Running With the Pack (12 page)

But one man, unarmed, was dead.

“I have a horse, a gun, and no fear of the creatures. Are you so bold, Miss Alvarez?” Thomas’s smile was the wolf’s again, though no wolf had such a streak of cruelty in it. That was a human trait.

“I had thought a deer, or even a game of hide and seek,” Radcliffe said, dryly enough to almost hide the note of concern in his voice. “Miss Alvarez has made no pretense of tracking differently than you, my lord. She would have no horse, no gun. Surely you wouldn’t pit her against a monster capable of killing a man with a single blow?”

“No,” Markéta said. “Thank you for the concern, Master Radcliffe, but I believe I accept. I should like to prove to Lord Thomas that the hunt can be carried out in more than one way.” This time her smile was as false as firelight was to the sun. “And prove, perhaps, that a woman can be equal to a man in many ways.”

Thomas stood with a clap of his hands. “I’ll have my men harry a boar from the wood, then.”

“Oh, no, sir.” Markéta came to her feet as well, as full of wide-eyed innocence as she could be. “Not on my behalf. I shall enter the wood myself and find my own boar. Perhaps he who returns with the kill first will be declared the winner?”

Tension flushed Lord Thomas’s face, but he nodded. “And tomorrow we’ll dine on the fruits of—our,” he conceded graciously. “Our labor. If you would be so good as to remain with us overnight, Miss Alvarez? Master Radcliffe? I assure you, the estate can absorb you with no thought.”

“It will be our pleasure.” Markéta spoke for Radcliffe, thoughtlessly, but he chuckled and made a murmur of agreement. Smiling, she bobbed a curtsy. “Shall we hunt, then, my lord?”

Boars grunted and squealed, distressed by the scent of a half-forgotten predator. They were complacent, unaccustomed to being harassed by any but men on horseback, and therefore less inclined to fight than to trot heavily through the wood, grumbling without being genuinely afraid. It helped that she only wanted to direct them; one wolf was not enough to hunt a boar, but with canny foresight and enough speed, she could herd a pack.

The numbers mattered: there was the king and his mate, and a handful of half-grown piglets old enough to be both delicious and dangerous. An armed man might succeed against any one of them, but anger the lot and weapons would do little good. That was why hunters, human or otherwise, separated one from its pack.

That was why Markéta did her best to drive them all into Thomas’s arms. Not just for vengeance, though that was key, but because it was good to run, to hunt and harry, to leap from one side of the offended herd to another, snapping her teeth and catching wild scents. She hadn’t stretched her legs so well in months, and playing at a whole pack of wolves was work enough to keep her thoughts honed and focused wholly on the moment.

Even she was shocked when Thomas came out of the brush. He had used the wind well, staying upwards of it, while it had been to her advantage to keep the pigs downward, where their crashing and snorting might carry as well as their scent. She had been at the boars’ heels, far enough back to not anger them; far enough, now, to meld into the low undergrowth and watch as panic struck hundreds of pounds of pig flesh.

The piglets broke in every direction but hers, one rushing for Thomas’s horse. Its mother struck out after it, too late; hooves flashed and the smaller beast’s skull collapsed. It rolled forward, dying body tangling in the horse’s legs, and Thomas fired his gun as the mother boar charged at him. A single shot, and he made it count; few men might have struck the pig’s eye, though her momentum carried her forward and brought the horse and rider down even as she fell.

Thomas leapt clear, the blood that spattered belonging to the horse, not himself: it was done for, belly split open by the female’s bite as she died. The male, screaming fury, rushed Thomas, who flung his gun away and drew a long knife, his pigsticker spear broken by the horse’s fall. There was no fear in his scent, nor could there be, should he hope to survive.

A snarl rose up in Markéta’s throat. She turned it to the sky in a howl, sharp sound of warning and loss, and trotted out of the brush to let the hunter see her.

For a deadly instant surprise took him, and in that moment, so did the boar.

