Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods by Michael R. Underwood Page B

like lightweights.”
    “I had no idea.”
    “Most people don’t. In fact, most New Yorkers don’t ever come to Staten Island at all. That’s the way the pack likes it,” Antoinette said.
    I took note. Cultivating an atmosphere of solitude was certainly relevant to my interests. Perhaps when I was done with college, a relocation to Staten Island was in order. Assuming the pack would allow my presence. Which was first assuming they didn’t rip my throat out in a few minutes.
    As if to validate my concerns, a howl cut through the air, freezing me in place. A chill wind accompanied the howl, billowing my coat as if to suggest that it was no more protection from the wolves than the cold.
    “Was that?” I asked.
    Antoinette gave me a look. I took it as a yes.
    “Let me do the talking.”
    I was hearing that a lot this week—“Let me do the talking.” “I’ll handle this.” “What he means is . . .”
    As if I needed the reminders that my interpersonal skills left something to be desired, that my upbringing had left me singularly unprepared to interface with the world at large. The constant repetition rather made me feel like a hanger-on, a vestigial limb. Despite my access to devastating supernal power, I was not to speak to this person, or that person. I was just the hired gun whose gun happened to be the raw power of creation instead of an AK-47.
    It was tiresome, but it was better than getting my throat ripped out.
    The bushes around us rustled, and within a second, five lupine figures emerged from the brush. The largest were nearly the size of mastiffs, though two were closer to golden shepherd in their build. Their coats were matted with twigs, mud, and leaves, as if they’d been playing. Or hunting.
    A medium-sized wolf in the middle of the pack raised its head, and a shadow passed over its body. When the shadow resolved, the wolf was larger, thicker of limb, less furry. Several more shadows passed in quick succession, and the wolf became a woman in stuttering jumps that tricked my eyes. When the shadows receded, a woman with high cheekbones and prominent Native American coloring faced Antoinette, wearing a camouflaged hooded sweatshirt and well-worn jeans.
    “Who are you?” the woman said, her voice husky, thick with restrained power.

CHAPTER
    THIRTEEN
    I ’d never met lycanthropes before. There were no packs in the Dakotas. My father and grandmother had seen to that years ago.
    I was starting to understand why. Our family’s sorcerous might was unmatched, but a wolf moving through thick brush, especially with a pack at her back, could make quick work of an unprepared sorcerer, unless the sorcerer was willing to bring down an entire forest to protect themselves.
    It’s what Grandmother had done.
    One of the many races made by the gods in the first days, lycanthropes could move among humans without notice, only revealing their power when they wished. When their creator, the moon, was strongest, so were they.
    Antoinette cleared her throat. “I am Antoinette Laroux. And a friend told me to show you this.” She produced the Nataraja statue, holding it out in the scant inches between herself and the looming wolf-woman.
    The woman chuffed once, very canine in that moment, all pretense of humanity cast aside. She looked Antoinette dead in the eyes, then sized her up, gaze going to her feet and then back up to her eyes.
    She took a single step back.
    “So you know the Nephilim. Fine. Why are you here?”
    “Someone’s after the Hearts. She’s trying to awaken the Younger Gods.”
    The wolves snarled as one. All of them, the woman included.
    “And you’re here, what, to warn us? As if we aren’t always on guard? There’s precious little of the earth left in this place. You think we aren’t always vigilant?”
    “We want to help,” I said, breaking with Antoinette’s request.
    The woman snapped at me, baring her teeth. “You smell of the Deeps, boy.”
    Again, judged before I was known. Even