The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

Reuben watched in silence as Phil and Laura fed on the remains. He felt a subtle pride in their perfect instincts, their easy power. A subtle peace descended on them.

He didn’t fear for them any longer as he had feared for them when they were human. It penetrated to him slowly and sweetly that Laura was now unassailable against the mortal enemies that lurked in the shadows for every female human. And Phil, Phil was no longer dying, no longer neglected, no longer alone. Morphenkinder. Newborn. And how harmless was the night around them, the foggy night pressing up against the glass; how transparent, how easily fathomed, how positively sweet. He was elated and curiously calm. Is this the calm the dog feels when he gives that rattling sigh and lies down by the fire?

What would it be like to remain in this body forever, to enjoy this brain which never hesitated, never doubted, never feared? He thought of Jim weeping alone in the bedroom at the Fairmont; he could not conceive of the agony Jim had been enduring. He knew what he knew, but he didn’t feel it now. He felt the singular instincts of the beast.

The entire pack enjoyed an easy equality. At one point—as they went back to consume every last bit of bone and flesh—Frank and Berenice had tangled together, obviously making love. What did it matter now? The others looked away respectfully or simply didn’t notice, Reuben couldn’t quite tell. But a powerful surge of passion consumed Reuben. He wanted to take Laura but could not bear to do this in front of others. In a dark corner he embraced her roughly and tightly. The soft fleecy fur of her neck drove him half mad.

He watched Phil prowling the house by scent afterwards, finding even more money hidden in old armoires and in the plaster walls. His fur was brown but there were streaks of white in his mane. His eyes were large and pale and shining. How easy it was to recognize each Morphenkind, though to the crazed victims they had no doubt looked indistinguishable. Had the world ever registered particular descriptions? Probably not.

His mind ran to rampant humor suddenly, to the thought of a picture album of the pack. He felt himself laughing and he felt a little dizzy, yet certain of every step he took.

Surely Phil was feeling the sublime strength of the wolf body, so securely clothed in fur, and the bare pads of his feet moving over carpet or floorboard indifferently. Surely he was feeling the subtle warmth moving divinely through his veins.

A fortune was packed eventually into another garbage sack. Like pirates’ treasure, Reuben was thinking, all this filthy drug money—it’s like the chests of pearls and diamonds and gold in the Technicolor pirate movies—and these filthy drug dealers, are they not the pirates of our time? Who is likely to take it, this treasure, without asking a single question? St. Francis at Gubbio Church, of course.

Never before had Reuben seen victims devoured like these. Never had he known such a protracted feast. Easy to swallow hair and gristle. There had been time enough to suck marrow from bones. Never before had he tasted the soft mush of brains, the thick muscle of hearts. Consuming a human head was a bit like tackling a large and thick-skinned piece of fruit.

In luxurious silence, he had lain back on the bare boards of the living room floor finally, the music from the attic pulsing in his temples, letting his body continue to turn the flesh and blood of others into his own. Laura lay down beside him. As he turned his head, he saw the tall shaggy figure of his father staring out of the long narrow front window as if at the distant stars. Maybe he’ll write the poetry of it, Reuben thought, which so far I haven’t been able to do.

And we are all kindred now, he thought. Morphenkindred.

A short growl from Margon told them finally that it was time to move.

For a quarter of an hour they roamed the house, gathering up more random stashes of money. It had been hidden behind books in the bookcases; and in the kitchen stove; and in the bathrooms in plastic sacks in toilet tanks, and even slipped in bundles under claw-foot tubs.

Giant plasma television screens smiled and talked to no one. Cell phones rang unanswered.

Again, they lapped up the blood spilled here and there as best they could. Not a knucklebone left. Not a hank of hair. Down the back steps they crept to enter the cellar laboratory, where they smashed everything in sight.

Then away they went as they had come, human once more, dressed in their dark garments, slipping through the dark alleyways with their big sacks, back to the waiting cars. The houses were asleep around them. Their preternatural ears could still hear that rock music pounding in the distant attic. But the big Victorian was a lifeless shell, its front door wide open to the street. How long would it be before someone wandered up those granite steps?

29

IN THE EARLY HOURS of Monday, Jim had left the hotel. The bellman remembered: about four o’clock.

Reuben had no chance to talk to him, tell him things had gone splendidly, that he had no worries now.

Better he be left in peace, Reuben thought. He went to sleep alone in the king-sized bed of the Fairmont suite.

The raid was all over the local news when he awoke.

Before noon, alerted by two different deliverymen to the matter of open doors and bloodstains in the hallway, police searched the mansion, quickly discovering the smashed drug lab on the lowest floor. Caches of cell phones and computers were removed by law enforcement, along with numerous papers and a small arsenal of weapons, including semiautomatic guns and knives. The television reporters were speculating that Fulton Blankenship and his felonious associates may have been kidnapped and murdered in an ongoing drug turf war.

Meanwhile, Jim had called Grace and Phil to let them know he was going down to Carmel for a day and night to try to clear his head. He needed a time of retreat and meditation, and had to be left entirely alone. Grace was relieved to hear it and called Reuben at once.

“Jim always goes to Carmel when he’s upset,” said Grace. “I don’t know why. He checks into some little media-free bed-and-breakfast down there and goes walking on the beach. That’s what he did before he decided to join the priesthood. He went down there for a week, and came back determined to give his life to the church.” There was something sad in Grace’s voice. “But the police are telling me there’s nothing more for him to be worried about. What do you think?”

“I think I better stay here for a while,” said Reuben. He confessed he was at the Fairmont. He wanted to wait until Jim came home.

“Thank God,” said Grace.

And thank God she didn’t insist he come the Russian Hill house.

By Tuesday, the police had publicly connected Blankenship to the murder of the young priest in the Tenderloin, based on “abundant computer evidence” and blood-spattered shoes and weapons found in Blankenship’s house. Father Jim Golding had been the intended target. There was no doubt. There was no doubt either now that the basement lab on Alamo Square had been producing the killer Super Bo which was flooding San Francisco and its upscale suburbs and accounting for so many overdoses and deaths. Meanwhile a preliminary study of the bloodstains in the mansion indicated that numerous victims had perhaps died on the premises though all bodies had been removed.