head pounding with fiery agony, and he staggered through the alley toward where he thought the fence must be. The fence. Got to crawl under it. He rounded a corner, and almost directly into the path of an oncoming truck. It shrieked to a halt, but Michael hugged the wall and started running again, the smell of burned rubber in his nostrils. He turned another corner, lost his balance, and slammed into the wall. He fell, darkness beginning to call him, and he crawled into a narrow doorway and lay there shivering with pain.
He had been shot. He knew that much. The bullet had grazed his head, and taken flesh and hair with it. Where was Chesna? Where was Alekza, and Renati? No, no; that was another, better world. Where was Lazaris? Was the Russian safe, with Wiktor? He shook his head; his mind was clouding, keeping secrets from him. The train was late! I’ll make it, Nikita! Watch me!
His skin stung and itched. The air smelled bad. What was that bitter stench? His skin… what was happening to his skin? He looked at his hands. They were changing, the fingers becoming claws. The bandage slipped off and fell. The bones of his spine creaked and shifted. New pain shot through his joints, but compared to the agony of his head that pain was almost pleasure.
Chesna! He almost shouted it. Where was she? He couldn’t leave her. No, no! Wiktor! Wiktor would take care of Chesna. Wouldn’t he?
His body thrashed against the confinement of strange things that bound his legs. Something split along his black-haired back, and he flung that off, too. The things that fell aside had a terrible smell to them. A man- smell.
His muscles clicked and popped. He had to get out of this awful place, before the monsters found him. He was in an alien world, and nothing made sense. The fence. Beyond it was freedom, and that was what he craved.
But he was leaving someone behind. No, not only one. Two. A name came to him, and he opened his mouth to shout, but the song was harsh and ragged and made no sense. He shook away heavy objects that hung by strings to his hind paws, and he ran to find the way out.
He picked up his own scent trail. Three monsters with pale, hideous faces saw him, and one of them shrieked with terror; even a wolf could understand that emotion. Another of the figures lifted a stick, and flame shot out of it. Michael spun away from them, a hot breeze ruffling the hair at the back of his neck, and he ran on.
His scent led him to the hole beneath the fence. Why was the man-smell here, too? he wondered. They were familiar aromas; whose were they? But the forest beckoned him, and promised safety. He was hurting badly. He needed rest. A place to curl up, and lick his wounds.
He crawled under the fence, and without looking back at the world he was departing, he leaped into the arms of the forest.
8
The yellow she-wolf came to sniff his scent while he was curled up in a nest of rocks. He had been licking at his wounded paw. His skull was filled with a terrible pain that waxed and waned, and his vision misted around the edges. But he could see her, even in the blue twilight. She stood on a rock about seventy feet above him and watched him as he suffered. A dark brown wolf joined her after a while, then a gray one with a single eye. The other two wolves came and went, but the yellow female remained vigilant.
Sometime later-and when this was he didn’t know, because time had become dreamlike-he smelled the human reek. Four of them, he thought. Maybe more. Passing by his hiding place. In another moment he heard the scrape of their boots on the stones. They went on, searching for…
Searching for what? he asked himself. Food? Shelter? He didn’t know, but the men-the white-fleshed monsters-frightened him, and he determined to stay away from them.
An explosion roused him from a feverish sleep. He stared, his green eyes dull, at flames rising into the darkness. The boat, he thought. They’d found it, down in the harbor. The thought doubled back on itself, and puzzled him. How had he known that? he wondered. Whose boat was it, and what use did a wolf have for a boat?
His curiosity made him get up and slowly, painfully, descend over the rocks to the harbor. The yellow wolf followed on one side, and on the other a small pale brown wolf that yipped nervously all the way down to the village. Wolftown, he thought as he looked at the houses. That was a good name for it, because he could smell his own kind here. Fire crackled beyond the seawall, and the figures of men walked through the smoke. He stood near the corner of a stone house, watching monsters roam the earth. One of them called to another: “Any sign of him, Thyssen?”
“No, Sergeant!” another one shouted back. “Not a trace! We found the commando team and the woman, though. Over that way.” He pointed.
“Well, if he tries to hide here, the damned wolves will finish him off!” The sergeant strode in one direction with a group of men, and Thyssen went in another.
Who were they talking about? he wondered as the flames reflected in his green eyes. And… why did he understand their language? This was a puzzle, to be thought out when the throbbing in his skull had ceased. Right now he needed water and a place to sleep. He lapped from a muddy pool of snowmelt, then he chose a house and entered it through the open front door. He lay down in a corner, curling his body up for warmth, placed his muzzle on his paws, and closed his eyes.
Later, a floorboard’s creak awakened him. He looked up into the glare of a flashlight, and he heard a voice say, “Jesus, that one’s been in a fight!” He stood up, his tail to the wall, and bared his fangs at the intruders, his heart pounding with fear. “Easy, easy,” one of the monsters whispered. “Put a bullet in it, Langner!”
“Not me! I don’t want a wounded wolf jumping at my throat!” Langner backed out, and in another few seconds so did the man with the light. “He’s not here!” Langner called to someone else outside. “Too many wolves around for my taste. I’m getting out.”
The black wolf with a blood-crusted skull settled back into his corner again, and slept.
He had a strange dream. His body was changing, becoming white and monstrous. His claws, his fangs, and his coat of sleek black hair all went away. Naked, he crawled into a world of terrors. And he was just about to rise up on his fleshy legs-an unthinkable act-when the nightmare jarred him to his senses.
Gray dawn and hunger. They linked together. He got up and went in search of food. His head was still hurting, but not so much now. His muscles felt deeply bruised, and his steps were uncertain. But he would live, if he could find meat. He sniffed a death scent; the kill was nearby, somewhere in Wolftown.
The scent drew him into another house, and there he found them.
The corpses of four humans. One was a massive, orange-haired female. The other three were males, dressed in black with black-smeared faces. He sat on his haunches, and studied their positions. The female, her body punctured by at least a half-dozen holes, had her hands clenched around the throat of one of the males. Another male lay in a corner like a broken doll, his mouth open in a final gasp. The third man lay on his back near an overturned table, the carved-horn handle of a knife protruding from his heart.
The black wolf stared at that knife. He had seen it before. Somewhere. He saw, as if from a vision, a human hand on a table, and the blade of that knife slamming down between the fingers. It was a mystery, too deep for him, and he let it go.
He began with the male crumpled in the corner. The facial flesh was soft, and so was the tongue. He was feasting when he smelled the musk of another wolf, and then came the low, warning growl. He whirled around, his muzzle red, but the dark brown wolf was already bounding forward to attack, claws flailing at the air.
The black wolf spun to one side, but his legs were still unsure and he lost his balance, crashing over the upturned table. The brown animal snapped at a foreleg and barely missed catching it between powerful jaws. Another wolf, this one a ruddy amber hue, came through a window into the room and lunged at the black with fangs bared.
He knew death was imminent. Once they caught him between them, they would tear him to pieces. They were strangers to him, just as he was to them, and he knew this was a struggle for territory. He snapped at the amber wolf-a young female-with such ferocity that she scrambled backward. But the brown one, a husky male, was not so easily intimidated; a claw flashed out, and red streaks appeared across a black-haired rib cage. Fangs snapped, lunging and parrying like the weapons of swordsmen. The two wolves collided, chest to chest, trying to
