lifted his head and stared once more, imploringly, at the boy who sat on his knees in the downpour.
Nikita was dying, of course. But not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.
Mikhail lowered his face and stared into the mud. Pieces of Nikita’s body, stippled with wolf hair and human flesh, lay around him like tattered pieces of a magnificent puzzle. Mikhail heard Nikita groan and closed his eyes; in his mind he saw a dying deer beside the tracks, and Nikita’s hands gripping the animal’s skull. He remembered the sharp twist Nikita had given the deer’s neck, followed by a noise of cracking bones. It had been an act of mercy, pure and simple. And it was no less than what Nikita now asked for.
Mikhail stood up, staggered and almost went down again. He felt dreamlike, floating; in this sea of rain there were no edges. Nikita shivered and stared at him and waited. At last Mikhail moved. The mud caught his feet, but he pulled free and he knelt down beside his friend.
Nikita lifted his head, offering his neck.
Mikhail grasped the sides of the wolf’s skull. Nikita’s eyes closed, and the low moan continued in his throat.
We could fix him, Mikhail thought. I don’t have to kill him. We could fix him. Wiktor would know how. We fixed Franco, didn’t we?
But in his heart he knew this was far worse than Franco’s mangled leg. Nikita was near death, and he was only asking for deliverance from pain. It had all happened so quickly: the downpour, the train, the steaming tracks… so quickly, so quickly.
Mikhail’s hands gripped tighter. He was shaking as hard as Nikita. He would have to do this right the first time. A dark haze was falling over his vision, and his eyes were filling up with rain. It would have to be done mercifully. Mikhail braced himself. One of Nikita’s forelegs lifted up, and the paw rested against Mikhail’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” Mikhail whispered. He took a breath, and twisted as sharply as he could. He heard the cracking noise, and Nikita’s body twitched. Then Mikhail crawled frantically away through the rain and mud. He burrowed into the weeds and high grass, and curled up there as the torrent continued to beat down on him. When he dared to look at Nikita again, he saw the motionless, cleaved torso of a wolf with one human arm and hand. Mikhail sat on his haunches, his knees pulled up to his chin, and rocked himself. He stared at the carcass with its white-fleshed arm. It would have to be moved off the tracks, before the vultures found it in the morning. It would have to be buried deep.
Nikita was gone. To where? Mikhail wondered. And Wiktor’s question came to him: what is the lycanthrope, in the eye of God?
He felt something fall away from him. Perhaps it was youth’s last flower. What lay beneath it felt hard-edged and raw, like a seething wound. To get through this life, he thought, a man needed a heart that was plated with metal and pumped cinders. He would have to grow one, if he was going to survive.
He stayed beside Nikita’s body until the rain ceased. The wind had gone, and the woods were peaceful. Then Mikhail ran home, through the dripping dark, to take Wiktor the news.
3
Petyr was crying. It was the dead of winter, the wind howled outside the white palace, and Wiktor crouched over the child, now seven months old, as Petyr lay on a bed of dried grass. A small fire flickered nearby; the child was swaddled in deerskin and a blanket Renati had made from the travelers’ clothes. Petyr’s crying was a shrill quaver, but cold was not the child’s complaint. Wiktor, whose beard had started to show streaks of white amid the gray, touched Petyr’s forehead. The child’s skin was burning. Wiktor looked up at the others. “It’s begun,” he said, his voice grim.
Alekza, too, started to cry. Wiktor snapped, “Hush that!” and Alekza crawled away to be by herself.
“What can we do?” Mikhail asked, but he already knew the answer: nothing. Petyr was about to go through the trial of agony, and no one could help the child through that passage. Mikhail leaned over Petyr, his fingers busy at the blanket, folding it closer simply because his fingers wanted something to do. Petyr’s face was flushed, the ice-blue eyes rimmed with red. A small amount of dark hair was scattered over the child’s scalp. Alekza’s eyes, Mikhail thought. My hair. And within that frail body, the first battle of a long war was beginning.
“He’s strong,” Franco said. “He’ll make it.” But his voice had no conviction. How could an infant survive such pain? Franco stood up, on his single leg, and used his pinewood staff to guide himself to his sleeping pallet.
