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Gem’s hands hurt, backpack over her shoulder and satellite phone probably in her pocket still, emphasis on the probably and good luck if it wasn’t, and her muscles hurt like they’d been shredded to bits by the climb. And maybe they had, honestly, because what a climb it had been. Scrambling up the side of a slot canyon, hearing the rumbling of a whole freaking flood from upriver-- Pearl had boosted her for the last part, a shove that’d sent her tumbling right over the threshold. They’d gone up like thirty feet, using handholds they could barely fit their fingertips into, and the water had frothed below them, churning with mud and debris and rising rapidly.
Pearl had heard it before Gem had. The canyon had garbled the sound of running water, the thunderhead out of sight upstream and their ability to take weather readings thrown off by lack of cell service, but Pearl had frozen, knuckles going white on the straps of her hiking pack, hackles raising practically visibly. Werewolf senses. Never failed.
Pearl was leaning against the other wall, looking kind of bad. Not, like, injury bad, Gem would have jumped right into action at an injury, but it was something in her eyes. In the way she’d brought her knees closer to her chest, panting for breath, lips tight as she looked at the mouth of the cave. Usually Pearl only looked that upset if she thought she’d messed something up for the survey.
They had lost some day-hike stuff as the water rose, but that hadn’t been Pearl’s fault, and they’d set up a more permanent camp a couple miles away, anyway. Higher up, and hopefully out of flood range. With any luck, the rest of the field crew would still be there tomorrow, and Grian could get into a whole conniption about check-ins and data collection and everyone not being exactly where he wanted them to be at all times when they got back.
“Hey, Pearl?” Gem ventured, considering Grian’s likely response to this development with some dread. Etho was hands-off about his technicians most of the time, and Cleo hadn’t come along on this trip since the weather wasn’t good for rotting flesh, but Grian took his research dead seriously. Like, dead seriously. He had spreadsheets for things Gem hadn’t even heard of. “Everything good?”
“Yeah,” Pearl said, and her voice was off too, wavering like a tightrope walker having some bad luck with vertigo. If she’d been wolfy like Skizz got sometimes, she’d have had her ears going back, from the sound of it. Gem thunked her head against the sandstone, tried not to get frustrated at the time this flood was gonna make them waste . The field season only lasted so long. “Yeah, yeah, I’m all good. Never felt better than I have in this moment, I’m all about surprise rock climbing, it’s good for the circulation. Got adrenaline flowing in my bloodstream now.”
“Right,” Gem drew out, peeling off her wet socks and boots. “Well, you just keep, uh, circulating adrenaline over there, and I’m going to look around and see where we’re at with the weather. You saved the drone, right?”
“Mailbox should be in the case still, I brought that up with my hiking pack,” Pearl said, shifting to check. “Yep, it’s here all right, all several thousand dollars of it. That would’ve been crazy money if we lost it, do you think we could’ve said our lives were at risk?”
The survey drone had cost more than Gem had ever earned in her life, and she got an email every time she flew it in substandard weather or above the recommended altitude or anything. That drone was a precious baby, folded up in a hard plastic briefcase in cushions. It should’ve had a name, but she and Pearl were still arguing about that; they’d only ever agreed on anything when they were drunk, and that was always rescinded in the morning. Right then it was named Mailbox, because Pearl had won the last coin flip, but it’d been Pickle, The Snailicopter, Tilly, Froggy–
“I think they’d actually be happier if we died horribly and GeminiSnail survived,” Gem admitted, giving no ground. “It’s trackable, you know, they can ping it.”
“Not by nightfall, though, right?” Pearl asked, that anxiousness seeping into her voice again. “I mean, no one knows we’re missing, unless your satellite phone’s working, or unless Etho’s realized the flash flood warning turned into a reality for some people.”
