The wolves at her sides growled. Their nostrils flared.
Rico’s breathing was quick and high.
The woman wasn’t dressed like the man that had fired upon us from the crew cab. She didn’t have a Kevlar vest or a balaclava. She wore a heavy coat, the collar pulled up around her neck and face. Her skin was pale, her lips thin. She had a scar on her face, starting on her forehead, crawling down over her eye and onto her cheek. She was lucky she hadn’t been blinded. Something with large claws and teeth had tried to kill her. And she had survived. I wondered if she now wore that wolf’s skin over her shoulders, the head of which rested on top of hers, the length falling behind her like a cape.
She hadn’t had that scar the last time I’d seen her, sitting across from me in the diner when I was a kid, asking if we could pray.
Meredith King.
Elijah.
She was older now. She had to be in her early fifties. But she moved easily, artfully, like a much younger woman. She held the heavy chains in her gloved hands, and the wolves kept pace with her, matching their steps with hers.
She said, “Two angels were then sent to Sodom to investigate. There they came upon Abraham’s nephew, Lot. And while they broke bread with Lot, the sinners of Sodom stood outside Lot’s door. ‘Where are the men that came in to thee this night?’ they asked. ‘Bring them out unto us so that we may know them.’ And Lot refused, because he knew what these men meant. He knew what they were asking for. In their black hearts, they thought to defile the angels of the Lord. Lot, in order to appease the lust of the growing crowd, instead offered his two virgin daughters. The offer was refused. The crowd moved toward the house, intent upon breaking down the door. The angels, having seen there was no good left in Sodom, struck the crowd with blindness and told Lot of their decision to destroy the city. For there were not fifty righteous men. There were not twenty righteous men. There were not even ten righteous men in the city of Sodom. They harbored the monsters of man, the sins of the world. The angels told Lot to gather his family and leave. ‘Look not behind thee.’”
The fingers wrapped around my brain gripped tighter, and I cried out in pain, my head feeling like it was breaking apart.
“And they fled,” Elijah said. “They fled, even as fire and brimstone began to rain down from the sky. For God is a loving god, but He is also a vengeful god. He will smite from the world the wickedness that festers like disease. The cities of the plain were destroyed. And even though she was told not to look back, Lot’s wife did just that, and she paid the price for being a nonbeliever, becoming a pillar of salt. And when the fire ended, all that remained was a smoking wasteland, a dead and ruined land kept as a reminder of the power of sin. Of abomination.
“Green Creek is the New Sodom. You have monsters in your woods. There was a cleansing here once. At least, an attempt at one. God brought down his righteous fury through me, but I wasn’t strong enough. The wound was cauterized, but still it seeped. And soon it began to fester.” She stopped walking. The trucks behind her eased to a halt. The wolves brushed against her, shifting side to side, eyes filled with murderous violence. “I doubt there is even one righteous man in this place. One person capable of standing with God as I have.” Her voice echoed through the snow. “Green Creek is a gateway to Hell. Where beasts have crawled up from the burning fire and shoved their teeth into the earth. I failed once. And I paid the price for it.” She reached up with one gloved hand, the chain rattling. She touched the scar on her face, the eye underneath it foggy white and unseeing. “I will not fail again. All outside communication has been cut off. Your phones. Your internet. All the signals have been jammed. The town of Green Creek is under quarantine by order of God and the clan of the Kings. I am but a messenger, here to make sure the word of the Lord is carried out.” She smiled a terrible smile. “This place will know the light of God, or it will be nothing but a wasteland.”
She dropped the chains.
“Oh shit,” Rico breathed.
Elijah said, “Sic ’em, boys.”
The Omegas roared forward.
I rose quickly, slamming the door to the truck. “Don’t fucking move,” I snarled at Rico, ignoring the pull I felt in my head, the spindly fingers having become hooks as the wards shifted, becoming something twisted and rotten. My legs felt weak, and I stumbled with the first running step I took, somehow managing to keep myself upright. I heard the snarl of wolves behind me, the sounds of their paws in the snow, the heaving breaths in their chests.
The raven was struggling to flap its wings, exerting more force than should have been necessary. The roses felt like they were rotting, shriveling until I thought they were dying. The thorns were blackened and cracking.
I ran for the upturned crew cab still stuck in the remains of Main Street. I could see the men inside, slumped forward and unmoving. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the red wolf leap over my truck, its chain trailing behind it until it landed right behind me. It hit the ground hard, its paws sliding out from underneath it. It slammed into the earth with a low whine, snow piling up around it as it landed on its side, heavy chain dragging behind it.
The bigger timber wolf didn’t follow. It came around the driver’s side of the truck, claws digging in as it course-corrected toward me. The red wolf was struggling to rise to its feet as the timber wolf ran past it. I’d been around wolves for most of my life, and I recognized when the wolf began to lower itself toward the ground, muscles coiling in its legs. I was almost to the crew cab when the wolf leapt toward me.
I kicked my legs out in front of me, falling to my side, sliding through the snow and under the angled truck. Ice and gravel tore at my skin. I flipped over in time to see the timber wolf smash into the side of the crew cab, the metal groaning, truck shifting after me, scraping along the broken pavement. The wolf was dazed, mouth open as it lay on its side, tongue lolling out into the snow, breathing heavily, eyes unfocused.
I stood—
here and here and here and here is another ward twist it twist it twist
—and screamed as a voice filled my head, the spindly fingers digging even deeper. The wards around Green Creek were shredding as if being pulled apart by some force greater than I’d ever felt before. It was—
strong they’re stronger than we thought than we expected twist them break them
—too much for me to take, it fucking filled me u
p, and I was sure I was burning from the inside out, and even though I hadn’t heard his voice in decades, even though I had been a child the last time I’d laid eyes upon him, I knew that voice. I knew it down to my very bones.
The red wolf was on its feet and—
I was surrounded.
On either side of me stood Alpha wolves, shifted and snarling.
Behind me, pressing his snout against my back, was a brown Beta. I could feel the low thrum of the song he was singing, but it was buried under the roar of the broken wards and the voice of my father.