Page 3 of White Wolf

The apparition cocked his hips and folded his arms, the picture of impatience. “You’re conducting a séance, old man. Yes? Because you needed a name for your great Russian savior?”

“How do you know that?” Militsa demanded, shock giving way to her usual anger.

But Philippe said, “Yes, I do.”

The apparition looked smug. “You’re going to want to write this down.”

Part I:

Blood and Snow

1

DREAMS

There was blood on the snow.

Gallons of it.

Arterial spray, the analytical part of her brain catalogued. She’d seen it before. But neverthis much. Great crimson arcs across the fresh white drifts, grisly hieroglyphs that attempted to explain what had happened to the bodies that littered the clearing.

Human bodies.

Wolf bodies.

They’d killed the wolves, too.

One lay at her feet, its spine twisted at an unnatural angle, its crumpled forelegs tucked into its thick gray ruff. Mouth open, pink tongue vulnerable against the snow. Teeth slick with blood. The wind shoved against her, stirring the hair of the dead wolf, parting it almost gently so she could see the gray, and silver, and white, and black variations in its coat.

A deep, terrible sadness overcame her, crashed through her like a wave. Took her breath, squeezed her lungs. She sank slowly to her knees, one trembling hand going to the wolf’s ruff. The hair was coarser than she’d thought…but then she dragged her fingers through it, burrowing deeper through the protective outer layers until she found the baby-fine undercoat, soft as goose down. The skin beneath was still warm. The yellow of its eyes was fading, though.

Bednyaga, she thought, tears burning her eyes.

The wind swept around her relentlessly, skimming ice crystals off the snow, scraping against her rough as sandpaper. The cold was beyond comprehension, so crippling she began to feel warm. Hypothermia. She smelled frost, and the musk of the wolf, and blood. Fierce copper notes against the clean white background.

Her heart thundered. The sadness became grief. And then it becamepain, lancing through her middle. She swayed, clutching at the wolf’s fur as unconsciousness threatened to overtake her.

Above the rushing of the wind, she heard a long, mournful howl. A wolf’s howl.

She lifted her head to look across the gory snow and saw a man standing in the center of the clearing, head tipped back and face toward the sky.

Not a wolf’s howl, but a man’s.

The pain spiked, acute and visceral. She was dying, she knew.

As the darkness took her, the howling man turned and looked at her. Even from across the clearing, she could see that his eyes were a vivid and unnatural blue.

His lips peeled back off his teeth.

And hesnarled.

Her vision failed. A bell began to ring.

~*~

Trina woke with a scream caught in her throat. She jackknifed upright in bed, gasping, choking down the yell that she refused to voice. If she screamed loudly enough, her neighbor Mrs. Jenkins would come knock on her door and ask if she was alright.Again. She was a sweet woman, and it was a nice sentiment, but Trina didn’t want to be checked on every time she had a nightmare. That would have meant three check-ins a night at this point.

They were getting worse. More vivid, more frequent.

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