She had never seen one throw a man. It caught his gut easily, and turned its weight against him, flinging him a distance only aborted by the presence of an oak tree. Thomas hit it with bone-cracking force and slid down, blood turning his shirt and hands to crimson. The boar snorted, charged again, then veered away into the broken underbrush, chasing after its offspring.

The horse lay on its side, thrashing. Markéta darted around its dangerous legs, scampered back from bared teeth broader and stronger than her own. There were other predators better suited to this kill than wolves; her jaws were strong, but she had seen how big cats could strangle their prey in mere seconds. Wolves tore and shredded at haunches, only taking the throat last, when the beast was already weakened, and the horse was still too strong with fear to be called weak. Still, it deserved better than the death coming to it, and she lunged in when silence took it for a moment.

It took a long time, blood hot and sweet on her tongue. As its gasps died, she heard Thomas’s increasing, and rolled her eyes, desperate to see but unwilling to release the horse and extend its death any longer. The gun was gone: Thomas had flung it well away, and was bleeding too heavily to search for it. But he was strong, and mercy shown to the horse could count against her own life.

It finally shuddered and died, strength gone from its great muscles. Markéta backed off, head lowered as she swung toward Thomas.

He was white-faced, drained of blood but not emotion; rage etched deep lines in his skin.

“What is man but a pack animal?” The words came from Markéta’s throat distorted, harsh, angry; a wolf was not meant to form human speech. She changed again, staying where she was, lithe on all fours, horse blood drooling down her chin. She had abandoned her clothes before taking lupine form; they would not change with her, and she knew now she looked a wild thing, monstrous human bathed in blood.

“We are only those who chose to heed the wild, so long ago. We learned to stay away from your penned cattle, your easy sheep, your fine horses. We hunted in the wood, and ran as one, while you our brothers constricted yourselves into dull unsensing human form. We did not threaten you, hunt your children, ruin your lives, and yet you came for us. That was my
mother
!”

She forgot, in springing forward, that she was only a woman, and had no teeth to tear his throat with. Instinct older than thought judged her and made weapons of her hands, curved to dig fingers in where tooth would not do. She might not have bothered; her weight was on his belly, where the boar had seized him, and the man screamed.

It drew her up. Not from mercy, but because to talk, to threaten and to posture, was the human and not the lupine way. A wolf hunted and killed, rather than allowed its prey to linger.

A pity, then, that this man, and others like him, had obliged her live so long in their world. “My mother,” she whispered again. “My family. My pack, dead for sport.”

He smiled, bloody and brief. Drew breath, held it, and spat it: “
Dog
. Do you think . . . we didn’t
know
. . . what we hunted? Mongrels. Monsters. Sinners. You are the last . . . in England . . . and my son will carry on the hunt in Europe!”

She ought to have been wary. Ought to have known he would carry another weapon; that a second knife could be secreted more easily than a gun. He moved faster than a dying man should, but the surge of muscle warned her. The blade glittered and she turned into it, ducking low, body transformed without a thought. The horse’s neck had been massive in her jaws; his wrist was fragile, and bone shattered all too clearly beneath his scream.

She tore the sound out with a single bite, spitting away flesh she had no desire to feast on. A wolf would have taken his throat before, and never learned that he’d known what he hunted. That was worse, worse by far, than she might have imagined. She would have to leave Britain, find her brethren elsewhere and warn them.

A branch cracked, folly of human intrusion. Markéta snarled and fell back from Thomas’s body, lost between knowing whether to run or to take human form and bluff. Run; she would run, away from England’s shores, but first there were other men to be dealt with.

