Wolf at the Door

by TA Moore

  Jack sucked in a lungful of air. Snow melted on his tongue, and the cold was sharp and seasoned with Danny. Layered under the sweat-and-hair smell of the dog, Jack could taste Danny’s clean, familiar smell. If he stayed in the Wild, Danny couldn’t stay with him.

  That wasn’t a choice at all.

  Jack powered up a steep hill and caught up with an exhausted Danny at the top. He stumbled to a stop and stared down at the line of prophets and monsters as they struggled into the storm. The wind that was at Jack’s tail, under his feet, had shifted to be in their faces. They hunched down and huddled together against the cold as the wind pried at their stolen hides and pinched their noses. Patchwork wolves loped along beside monsters with chill-blistered skins and blackened extremities. Some of the wolves, their fur matted and hides full of rotted holes, were hard to tell from the monsters.

  In the middle of the group, Rose stumbled grimly along, her arms folded under her swollen, bloodstained stomach as though it might tear away from her ribs if it slipped. A hunched figure sloped along beside her, wrapped in dog hides tied with dirty lengths of string around wrists and over a barrel chest. The figure staggered in the snow and fell with a thud to the ground. A length of the twine slipped out of Rose’s fingers, and she cursed a sharp, foul retort.

  The thing on the ground rolled away from her and scrambled onto all fours. It struck out at one of the prophets with a clawed hand—paw?—and tore the woman’s stomach out in one wet handful. Blood splattered the snow a shocking red, and the figure shouldered the woman out of the way as he made a dash for freedom.

  He ran like a bear, a lumbering shuffle that covered more ground than you’d expect as he charged into the storm. The mishmash of hides tied around him flapped raggedly in the wind as he ran—a flayed leg, a dry bush of a tail, an ear that had always torn loose from its moorings.

  Lachlan tackled the man before he could get away, and they crashed into the snow in a tangle of limbs and stolen skins. They snarled as they punched and kicked at each other. The hide-covered man came out on top, with Lachlan pinned to the ground by the shoulders, his thick cable sweater torn to rags as the drool dripped onto his face from the man’s snarl. Just before Lachlan lost his nose, Rose grabbed the loose end of the twine from the ground.

  She yanked, and the man came to heel.

  The roughly tied hides had bagged and torn in the shuffle. Under them, blood smeared the man’s body in thick, clotted streaks that had dried into scabs on his thick hair. It didn’t quite hide the old blue-black rank marks that curled over his shoulders and circled thick thighs.

  Jack took a shocked breath of cold air, and it cramped in his chest. His ribs squeezed in around the weight of recognition as though that might contain the pain. It was Gregor who managed to put it into words.

  “It’s Da,” he said. “What the fuck has she done to the Old Man?”

  As if he’d heard them, the Old Man snarled and scraped at the thick, pale leather collar that dug into his throat. His nails tore open old sores and dug new ones into the blotched, irritated skin. Rose yanked on the lead again and then winced. She reached under her coat and pressed her hand to her stomach.

  “Look at that,” she crooned as she pulled her coat open. Her stomach hung, bruised and stretched until it was ready to tear, in a heavy fold over her hipbones. She rubbed it with her hand as though she were a real mother instead of an old monster who’d slit her own grandson open. Then she dug her finger and thumb down into the loose skin to pinch at whatever was in there and make it squirm. “The baby wants to meet his da.”

  The Old Man snarled at her. It didn’t sound like him. The sound was too deep, too… big to come from him. It felt more like something else was behind him and snarled through his mouth.

  Lachlan scrambled to his feet. His torso was raw, and great swatches of skin had peeled off to reveal raw meat and muscle underneath. He scraped snow from the nape of his neck and spat at the Old Man.

  “We should kill him now,” he said. “He’s just slowing us down.”

  Jack tensed and glanced behind him. They had left the Sannock behind, shadows in the snow. It wouldn’t take them long to catch up, but it might be too long for Da.

  “I wanted you to choose this,” Rose said tiredly. Then she kicked the Old Man in the face with a booted foot, hard enough to snap his head back. Jack heard Gregor’s low growl. He reached out and grabbed his shoulder to hold him in place. “But you are still a stubborn, stupid bastard, so we’ll do it the hard way.”

