Don't Call the Wolf

by Aleksandra Ross

  “He is standing right here,” interrupted Lukasz. “Besides, we’re practically the same age, Fraszko.”

  There was a loud crash.

  Silent understanding passed between the brothers. Henryk put a finger to his lips, and Franciszek snuffed out his lantern. Lukasz weighed his sword in his hand. He half hoped the dragon would attack—he was starting to wonder if he’d ever get another fight like Saint Magdalena. There was a second tinkling smash, a muttered curse, and then a tiny light flickered behind one of the barrels.

  They advanced.

  As they rounded the corner, they came upon the flickering light, outlining a person crouched behind a very large wheel of cheese.

  It was a man, perhaps a little older than Henryk, wearing dark trousers and boots and a long coat the color of pale honey. It was trimmed in black embroidery, he wore a fine red necktie, and his hair was sandy blond. He was kneeling over a cracked gas lantern, trying, without success, to right the fallen light.

  “Who are you?” demanded Henryk. “What are you doing here?”

  Even in a whisper, his voice carried.

  The man looked up.

  “Oh my,” he said, apparently unruffled. “I’d heard there were Wolf-Lords in town, but—”

  “Who are you?”

  Henryk’s voice echoed off the cellar walls.

  The man was unperturbed. He had a square, handsome face and a broken nose. He got to his feet and held out his hand.

  “It’s an honor to meet you,” he said. “My name is Dr. Jakub Rybak. I am an Unnaturalist, with a specialty in anthropomorphic monstrosity.”

  The three brothers regarded the outstretched hand with suspicion.

  “It is a handshake,” said Dr. Rybak. “It is what people do when—oh, never mind. It’s not important.”

  Lukasz looked past the polished Unnaturalist to what he’d been examining: a feathery figure, somehow bent up and comprised entirely of elbows. It had bits of red fur hanging off its scaly body, and a beak instead of a nose. All in all, it had a faintly gross, dried-up look to it.

  “Strzygoń,” said Dr. Jakub Rybak, catching Lukasz’s look.

  “Bless you,” said Lukasz politely.

  “Strzygi are monsters, Lukasz,” explained Franciszek. “Derived from human victims.”

  While Lukasz blushed and fumed, Henryk gave Dr. Rybak a long, appraising stare. There was an unathletic slope to the Unnaturalist’s shoulders, and the broken lantern did not speak well of his dexterity.

  “Right,” said Henryk after a moment. He had a near-permanent furrow between his brows, and now it deepened slightly. “Found anything else, have you?”

  “Ah, certainly.” Dr. Rybak tugged a notebook out of his pocket, flipped through it. “I’ve found plenty. The crypts of the Miasto Basilica have been particularly bountiful: twenty-six nocnica, four psotniki, copper and silver in great quantities, one wax puppet—”

  “No,” interrupted Henryk. “I mean here. Have you found anything here? Burn patterns? Flint deposits? The dragon—”

  “Not a dragon,” corrected Dr. Rybak, holding up a hand. “A basilisk. Much, much worse. Of an entirely different patrimony from a dragon, and of a very different species. Serpentine morphology. Extreme rarity, and it has the gift of medusaidism.” He glanced at Lukasz and Franciszek and explained: “The ability to murder with a single stare.”

  He looked thrilled.

  “I know what medusaidism is,” said Franciszek quickly. His eyes shone, even in the darkness. “If you don’t mind my asking, Dr. Rybak, what exactly is an Unnaturalist?”

  Dr. Rybak beamed.

  “A historian and curator of Unnatural objects and creatures,” he said. “As I mentioned, I am most interested in anthropomorphics. In other words, monsters of human origin. Like this strzygoń, for instance—” He indicated the desiccated creature on the cellar floor. “Based on the degree of mummification and the comparative beak length, I suspect—”

  Another crash.

  All four twisted around. Lukasz recognized it as the sound of splintering wood. There was a beat of silence, then the whisper of scales on stone and a low-pitched, shuddering whistle. It was soft, a gentle eeee sound in the darkness.

  “What the hell?” growled Lukasz.

  The thing—the basilisk?—exhaled. It was almost like a sigh.

  “It’s here,” said Dr. Rybak. “Put out your lanterns. It’s coming for the light.”