Radcliffe stood at the edge of the clearing, a gun held loosely in his hands as he stared at Thomas’s body. “His father stole horses from my grandfather,” he said eventually, softly, though there were no other humans nearby to hear him. “I had hoped for some satisfaction in that. Some mark of watching him embarrassed by a woman out-hunting him. I had not imagined . . . this. It is you, Markéta, is it not?” His gaze lifted to her, almost apologetic. “I saw, when you . . . when you spoke to him. When you took human form. You are a . . . ”

“Wiaralde-wulf.” Those words, so ancient they were made for a wolfen tongue, still hurt her throat. Markéta changed, cautiously, to her human form, to speak more easily. “A world wolf, by our own name.
Werewolf
, by yours. As old as man, and closer to the world than you now are.”

“Mother of
God.
” Radcliffe fell back a step, gun clutched to his chest like a woman might clutch a kerchief. “
Markéta
?”

“Please, sir.” A whisper of humor bent her smile, though she could feel blood drying around it. “’Miss Alvarez.’”

He drew himself up, gun still held like a bludgeoning weapon. “You are naked in my sight, dear woman. I believe I might call you by your given name.”

“Only if you intend to make me your wife.” Her gaze flickered to the gun. “Will you shoot me, if I run?”

“Would you have me?” he asked at the same time. They stared at one another, Markéta still primed to run, and Radcliffe’s eyes dropped to the gun he held. He cast it away with a shudder, then looked to her again. “You said to Thomas that you were the ones who chose to heed the wild. Can a man make that choice even still? Can he become . . .
wiaralde-wulf
even now?”

“Not in memory.” Markéta hesitated, creeping forward a few steps. He was unarmed; she could kill him, if she must. “But in legend . . . .”

“In legend, as we tell it? Through a bite?”

“And through the tending of the wound. Why would you want it? We are hunted.” Markéta spat at Thomas’s body.

Radcliffe smiled faintly. “What man would want a wife capable of such astonishing feats that he could not himself achieve? Would you have me, Markéta Alvarez?”

She glanced at herself: naked, bloody, fingers caked with gore and her face and throat no doubt worse. Beneath the horror, well-enough endowed in human standards, her frame neither overwhelmed nor embarrassed by the curves she possessed. Then she lifted her gaze to Radcliffe’s, watching his face and stance as she shifted to her wolf form. Scenting for his apprehension, preparing herself to face fear.

She found curiosity in his cant, and wonder, easily read as a puppy’s. Eagerness, like a pup’s enthusiasm for exploration, though he was a man fully grown. Caution threaded through it: he saw her as the predator she was, but extended wary trusts. Beneath it all, though, a line of confidence was struck, familiar tone seen in any pack leader. He was certain of the choice he was asking both himself and her to make.

Humans were clearly mad. Markéta changed again—she hadn’t made the change so many times in a day in years, if ever—and sat staring at Radcliffe with a wolfish gaze, waiting for him to falter. Minutes dragged on, and he remained steady, until she herself looked away and gave a short sharp laugh. “Then I suppose we should find water that I might wash myself in, and my clothes, and then go to young Lord Thomas with the sad news about his father. And then I think we shall visit France, Master Radcliffe, there to further discuss our future.”

“Randolf,” he said absently, and offered her a hand to help her stand. “My given name is Randolf. Will you call me by it?”

Markéta froze, then laughed and put her hand in his. “Randolf.
Wolf’s shield
. Did you know the meaning of your name, sir?”

He drew her upward, only smiling when she was on her feet. “I did. It bodes well, does it not?”

“If one is bound by superstition and coincidence, perhaps.”

Radcliffe’s eyebrows rose. “And are you?”

“I’m
wiaralde-wulf,
Master Radcliffe, a creature of superstition myself. I suppose I must then be bound by it.” Her teasing faltered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone to walk beside, Randolf. Are you certain of this?”

“I am certain,” he murmured, “that there is a world awaiting us that we cannot yet imagine. Let us not disappoint it, Markéta. Let us see what discoveries lie in store.”

And what future her people might find, she did not say, if there were men even now willing to embrace the
wiaralde.
There would be time enough for those thoughts in the years ahead, and she had spent so long thinking as a human did. It would be good, for a little while, to embrace the wolf.

