Skin of the Wolf by Sam Cabot Read Free Book Online Page B

sure.”
    On the sideboard next to decanters of cognac and brandy Livia found a silver corkscrew. She opened the bottle. “Can you hold this?”
    “It would be easier without these annoying bandages. Michael, as it turns out, is an EMT.”
    “I thought you said he was a microbiologist. Doing a postdoc at Rockefeller.”
    “That, and an MD, also. With residency rotations in emergency medicine. On the reservation, apparently, one must wear many hats. Of course,” he added, brightening, “you yourself were once a nurse, weren’t you?”
    Livia sighed. “Yes, I was.” She picked at the tape and unrolled the bandage from Spencer’s right hand. She could see the new pink patches of skin, angry red at their centers, what looked like animal bites. She handed him the bottle. He lifted it to his lips and without stopping downed its entire contents.
    “Ah.” He sighed in contentment and let his eyes close. His hand dropped back to the blanket.
    Livia took the empty bottle from him. “Better?”
    In a few moments the color started to return to Spencer’s face. He opened his eyes, now their accustomed bright blue. “Much better, thank you. It was one of the fresh ones, though. I should have told you the aged bottles are on the bottom.”
    “Well, I apologize if it wasn’t quite to your taste, but this wasn’t really about a gourmet experience. It was about avoiding a couple of months’ sleep, which would have been hard to explain to your friend out there. Come on, I’d better rewrap that hand.”
    “No.” Spencer, instead, began unwrapping his other hand. When he was finished he peeled the bandage from his throat. “It’s rather too late for dissembling explanations.”
    Livia nodded. “I’m sorry.”
    Livia understood what had happened to Spencer; it happened to every Noantri at one time or another. Somehow, one’s Noantri nature revealed itself to an Unchanged. One healed from an injury impossibly fast, or emerged alive from what should have been a fatal event, or was forced to use a Blessing no Unchanged should have been allowed to see. Whatever the cause, no recourse remained but for the Noantri to disappear: to leave for foreign parts, or remain nearby but change residence, identity, and sometimes, courtesy of Noantri plastic surgeons, even features. And, of course, to break off contact with the Unchanged who’d been a witness. The process, called Cloaking, was required of every Noantri every few decades in any case. A condition of the fifteenth-century Concordat between the Noantri and the Catholic Church was that the Noantri, though in plain sight, remain hidden, passing unnoticed among theirneighbors. Once your neighbors stopped complimenting you on your ageless appearance and began whispering about it, you were no longer upholding that bargain. Since the Concordat also assured each Noantri a supply of blood for sustenance—such as the bottle Livia had just brought up from the hidden room behind Spencer’s wine cellar—most Noantri took seriously their Concordat obligations. Those who flouted the agreement faced the displeasure of the Conclave, which every Noantri took very seriously indeed.
    Spencer would have had to leave New York sooner or later, but he’d only recently arrived, and he’d come here from a life in Rome he’d been enjoying and was decades away from needing to abandon. He’d left Rome as part of a scheme that, among other things, allowed Livia’s own life to continue unhindered. She’d been grateful to him, relieved and pleased to hear that he was enjoying New York, happy that he’d found a new romantic interest. Now she felt dismay that he would have to uproot himself so soon.
    All this had been expressed when she said, “I’m sorry.” Now she added, to commiserate, “Your friend—Michael—he’s already seen?”
    Spencer fingered his neck, where shiny pink scars made ragged patterns. “I was positively gushing blood. Like a fountain. I might have thought it quite