Beauty's Beast(39)

Alon worked his way along the wolves, restoring souls first to the wounded and then the fallen. He restored the daughters of Jessie Healy Chien, but he could not find Nicholas Chien. One looked like another and he did not know which one was Jessie’s husband.

Finally he reached the fallen body of a large gray timber wolf. Unlike the others, this one’s soul did not stray from his body and in fact seemed to cling to it, as if trying to anchor itself to the carcass. Alon nodded at the shimmering essence that still held some resemblance of the handsome form of the body it had inhabited for over a century.

His thoughts came to Alon. Jessie. Jessie. Katherine. Lauren.

This was why he did not stray. He had ones here who held him. His love for his wife and daughters was stronger than the call of the Spirit Road. Alon envied him that unwavering love.

“She’s all right. So are your girls.” Alon reached out and captured Nicholas’s soul and plunged it back into his body. Nicholas convulsed, waking instantly. Another outward display of both his conviction and his strength. In a blink he was standing, his thick wolf pelt slung over one shoulder. He spotted his daughters, who charged to him, their wolf pelt cloaks flapping about their slim legs. They embraced and Nicholas closed his eyes an instant. Then he fixed them on Alon.

“Jessie,” he said.

Alon pointed. “With Blake.”

Nicholas charged away, already dressed in jeans,

T-shirt and running shoes.

Alon envied the Skinwalkers their cloak. He’d very much like to take his human form instead of letting everyone see his most terrifying visage. But he did not want to appear naked before them all.

Cody loped toward Alon. “I can’t find Dad.”

“Aldara said you got him.”

“No, just Mom. I’ve searched but I can’t find him.” The panic in his brother’s words surged through Alon as he turned his head, frantically trying to recall his father’s last position. No. No. Not his dad.

A raven circled him, then hovered. He recognized her instantly.

“Mom!” called Alon. “Where’s Dad?”

Unlike other Skinwalkers, ravens could speak while in animal form, though her voice was high and raw. “I found him. Hurry!”

Alon turned to Cody. “Save the wolves.”

Cody nodded and set to work as Alon ran across the field, following their mother back to the position earlier held by their forces.

His mother hovered, flapping madly. “Here!”

Alon dropped to his knees beside his father’s body. Bess transformed to her human form in a flash of light and then dropped down to hold her husband’s head in her lap. His father’s soul tried and failed to touch his wife, but Bess could not see or feel him.

“Is his soul still here? Hurry! Hurry!” said Bess. Her head swiveled madly, as she searched for what she could not see. “Is he still here? Has he crossed again?”

Again? thought Alon. When had his father crossed the Ghost Road, and how had he managed to come back?

“I can fly after him. I can stop him.”

“He’s here, Mom. Right beside you.”

His mother sagged, covering her face with her hands as she wept.

Alon grasped their father’s soul and gently returned it to his mortal body.

Cesar gasped and rose, like a man at the end of his endurance emerging from cold water. It frightened Alon, for he knew they were running out of time to save the others.

His mother threw herself against Cesar, wrapping him in her arms as she wept. His father hugged his wife as she babbled.

“You knew it from the start. You were right. They saved us all. Saved the Living World. We’ve won, Cesar. Our children defeated Nagi.”

Cesar lifted his head to meet Alon’s gaze.

“I’m so proud of you, son. I knew. I knew all along.”

Alon felt his throat closing. How had he known? Why did his father have faith in him when every other member of Cesar’s people found the Ghost Children disturbing and dangerous?

Alon rocked back on his heels, but before he could rise, his mother grabbed him in a fierce embrace. “Thank you for saving him. Thank you, son.”

His father gently drew Bess back from Alon and smiled. “He has more to save, Mother. Let him go now.”

His mother wiped her eyes. “I have to go, too. I have to fly to the Spirit World and turn back those who have not crossed.”

His father helped his wife to her feet and waved goodbye as she shifted and flew straight up into the blue sky to join the other ravens.

Cesar placed a hand on Alon’s shoulder. It was a trick of his father, to touch his neck while he asked a question. His father knew that Alon did not often say what was in his heart. But that never stopped his dad from knowing.

“Is Samantha all right?”

“Yes.”

“How did you do it?”

Alon did not bother to answer, for his father need only ask to know. His dad’s eyes widened.

“He can’t kill you?”

Alon shrugged. “He can. But he can’t tear out our souls.”

“Why?”

“I do not know.”

“And you can harm him?”

“A little.”

Cesar looked across the field at the Ghostlings working furiously to retrieve lost souls. “His forces turned on him, as well. All of them?”

“All that lived,” said Alon.

Cesar patted his son’s shoulder. “You’ve done well. But there is more to do. I’ve got to go help Blake. And you have more souls to capture. I’ll bet they are dancing over the field like butterflies.”

“Fireflies,” Alon corrected.

“Don’t forget the humans.”

“He did not take their souls. They lie there,” Alon pointed, “to the southwest.”

Alon knew that his father could easily make the human victims of Nagi’s ghosts forget the horrors they had endured. Would his banishment and the stigma associated with Soul Whisperers keep the Spirit Children from accepting his help?

He hoped not, for it would be their great loss.

Alon worked throughout the long afternoon with the others of his race. Some of the injured had died before Nagi’s attack, and those souls could not be found. If they had crossed to the Spirit World, not even the ravens could turn them back.

Those who were seriously injured were taken to the buffalo and bears for healing, and the humans were separated to an area where the Memory Walkers and Peacemakers worked to reformulate plausible explanations in the human’s memories. The Ghost Children finished with the souls turned back by the ravens and then gathered in the valley to count their dead. Tomorrow they would bury the fallen. As expected, the Ghost Children had suffered the greatest fatalities, though the Skinwalkers had lost many brave fighters. Only the Niyanoka were untouched by death this day.

Shortly before sunset, the first of the ravens returned. Alon tried not to feel hurt when they landed across the field to the north in the Skinwalkers’ camp. All but one, which flew to them. His mother, he felt certain, seeking her husband.

Where was Samantha? Back with her father? With Blake and her mother? Alon had saved her. That should be enough. He did not expect her thanks. He only wanted her safe and happy. He knew that for her to have those things, he must leave her.

He had promised to protect her from Nagi. Nagi was gone. And Alon now understood his purpose. He was not destined to find lost or confused souls and help them cross to the Spirit World. That was the Seer’s job. He was not created to defend the humans. That was the role of the Spirit Children. And the Skinwalkers protected the Balance. His purpose, the purpose of all Ghost Children, was to protect the living world from Nagi and his evil ghosts, and when he died, he would face that special circle his father had promised to reserve for his traitorous children. Well, if that was the price for saving this world, then he would pay it.

Until that day, he would hunt evil ghosts and force them to face the judgment they deserved, and he would seek others like him, for they must know how to defeat their father should he ever come again.

It might be true that Alon had no soul, but it did not mean that he did not love this world.

“Alon?”

He glanced up to find his sister, now in her human form and dressed in a black skirt and an elegant, flowing black top. This was their mother’s signature color, so he did not have to ask where she had found clothing. She’d likely just returned to their parents’ trailer.

“The others are all gathered. They say there is a Skinwalker wolf looking for you.”

“Nicholas Chien?”

She nodded. “He is coming.”

Did he carry some message from Samantha? Alon tried not to let his heart leap with hope as he hurried along with Aldara.

“Are you going back to her?” asked Aldara.

Alon shook his head. “Are you going back to Blake?”