Stormy spring nights were the absolute worst for business. Helen always ended up standing around for hours and then eventually closing down and going to bed. And this evening was looking to be yet another in a long line of boring rainy nights.
"Helen!"
She jerked her nose out of her book to the door where Beast stood.
"What? What's wrong?"
"It's Bigby."
Helen's heart stopped. She was maybe the tenth person down the chain of important Bigby contacts. This could not in any way be good.
Beast continued, "Bluebeard's up to something, I don't know what, and now Bigby's totally out of control. He's gone full wolf and we're trying to reign him in but we need help."
"I don't see-"
"Snow's on the Farm and you knew him in wolf form right?"
She was glad it was a slow night as she grabbed her jacket and followed Beast out the door, locking the place down as they left.
"Where is he?"
"Warehouse district. A mercy there at least. Not many mundys."
"How did Bluebeard get him to turn?"
"We're not sure. But Bluebeard has so much stashed away, it's hard to even guess."
"Bufkin?"
"Belle's with him. They'll send word if they find anything."
Beast hailed a cab and they flew through the streets of New York. Helen's heart was slamming. She had known him as a Wolf but that had been hundreds of years ago. And their parting had been messy. She was not sure if she was more of a help or a liability, but she would be damned if she would let Bluebeard harm him in any way.
When they pulled to a stop and jumped out, Helen could feel the unnatural silence and shadows all around her.
"We've cleared everyone we could think to," Beast murmured to her. "This way."
She watched him bulk up as he led her toward a fire that roared in a trash can a few streets up.
They reached Grimble, in full form, just as Boy Blue did, running from the opposite direction.
"Blue! What's going on?" Beast asked.
"They've formed a hunting party. They're claiming Bigby is a menace and that since King Cole won't stop him, Bluebeard will have to. This is all some involved set up to hunt Bigby for sport."
Helen was running in the direction Blue had come from before Blue or Beast could realize she had gone.
She was a block away when she heard them call after her. She worried about them catching up to her for a brief moment before shooting blindly out into a brightly lit street.
A barricade had been set up near where she stopped and circling the other end of the street was the Grey Wolf. She had forgotten how BIG he really was and her breath caught in her throat. He was almost as tall as the warehouses around him and his teeth gleamed as he snarled and paced.
Someone grabbed her roughly and she tried to jerk free.
"Be still you stupid girl!"
She was yanked around face to face with Bluebeard himself.
"Do you want to be killed?! Get behind the barricade!"
"You can't do this!" she yelled, still kicking and hitting him in any way she could.
"Shut up!" he hissed. "I can and I will. This menace must be dealt with. He is clearly an unstable danger to us all."
Finally gaining some footing, Helen drove her knee up between his legs. He let go of her, cursing her in the Old Language and she dashed up the street toward Bigby.
"Grey Wolf! Over here!" she shouted toward Bigby. "Grey Wolf!"
Bigby turned and stopped pacing, staring at her. There was something very familiar here. Something he knew...
"I'll shut your mouth myself you foolish bitch!"
Helen screamed in pure panic as Bluebeard grabbed her wrists in one hand and wrapped her braid in his other, yanking her backwards by it. The last time someone had her wrists in their hands...
Bigby turned. That scream he knew. He had not saved her. But he could now.
A growl erupted from Bigby and Blubeard let go, running from Helen back to the barricade as Bigby bore down on her.
Helen waited, hoping she would survive this, as the Big Bad Wolf drew nearer and nearer.
She felt his teeth close around her, lifting her from the ground. And the next thing she felt was his back beneath her, astride him like so many hundreds of years ago. She let out the breath she had been holding and leaned forward, pressing her face into his fur.
"Shall I eat him?" Bigby rumbled.
"That would be a felony. Let's go home."
"As you wish. But not without a warning."
He tilted his head back and howled, shattering the glass down the block. Helen sat up staring directly at Bluebeard, who cowered behind his pitiful barricade. Then they turned and were gone.
Home to Bigby had meant the Woodlands. Too late he realized this was not the case for Helen. He had cooled on the run back and now was simply an exhausted and bleeding man stumbling back home in fewer clothes than desirable as Helen tried desperately to support his weight.
Outside the Woodland gates, he collapsed.
"Bigby," she pleaded, "get up!"
He did not budge and she sighed heavily. Slowly and painstakingly she got him across her shoulders and bent double carried him into the apartment complex.
She was surprised to be greeted by a pig in the lobby.
"You found him! How is he?!"
"Still breathing. I could use some help?"
"Sure thing!" The pig ran over to the elevator and hit the button before opening a utility closet door. A moment later he emerged with a shopping cart.
Bigby was unceremoniously dumped into the shopping cart and then wheeled into the elevator, the pig talking nonstop.
