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.
Helen was the only one who completed her leap. Her wolf form hit the ground, legs splayed out to catch itself, claws grating on linoleum tile. The parka-wearing woman was gone.
“No killing fights on feeding grounds,” whispered something that was not human before the acrid tang of stomach acid went away.
Neither the guard nor any of the other visitors in the lobby reacted—just the weres, who clustered around a now naked Helen, kicking away an empty paper cup. Nice of the Shadows to clean up the spill hazard too. Always thinking about safety, that was them. I put a hand to my mouth and let out a squeak into my palm.
Naked yet still self-possessed, Helen made a thoughtful growl. “One of Viktor’s women. I’m sure of it.”
“I saw him earlier on today. Downtown,” I said. “Near the Armory.”
Helen looked to her people. “Three of you—go.”
Three people at the back of her group peeled away and ran for the door, ignoring the security guard.
The rest of them continued as though nothing unusual had happened. They took off parts of their own winter clothing, handing them over to Helen. One gave her a knee-length trench coat, and between that and a black wool sweater she looked pretty normal, until you got down to the fact that her legs and feet were bare.
“Now, Edie, you were asking for Sanctuary?” she said.
I remembered Anna’s suggestion to make it sound official, and cribbed my words from Sike the other night. “On behalf of Anna Arsov, the near-ascended, yes.”
“Helen, the mother of the Deepest Snow pack, grants it.” She looked to her were-friends surrounding us. “Protect her as though she were me. Both of you—” she pointed at two more weres in the group.
I had an image of returning to Y4 with two weres in tow. Charles would hate me for sure, then. “No—I’m safe while I’m here—the Shadows—you saw.”
She petted the collar of her loaned coat and gave a smug smile. “Indeed. I’ll send someone to wait for you at the end of your shift in this lobby,” she said, then switched from regal to tired again. “I should get home. You’ll call me if anything changes with my father, right?”
“Of course,” I said, and nodded fast.
Helen and her retinue left then, her people clustered around her. The guard returned from outside, where the weres sent to chase Viktor had lost him. He panted, hands on knees, and watched the rest of the pack depart. None of them were running, so it was fine. Even if that one lady didn’t have on shoes. I could see it on his face, him thinking that he’d seen crazier stuff.
I knew for sure he had. Even if he couldn’t quite remember it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Back so soon?” Meaty asked as I walked past the nursing station.
“You have no idea.” I rounded the bend, and Rachel looked up at my return.
“You got her to go home?” Rachel craned back in her chair, as though I were hiding a full-grown woman behind me.
“Yeah. Can I go on break?” I leaned forward to look at the clock inside Winter’s room. “I know it’s early but—”
“Sure, fine.” Rachel waved me away too. To her I looked like another kind of visitor, me and my two legs.
I walked back out the way I’d come. I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to sit down and be normal just yet.
First, I wanted to change my scrubs. Helen’s coffee had stained the ankle of my pants when it’d fallen, and I still smelled tangy like stomach contents, at least to my mind. Maybe the Shadows’ vapor had singed my nose. Where had the parka-wearing woman gone? I didn’t think I wanted to know.
Did I feel safer about things now? I hadn’t ever done anything to Viktor—but between the dents in my car and the were-women, I didn’t know. Maybe he was insane. Since two weres had attacked me in the mall parking lot, and the Shadows had only killed one tonight, I didn’t feel safer, really. I pulled off my scrub top angrily.
Helen had been so controlled when she’d been attacked. It must be fabulous to have a power you could call on when you needed it, just wrap it around you like a cloak—or know that you were already dead, or partially dead, and therefore mostly invulnerable. I yanked off my pants and threw them into the soiled linen cart forcefully.
I liked my job. I liked knowing things. I didn’t think I’d like being normal. But I wasn’t so sure I wanted this anymore, worrying about my life and smelling like puke. I opened my locker and redid my ponytail in the little mirror magnetized inside. On the top shelf inside I saw my dish towel holding Anna’s ceremonial knife.
I’d made a promise. I’d see it through. But after that—who knew. I straightened my scrubs, pulled my lanyard to hang outside them, and slammed my locker shut.
The rest of the night passed in a haze. Winter’s care was like moving deck chairs on the Titanic. When we turned him, he didn’t resist, and the blackening of his toes and fingers was creeping higher, slowly but inevitably. I helped Rachel, I helped Charles, I helped Meaty—I couldn’t wait for morning to come.
Since I didn’t have a report to give, I snuck out as soon as I could. How would I know if the were-escort for me was safe or not? I should have asked Helen for a password.