  They smashed the lanterns, glass raining like blades of snow. The cellar plunged into darkness.

  “Come on,” whispered Dr. Rybak urgently. “We have to move.”

  The soft, low whine came again. Eeeeeeee, it murmured. It whispered straight through Lukasz’s skull, echoed in his head. Then it exhaled again.

  The cellar was nothing but the dark shadows of barrels, their own panicked breathing. It was no use. The basilisk would be able to smell them. And surely, if it had eyes that could kill, then it had eyes that could also see in darkness?

  “We need to hide,” whispered Dr. Rybak.

  “We need to kill it,” snarled Henryk.

  Lukasz’s hand closed on the hilt of his sword.

  “You may know your dragons,” whispered the Unnaturalist in a cutting voice. “But I know about other monsters. You need to listen to me.”

  “Henryk, he’s right,” whispered Franciszek as they huddled behind the nearest barrel. “We can’t fight it blind. We don’t stand a chance.”

  “Come on—” started Lukasz.

  Outside, there was a thudding sound. Lukasz realized, feeling suddenly sick, that it was the sound of serpentine coils hitting the ground. The creature kept hissing.

  “We have to hide,” commanded Henryk. “All of us—”

  “But where—” whispered Franciszek.

  Lukasz stood up, trying to look over the barrel, and his shoulder hit metal.

  “Damn hinge,” he muttered, wincing.

  The darkness moved, and Franciszek reached over his head.

  “It’s not a hinge,” he said. “It’s a bolt.”

  He tugged on the metal bolt, and the hissing grew closer. Silently—thank God—the door swung open. Wine rushed out over their boots. The sweet, fermented smell was enough to make Lukasz choke. The rustle of scales on stones grew louder.

  “Get in,” said Dr. Rybak. “Get in, all of you—”

  He was only aware of a hand on his back, and someone had shoved him up, into the barrel.

  The door closed behind them. They were plunged into blackness. The remaining wine splashed over their boots, and the tang of fermented fruit was overpowering. It was sticky and warm. He hoped to God he never ended up getting swallowed by a dragon, but if it did come to that, then he was willing to bet this was what it would feel like. Then someone kicked Lukasz right in the bad knee.

  “OW! Watch it, Henryk—”

  “Well, if you’d stayed behind, Lukasz,” griped Franciszek, “we’d all have more room.”

  “Don’t start—”

  “SHHHH.”

  In the darkness, Lukasz couldn’t be sure, but he was fairly certain that the unassuming Unnaturalist had just shushed them.

  Outside, the hissing echoed. Something collided hard with the barrel and it rocked in place for a moment. The wood groaned, and the creature outside smashed against it a second time. Wine sloshed up and over them, and the hissing grew deafening. Lukasz wondered if he was about to die in a barrel filled with wine, Wolf-Lords, and one very brave Unnaturalist.

  Then it was silent.

  Lukasz could hear the Unnaturalist gasping beside him.

  “Do we need a light?” whispered Franciszek.

  “No!” snapped Lukasz. “We might as well be sitting in a kerosene lamp, Fraszko!”

  Franciszek must have heard the hysterical edge in Lukasz’s voice. His own whisper came back stuttering, apologetic:

  “I—I’m sorry—I didn’t think—”

  “Quiet,” whispered Henryk. “I’m not sure it’s gon
e.”

  They sat silently in the blackness. Lukasz didn’t know how long they stayed, huddled in that hot ferment, but he did know that he was never going to drink wine again.

  At last, in a cautious whisper, Henryk said, “You must have to write a lot of books, with your job.”

  It took Lukasz a second to realize that he was talking to Dr. Rybak.

  “Yes,” said the Unnaturalist.

  Even without seeing his face, he sounded very calm. It struck Lukasz that the Dr. Rybak was in his element. Whatever he’d said about being interested in anthropo—anthr— Lukasz gave up on the word. Monsters from people. Whatever he’d said about being interested in those types of creatures, there was no denying it: Dr. Rybak knew his monsters better than they did.

  “What if you wrote a book about Wolf-Lords?” Henryk was asking. “The first and only book in a thousand years.”

  Dr. Rybak gave a little chuckle.

  “Your people are infamously elusive, my friend.”

  There was another silence. Lukasz wondered if he was the only one who felt the tension in the air. Henryk spoke again.