With a smile and a loll of her tongue, she leapt forward, not to abandon, not ever to abandon, but to scout ahead of her shield until he might learn to be a wolf himself.

LOCKED DOORS

STEPHANIE BURGIS

“My dad can’t come to parent-teacher conferences on Monday,” Tyler says. He keeps his voice calm and steady as he meets his English teacher’s eyes. “He has to work.”

Tyler is a pro at this. He can tell exactly when doubt flickers in Mrs. Jankovic’s eyes and when his open, friendly expression settles it for her. There are too many eighth-graders in her class for her to chase up worries about every one of them. Too many kids in this middle school, period.

That’s why Tyler’s dad chose it for him.

When Tyler gets home, he hears his dad moving around in the basement—probably getting it ready for next week. Tyler scoops out some ice cream for himself and settles down at the kitchen table to do his homework early. His friend Paul is coming over later, and Tyler’s dad has promised to rent them a DVD. They’re hoping for
Tomb Raider
, but he’s told them not to hold their breath.

Footsteps sound on the basement stairs, behind the closed door. They pause for so long that Tyler turns around to check that the industrial-strength bolt hasn’t accidentally locked itself into place. He’s craning around to look, vanilla ice cream still sliding down his throat, when the door bangs open.

The first thing he notices is the smell, acrid and unmistakable.

“Sorry,” his dad mumbles. He averts his eyes from Tyler’s shocked face, stumbles into the kitchen. He’s already losing coordination, his movements shambling.

Tyler finds his voice, but it comes out as a squeak. “It’s not supposed to come for a week!”

“I guess it’s starting early this month.” His dad shrugs, paws at the freezer, sighs heavily. “Can you get the ice cream out for me?”

Tyler shoves his chair back, hurries to the fridge. All his senses prickle as he passes close to his father. There’s no visible sign yet—not unless you know how to read his dad’s expression—but all his other senses can tell that the Change has begun.

Enemy
, they whisper. Goosebumps crisscross his skin.
Run away.

Dad
, he tells himself, and slips between his dad’s big body and the fridge. He feels his dad’s uneven breathing ruffle his hair as he opens the freezer. He doesn’t let himself look back or edge away. He pulls out the carton of ice cream and scoops out three dollops into a blue bowl. Only then does he allow himself to turn around.

Yellow streaks have already appeared in his father’s eyes. The smell of heavy musk is growing.

How long does he have left?

The phone rings. Tyler shoves the bowl at his dad and darts for it.

“Hey, Ty.” It’s Paul, his voice bright and cheerful. “What movie are we gonna watch? Did we score
Tomb Raider
?”

“Sorry,” Tyler says. His voice wants to quaver, but he won’t let it. You can never let anyone suspect, his mother told him. That was the first rule she taught him, and the last, before she left him here alone with It. “Tonight isn’t so good after all. Maybe we can do it some other time?”

Tyler has a game he plays with himself, sometimes. Times like tonight, when the heavy bolt is locked into place, but he can still hear It lurching through the basement, searching for a way out. He looks through the DVD collection on the bookcase, hums to himself to drown out the noise, and plays the Game.

The Game is this: What if Tyler’s mom called on the phone right now, and he could only give her three reasons to come back? Which three would they be?

Sometimes he decides on:
I clean my own bedroom now, I got all As and Bs last quarter,
and
I’m learning how to cook.

Sometimes, when it’s been long enough since the last time It came, when his dad’s just bought Tyler a new video game, or they’ve spent a whole evening watching dumb movies and laughing together over them, he thinks he might tell her:
Things are easier now. It’s safe for you to come home. I think he’s getting better.

Better.
What a joke. Something crashes downstairs. Tyler hums louder, scanning the same shelf of DVDs over and over again, trying to find one that sounds interesting right now.

It’s never arrived this early in the month before.

Tonight, if Tyler’s mom called, he would lie to her. He would say:
You’d better come back, or else we’ll forget you. I think Dad might have already. I almost never think about you.

