Fateful (7 page)

He lunges at me, gripping my arm in one hand and covering my mouth with the other. My back slams against the wall so hard it knocks the breath out of me. If I thought he was strong before, I didn’t understand the half of it; Mikhail can hold me in place, as though I were helpless. His strength is beyond anything I’ve ever known. Almost inhuman.

“That’s a very sensible plan,” he hisses as I struggle to inhale. “But I can’t have my work here disrupted by a mere woman. So why don’t I make absolutely sure you’ll never tell?”

I go crazy. I claw at him, try to push him back, wrench my neck to the side so hard it hurts. But even when I manage to scream, I know nobody will come. The first-class section of the deck is deserted except for us at this time of night; the third-class passengers probably can’t hear through the door, and if they can, they won’t have the key to get through.

Mikhail grabs my hair, which hurts so much tears spring to my eyes. He’s dragging me down the corridor, and I keep trying to clutch something, anything to hold on to, but it’s useless. We reach a doorway, and he flings it open. Just before he shoves me though, I see the sign: This is the Turkish bath.

I fall through darkness, through heat, as I tumble onto my hands and knees upon a floor of moist green and white tiles. The steam of the bath still clouds the air, as though I’d been tossed into the fog. I can’t see, can’t breathe. The main light is from the hallway, and it outlines Mikhail’s body as he walks inside after me and slams the door behind him.

I expect to be beaten, or raped, or killed.

I do not expect the wolf.

Chapter 6

FIRST I SEE THE EYES.

They’re green-gold. Flat and reflective. It’s so dark I can hardly make out any shapes, at least not yet, but whatever light is in this room gleams in this animal gaze.

I gasp. Hot, vapor-heavy air burns my lungs and makes me cough as I push myself away from those eyes. But I hit something—someone. Mikhail. He’s standing right behind me.

Mikhail’s laughter echoes in the tile room. I scramble away from him, toward the corner, but the eyes follow me. As my own eyes adjust to the darkness, the beast’s enormous shape appears amid the swirling steam. Pointed ears, wide shoulders, muscled legs, thick red fur.

Wolf
, I think, just at the moment it begins to growl.

“He’s hungry,” Mikhail says. He has no fear. “I thought it was high time I fed him. Don’t you agree?”

The wolf lunges at me, and I scream.

I manage to leap out of the wolf’s way, but only by inches—I can sense its weight and speed as it skids past me. I catch a glimpse of its long, white teeth. Quickly I scramble to my feet and run through the opulent bath, looking for a door that isn’t blocked by Mikhail. There isn’t one, but one wall is lined with small wooden booths—for changing, perhaps? I don’t care. They have doors, and maybe I can lock myself in.

When I run into the booth, I want to swear. This wood is so thin, so flimsy. But what did I expect? They’re not meant to provide protection, only privacy. It’s all I’ve got, though. I brace myself, back against the door, and wince as I hear the wolf running toward me—it’s going to slam through, right through the door and through me—

But the wolf doesn’t hit the door. It skids to a stop just short of the booth. I stare down at my feet, terrified it’s going to crawl underneath the small gap there, or just bite at my ankles. It doesn’t. Instead the wolf starts pacing, back and forth. Back and forth. I can hear it panting, its claws clicking against the tile floor.

Though I’m still so scared my whole body shakes, I finally have a moment to think. What is a wolf doing onboard? Surely no wild animals would be brought aboard a ship, or if they were, they would be caged in the cargo hold. This is Mikhail’s doing, obviously, but I can’t imagine why.

Is it the same beast I saw in Southampton? No—this one is sleeker, redder. But it is surely another wolf, and surely now even more dangerous. If only Alec would appear again to help me. Alec, or anyone. But there’s no one here besides Mikhail.

He laughs again, though now it’s quieter—slow chuckling. As though he’s seen all this a thousand times before, but it never fails to amuse him. “How long do you think that will protect you? Three minutes? Five?”

I don’t answer. I have nothing to say to that worthless bastard.

“The wolf is very close,” Mikhail says. “Close enough to smell your blood. But he doesn’t remember how to be a wolf any longer. If he did, he would have devoured you already.”

