White Wolf

by Lauren Gilley

  That morning, at the stream, she’d thought seriously about shooting him and then taking off on foot. She’d rather face a firing squad than the indignity of a Chekist’s attentions again. But fear had gotten the best of her – no matter how often she told herself she didn’t care what happened anymore, she hadn’t been able to stand the idea of death – and so she’d waited. And he hadn’t done anything but talk to her. Kindly, even.

  She watched him now, stolen glimpses across the breakfast fire. Feliks had skinned and gutted the rabbits and roasted them on a spit; they were thin, but delicious, and she ate quickly, greedily, lest someone took her share, noting that Nikita ate little, and said nothing.

  During one of her covert glances, she saw Kolya elbow him in the ribs, and Nikita took a mechanical bite.

  A wheezing breath and a rustle of fur coat announced Monsieur Philippe’s arrival as he sat down on the rotten log beside her. He was another mystery – the biggest, actually. Whatever Sasha was, he was still Russian. But Philippe was French. And cheerful. He spoke Russian flawlessly, but his presence here conjured more questions than answers.

  “Good morning,” he greeted her. “Excellent rabbit, don’t you think?”

  It was warm, and fresh, and greasy on her tongue. She nodded. “Yes.”

  He leaned in close, until their shoulders touched; it was an effort not to shift away. “Sasha was an accomplished hunter back in Siberia,” he said, tone confidential, “and now he’s unmatchable.”

  “Hmm.” Probably because he had a pack of wolves helping him now. Which was apparently something these people all took in stride.

  “I expect you’re quite the hunter yourself, my dear,” he continued, and the rabbit turned to lead in her stomach.

  “A marksman,” she corrected. “Not a hunter.”

  “Is it really so different? Men are just animals, after all.”

  When she glanced at him, she found his brows lifted, smile curving his small mouth.

  It was difficult to swallow. “No, I guess it’s not.”

  She turned her head away, not wanting to look at him any longer, and saw that Nikita was staring at her.

  She ducked her head and kept eating.

  ~*~

  Sasha had never known a feeling like this. He wanted to call it friendship, but that wasn’t right. Every friendship he’d ever maintained had been built upon mutual interest, interaction, and play. That could be said of this, too, but there were no words between them, no differences to overcome. The wolves were his pack, and he loved them unconditionally. There was no room for jealousy, or anger, or fear. He spoke to them – soft, soothing, affectionate words of praise – and they spoke back with little whines, and the warmth of their bodies against him at night, and the gentle press of wet noses into his palm. No dog and master had ever shared this kind of bond. They knew him, his wolves, and he knew them.

  Knew that his alpha female was the cleverest hunter, the most ferocious, but that two of the beta males were stronger, quicker. Knew that his little omega was nervous, sometimes fearful, and that he needed lots of ear-scratches and kind murmurs. He knew that they had accepted Nikita, Ivan, Feliks, Kolya, Pyotr, and Katya as their own, but that, like Sasha, they didn’t like the fire-ash-smoke smell of Monsieur Philippe. It couldn’t be helped, though – Philippe was a mage just as Sasha was a wolf; they were the left and right hands of a more powerful being. Familiars, Philippe called them, each with their own special gifts and uses.

  At night, when the others were huddled in their tents and bedrolls, Sasha and Philippe sat by the dying fire, under the stars, the wolves keeping watch, and Philippe educated him in the true ways of the world.

  “Once there were twin brothers,” Philippe said, voice becoming resonant and sure; a story-teller’s voice. The last log on the fire collapsed, sending up a whirl of sparks that lifted into the night sky like fireflies. “Left abandoned on the bank of the Tiber River, they were suckled by a great she-wolf, and taken in by a shepherd and his wife.”

  Sasha blinked, surprised. “Do you mean–”

  Philippe smiled. “Romulus and Remus, yes. The founders of Rome. The immortal children of the god Mars. Immortal warriors – and vampires.”

  The little omega snuggled in tight to Sasha’s side, and he found that he believed this story, no matter how impossible. He was living proof of the impossible.

