The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

Nevertheless he did not entirely like being this alone, this utterly alone, and he really never had much liked it.

He,d grown up in the crowds of San Francisco, squeezed into the high narrow house on Russian Hill with its small elegant rooms, and the constant vitality of Grace and Phil and Grace,s friends coming and going. He,d spent his life in groups and gatherings, just steps from the foot traffic of North Beach and Fisherman,s Wharf, minutes from his favorite restaurants on busy Union Street, or Union Square - loving cruise-ship family vacations and wandering with bands of intrepid students through Middle Eastern ruins.

Now he had the solitude and quiet he,d been craving, dreaming of, the solitude and quiet that had seduced him so powerfully that first afternoon here with Marchent, and it settled over him and he felt more alone than ever in his life, and more alienated from everything, even the memory of Marchent, than he,d ever been.

If there was something out there in the night, something that knew more about him perhaps than anyone did, he couldn,t feel it. He couldn,t hear it. He heard small sounds, sounds without menace. That was all.

And he couldn,t really hope for that creature to come either.

He felt too alone.

Well, time to get to work - to learn the place, and learn whatever else he could.

The kitchen was cavernous and spotlessly clean. Even the braided throw rugs were new, and dreadfully unsuited for the white marble floor. Copper-bottomed pans hung from iron hooks above the central island with its butcher-block surface and small fancy sinks. Black granite countertops gleamed along the walls. Behind the glass doors of the white enameled cabinets he saw row upon row of china in different patterns, and the more utilitarian pitchers and bowls of a large kitchen. A long narrow butler,s pantry ran between kitchen and dining room, and there was more china and a lot of linen in the glass-doored cabinets there.

Slowly, he glanced in the direction of Marchent,s office. Then he made his way into the small darkened room, and stared at the blank desk. This place had been carved out of the western end of the kitchen, and the marble floor ran on underneath. All the clutter he,d glimpsed that fatal night had apparently been gathered into white storage boxes, each labeled in black felt-tip writing with numbers and abbreviations that must have meant something to the police who,d come to investigate Marchent,s murder. The floor had been swept and mopped, obviously. Yet a faint perfume lingered in the room - Marchent.

He felt a surge of love for her and unspeakable pain. He held tight waiting for it to pass.

Everything was dusted and still. The computer was there, though what was left on its hard drive, he could not guess. The printer and fax machine stood ready for action. There was a copy machine with a glass window, for copying from books. And there was a photograph on the wall, a single portrait, under framed glass, which Reuben had not seen before, of Felix Nideck.

It was one of those formal front-facing portraits that appear to be staring right at you. Sheet film again, he reasoned, because you could see the tiniest details so clearly.

The man,s hair was dark and wavy. His smile was immediate, his dark eyes warm and expressive. He wore what appeared to be a tailored jacket of faded denim, and a white shirt open at the neck. He seemed about to speak.

In black ink in the left-hand corner was written: "Beloved Marchent. Don,t forget me. Love, Uncle Felix, ,85."

Reuben turned his back and closed the door.

He hadn,t expected all this to hurt so very much.

"Nideck Point," he whispered. "I accept all you have to give me." But he didn,t so much as glance towards the hallway outside the kitchen door where he,d almost been killed.

Let,s take it one thing at a time.

He stood quiet. He could not hear a sound in the night. Then far away he heard the sea banging on the coast, banging, the waves sounding like big guns as they thundered on the beach. But he,d had to reach for that sound, reach beyond these placid well-lighted rooms.

He took some stew on a plate, found a fork in a drawer of silver, and went into the eastern breakfast room, sitting down at the table in front of the windows.

Even this room had its wood fire - though it wasn,t lighted - in a black iron Franklin stove in the corner, and there was a big oak hutch of painted plates along the back wall.

A finely carved Black Forest cuckoo clock hung just to the right of the hutch. Phil would love that, Reuben thought. Phil had once collected cuckoo clocks, and their constant chiming and tweeting and cooing had driven everybody at home a little nuts.

Black Forest. He thought of that story, "The Man-Wolf," and of the character of Sperver. And the Nideck connection. Black Forest. He had to go look at that picture in the library, but there were so many pictures upstairs to check as well.

One thing at a time.

The windows here covered most of the eastern wall.

He,d never liked sitting before naked windows at night, especially when one could see nothing in the dark world beyond, but he did it consciously and deliberately now. To anyone out there in the forest he must be strikingly visible here, as if he were on a lighted stage.

So if you are out there, degenerate cousin of the great Nidecks, well, for the love of heaven, make yourself known.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would change later, of course, as he had the night before and the night before, even if he did not know why or when. But he was going to try to bring it on sooner. And he wondered if that creature, that creature who just might be out there watching, would wait for that transformation before he or it appeared.

He ate the beef, the carrots, the potatoes, whatever he could spear with the fork. It was pretty good, actually. So much for being disgusted by food. He lifted the plate and drank the broth. Nice of Galton,s wife to arrange this.

Suddenly he set the fork down and he rested his forehead in his hands, elbows on the table. "Marchent, forgive me," he whispered. "Forgive me for forgetting for one moment you died here."

He was still sitting there quietly when Celeste called him.

"You,re not afraid up there?"

"Afraid of what?" he asked. "The people who attacked me are dead. They,ve been dead since it happened."

"I don,t know. I don,t like to think of you up there. You know what,s happened. They found this little girl."

"I heard on the way up here."

"There,re reporters camped outside the sheriff,s office."

"I,m sure of it. I,m not going there just now."

"Reuben, you,re missing the biggest story of your career."

"My career,s six months old, Celeste, I have a long way to go."