The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

"Go on."

"Gorlagon - he,s a werewolf in a medieval story by Marie de France."

"Of course. I read that story years ago!"

"Baron Thibault - it,s a combination of names from Dumas,s famous story ,The Wolf-Leader., That,s 1857 - first published in France."

"So it,s true!" he whispered. He stood up and looked at the men gathered in the jungle. She stood by his side.

Baron was the only man who was obviously gray-haired, older, with a heavily lined but very agreeable face. His eyes were uncommonly large, pale, kindly. Reynolds Wagner might have been red-haired. Hard to tell. But he was about the same age as Felix and Margon, with narrow elegant features, and small hands. Frank Vandover appeared to be a bit younger than the others, with curly black hair and dark eyes and very pale skin. He had a well-defined Cupid,s-bow mouth.

There was something in their expressions that reminded him of a famous painting, but he couldn,t quite think what it was.

"Oh, and Tom Marrok?" Laura said. "Well, that is a reference to Sir Marrok, a werewolf in Sir Thomas Malory,s Morte d,Arthur, written in the 1400s, and you,ve probably read that too."

"I have," he said. His eyes were fastened on the faces of the men.

"The plots don,t matter," she said. "Neither do the dates. What matters is that the names all refer to characters in werewolf literature. So it,s either a clever device for members of a club. Or the names are deliberate signals to others who share the same very special gift."

"Signals," he said. "One doesn,t change one,s legal name just for the fun of it, to be a member of a select club."

"How many times do you think they,ve been forced to change their names?" she asked. "That is, how many times have they been reborn with new names? And now this man appears, Felix Nideck, who claims to be the illegitimate son of the Felix Nideck in this picture; and we know that a Felix Nideck built this house in 1880 or thereabouts."

He paced the floor slowly and then made his way back to the fire. She had settled again near the fender, with the journal still in her hand.

"You realize what this may mean," she suggested.

"That they,re all part of it, of course. I,m trembling. I,m almost unable to ... I don,t know what to say. I suspected it! I suspected it almost from the beginning but it seemed so far-fetched."

"What it could mean," she said gravely, "is that these creatures don,t age, that you won,t age. That they,re immortal, and that you may be immortal."

"We don,t know that. We can,t know that. But if this is really Felix, well, he may not be aging like other men."

He thought about the bullet that didn,t wound him, about the glass he,d broken which didn,t cut him. He wished he had the courage to test this right now with a self-inflicted wound, but he did not.

He was dazed by the possibility that this Felix Nideck knew all the answers he was seeking.

"But why, why does he want me to come to a meeting with lawyers?" he said. "Could he want to lure me out of this house simply so he could rob it?"

"I don,t believe that," she answered. "I think he wants to meet you face-to-face."

"So why doesn,t he come through the front door?"

"He wants to see who you are without revealing who or what he is," she replied. "That,s what I think. And he does want the tablets, the diaries, and the things that are still here. He wants them and he,s being honest about it, well, honest to a point."

"Yes."

"But he may not know what,s actually happened here. He may not know that Marrok is dead."

"But it,s my chance, isn,t it?" he asked. "To appeal to him, to somehow convey who I am and why I had to kill Marrok."

"We both killed him," she said. "We had no choice."

"I will take the full blame for having killed him," he said. "You leave that to me. But will it matter to him, why I or we did it? Will Marchent,s wishes mean anything to him? Or will he see me as an abomination too?"

"I don,t know, but as you said, it,s your chance."

They settled down again before the fire.

They sat quietly for a long time. One of the things he devoutly loved about her was that they could sit quiet like this for the longest time. She seemed lost in her thoughts, her knees drawn up, her arms locked around them, her eyes on the fire.

He felt utterly comfortable with her, and when he thought of something happening to her, his mind went blank white with rage.

"I wish you could be at that meeting," he said. "Does that involve a risk, do you think?"

"I think you need to meet him alone," she said. "I don,t know why I think that, really, but I do. I,ll go with you, but I won,t be in the meeting. I,ll wait in a separate room."

"Oh, you have to do that. I can,t leave you here alone."

After a long while, he said, "It,s not coming." He was speaking of the change, of course.

"Are you certain?"

"I know it,s not," he said.

He didn,t feel the restlessness. He didn,t feel the desire.

They didn,t talk about it anymore.

Finally, Laura went up to bed early.

Reuben opened the letter again and looked over the impenetrable writing. He collected the gold watch from the mantel. Marrok.

At 1:00 a.m., Reuben woke Laura. He was standing by the bed in his robe, with the fire ax.

"Reuben, what in the name of God!" she whispered.

"Keep this beside you," he said. "I,m going up on the roof."

"But you can,t do that."

"I,m going to try to bring the change, and if I can bring it, I,m going up. If you need me, call to me. I,ll hear you. I promise you, I,m not going off into the forest. I won,t leave you here."

He went outside into the oaks. The rain was quiet, irregular, and barely penetrated the canopy here. The light from the kitchen window was dim through the interlocking branches.

He put his hands up, and ran his fingers back through his hair. "Come now," he whispered. "Come."

He tensed the muscles of his abdomen and immediately the deep spasm came, sending shock waves through his chest and his limbs. He let the robe drop in the leaves. He stepped out of the slippers. "Quickly," he whispered, and the sensations rolled upwards and outwards, the power radiating from his stomach into his chest and into his loins.

He tugged at the hair as it came bursting out, smoothing it back, tossing his head, loving the weight of it, the thick protective hood of it, as it curled down to his shoulders. He felt himself rising, his limbs swelling, as the sensations themselves seemed to support him, massaging him, holding him weightless in the brightening light.