The Wolf & The Witch
Second: The Poison

Black storm clouds draped the land like funerary shrouds and black obituaries following the glowing red wave of a forest fire. The heat of the fires churned the edges of the storm, rolling the clouds back. Ash, like snow, lighted on their shoulders and in their hair as they rode. And they rode straight towards Clarie’s house, past a fleeing wolf pack, past another wolf village, through the forest as fast as their horses could run.

The witch spent most of the ride thinking about what she actually had in her house that could be useful: a jar of moss spores, horribly toxic angel-hair mushroom powder, the infectious fluids that ran vibrant and colorful from the bowels of dying rats, poison ivy, and oak, and elm, dried and powdered to light green dust, concentrated oils that burned very hot and bright, even in water… lots to choose from, but her problem was still the same- she was worried about what Lestat would think about her if he saw her house; she was embarrassed to show him that side of her just yet. And she only had to hide it for three minutes. It would take her three minutes to gather everything, and they would be gone, and it would be lost in the fire. Claire frowned. She lived alone, and her house showed it. She was a mess, and her house showed it. She had no friends... and her house showed it. And she didn’t want him to see it. She was afraid of him seeing that much of her.

They crossed a dirt road in the wind. Lestat could hear shouts from the village two miles away to their left. They entered the trees along an overgrown path to a small wooden house overrun with vines and shrubs. Lestat felt her tense; he hopped off, and helped her down, and tied the horses to a tree. They were stamping, and snorting, and afraid of the fire.

Claire reached into her pack and pulled the cotton strip out. “Turn around.”

He looked at the strip. “What are you doing?”

“Blindfolding you.”

“I don’t think so. You need to-“

“Look, this is important to me. I have no idea how I left my house, and there are dangerous things in there. Stand completely still when we enter, let me get things, and we’ll go.”

Lestat looked at her, and studied her. This didn’t taste good. However dangerous her house was, he could stand still on his own. If anything, blindfolding made him even more unbalanced. But his body trusted hers, so when she turned him around it followed, and she wrapped the cotton strip over his eyes, and led him to her front door and very slowly pushed it open, and caught the jar that fell- her trap for burglars. She sat it down, and entered, and was very glad he couldn’t see- her house was a disaster. She moved him slowly, and carefully, towards the wall. “Duck your head-“ She pulled his head down beneath a shelf, “Wait-wait-“ she guided his hip, around an end table covered in small wooden boxes, and positioned him against a bare spot in the wall, though he had to duck and squat. “Stand right here. Don’t move.”

Lestat growled. This bothered him- it felt like mistrust. Lying was not the only way to break trust. He heard her shuffling around, and he could sense a tight, narrow room. Given the size of the house from outside this room had to be full of things. What things? What things made up Claire? She didn’t trust him enough to show him.

Claire looked back- she could hear the growls, and she could see it in his jaw- he was not happy. “Lestat, if we had time I would’ve said give me a few minutes- to pick up old underwear, to put dishes in the sink, scoot laundry out of the way- but we don’t have time. Give me one minute and I’ll be done.” She sat two brown jars down from a shelf, and dug around for a small red one with a metal lid screwed on so tight she doubted even Lestat could twist it off- possibly the most dangerous jar in her house: red moss spores. Anyone who inhaled these would suffocate to death- wolf, witch, vampire- it didn’t matter. Moss would run over their lungs and up their throat and across the ground. She moved to another corner and found a jar of slick green oil- far too potent and explosive to burn in any lantern. She looked back- he was still growling. “Lestat, stop- you collared me and left me in a room alone for six hours and then bid on me as if I was an animal- you can stand there a minute blindfolded.”

He heard footsteps on the road, and assumed they were fleeing villagers- that’s what they sounded like. “I didn’t bid on you like you were an animal,” he growled. “That was the other men.”

“You still put a slave collar on me, and still bid on me.” Lestat growled, and Claire lowered her eyes, and growled at him, and turned back to the jars. There was a stack of pots on the floor in her kitchen, in front of the drawers. She pushed them aside, and opened the third drawer from bottom, and grabbed a jar of pea-green oil- the most flammable she had. She stood, and thought a moment, when at the door-

“Well hello,” a woman said, stepping through Claire’s open front door. She had seen Lestat from the road- blindfolded, and sexy, and thought he might need rescuing from the fire. She stepped up to him, and put her hand on his stomach, and he recoiled back and knocked a wall of jars over, shattering them on the floor.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off him,” Claire ordered, turned, and drew her bow. She knew this witch- the bitch, Cosco.