Wiktor, Renati, and Mikhail slept in a circle around the child. Alekza came back, and slept touching Mikhail. Petyr’s crying swelled and ebbed, became hoarse and still continued. So did the wail of the wind, beyond the walls.
As the days went on, Petyr’s pain increased. They could tell, by the way he shivered and writhed, by the way he clenched his fists and seemed to be striking the air. They huddled around him; Petyr was hotter than the fire. Sometimes he screamed with silence, his mouth open and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Other times his voice filled the chamber, and it was a sound that ripped Mikhail’s heart and made Alekza weep. In periods when the worst of the pain seemed to ebb, Alekza tried to feed Petyr bloody meat she’d already chewed into a soft paste; he accepted most of it, but he was getting weaker, shriveling up like an old man before their eyes. Still, Petyr clung to life. When the child’s crying would become so terrible that Mikhail thought God must surely end this suffering, the pain would break for perhaps three or four hours. Then it would come back, and the screaming would start again. Mikhail knew Alekza was nearing a crisis as well; her eyes looked like hollowed-out holes, and her hands trembled so much she could hardly guide food into her own mouth. She, too, was becoming older by the day.
After a long and exhausting hunt, Mikhail was awakened one night by a hideous gasping sound. He sat up, started to move toward Petyr, but Wiktor pushed him aside in his haste to get to the baby. Renati said, “What is it? What’s wrong?” and Franco hobbled on his stick into the light. Alekza just stared, her eyes blank pools of shock. Wiktor knelt beside the child, and his face was ashen. The baby was silent. “He’s swallowed his tongue,” Wiktor said. “Mikhail, hold him from thrashing!”
Mikhail gripped Petyr’s body; it was like touching a hot coal. “Hold him steady!” Wiktor shouted as he forced open the mouth and tried to hook the tongue with his finger. He couldn’t get it out. Petyr’s face had taken on a tinge of blue, and the lungs were heaving. The little hands clutched at the air. Wiktor’s finger explored the child’s mouth, found the tongue, and then he got a second finger clamped around it. He pulled; the tongue was caught in Petyr’s throat. “Get it out!” Renati yelled. “Wiktor, get it out!”
Wiktor pulled again, harder. There was a popping noise as the tongue unjammed, but Petyr’s face was still turning blue. The lungs hitched, couldn’t draw in air. Sweat sparkled on Wiktor’s face, though his breath came out in a gray plume. He lifted Petyr up, held the baby by the heels, and whacked him on the back with the flat of his hand. Mikhail winced at the sound of the blow. Petyr still made no noise. Again Wiktor struck him on the back, harder. And a third time. There was a whoosh of rushing air, and a plume of it exploded from the child’s mouth. It was followed by a wail of pain and fury that made the storm’s voice sound feeble. Alekza held her arms out to take the baby. Wiktor gave him to her. She rocked the child, grateful tears creeping down her cheeks, and she lifted one of his little hands and pressed it against her lips.
She pulled her head back, her eyes wide.
Dark hairs had risen from the white infant flesh. The body in her arms was already contorting, and Petyr opened his mouth to make a mewling noise. Alekza looked up at Mikhail, then at Wiktor; he sat on his haunches, his chin resting on his clasped hands, and his amber eyes glinted in the firelight as he watched.
Petyr’s face was changing, the muzzle beginning to form, the eyes sinking back into the dark-haired skull. Mikhail heard Renati gasp beside him, a sound of wonder. Petyr’s ears lengthened, edged with soft white hairs. The fingers of both hands and the toes of both feet were retracting, becoming claws with small hooked nails. Little popping noises chimed the shifting of bones and joints, and Petyr made grunting noises, but his crying seemed to be done. The change took perhaps a minute. Wiktor said quietly, “Put him down.”
Alekza obeyed. The blue-eyed wolf pup, its sinewy body covered with fine black hairs, struggled to stand on all fours. Petyr made it up, fell, struggled to stand, and then fell again. Mikhail started to help him, but Wiktor said, “No. Let him do it on his own.”
Petyr found his legs and was able to stand, the little body shivering, the blue eyes blinking with amazement. The stub of a tall wriggled, and the wolfen ears twitched. He took one step, then a second; his hind legs tangled and he went down once more. Petyr gave a short whuff of frustration, steam curling from his nostrils. Wiktor leaned
