The image of Mr. Volkov’s torn body returned. No, it was murder. The man had owned wolves for five years, at least. Why would he fail to feed them, and then traipse about amongst them like a tasty, living snack? He would know better. That meant that someone had killed him and tried to cover it up, using the wolves to erase the evidence of their crime.
When had he been killed, then? The wolves had been howling the last few days. If all that extra noise was out of hunger, how many days had the man actually been dead?
A sound stopped me mid-stride. I braced my fur-covered hand against the wall and held absolutely still. Something was coming down the tunnel. A hurrying, scratching sound that brought to mind the image of a large dog hustling across a slick floor. I could hear toenails clicking on stone and huffing, snuffling breaths. I imagined the dog sniffing and wagging as it followed my scent…unless...
The picture in my head suddenly changed. A long, lean body covered in shaggy fur streaked with gray, brown, and black. Pricked ears and hard, yellow eyes. The wagging tail straightened out behind the animal and the head lowered while the shoulders crouched slightly. The animal in my mind still followed my scent, but the body language was all wrong. Less: “Scratch my tummy, you are the best person in the world” and more “Come, my comrades, she is weak and frightened and alone in the darkness below.”
Then the image of the animal changed again. Not just one wolf, but many populated the fertile movie theater of my mind. How many wolves had Kirill Volkov owned? I knew he’d had a pack, but what did that mean? I looked back at the tunnel. Why hadn’t I gone back for that blasted taser? I broke into a run.
For several moments the sound of the pursuing creature was drowned out by my own hasty footfalls. Then something burst around a corner behind me. I caught a glimpse of gray fur as I shone the light, even as I ran. The narrow beam bounced around, but that didn’t keep me from identifying my pursuer.
Pricked ears, a heavy, gray body, and fangs bared in a toothy grin.
I sprinted down the tunnel. I expended everything left in my tired body and more. Even though I knew I should turn and face the wolves, I couldn’t help myself. Even though I couldn’t breathe as my legs pounded faster than my lungs could suck in air, I ran on. I skidded around a long corner, glanced behind to see the wolf bounding forward, and smacked into something solid.
I crumpled to the tunnel floor and then the wolf was upon me.
It pounced onto my chest and went straight for my face. I could feel the heavy paws digging into my ribs. Thick fur touched my cheek. I kicked the animal in the stomach and rolled away. It yipped, but then pounced onto my back. A cold nose shoved against my neck and I screamed and rolled again. The wolf dove for my face as soon as I exposed myself. I twisted away. The wolf was too fast. I cringed back, waiting for the terrible fangs to bring blood and pain and death.
The wolf lunged forward. I felt the warm drip of saliva as it licked my face and neck. I gave one more feeble kick, knowing that it would do little good. The wolf licked me again. It licked my ears and my face and slobbered my hair until my hat fell to the floor. The wolf pinned me down with both front paws and licked and licked and licked.
I batted away the slurping tongue and squinted up at my attacker. The wolf had fangs, it was true. But she also let her jaws hang open in a doggy grin and wagged a fat, curly tail while she howled and licked me senseless.
I shoved her aside and sat up.
If Chobo was here licking me…then that meant the thing I had run into was probably…
I jumped to my feet and glanced at the mound of clothes lying on the tunnel floor. It moaned and sat up.
Chobo rushed over to give aid. This was mainly accomplished with a good deal of licking and wagging and some enthusiastic “wooing” howls.
Liev Alkaev sat up.
Our eyes met.
He shoved the dog into a sit and ruffled her furry ears. But he didn’t look at Chobo. His gaze remained on me. “Faina, you are no end of trouble. At least I found you. Mr. Volkov left something with my father for you and—”
“He’s dead.” I whispered as I slowly backed away.
“What? How?”
“The wolves are lose and they think I killed him and—” His handsome face blurred before my eyes as everything finally caught up to me and took hold. The cold and the running and the wolves and the dead man. It was all too much.