The wolf’s pacing slows. I can hear it breathing.

There’s a small bench in the little booth, and, keeping my hands braced against the door, I step atop it. That means the red wolf won’t be able to drag me down by my ankles. It also means I can see Mikhail. He’s still standing not far from the door—but he’s taken off his jacket. His white shirt has begun to stick to his body from the moisture in the air; he’s thick with muscles, so rippled and bulky that he looks nearly monstrous. No wonder I couldn’t fend him off. Now he takes off his shoes. As he sees me watching him, Mikhail’s grin widens, and he pulls open his shirt to reveal his hairy chest. I look away so as not to give him the satisfaction. It seems clear enough what he has in mind, but how does he expect to get at me with a wild wolf between us?

Mikhail says, “If he’s forgotten how to be a wolf, then I’ll have to remind him.”

He growls—a low sound like an animal’s. Just like an animal’s. Then he screams.

I turn back toward Mikhail, half expecting to see the red wolf attacking him. But the wolf remains in front of my door, its red fur standing on end, a low growl scratching in its own throat. Mikhail is screaming, louder and louder, naked now, his body exposed—

And changing.

It’s the steam playing tricks on me. The darkness. My own fear. But no. I
see
this. It’s really happening.

Mikhail’s body twists and contorts, shoulder blades spreading outward, back hunching so sharply it’s as if he broke his spine. He falls to all fours, arching his neck back as his face stretches with a terrible sound like the butcher sawing through gristle. His jaws grow. His teeth seem to be stabbing their way out of his gums. And his skin is darkening—no. He’s growing black hair all over his body. Fur.

A wolf
, I think. Another wolf, as enormous as the first, but iron black. And this, I know, is the very wolf that chased me last night in Southampton. For the first time I realize that Mikhail is a monster, a thing out of stories told to frighten children, but it’s real. He’s real, and he’s growling, and he began hunting me before this voyage ever started, and now—now he’s coming to kill me.

The black wolf charges toward my stall, and I cry out in fear as I push back against the door, expecting him to burst through at any second. But then I hear another growl, and the impact of beast against beast.

I look back over the stall to see the red wolf lunge at the black wolf’s throat.

They’re like dogs fighting now—tearing at each other’s flesh, snapping and snarling. The steam is so thick that I can’t make out precisely what’s happening, but the black wolf is larger, and so I feel sure it will win. Yet the red wolf stands its ground, sinking its fangs into the black wolf’s shoulder and hanging on.

For one moment I think the red wolf must be defending me. But how stupid of me. It’s just trying to claim prey for itself.

“Help!” I scream. “Somebody, help!” My voice echoes off the green and white tiles, and I know nobody is close enough to hear. The vapor catches in my throat again, and I pull off my white cotton cap—damp from the steam—and hold it across my face.

The fight lasts for what feels like eternity, though probably it’s only a few minutes. I have no sense of time anymore; there’s nothing in the world but my fast, hard pulse and the trembling in my limbs. Exhaustion has weighed me down since this day began, and now, weakened by fear, I feel as if it’s all I can do to remain standing. But I keep myself braced against that door.

Eventually the black wolf retreats, walking backward from the red wolf, which is panting hard. I hear that sickening sound again, and the wolf twists violently, jerking up onto its hind legs; the iron-black fur begins to vanish, disappearing beneath restored skin. Although I know it’s Mikhail—that this has been Mikhail the entire time—it’s still a shock to see his cruel face once more. His shoulder is bleeding from bite marks, but it’s as though I can see him healing where he stands.

Then his eyes flick up toward mine, and I see that he still has the flat, animal gaze of a wolf.

Mikhail laughs as he grabs his abandoned clothing and begins putting it back on. “Look at you,” he says. “Too stupid to know what you’ve seen. To appreciate the miracle you’ve beheld. And all your pretty golden curls down in your face. Beautiful and foolish—very appetizing.”

“You’re nothing more than a freak from the circus,” I say, with more bravado than I feel.

It outrages him. Mikhail snarls as savagely as he did while a wolf. “You don’t know your betters. You don’t know a god when you see one.”

