White Fangs

by Christopher Golden

  Ghost grunted, pivoted on one foot, and headed west, descending the rise in the direction of the tree line. As Louis and the other wolves joined Jack, Ghost began to poke around the woods, stepping into the forest and then back out again, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply.

  "What's he doing now?" Callie asked.

  "Trying to find the trail," the Reverend said. "See if their lair is nearby. The summer days this far north are long, but we have maybe four hours before nightfall. If we can figure out which direction would lead us to the vampires, we can go the other way. We can't be anywhere near them when the sun sets."

  "We don't have a choice," Jack said.

  They all looked at him. Even Ghost, with his wolf's hearing, paused in his efforts and turned to look up at them.

  "Maybe you better explain that," Louis suggested.

  In answer, Jack pointed. "Vampires or not, Lesya's part of the forest is that way, so that's where we're going." Sabine had been right that he had been keeping to the river for as long as possible, but he remembered the general terrain well enough. If they headed northwest, he knew that would eventually come to the hills and Lesya's territory.

  They were all silent for several seconds, taking in the repercussions of that statement.

  "We came up here to kill these vampires, keep 'em out of Dawson," Callie said, one gun still drawn and her free hand on the handle of the other.

  Jack frowned. "We came up here to help Sabine find the answers she's looking for, if there are answers to be found. We deal with the vampires afterward."

  Callie seemed to roll that around in her mind a moment, and then she huffed out a heavy breath. "As long as we deal with 'em."

  "I don't think we're going to have much choice," Jack replied grimly.

  "All right." Sabine gestured into the woods. "Now that we've got that settled, lead the way."

  Jack started down the slope to the northwest with Sabine and Callie immediately behind him. Vukovich, Louis, and the Reverend followed them, the three werewolves talking quietly together. They skirted to the left of the murdered gold-rushers, but came within a dozen feet of the dead woman dangling from the tree. Jack could not help glancing at her. Now that he could see behind the veil of her hair, her dead eyes stared at him, wide with terror and sorrow, haunting.

  Ghost lingered off to their left as if hesitating to follow.

  "You sure I shouldn't put some silver in him?" Callie asked quietly.

  Jack held his breath because he wasn't sure. Ghost's presumed intimacy with Sabine made him furious and he was beginning to think any pretense at rehabilitation was only that. However, as arrogant as Ghost was, it was just possible that he could be right — Sabine might not be able to survive this journey without his protection. He was the strongest and most ferocious of them all, by far.

  Sabine apparently had no such worries. "Not just yet," she answered Callie quietly, knowing full well Ghost would be able to hear her. "But there may come a time."

  Callie laughed softly, breaking the tension. "Well, you just let me know."

  Sabine held Jack's hand tightly, but she would not lean on him. They ought to have been moving more swiftly. If they assumed that the vampires sheltered somewhere not far from the slaughter they had discovered, then any direction would get them further away from the monsters if they moved fast enough. The trouble was, Sabine knew that she was slowing them down. Jack could feel her frustration and injured pride every time she stumbled or had to stop to catch her breath. He could help her up, but she refused to let him hold her up. Several times she had suggested they travel on ahead to Lesya's wood, that she would make her own way and find them there. Jack had been pleased that none of them had even acknowledged these suggestions.

  They'd been hiking low hills, through copses of woods, and stretches of rugged terrain for over an hour, and the further from the river they ranged, the more Sabine's radiant sheen dimmed. Jack noticed something new as well — she looked older. Not by much, especially when compared to what he imagined her true age to be. But there were tiny crinkles at the edges of her eyes that hadn't been there before, and weariness gave her an air of age.

  As they moved up a familiar rise — Jack remembering fleeing over these very hills in his flight from the Wendigo that had first driven him into Lesya's protective embrace — Sabine caught the toe of her boot on a rock and fell to her knees. When Jack went to help her up she waved him off, taking a moment just to breathe.

  He knelt beside her. She turned her face away as if she were ashamed.

  "I'll make it," she said. "I just need a moment."