I glanced at the lantern he carried and caught a glimpse of myself in the reflective glass. Horrible. My hair was a nest of tangles and dog slobber. I looked down at the beautiful white fur of my valenki boots and saw a small fleck of blood.
“—um, my hair doesn’t normally look like this and there are wolves and, and, and—” I spun away from the friend of my youth and simply ran. I was five turns down the tunnel before I remembered my tunnel survival plan. Go the same direction until I found something. Oops, it was too late now. As the way bore deeper into the mountain side I couldn’t help but notice how the ice crystals clinging to the tunnel walls grew thicker the farther I ran.
Soon I was walking.
Nothing had eaten me or made any snide comments about my hair, but I was also completely and hopelessly lost.
7
My Stalwart Companion is a Big, Fat Weenie
I wandered so long that I was almost relieved to hear the sound of pursuit. I stopped and leaned against the ice-crusted walls, waiting for the creature to catch up. Wolf or dog, I had no energy left to fight my fate. I leaned my cheek against the bitter cold of the tunnel wall and braced myself to either be slurped or devoured.
Chobo rounded the turn, tail wagging like a curly flag of fluff. She was incredibly pleased to find me. Even though it took a heap of energy I didn’t have to make her sit, I was glad to see the chubby husky again.
I scowled down at her.
Chobo gave me a loud “woo wooo woooo” for a hello. There was something weird about this dog. Several of the trappers in town had teams of huskies. Was it that Chobo was so much fatter than those sleek running machines? No, it wasn’t just her added girth. Chobo wagged and galloped and wooo woooed through life with a goofy grin and a slurping tongue. I had never met a husky this exuberant. They were usually more…wolfy, work-focused, and distant. Odd. I gave her a final pat and set out down the tunnel.
A howling grumble made me stop and turn.
Apparently, Chobo did not approve. She growled down the tunnel, bounded up, gave my face a slurp, and then turned and trotted off in the other direction. When she got to the turn she looked back over her shoulder. Was I coming? She seemed to ask.
Hmmm…should I rely upon an ill-mannered animal to guide me through the frosty catacombs? Why not? I had no idea where I was going. Perhaps my furry friend was smarter than she looked.
Goofy Chobo might be, but her nose was superb. She gallumped down tunnel after tunnel until the frost covering the walls began to thin. Eventually, she led us to a narrow stone stairway with just a blush of pale light shining down upon the jagged steps. Chobo shoved ahead and thundered up the steps. A moment later she came barreling back down. She crashed past me and crouched behind my leg whining and cowering and generally looking exactly the opposite of the scrappy sled dogs that I’d never seen run from a fight.
Well, this was encouraging.
I looked back down the long dark corridor from whence we’d come. I looked up at the softly glowing stair. The moon was out. It was deep night and the storm must be over. But what on earth had spooked my shaggy guide? I could guess but tried to remain optimistic.
Perhaps Chobo was afraid of birds or cobwebs or cups of steaming hot chocolate. I set my soft valenki boot upon the stair and climbed as silently as I knew how. A little peek wouldn’t hurt.
A little peek most certainly can hurt.
My amateur reconnaissance revealed seven full-grown wolves prowling about the courtyard just waiting for a fat dog and her ill-prepared compatriot to venture forth to be devoured. They had thick gray coats with streak
s of brown, black, and white scattered throughout. Their build was tall and lean and their lines were clean and wild. Some scented the area at a crouch, nose to the ground, angular shoulders hunched low, bushy tail dragging behind muscular hindquarters that seemed bunched and ready to spring. A few seemed to be watching and waiting for a call to action.
One particularly large wolf with a dark coat was looking into the shadows where I hid. His ears pricked forward, his slender nose twitched, and his flat, yellow eyes seemed to peel back the darkness strip by strip.
I ducked back into the stair.
We didn’t have to leave the tunnels right now.
I mean, I could use with another rest and Chobo looked positively worn out, poor girl.