  She wrapped the lead around her hand. The knots in it dug into her flesh, and she hauled Da to his feet. He choked on the collar, and it was the dog who snarled—a quiet, angry sound in the back of his throat. Of them all, it was the one who’d spent time on Rose’s leash. Jack growled back at it.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “Since when do I obey you?” Gregor growled, although for once, the anger in his voice wasn’t for Jack.

  The Sannock reached the hill and stepped out of the storm, their hair frosted into elflocks and sharp, unsettling smiles on their mouths. It seemed strange to hear the snow crunch under their feet. The horned Sannock bent his head, and daggers of ice dripped from its antlers like a crown.

  “We’re too late,” it said. “Fenrir cannot be put back to sleep.”

  “That’s why we don’t let her wake him,” Jack said.

  The Sannock’s chuckle was a mean squeeze of humor. “Once it’s done, it can’t be undone. A throat slit can’t be sealed back up by regret, and the bitch has none anyhow. She’s ready to split, and the end of the world will hasten with what spills out of her.”

  Jack glanced at Rose’s belly. The Sannock might have meant that literally. She’d strapped her belly up with strips of badly cured leather, but blood seeped through in dark, crusted stains. Whatever was in there wouldn’t come out peacefully.

  “We came this far. I’m not going back without blood in my throat,” Jack said. He glanced at Gregor and, for the first time, didn’t see his own face. “We get to Rose. That’s all that matters.”

  It wasn’t a plan. There was no point. The Sannock evened the odds a bit, but not enough. They might get to Rose, but they wouldn’t go home.

  Gregor knew that too. He nodded grimly and then looked up, to pick out Nick’s dark shape through the dense clouds—the closest to a goodbye they might get.

  At least Jack had Danny here, part of him, at least. He pulled the dog into a rough hug and buried his face in its fur as it panted and leaned into him. It licked his face with a wet swipe that drenched his ear.

  “You need to take the baby back to Bron,” he told the dog. “I need you to promise.”

  The dog pulled back and leveled a steady look at Jack. There was more humanity in its gaze than there usually was, the complexity of grief and understanding. It nodded and then butted its head under Jack’s arm as the dog took control again.

  There was no more time. Jack turned to the Sannock. He didn’t know them, and he couldn’t trust them, but he still had to use them. They were all he had.

  “I assume you know how to fuck up wolves without a how-to,” he said.

  A pale Sannock smiled. Her teeth were nearly translucent, matching her floating hair, and something black and awful wriggled with interest behind her lips.

  “Yes,” she said without opening her mouth. Her voice was beautiful. “That we can do. I will not even add a tally to your debt.”

  Jack snorted. “I think we’ve paid enough.”

  She gave him a flat look, and the smile slid from her face. Her beautiful voice was full of venom as she said, “Never.”

  It would have been a better threat if Jack saw any way out. He shrugged the wolf back on, the clarity of it welcome as fur and focus settled over him. The Wild surged around them and the storm with it, snow so thick it was like a curtain, and the dull thud of hailstones as they dented the ground.

  Jack ran between them… most of them. He could feel the dull heat of a bruise under hi
s skin and the itch of blood in his ear where one had caught him, but it would pass.

  The Sannock caught up with him and then past him. The first prophet they reached died without a sound. His eyes were wide and surprised, the last thing he saw a smiling, gray-toothed woman who tore his throat out with a hook on the way past. His blood spilled out on the ground, and Jack ran through it.

  Another prophet fell, but not in silence. He had time to yelp, and the element of surprise was lost. Jack grimaced, lips drawn back from his teeth, as they yelled and cursed in confusion. He lunged at a shadow in the snow and slammed into one of Rose’s monsters. It staggered backward, caught off-balance, and Jack sank his teeth into its front leg. The infection-bitter taste of its blood filled his mouth. He bit down to the bone and clamped on until he could feel the muscles strain against their moorings in his jaw. The bone snapped and he shook his head to shred the flesh that held it in place.

