The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“No. I don’t want to,” said Reuben.

“Have you thought about trying to reverse it?”

“No.”

“You’ve never asked your august mentors whether or not it can be reversed?”

“No,” Reuben admitted. “They would have told us, Stuart and me both, if it could be reversed.”

“Would they?”

“Jim, it’s … that’s not possible. That’s not discussable. You’re not grasping the power of the Chrism. You’ve seen a Man Wolf with your own eyes, but you’ve never seen one of us experience the change. This isn’t something that can be reversed in me. No.”

Give up eternal life? Give up being immune to disease, to aging, to …?

“But please,” said Reuben. “Please know that I’m doing the best I can to use the Wolf Gift in the best way possible.”

“The Wolf Gift,” said Jim with a faint smile. “What a lovely little phrase that is.” It was not sarcastic. He seemed to be dreaming for a moment, his eyes moving over the shadowy room, and fixing on the rainy windowpanes perhaps. Reuben could not quite tell.

“Remember, Jim,” said Reuben. “Felix and Margon are doing all in their power to guide me and guide Stuart. This isn’t a lawless realm, Jim. We’re not without our own laws and rules, our own conscience! Remember, we can sense evil. We can smell it. We can pick up the scent of innocence and suffering. And if I’m ever to get to the bottom of what we are, what our powers are, what they mean, well, it will be through others like Margon and Felix. The world isn’t going to help me with all this. It can’t. You know it can’t. You can’t. It’s impossible.”

Jim appeared to consider this for a long moment and then he nodded. “I understand why you feel that way,” he murmured. And then he seemed to slip off into his thoughts. “God knows, I haven’t been a help so far.”

“Now you know that’s not true. But you know what my life is like at Nideck Point.”

“Oh, yes, it’s grand. It’s marvelous. It’s like nothing I ever imagined, that house, and those friends of yours. You’ve been embraced by some kind of monstrous aristocracy, haven’t you? It’s like a royal court, isn’t it? You’re all Princes of the Blood. And how can ‘normal life’ compete with that?”

“Jim, remember the movie Tombstone? Remember what Doc Holliday says to Wyatt Earp when Doc is dying. You and I saw that movie together, remember? Doc says to Wyatt: ‘There’s no such thing as normal life, Wyatt. There’s just life.’ ”

Jim laughed softly under his breath. He closed his eyes for a brief moment and then again looked at the fire.

“Jim, whatever I am, I’m alive. Truly and completely alive. I’m part of life.”

Jim gazed at him with another one of those faint winsome smiles of his.

Slowly, Reuben told him the story of what had happened with Susie Blakely. He didn’t present it in a boasting or exuberant fashion. Leaving out all mention of Marchent’s ghost, he explained that he’d gone out hunting, needing to hunt, breaking the rules set up by the Royal Felix and Margon, and how he’d rescued Susie and taken her to Pastor George’s little church. Susie was now home with her parents.

“That’s the kind of thing we do, Jim,” he said. “That’s who the Morphenkinder are. That’s our life.”

“I know,” Jim responded. “I get it. I’ve always gotten it. I read about that little girl. You think I’m sorry you saved her life? Hell, you saved a busload of kidnapped kids. I know these things, Reuben. You forget where I work, where I live. I’m no suburban parish priest counseling married couples on common decency. I know what evil is. I know it when I see it. And in my own way I can smell it too. And I can smell innocence and helplessness, and desperate need. But I know the challenge of confronting evil without playing God!” He broke off, frowning slightly, pondering, and then he added, “I want to love like God, but I have no right to take life like God. That right belongs to Him alone.”

“Look, I told you when I first came to Confession, you’re free to call me about this anytime, you’re free to bring up the subject. When you need to talk—.”

“Do we have to make this about my needs? I’m thinking of you, I think of you slipping further and further from ordinary life. And now you want to take this child of yours up there to Nideck Point. Even the miracle of this child is not bringing you back to us, Reuben. Perhaps it can’t.”

“Jim, it’s where I live. And this is the only human child I’ll ever have.”

Jim winced. “What do you mean?”

Reuben explained. Any children he fathered now would be with another Morphenkind and they too would be Morphenkinder, almost without exception.

“So Laura cannot conceive with you,” Jim said.

“Well, she will be able to soon. She’s becoming one of us. Look, Jim, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought all this to you, because there isn’t anything you can do to help me, except keep my secrets, and keep on being my brother.”

“Laura made this decision? On her own?”

“Of course she did. Jim, look at what the Chrism offers. We don’t age. We’re invulnerable to disease or degeneration. We can be killed, yes, but most injuries don’t affect us at all. Barring accidents and mishaps, we can live forever. You can’t guess the age of Margon, or Sergei, or any of the others. You know what I’m talking about. You know Felix. You’ve spent hours talking to these men. Did you think Laura would turn down everlasting life? Who has the strength to do that?”

Silence. The obvious question was, would Jim turn it down if it was offered to him, but Reuben was not going to go there.

His brother seemed dazed, crestfallen.

“Look, I want some time with my little boy,” said Reuben. “A few years, anyway. And maybe after that he’ll go to school in San Francisco and live with Mom and Dad, or maybe he’ll go to some school in England or Switzerland. You and I never wanted that, but we could have had it. And my little boy can have it. I’ll protect him from what I am. Parents always try to protect their kids from … something, from many things.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Jim murmured. “How could I not understand? I figure my son, he’d be what, twelve years old now, don’t know …”