into a love-struck fool.

"There's a lot about Ben you don't know," I say.

"I know enough. He told me about his family last night, about how they have to live. He's just been needing somebody to reach out to him and open up a bit."

"Oh, he told you, did he? What did he say?"

"He said you need to earn his trust enough for him to tell you the story is what he said, Carl."

I shake my head at her. "Whatever he told you is a lie. There is no Ben Wake, it's just a name he's using for now, and that he'll discard, along with you, as soon as he gets what he wants."

"See, Carl? This is why I don't want you to come over tonight."

"This is why you need me to come over, Ivy." I'm trying so hard to not break the secrecy of the vampires, because there's no way I could do that and not break the secrecy about my people as well. It would also break the Truce for any one of us, zombie or blood, to out one of the others. I don't care about the truce, though. I care about protecting my own. And when I say 'my own', I mean my blood and I mean Ivy.

"I can't deal with this anymore. I can't deal with you anymore, Carl."

"And I can't stand by and see someone I love be taken and used by something like Ben."

Ivy stares at me. I realize both of the mistakes I just made, dropping the l-word with her, and referring to Ben as a thing. I can't stop myself, though. The wolf has got a hold of my tongue.

"You want Ben, take him, but if you do, I walk away. Which is it? All the good years we've had as best of friends, or some gloomy fop that just sauntered into town."

"Well thank you for giving me a simple choice," Ivy says. "You can turn around and walk away. Right now."

I open my mouth to speak, and she cuts me off again.

"Shut it, Carl. Shut it and keep it shut."

Now I'm angry, and that always gives the wolf more control. If I open my mouth, I will regret to my dying day what comes out of it. I clamp my teeth together and turn away. Keeping quiet now is my only chance of salvaging anything that we once had, if there's anything left of her after Ben throws her away.

Ivy doesn't know that even in human form, I still have unusually acute hearing. Nowhere near as sharp as when I'm in wolf form, but enough that I barely hear her whisper, "Carl," and "Please?" as I walk away.

I have never in my life had as much trouble putting one foot in front of the other as I am now. The wolf is whispering in my ear to go out and hunt, rend, tear, kill. It reminds me of the feel of hot blood spraying all over my face, of the metallic taste of raw flesh in my mouth. The wolf reminds me that for all the years of childhood I lost learning to stalk and destroy vampires, the Truce happened before I ever got to use any of it. "Just once," the wolf whispers. "Just once. Use it..."

I need to silence the wolf right now. I start humming some of Ivy's favorite piano music. It doesn't completely silence the wolf, but I at least remind it that any harm we bring to Ben will be paid for in Ivy's blood. They will send more zombies than I could ever dream of fending off to destroy her.