  Philippe heaved a deep sigh that was echoed by the omega. “Remus is long dead, I’m afraid. Killed by his brother, as the story goes. Not quite when, however. But that’s a story for another time. Before his death, Remus sired two purebred vampire sons, half-brothers: Vladimir – Vlad III, you know, The Impaler – and Valerian. Both are still living. Vlad’s been buried for a long time, and Valerian – well, again, that’s a long story.

  “But I’m getting off topic. Yes. My point is that ever since the she-wolf nursed the twins, there’s been a complementary relationship between wolves and vampires.”

  Sasha felt the fine hairs stand up all over his body. “Are there–” his throat felt tight “–are there vampires here?”

  In the last of the firelight, Philippe’s eyes seemed an unnatural color. “There is one. A very powerful one. He slumbers, underground. When the time is right, we shall wake him, you and I.”

  “Why?”

  Philippe sat forward, face and voice earnest. “Look around you, Sasha. The world is on fire. This war, this bloody war, is the product of idiot mortal short-sightedness, and the evil of men like Hitler, and Stalin. The immortals of the world have been asleep; they’ve been hiding in the shadows, denying what they are. Men can’t end the war that they started, but we can. We can end it once and for all. It’s high time the powerful held the power.”

  The breeze stirred the coals, glowing a painful red inside the ring of stones. An owl hooted softly.

  “What about my friends? My family?” Sasha asked, quietly, hand tightening in the omega’s ruff.

  “If we end the war, then we’ll save them all. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Yes.” And it was.

  ~*~

  They marched north through the forest and fields for a week, the sky beating at them with sun and snow in turns, so that the ground was a slushy, muddy mess. Katya was tired, and cold to the bones, and sore. Aside from Sasha learning how to better become a wolf, she hadn’t figured out what any of this was about. She’d stopped questioning it. As Kolya put it tersely at breakfast one morning, she should be happy she wasn’t dead in an anti-tank ditch somewhere.

  Truthfully, she wouldn’t have cared if she was, but she’d nodded, because she sensed that he hated her.

  So she found solace in the fact that none of them had tried to rape her, and that Sasha and his pack of wolves kept them well-fed with fresh game. Pyotr and Sasha were sweet and friendly, and the old man liked to ask her questions about her training. It wasn’t the most terrible situation of her life – not by a long shot.

  And then there was Nikita, who looked at her in a way that made her stomach hurt.

  She was lulled by the repetitiveness of it, and she let her guard down. And so she wasn’t on her toes the day they came across the scouts.

  It was mid-morning. An overcast day, the clouds low and heavy, cold wind tugging at their clothes. They walked in what had become their usual formation: Sasha and the wolves fanned out in the front, on point, the others in the middle, Katya in the rear…and then Nikita behind her.

  She’d told him a few days ago that she was fine, that she didn’t need guarding, and he’d given her an unimpressed look and stayed where he was.

  She’d be loath to admit that, at this point, the regular crunch of his footfalls was a comfort, especially when the wolves started circling and barking, like they were doing now.

  She pulled up short. “What is it?”

  Nikita stepped up beside her, frowning. “Dunno. Sasha!” he called through cupped hands. “What are they on about?”

  Sasha drew in a deep breath and mad
e a canine chuffing sound on the exhale, frowning. “Humans.”

  “Hunters,” Ivan said with a dismissive wave. “Goatherders. Something.” He laughed when one of the beta wolves, a mostly-black one, shoved his head into his hand and whined. “Leave off, beast. Sasha, tell them to go on.”

  Sasha ignored him. “I don’t like it,” he said, still testing the air with his nose. “They’re armed.”

  “As hunters are,” Feliks said. “Come on. What’s more dangerous out here than you?”

  Sasha stood poised a moment, head cocked to the side. A white wolf on two legs. And then he took off at a lope, his wolves with him.

  “Sasha!” Nikita called after him. But he was gone, light-footed as a deer, slipping between two tree trunks and disappearing. “Fuck.”

