Wolf by Wolf

by Ryan Graudin

  His Japanese response: “Not really.”

  They understood each other perfectly.

  The water was seeping through her soles, prying cold into the space between her toes.

  “Three! Enough!” She heard the ferry operator yell in parcel-Japanese and looked over to see the man jabbing his pole into the fourth rider’s chest. A pair of slick cormorants perched at the dock’s end watched on as the rider swore, fenced the bamboo away.

  That voice, that golden hair edging (too long) from his helmet, the broken brown leather of his jacket… the racer on the dock—watching as the ferryman pushed them out into the swirling emerald currents—was Luka.

  So who was behind her?

  A boy, for sure. German according to the armband on his uniform. These were the only two details Yael’s frantic glimpse gave her. All others were lost when Katsuo started speaking again, his voice filled with a venom that made her turn. “You think you can rob me of the Double Cross again, girl? You should have gotten off!”

  She found him holding a blade—the same one he’d used to gut that fish, now aimed high and at her throat. He was only three steps away (a lunge, really, but there would be no lunging on this pile of sticks). Technically Yael could disarm him in two moves, but the raft was narrow, the river deep, the current strong. One slip, one stab meant the end.

  —DON’T MOVE HE MIGHT STRIKE—

  Yael stayed frozen, but that didn’t stop Katsuo from moving forward. The raft buckled too much with the movement; Yael had to clutch her Rikuo’s seat to keep steady. The victor in front of her froze, midstep. His knife curved out of his fist. Both shores, Yael realized, were absent of Reichssender cameras. Katsuo could stab her and get away with it.

  “STILL!” the ferryman snapped behind them.

  Just two more steps now. Half of a lunge.

  —BE STILL BE READY—

  “If you move much more, you’ll swamp the raft.” Her German was slow and insultingly loud, but she couldn’t help herself. The glint in his eyes, the shine of his blade, the very real possibility that he was about to take that next step (hell or high water), that she would fall into the river, into the knife, that it was all for nothing…

  Every one of these things was getting to her, seeping through the cracks.

  “There’s too much weight,” he said, and raised his blade higher. “I should get rid of some.”

  They were a third of the way across the river, edging into its deepest part. The bamboo dipped and bowed, and the ferry operator yelled, “STILL! STILL! STILL!” as Katsuo sloshed forward, centimeter by centimeter.

  “Look out!” a voice called behind her in frantic German.

  Yael braced against the raft. Katsuo conquered the second step. Started his lunge. Vlad’s training burst through Yael’s veins, pushing her limbs into autopilot.

  —DEFEND ATTACK BE THE VALKYRIE—

  She jumped back, bending her hips and vitals away from the blade, blocking its path with crossed-X arms. The bamboo under Yael’s boots shuddered, and there were two voices behind her screaming; river water sloshed up to the hem of her riding pants. But Vlad’s instructions were louder, more present than any of this: “Grab your attacker’s elbow, twist it toward you. Now his blade is at your mercy. You can use it to finish him.”

  Life? Or death?

  —BE THE VALKYRIE WHAT IS YOUR CHOICE—

  Not yet. Not him. (What would it mean, anyway?)

  Yael threw the boy back, over, off.

  SPLASH! The river swallowed Katsuo: hungry water, greedy currents. He was already a ways from the raft when he resurfaced, gasping with shock, anger, cold. Floundering in all the constraints of his riding gear.

  The raft was floundering as well. Wild, dipping rebounds from the sudden shifts of weight. But the ferryman knew his craft, knew the waters, knew how to make peace between these things. He muttered in his native tongue, something along the lines of crazy riders, and pushed them on.

  After a stunned moment Yael finally looked over her shoulder in full, saw the rider in the stern position: crooked nose, twisted mouth, whitish hair peeking out from under his helmet. Felix—magical, sticky-burr Felix—always showing up in places he wasn’t supposed to be.

  He’d been the last rider out of Hanoi. Not so far behind in terms of distance, but everyone had been striving at the same speed, the highest gear. How did he pass ten riders? Beat Luka to the raft? She hadn’t even seen him at the fuel stop.…

  “How are you here?” she asked.