“Well if it isn’t Claire,” the woman said. “It’s-“ then she paused- why was Claire here? Wait. Was this her mate? This man? But wait- the priestess had- “Hey!” Cosco yelled, to the two other witches waiting outside. “Go tell the priestess Claire’s-“

Claire notched an arrow as she leveled her bow, aimed down her left eye, following the shaft of the arrow, and fired- the arrow had five feet to travel. It hit the witch behind her ear, deflected off her skull, and went through her nasal septum, popping her right eye and tearing a hole the size of a gold coin through the front of her face. Cosco fell to the floor, dead, taking jars with her. Claire watched each jar, and knew each ingredient.

The other witches saw. A brunette witch ran off towards the coven, and the other two witches, one named Tara, and one named Tam, raised their arms.

Lestat reached up to snatch the blindfold and vines grabbed his wrists, and arms. He shifted, and the witches stumbled, but vines tightened down on him, and he shifted further, and-

“Stop!” Claire yelled. Any further and he would break a very bad jar.

Lestat stood still. He could hear Claire, and he could hear one witch running away. But what he couldn’t hear was magic flowing down the arms, and down the fingers, and he couldn’t hear the blades of wind that left their hands. He couldn’t see them, either. The blades hit the front of Claire’s house and destroyed the shutters, shattered the front wall and sent wooden planks flying. And one of the blades opened Lestat’s arm, gashing it open to the bone. He grunted, and fell back into the wall, and the vines tightened, and more jars came down on him and around him, shattering-

“Don’t breathe!” Claire shouted, and held her breath. Tam and Tara turned their hands towards Claire. These fucking bitches. Claire grabbed a jar of white liquid off a shelf and hurled it at Tam, and shot an arrow. The jar flew through the wind, and just missed, and Tam raised a shield of rock up, and the arrow followed the jar, and just missed- it just missed Tam and her shield, but not the jar. It shattered, splashing white liquid up and down Tam’s back. Tam waited a moment, and didn’t feel anything. She shrugged, and raised her arm, and then stopped- she felt something on her back. She reached her hands around and recoiled- worms. Slimy, white, wriggling worms, and she tried to knock them off, and couldn’t. She tried again, and couldn’t. Slick white worms burrowed into her skin, and Tam screamed, and went to her knees grabbing at them. She got one, two, but not twelve. Blood dropped from each worm hole, and the witch stood angry.

Tam and Tara pulled their hands up a second time and fired off razors of wind. The storm was at their backs. The fire was at their backs. The razors came fast and tinted orange. Claire blocked them. Tam stomped forward- if she was going to die she was going to take out Claire- they fired off another wall of wind.

Claire ran magic down her arm and pulled stone walls up in front of her and Lestat, and felt the effort from using that much magic.

Neither the wolf, nor the witch, had taken a breath yet.

Claire brought both hands up again, and stumbled forward, released the rocks and blew a wave a wind at the cluster of white spores hanging in the air. The spores rushed out into the brown yard, past Tam and Tara, and caught the wind of the fires, and the wind of the storms, and whipped into the yellow haze. Claire gasped for breath- her vision was white spots and white margins, as if she had looked at the sun. She brought her bow up and shot and missed wide.

Tara smiled.

“Don’t shift,” Claire whispered, her voice far too low for Tam or Tara to hear. She shut her eyes a moment, and steadied herself, and knew what was coming. She expended a little more life- she was almost out.

Tam was nearly on Claire- she nearly had her throat in her hands, when she felt something in her eye, and her vision blurred, and she saw something wriggling, and jumped back, outside into the grass, and screamed, and pulled worms form her eyes. One after the other, and she couldn’t see. Tam turned and ran screaming and tripped over a low ridge and stumbled into a tree and bounced off.

Claire squinted- Tara had her hand up, pointed, and there was no time: Claire brought rocks up under Tara’s feet, and she fell backwards, hitting the ground, and missing the house, and Lestat.

Claire’s hands were numb, and her vision solid white in the center. She fired off an arrow and missed.

Lestat heard the woman moving, and heard the arrow hit the ground. “Too far left.”

Tara stood, and held her back in pain, and Claire fired off another arrow.

“Too far right.” Lestat tugged against a vine, and snapped the one at his elbow and it hit the floor and broke glass.

Claire saw white halos, but centered on Lestat’s words, notched an arrow, and fired. The arrow hit Tara’s hand just as she was releasing magic, then it hit her forehead, then the back of her skull, and Tara crumpled to the ground.