  The monster howled and toppled over to writhe in the snow as its leg gave way. It would heal, but not in time. Jack dodged the snap of its jaws and ran past it. The baying of the dogs spun around the hill, and the Sannock howled with surprise as they rediscovered pain. Out of the corner of his eye, as Jack got to his feet, he saw Gregor stagger as the prophets harried him.

  A harsh caw sounded from above, and the bird dropped down. It hooked its beak into a seam in the prophet’s skin and tore away a thick layer of wolf…. Gregor laughed raggedly in satisfaction as the bird swooped away with its prize and the prophet choked back to humanity.

  “So you brought your brother after all, Gregor,” Rose yelled, her voice cracked and raw. “A shame it’s too late. I found another way, and I don’t need you anymore. But kill him anyhow. Maybe I’ll give you a wolf just to be kind.”

  Jack curled his lip. He’d spent his life with one eye on his brother for betrayal, and Rose thought he’d be shocked at the idea Gregor couldn’t be trusted? That was the baseline of their relationship. He knew this wasn’t a trap despite that distrust, because the only thing deeper in Gregor than his mean streak was his pride. Gregor would doubtless do a lot to get his wolf back, to be able to challenge Jack again on equal footing again, but he wouldn’t accept help.

  All her taunt had done was help him narrow in on her location. Jack followed her voice through the snow.

  He didn’t even see the blow coming. It caught him on his blind side and slammed him into a low, rough-edged rock. The stone dug into his ribs—he felt the pop before he felt the pain—and knocked the breath out of him. He tried to suck in a breath or struggle to his feet, but he couldn’t do either just yet. His ears rang with a sharp, precise note….

  Lachlan walked out of the snow. Blood coated his stomach and dripped down his thighs from the raw patches of skin on his stomach.

  “Your dog taught me something,” Lachlan said as he reached the crowbar over his head. Slick muscle moved visibly under his skin. “What the fuck do I get out of a fair fight?”

  He brought the crowbar down. Jack tried to move out of the way, but his body didn’t want to cooperate.

  Chapter Twenty-Six—Jack

  HIS FRONT leg snapped between the crowbar and the frozen ground. It stitched roughly together, but the crowbar was already back up over Lachlan’s shoulder. Jack sucked in a breath—his lungs still tender from the recent thump—and braced himself.

  The dog hit Lachlan in the back and knocked him forward. He stumbled over Jack and went face-first onto the stone. The dog snapped and snarled in his ear—what was left of it after it got shredded in the dog’s teeth—while Lachlan gagged on his own blood and flailed blindly as he tried to get the dog off him.

  Jack scrambled out from under Lachlan’s feet and hesitated. He had to get to Rose and stop her. If he didn’t, if she got her hooks into Fenrir, then it didn’t matter how many of her monsters and traitors they killed. They’d lose.

  But it was the dog. It was Danny.

  Lachlan swung the crowbar blindly over his shoulder. The hooked end caught the dog on the shoulder and tore a wet, bloody gash through the gray hide. The dog whined at the pain but didn’t scramble away. Instead it sank its teeth into Lachlan’s shoulder and viciously shook its head as it tried to rip the tendon and bone out of its moorings. Lachlan howled at the pain and dropped the crowbar so he could reach back and grab the dog by the scruff.

  It was Danny. If anything happened to him, Jack would have already lost.

  He shot in and tore Lachlan’s hamstrings out with his teeth. The blood that spilled over his tongue tasted… thin and familiar. It tasted like Gregor the times Jack had pinned him down long enough to get his teeth into him, like Jack’s own blood as it coated his throat after a punch to the face.

  It made him retch in surprise and back off a step.

  Lachlan screeched in rage as he dragged the dog off—strips of his shoulder still caught in the dog’s jaws—and threw him aside. The dog rolled as he hit the ground and scrambled to his feet, his wiry coat matted with blood and a low, rattling snarl in his throat.

  Dogs were useful to the Pack because they were likable. Happy things that enjoyed the collar and didn’t upset the human world with reminders of the teeth and hunger that waited in the dark and the trees. They were tame creatures that wagged their tails and grinned happily if they liked you.