“I was gonna check in tonight once we set up camp, but we’ve got a few hours before anyone gets really worried,” Gem said, and frowned. By all rights someone would have put together that a storm that wasn’t on the forecast might’ve caused problems, but they’d been having issues with the satellite phone since midday, as rocks started obscuring more of their view of the sky. It was possible that Grian had tried to check in and failed. Gosh, that was gonna complicate further research. That was a whole wilderness safety thing. Probably a waiver thing, too. “So if you’re gonna choose now to reveal you’re a serial killer or anything, I have bad news for you. I’m a black belt in judo and tae kwon do, and I know how to wield, like, swords.”
Pearl flinched. Gem stood and stretched her aching arms, pacing to the back of the cave-- not far, it was pretty shallow, not her ideal campsite-- and Pearl said, strangled, “Okay, well, I have a big knife too. Or no, on second thought, I think I left that in camp with the stove, didn’t I. At this point I’m not sure what weapons I have, then, aside from the natural ones. Teeth and– and everything.”
“I could beat you in a fist fight,” Gem said immediately. “Hands down. Hands up, actually, if it’s a fist fight– I would pulverize you. I could turn you into a bloody mess, good lord don’t even try me. I don’t need teeth to kick your butt.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Pearl said, glancing at the mouth of the cave again and bringing her shoulders in, “but for the record, we might find out for sure pretty soon?”
“We-- wait, we might what?”
“I lost my talisman while we were climbing,” Pearl mumbled. Thunder rumbled in the distance, bringing her shoulders up to her ears. “It snagged on a rock and tore off. So that’s, uh, that’ll be fun.”
“Oh,” Gem said. Pearl still hadn’t stood up, so she was looking up at Gem from an angle that exposed a bit of her neck, tense and uncertain. That wasn’t a posture werewolves liked to hold, unless they were freaked out enough that they were trying to seem subordinate and harmless, or unless they wanted to convince themselves they weren’t gonna aggress.
“It’s a full moon tonight, mate. I can tell.”
“Yeah, duh, it was almost full yesterday, ” Gem started, and Pearl cut her off.
“I can tell without any of that. In daylight, in the midst of a storm– I can feel it in my bones. There’s a wolf in there howling, waiting to come out.” Pearl’s eyes were red as candied cherries. Her blond hair hung down in her face, messier than she liked to leave it, and her knuckles were a little white, scuffed from the climb. Gem’s lungs were mid-recovery, but Pearl’s breathing had evened out less than a minute after they’d reached the alcove. “It’s– if you don’t have that phone working, we’re gonna have to try to figure something out, Gem. I don’t think I’ve changed forms in years.”
Gem didn’t say how can your bones be howling, that’s just dramatic, or in years, seriously? She didn’t go ashen and dive for her buck knife, either, even though she’d had colleagues who’d do that in a heartbeat. People who’d never been out west, mostly. East of Cherry Mountain you met some undead if you were lucky, but the west had a ton of magic. Something in the environment, in the atmospheric currents and the young jagged mountains, trapping ambient enchantment like they trapped rain.
“Okay,” Gem said. “Let me check if we can call Etho.”
She pulled out the satellite phone, but its screen stayed dark when she tried to turn it on, not even lighting up to tell her the battery was screwed. When she followed her nervous impulse and inched closer to the cave entrance, she saw fine cracks webbing out from the screen.
It wasn’t that much of a surprise. They’d done the climb fast, scared enough to ignore scrapes and the limits of their bodies, and Pearl had kind of tossed Gem at the cliff to get her there faster. Something had cracked. She’d been worried for a second it’d been one of her bones or her compass, but it wasn’t too unexpected to learn it had been something else.
“That’s a no, then,” Pearl said, when Gem tossed her the phone. Pearl had more skill fiddling with tech than she did, she could admit that much. “Do we have any spare batteries?”
“Down in the canyon, which means they’re on a whole dang adventure now without us,” Gem said sourly. “Unless you have some in your bag.”
“No, just dog treats,” Pearl said, strangled. The place at her throat where the talisman usually stayed was empty, just as she’d said, and she had a weird tan line from it, skin a shade paler at the center of her collarbone. “A dead bird I found, you know the drill. I’ve kinda-- kinda fallen down on carrying wolfsbane with me, I didn’t think I’d need it.”
