The Wolf & The Witch

It took a broken sword and a dead cat to poison the beer. Claire wasn’t too happy about killing an innocent cat by petting it, then stomping its head in, but she didn’t say anything.

Lestat poisoned one cask full of beer, then turned the other three over in the storeroom, spilling their contents. Then he positioned the dead cat nearby, and they left. Claire did not think anyone would be dumb enough to believe a simple cat knocked over casks of beer. Lestat reminded her: most men, and nearly all wolves, are stupid enough to believe just that, and would talk and laugh and curse about it while drinking beer.

That was hard logic to argue. She looked at him. His words were still running around her head, and he was still holding the ribbons of her heart in his hand. “We need to talk.”

“We need to sleep.”

They snuck out of the estate, back through the wall, into a poor part of the city two blocks away, then into an abandoned house, then onto a pile of old blankets for a bed. He laid down, pulling her down with him; he was still shirtless, and she had on her ragged green flannel shirt and a cloak, and she slipped the cloak off and covered them with it.

“Can we talk?”

Lestat glanced at her, then back at the ceiling. There was something they needed to talk about. There were two routes into the estate: the kitchen, or what might be a prison, or dungeon, or interesting basement. “How long does the poison take to work?

Claire sighed- poison was not the topic she wanted to talk about. She snuggled up against him. “Thirty minutes for a rat. They don’t go far, though, after about the first five minutes.”

Gruesome. “What are the symptoms?”

Claire shrugged. It’s not like she monitored them with a notebook. It would be easier to keep cats than poison mice and rats, but she wasn’t a cat person. “They eat, then scurry off and die, or walk slow, and wobble, and fall over. I toss them out before they start leaking.”

Gruesome, gruesome village witch. Lestat looked down at her. “Leak?”

“Yeah. Tears, drool, vomit, piss, shit. Fall over, leak, twitch, die.” Where to start? Let’s start over? I like you, too? I think we should try liking each other and see what happens. What was the other lie? How do we fix ‘us’? What would it be like if we didn’t fight ourselves, and simply liked each other? But, first, “Um… Lestat?”

“Yeah?”

“It… it wasn’t just you. I’ve been treating you badly, too, and I apologize. I did mean what I said. But I don’t mean it anymore. I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. Let’s get some sleep.” He shut his eyes.

But Claire could not sleep. She kept thinking he should have more to say than that. Something more to say in response to that bold statement. She was about to say something else when he turned her over, so she faced away from him, and he slid his left arm under her head, and wrapped it around her, above her breasts, then he brought his right arm tight around her, holding her left arm in the process. She cleared her throat, and squirmed. He held tight. She pushed against his arms. He wrapped his legs around hers. She wondered what he would do next if she tried moving again. “I can’t sleep. I want to talk.”

“Settle down. We have a long night. We need sleep.”

He wasn’t wrong, and she tried to settle down. She was tired, and warm, and her eyes were heavy, but, “I still can’t-“

“Shhhhh,” he whispered, in her ear, and she shivered. He repositioned her, so that she was laying on his chest, and he pulled her shirtsleeve back, and scratched her left arm- he ran his fingernails back and forth, lulling her. He scratched her wrist at the cuff, and then the back of her hand, and she was drifting, falling.

“I want to… talk… about us. I still can’t… sleep…”

Us? When had that happened? Lestat grinned down at her and stopped scratching and brought his hand close to her face. “Would sucking my thumb help you fall asleep?”

Claire woke with that, and growled, and punched his side- twice. This son of a bitch- she didn’t have a damn thing to say to him. She pushed away but he held tight.

“Go to sleep.”

“Don’t give me orders, and let me… go.” She pushed away from him.

But he didn’t let go; he held her as she grumbled, and cursed him, and he held her as she fidgeted, and caught her a couple times when she nearly escaped. “Want me to scratch you again?”

“Yes, damnit,” she huffed, annoyed, and warm, and very comfortable laying on him- his warmth was like a drug.

He did; he pulled her shirt sleeves up and scratched her arms and she passed out, asleep on his chest not even a minute later, her breathing matched the slow back and forth stroke of his hand.

*

The sun was just setting, and Lestat pulled her along the estate wall, hoping his memory of patrolling guards was correct. He slipped through the wall, around the back of the stables, waited a minute for two guards to pass and turn right, then he tossed her over his shoulder and ran to the estate, crept around the back, and down into a cellar. But this was not a food cellar; he suspected it was a prison, or a dungeon, based on the meals that were brought from the back of the kitchen, and the guards that accompanied the meals.

“Ahem,” Claire said, annunciating the letters, and clearing her throat. “Godamnit. Put me the fuck down.”

He sat her down on the steps and motioned for her to be quiet. What the hell was wrong with her? How many times was he going to have to tell her to be quiet?

“That is not how you carry a woman,” Claire whispered, her hand on her hip.

That’s what she was fussing about? Lestat knew he had been right before going down the steps- he could smell prisoners- the smell of piss, and dying people. “You do realize we have a job to do here, right?”

“You do realize there is a right way, and a wrong way, to carry a woman.” Her eyebrows fell inward, funneling smoke off to the side. He was pissing her off- forcing her to sleep, not letting her talk, and now throwing her over his shoulder like a barbarian, and her anger was starting to burn. “And we need to talk.”

“Now is not the time or place to talk. Be quiet.”