  Pushing her hair back from her face, Sabine took one more deep breath and got herself up, swaying before she managed to steady herself. When she glanced down at Jack, still on his knees, a tired smile spread across her face.

  "Come along, my handsome man," she teased. "Unless the journey's too much for you."

  "I love you," Jack said softly. He knew she understood the unspoken words, how he wanted to rage to see her suffering so.

  "And I you."

  Jack glanced toward the crest of the rise. Callie and Ghost stood with Louis, watching them with expressions that ran the gamut from curiosity to disdain to worry. Vukovich and the Reverend were looking west, down the hill on the opposite side.

  "Then let them go on without us," Jack said. "They can find Lesya and bring her back here, to you. We can get your answers and then go back to the river . . . and then to the sea."

  "Or she might just kill them all," Sabine pointed out.

  "We've always know that was a possibility," Jack said. "We're banking on her being intrigued by you and not killing us — "

  "She won't kill you. She loves you." Jack frowned. "How can you not have understood this? She never loved me. She just doesn't want to be alone and she needs a man with enough of the wild in him to live the way she lives. Wild enough to stay with her. Someone untamed."

  "You've got that in you," Sabine said, taking his hand as he rose to his feet. "I've felt it in you. You've told me as much."

  "But I've mastered it. This isn't where I belong."

  "No," Sabine agreed. "You belong with me. I won't risk all of this being for nothing. We go on together."

  She clutched his hand and led him up the last few yards of the slope. Heavy with worry for her, Jack went along. Callie and the wolves said nothing — not even Ghost — as they all started down the other side together toward a stretch of forest that spread out from the base of the hill.

  "How much further do ya think, Jack?" Callie asked.

  "Terrain all looks the same to me," the Reverend said. "You really know where we are?"

  "I think we stay out of those woods," Jack replied. "We head that way ."He pointed northwest, where small, craggy hills were dotted sparsely with trees that looked like bent old men who had survived too many Yukon winters. "Miles to go, still, but we'll come to a stream. Beyond that, Lesya's forest."

  Ghost grunted and started northwest without further consultation. "He seems sure to me. Let's get this done before it kills her."

  He clearly meant Sabine, but he did not so much look at her as he set off. The rest of the group followed, descending the hill at a steep angle that was difficult for Sabine to maneuver. With the woods to their left, they reached the foot of one hill and started toward the next rise. Moments later Louis halted and sniffed at the air. Jack tensed. Ghost only paused, nodding in approbation as he glanced toward the tree line.

  Jack followed Ghost's gaze and saw it there, in the shadows the trees threw in the evening sunlight.

  His wolf.

  "Well, well," Ghost said.

  "Friend of yours?" Callie asked.

  "Yes," Jack replied, before he realized she had been talking to Ghost.

  "Friend enough," the former captain said. "The beast saved my life. But for Jack's benefit, not my own."

  What could Jack say to them? Only Sabine knew of his connection to the wolf, this creature that sometimes seemed more
phantom than animal. It was his spirit totem, tied in some way to the essence of himself, and it had saved his life more than once on his first visit to the Yukon. But it had rarely been so bold about revealing itself to others.

  He'd been so distracted worrying about Sabine that he had ceased paying attention to the wildlife in the area, or the dark voids of vampires nearby. Now he felt some of the weight of fear for Sabine float from him. Though the wolf usually only manifested in dire moments, its presence lifted his spirits.

  "Keep going," Jack said. "I'll catch up." The others moved on, Callie keeping close to Sabine's side, Ghost and Vukovich in the lead. But as Jack broke off from the group to greet the wolf — reaching out with his senses to welcome it, and to search the woods beyond for any threat — the animal bolted northwest. In seconds, it had overtaken them all and stood in their path.

  When Ghost and Vukovich did not slow their pace, the wolf began to growl, teeth bared, hackles raised.

  "What the hell's this, now?" Callie asked.

  Jack ran, passing Sabine and the others, overtaking Ghost and Vukovich, and as he approached the wolf it shied back from him, snarling. He skidded to a halt, surprised.