“Would that even do anything? I thought it just made you break out in, like, hives.”
“Well, it’d make me keep away from your corner of the cave, which might do well enough,” Pearl said. “Now, though, I might go totally bonkers. I could maul you. I used to be really wild when I turned, just wicked and-- and unpredictable, y’know. A little bit dangerous.”
If Pearl as a wolf was more unpredictable than Pearl as a human, that could get kind of dire. Pearl as a human had gotten frostbite one time to see what it felt like. She helped with roadkill surveys by wandering around at night until she came across dead deer, and then she insisted on getting a cut of what she’d found. Literally.
She sounded scared, though. Gem couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard Pearl scared: the closest she came was being socially wary, like she wasn’t sure she was really for real invited to a house party, or like she expected every smile to hide a trick. As though Gem would resort to being secretly mean when she could hate someone she didn’t like to their face .
It was late afternoon, and the storm that’d sent the flood their way had been rolling in steadily, the sky darkening in increments. Thick, heavy rain clouds, crowding out the light like a fluffy tempestuous blanket. The flash flood had slowed by the time Gem looked down at it, churning decreasing till it was maybe mid-setting on a stand mixer instead of the highest setting where cake batter got on the ceiling somehow, but it still wasn’t passable. Even after the swell settled, which wouldn’t be until after the storm had passed, it’d be a long, wet journey back.
Grian could notice their absence and send for a rescue helicopter all he liked, but between the storm and the flood, it was gonna be hard for anyone to get to them. They’d probably have to do it by tracking the drone.
Werewolf Pearl it was, then. No problem. Gem could fight a wolf if she had to.
“Pearl, we’re scientists,” she sighed, figuring the fear issue should be taken care of first. An anxious wolf would be more bitey, probably. "Or okay, we're technicians and like, seasonal, so you get paid like five dollars a year –”
“Gee, thanks, but at least we don’t have to write theses ,” Pearl said. “We're getting experience, and you’re– okay, you're taking on projects for no reason, what are you on at this point, your third map of that one canyon?"
“My third map is gonna be amazing and it’ll revolutionize geography, forever,” Gem told her, stung. “All will bow before me, I will be as a god, and Etho’s gonna stop dodging meetings about more accurate data collection once I get him cornered. My point is, we’re women of science, and you’ve been traveling with me for weeks! We’ve shared coffee, and weird chili made from leftovers I don’t want to think too hard about, and beef jerky. We’re not strangers, Pearl.”
“Oh, yes, how could I forget the sacred werewolf ritual of weird leftover chili,” Pearl said, but her lip twitched, Gem saw it, no take backs. “Gem, you put mac and cheese in there. You put pasta water.”
“It’s got electrolytes! Anyway, it’s not like you could taste it past the Gatorade, and it was super hydrating. It was great.”
“Purple Gatorade. Purply hydrating. Taking years off our lives kinda hydrating.”
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds like I’m arguing for wolf-you to kill me,” Gem said in dismay, and Pearl snorted, muffling her snickering in her own knee. “Ignore that! I’m trying to argue the other thing.”
“Dunno if wolf me’s willing to listen,” Pearl said. “I’m not too friendly, I should warn you. It’s not a good transformation to have in civilized places.”
“One time I saw Skizz on a full moon and he was wearing his whole tie,” Gem said skeptically. “As a wolf. A whole tie and a collar like for a shirt.”
“One time I shifted and I broke through a door to try and maul my neighbor.”
“Okay, so? Did he have it coming?”
Pearl choked on another laugh. “Gem!”
“Look, Pearl, I’m just saying! We’re here all night no matter what, the best I have is a knife that’s not gonna do anything really against like half a ton of fur and muscle, and neither of us can leave the alcove. There’s only one way this can go, whether murder happens or not.”
“Four ways,” Pearl said, and when Gem shot her an inquiring glance, she added, “Two murders, one murder but either direction, or zero murder.”
