Dawn Thompson (13 page)

Joss knew what he needed. If his suspicions were correct about Lyda, Cora would be safe enough now, during the day. Blizzard be damned, nothing but a long-legged run on the fells—in the body of a sleek, fleet-footed dire wolf, with the cold wind cooling the fever in his blood—would put things to rights for him. He burst into the yellow suite where Parker was brushing his greatcoat.

“Leave that,” he said, and the valet stopped brushing midstroke. “You’re about to have your initiation as my confidant. I need a run on the fells.”

“In this?” the valet breathed, incredulous, the greatcoat dragging on the floor as his posture collapsed. “There’s a blizzard out there!”

Joss smiled. “You sound just like Bates,” he said. “He never could understand that a dire wolf doesn’t feel the cold the way a human does.”

“What must I do, sir?”

“Not much. I cannot shapeshift clothed . . . well, not conveniently. I will leave my togs where I can find them when I return. There is an entrance below that I have always used for such outings. Bates was aware and saw to it that it was unlocked for my return. Do you know of it?”

“No, sir,” said the valet. “Only that you always returned from below stairs.”

“A wonder that you never sought it out.”

“Oh, I did, sir, but I was never able to find it.”

Amused by the valet’s guilelessness, Joss threw his head back in the first spurt of real laughter he’d indulged
in since returning home. It felt good, but was short-lived. The day was slipping by, and if he was to be back before dark, he had to make haste.

“I thank you for your honesty, old chap,” he said, “and for keeping my secret all these years.”

“Oh, it wasn’t my place to do otherwise, sir.”

“Just the same, it is appreciated, and I would have it continue. That is vital. Now, if you will follow me . . .”

Taking up a candle branch, he led the valet down the back stairs, through an archway, along a narrow corridor that ran parallel to the servants’ quarters, where the walls and floor were thick with cobwebs and dust. Chambers there, once used for storage, were empty now.

“Back in my great-grandfather’s day,” he said, “this portion of the Abbey was elegantly furnished and reserved for the servants of guests attending hunting parties here. All that was before your time, Parker—and mine, of course. It’s gone to ruin now. I doubt it could ever be refurbished, by the look of it.”

“But there is no door, sir,” the valet said. “This corridor ends in a solid wall. I know. I’ve seen it.”

“Watch,” said Joss. They had nearly reached that point, and he stopped before the last door on the west side of the corridor. Glancing behind to be sure Parker was watching, he depressed a carved circle motif in the center panel. A click was heard, and when he pushed gently on the right side of the door it swiveled open.

Parker gasped.

“Come,” Joss said, entering the chamber. It was barren of furniture but for an old four-poster bed, nightstand and chair draped with Holland covers, and an antique candle stand. A large hearth dominated the room, and Joss strode to it. He handed the candle branch
to Parker. “Hold it down here,” he said, squatting on his haunches inside the vacant hearth. Swiveling a decorated bar at the bottom of the fire wall, he freed the metal back panel and swiveled it as he had the door to the chamber. Parker gasped again as a tunnel was revealed that gradually inclined upward. It was small, too shallow for a man to stand upright in, but just right for a wolf.

“The tunnel rises to the height of the second floor of the Abbey,” he explained. “No drifts have ever reached that height, nor are they ever likely to, so there is no need of shoveling.”

“But the height, sir—to exit at the second floor!” the valet said. “Is not such a jump dangerous?”

Joss smiled. “My father built this run for me,” he said. “He used it also on occasion. It is quite safe. In wolf form I can jump great distances. At the end, there is a leather flap that swings both ways. From the outside it looks like part of the architecture. I have been exiting and entering this way since I was thirteen years old.”

“What is my function?” Parker queried.

“As I said, to see that the door to this chamber is not locked when I return,” said Joss. “Depressing that circlet will lock as well as unlock it. Also, be sure the exit in this fire wall is not barred when I am out of the house. I will leave my clothes in this chamber when I go, and dress again when I return. I will lock the fire wall and the chamber door before I reenter the house proper, so if you ever find it open, you know that I am still out of the house. And, of course, you needs must simply be aware . . . in case anything untoward should occur.”

