The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (31 page)

“Don’t
sound so thrilled.”

He
sighed wearily into the phone. “If you’re calling, it’s either because you
think I need to retire or because you found something. I don’t want to know
either way.

“But
you
do
want to know, or you would
have never called me in the first place.”

“Alright.
What is it?”

“A
favor.”

Silence
sliced across the phone. Carmen thought she lost the connection, but then she
heard him breathing. “What’s the favor?”

“Take a
ride with me tonight.”

“Where
are we going?”

“I
don’t know yet, but I might need back up.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Muffled
voices drifted to him from the hall. Collin eased the coal room door open to
hear more clearly. The voices were less muffled but still indistinguishable. He
stretched his legs out of the crouching position he was in, and moving stiffly,
walked to the boiler room door. The voices, it seemed, were not right outside
the door. He pulled the boiler room door open.

The
voices drifted toward him from the main corridor. He recognized Proctor Roth’s
voice. “Vincent and Griffin can take any boys they want—other than those
injected last night. They aren’t ready.”

“Who
are among the most recently injected?” the other voice asked, though Collin
didn’t recognize it.

“Tony,
Mark, come here,” Proctor Roth barked. Collin felt his stomach quake as his
friends’ names were called.

The man
instructed, “He’ll take these two and three more.” Collin could hear the man
walking away, but he stopped. “Is everything else prepared for tonight? The
moon will be up soon.”

“Students
have dispersed all over the city,” Proctor Roth replied.

“Should
be quite a night,” the man reveled.

What’s tonight?
Collin wondered. He eased the boiler
room door shut, and crept back to the coal room, pulling that door shut as
well. He had to wait for the cover of darkness.

Then he
would run for it.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The
night of the March full moon was unseasonably mild. Even the mostly clear sky
did not add a wintry chill to the night. As the moon rose, drifting across the
sky like a phantom, the sun descended in the west, blazing pink and red along
the wisps of clouds. The moon tore a bright bullet hole in the fabric of the
horizon, gliding over trees and adding its ghostly light to the land below. Mist
gathered and settled near water; night birds stirred uneasily in the trees and
sailed into the air. The peacefulness had the sensation of glass whirling on
its edge, having fallen, landed, and waiting in the next moment to explode.

In a
subdivision in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, a dog barked at the uneasy
feeling in the air. Inside one of the homes, Darrin Nichols grabbed a bag of
low-calorie popcorn from the microwave. He dumped it in a bowl, and hurried to
the couch where Jenna waited. She snuggled into him as he settled onto the
couch and pressed play on the DVR. Quiet nights like this held such new meaning
for him. Those two days when he thought he had lost her clung to him like
cobwebs, and for her, he could tell it was a fresh open wound.

Jenna
was seeing a psychiatrist. She had flashes of her two days missing, and in her
mind, she was attacked by a monster. The psychiatrist explained the phenomenon
to Darrin, letting him know that Jenna would deal with the real events “in
time.” She, otherwise, seemed to be herself (save some expected distance). He
told himself daily to be patient, to give her the space and time she needed to
heal.

He
pulled back as she wiggled on the couch next to him. “Are you okay?”

She
bolted upright. “No.” She looked from side to side, almost seemed panicked, and
Darrin wondered if she was having a flashback. She doubled over in agony, a
shrill cry erupting from her as she slammed her hands on the coffee table,
sending popcorn across the floor.

“Jenna!”

Her
breath came out in short, sharp pants. “Get the baby! Get Sable and leave,” she
gritted through the pain. She crumbled to the floor, curling into a ball,
screaming. Sable’s cries echoed her mother’s, bleating through the baby
monitor. Darrin grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. “All circuits are currently
busy,” a recorded voice informed him. Darrin stared at the phone for a moment
in disbelief. He dropped the phone as Jenna shattered the night with a banshee
wail.

“All
circuits are currently busy,” the voice repeated.

Jenna
grasped at her shirt and pulled it apart, popping the buttons. Her skin flushed
red, and sweat poured over her brow. Darrin cocked his head as he noticed her
skin rippling and bones shifting. “Jenna? He whispered. He heard Sable’s cries
and remembered Jenna’s command.

Darrin
raced up the stairs, grabbing his car keys on the way. He pushed through the
door, grabbing only Sable and her blanket. He looked around the room—no time
for anything else. He raced back to the stairs, slipping, and landing hard on
his butt. At the bottom of the stairs, he hesitated. He looked toward the great
room.

Jenna stood
once again, though he could no longer recognize her. Most of her features had
vanished inside of fur and snout and claws and fangs. She stumbled toward him.
Sable screeched as Darrin raced to the garage door. He pushed through the door.
He reached for the garage door opener with one hand as he held Sable and
pressed the automatic car door unlock on his keys with the other hand. He
slammed the garage door shut behind him.

He
opened the car door and set Sable in the front seat. Darrin glanced at her car
seat, and then forced her onto the floor of the passenger seat; there was no
time for the car seat. “Sit down,” he insisted. He turned the key and the
engine roared to life. He hit the gas, and the car lurched backward as he fled
the garage.

In the
wash of his headlights, the front window of the house shattered and Jenna—
no, not Jenna,
he thought—leaped through
the window. Darrin pressed the accelerator as the werewolf lumbered toward the
car. He watched as it neared the windshield. His car bumped over the curb and
onto the street. He pushed the car into drive and floored the accelerator. The
car sped away as the werewolf followed, falling behind in the red glow of his
tail lights.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

In the
Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Rindy Kemper waited for her sister Rebecca
to finish getting ready for their night out. She looked out the window of
Rebecca’s loft. Rindy envied Rebecca’s view. Rebecca was always a bit more
adventurous, and, Rindy thought without malice, that it had bitten her. She had
always worried about her younger sister. Rindy was looking forward to a relaxed
sister night out: dinner, a glass or two of wine, and talking. It was their
first night out since Rebecca’s attack.