“Aim for zero murder,” Gem said authoritatively, and lightning flashed close outside, close enough that Gem raised touched her hair to see if it’d stood on end. Pearl slammed her hands over her ears just in time for the thunder to hit, loud as a meteor crash and trailed by a tsunami of rain. “Whoa, okay, my goodness! We are never getting out of here.”
“Oh, I dunno about that, we could make the effort,” Pearl managed, and Gem huffed at her, went to dig through her day pack and came out with a few things. Beef jerky-- a surprise tool that would help Gem later-- and her camp pillow, zipped up in a little container clipped to her hip. Freeze-dried strawberries and her Camelbak and her lighter. Pearl made a little eureka! Noise and dug through her day pack, then raised up a bag of marshmallows, a pack of graham crackers, and a chocolate bar with a triumphant yip.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Gem said in delight. “The s’mores ingredients survived? You brought the s’mores ingredients?”
“Grian would’ve stolen them if I’d left them! This was self-defense, is what it was, I’ll say that in front of a jury.”
“Can you even eat those as a wolf?”
“Maybe the marshmallows, if they aren’t sugar-free or anything,” Pearl said. “Xylitol, now, that’s a killer.”
“Dang it, that might’ve kept you from slaughtering me,” Gem said, and Pearl went still. Whoops. “I could’ve made a circle of them and warded you off. I’d get one of those little marshmallow guns and pelt you with them,” Gem said, and the next peal of thunder made her yelp, Pearl flinching hard. The light was fading, and their headlamps had limited batteries. Gem dug hers out and pulled it on to test it, flicking from white to green to vision-saving red before shutting it off to preserve the battery. Pearl didn’t bother grabbing hers. “Seriously. Trust me. You’re gonna be okay, Pearl.”
“I haven’t turned into a wolf since I was a teenager,” Pearl said, biting her lip with a tooth that could’ve sliced right through it. “I was a mess when I was a teenager, that talisman was-- was court-ordered, Gem, I kept it after ‘cause I knew I was dangerous--”
“Okay, you did not mention that in the interview, but look, no way Etho hasn’t done crimes, so I’ll forgive it,” Gem said. “Also, it’s probably just because you were a teenager. I used to be, like, goth. For a whole year. I wore fishnets and they weren’t even the right size.”
“I had a fedora,” Pearl said, and Gem cackled. “No, wait, it was cool! It was cool, Gem--”
“Was it?”
“Leopard print’s cool,” Pearl said, wounded, and Gem made a sound like a squeaky toy, which, wow, bad comparison! Terrible comparison, forget about that one. Pearl looked less wretched after she heard it, though, so Gem considered it a win.
They set up camp for the night, piling Pearl’s rain jacket and Gem’s camp pillow in the highest point of the alcove away from the wind. The drone too, because neither of them was risking losing the storage on that. It was damp, because everything was damp while the wind was freaking diagonal , but they could scrounge out the marshmallows, breaking the chocolate bar apart so Pearl could swallow a tiny bit and Gem could claim the rest.
Thunder crashed again. Pearl winced, then took the lighter and flicked it on, the tiny flame guttering till Gem shifted to block it from the wind. It put pinprick orange dots in her pupils, wisps of smoke rising as the first marshmallow caught alight. Pearl held it between two fingers, blew it out with a yelp once the flames singed them, and tossed it at Gem. This was fine, since Gem had a graham cracker from their one half-demolished pack of graham crackers ready, but it sure was short notice. They were going through their s’mores rations kind of fast.
“How are you doing that without a stick?”
“It’s easy, you just stop feeling pain,” Pearl said, grinning through marshmallow teeth. Gem made a face-- ew-- and she huffed, passed the lighter and the next marshmallow over. “Try it, go ahead.”
“I’m roasting it slower, so it’ll be gourmet,” Gem informed her. It was evening now, cooling down; goosebumps were rising up on her skin. It might’ve been a good idea to start a fire, but they were low on fuel, and not much of what they had would burn. That had been an oversight, too. “Hey, should we be saving some of these for rations? I feel like we’re gonna need rations.”
