“Don’t even think about giving me that passive-aggressive I-am-your-thrall shit,” I said. “I am not in the mood.”
“But I am your thrall,” Gabriel said tightly.
“Then follow my freaking orders and go home!” I shouted. “And stay there, so that we can have a proper argument about this later!”
Gabriel gave me a stony stare, then wordlessly opened a portal and went through it.
Beezle flew from my shoulder to Samiel’s. “Well, you just stepped in a giant pile of dragon dung. Have fun cleaning that up.”
I’m so glad that I’m not you, Samiel signed.
“You two are so supportive. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I muttered. I handed the bag of cameras to Samiel. “Take these home and put them in a safe place. Don’t let anyone mess with them, not even Gabriel or Beezle.”
Samiel gave me a two-fingered salute and turned toward the portal.
“And, Beezle, all that waffle stuff had better be cleaned up when I get home!” I shouted.
I saw Beezle’s shoulders sag just before the portal closed.
“Told you I wouldn’t forget about the dirty dishes,” I muttered.
6
THE LIGHT EMANATING FROM MY BODY SLOWLY FADED as my temper cooled. I became aware of how dark it was outside, and just how long it had been since we’d left the house. I’d gotten up at five a.m. to be shouted at by the instructor at the Y and hadn’t had a second of downtime since. Plus, that measly bowl of oatmeal was the last thing I’d eaten.
I sighed and faced Jude. He waited, staring at me like I was a circus performer. The cubs hadn’t moved a centimeter since I’d told them to stop.
“That’s the entertainment for the day. Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion,” I said.
Jude said nothing, only turned and moved through the woods again. I told the cubs to follow him and then I fell in at the end of the column.
I don’t know how long we tramped through the forest. I just know that I am not a particularly adept woodswoman even when I can actually see the tree roots. In the darkness my inability to avoid trippable objects was magnified about a thousandfold. I thought I heard Jude snickering a few times.
Jude stopped abruptly. I saw two shadowy figures emerge from behind trees ahead of us. I told the cubs to stop walking while Jude conferred for several minutes with his pack mates. After a while he came back to me, and the other wolves slid back into the trees.
“You can go no farther,” he said.
I quirked an eyebrow at him. I could barely make out his features in the starlight, but I knew he could see me as clear as day. Wolves have excellent night vision.
“And just how are you going to get the kids into your camp?” I asked. “This is the same problem that you had before.”
“My pack mates are collecting other wolves to help carry them in,” Jude said.
“And what will you do after that?” I persisted. “Are you going to pose them like statues? They won’t move; they won’t even eat unless I say so.”
“Do you think it comforts me to know that the children of my pack will respond only to you? Do you think I relish having to face their mothers and explain that we have returned their cubs to them broken? What are you going to do? Live with the pack? Spend your days caring for the cubs?”
“You wouldn’t even have the cubs back if it weren’t for me. You would never have been able to enter the portal. I am so sick of your attitude. It’s like you’re reminding yourself to dislike me.”
“I don’t have to remind myself to dislike anyone who shares blood with the Deceiver.”
“Lucifer’s not my favorite person, either, you know. Just what the hell did he do to you?”
The woods seemed to go still at my words. The wind stopped moving through the trees. Small animals ceased their scurrying. The cubs were motionless, and Jude stood as though encased in ice.
I thought perhaps that he would not answer me, that I had crossed that invisible line that every person has, the one that says, “This far, and no farther.”
But then he spoke, and his voice was like I had never heard it before. It was ragged, and soft, and there was none of the anger that always ran under the surface.
“Do you know how old I am?” he asked.
He looked like a really active man in his mid-forties, but something told me that probably wasn’t the right answer.
“A hundred?” I guessed. Wolves are generally pretty long-lived.
“Two thousand and twelve,” he said.
I sucked in my breath, shocked to my core. I’d never heard of a wolf so old.
“Do you remember why we count the years of the calendar as we do, why this year is 2011?”
“It’s 2011 A.D.,” I said automatically.
“And what does ‘A.D.’ mean?” Jude said patiently.
“Anno Domini,” I said. “‘In the year of our Lord.’”
I remember weird things. Beezle hates playing Trivial Pursuit with me. He never wins. “Are you trying to tell me that you knew…”
I trailed off, all the pieces suddenly coming together. A two-thousand-year-old redhead, and some stories that I remember reading as a child. A kiss, and thirty pieces of silver.
I stared. “You betrayed him.”
“I was tricked,” Judas said, and that undercurrent of anger was back. “The soldiers told me that he wouldn’t be harmed. I thought I was protecting him. There were mobs by then, people who didn’t believe, who wanted to kill him. I thought the Romans would protect him. That was what they told me they would do.