Tam crawled, and screamed, and choked on worms. Her eyes, and ears, and mouth- long white worms dropped from her and crawled into the black ground, away from the light.

Claire stumbled to Lestat, and grabbed the vine on his shoulder and pulled it loose. She grabbed the one on his waist and pulled carefully; she stopped, and moved two jars, and a grass basket, and pulled the vines free.

Lestat didn’t move. She had not lied, and yet he felt anger in his heart as if she had. He was mad at her, and was trying to control it, and trying to take a step back, but goddamnit- growls crept up from his stomach and settled in his chest like storms in a valley.

Claire’s hand paused. Blood ran down his shoulder, and her vision was just starting to adjust to colors and light. Once again they had let go of each other, and once again they had gotten hurt. And this time it was partly her fault. And he was still growling. “I’m sorry.”

Growls were all he had, because he couldn’t quite define why he was so mad. It felt like broken trust. It felt like lies.

She freed him, and he did not touch the blindfold, and he did not move off her wall. He smelled smoke- burning oak, burning soil- the beating heart of a flame, searing the air and burning the nitrogen. “You can… take that off.”

“No. You can,” Lestat growled.

Claire grimaced, and shut her right eye, and reached up and pulled it off.

Lestat glared down at her. Trust was not just about words. Respect was not just about asking questions instead of commanding. He had made changes for her, and it felt like she hadn’t. Or wasn’t. Or, at a minimum, they were on different pages. Value was not just five-thousand gold coins.

And nakedness was not only about breasts and the tuft of brown hair above her sex. Claire looked down- she had been trying to shield herself from him since the moment she woke in the cell, and she was still, but she didn’t feel guilty about that- she should have the right to keep some things private. But his eyes, and his growl- he was upset at her, and it hurt. It felt like he had ribbons in his hands and was about to tear them apart. It felt like the threads that held her heart together were breaking, but he was bleeding, and she needed to take care of him. “Stand… stand still,” she said, her voice hanging with sadness, and anger. She walked back to her bedroom, around an open door, dodging tables covered in jars and boxes, dodging piles of clothes, and blankets, and pillows, and returned with a medicine kit. She cleaned his wound- it was deep, and she grimaced. Goddamnit. He was still growling. She stitched, and wrapped, and he was still growling. “I said I’m sorry. Knock it the fuck off.”

“Sorry for what?”

Claire looked up at him. “For getting you hurt.”

“That’s not what I want an apology for.”

They heard villagers in the distance. Horses, and carts, and a bell ringing. An evacuation. The sky cast a sickly yellow glow on the ground, and the trees.

Claire thought a moment, and frowned again. “Look- I wasn’t ready to show you my house. I’ve blindfolded you before, when I wasn’t ready to show you other things. Remember?”

“I remember,” Lestat said. He fixed his shirt, and adjusted the pike, and his pack, so they didn’t hit his arm. “I remembered we promised not to lie to each other, and something about this feels like a lie. I’m honest with you.”

Claire lowered her eyes. “It’s not the same as a lie, but be honest then, Lestat. Tell me something honest.” She didn’t like the tone in his voice, and she was positive there was one in hers. She glared at him.

Lestat stepped out through the destroyed front of her house into the dead grass. They were out of time. The wolves would be at the coven any minute, and the fire was close- it would be on them in less than an hour, and the forest would be engulfed. He looked at their horses- it was likely they would die, or flee. He walked away from Claire to the horse and pulled his second sword free and strapped it to his hip.

“Tell me.”

“I shouldn’t have to,” Lestat answered. How could she make love to him and not realize? “How would you feel if I didn’t let you open the closet door? Or wouldn’t even let you enter my house? Would you trust me? It wouldn’t bother you at all?”

“Y-“ Claire started, then stopped. She would trust him. And she wouldn’t. But one thing was obvious to her- if he had refused to let her inside, refused to show her his house, they probably would not have made love, because she probably would’ve been pretty mad. Her feelings would’ve been hurt. But still, she did not have to open every door for him- at least not before she was ready. She had at least some right to privacy. “Yes, I would still trust you, and yes, I would’ve been bothered, but I’m allowed to keep some things to myself, until I’m ready to share them.”

“Then so am I.”

White smoke and gray clouds billowed overhead. Rabbits ran out of the underbrush, darting around Lestat’s legs, through the grass, and around Claire’s house, running from the fire. Mice and rats followed the rabbits.

And the wolf and the witch looked at each other, in the glow of orange-yellow clouds, in the dark gray shadows of evening and coming storms, and they both glared, and they both growled.