Page 62 of Flock Around and Find Out

Was I some sort of perverted freak who got off on stuff like that? Fuck if I knew, but I felt all too on display in them, despite the fact they didn’t show much.

And Galen and Alpho had both just seen me entirely naked.

“It’s good,” I admitted as I ate the falling-apart, delicious meat from the plate Alpho had given me. “I’m surprised you can make such good food out here.”

“I do go into town now and then for spices, and meat is easy to make well no matter what. You came a rather long way just to ask me a question,” Alpho said, the first time we’d actually gotten back to the conversation at hand, the one interrupted by him trying to murder me.

Galen sighed. “I’m the head of the Were Clan and the wolf alpha.”

“I thought you smelled of dog,” Alpho muttered, his tone lacking any sense of respect.

I rarely heard people speakthatrudely to Galen. His own pack never would, and even Kelvin tended to avoid outright insults.

I sort of liked Alpho better because of that. Someone with a mouth they couldn’t control was always one of my favorite parts of friendship.

“You try,” Galen said to me, then pouted as he stared at his food and ate.

Men…

I rolled my eyes, because this wasn’t even my problem! So I had to fight the deadly tiger and have the conversation, too.

Figures.

“I said before, you know, during the whole you trying to eat me thing, that there are Weres getting sick.”

He nodded. “I’ve felt it. The energy is souring.”

I sat up straight. This was the first real spark of hope I’d found in a while. He not only knew about the issue but seemed to identify what it was. That had to be a good thing, right?

“That’s right. Well, I have a working theory that it’s because the Weres have stopped doing ancient rituals. I heard about a trip that all Weres had to make, to the old places. You’re the oldest were that we know of, so I was hoping you might know where that was.”

He nodded, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Yes. I made the trip, a very long time ago, as all Weres used to do.” Shadows danced in his eyes, something that told me the trip wasn’t a pleasant one.

Then again, hadn’t Porter warned me of the same? That wherever this energy came from, it wasn’t the kind of place that anyone should want to go willingly.

Maybe it was like the gynecologist—no matter how much it sucked, you still had to go.

“So you can tell us where it is?” I pressed.

He nodded. “Yes, I can, but it isn’t so much a where. It’s a how.”

“You know I’m not that smart, right? Let’s not play games, because I’ll never catch up.”

He huffed softly as though amused. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve shared a meal with anyone, since I’ve spent time with someone like this. It’s not as bad as I remember. What I meant by that is that the place isn’t a real place, at least not one you can walk to or find. A pathway is opened by an old prayer that a Were has to invoke. When it does, a shimmering golden doorway appears. On the other side of that doorway is a different world, one that does not follow the rules of this one. It is wild, soaked in Spirit energy. There are many paths, but finding your way is not so difficult because there is a pull. I saw other clans there, other Spirits who were not Weres, all pulled in their own ways. I believe that all the old energy exists there, in that place, but we can each feel it. It’s instinctual.” He had a strange expression, one somewhere between awe and fear.

“What did you do after you followed that path?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. That was a very long time ago, but I did talk to others, and none seemed able to recall what happened when they reached the end of that path beyond walking into a cave with a shimmering amber lake. I remember the huge cave filled with crystals imbedded into the walls and a body of water in the center, but it wasn’t clear. It was the same color our eyes change to, and it called to me. The next thing I remembered was waking up back where I had left from, back where the doorway had first opened.”

I didn’t respond right away, letting the information soak in, trying to mull it over.

It fit, didn’t it? Everything I’d found, to everything I’d heard. Porter had said that another place existed, that it was dangerous—it sounded like the same place. The story had mentioned a lake, so it sounded as though it might not be as metaphorical as I had thought. Maybe the source of the Spirit energy was there, in that place. If we went there, we had a direction, a way to at least work out what had happened.

If the water was trapped in some way, no longer flowing to the Weres, we could figure out why. We could see what the Weres were supposed to do and hopefully fix the problem.

“What’s the invocation?” Galen asked.

“By tradition, it must be done under the full moon, and the Were must speak as they shift. That is the way to call the attention to open to doorway. Then the Were must say ‘I seek an audience with the one I came from.’ I’ve seen other invocations used by other types over the years, so I am not sure that the specific words even matter so much as the action and attempt.”

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