  “What if we weren’t?”

  “What are you proposing?” said Dr. Rybak in a shrewd voice. “An exclusive interview? Surely there must be some cost.”

  “Not an interview,” said Henryk. “You see, six months ago, my brother went back to Kamieńa Forest.”

  Lukasz’s throat tightened. They hadn’t talked about Tadeusz in months. He’d assumed it was for the same reason: that they were waiting for him to come back, to tell them the Dragon was dead, to say that it was over and they could go home.

  “I think he must have . . . gotten lost,” Henryk was saying. His voice was heavy. “Because we know the Mountains, and we know dragons. Monsters are another thing entirely. But you . . .”

  Henryk’s voice trailed away. Lukasz was too stunned to interrupt.

  “You need my expertise to get through the forest,” finished Dr. Rybak.

  “And you would get a book on Wolf-Lords,” said Henryk. “And Dr. Rybak, that forest is full of monsters. You could write a hundred more books. You’d be famous.”

  “Or dead,” said Dr. Rybak.

  “I give you my word,” said Henryk solemnly, “I will not let you die.”

  “Henryk,” interrupted Lukasz, “what are you doing?”

  “And you can take my notebook,” interjected Franciszek eagerly. “It would help. And when you’re done, you could include me as a reference—”

  “I can’t—” sputtered Rybak. “I couldn’t—”

  “Come on,” murmured Henryk. “What have you got to lose?”

  Lukasz was about to argue, when the barrel rocked again. They all fell silent. There was a metallic whisper, and Lukasz knew that one of them—Franciszek or Henryk—had drawn his sword.

  The barrel door cracked open. A lantern swung in the opening, temporarily blinding them.

  An exceptionally elegant man stood behind the light. He was handsome, except for a mouth almost too wide for his face. Despite the darkness around them, he wore dark glasses.

  “I’ve heard of rats in a barrel,” he said. “But I wasn’t expecting them to be so big.”

  “We’re Wolf-Lords,” said Henryk, extricating himself from their awkward refuge. The wine had soaked through his clothes, and it looked like blood.

  The tall man barely moved, except to raise an eyebrow. As he looked at them, the edge of his lip curled.

  “If you say so.”

  Dr. Rybak looked around, his broad face heavy with disappointment. Wine was smeared, like blood, over one cheek.

  “It’s gone,” he said heavily. “We missed it. The basilisk is gone.”

  And maybe Henryk felt the call to the mountains, like Tadeusz had before him. Or maybe he just missed his older brother. Maybe he was done with being a stranger in faraway lands, and maybe he missed the wolves.

  But whatever the reason, the basilisk was gone, and by the next morning so was Henryk. Lukasz did not see him again.

  And for the next six years, he did not see Jakub Rybak, either.

  10

  LUKASZ SKIDDED OUT INTO THE road, Koszmar sliding into him.

  Light flickered at the cross street, just ahead. It looked like every person in the village had come out to watch.

  “Come on.” He grabbed Koszmar’s sleeve. “We have to stop them—”

  The crowd had closed in on her, left no room for escape. They were shuffling nervously, whispering. Lukasz could hear them breathing, he could hear their pounding pulses. Lukasz knew panic, he dealt in panic, and he loved panic—but tonight, for the first time, it scared him.

  “Out of the way!” he roared. He shoved his way through the bodies. “Out. OUT!”

  Behind him, Koszmar was shouting at the villagers. They were too terrified to listen. Stricken as deer. Violent as bears. Lukasz needed them out of the way.

  “Get them out,” he said over his shoulder to Koszmar. “Get them the hell out of here.”

  Koszmar’s eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

  Lukasz whirled around. The villagers scrambled back, then broke into a stampede. The tide of bodies pressed against him, trying to shove him backward. He had a glimpse of her, just for a moment; her eyes were closed, and then they opened.

  Lukasz went still. The crowd parted around him.

  Her eyes were green, with huge, luminescent pupils. Ringed with black, almost perfectly circular in the human face. Human lips drew back from four-inch fangs, and the tongue in her human mouth was rough like a wildcat’s.

  Koszmar was shouting. People kept flooding past Lukasz.

  She roared.