She grumbled. “If you wouldn’t force me to go to sleep we-” he put his hand over her mouth, and she glared at him. Who knew where his damn hand had been? Picking up dead cats, cleaning filthy warehouse stones, scratching her arms. She huffed, and glared, and blushed just slightly as he removed his hand and led her down dark stone steps and into the dungeon. It was a long hallway with iron cells running along. And at the other end of the hall a desk, and a lantern, and a guard with his head on the desk. A half mug of beer was near his elbow. It looked like he was leaking.

There were four women in one of the cells, one wolf, one man, and- “Claire? Oh thank god.”

Claire turned and saw Sarah on the other side of the bars. “Sarah?” So they were the other couple.

Now all the prisoners were up, at the bars.

“You’ve got to help us. Let us out, please.”

Claire nodded yes, and started to answer yes, then slowed down; she remembered the last time she spoke to one of the other couples, and she remembered wishing Lestat was standing beside her, to help her figure out what to do. She looked up at him, curious. Leaving them here would guarantee they wouldn’t be the next to die. That’s what he would do, right?

Lestat looked down at Claire, and a slow smile crept across his face, and his eyes sparkled. This was a little too easy. “All of you- listen: the only chance we have is to all run at once. They’re outside looking for us- let’s go inside, and out the front door, together.” He walked over and handed one broken sword to the wolf who was cuffed to the witch Sarah, and nodded. The wolf looked like he’d had it pretty rough- missing two teeth, skinny, and he smelled like old sex and dried blood. Lestat looked at Sarah- her eyes were dark and there was a silver streak in her dark hair. “I’ve got one; you’ve got one. Good luck.”

Claire looked at him even more curious now. Was he referring to swords, or witches, with that statement?

Lestat walked over to the desk, avoided the dying man, and grabbed a set of iron levers bolted to the stone wall, pulled them down, and door, after door, after door, swung open. The wolf came out first, shifted, and shot past Lestat and up the steps, then the man, then the women, then Sarah and her wolf. They all passed, up the steps, and Claire started to follow when Lestat pulled her back. He shook his head no, then grabbed a nice, sharp, long sword from the dying, sputtering guard, and slipped it in the folds of the rope at his waist.

Now Claire understood his smile. “Did you seriously just let them be our diversion?”

“Let’s give them a minute.”

“That’s evil.”

“Coming from the woman who wants to burn Itthon forest down.”

“I still want to burn that damn forest down. And I’m not complaining. It’s just a little… evil. Now- what was your other lie?”

They heard shouting above them, shrills, and screams, and heavy feet- not as many heavy feet as there should be. Good. Lestat looked at Claire, at her honey-colored eyes. “Let’s talk later.”

“No, damnit. Tell me the goddamn lie.”

Lestat shook his head at her and pulled her close in his right arm and drew his sword.

“Lestat- tell me. Now. You won’t let me talk, and you’re avoiding me, and it’s pissing me off.”

“You’re doing plenty of talking, chatterbox, and I’m not avoiding you. We need to finish this first.”

Claire reached up with her right hand and grabbed a handful of his dark hair. She pulled his head towards hers, and turned his face, so that they were looking at each other. Lanterns sputtered light across them, and the sounds of shouts, and yells, from above. “Tell me now, goddamnit.”

He tried to turn his head back and she wouldn’t let go- this damn, talkative, loud, restless, stubborn woman. It’s a shame she couldn’t kill wolves by talking them to death. Then, Lestat thought- she probably could. “You’re most beautiful on your knees,” he answered, and tugged his hair free, and looked up the steps. “That’s the other lie. Now, let’s go.”

“Wait, wait,” she said, but he wasn’t waiting. “Wait,” she protested, as he lifted her off her feet, clutched her tight to his right side, and headed up the steps. “Wait, goddamnit- when am I most beautiful?”

Up and out into a stone entry hall. Men lay dead along the baseboards, bleeding, leaking. Out into a foyer, where furniture was overturned, and broken. A woman knelt beside a soldier, trying to help him, hugging him, crying. Lestat walked over and knocked her in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. She crumpled. Out into another entry hall where four men lay dead on the ground. No wolves yet. He stepped over another dead woman. Another dead, and another. Some guards who couldn’t chase the prisoners were near, leaning against the wall, trembling, sick, and Lestat ran straight at the nearest and cut him in half, then to the next, and the next, and he had hacked four of them down before he was noticed. The last soldier attacked- Lestat deflected a thrust, elbowed the man in the teeth, cut his hand off, and, in the same motion came around and took his legs off. Five more soldiers down.

Lestat looked down the hall- the front door was wide open, and he saw guards chasing the prisoners- perfect.

“When am I most beautiful?” she asked again.

Lestat glanced down at her, then he smelled the wolf, but too late. Lestat turned Claire away, shifted and his muscles hardened, and tightened, and dark fur ran down his body, and a werewolf, feet taller than Lestat, and hundreds of pounds heavier, landed with a thud, his arm already pulled back, and swiped. Lestat was knocked across the room into the wood paneling of the nearest wall, shattering it. He fell forward and smacked into the stone floor. He shielded Claire- both from the hit and hitting the wall and hitting the floor. Paneling crumbled and fell on top of them.

Lestat grimaced, and groaned, and had just enough time to look up- the werewolf was in the air, right arm pulled back, coming down to smash the wolf and the witch into the stones.