But she seems to be pulling
through okay
,
Rindy thought.
Maybe better than Mom and
Dad and I are
. She shook her head and smiled at her sister’s resilience.
The moon glimmered on the river and its reflection on the glass buildings
shimmered and waved. Rindy looked down onto the busy streets, washed by the
hollow light of the moon.

“Come
on, Rebecca,” she called loudly, hoping her sister could hear her in the
bathroom.

“Almost
rea—” Rebecca’s voice choked off in agony.

Rindy
spun and darted toward her sister, kicking the coffee table in the process and
tripping at the pain in her shin. “Bec?” She called. She pounded on the
bathroom door. “Open up.” She could hear Rebecca inside, gagging and crying.
“What is it?” Rindy hit her shoulder into the door, but the solid door held. “I
can’t get in.”

“Oh
God!” Rebecca cried in a shrill, anguished voice. Rindy cowered at the door as she
heard glass shatter and porcelain brake. “Run, Rindy,” Rebecca sobbed from
beyond the door.

Outside
the bathroom door, Rindy’s face flashed from confusion to terror as she heard
cloth tearing, and then, panting, and finally, growling coming from inside the
bathroom.

She
backed away from the door, voiceless. Her heels clicked on the cement floor as
she backed down the hallway. The first thud against the door made her scream.
The wood splintered, and the savage cries of what was inside rose to a roar.
Another thud and the wood broke. Rindy saw her first glimpse of the creature.
Her mind felt triple exposed as horror movies, and the footage she had seen
online recently, and the reality in front of her all collided, and she thought:
it’s real
.

Rindy
ran straight for the front door. She heard the werewolf bounding down the hallway.
She reached the door, pulled it open, and then slammed it shut behind her. It
locked automatically. She stumbled backward, tripping on her heels, and falling
flat to the floor. She looked up at the large metal door—an old warehouse
door—and she thought this certainly would hold. She climbed to her feet and
realized that she was sobbing.

A
neighbor pulled his door open. “Are you okay?”

“Lock
yourself in!” Rindy shouted, wishing she could be calm, find words to express
what was happening. The door to Rebecca’s apartment vibrated as the werewolf
pounded against it.

The man
looked from the door to her. “What’s in there?”

“I
don’t know. Call the cops.” She backed away from the door, fighting the
hysteria she felt at realizing that what was in there was her
sister
. “I have to go,” she said and
realized her car keys were still inside the apartment. The man slammed his door
as he was told.

Rindy
walked to the stairs and began to climb to the rooftop garden. She pushed the
door open and looked out over the city. The moon seemed so close and large she
could touch it as it spread its power over the night.

Rindy
didn’t notice the chaos at first. She was too caught up in her own fear and
confusion.

Screams,
at first just a few, rose over the hum of traffic. Then more voices joined the
choir. Sirens wailed around the city. The first explosion made her stagger back
from the edge of the building where she stood. Had it been a car or a house?
She wondered.

Chaos
mired the street below her as people, some bloody, fled into the night. Behind
the fleeing people, werewolves crashed through plate glass windows. They bounded
down the sidewalk. They tore their way free from cars, where they had
transformed.

Rindy
clutched her mouth, stifling her own scream, as she realized Chicago had been
overrun by monsters.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Haley
watched Mitch through the window of the gym. He talked casually with a woman
behind the counter before throwing his hand up in a wave goodbye. With his gym
bag slung over one shoulder, he walked out the door and into the night air. He
tossed his bag in the trunk of his car. A moment later, his car pulled out into
traffic.

“Now
we’ll see what he’s up to,” Helena said in the passenger seat as Haley pulled
out behind Mitch. Haley kept a safe following distance as Mitch wound through
the city. Mitch parked outside of a non-descript warehouse. Haley pulled to the
curb about a block away. Light flicked on their windshield as he locked his
doors and then entered the building.

After a
few tense moments, Helena said, “Let’s get out and look. This waiting is
killing me.”

Haley
was doubtful. “Maybe we should just stay put.”

“You
stay put,” Helena said as she exited the vehicle.

“Damn,”
Haley said as Helena vanished around a corner into an alley. She pulled her
phone out, trying to decide whether to call Maxwell. She decided against it and
tucked her phone in her pocket. The car clock ticked off another minute that
felt like an eternity, and Haley climbed from the car. She ran quietly, and she
hoped stealthily, as she approached the alley. She watched the door where Mitch
had vanished, and it remained closed. “Helena?” She hissed down the alley.
“Where are you?”

Shadows
stretched menacingly from the corners of the poorly lit alley. Barred windows
sat at street level; an overflowing dumpster rested about halfway down; an oily
sheen coated puddles on the asphalt; and a fire escape clung to the side of the
building out of reach. “Helena?” She called again. She took a few tentative
steps into the alley, and realized, ironically, she was happy for the light of
the full moon. She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door where Mitch had
gone. Still no movement.

Her
footfalls echoed in the alley. In the distance, she heard police sirens.

Suddenly,
a door slammed behind her, and she spun, pressing against the wall, as Mitch
walked past on the sidewalk. A moment later his car pulled away. “Shit!” She
fumed. More sirens joined those crying in the night as she turned back into the
alley. “Helena, we’re losing Mitch!”