“That’s fair, I can see that,” Pearl said, watching Gem toast her marshmallow golden-brown. Gem’s fingers smarted. “Is it still flooded?”
“Boy, is it ,” Gem said. “No way you can’t hear it, it’s roaring. It might take a whole week to go down completely.”
“And I was just getting my boots dry, too,” Pearl said lightly. “Gem, maybe I should try to climb down.”
“What did-- what did I just say, you heard what I just said, right? Like five seconds ago, in this very same cave?”
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Pearl said. “It’s risky, losing a talisman like this-- you’re not supposed to change around people until you know what you’re like as a wolf.”
“We’re not around people. We’re in a cave in the side of a canyon in the middle of nowhere, and you’re gonna drown in the middle of nowhere if you try climbing down in the dark in a storm like a total moron. Forget it, Pearl! Get wolfy with it. I bet you’re gonna be fluffy as heck. I bet you’re fantastic and adorable .”
“I bet I’ll tear out your throat and then eat you and have to go on the run and be feral in the mountains forever, eating weird little plants that are probably endangered and feeling sad about it,” Pearl said. “Keep your distance, at least.”
“Sure, if I have to,” Gem said, and paused. “Actually, are you scared? For yourself, not for me.”
“It shouldn’t hurt,” Pearl said. “I don’t-- I don’t think it’ll hurt.”
“Even though you’ve got, like, bones shifting--”
“Nope, nope, don’t need to think about that,” Pearl blurted, and Gem nudged her shoulder, taking the opportunity to brush her bangs out of her face already. That had been bothering her for like an hour. “Promise me you’ll keep hold of your knife .”
“I will,” Gem said, scooting across the rock at Pearl’s nudge. “You’re fine, Pearl. You’re gonna be great.”
Pearl stayed quiet after that, huddling into herself as the light faded more. The temperature dropped the rest of the way, into the low forties where Gem’s teeth chattered, and she hugged herself, sitting on the rain jacket and her pillow to keep something between her and the heat-leaching floor. Pearl didn’t seem to notice the cold at all.
The storm passed, the gaps between lightning and thunder getting wider, and night trickled in.
Moonlight trickled in. Pearl’s eyes reflected it. She shuddered, a low whine rising from her throat.
“You got this,” Gem whispered, hesitating to turn on her headlamp– heart in her throat a little, which was just stupid– and Pearl stared at her, tense and feral. It was hard to make out the details of her face, past the shape of her hairline and jaw and the way she folded her lanky body to seem small even though she wasn’t.
There were a lot of shadows in this alcove, and not a ton of space to run. Gem slid her buck knife from her bag, keeping it sheathed by her thigh, and Pearl huddled into herself tighter. The shadows covering her shifted like roving spotlights, dark on dark past what Gem’s eyes had time to adjust to. Pearl’s silhouette elongated and fell on all fours, nails scraping against the sandstone, muzzle cracking as it grew.
Something bigger than Pearl sat across from Gem, eyes just barely catching the moonlight.
Gem took off her headlamp without breaking eye contact, flicking it back to red and placing it so it would throw its beam at the ceiling. ”Hi, Pearl. Don’t chew the drone case or anything, okay? It’s not a toy, and if you chew it you’re probably getting us both fired.”
The wolf stayed close to the other wall, tail held low and ears angling sideways. Ragged, and not as large as Gem had expected. She was fairly sure Skizz had been at least a shoulder higher.
Tone was probably the key here, like it would be with an actual wolf. Except this wolf had waited out rainstorms with Gem, had waded through mud and scorching deserts and carried a canoe with her over shallow stretches of river. This wolf had cackled at Grian’s indignant shrieking when a squirrel stole his entire hot dog the one time, at the top of a different canyon right next to the park visitor center.
Gem knew Pearl. She’d do a disservice to them both if she acted afraid.
