Cry Wolf

“Did you see any tracks? Any blood? You cut her shoulder open with the rifle, and she was bleeding pretty good.”

“I-” Would she have noticed? She thought carefully about their escape, Charles pushing her ahead of him. “There was blood on the snow where I hit her, and it followed her path into the trees. But we were going through unmarked powder as soon as we were out of the clearing. She must have gone by a different route.”

Charles turned so he faced her. The corners of his mouth were tight with pain, and from the grayish undertone of his skin, she was pretty sure he was in a lot worse shape than he wanted her to know.

“She?” he said softly.

“She. I got an up-close and personal. Trust me.”

“She.” He repeated. “That makes life more interesting. Her coloring was unusual.”

“No.” A

“It’s not unusual for a German shepherd,” he agreed. “But I’ve never seen a werewolf who looked like that. I’ve heard of one, though.”

“Who?”

“Asil’s mate.”

“Asil’s mate is supposed to be dead, right?” said A

“Asil told my father she was dead, and that he burned her body and buried the ashes himself.” Almost as an afterthought, he said, “No one lies to my father. Not even Asil. But that makes the absence of tracks pretty interesting. ”

“What are you saying? She wasn’t a ghost. The butt of the rifle hit something. If Asil’s mate is dead, then her resemblance has to be coincidental.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what she was. But I don’t believe in coincidences.” He started off again.

“I thought most witches were human,” she said after mulling the whole thing over for a while.

“Yes.”

“Then they aren’t immortal. You told me Asil’s mate died a few centuries ago. And this witch isn’t much older than I am. Do you think maybe the wolf is in charge?”

“I don’t know,” he said, holding back a tree branch so it didn’t swing back and hit her. “That’s a good question.”

He fell silent again as he led her up another ripple of land. Mountains looked so simple from a distance, just one long walk up and another down the other side. The reality was a series of climbs and descents that seemed to cover a lot of ground and still went nowhere.

They must have been ru

“Charles?”

“Mmm?”

“I think my socks must have gotten wet. I can’t feel my toes.” He didn’t say anything, and she worried that he might think she was complaining. “It’s all right. I can still go on for a while yet. How much longer until we get to the car?”

“Not tonight,” he said. “Not if your toes are numb. Let me find somewhere that will give us a little shelter-there’s a storm coming through tonight.”

A

Charles put his hand under her arm. “A storm will be good. I heard bone go when you hit that wolf. If it isn’t a phantasm of some sort, it’ll take it a while to repair. A heavy snow and a good wind will keep it from picking up our trail.”

He caught sight of something uphill, and it seemed to A

“Microburst last spring, maybe,” he told her. “It happens sometimes.”

She was too tired to do anything but nod, while he waded through the trees until he found something he liked-a huge tree propped up by another, both of them leaning against a hump of land, creating a cave with an uninviting floor of snow.

“No food,” Charles said grimly. “And you need food to combat the cold.”

“I could go hunting,” offered A

Charles shook his head. “I’ll be damned if I’ll send you off on your own in this country with a storm waiting to unleash-not to mention a witch and two werewolves lurking about.”

He lifted his head and sampled the air. “Speak of the devil,” he said softly. A

“You might as well come out,” Charles growled, looking out into the darkness below their bench. “I know you’re there.”

A

The first thing she noticed was hair. He didn’t wear a hat, and his hair was an odd shade between red and gold; it hung in ragged, ungroomed tangles down his back and blended into a beard that would have done credit to Hill or Gibbons of ZZ Top.

He wore an odd combination of animal skins, rags, and new boots and gloves. In one hand he held the bundle she’d made of the things that had been in Charles’s backpack, and her own bright pink backpack was slung over one shoulder.

He tossed them both toward Charles, and the packs landed halfway between them.

“Your stuff,” he said, his voice at once hoarse and mumbly, with a healthy dose of Te

It hadn’t been the man’s scent that had clued Charles in that they were being shadowed, but a host of smaller things: a bird taking flight, the hint of a sound, and a feeling that they were being watched.

Once the stranger stepped out of the trees, Charles could smell him as he should have been able to for some time because the wind was favoring A

Though he brought a peace offering and said he wanted to talk, his body language told Charles the other wolf was ready to take flight.

Careful not to look straight at him or move in any way that might spook him, Charles left A

It wasn’t as foolish as all that because Charles kept his eyes on A

“I think it would be a good idea to talk,” Charles said. “Would you join us for a meal?” He met the man’s eyes, letting him feel the weight of the invitation that was just short of an order.

The man shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if ready to run. “You smell like that demon wolf,” he rasped. Then he shot A

He sounded like it was the bear that troubled him the most.

“I know,” Charles said. “I was sent here to take care of the wolf.”

The man dropped his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to look Charles in the eye anymore. “Thing is…thing is…it got me, too. Infected me with its evil.” He took a step back, wary as an old stag.

“How long have you been a werewolf?” A

The man tilted his head at the sound of A

“Two months,” ventured Charles, when it became obvious that the other man was too caught up in A