  He dodged her question. Volleyed it back. “You think there was any way I was letting Luka Löwe get on this raft with you? What would’ve happened if it was him behind you and not me?”

  Yael’s eyes trailed the leaf-littered currents, curving around the closest peak.… The Japanese victor was nowhere to be seen. Her gaze snagged the dock’s end, where Luka stood, watching. A string of riders gathered behind him.

  Had that been his plan? Shove her between himself and Katsuo? Let his two biggest competitors duke it out, then shove the winner in the water? No, he’d tried his best to board. And he wouldn’t have risked upending his own motorcycle, endangering his own place in the race.

  What did it matter, anyway? Yael was at the front of the pack again. Poised to win.

  Felix looked over his shoulder, at the sliver of Luka, pulling away, away. “That’s that, then.”

  Their raft scraped against the rocky shore, beached to a stop. And because no one was ahead of her, because no one could move, Yael stood a moment more, watching Luka, surrounded, yet so alone at the end of that dock.

  The river hushed and tore between them.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she was leaving something behind.

  “That’s that,” she said, and turned away.

  CHAPTER 29

  NOW

  MARCH 28, 1956

  HANOI TO SHANGHAI

  She was ahead.

  And it was good.

  They made excellent time from the river, driving down the dirt road as fast as their bikes would let them. Hours passed and the mountains vanished, dropping back into the earth. The fields of rice stretched on, farm after farm after farm. Village, village, town, city. The road’s dirt changed to asphalt, and their Rikuos made even better time, ripping away from the orange haze sunset, into the nightrise.

  When the darkness swallowed all, Yael flicked on her headlamp and kept going. (There was no dust to stop her.) She would not risk her lead for anything. Not camping, not food, not sleep. Her only breaks were hasty yet necessary refuels.

  Felix kept steady at her side. Not complaining or yelling when she chose to keep on through the twilight. He simply switched his own light on—lit the road double.

  Yael couldn’t help but let her thoughts turn to what would happen next. After Shanghai, after the barge across the sea, after the finish line in Tokyo.

  Would she tell him the truth?

  Of course not—he wouldn’t understand.

  Would she say good-bye?

  No, that would be giving too much away.

  Just leave him, then? The way Aaron-Klaus had left her—wordless, hanging on an edge she never really could climb back from.

  That was the best option. But it felt so wrong to just disappear.… Maybe after everything was over—the assassination, the escape, the manhunt, and the war that was certain to follow—she could find him again.

  Find him again and tell him what? I’m a pseudoscience experiment gone wrong who kidnapped your sister, skinshifted into her face, and killed the Führer while wearing it. Sorry about that. Oh, and sorry again for the pistol whip. It’s healed nicely, though.

  She could only imagine how well that would go over, given Felix’s record.

  No—the good-bye that was not a good-bye was best. It was all she was capable of, really.

  These thoughts cycled—round and round and round—and the road gaped dark in front of her, open as a wound. Its edges were beginning to smear: tree branches str
etching out too far, flitters like bats around the edges of her eyes. There was a sparking in her stomach, too, reminding Yael that protein bars swallowed at refueling stops were not proper sustenance.

  It wasn’t until Yael pulled to the side of the road and started rummaging through her pannier that she realized how heavy her lids were. Dropping in a way that demanded sleep.

  Felix was yawning, too, as he flipped open Martin’s pocket watch and read the time through the glass face’s spidery cracks. “We’ve got four, maybe five more hours of riding left. Five hours until the sun comes up.”

  Yael dug out a pack of dehydrated meat, struggled to open it. Her fingers were fumbling and all over, drunk from seventeen hours on the bike.

  Felix watched pointedly as she gave up and attacked the wrapper with her teeth. Swallowing pieces of dried chicken straight from the bag. “It’d be best to stop and nap. That’s probably what the other riders are doing.”

  Yael looked back at the road. No lights. Just a darkness that swam in front of her eyes, holding so much (as all dark does): days mixing with lifetimes, swirling with dreams. She could almost hear the howls from her nightmares, pressing into her ears.

