The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

"Oh, I hope and pray you,re right."

He moved to the windows. He was hot all over, anxious almost to the verge of panic. Yet he knew the change was not coming. And he did not even know whether he wanted it to come. He knew only that these physical sensations and these emotions were unendurable.

"I,ve got to search for a way into that space now," he said.

"Is that going to help you with what you,re going through right now?"

"No," he said. He shook his head.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"Listen, Laura. We have to leave here for a little while. We have to drive."

"Where?"

"I don,t know, but I,m not leaving you here alone. We have to go now."

She knew what he meant, what he was planning to do. She didn,t question him.

The rain was coming down heavily as they left the house.

He drove south, picking up Highway 101 and pressing on at top speed towards the voices and the cities of the bay.

Chapter Twenty-Five

MOUNTAIN VIEW CEMETERY, Oakland: giant trees, scattered graves great and small, under the slow relentless rain. In the distance, the ghostly glitter of downtown.

A boy screaming in agony as two others tormented him with knives. Ringleader: just out of prison, wiry, naked arms covered in tattoos, T-shirt wet, transparent, body shivering, drugged up, choked with anger, savoring revenge now on the one who betrayed him, delivering up now to the gods of violence his enemy,s only son.

"What?" he taunted the boy. "You think the Man Wolf will save you?"

Out of the nearby grove of oaks, Reuben appeared, closing in on the leader like a dark bestial angel in plain view of the two acolytes who turned screaming and fled.

Slash of claws, jugular ripped, figure doubling, falling, jaws closing on his shoulder, splitting the tendons, the arm loose, no time to chew this irresistible flesh.

He bounded over the fields of the dead after those who were racing in panic ever deeper into the darkness. He caught the first and ripped out half of his throat, throwing him aside as he went after the remaining tormentor, catching him in both paws and lifting him to his waiting jaws. Luscious, this pulsing feast, this dripping meat.

On a patch of blood-soaked grass lay the boy victim, nut-brown skin, black hair, curled up now like a fetus in his leather jacket, face bleeding, belly bleeding, swooning, in and out, in and out, eyes struggling to focus. Boy of twelve. Reuben bit down and picked him up by the collar of his thick jacket as a cat would pick up a kitten by the nape of its neck, and carried him easily this way as he ran along faster and faster till he came to the lights of the street. Up over the iron gates. And then he left his small charge on the corner before the darkened windows of a small cafe. Silence here. No late-night traffic. Streetlamps shining on empty shops. With his powerful right paw he shattered the glass of the cafe. The alarm shrieked. Yellow lights flashed on, garishly illuminating the wounded one on the pavement.

Reuben was gone. Back through the cemetery, he trotted, tracking the scent of those he,d slaughtered. But the kill was cold now, uninteresting. He wanted what was warm. And there were other voices in the night.

A young woman singing a low agonizing song.

He found her in the woods of the Berkeley campus, this old university landscape that, in a faraway lifetime as a human boy, he,d so loved.

Amid the towering eucalyptus trees, she,d set up a sanctuary for her final hour - treasured book, the wine bottle, an embroidered pillow against the thick bed of fragrant leaves that curled like peelings, the small sharp kitchen knife with which she,d cut both her wrists. The blood and the consciousness oozed from her as she moaned. "Wrong, wrong!" she said under her breath. "Help me, please." She could no longer hold the wine bottle, no longer move her hands or her arms, her matted hair covering her wet face.

He hefted her over his shoulder and made for the lights of Telegraph Avenue, speeding through the dark groves of the campus, places long ago where he,d studied, argued, dreamed.

The densely packed buildings were throbbing with voices, heartbeats, the thud of drums, talk and the talk of amplified voices, the wail of a trumpet, the din of competing songs. Gently he deposited her at the open door of a busy tavern, indifferent laughter exploding inside like broken glass. As he moved upwards and away, he heard the cries of those who discovered her. "Call for help."

The voices of downtown were calling to him. Big city. Choices. Life is a garden of pain. Who shall die? Who shall live? A horror took hold of him as he moved south. I did what seemed natural for me to do.... I heard the voices; the voices called me; I caught the scent of evil and I tracked it. It was as natural as breathing to do what I did.

Liar, monster, killer, beast. An abomination ... this will end now.

The sky was the color of soot when he came over the flat cluttered roof of the old gray brick hotel and down into the hatch roof of the fire stairs, slipping along the low dim hallway, silently opening the unlocked door.

Scent of Laura.

She had fallen asleep at the window, arms folded on the sill. Beyond, the leaden clouds were paling, growing shiny behind the featureless rain over a jumble of chalklike towers, freeways vibrating like bowstrings as they arched to the right and to the left. Layer after layer of cityscape between here and the great Pacific was dying to embers in the mist. Jangle and throb of the awakening streets. Garden of pain. Who will harvest all this pain? Please, let the voices die away. No more.

He lifted her and carried her to the bed, the white hair falling back from her face. She woke to his kisses, eyelids shuddering. What was it in her eyes as she looked up at him? Beloved. Mine. You and me. Her perfume flooded his senses. The voices went out as if someone had turned a dial. Tap tap came the rain against the window. In the icy light, he slowly peeled off her tight jeans, secret hair, hair like the hair that covers me, and folded back the flimsy blue fabric of her blouse. His tongue pressed against her neck, her br**sts. Voice of the beast rattling deep in his chest. To have and to have not. Mothers, milk.

Chapter Twenty-Six

HE CAUGHT GRACE when she came in the door of the house. No one had been home when he arrived, and he,d already packed up just about all of his clothes and books and loaded them into the Porsche. He had just gone back to check the alarm.

She almost screamed. She was in her green scrubs, but she,d let her red hair down and her face was as always starkly pale against her hair with those sharp reddish eyebrows emphasizing her distress.

At once, she threw her arms around him. "Where have you been?" she demanded. He kissed her on both cheeks. She held his face with two hands. "Why haven,t you called?"