The doctor moves aside as Meadow approaches my side, and they switch places. The doctor checks over Carmen wipes her tears away as she checks her pulse and temperature, and generally looks her over. Meadow sighs heavily and casts me an intense look that translates to ‘I feel helpless. I wish I could do something.’ Despite her history with Carmen, Meadow is still a caring wolf and wouldn’t wish this on anyone, even her. I nod, knowing this is exactly how I feel, and I gesture her further from the bed to give them space to let the Doctor do what she needs to do.
“Doc is going to let her sleep; we should take turns sitting by her until she’s more with it. I’ll ask Sierra, too. Maybe we can rotate and switch out femmes for a few days to comfort and support her. So she’s not alone.” I don’t know what else to do as I was so young and surrounded by grief when I lost my family that it was completely different. We have been at peace for years, so the horror of losing our people isn’t as numbed out as it was a decade ago. I have no experience of how to comfort someone else in this way when I was never comforted in any way at all.
“Luna Alora, Luna Alora!” A wolf bursts into the med bay, startling us out of our huddled somber and making me jump with the speed and urgency he shoots in. We spin on him, glaring to pipe down, seeing as he startled the crap out of everyone.
“What is it?” I ask in a harsh tone, hating how panicked he looks and the raised high pitch of a distressed tone coming through his words. My stomach churning in unease at this interruption, and my gut instantly tells me something is off.
“Come quickly. There’s something … in the air.” He throws his hands up, looking somewhat confused, and beckons us.
“What?” Meadow and I exchange glances and follow him at speed, leaving Carmen with the doctor and her competent care, and flash outside to the main entranceway of the drive to see what he’s talking about.
Sure enough, just like he said, there’s some green smog in the air in the far distance of the mountain, which seems to be rolling down and into the forest at great speed like a heavy blanket sliding over the landscape. It’s like smoke or a dense cloud; its moving rate is alarmingly fast, swallowing everything in sight wherever it slides.
Colton, something is coming towards the pack…. a fog. Get back here NOW!!
I link rapidly, in panic and fear, reaching out to my mate in case he hasn’t looked up and seen it heading his way. I don’t know what it is, but all my senses tell me they should escape it and return to safety behind the rune border.
“What the hell is that, Chica?” Meadow stares at the same thing I am fixated on, and we watch in horror as it splays out and spreads sideways through the forest, expanding as it travels and encompassing everything as it moves. It seems to extend and move widthways until it curves around the homestead at a distance and continues to head this way. It appears to be growing larger and denser and picking up speed.
We see it. We’re moving. It’s fast as hell and almost here. I have them heading back.
Colton quiets some of my anxiety by responding, and I will him to get here. We long ago figured the vamps use the mountain to stay close enough to mount attacks, maybe have tunneled inwards, and use it as a vantage point to look over the surrounding lands. We know they have witches, and I don’t like whatever this is, even if it might be nothing more than a harmless strange colored fog. Whatever it is, it’s not natural, and how it came down from the mountain raises all kinds of alarms.
Colton, it’s spreading. It’s taking over the forest and circling us.
My mind link doesn’t hide the panic in my voice, and it wobbles uncontrollably, my heart racing as all I can do is watch this monster smog eat our landscape so effortlessly.
Stay within the homestead boundary. It may be a way to let the vamps move in daylight now the sun’s coming up. Stay behind the runes. We’re coming.
I grab Meadow’s hand in a tight grip as we watch, and I can tell by her fixated gaze on the fog she’s linking Cesar, checking on her mate as it moves at us with deadly haste. It feels like an eternity, not the few seconds it’s been in reality. Both poised, numbly quiet, and waiting.
Where are you now? Colton, how far?
I tap my foot on the ground, aware my feet are human again, naked and standing on gravel, but oblivious to the pain. My only focus is on them, my heart and soul out there who needs to come to me so I can be sure he’s safe.
Not far, it’s almost……
I wait for him to finish his sentence, then glance at Meadow again as nothing comes. She screws up her face indicating something is up with her link to Cesar. I can feel the swirling rise of concern and panic between us as we wait out this endless silence.
Colton? What were you trying to say?
I ask, waiting patiently, but no response comes through the link. Instead, an eerie solitude that I haven’t experienced for a long time, not since Colton cut me off many moons again when he rejected me, swirls around me. It starts to dredge my inner anxiety with fury as I pull at my mind to make the connection, but I feel like I’m facing a blank dark wall. Meadow moves forward, and she stares at the tree line, seemingly trying to concentrate hard, and I realize she, maybe, too, has lost her link to Cesar. This is not a coincidence.
“He’s not responding anymore.” I point out, distress rising in my throat, and I watch as she moves as far to the edge of the trees as she dares. Her face is stiff, her eyes wild and dampening by the second as hysteria rises, and she points ahead suddenly with a shaking finger.
“I think I can see them in the woods….. moving fast, but the fog is all around them.”
I move beside her, my heart lurching into my throat, and staring into the woods as far as I can see, trying to distinguish in the dim light of dawn. The woods are dense, but she’s right, and I spot dark shadows in semi-wolf form hammering this way like lightning and sigh with relief. Exhaling heavily as my body loosens lightly, I almost laugh as emotions swirl and cave in indescribable joy.
“Maybe the fog stops the gifts like the frequency does?” I point out, and Meadow shakes her head and points out into the shadows.
“I could have sworn some are turned and in wolf form, so surely their gifts are fine. We need to get closer to the boundary. Something is stopping them from getting closer; it’s been too long…. look, they haven’t come nearer.” I stop my inward rejoicing and turn and look where she’s gazing to see for myself that she’s right. Despite being close enough to leap home in under a second, they don’t appear beyond the rune border but seem to be lingering on the other side. I move beside her and nudge her.
“We don’t need to. Here.” I lift my hands, flattening them palm to palm, and point forwards as though slicing into the forest and slowly moving them apart, splitting the trees and pushing foliage and branches back with my gift. Clearing a passage of sight so we can view the boundary's border. A tunnel of unrestricted vision where I can see the fog has met the edge and seems to be rolling up into the invisible protective wall and climbing higher to get past it. It’s smothering all beyond in a dense haze, making it hard to see anything.
Sierra’s family magic keeps it back, but it’s completely clouding our wolves from sight with the thick fog, and we can’t see any of them coming our way.
“Why aren’t they coming?” I ask numbly, fear slowly dwindling around me once more, and I know if Colton could link me, he would. He isn’t able to. We have a break in communication because whatever that is, it’s doing something to keep them out there.
“I have to go look; I can’t leave them out there without contact.” Meadow’s voice breaks, tears becoming evident as she loses the will to hold them in, her emotions stifling me. Her love for her mate and pack reigns supreme; I can’t argue. My need to know Colton and my pack are okay overwhelms me too, and I walk past her against Colton’s wishes and head to the tunnel I am still holding apart. Meadow follows without question, without hesitation, both holding our breath in anticipation, and we carefully, slowly, walk the long distance until we come to almost level with the smog.
“Look,” Meadow points up, and we see from this angle how it’s risen more than thirty feet up, still blocked by our protective barrier, and doesn’t seem able to climb any higher. Instead, it’s traveling the entire perimeter of the boundary, spreading, and looking back I see it’s far behind the other side of the homestead at an equal distance. Surrounding us on all sides and leveling itself off, it can’t pass the rune border, and it’s still too dense to make out the pack among the trees.
For now, we’re cut off, with no links or visuals, and I stand here motionless, unsure of what we are meant to do.