  Katya felt a tightening at the back of her neck. Sasha was always running off into the woods, but they hadn’t encountered another human in all their hiking.

  “Hunters wouldn’t be this far from civilization,” she said.

  Nikita shrugged, but the movement looked stiff. “They might. If they’re trailing something.”

  They stood side-by-side, staring across the bleak landscape. Wind scudded low, rippling tiny waves in the mud puddles. Nothing stirred: not a deer, or a rabbit. Between the trees at their backs and the trees Sasha had ducked between lay a slick, open expanse of ground. It was a wide-open clearing, where nothing and no one could take cover. If someone was approaching from the west, she’d have a perfect view. The tree behind her was a sniper’s dream nest.

  Katya slung her rifle over her back and took hold of a low birch branch.

  “What are you doing?” Nikita sounded almost worried – it must have been a trick of her imagination.

  “I want a good shot, if it comes to that. Here, give me a boost.” She lifted her left foot, not expecting him to help – and was surprised to feel his hands cup her knee and hoist her upward. He looked strong, and proved stronger, propelling her to the next branch up.

  “Thanks.” She scrambled for a handhold, found it, and pulled herself the rest of the way up into a perfect perch in a crook near the trunk.

  His hand landed on her boot. “Alright?”

  When she looked down at his face – and God, the aristocratic cut of his features, the way his gray eyes had a blue cast in this light – a jolt of awareness crackled through her. The weight of his hand, of his gaze, of his breath turning to frost in the air between them. She wanted, absurdly, to shove his black fur hat off his head and spear her fingers through the dark waves of his hair, feel the warmth of his scalp in her hand. Wanted to climb inside his coat, up close where his heat bled through his clothes, smell the sweat and dirt on his throat.

  The sudden, visceral urge horrified her. She’d been close, skin-close, to a Chekist before. When she closed her eyes and turned her face away from Nikita’s concerned gaze, she could see the other face – the crooked, nicotine-stained teeth, the harsh lines around his mouth, the grimace of effort as he tore at her skirt…

  She made a frightened, involuntary sound in her throat.

  “Katya.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, but she wasn’t. Because she’d allowed him into a dark and secret part of her psyche. A damaged place in which rape and intimacy had become so tangled that she wanted to sink her teeth into his skin for reasons that shocked and confused her.

  “Katya.”

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, and this time she forced herself to be, taking a deep breath, fixing her gaze on the clearing ahead of her. She unslung her rifle and snugged the stock into her shoulder.

  He lingered at the base of the tree; she heard the quiet rush of his breathing. It took every ounce of self-control not to look at him again, to keep her thoughts fixed on the threat of strangers.

  Then, thankfully, Kolya said, “Nik,” and he walked to join the others.

  They were conferring in a huddle, and her breathing was mostly back to normal, when the first gunshot cracked through the quiet forest.

  She watched one of the men go down in a flutter of black and her heart lurched up into her throat. Her palms filled with sweat and she juggled the rifle for one horrifying second. Oh God, oh God…

  All her training, all her rifle-polishing, all her hours spent staring at the ceiling and telling herself that she was icy-cold and indifferent now, and one shot was enough to send her reeling.

  No!

  No, she thought. No. She wouldn’t fall apart. This was what she was for now.

  She shoved down her panic and took stock, just as another shot rang out. Ivan was down, and two of his friends had ducked down to shield him. Kolya and Feliks, she thought. Nikita was shouting something, waving with one arm, drawing his gun with the other.

  Another shot rang out – she heard it whizz through the limbs somewhere below her – and someone yelled with alarm. They had to get Ivan to cover…and they were, working as a group to wrestle the big man into a shallow depression off to her right, Nikita laying down cover fire with his Nagant pistol, Monsieur Philippe holding – impossibly – fire in each hand.

  She needed to find their attackers, and did so. She spotted a group of uniformed German troops hunkering behind tree trunks off to the west, close enough to hit them with handgun rounds.

  Katya took a steadying breath. Germans. Scouts. Brave idiots who’d crossed the river somehow and snuck behind enemy lines. Nazis. She’d been groomed for this, and she knew what to do.

