The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“Man Wolf!” he whispered.

He hurried back to find her, near hysterical, in the door of the trailer.

Painfully thin, a child of seven or eight at most, with tangled blond hair, she begged him not to leave her. She wore jeans and a filthy T-shirt. She was turning blue from the cold. Her little face was streaked with tears and dirt.

“I prayed for you to come!” she sobbed. “I prayed for you to save me and you did.”

“Yes, darling dear,” he said, in his low gruff wolfish voice. “I came.”

“He stole me from my mommy,” she sobbed. She held out her wrists, scarred from the ropes with which he’d tied her. “He said my mommy was dead. I know she’s not.”

“He’s gone now, precious darling,” he said. “He’ll never hurt you again. Now stay here until I find a blanket in there to cover you. And I’ll take you to where you’ll be safe.” He stroked her little head as gently as he could. How impossibly frail she seemed, yet so unaccountably strong.

There was an army blanket on the stale bed inside the trailer.

He wrapped her in this tightly, as if she were a newborn, her large eyes settling on him with total trust. Then he took her up with his left arm, and plunged fast through the trees.

How long they traveled, he didn’t know. It was thrilling to him to have her safe in his arms. She was silent, folded against him, a treasure.

On he moved until he saw the lights of a town.

“They’ll shoot you!” she cried out when she saw the lights. “Man Wolf,” she pleaded. “They will!”

“Would I let anyone harm you?” he asked. “Be quiet, little darling.”

She snuggled against him.

On the edges of the town, he crept slowly, safe in the underbrush and the scattered trees, until he saw a brick church with its back to the forest. There were lights in a small rectory-style building beside it, and an old metal swing set in a paved yard. The big rectangular wood-framed sign on the road said in giant black movable letters: GOOD SHEPHERD CHURCH. PASTOR CORRIE GEORGE. SERVICE: SUNDAY AT NOON. There was a phone number in squarish numerals.

He cradled the child in both arms as he approached the window, comforting her because she was afraid again. “Man Wolf, don’t let them see you,” she cried.

Inside the rectory, he could see a heavyset woman, alone, at a brown kitchen table, in dark blue pants and a simple blouse, with a paperback book propped up to read as she ate her lonely meal. Her wavy gray hair was cropped short, and she had a simple no-nonsense face. For a long moment, he watched her as the scent of her came to him, clean and good. He had no doubt of it.

He set the child down, carefully removing the bloodstained blanket, and gestured to the kitchen door. “Do you know your name, darling?” he asked.

“Susie,” she said. “Susie Blakely. And I live in Eureka. I know my phone number too.”

He nodded. “You go to that lady, Susie, and you bring her to me. Go on.”

“No, Man Wolf, go, please!” she said. “She’ll call the police and they’ll kill you.”

But when he wouldn’t go, she turned and did as she was told.

When the woman came out, Reuben stood there gazing at her, wondering what it was she really saw in the dim light of the window—this tall hairy monster that he was, more beast than man, but with a man’s bestial face. The rain was just a mist now. He scarcely felt it. The woman was fearless.

“Well, it is you!” she said. An agreeable voice. And the little child beside her, clinging to her, pointed and nodded.

“Help her,” Reuben said to the woman, conscious of how deep and rough his voice sounded. “The man’s gone who was hurting her. They’ll never find him. Not hair nor hide of him. Help her. She’s been through terrible things, but she knows her name and where she belongs.”

“I know who she is,” the woman said under her breath. She came a little closer to him, looking up at him with small, pale eyes. “She’s the Blakely kid. She’s been missing since summer.”

“You’ll see to it then—.”

“You have to get out of here,” she said with a wagging finger as though talking to a giant child. “They’ll kill you if they see you. These woods were crawling with every harebrained backwoods gun-toting crazy in the country after you last appeared. People came from out of state to hunt you. Get the hell out of here.”

He started to laugh, ruefully aware of how very strange that must have seemed to both of them, this hulking dark-haired beast chuckling under his breath like a man.

“Please go, Man Wolf,” said the little girl, her pale cheeks coloring. “I won’t tell anybody I saw you. I’ll tell them I ran away. Go, please, run.”

“You tell them what you have to tell them,” he said. “You tell what sets you free.”

He turned to go.

“You saved my life, Man Wolf!” she cried.

He turned back to her. For a long moment he gazed at her, her strong upturned face, the quiet steady fire in her eyes. “You’re going to be all right, Susie,” he said. “I love you, darling dear.”

And then he was gone.

Racing into the rich, fragrant thickness of the forest, the bloody blanket thrown over his shoulder, tunneling at incalculable speed through the brambles and the broken branches, and the crackling wet leaves, his soul soaring as he put the miles between himself and the little church.

An hour and a half later, he fell down exhausted on his bed. He was sure that he’d slipped in without anyone being aware. He felt guilty, guilty for going out without the permission of Felix or Margon and doing the very thing that the Distinguished Gentlemen didn’t want for him and Stuart to do. But he felt exultant, and he felt exhausted. And guilty or not, for the moment, he didn’t care. And he was almost asleep when he heard a mournful howling somewhere outside in the night.

Perhaps he was already dreaming but then he heard the howling again.

To all the world, it might have been the howling of a wolf, but he knew otherwise. He could hear the Morphenkind in the howling, and it had a deep plaintive note to it that no animal could make.

He sat up. He couldn’t conceivably figure which of the Morphenkinder was making such a sound or why.

It came again, a long, low howl that made the hair come again to the backs of his hands and his arms.

Wolves in the wild howl to signal one another, do they not? But we are not really wolves, are we? We are something neither human nor animal. And who among us would make such a strange, sad sound?