I threw myself up and hammered at the door, pummeling it with my fists and yelling at the top of my lungs. I screamed and screamed until I heard footsteps approach from the other side and the lock turned. The door opened and Buck was standing there, looking down at me with a snarl.
“What do you want? It’s better if you just keep quiet,” he growled.
“I need to see Jack,” I said.
“Buck, get out of the way!” Matt said, pushing past the big man. He came into the room and pressed his hands against my head, looking into my eyes. “Are you okay Trish? How are you feeling?”
I nodded as he released me. “I’m okay. I took the drink. I saw…I saw them Matt. It worked. Can you…can you make it so that I can see them again?”
“I’m sorry Trish, but as I said the root is rare. I used it all up to make that potion. I don’t know when I’ll find any again,” he said. I nodded numbly, somehow knowing that was the case. I had broken the immutable laws of the world and I had to be satisfied with the one time of doing so.
“She looks okay,” Matt said to Buck, “I don’t think we’ll be having any problem with her now,” he said. He turned to me. I nodded. I didn’t have any plans to escape. Where would I go and what would I do? I saw now that my life was largely meaningless without these wolves. I had always been meant to be a part of the pack. It was my destiny, as my father had always meant it to be.
*
It took some convincing from Matt but, eventually, he made Buck relent and escorted me through the clubhouse to Jack’s room.
“It’s going to be okay now, you’ll see,” Matt said, offering me a reassuring smile as he opened the door to Jack’s room and showed me in, leaving me alone with the leader of the pack.
“So you had your journey to the bridge between the two worlds?” Jack asked. He was standing in the corner of the room with his back to me. His room was devoid of the personal touch. There was a bed, some clothes in a closet, and tattered books on a shelf. The window looked out on the meadow. Tools hung on the wall and he was fiddling with one of them when he turned to face me.
“Yes. Have you been on one?”
“A long time ago now,” he said, betraying nothing with the tone of his voice.
“What do you call that place?”
“There are many different names. I like to call it the garden of the moon. Sometimes I wish I could visit it more often, but there is time for that in the future. There is still much to do here first.”
“You mean the Hunters,” I said. At the mention of their name his gaze flicked up and for a moment his blue eyes flashed gold. His lip curled and shadows fell upon his face.
“Yes, the Hunters,” he said.
“My father mentioned them when I saw him,” I moved into the room. “They seem to have been a problem for some time now. What exactly is their story?”
Jack moved away from the wall and sank on the edge of his bed. I remained standing. “All through our history there have been wars between packs of wolves. It is the nature of things to ensure that only the strongest pack survives. It’s probably one of the reasons why we have had to live in the shadows. If we learned to work together we might have become even stronger, but that is not our way. Then the world started to change and people saw opportunities elsewhere. They started to leave this life behind and forge their own paths. The Hunters saw this and despised them for it. They believe that we should be eradicated, that any weakness should be culled. Sadly some members of our pack have joined theirs over the years. They believe that we should be wiped out and that they should be the only wolves left. They’ve always been brash and sought violent ends to things. So far we’ve managed to stave them off, but I fear that a great battle is coming, one that will define the future of wolves, and perhaps the future of the world.”
“What do you mean?”
When Jack looked up at me I could see the emotion held within his eyes. “They won’t stop with us. They see themselves as stronger than us and stronger than humans. To them it is a crime that they are not the dominant species and it is us weak wolves who have been holding them back. They wish to multiply and spread throughout the world, to declare war on humans and take territory for themselves. Their ambition matches their ruthlessness and I’m afraid to say that they w
ill not relent unless they are stopped.”
“Then you must stop them. They killed my father.”
“I want to, but I cannot be sure which way the battle will go. First I must secure the bloodline. I must ensure that the pack will continue. That is the most important thing.”
“My father said the same thing…”
“He was a wise man. Perhaps the best of us there has ever been.” There was sheer reverence in Jack’s voice. But there was a nagging doubt in the back of my mind, a gnawing thought that I just couldn’t shake.
“What actually happened to him Jack? How did the Hunters get him? If he was so strong then how could he let this happen?” My voice trembled with worry. I hadn’t been able to ask Jake how he died when I had been in the garden of the moon, but I had been curious.
“He didn’t seek it out. There was a meeting and he was escorting women and children. The Hunters had been growing more threatening and the pack needed to know how to defend themselves and cope with the new threat. But there were enemies from within. They attacked and Jake was the only thing standing between the rest of the pack and death. He held the Hunters off while the rest of the pack escaped. There must have been ten of them at least, maybe more, and Jake lasted far longer than he had a right to. By the time help came he had massacred most of them, but the damage had been done. As soon as he knew the pack was safe he bled out and died. His sacrifice ensured that we would continue and thrive. The rest of the Hunters were hunted, and fought and defeated. Back then there were still enough of us to have superiority, but some of them escaped and have spent all this time rebuilding their pack, while ours has grown weaker and smaller.”
I was proud of my father for being a hero and for giving his life to save the pack, but it didn’t do anything to dispel my hatred of the Hunters. Because of them I had been denied a father. However, it did make me wonder if those same instincts were housed within my soul. I was his daughter after all, could I be that strong and that heroic when faced with danger?
Perhaps I would find out sooner than I would have liked.