He would threaten her:
If you don’t come back, I’m gonna take your picture off the wall in my room and throw it away.

And as his third reason, he would tell the biggest lie of all:
Maybe we’ll decide that we don’t even want you back.

But the phone sits silent and still all night long, and Tyler falls asleep on the couch with his knees scrunched up against his chest and his hands still pressed against his ears.

“Tyler,” Mrs. Jankovic says the next morning. “No homework?”

“Sorry.” Tyler shrugs and slouches past her, sluggish with lack of sleep. He drops down into the seat next to Paul. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Paul frowns at him. “What happened last night?”

“Stuff came up.” Tyler shrugs again. The movement feels heavy and slow. “My dad wasn’t feeling so good.” The words taste sour in his mouth.

When he looks up, he sees Mrs. Jankovic watching him.

By the time Tyler’s finished with the school day, he’s in a filthy mood. He stomps back into the house and throws down his backpack. In the basement, a sudden silence falls. A moment later, shuffling footsteps approach the bottom of the stairs, trying to be silent. They mount the stairs softly.

“You idiot!” Tyler yells. “I can hear you, you know! The door’s locked anyway. You can’t get through!”

There’s a sudden rush up the staircase. A heavy body lands against the door with a thud. The thick wood holds, secured by the bolt. Tyler stares at the door, his head throbbing. A hoarse grunt of frustration sounds. Long fingernails scratch at the other side of the door.

“I was supposed to go out with Paul this afternoon,” Tyler shouts at the door. “Remember? You promised you’d drive us to the mall. How stupid do you think I look now, huh? He’s not even talking to me anymore! He thinks I’m blowing him off! He’s going with Steve instead. They didn’t even ask if I wanted to come. Which I couldn’t anyway, because I have to stay here and look after stupid, stinking you!”

He swings at the door with all his strength. His foot slips on the hardwood floor, pushing him off-balance.

His fist hits the edge of the bolt. It shifts.

There’s a frozen moment. Then Tyler throws himself against the door, just as the heavy body on the other side hurls itself at the wood. The bolt shifts another centimeter.

“No!” Tyler shoves the bolt with all his strength and hears it click back into locked position. He collapses, sliding down the door onto the floor. Tips his head back against the wood, breathing hard.

He hears Its heavy breathing on the other side of the door. Tyler closes his eyes.

“Please, Dad,” he whispers. “Please come back soon.”

Tyler was eight years old when his mother left. He came home from school one day and saw a taxi sitting outside their house. The driver sat inside, reading a newspaper. Tyler found his mother in her bedroom, folding clothes. Two suitcases lay open across her bed. Her face was pale and cold; a purple bruise mottled her jaw.

Tyler stopped in the doorway. He wanted to come closer, but something in the air held him back. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“The bolt’s still locked,” she said. Her voice sounded funny, flat and dry. She talked too quickly; he could barely understand her. “Your dad’s coming out of it, though. You can unlock the door in just a couple hours. He’ll be fine to put you to bed tonight.”

“What happened to your face?” Tyler was shivering now, his arms wrapped around his chest.

She snapped the first suitcase shut. “I’ve put thirty cans of soup under the sink. That’ll last you almost a year. You know how to heat up soup.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you do it.” She snapped the second suitcase shut. “I’ve signed all your school forms and put them on top of the fridge.”

“Where are you going?”

She took a deep breath and walked over to him. When she put her hands on his shoulders, he felt them trembling in spasms, like waves shimmering through her body. He wrapped his hands around her long, cool fingers, anchoring them against him. Her polished nails pressed into his skin through his thin T-shirt.

She said, “Listen to me. Your dad can’t help what happens to him, but if anyone finds out, they’ll take him away. Do you understand? They’ll want to run experiments on him in some lab. They’ll torture him.”

“No,” Tyler whispered. Tears stung his eyes. “No.”