  But that wasn’t the dog that faced Lachlan and made him flinch back against the bloody pile of rocks. This was the dog that humans kept because it knew what waited in the dark, the loyal companion that chased off monsters while they slept and had forgotten how to run.

  It was the dog that the Wild remembered, and maybe it wasn’t so far off what Danny had always been.

  Lachlan pressed his hand to his torn neck and inhaled nervously.

  “Just a dog,” he said, as if he needed to remind himself. He spat at it. “The Wild knew it didn’t want you when your ma squeezed you out….”

  The dog took a stiff-legged step forward and gave Jack an impatient sidelong glance. It knew what Jack should be doing too.

  Even without Danny’s shape, Jack could hear his voice in the back of his head, I can take care of myself. Go.

  Jack didn’t want to—he needed to believe Danny knew that—but he did it anyhow. He was the Numitor, and he had a duty… at least until what was left of his pack rejected him. After that, he’d find Danny… one way or another.

  He snarled at Lachlan with an old, familiar threat in his throat and left them to their fight. Monsters and Sannock stumbled out of the near-whiteout snow around him as they tore at each other, bloodied and muddied and gone again. The ghost hounds blew through on the storm, all wind-sketched ears and bloody maws as they harried anyone they came across. Jack could hear them above him, howls shredded on the wind, as they hunted the bird.

  The one person Jack didn’t need to look for was Gregor. He might not know where his brother was, but they were both headed in the same direction.

  Da found them first. He hit Jack shoulder first out of the storm and bowled him over like a pup, ears over tail in the snow. It was so like the games they’d played years ago that Jack was paralyzed for a second as his brain tried to make sense of it.

  If Da remembered the same thing, it didn’t give him pause. He wrapped his hands around Jack’s long, narrow head and squeezed.

  Gregor saved him. Again. He hooked his arm around the Old Man’s throat and throttled him until he let go of Jack to deal with the new threat. As he scrambled back to his feet, Jack groggily made a note to himself to tally who owed what and see who the loser was. He didn’t want to die in debt to Gregor.

  It was stupid, but the old habit of pettiness helped Jack focus. The end of the world might have slipped out of the wolves’ control, the man he loved might or might not die at the teeth of a petty bully, and Da wasn’t dead but a traitor—all of that was so big that Jack didn’t know where to start. A lifetime of scorekeeping with his brother was just an instinct.

  Jack ignored the dull ache in his head and joined
the fight. He sank his teeth into Da’s wrist as Da swung it at Gregor, and he grunted in shock as Da lifted him off his feet. His jaw ached as his weight dangled from it, the hot pulse of his da’s blood on his tongue. Except it wasn’t Da, not the one Jack knew. There was something… gone, new, different… about his scent and the idea of him in the Wild.

  There wasn’t time to put his paw on it as Da swung Jack around and smacked him against a tree. The coating of ice cracked and gouged into Jack’s side. He grunted and lost his grip on Da’s arm, but before Da could rally, Gregor slammed into him from the side and kicked Da’s knee out from under him with the always surprisingly loud pop of a dislocation as the leg bent entirely the wrong way.

  Da howled, wordless and frustrated, and went down to one knee. It wouldn’t slow him down for long. His arm was already healed, the thick rents in the muscle stitched back together. His backhanded slap left Gregor sprawled and bloody in the snow.

  “Da,” Jack said, on his knees in the snow as he forced the wolf down. It didn’t want to go, but for once, he didn’t listen as he shoved it away. He needed to be human; he needed words. Jack crawled forward and reached out his hand. “Da, it’s us. Stop. Let us help you.”

  The Old Man snarled at him with a broken nightmare of a mouth, his teeth broken and crowded with fangs. His eyes were all black and red rimmed, nearly buried under his heavy brows. His body was scratched with a lattice of scars under the filth, where his body had to leave the seams to move onto fresher injuries.

  When Jack tried to reach for him again, Da snapped at him and tore a chunk out of the heel of Jack’s hand. A rough collar around his neck pulled tight, and the inked leather dug into his skin as he strained against it.