  "It's me," he said, reaching out a hand. So majestic, so beautiful, though smaller than any werewolf it was the most powerful beast Jack had ever seen. They had found each other in the wild, the wolf had saved him, and the last thing it wished for him was harm.

  Yet now it growled, and stalked a step closer to Jack with its teeth bared.

  Vukovich darted by, the transformation from man to wolf rippling through him so that he was half one and half the other. His growl was deep and monstrous.

  "No!" Jack shouted, and behind him Louis was also shouting, calling his crew-mate back. But Vukovich's blood was up. He advanced on the wolf, and the two began circling each other.

  His emotions in turmoil — anger at Vukovich, fear for his wolf, confusion at why the animal seemed suddenly malevolent toward him — Jack rushed at Vukovich. He kicked the transformed man in the hip, trying to spill him to the ground, but Vukovich was fast and supple. He twisted away from Jack's kick and lunged as if to attack.

  "Jack!" Sabine shouted. The wolf struck Vukovich in the side, driving him aside from Jack and down to the ground, teeth gnashing, claws slashing.

  Oh no! Jack thought as Vukovich reared up, his own jaws widening into an unnatural gape. Suddenly Ghost was there, picking up Vukovich and hurling him aside. Vukovich twisted in the air and landed on his feet twenty steps away, but remained crouched down. He hesitated to attack, knowing that Ghost could easily best him.

  "I said the wolf saved my life!" Ghost snarled. "You want to kill and eat Jack, that's fine with me. But you don't touch the wolf."

  As Vukovich reassumed his human form and his lupine characteristics receded, Louis approached and slapped him across the face, cursing him in rapid fire Creole French. The Reverend stood back from the fray, watching warily. He seemed mostly concerned with Callie, and what she would do with her silver bullets now that she'd seen just how monstrous her companions were, but the vampire hunter only seemed to nod and take it in. For now, Jack thought.

  Jack stepped between Ghost and Vukovich, approaching Vukovich and standing close enough to smell the man's breath. "We're all in this together, Vukovich," Jack said calmly. "Each of us has made a choice to be here. But though we seem something like a pack, you stopped living by pack rules when you started following me." Several seconds ticked by with Jack and Vukovich eye to eye. At any moment the werewolf might strike, fingers elongating into claws, tearing out his throat — or trying — but Jack stared at him unblinking. "If you want to change that . . . if you want to settle this according to the laws of the pack . . . we can do that."

  Vukovich blinked in surprise and uncertainty. Then he glanced away, sniffing a dismissal.

  "You're not one of us," he said. "You wouldn't stand a chance."

  "I've killed worse monsters than you," Jack said. He did not take his gaze from Vukovich, and after a moment the Russian turned away. Ghost looked on with what Jack thought of as a kind of dark approval, and it made Jack shudder.

  He strode back to his wolf, which had watched the proceedings with a low, continuous growl of disapproval, ready to leap to Jack's defense. Its behavior confounded Jack. Why would it threaten him at the same time as it wanted to protect him, unless . . .

  Jack gazed to the hills to the northwest, and he knew.

  "He wants us to turn around."

  "What?" Callie said. "The wolf?"

  Jack turned to look at them. "That's why he's come, to keep us from walking into danger."

  Sabine looked stricken. "I can't turn around now."

  "I know," Jack said.

  He approached the wolf. This time it did not lunge toward him, though it continued its low growl and backed up a few steps as if guarding the hill beyond. Jack had not had a chance to completely attune his own spirit to that of the wolf and he did so now, reaching out and matching its breathing with his own, matching its heartbeat with his. Both of their hearts were drumming fiercely and Jack knew it feared for him.

  "There, boy," Jack said quietly, kneeling and reaching out for the wolf. It sniffed his hand and nudged its big head against his neck, pushing against him even now. "We're going ahead. I don't want you hurt. I don't want her hurt. But we're going on."

  He wondered if the wolf could feel his love for Sabine. If it understood. Then he rose, scratching at its ears, and he waved Sabine and the other onward.