We retreated to the bottom of the steps and back a couple of turns. I looked down at the animal cowering at my feet and decided that some training was in order. This ridiculous dog kept showing up, the least she could do was make herself look a bit more imposing.
There was a totally nasty chunk of dried fish in one of my pockets. As hungry as I was, I had not broken my Christmas Eve fast with the mold-covered morsel.
Instead, I waved it in front of Chobo’s nose and gave a command. “Snack time!” I ordered in a firm tone. I made her stand and pulled on the sides of her face until her fangs were exposed.
Chobo wagged and licked my face.
I demonstrated a sterner visage, growling and snarling on my hands and knees beside her.
Chobo cleaned my ear.
I snapped my teeth and growled in an increasingly fierce manner until finally Chobo’s enthusiastic woo wooing morphed into a feeble snarl.
“Good girl!” I stuffed the moldy fish down her throat and patted and hugged her until her tail was a flurry of wags.
Training had taken a fair amount of time and so we ventured forth once more. Me in the front, brandishing an antique flashlight and Chobo skulking behind, trembling and flattening her ears into the wimpiest doggy expression I had ever witnessed.
The moon hung huge and round in the winter sky, so bright it threw shadows across the deserted courtyard. More importantly, the wolves were gone.
Chobo and I tiptoed into the courtyard, crept past the small, walled garden and through the large main garden that took up most of the castle grounds. The wolf cage was empty.
Something caught my eye and my stomach clenched up tight as though I had just taken a plunge from a cliff. The door in the outer wall hung ajar. I had left it open. Now a pack of angry wolves were loose in the castle and it would be my fault if they slunk through that door and headed straight to town.
I took a step toward the thick wooden door. If I got it shut in time, perhaps the wolves could be contained.
At that exact moment, they came out of the shadows. Long, lean bodies crouched low over the ground, they crept toward me. Their yellow eyes were hard and intent, their body language clear as an arctic evening bright with stars.
I was not a foolish teenager wandering the castle grounds in search of shelter and gainful employment. I was food.
These pets were predators first and the whole pack only had eyes for me. My every breath and twitch held their gaze as though we were connected by a massive magnet.
Something deep and primal stirred within me. Like the fear of the dark and the cold, and the sound of a footstep behind one on a forest path. I sprinted toward the tunnel entrance, my breaths ragged in the crippling cold. I did not want to be eaten.
“Snack time!” I shouted out to Chobo as I skidded across the icy paving stones and past the open wolf pen.
Instead of turning on our pursuers with a convincing snarl, Chobo hurtled past me, tail tucked and ears flat against her head.
The mind is a funny thing. When faced with the end of my days, one would think I might relive my short and confusing life, or shout out a war cry and turn to battle the wolves. Instead the years of cheesy Christmas carols asserted themselves and I was sprinting, breathless, as my own warped head constructed a Christmas tune to fit my strange predicament.
“Up on the Rooftop” has a nice, bouncy beat, so perhaps that was why I found the tune ringing through my head.
Here come the wolves that growl growl growl
Over the snow drifts howl howl howl
Hide by the castle trembling in fear
Why are there wolves prowling here
Sniff sniff sniff
Fear has made me stiff
Cry cry cry
I think I might die
Over the courtyard
Flee flee flee
Where is the bathroom
I need to pee
It was true. Bathroom facilities were few and far between in the castle gardens and a full bladder did not aid my headlong flight. I continued to run as my brain played to the tune of “Silver Bells” against my will.
Slavering wolves
Hungry wolves
They want to chomp me right down…
No, this had to stop. I did not have time for a Christmas carol breakdown. I focused on where to place my wobbling feet and forced the music from my head.
I missed the stairway to the tunnels. Skittering around the corner where I thought it would be, I found a stair that angled up. I pounded up the stone steps. My chest ached as though I breathed great gulps of fire. My legs were shaking and clumsy with fatigue. This couldn’t last long. At an upper balcony I stumbled up another set of stairs that lay against the side of the long, dark castle. Three empty windows stared back when I finally reached the top. I was on a corner end of the castle. Could I get inside before the wolves hunted me down?