  Felix was right. She needed sleep. But this was the ride or die stretch of race. It was not speed that determined the victor now, but endurance.

  And Yael had always endured.…

  The howling only grew louder. Yael was chewing down the final pieces of chicken when she saw the headlamp, rising like a miniature sun. A wrong dawn from the west. The howling grew and grew and grew, not nightmare screams at all, but an engine, raging toward them at the highest speed.

  Yael dropped the food. Her helmet? Where was it? No! Goggles first!

  —GO GO GO HURRY GO—

  Slip. Clip. Snap.

  Too late. The headlamp was here and it was—slowing? The engine’s rabid chorus clicked to a hum, a stop. Her sleep-starved eyes barely had time to process the brown jacket and chapped lips, before Luka Löwe was off the bike, coming toward her, stride by angry stride.

  “YOU! What were you thinking?”

  Felix darted between them, hound-quick and bristling. Luka stopped, but his eyes kept on, over Felix’s shoulder, into her.

  “Your little river stunt didn’t do much good. Katsuo’s still in the race.” He lost no time explaining.

  “What do you mean?” Yael asked.

  He pointed at her. “I mean second place”—and then he jabbed his finger into his own chest—“third. By a long, long shot. The ferryman unloaded Katsuo’s bike from the raft once you left. Katsuo swam to shore and had it started by the time I’d crossed because someone didn’t have the foresight to cut the fuel lines.”

  “Oh,” was all she could manage. Katsuo. Ahead. Still. Swimming. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? (Because she’d been too busy thinking about a victory not yet won and what-might-have-beens and staring across the river.)

  Felix didn’t seem convinced. His shoulders were rolling, oiling up for a fight. “Where’s he now, then?”

  “Five kilometers back. Having a verdammt picnic on the side of the road,” Luka growled past Adele’s brother. “I would’ve handled him myself, but he’s got his posse with him. We need to knock Katsuo out before Shanghai. We can use the pincer move from Germania—”

  “The one you tried to wipe her out with?” Felix cut in. His knuckles popped into fists. “I don’t think so. My sister’s endured enough from you.”

  “Endured?” Luka snorted the word. His dark eyebrows vanished under his helmet line. “From me?”

  Felix broke. (Safety off. Hammer cocked. Trigger pulled.) He flew at Luka; his elbow hooked viciously around the victor’s neck. Crushing him in a headlock.

  “Don’t act like you didn’t attack her in Osaka!” Felix hissed into Luka’s ear. His nostrils wide, his neck vined with veins. “When you found out she was a girl!”

  It was hard to tell in the dark, but Yael was fairly certain Luka’s face was growing purple: dusk to violet to eggplant as he wheezed and scuffled. “Felix, let him go! We need him!”

  “NO!” His yell carried all the force of that first Prague punch. “This is for your own good, Ad. I’m protecting you!”

  Felix’s anger was a match, but hers was a barrel of gasoline. All that roiling blackness sealed shut, waiting for the right moment (that right, ballroom moment, in front of the Führer and the world) to explode.

  Yael had to shove him away if she wanted to accept Luka’s alliance and reach the ballroom at all. “I don’t need your protection, Felix! I never needed it.”

  Felix’s face went slack, stunned at these words. His arm loosened just a little too much. Luka leapt on the moment: heel to the shin and fist back up to Felix’s nose. There was a crack and a swear, and Luka stepped free. Massaging the base of his throat.

  “Is that what she told you?” he rasped at Felix, then turned and looked at Yael. “Is that what you told him? That I attacked you?”

  If only she knew what Adele had told Felix. If only she knew what had really happened in Osaka. Yael’s truthless heart pumped full of adrenaline and not knowing.

  Blood—dark and worming—started to creep out of Felix’s nose. He didn’t seem to notice the red or the pain. He stared straight at the girl he thought was his sister. “So that was a lie, too?”

  “That’s rich.” Luka cleared his throat and spit at the ground. “I’d expect a little less surprise from someone whose sister hijacked his identity and left him for the vultures in the desert a year later.”