“You don’t want that to happen, do you? Good boy.”

She leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the top of his head. Her perfume, Winter Rose, surrounded him. When she straightened, he saw tears slipping down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“Take care of yourself,” she whispered.

Tyler ran after the taxi for two whole blocks. But after the third block, he lost sight of it.

And he never had the chance to ask her the question that mattered most.

On the third morning, Tyler makes two portions of scrambled eggs.
It
prefers meat, but he doesn’t have any. It wasn’t supposed to come until Monday, so they haven’t laid in supplies, and his dad didn’t have the chance to withdraw any cash for grocery shopping.

Tyler sets his portion on the kitchen table and pauses outside the basement door, taking deep breaths to calm himself.

It’s usually only here for two or three days. It might even be gone by now.

But It’s never come this early before, either. How can he predict anything anymore?

He presses his ear against the door. Silence. He doesn’t even hear any breathing. It must be asleep, curled up in some dank corner in the dark.

Maybe It’s shifted back. Maybe . . .

He unbolts the door. Waits. Silence. He turns the knob, edges the door open just a fraction of an inch.

“Dad?” he calls into the darkness, softly. “Are you—?”

It was waiting at the top of the stairs, holding Its breath.

Scrambled eggs go flying. The plate shatters against the ground. It bears Tyler down onto the tiled kitchen floor, Its yellow eyes dilated. Drool trickles onto Tyler’s face as he struggles, sobbing and gagging. The rancid smell of musk envelops him.

“Dad!” he screams. “Dad, Dad, Dad—!”

It grabs his right arm. The short sleeve of Tyler’s T-shirt slides to his shoulder. It sinks its sharp, crooked teeth into the soft flesh of his inner arm. Tyler cries out in pain.

Brown flecks appear in the yellow eyes.

Tyler tries to hold himself rigid through the Change, but he’s sobbing convulsively now, and he can’t stop. The crooked teeth embedded in his skin recede. Blood trickles down Tyler’s arm. Color floods back into his father’s face.

His father throws himself backward, hitting the kitchen table. Lands, shaking and breathing hard. Puts one hand to his mouth and stares at the blood that comes off his lips, onto his fingers. He looks up, his face whitening.

“Tyler,” he whispers. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Tyler—”

He starts forward, holding out his bloody hand.

“Don’t touch me!” Tyler scrambles to his feet and runs upstairs. Blood dribbles down his arm, stains his T-shirt. He locks the door behind him and throws himself onto his bed.

Through the floorboards, he hears his father crying racking, choking sobs.

Tyler lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling.

Grown-ups aren’t supposed to cry.

He doesn’t look at his dad on his way out to school. His dad tries to say something, but Tyler drowns out the words by humming.

He sits alone in English class. Paul and Steve are hanging out together at the back of the classroom, snorting with laughter as they play with the gross toys they found at the back of Spencer Gifts in the mall.

Tyler’s arm throbs underneath his clean, long-sleeved shirt.

At the end of class, Mrs. Jankovic holds Tyler back. She waits while the other kids file out of the room. When they’re finally alone, she looks at him steadily across her desk.

“Tyler,” she says. “Do you need help?”

Tyler blinks. She’s looking at him calmly, her hands folded on the desk.

“I can help you,” she says, “but I need to know what’s wrong. It’s okay for you to ask for help.”

Tyler opens his mouth. He tries to speak, but he can’t. He puts his left hand on the cuff of his right sleeve. All he has to do is pull it up, to show her.

“Tyler?” she says.

Tyler,
his father said, his voice anguished, that morning. Blood still on his lips.
I’m so sorry. Tyler—

Tyler looks into Mrs. Jankovic’s hazel eyes. He can barely breathe. He sees again the blood on his father’s mouth.

The blood. He thinks about the blood.

Tears burn behind his eyes as knowledge shifts inside him.

Maybe he does know, after all, why his mother didn’t take him with her when she left.