“You had that one song you used to play.” Bran had musical instruments scattered all over the house. An acoustic guitar was balanced on a floor stand. Devon picked it up and held it out in a hand that vibrated with his tension. “Do you remember? To make your roses grow. She is so scared. She needs you to help her grow.”
“It wasn’t on a guitar like this.” Asil knew which song he meant. “And a child is not a rose, to flower with music.”
But Asil took the guitar anyway. He could play guitar, even if it had been a while. He was pretty sure he could even manage to work out that old song on this modern descendant of the guitarra morisca he’d originally composed it on.
“That song,” Devon said urgently, hugging his now-empty hands against himself. “You play that one.”
“All right, mi amigo.”
Devon looked down. “I have to—have to change back.” He closed his eyes. “She smells like Freda,” he said. “Don’t you think? Freda liked that song.”
“She is very like,” said Asil, who did not remember what Devon’s long-ago daughter had smelled like. But he did remember a pretty little thing who had been fond of roses and moved like a colt. Kara had that same awkward gracefulness, too. Freda had lived to be a grandmother and died centuries ago.
The change took Devon again, slowly swallowing Asil’s old friend in the protective skin of the wolf. He did not expect that they would converse again in this lifetime.
He let the old wolf change in peace and left, rose in one hand and guitar in the other, to do battle with fate.
The pole barn was silent when he returned. The wolves who had been standing were seated. Charles was back and gave him a look that told Asil that the Marrok’s son had realized that his father had sent him away to give Asil a chance to fight Bran without interference.
Bran looked at his guitar in Asil’s hand.
“Yes, I know,” Asil said. “Your guitar. Also, you play it better than I do. But I promised Devon I would play her a song for him.” He looked at Kara, who was lying in a miserable heap at Bran’s feet. “He told me that music helped him.” He crouched, ignoring the other people’s reactions. “Devon has not taken human form in my presence for a hundred years,” he told her. “He did tonight because he is worried about you. He thought it would help if I play a song I played to his daughter a long time ago.” He put the rose on the ground in front of her. “I want you to close your eyes, smell the rose. Remember what I told you. Listen to the music, and let Kara come out to play.”
She gave him a long look.
He let her hold his gaze, and said simply, “Trust me.”
She put her nose on the flower and took a deep breath.
There was a wave of sound from the assembled werewolves, and Asil looked up, irritated. But he lost his irritation when Devon came into the barn, all the way wolf now. He tipped his head so he didn’t look at anyone as he trotted over to Kara and dropped a blanket on top of her. He looked up to Bran without meeting his Alpha’s gaze, let his eyes trail over Charles, then Asil.
“Thank you,” Asil murmured, spreading the blanket over Kara.
Devon had realized that a young girl would not be comfortable being naked in front of a room filled with werewolves, most of whom were men. It had been a long time since Asil had experienced a shred of modesty.
Devon ducked his head, hesitated, then licked Kara’s face. Then he turned and trotted out of the building, not quite running away.
Asil sat on the ground beside Kara and strummed the guitar. He looked at Bran. “It’s out of tune.”
“You are wasting time,” said the wolf who had had to kill his wife. “You’re just making it harder on her.”
“I said silence.” Bran’s voice didn’t have to be loud to be effective. To Asil, Bran said, “New strings. They take a while to break in.”
Asil tuned the high E string until he was pleased with it. He played a little of this and that, letting his fingers learn the spacing of Bran’s guitar. The one he usually played had a slightly narrower neck.
He slid into the song a few chords at a time, his fingers finding the notes that his heart knew. He played the chorus twice before he sang the first verse.
It was a very long and silly song, more about the sound of the words than the meaning. Each verse a medley of compliments that sounded like they were addressed to a woman, but the chorus made it clear that it was addressed to a flower instead.
He glanced around the room. He could see the people who understood Spanish because, even under the serious circumstance, they started to grin. Kara didn’t, as far as he knew, speak Spanish. But under the blanket, she’d quit shivering.
When he finished the chorus, he sang the first verse in English, translating on the fly. When he couldn’t find a word fast enough, he used the Spanish word and kept going. It worked, adding humor. On the second verse, Bran joined him. Sometimes, Bran found a different English word than Asil did—sometimes it was a better one.
Just before they started the second chorus, Asil leaned down, and said, “Now, chica. Try now.” He didn’t put any particular force in his voice, nothing any of their watchers could object to. If there was power in his words, it was only the power of hope.
Kara sighed—and began to change.
Asil was unashamed when a tear slid down his face.
When she could speak, Kara said, “It was a magical rose. Like you said.”
Bran’s eyebrows shot up. And several of the wolves in the audience came to their feet at her words.
Asil lifted a haughty brow. “There is magic in a rose in winter,” he told them. “If only because it is a rose in winter.” He smiled at Kara. “But that change you accomplished yourself.”
A few weeks later, Asil answered a knock on his greenhouse door.
“Bran,” he said. “How nice to see you.”
Bran folded his arms and looked at Asil without making any attempt to come inside. “You’ve been gone for a few days.”
Asil smiled. He stepped outside and closed the door, to keep the cold from getting inside. “I’m flattered that you noticed.”
“Hatchard Cole’s second called me this morning. Seems Hatchard disappeared. No sign of struggle, no sign of anything. He just vanished.”
Asil’s wolf slid out and looked at their Alpha. “Odd,” Asil said, knowing the wolf was in his voice. Knowing that Bran would hear the satisfaction he did not bother to hide.
“I remember,” Bran said softly. “There was an Alpha in Spain who was a very bad man, two hundred years ago. He hurt a lot of people. And then one day, his second went to that Alpha’s home and his Alpha was just gone. No sign of struggle. No scent of strangers. Nothing. No one ever heard of him again.”
Asil shrugged.
“Someday, you aren’t going to come back from a kill,” Bran said intently.
“Some risks are worth taking,” Asil told him. “Did you hear that Kara’s dad is bringing her mom to visit?”
Bran’s face gentled. “Yes. I heard. Kara told me, too.”
IN RED, WITH PEARLS
When I received the invitation to do a private detective story for the George R. R. Martin/Gardner Dozois anthology Down These Strange Streets, Warren had just started to work for his boyfriend, Kyle, as a private detective. Of course, the story had to be Warren’s.
Because I write the Mercy books from Mercy’s point of view, her impressions of people are all that I can show. To Mercy, Warren seems to be the least intimidating of the werewolves. This is largely because they are friends but partially because she sees him as a kind, caring, and gentle man—which he is. But he is also a very dominant and gay werewolf who has survived more than a century when most gay werewolves do not (my werewolves are still, for the most part, caught in the mores of a hundred years ago). Warren is bone-deep tough and practical—and here, for the first time, he gets to tell the story.