  Felix Wolfe’s face turned savage: snarling, blood around the muzzle. “Shut your Scheisse face!”

  “Or what? You’re going to put me in a headlock again?” The victor smirked and turned his back to Felix, all his focus on Yael. “Look, as much as I’d like to continue this little sibling bonding session, Katsuo will be finishing up his food any moment now. And we need to be ahead of him for the pincer move to work. Katsuo will think we’re playing chicken, and he’s too proud to bow out like you did. We’ll be able to reach his handlebars. You in, Fräulein?”

  “Reach his handlebars and what?” She stared back into those blue-storm eyes, too hard to navigate without getting lost in. “How do I know you won’t steer him at me? Crash us both?”

  “I’ll let you do the wrenching if it would help you feel better. Ladies first and all that,” Luka added. “I’ll herd Katsuo in your direction and slam on my brakes at the last moment. You grab his handlebar and steer him off the road.”

  “And what happens after that?” she asked.

  “Then we have a fair race. Just us and the road.” He smiled. The action split his dry lips. “I have to say, I’m looking forward to it.”

  And behind him, Felix was shaking his head, giving her the same look he had on the plane: Don’t do this; don’t trust him.

  But what choice did she have? With Katsuo so far ahead and Tokyo so close…

  The howls were rising again in the distance. No longer the stuff of nightmares, but waking danger. Here, real, now.

  Katsuo was coming. She was out of time.

  Yael started walking toward her bike.

  “Don’t do this, Ad,” Felix called after her. “You’re risking everything.”

  Not everything. For her it was still squared: everything, everything.

  “I have to,” she told him.

  “There are other ways—”

  “Like what?” She cranked the Rikuo’s engine.

  Felix’s blood trailed like ellipses: out, out, out, dripping off his chin, into nothing. He looked so at odds in the dark, staring hard at Luka’s back as the victor hopped onto his bike. Revved his own motor.

  “Don’t go with him. Please, just—just trust me,” he offered pathetically.

  But Yael was a girl long past trust (the needles had flushed it out of her, along with so many other things), and it occurred to her that—maybe, really, still—Felix Wolfe just wanted his sister safe. That—maybe, probably, actua
lly—there was no other way. This was it. If she didn’t follow Luka now, all would be lost.

  The howls swelled. Katsuo’s headlamp broke over the horizon, carving out their silhouettes. Until they were nothing more than shadows themselves.

  “We’re Wolfes,” Felix pleaded. “We have to stick together.”

  But the iron in Yael’s blood did not bind her to Felix. No. She was bound to so much more: a people, a world.

  All must not be lost.

  Luka pulled out onto the asphalt and looked behind his shoulder. His bike idled, waiting for her. Yael took a deep breath and followed.

  CHAPTER 30

  NOW

  MARCH 29, 1956

  Every nerve, every molecule that was her, felt electric, frying at a hundred thousand watts, as Yael urged her bike into the road. Luka drove on the left shoulder—fast enough to use his highest gear, but slow enough to let Katsuo catch up to them. Yael rode parallel (but a bit ahead, so Katsuo would not spot the trap), her wheels shredding through the dew. Meter by meter, minute by minute, the headlamp behind them grew brighter, and the roar of Katsuo’s engine swallowed all.

  His posse (Takeo and Iwao) rode behind him. Close enough to reassure him, too far away to do much good when it came to it. Their lights were bits of stardust while his was a meteor: blazing, ready for impact.

  Here came the tricky part. Yael needed three sets of eyes: one for Katsuo, one for Luka, another for the road ahead. Instead she settled for fractions of each view through her smeared goggles:

  A bend in the road. Katsuo revving forward, past Luka. Luka closing in, just centimeters from Katsuo’s chrome tailpipe. Another bend. Luka again, jerking away from Katsuo with a roar of his engine, baiting him, just as he’d done with her outside Germania. Katsuo, attention fastened on Luka trying to decide whether or not to crowd him off the road. Too distracted to notice Yael making calculations of her own in front of him.

  It was time to strike.