“Untoward, sir?” said Parker, going white of a sudden.

“My father was once shot in his wolf form,” Joss said. “That occurred before this tunnel was built, and, I have
no doubt, was one of the reasons for it. If I am behindhand returning, someone needs to know where to look. That someone, Parker, is now you.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“It really entails naught but my announcing to you that I am to have a run. You do not even need to come down here . . . unless, well, you know. That you are made aware is just a precaution. So! You may go back to your duties.”

“W-when should I expect you to return, sir?”

“Before dark, ideally,” Joss said, “in time for a nice hot bath before dinner at eight, at the very least.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joss waved Parker off then, watching from the chamber doorway as the valet shuffled back along the corridor whence they had come, puffed with pride at his new situation. Content that the man would guard the secret with his life, Joss turned back, tugged off his boots, stripped naked, and surged into wolf form.

A quick lunge with his great front paws and a nudge with his shoulder put him through the fire wall. His extraordinary vision let him see through the velvet blackness as he loped up the tunnel, his nostrils flared with the scent of mildew, dust and general neglect. Having reached the leather flap, he forced air through his snout to clear it of the acrid stench, and burst out onto the snow-covered ledge. He inhaled the cold, clean air. It crackled in his nostrils, and tasted spicy-sweet from the pines hemming the westernmost ridge of the tor.

He scarcely thought about the drop as he leapt from the ledge and sailed through the air. The snowdrifts were heaped so high that it wasn’t as far a distance as past runs. Plowing through them, he hit level ground running on all fours, streaked through the pines bearding the ridge, and bounded down the tor.

The snow was falling softly now. Flakes as big as shillings sifted down on a gentler breeze instead of the bitter wind that had been assailing the Abbey since he’d come home; a sign that the current storm would soon end. The sun made no appearance, but if it could be seen, it would be somewhere midway between zenith and horizon. There wasn’t much time. Dusk would too soon swallow the light, and it would grow colder, if such a thing could be.

Running on, Joss scarcely noticed the temperature. But for the visible puffs of white breath coming from his flared nostrils, he would hardly have been aware of it at all. He, like his father before him, loved his wolf incarnation—loved the freedom of streaking through the wood in winter, through the woad field beyond the kirk in spring and summer, and through the black heather on the moors in autumn, when the wind set the stalks clacking and spread the last sweet scent of the dying blooms through air already heady with the aroma of bonfire smoke. It was good to be alive—good to be in tune with nature, to be welcomed by the elements in such a tactile way.

Stopping below at the edge of the moor, he raised his head and howled toward the heavens. It was a deep, guttural exclamation of pure feral maleness, a chestbeating declaration of virility—or would have been if he’d had fists to beat with. The howl lost nothing for lack of them.

Prancing now, he walked out upon the fell, only to stop in his tracks, listening. Another howl answered. An echo? The acoustics were right for it. His ears pricked and, scarcely breathing, he strained for sight or sound of the author. After a moment, the other howl came
again, and the hackles shot up along the ridge of Joss’s backbone, feathering the great silver ruff about his neck and standing the short hairs on end upon his head.
That was no echo.
It came yet again, and his lips curled back exposing fangs dripping with drool. The howler was not a dog, it was a wolf, and the only wolves he knew of in this domain were
vampir.

Snarling, Joss followed the sound, slinking into the open. His great paws scarcely made a sound. His keen eyes, trained in the direction of the last howl, were sensitive to the slightest movement, monitoring every swaying tree branch and whorl of snow that turned blue-white as twilight approached. He snarled again. What had been meant to release him from the cares that strung him as tight as a fiddle bow had turned into another stress, its severity twofold. He had to face it, and there was precious little time to do so if he were to return to look after Cora before sunset.

