Page 19 of White Wolf

Nikita felt Pyotr grab onto his arm. “What’s going on?”

“Shh, I don’t know,” Nikita said, bracing his feet against the floor, fighting the momentum with his teeth gritted.

Stopping seemed to take an age, and then, finally, they were still. A puffing hiss of steam, and the train ground to a final, trembling halt.

Stillness reigned a moment…and then they were on their feet.

“What the fuck?” Feliks demanded, half his hair stuck up at a crazy angle from sleeping. “Are we there?”

“No,” Nikita said, already tugging on his gloves. “We’ve hit something.”

“We what?” Ivan demanded.

“Your captain is correct, I believe,” Philippe chimed in, steadying himself against a seatback as he stepped into the aisle. He was still in his long fur coat and gloves; he’d never taken them off. “The train has collided with something.”

“Collided with what?” Feliks demanded.

“Let’s see,” Nikita said.

Ivan led the way to the door and down the iron step to the ground.

The cold was impossible. It burned the skin of Nikita’s face, made his eyes tear. Under a half-veiled moon, the snow stretched smooth and decadent in all directions. The forest loomed black, the spiked shadows of trees reaching for them across glittering snow.

Ivan bulled through the waist-high drifts, breath steaming, clearing a path that they all followed in, single-file. Nikita felt Pyotr right up against his back; it wouldn’t have surprised him if the boy took hold of his sleeve like a child. They made slow but steady progress up the length of the train, toward the hissing engine.

The first splash of blood looked like tar spilled across the snow, black and glinting faintly in the moonlight. It was still warm, steam curling up in slender tendrils.

Nikita saw a hat, fur with flaps over the ears.

And then a hand.

“Fuck,” Feliks said without inflection. “It was people.”

Pyotr made a sound that might have been a gag.

Nikita heard the sound of vomiting ahead of them. Several attendants stood in a cluster amid the gore, their faces slack with shock. It was the conductor who was sick, dry-heaving over the snow, hat clenched in his hands. “Oh God,” he gasped between heaves. “I didn’t see…I tried to stop…oh God.”

An older man – look of grim resolution, tidy gray beard – turned toward their group as they approached. “Stay back, please–” he started, and then froze when he saw their long black coats.

Nikita shouldered his way around Ivan, taking point.

“Sir,” the attendant started again, tone quavering. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll have the train moving again shortly, if you’ll go back to your seats.”

“What happened?” Nikita asked.

The man made a face. “Trappers, sir. We couldn’t see them in the dark until we were on top of them. We think one had got stuck on the tracks, and his friends were trying to help him loose.”

The conductor swayed and went to his knees in the snow, dazed-looking.

“Get him up,” Nikita said, stomach souring. “Get the train moving.”

“Yes, sir,” the attendant said, ducking his head.

“I think I can help,” Philippe spoke up, shuffling forward until he was alongside Nikita. He smiled at the bearded man, kind, fatherly. He patted the satchel he wore over one shoulder. “I have something here that may help to calm him.”

“Yes,” the attendant said, surprised. “Yes, please.”

Philippe glanced up at Nikita, asking permission with a look. In the dim light of the moon, his eyes seemed to glow.

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