  It wasn’t the sound of a human, but it wasn’t anything like a lynx. It split across the street and stopped his heart for a moment. It rushed over the rooftops and it blasted across the trees, and for half a second, Lukasz was sure it must have echoed in the streets of Miasto.

  Somehow, he found his voice.

  “It’s okay,” he said, advancing unsteadily. “I don’t want to hurt you—”

  A lynx stepped smoothly out of the human clothes, the material slipping off its muscled back.

  The lynx paced in front of him, hissing. All the same, he could see her in it. Her eyes were riveted to his. She was calming down. He could feel it.

  “Listen to me,” he said, both hands raised. “Please—”

  Before he could finish, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. A lone villager remained, and he had just stooped to the cobbles.

  “STOP!” Lukasz roared.

  He was too late. The stone sailed out of the darkness and thunked into the lynx’s shoulder. Her head snapped from Lukasz to the villager.

  “NO!”

  Lukasz and the lynx leapt at the same time. They met midair. By some miracle he caught her forelegs in his hands, kept the claws off his throat. She yowled. A strangled sound, almost like disappointment. Then she changed her focus.

  They hit the road, and pain exploded in Lukasz’s knee as it bashed off the cobbles. Claws sank through his clothes and raked his skin, teeth gnashing for his throat. She snarled, lines of saliva hanging off her fangs. And she was much, much stronger than he was.

  Lukasz caught her by the neck. She thrashed. It took all his strength to keep the slashing teeth off his throat. Every muscle screamed as she threatened to overpower him. The claws tore deeper. The dripping mouth lunged closer. The wicked incisors snatched so close that he felt them scrape his skin.

  She was too strong. Lukasz struggled, could feel his arms giving way—

  CRACK.

  The lynx paused. Then very slowly, as if in a dream, she slumped forward into his chest and rolled off him. Lukasz didn’t wait. He scrambled back to his feet, panting.

  Lukasz put his hands on his knees and looked between the unconscious lynx and Koszmar. White-faced and white-knuckled, the major had a shovel clutched in his hands.

  Two more people hung back at the edge of the street,
but it was otherwise empty.

  Lukasz pushed his hair back.

  “Did you just hit her with a shovel?”

  Koszmar hugged the shovel to his chest and said, in a very small voice:

  “Well, er . . . you weren’t doing very well.”

  “Yeah, no kidding!” Lukasz gestured to the lynx. “Did you see her? Oh God—”

  The lynx was changing back. The fur was receding, her limbs lengthening once more. Long dark hair covered the cobblestones, masking her face. Lukasz had a glimpse of one pale, blue-veined shoulder, before he realized—a little too late—that she was completely naked.

  He slapped a hand over his eyes.

  “Oh my God, now what do we do?”

  Lukasz was a far cry from a gentleman. But he owed this girl—this monster, this . . . queen? Whatever she was, he thought. He owed her. She’d pulled him out of the river. She’d saved his life. And now . . .

  “Don’t be a prude,” Koszmar was saying somewhere.

  There was the sound of fabric rustling over stone. Lukasz could feel blood trickling into his shirt collar, where her teeth had caught his throat.

  “We’ve just got to put her clothes back on,” Koszmar was saying. “Besides, not like she’s human anyway.”

  Lukasz rocked backward on his heels slightly, uneasy. It wasn’t that simple, he wanted to say. It wasn’t just about garguleci or monsters or following some unambiguously mapped path to Franciszek and the Mountains. For better or for worse, this girl had saved his life.

  “You can open your eyes,” said Koszmar. “You’re quite the gentleman for being a Wolf-Lord, you know that?”

  Lukasz put his hand back on his belt. Koszmar was standing with her supported on his shoulder. Her shirt was on backward and she had a big cut on her cheek. A mask of blood encased the left side of her face.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “You really brained her.”

  “Like I said,” returned Koszmar. He had recovered himself. With truly astounding elegance, he used his free hand to produce his pipe from his pocket and put it back between his teeth. “You weren’t doing very well.”

  “Right,” said Lukasz, looking between the girl and the cavalryman.

  “Do you think this is her?” asked Koszmar.

  He pushed the dark hair off the girl’s face. Dark hair and green eyes. She was definitely the same girl from the water. She’d pulled him out. Or, he thought, with a sudden, sinking feeling: Had she also pulled him in?