  This time the wolf made no attempt to stop them. It paced them, sometimes running ahead and other times searching stretches of woods and vanishing for a time before reappearing. Jack could feel its fear and grim sadness. Nevertheless, it meant to protect him and he was grateful.

  Just over an hour later they came to the small stream Jack had promised, and a strange combination of emotions swept over him. He felt relief, for they would surely be safe in those woods ahead during the hours of darkness, but also a dark foreboding as he recalled the clamoring madness of the girl. Her father was Leshii, a woodland spirit who had traveled across the sea when Russian immigrants arrived in these harsh lands. He still lived, his essence in the trees and the earth of this particular forest range, but his power had faded over many years as fewer and fewer men who believed in him still lived in the region. Now he was only a whisper of a presence, able to exert his influence only sparingly. Sometime far in the future, when he was gone entirely, Lesya would be on her own, and Jack believed it was this knowledge that made her so desperate for companionship. Her magic was in these woods, and if she strayed far from there she lost control over her appearance and her influence over the trees and plants, just as Sabine weakened away from the sea. Sabine had spent many years luring men to her forest and testing them to see if they would be suitable mates . . . and cursing them when they disappointed her. As far as Jack knew, he had been the only man ever to escape her.

  They might be leaving one danger for another, but still he welcomed the sight of that stream. Beyond it, Lesya's power ruled all.

  Sabine let out a sigh of pleasure as she staggered toward the water. She fell to her knees and then slipped into the stream's rippling current, letting it wash over her despite the chill coming on as darkness approached.

  The sun had dropped so low on the horizon that Callie had drawn one of her guns. The vampire hunter looked worriedly at Sabine, wanting only to move on. From everything Jack had told them, Lesya's would be the only safe place in these wilds come nightfall. The werewolves were on guard as well, all of them attuned to the eerie silence around them. A hawk cried in the distance, but it was far off, and they heard nothing else save the rustle of the wind in the trees of Lesya's forest, beyond the stream.

  The wolf stood by Jack's side, but when Jack started toward Sabine, happy to see her even momentarily refreshed, it held back. Its legs stiffened as if it did not want to cross the stream.

  Frowning, Jack looked at the wolf
a moment. When he glanced back at Sabine, he found Ghost blocking his way. The broad-shouldered pirate had not been this close to him in some time and Jack was struck again by what an intimidating figure he was. Thick-necked and broad-shouldered, Ghost had arms solid as the masts of a ship, wide with corded muscle.

  Jack glanced at him but saw that Ghost was watching Sabine with undisguised longing. The water caressed her, soaking her clothes, revealing the outline of her body so that the picture she presented was unwittingly sensual.

  "She'll never be yours," Jack found himself saying.

  Ghost smiled, a low growl in his chest. "Not like this. True enough. But she's more a thing of nature than a woman, as much a wild thing as I am. When she meets your Lesya, she'll understand that. Afterward, she won't be able to settle for an ordinary man. She won't even see you as the same kind of creature anymore."

  Fury burned in Jack's heart and he moved a step closer to Ghost, undaunted by the werewolf's size.

  "She doesn't want you," Jack said with a quiet ferocity. "She doesn't want an animal. Find a she-wolf somewhere, if you're so desperate for a mate."

  "Oh, Jack, you wound me," Ghost said, one hand across his heart, feigning offense. "What about all of your efforts to turn us into men? Does a man not long for love?"

  "Love?" Jack scoffed.

  They both sensed someone approaching and turned to find Callie close enough to have shot either of them if she'd been of a mind to. Her pistol was still drawn, but aimed at the dirt as she studied the two of them with growing impatience.

  "Some men are born to be beasts, but man or beast, both of 'em are alive," she said. Then, with an angry look, she turned and spat before glaring at Jack and Ghost again. "What we face are dead, evil things. Man and beast are gonna hafta stick together. You two clear on that?"

  Ghost glanced at Jack. "I'm clear. You clear?"

  By way of answer, Jack left them standing there, going to kneel by Sabine where she lay in the river. He scooped water up in his hands and drank deeply.

  "Dark soon," he told her.