The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“What if it’s the portal to nonexistence?” asked Reuben.

“That’s what it sounds like to me,” said Stuart. “The white light, it flashes when the energy of the spirit disintegrates. That’s what I think of this portal to heaven. That’s all I think it might be.”

Reuben shuddered.

Margon gazed across the long table at Elthram, Elthram’s large eyes narrowed as if trying to fathom something about Margon that he could no longer describe in words.

Sergei, who’d sat there quiet all the while, gave a long eloquent breath.

“You want to know what I think?” said Sergei. “I think we leave here tonight, Margon, and me and these boy wolves and we go hunting. And we leave Felix here to keep preparing for the Christmas festival. And we leave Elthram and the Forest Gentry to their task.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Felix. “You and Thibault take the boys away from here. Satisfy their need to hunt. And Elthram, if there is anything I can do to cooperate with you, I will do it, you know that.”

“You know the things I love,” said Elthram, smiling. “Let us sup with you, Felix. Bring us to your table. Welcome us into your house.”

“ ‘Sup,’ ” scoffed Margon.

Felix nodded. “The doors are open, my friend.”

“And I think this taking the boys away is an excellent idea,” said Elthram. “Take Reuben away from here. And that will give me my best chance with Marchent.”

He rose slowly, pushing back the chair and standing without using his arms or hands. Reuben noted this, and again noted his tremendous height. Six foot six, he calculated roughly, given that he himself was six foot three, and Stuart was taller than him, and Sergei was very slightly taller than that.

“I thank you for inviting us,” said Elthram. “You can’t know how we treasure your welcome, your hospitality, your invitation to come in.”

“And how many more of you Forest Gentry are in this room right now?” asked Margon. “How many more of you are wandering this house?” It was meant to be accusatory, provocative. “Can you see better when you’ve assembled this physical body for yourself, when you’ve charged its particles with your subtle electricity, when you narrow your vision to look through those ravishing green eyes?”

Elthram looked stunned. He stood back away from the chair, blinking at Margon as if Margon were a bright light, Elthram’s hands apparently clasped behind his back.

He appeared to say something under his breath, but it wasn’t audible.

There came a soft series of sounds again, the woof of the air threatening the candles, and the fire, and then a great darkening of the gloom all around them, as a great mass of figures gradually came into view. Reuben blinked, trying to clear his vision, trying to make them more visible, but they were of their own becoming visible, as so many very long-haired women and children and men, all clothed in the same soft leather garments as Elthram, and quite literally of all sizes, and filling the entire room around them now, all along behind them and in front of them around the table and out to the corners.

Reuben was dazed, aware of shifting movements, gestures, and seeming whispers teeming almost like the drone of insects in midsummer around flowers, trying to fasten on this detail or that—long red hair, fair hair, gray hair, eyes flitting over him, dancing over the table, the wildly flickering candles, and even hands touching him, touching his shoulders, brushing his cheek, stroking his head. He felt he was going to slip out of consciousness. Everything he saw looked material, vital, yet it seemed moment by moment to be pulsing ever more rapidly, as if building to a pinnacle of some sort, while across from him Stuart looked frantically from right to left, his eyebrows knotted, his mouth open in what sounded like a moan.

Margon jumped to his feet and glared at them as if he were the least prepared for their number. Reuben couldn’t see Lisa as too many crowded in front of her, and Felix merely looked up at them, appeared to be smiling at many of them, and nodding in agreement, and the crowd grew even more dense as if others were pressing the front lines slowly forward so that faces were now in the full glare of the candles, faces of all human shapes and sizes, Nordic, Asian, African, Mediterranean—Reuben didn’t have the labels for them, only the associations—all rustic in dress and manner, yet all benign. Not a single face was disagreeable, or even curious, or in any way intrusive so much as passive and vaguely content-seeming at most. There came faint ripples of laughter like something drawn with a fine pen stroke, and again a sense of those around him soundlessly jostling, and he saw across from him two figures bending to kiss Stuart on either cheek.

Suddenly, with a gust of wind that shook the very rafters, the entire company vanished.

The walls creaked. The fire roared in the chimney, and the windows rattled as if about to break. A deep menacing rumble moved through the structure around them; plates and glasses on the hunter’s boards tinkled and clattered, and a zinging sound came from the sparkling crystal on the table.

All of them gone, dematerialized. And like that.

The candles went out.

Lisa was plastered to the wall as if she were on a rolling ship, her eyes half closed. Stuart had gone stark white. Reuben resisted the urge to make the Sign of the Cross.

“Very impressive,” said Margon sarcastically under his breath.

Suddenly sheets of rain were flung against the windows with such force that the glass groaned and strained in its framing. The whole house was creaking, writhing, and the high-pitched whistle of wind in the chimneys came from all sides. The rain pummeled the roofs and the walls. The windows rattled and boomed as if they’d explode.

And then the world, the soft familiar world around them, went quiet.

Stuart let out a long low gasp. His hands went up to his face, blue eyes peering through his fingers at Reuben. He was obviously delighted.

Reuben could scarcely repress a smile.

Margon, who was standing with his arms folded, had an oddly satisfied look on his face, as though he’d proven his point. But what that point was precisely Reuben couldn’t figure.

“Never forget what you’re dealing with here,” Margon said to Stuart and Reuben. “It’s so easy to tempt them to a display of power. I always marvel at it. And never forget that there may be multitudes around you at any moment, myriad homeless, restless, wandering ghosts.”

Felix sat calm and collected, merely looking at the polished wood in front of him, where Reuben could see the reflected glare of the fire.