One of the heavy glass panes had shattered. Heedless of the jagged edges, I scrambled through and into Volkov’s castle. The room was dark but heavy curtains brushed against my hair as I slid away. I pressed my back against the far wall and faced the window. Tapestries moved beneath my hands and my own breathing filled my ears.
I held my breath, trying to quiet the sound.
The breathing continued.
I backed into the far corner. Something followed me across the tattered carpet. It bounded over a sheet-draped piece of furniture the size of a loveseat and hit me square in the chest.
Wolf!
Enthusiastic slurping erased that thought.
Not again! I sighed. All of this angst over whether I was being eaten or slobbered was getting old.
Chobo wagged and stole one of my mittens. She pranced around me in the darkness, shaking it as though she had just vanquished the rabid vole of death or something.
I crept to the window and gazed out. The door in the stone wall still stood open. I pressed my cheek against the peeling window frame and shot a prayer toward heaven. Lord, what on earth am I supposed to do?
It was one of those awful times when I actually knew exactly what God wanted from me. It didn’t happen very often and I was starting to think that it never occurred during pleasant circumstances. But the weight on my chest when I stared down toward the wall made it clear. I had left that door open. I must close it.
The weight lifted. My thoughts echoed with words. Words from the ancient Bible hidden beneath the mattress I shared with a girl who moaned and rocked herself all night.
The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry.
I was glad to have the eyes and ears of the Lord, but I was really hoping that He would lend a bit more than that. I needed to walk across the castle grounds while they crawled with wolves and shut that door in the wall before anyone else was hurt.
All I had to help was a moldy fur coat and the wimpiest husky I had ever met.
The Lord better have something else up His sleeve or my valiant escape from the orphanage would be a short and bloody tale that was sure to give listeners horror-filled nightmares.
8
Doors and Gossip and Fleeing the Scene
With a fair amount of trepidation, I opened the door that led deeper into the castle. I had spent at least fifteen minute
s huddled by the broken window trying to plot a course back to the gate in the wall.
The wolf pack was everywhere.
Rasia Volkova was hunting me rather than containing them. She and Igor stomped around the grounds peering into dark doorways and under leafless shrubs. They simply blasted a shot into the air whenever a wolf got too close. Apparently, they considered me the greater threat.
Chobo and I elected to attempt an indoor route to the ground floor before braving the wolf-ridden gardens outside.
For some reason, the word “castle” brought to mind images of shining towers, princesses with ridiculously long, braided hair, opulent tapestries, fine china and gold and such. This was not that kind of castle.
The floors were made of marble tile and several of the rooms we crept past had grand marble fireplaces meant to provide heat and a cheery glow. There was no cheery glow.
The marble tile was cracked and gray with dust. Pillared arches braced the hallway every few feet, their graceful lines marred by falling plaster and mold. The floor was a clutter of dust, splintered boards, and plaster chunks. The exposed walls showed every layer of construction, from the delicate beauty of the original wall paper, to cracking plaster, down to the crumbling brick deep within.
Moonlight filtered through row after row of leaded windows, allowing Chobo and I to creep through the wreckage without having to turn on the ancient flashlight.
I had heard that Rasia Volkova employed a crew to clean the ancient dwelling back in the summer. How did she expect to hold the Christmas gala when the place looked more like a haunted house than a grand estate?
Chobo and I tiptoed forward, past vast oak doors sagging on rusted out hinges and long, torn tapestries rife with moth holes and decay.
As we moved downward, the air began to warm and the rubble disappeared. The cracked marble tiles gave way to a delicate design of polished wood. The plaster was clean and elaborately decorated furniture pieces leaned against the freshened walls. I passed a grand iron mirror that dominated an entire wall. It was guarded by twin chairs of the same metal carved in dainty detail and topped with cushions of velvet.
The Volk Advent Page 4