Page 66 of White Wolf
So he ran.
~*~
“Is he going to, you know,turn intoa wolf?” Pyotr asked. He sounded terrified by the prospect.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Philippe said. “I’ve heard of outright shifting in several cases, but that’s usually in much older wolves. Maybe he’ll be able to eventually, but for right now, this is Wolf Sasha.” He gestured to him, the way he was running full-tilt across the mud, cheeks pink from cold, grinning open-mouthed.
Sasha ran – he just ran, with no greater purpose than to take step after step after step and feel his legs eat up the ground. He ran with the unselfconscious glee of a child, and with the speed and precision of a beast born in the woods. It was oddly calming to watch. He was alive, and obviously healthy. Nikita hadn’t gotten him killed after all, and for that he was grateful.
His stomach growled, so empty it was twisting up on itself, and he ignored it. Low, where Sasha couldn’t hear him, he said, “He’s half wolf now. Alright. How is that part of your plan?”
But Sasha must have heard – wolf hearing – because he halted and turned his head their way.
“Let’s test that,” Philippe said. “Sasha, come here, please. Ivan, I’m going to need you to step up here. Yes, like that. Sasha, good.” He shooed and waved them into place, until they were standing opposite one another. “Sasha, I want you to pick Ivan up and throw him over your shoulder. Ivan, I want you to try to stop him.”
Both of them stared at him, blinking.
Feliks snorted.
“Um,” Sasha said.
“Go on,” Philippe said. “Try it.”
“He’ll throw his back out,” Kolya said.
“Philippe,” Nikita said with a sigh. “I don’t–”
Sasha lunged.
“–shit.”
He was so fast he caught Ivan off guard, but the big man recovered, bracing his feet wide and catching Sasha by the arms, trying to stop him with his superior size and strength.Trying– because Sasha shook him off, dodged his grip, and hooked both arms around Ivan’s waist. And as they all watched, Sasha lifted Ivan off his feet and slung him over his shoulder. Like it was nothing. He made it look easy. Laughed, even.
“What?” Ivan squawked, waving his arms. “Put me down! How is this…how are you…?” He let out a deep belly laugh. “Christ, puppy, look at you!”
Sasha smiled with his whole face, one arm hooked around Ivan’s waist, holding him, impossibly, on his shoulder. “I did it!”
Nikita smiled too, though his inner monologue was a loop ofholy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
“Well done,” Philippe said.
Sasha set Ivan carefully back on his feet. “Did I hurt you?”
Ivan seemed offended by the idea, but grinned as he knocked off Sasha’s hat and ruffled his hair. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
That had been true before, but obviously wasn’t now, and so the joke fell a little flat. The thing was: none of them knew what Sasha was capable of, and the knowledge seemed to hit them all at once, everyone falling silent.
Everyone but Philippe. “Alright, now let’s test your reflexes.”
17
THE THINGS YOUR COUNTRY DEMANDS OF YOU
Katya passed the oily rag down the barrel of her Mosin-Nagant in long, even strokes, back and forth, back and forth, losing herself in the soothing mindlessness of the task. Keeping her weapons clean was the most important thing she could do. Now. In this life she lived during the war.
She thought about it as Then and Now. Then was when she shared a bedroom with her sister, their bed tucked up beneath an eave of their little wooden house, the ceiling sloping above their heads. They would lie on their backs and pretend they were in a reindeer-hide tent, herders trekking across Siberia, guarding their herd from wolves, and bears, and badgers, bathing with handfuls of snow, eating dried reindeer meat and howling at the moon like animals. Then was when her mother cooked the most amazing stew with root vegetables hidden away carefully in the back of the cellar, behind a removable panel that her father had ingeniously designed. Then was keeping their heads down on the walk to school, trying not to ever draw the attention of the local Cheka who went from house to house like the plague, taking grain…and mothers and fathers. Then had been a fearful and hungry time, interspersed here and there with moments of quiet family joy, all the sweeter for their rarity.
Now was a gun. A knife. A uniform. Now was drills, and more drills, and drills again. She ate, she slept, she followed orders. There was no fear, no hunger, and no joy. Now was existence. One of the other girls had told her she was crazy; Katya thought she was effective, and effective was all that mattered in war.