"And I told Beast," he monologued as the elevator rang for Bigby's floor, "he's been drinking out at a bar. Blonde Rus Fable owns it. She might help."
"Wait," Helen stopped him. "That was your idea?"
Colin nodded, pushing open the tiny apartment door. "He said he knew you from before and he didn't sound sad or angry about it. That's about all you get with Bigby."
Helen quickly realized the couch was the only thing that could be described as comfy in the apartment and worked to get him out of the cart and onto the couch.
"So how do you know him?" Colin asked, calmly watching her struggle with an unconscious man several inches taller than her that outweighed her by about 40 pounds.
"That's a hard question," she gasped as she dropped Bigby more or less successfully on the couch. She was covered in blood and needed to know where it was coming from. "Help me find where he's bleeding."
Colin's more expert nose found a gash along his ribcage that opened up between two ribs but did not seem to have done vital damage.
"First aid kit?"
"Kitchen." He led the way and indicated a drawer. The drawer, it appeared, was the first aid kit. It was full to bursting with medical supplies.
"This is a common problem for him?"
"Have you met him? He's a sheriff with no charm and no patience. Of course this is normal for him."
"So I shouldn't be worried?"
"Are you?"
The grin that she could hear in the pig's voice brought heat to her cheeks but she ignored it.
"I tend to worry when people bleed like this. It's a thing people do."
"Ouch!" Colin teased. "I'll take the hint."
Helen couldn't help but smile. "Help me get him patched up. I'm Helen."
"Colin," he replied.
Bigby woke a few hours later, stiff and sore and with a sharp pain in his ribs. He groaned and opened his eyes. What he saw made his heart slam, radiating fresh waves of pain.
Helen woke to someone shaking her and she was about to yell at Colin to leave her the hell alone when she realized who was waking her.
"You're alive," Bigby breathed, letting her shoulders go.
"Of course I'm alive. How the fuck do you think you got in here?"
"I woke up and you were curled up and covered in blood."
Helen had forgotten that. She looked down and Bigby watched her expression radiate disgust. "So it would seem."
Bigby walked over to a nearby closet and pulled a white button-down from a stack. "Here."
Helen would have sworn he was blushing but his back was to her before she could be sure. Similarly turning her back to him, she pulled off her shirt, dropping it to the floor, and pulled on his much larger shirt.
"Thanks," she murmured, sitting back down and avoiding his eyes.
Colin trotted up as Bigby resettled himself on the couch. "What the hell happened, Bigby?"
"Bluebeard told me he had caught wind of some illicit trading at the docks. I met him and he ambushed me. Stabbed me in the side and it just flipped a switch. I lost all control."
"You've been stabbed before, according to our very verbal friend here," Helen said. "Do you go full wolf every time?"
"No. It was something with the knife. It stripped away everything that would stop me. I had no choice."
"Sounds like grounds for an arrest."
"Indeed..." Bigby growled. "But you should not have done that, Helen."
"Done what?!" Colin cried. "Some of us were not there!"
"I stood in the street and yelled at Bigby until Bluebeard attacked me," Helen answered.
"I would agree with Bigby on this one then."
"Why would you take a risk like that?" Bigby asked, staring at her intently.
"They were going to kill you."
"I've handled more than my fair share of bullets. I would have survived."
She looked away, his gaze more than she wanted right now. She watched the pigeons flutter on his window ledge before taking off for another perch. Finally, Helen returned his gaze.
"I've kept tabs on you, Sheriff, ever since I realized who you were. There's a reason Swineheart drinks at my bar. You seem to underestimate the capacity others have to do you harm." She twisted a strand of her blonde hair around a finger, thinking. "Bluebeard would kill you in a heartbeat and you gave him good reason to. I needed to stop him."
"But I could have killed you."
Pounding started on Bigby's door, with Snow's all to familiar voice coming from the hall. Helen stared at her hands, clasped in her lap and let a smile cross her features. She stood, gathering up her jacket and her keys. Heading for the door, she affectionately ran a hand over Colin's bristles.
Helen turned and locked eyes with Bigby, sending an undeniable thrill through him.
"Don't worry, Sheriff. I'm not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf."
She opened the door, delighted to see the look on Snow's face. "He's all yours," she said, brushing past the deputy mayor.
"I'll need to know what happened," Snow called after her.
"You know where to find me. And if you don't, Bigby certainly does." Helen walked into the elevator and was gone.
Before Snow could enter the apartment and start questioning, Colin turned to the sheriff, who looked a bit stunned at everything that had just happened.
"I know you think you know what you're doing, Bigby, but if you don't snatch her up before someone else does, you're the biggest fool in Fabletown."