His snarls were involuntary spasms now, rage expanding his barrel chest. All at once he was seeing the landscape before him as if a curtain of blood hung before his eyes. To the south, a tributary of the river Eden snaked lazily through the snowbanks at the edge of a denser forest. It was narrow at this pass, and frozen. He tested it. It probably wouldn’t have been firm enough to support the weight of a man, but it seemed solid enough for a wolf, and he trod gingerly, his sharp claws clacking on the ice.

The howl came again, closer now, and he stopped in his tracks. It was an odd feeling, standing upon the frozen stream. The water in motion beneath the groaning ice reverberated through his paw pads like blood pumping through veins. At first he thought his ears deceived him,
but the howl came again and there was no question—it wasn’t the same wolf! There were two of them, and they were nearly upon him, one approaching from the west, the other from the east. Joss’s head snapped back and forth between the sounds. The light was almost gone. There was no time for this.

He’d just crouched to spring onto the far bank of the stream when a hulking mass of muscle, fur, and sinew impacted him hard, driving him down through the ice crust, which gave with the impact. He fell through into frigid water that siphoned off his breath and turned his howl to a screeching whine.

He struggled to throw off the wolf on his back and at the same time scramble up onto the snowdrift that edged the stream. The water wasn’t deep enough to drown him. He was a strong swimmer, but the weight of the other wolf on his back made exiting the stream awkward until he rolled over in the water, forcing the hanger-on to lose its grip. Reaching the edge of the bank, he turned like lightning and lunged, sinking his fangs into the attacking wolf’s throat.

For a moment, Joss thought he had the edge. The other wolf’s moves were awkward at best. They had wrestled out of the water and up the bank, and thus far he had managed to prevent the attacking animal from biting him. His gray fur was frosted with ice, though his blood was boiling with rage. Which one was this: the coachman or one of the others? Fury moved him now. But in losing his concentration, he also lost his balance, and negotiating a deceiving pocket of snow he slipped and went down hard upon his side.

A third wolf appeared, advancing from the west. It seemed to have come out of nowhere, but to Joss’s surprise
it did not attack him, but rather his aggressor. Leaping through the air, the great white wolf with a silvery streak down its back slammed into both of them, taking down the other wolf.

Gore splashed and spurted in all directions, peppering the twilit snow with blood that looked black in the fading light. Through the racket of snarls, a voice rang in Joss’s ears saying:
Get up, young whelp! This is not the only danger in these woods.

Taken aback, Joss blinked. What was this, a wolf speaking in his mind?
Who are you?
was all he could make his mind reply.

You would like to solve that mystery, eh?
said the other.
Well, you’d best help me, then.

How do I know that you will not turn on me afterward?
Joss persisted.
I do not know you.

Ahhhh, but I know you, young whelp. I knew you before you were born. Hah! I knew your good mother carried you in her womb before she knew it herself!

There is only one who knew that,
Joss said,
and you could not be he. He is on the other side of the world.

Ships sail around the world, young whelp
, said the wolf.
But no matter, your parents will vouch for me. Now, let us finish this so we can be about that, hmm?

Joss joined the foray against his better judgment, and the first wolf soon fell back in the bloodied snow. He and the white wolf stood facing each other, their chests heaving.

The white wolf shook his entire body, ruffling his thick fur, tinted blue in the darkness.
Come,
he said,
It is not safe here
.

I am not going anywhere with you,
Joss said.
Besides, I need to see who this is that we have killed.

Oh, he is not dead,
the other said.
He needs staking and decapitating for that, and you cannot do that in wolf form. I would if there were time, but there is not. Now, come!

Joss cocked his head, studying the other. It was beginning to sink in. How often his parents had spoken of Milosh, the Gypsy who had saved them and who shapeshifted into the form of a snowy-white wolf. Could it really be . . . ?

And why not, young whelp?

Milosh is a vampire-turned-vampire-hunter from Moldovia at the foot of the Austrian Carpathians. What would he be doing here?

The other wolf growled, backing Joss up a pace.
Just like your father,
he said,
a skeptic till the end.

It was awkward conversing with his mind. Joss had never done it before, and it both thrilled and frightened him. Could the strange wolf be telling the truth?