The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

No one answered. Reuben stole a glance at Phil, whose face was almost heartbreakingly sad as he gazed down the table at the two men. But there was a serene and wondering quality to his expression, too.

Hockan seemed as shattered as a man can be, his soul emptying in his private sobs, utterly oblivious to everyone and everything except Felix. “I don’t know where to go,” came Hockan’s muffled voice. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yuletide,” said Margon finally. He stood up and placed his right hand on Hockan’s shoulder. “All right, brother. You’re with us now.”

Lisa had returned with the sweater over her arm, but it was not the time for it. And she waited in the shadows.

The muted, helpless weeping poured from Hockan.

“Yuletide,” said Berenice. The tears were sliding down her cheeks.

“Yuletide,” said Frank with an exasperated sigh and lifted his glass.

“Yuletide,” said Sergei.

And the same word came now from Laura and Phil and from Lisa and the other Geliebten Lakaien.

Laura had tears in her eyes, and Berenice continued to cry, nodding as she looked gratefully to the others.

Reuben rose to his feet. He stood beside Felix.

“Thank you,” said Felix in a small confidential whisper.

“Midnight,” said Reuben. “The clock’s chiming.” And he put his arms around Felix and Hockan together before he turned to embrace his beloved Laura.

27

GRACE CALLED ON SUNDAY, January 6. Reuben was hard at work on an essay for Billie, this one on the tiny town of Nideck and its ongoing renaissance with new businesses and new home construction.

“Your brother needs you,” Grace said. “And he needs his father, too, if you can get the old man to come down here with you.”

“What’s happened? What do you mean?”

“Reuben, it’s his parish. It’s that neighborhood. It’s the Tenderloin. A couple of thugs attacked a young priest who was visiting Jim yesterday afternoon. Reuben, they beat the hell out of him, and castrated him. He died on the operating table last night, and maybe it was a blessing, I honestly don’t know. But your brother’s out of his mind.”

Reuben was aghast. “I can see why. Look, we’re coming. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

“Jim called the police, and they came here to the hospital. Jim knows who’s behind this, some drug dealer, some contemptible piece of filth! But they said there was nothing they could do without the dead priest’s testimony. Some other witness had been murdered too. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. Reuben, Jim just about went crazy when the priest died. And Jim’s been missing since last night.”

“What do you mean, Jim’s missing?” Reuben asked. He was on his feet, pulling his suitcase off the top shelf of the closet.

“Just what I said. I begged him to come home, to stay at home, to clear out of that apartment and come back home. But your brother just doesn’t listen to me. Now he’s not answering his phone and the parish office doesn’t know where he is either. He didn’t say Mass this morning, Reuben, can you imagine? They called me.

“Reuben, persuade Phil to come down here. Jim listens to your father. Jim listens to you. But Jim simply never listens to me.”

Reuben was throwing things into the suitcase. “I’ll find him. He’s out of his mind over this, and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

Phil was in the oak forest when Reuben found him, walking and talking with Hockan Crost. Hockan excused himself to give them privacy and Phil heard the story before he said a word.

“How can I go down there, Reuben?” he asked. “Look, the change came over me last night. Oh, don’t worry about it. I was with Lisa and she called Margon immediately. It was past midnight. Wow. Have I got a story to tell you—.”

“Then you can’t go,” said Reuben.

“Exactly. The change will come again tonight and nobody knows at what time. But that’s just part of the problem, and you know it. Look at me, son. What do you see?”

Phil was right. His hair was fuller, thicker, and the strawberry blond streaks in it were most lustrous and prominent and he had the physique of a man in his prime. His face still bore the stamp of his age, but his eyes, his expression, his movements—all had been beautifully altered, and Jim would see this at once. Grace would see it at once.

“You’re right,” said Reuben. “Jim’s crazed, obviously, and seeing you like this, well—.”

“Might just drive him right out of his mind,” said Phil. “You’ve got to go in without me. Try to get him to move back home. Or get him someplace decent, Reuben, where he can recover from all this. A nice hotel suite. Jim hasn’t taken a vacation in five years, and now this.”

After a quick call to Laura, who was in the town of Nideck working with Felix and several of the new merchants—and three unanswered calls to Jim’s cell—Reuben was on the road by noon.

He was almost to Marin County before he heard from Grace again.

“I’ve reported him missing,” said Grace, “but the police won’t do anything about it. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet. Reuben, I have never seen Jim like he was. You should have seen him when we told him this priest was dead. I mean he was silently coming unglued. He just walked out of the hospital without speaking to anyone and disappeared. Reuben, we’ve found his car is in the parking lot. He’s on foot.”

“Mom, he might have taken a cab somewhere. I’ll find him. I’ll be there in an hour and a half.”

He pulled off the road long enough to call Jim’s rectory, with no success, to ring the apartment where he got no answer, and to leave another message on Jim’s cell. “I’m practically to the Golden Gate Bridge. Please, please call me as soon as you can.”

He was in San Francisco, on his way up Lombard Street, not certain whether to go home first or to the hospital, when a text from Jim appeared in his phone.

“Huntington Park, Nob Hill. Tell no one.”

“Minutes away,” Reuben texted and immediately turned right. This was not the worst place to be meeting his brother by any means. There were three hotels on top of Nob Hill right on the park.

It was raining lightly but the traffic wasn’t bad. He reached the summit of the hill in five minutes and pulled at once into the Taylor Street public parking garage. Grabbing his suitcase, he sprinted across Taylor and into the park.