Blood of Eden

Chapter 24

Katherine sat quietly at the unfamiliar kitchen table staring at the tiny vase full of daisies and the short "I'll be back soon" note Quinn had left for her next to the coffee pot. The early morning light shone brilliantly through the sliding doors that led to the apartment's small patio and warmed Katherine as she sat in its rays. She mindlessly sipped at her usually appreciated first coffee of the day while reviewing the details of last night's revelation and tried to make sense of her thoughts in the light of day.

She had known, despite the proof to the contrary, that she had seen the bullet pierce Quinn's heart. Someone who always operated on instinct, Katherine had pushed aside those instincts due to the irrefutable fact of Quinn's existence. He was alive, yet Katherine knew on a basic level that he should be dead. The knowledge that he had to be an aberration both relieved Katherine and scared her.

She relied on logic every single day yet here she was a witness to an improbability, or rather impossibility, as far as she knew. There was nothing logical about it.

Of course, there were always folktales of wolves surviving direct shots to the heart or brain to be considered, but as far as she had always known, those were simply stories to be told to children and during adolescent drinking excursions. She'd told the tales more than once herself, and knew by memory the usual stories. They always involved an exception wolf, strong, beautiful, and virile, who fought the hunters on behalf of his or her kind, and then disappeared into the depths of the forest never to be heard of or seen again. Every young wolf had heard those tales.

Katherine pondered the probability of the tales being rooted in reality then remembered that her cousin Damien was a professor of folklore at McGill University in Montreal. He loved to go on and on about mythology so maybe he would know something, anything that would even partially reassure her that she wasn't going insane.

She went back to the room and searched her pockets and various leather pouches for her Blackberry and wasn't surprised when she found it smashed to pieces, having been hit by one of the bullets that had pierced her skin. Without it, she felt a moment of helplessness until she remembered the laptop she'd seen moments earlier in the kitchen. Canada 411 it would have to be.

She went back to the kitchen and refilled her coffee mug before sitting at the table and opening the small laptop. It booted quickly and she was pleasantly surprised that it didn't ask for a password. She knew it wasn't his normal one, though, and she doubted the other, larger laptop was as easily accessed as this one.

She pulled up Internet Explorer and Googled "Canada 411." Damien's number was listed and easy to find so she jotted it down on a sticky note then shut down the laptop. There was a portable phone next to her so she grabbed that, tucked it under her arm, grabbed a can of Pepsi from the fridge and walked to the living room where she'd seen a particularly comfortable-looking leather chair that would suit her lounging purposes.

The phone rang four times before it was picked up and a very sluggish voice muttered deeply into the receiver, "Do you know what time it is?"

Katherine laughed and then glanced at the clock, 6:32 am. Not that early. "Hey, Damien. It's Katherine, and it is not early. The sun rose an hour ago. I see you're becoming lazy in your old age." She smiled into the receiver as she heard his groan and exclamation of indignation. In truth, he was only three months older than she was, but it always made her happy to point out those three months.

They chatted about family for a few moments while Damien got up and puttered out to the bathroom to relieve nature. They had always been close cousins and neither really cared much about bodily functions. Things like that were moot when you tended to become a wolf from time to time.