  She was dimly aware of the Chekists shouting, returning fire. Getting Ivan safely down into the ditch – he was alive, moving, cursing a blue streak. But she couldn’t let herself dwell on that right now. She leveled her sights on the nearest German. Young, just a boy, red-cheeked, wild-eyed. They hadn’t expected to come up on a group of secret police, but they were going to take the chance to kill them all the same.

  She found his face through the sights. Sketched the math in her head, the trajectory, the wind speed. Quick, quick, easy as breathing. She pulled the trigger, the rifle kicked, and he fell.

  Click-clack. The hot cartridge bounced off her wrist as it fell. It burned her, but it wasn’t as hot as her blood was now. Now that she’d killed, and all vestiges of fear had burned off her skin like steam.

  She’d had one round in the chamber, which left her with five more. Two Germans stared at her, slack-jawed, while a third knelt above their fallen comrade, gloved hands hovering over the ruin of his face.

  She took a second Nazi, a vivid flowering of blood as the round went through his throat.

  She searched for another shot, calm down, sunk deep in her own head. A sniper and not a woman, not anyone who was afraid.

  It was quieter now. The Chekists had reached a safe distance, ducked down into the depression, their voices just a murmur at her periphery.

  The Germans weren’t retreating, and she found that odd. They weren’t firing at her, either. By this point, they had to have at least some idea of where the rounds had come from.

  Why weren’t they running? They should have been.

  She lined up her next shot...

  And someone grabbed her foot.

  She knew immediately that it wasn’t Nikita, his warm, questioning weight from before. This hand gripped her ankle tight and yanked.

  It happened so fast she barely had a chance to make a grab for the branch beneath her, and then it was too late, her hold too tenuous and his too strong. She toppled out of the tree and landed on top of her attacker.

  They hit the ground with an oof. His elbow caught her ribs and forced all the air out of her lungs. Something hard cracked against her skull and her vision went white. The world tilted.

  No, no, no.

  Her hands went slack and the rifle slipped, slipped…

  No!

  She lay on her back, the German poised above her. She couldn’t take a breath, and she couldn’t move. For one awful moment, she could clearly see the rage and fear in his eyes, the veins standing out in his temples, the gleamin
g black enamel cross at his throat.

  Then her lungs opened and she gulped in a deep breath, and he was just another man on top of her. Another man trying to hurt her.

  He grabbed her wrist and pinned it by her head, shouted something at her in German, his breath hot, spit pelting her face. He had a gun in his other hand, a slim black pistol that was much more expensive and effective than her own Nagant revolver.

  But that didn’t matter, because she had a hand free, and she wrapped it around the hilt of the knife strapped to her thigh.

  His knee pressed into her ribs.

  And she flashed lightning-quick to drive the blade between his.

  The knife stabbed the breath out of him; she’d hit his lung, and could hear it, the awful wet wheeze, feel the rush of breath across her face. His eyes bugged and he coughed, his grip going slack on her other wrist.

  She shoved him off of her and scrambled to her feet, head swimming, world tilting crazily. She was aware of shouts, but they seemed a long way off. Saw movement, but only at the periphery, unable to see anything clearly but the German who pawed at the knife she’d driven into him.

  She braced a hand against the tree trunk to steady herself, drew her revolver, and shot him in the face. There was a meaty thunk as his skull shattered, an explosive spray of blood. And then he was still.

  Someone drew up beside her – Nikita. He held his own gun, breath coming in sharp pants, brows knit together with concern. “You alright?”

  She nodded…leaned to the side and vomited.

  She needed to ask him about the rest of the Germans, to see if Ivan was alright, help them devise a plan for whatever followed.

  But she was victim to her heaving stomach, gagging until her eyes watered, clutching the rough bark of the tree to stay upright.

  A cool hand cupped the back of her neck, and to her shame, she didn’t shake it off; she needed it too badly, its solid, comforting presence, keeping her grounded as the shakes overtook her.

  “Are you hurt?” Nikita asked, and she managed to shake her head.