SWNOVELS Alpha’s Challenge: Chapter 12
Foxfire
I bounce up at the crack of dawn. Tank slumbers beside me, and I let him. He probably needs a break, poor guy.
My fox is eager to be on the prowl.
I check the mirror before I leave. Yep, Tank clearly bit me. It’s deeper than I first thought. Broke the skin and everything, but it’s already healed. I push my hair back to admire the bite and then arrange my colorful locks over the marks to hide them.
I stop by my mom’s room on the way out, pressing my ear against her door. I try my nose, but I only smell hotel carpet and cleaner. My fox is impatient, so I hurry on down to the market. It’s early, and most of the stalls are being set up. To my surprise, Sunny is there, holding a paper cup. Tea, from the smell of it. My nose is getting better.
“Darling! Did you have fun last night?
“Yeah. It was wild,” I report, truthfully enough. I didn’t check before I left, but I’d guess last night’s shenanigans broke the bed again.
“Good.” She beams. “You’re up early.”
“Uh, yeah. There’s a booth I want to see. Where did you get that?” I motion to her cup.
“The coffee shop—want one?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind. I was going to sniff—uh, check out some of these booths.” I hand her my money and stroll on.
The booth I care about is already set up, the table sparsely dotted with products. Wood carvings. Woven blankets. Jars of honey. That sort of thing.
Then the fox comes into view. She wears a long jean skirt and flower-patterned blouse, homemade from the look of it.
As soon as I come close, she stiffens.
“Hey,” I call, keeping my distance. “Can I talk to you?”
Her nostrils flare. She’s caught my scent.
“I’m just here to talk.” I spread my hands.
I pad closer and pick up a jar of honey, pretending to study it. Red Farm Honey the label reads.
“All right,” she says softly. “But in a second, I gotta go.”
I study her. According to Tank, there are few fox shifters. Is it possible we’re related?
“I’m looking for information about… someone my mom knew.” I point out Sunny, who’s chatting with someone outside the coffee shop. “She does markets, too, and had a booth like this next to someone. His name was Johnny.”
Recognition flashes in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything.”
I just stare at her.
“I don’t know anything about that.” She glances around nervously, as if she’s expecting someone to pop out and attack her. “I have to go.” She darts around the stall, and gets on a bike she yanks out from under her table.
“Hey, wait,” I say. “Please. Johnny was my father.”
She pauses. For a moment, I think she’s gonna talk to me.
“Foxfire,” Tank’s voice rings out over the market.
The blood drains from the woman’s face. “Wolf,” she mouths.
“No, please,” I call as I watch my only link to my father ride out of town as if escaping a fire.
“Who was that?” Tank rumbles behind me. I whirl, and he must read the desperation on my face. “Was that her?” I nod and he grabs my hand. “Come on.” I let him pull me along to the hotel parking lot. “She’s on a bike,” he tells me as we climb into Daisy. “If she comes this way often, I can track her.”
We pull into traffic just in time for me to see Sunny crossing the street toward us, two paper cups in her hand.
~.~
“There’s only one road she could’ve taken,” Tank says after I point out the way the fox shifter went. We left Sunny at the market, telling her we’d be back soon.
We ride in tense silence, quickly leaving all buildings behind for an open desert. When we get out of town, Tank pulls over. “I’m going on all fours now. Follow me in the car. If anyone sees me and asks questions, you tell them I’m a wolfhound crossed with a European mountain dog, and whistle for me. I’ll come when you call.”
The thought of Tank acting domesticated doesn’t even make me smile.
Tank ducks in the back to strip off his clothes. Within a minute, a huge wolf leaps out, and trots along the highway.
I grip the steering wheel and inch behind him.
The fox shifter looked so frightened. Is she really one of my people? What does she know about my father? Are all fox shifters that skittish?
A few cars pass but no one stops. Tank leads me onto a small turnoff and disappears for a moment behind the rocks. Then he sticks his head out and barks. I turn off the car, grab his stuff, and lock it.
Tank strides out in human form and pulls on his clothes. “Trail goes this way. You want to do this? We can head back to town and wait for my contact to see what she dug up on your dad.”
“No,” I say, remembering the woman’s face in the market when I mentioned Johnny’s name. She knew him. She was just frightened. “This is the hottest lead we have. Let’s go.”
We hike along. The reddish orange rocks would make the perfect camouflage for a fox.
“As soon as she scented you were a wolf, she ran,” I comment. “Do you think she’s a loner?”
“I’ve heard that weaker shifters stick together. They’re secretive, and there’s strength in numbers. I don’t know any foxes, though. Either because there aren’t many, or because they don’t make their presence widely known.”
“Or because we don’t want a stinking wolf trespassing on our land.” A voice rings out, and I start, looking for the voice. A giant pile of red rocks blocks our way, but there’s no sign of anyone. I step forward, and Tank puts his hand out to stop me.
“Take your hands off her, wolf,” someone snarls. About fifteen men appear from behind the rocks. Some of them rise from the brush behind us. They all have shotguns, and they’re all pointed at Tank.
We’re surrounded.
“Stay where you are, wolf.”
Tank throws up his hands.
“No, don’t shoot.” I raise my hands also. “We mean no harm.” To Tank, I whisper, “Did you smell them?”
“No.”
“This whole place smells like fox, boy.” The oldest-looking fox, a sandy-haired man with a seamy face says, hands on his slender hips.