“Can I bribe you with beef jerky?” she asked, keeping her tone chipper. Slow movements. She was gonna feel so dumb if Pearl turned out aggressive after all. She had the beef jerky out already, but pulling it out of the plastic took longer, and tossing it across the alcove floor made the wolf snarl and bristle, tail tucking between her legs.
“Wow, sheesh , it’s okay! It’s jerky. We bought it at a gas station, and it’ll probably give you, like, serious health problems in the long term? But for now it’s cool, it’s great. I’m Gem, you remember me, right? You remember Gem?”
Pearl sidled forward, ears still canted sideways, ignoring Gem’s offer completely. Gem took a deep breath, shifting to feel the hilt of the buck knife at her side, and continued, “So should I pspsps you, or is it like a Lassie thing? Are you gonna go tell Etho and Grian and Cleo that little Gemmie fell down in the canyon and needs help, because I don’t know if you can swim, but you’re gonna be better at it than me.”
Closer. That was fine. Gem wasn’t afraid.
“We could be stuck here all week, Pearl. We’ve got like two days of water.” Closer. Was that body language tentative or ready to lunge? Skizz had been wagging his tail throughout the night, the one time Gem had seen him shifted; she couldn’t base her Pearl analysis off him at all, that was a sample size of one. “Also, I swear to god if you maul me and then I have to go signal a helicopter with like one working leg I will be super mad at you--”
The wolf flopped down next to Gem and yawned with a huge mouthful of teeth. Gem stiffened, letting go of the knife-- in her defense, a wolf making sudden moves was startling -- and put a tentative hand on Pearl’s ear. She had white fur, more patchy than plush, and that was kind of concerning, but–
The same crimson eyes. The same hint of wild uncertainty, which looked more natural on a wolf than a human being who should’ve known she was welcome and entitled to beef jerky and marshmallows and whatever else. Gem cupped Pearl’s muzzle with her hands, delight bubbling up through her and coming out as a grin.
“Oh my gosh, you’re adorable ,” she whispered, and Pearl huffed at her, touched her face with a cold wet nose. “And gross, that was gross , your breath smells like you eat roadkill-- Pearl, you’re so cute. You’re like a giant puppy. All your fears are dumb, obviously, and I’m right forever about drone names, and you should thank me for getting us lost and stranded.” Pearl didn’t answer this, on account of being a wolf and incapable of understanding human language. “Alright, then, I’ll take your silence as agreement! And honestly, you can repay me by being a space heater, come on.”
Pearl whined a little, tail coming up to wag slowly, much more subtle than a dog’s excitable wriggling. Wolves had dignity. Werewolves had less dignity, since most of the time they were silly humans with like, jobs, but Gem thought Pearl was doing pretty good overall.
“Wow, you don’t know what a space heater is right now,” Gem sighed theatrically, and Pearl nipped her fingers, cautious like she was testing what her jaws could do. Gem bapped her on the nose. “Stop that. Have some manners, I feel like not nipping squishy humans is manners. What’ve you been doing all this time that you don’t know that? Working in natural resources or something?”
Pearl kept looking at her, tail wagging. The temperature was in the forties at best, and the air was damp and humid. Convincing Pearl to be a space heater was definitely gonna come with a side of wet dog smell, but that was a fair tradeoff for not risking hypothermia.
Gem rambled at her, trying to get her to budge at least enough to make a comfortable pillow, and got her to flop on her side, away from the mouth of the cave and the puddles that’d formed throughout the evening. Pearl’s fur was warm, and her side rose and fell with her breath, big paws resting on the sandstone floor.
Big paws, and a big muzzle. Gem contemplated that, and then she moved the drone case underneath her pack, where it’d hopefully be shielded from curious werewolf teeth.
“Guard GeminiSnail’s welfare with your life,” she ordered Pearl just to be safe, and Pearl whuffed at her, put her head down on her paws to look mournful and agreeable. Gem had to grin at her for that, figuring this wasn’t such a bad place to camp out after all, and tucked herself in to steal Pearl’s warmth.