More men surround us. They’re sunburnt, short and muscular. They all look familiar. Several are identical from the reddish hair to the dirty overalls.
“We’re not armed,” Tank says.
“A wolf is a weapon. He doesn’t need one.”
“Look, he won’t hurt you,” I blurt. “He’s just helping me find my kin.”
The man narrows his eyes at me. “Who are you?”
“I’m Johnny’s daughter.”
“Johnny?” He stares at me, as if trying to figure out how I’d look without rainbow-colored hair.
“Probably lying, Pa,” one of the younger foxes says. He’s a spitting image of the older leader. Tank stirs at my side. If anyone threatens me, he might snap. They’ll hurt him.
“Jordy,” the leader barks, and another fox appears, a woman. She keeps her head bowed and shoulders hunched, but she’s the one I saw in the marketplace. “This her?”
Jordy nods.
One of the men steps closer to me and sniffs. “She smells like wolf.” He spits on the ground.
Tank shifts beside me, and the shotguns snaps to readiness.
“No, no, this isn’t what we want,” I say. “I’m here because I’m looking for my father. I’ve never met him, but he kept in touch with my mother. She’s human. But I’m a fox. See?” I raise my hand and will it to change. Maybe because I’m desperate, or maybe because my fox knows she’s around her own kind, my hand turns to a paw with reddish fur.
A murmur ripples around the group.
“You’d better come with us,” the leader says. “It’s not safe to talk out in the open like this.”
“What? Why?” I ask, but the foxes are already melting away. Pa nods at Jordy, and she comes to stand beside me. “Because”—her voice is practically a whisper—“the drones. They might be watching.”
~.~
The foxes march us to the hills, and lead us into one of the caves honeycombed into the reddish brown rock. They pause to argue whether to blindfold Tank before one points out that with his sense of smell, he could find them anyway.
“I mean you no harm,” Tank says. “I’m here to help Foxfire.”
“I’ll be dead before I believe the word of a wolf,” one of the younger men says, and spits.
“Now, Jason,” Pa cautions.
The shotguns relax, but Tank hovers close to me. The only one who’s not openly hostile is Jordy.
“Sit here,” she whispers when we’re sheltered in the mouth of the cave. The foxes gather around us, their leaders taking places on a few rocks that help them stand a head over Tank.
They pass around a jug of something that smells like Tank’s bottle in a brown paper bag, only a hundred times stronger. They don’t offer it to us.
“Is this how you treat all your visitors?” Tank eyes the guns.
“We don’t get many visitors,” Jason says. The fox next to him, almost identical down to his work boots and dirty overalls, spits.
“Why have you come?” Pa asks.
“I just want to find my father. Can you tell me about Johnny?”
“Yeah, he was one of us,” Jason speaks up. “My dumb brother.”
“So, we’re related?”
“All fox shifters are related,” my uncle answers. “There aren’t many of us. No thanks to the wolves.”
“My pack never did anyone harm,” Tanks says.
“You didn’t have to. Shifters disappearing all over, and it’s got the stink of wolf all over it.” Jason glares at us.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Johnny’s gone,” Pa says bluntly. “He disappeared a year ago.”
Tank and I exchange glances. I notice Jordy staring hard at the ground.
“What, he just disappeared? Did you go looking for him?”
“No. Didn’t have to. The wolves took him. Jeb and Joey went and sniffed them out.” My uncle points to two other sandy-haired shifters who look so much alike, they could be brothers. Or cousins.
“Maybe you should ask your wolf where your father is,” Pa says.
“Wolves aren’t taking people.” Tank frowns.
“Says a wolf,” Jason sneers.
“Do you know where they took him?” I interrupt their glaring contest.
“I just know they took him. Snatched him from the market last summer,” Jeb or Joey answers. All these J names and similar faces, it’s hard to tell them apart.
“Johnny ran the market stall before Jordy. Had all these high falutin’ ideas of foxes being part of society,” Pa says.
“See where it got him,” Jason mutters.
I swallow around the knot in my throat.
“Now, Jordy runs the stall. We didn’t want it, but she insisted.”
Jordy visibly pales. She hasn’t lifted her eyes from the ground. It’s hard to see her standing up for anything.
“And look what happened,” Pa continues berating Jordy. “A wolf tracked us.”
“It’s not her fault,” I say. “I just found out I’m a shifter. My fox wanted to find its kin.” I look around at the shadowed faces.
“You live alone, girl?” Jason looks me up and down.
“She’s under my protection.” Tank moves closer to me.
A few foxes shake their heads.
“Please, can you tell me anything else about my father?”
“Johnny was an odd one. Moved around a bit, even took up residence in town at one time. Moved back here when shifters started disappearing.”
“What sort of shifters?” Tank asks.
“Grizzlies, foxes, eagles. A few big cats. Mostly the loners, or the weak.”
“Who would be taking them?” I ask.
“We don’t know. Wolves, some of them.”
“Not my pack,” Tank says quickly.
“Does it matter? You’re all the same.” Angry mutters ripple around us, and the shotguns bristle again.
“And Johnny, did he know this was happening?” I step in front of Tank, hoping to keep my kin from turning into a mob.
“He knew,” Pa answers. “And he wanted to stop it. Didn’t back off until too late. They got his scent, and when he went out to market, they took him.”
“Kin keep to kin,” Jason says, and a few foxes repeat his words in an eerie chant. My extended family feels more cult-like by the second. “Foxes are meant to live in secret,” my uncle continues. “Johnny never learned. And now he’s gone.”