“You’re no god!”

“My compatriot has worked up an appetite now,” Mikhail says as he buttons his shirt. “And I think he wants you to himself.” He opens the door, letting in a brief shaft of light. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in the morning to gnaw your bones.”

The door slams shut again, and I hear a key turn in the lock. I’m as trapped as I was before, but now I’m alone with only the red wolf.

The wolf doesn’t come after me right away. Perhaps he’s as hungry as Mikhail said, but as he paces I see him limping, clearly in pain. There are droplets of blood on the floor from the fight between the wolves, and not all of that blood could be Mikhail’s. He’s injured. Badly?

Badly enough for me to escape?

Tentatively, I step to the floor, then slowly open the door of the booth. Just as I open it enough to step through, the wolf turns to stare at me. Its green-gold eyes are bright amid the steam. The wolf’s head droops low, like that of any hurt creature, and I remember everything the groundskeeper at Moorcliffe told me about wounded animals being the most dangerous.

I dare not risk it. Instead I dash back into the booth and shut the door again. The wolf steps closer, pacing in front of my door again, and then stopping there—close enough for me to hear its panting once more.

My whole body is shaking from weariness and fear, but I force myself to think rationally. The beast is wounded. Weak. Probably the wolf no longer has the strength to get through the door of the booth, and it’s too enormous to get underneath. No doubt it will recover—and be very hungry when it does—but that will take time. And time is on my side.

Gentlemen from first class will want to use the Turkish bath tomorrow. Probably the bath opens not long after the breakfast service. That means the attendant will come to make this area ready around breakfast time, if not earlier. Help is coming. All I have to do is wait.

The heat is unbearable. Sweat and condensed water have slicked my skin, and it feels as though I can’t catch my breath. I hesitate, because the thought of undressing makes me feel less safe—but the thought of wearing wet, heavy clothes in this suffocating heat is even worse. So I peel off my damp, sodden uniform so that I’m wearing only my thin vest and slip. That’s a little better.

I pull my knees up so that I can lie down on the small bench inside this booth, and crumple my uniform into a ball beneath my head. The wooden slats are hard against my side, but I don’t care.

Outside, the wolf lies down outside my door. I can see nothing except his red fur. He’s waiting for me. He doesn’t mean to let me get away, even when he sleeps.

The thought is horrifying, and it keeps me awake for hours as I tremble and cough. But eventually sleep wins, and I drift into dreamless oblivion.

April 11, 1912

I awake knowing only that I am stiff and uncomfortable, and that I want more sleep. Then I open my eyes, and my strange surroundings—and the unbelievable memories that explain them—jolt me to alertness. I sit upright and push my hands against the door almost before I remember that I’m doing it to keep the wolf back.

There’s light now—thin and gray. Dawn, then. There must be portholes to let the sunlight in. I look down, but the wolf isn’t lying in front of the door any longer. I can’t hear him panting, either, nor any claws against the tile. Might it have left? Died in the night? Or is it at least far enough away that I could run to the door and pound against it? Someone might be closer now.

With a shaking hand, I pull the door open, so slowly that it seems to take forever. No movement. No sound. So I dart out, thinking to run for the door that leads to the hallway and do whatever I can for myself—

—and I jerk to a halt within two steps.

Lying on the floor, entirely naked, perfectly formed, and dazed nearly to the point of unconsciousness, is Alec Marlowe.

The red wolf.

Chapter 7

FOR A MOMENT I CAN’T MOVE; I CAN ONLY STARE. Last night, as I drifted between waking and sleep, I had realized the red wolf must be another version of Mikhail—another transformed human being. But with all his talk about his “friend” and his “compatriot,” I believed it had to be one of the men he’d been walking with that night in Southampton. Never did I suspect Alec Marlowe.

Alec comes to enough to recognize me standing over him, and he rolls onto his side, slightly away from me—maybe to show me that he doesn’t want to hurt me, maybe just because he’s embarrassed to be naked in front of a girl he hardly knows.

Maybe I should run. But seeing how he moves—slowly, still confused—it seems too cruel to leave him like this.

He says, “What are you doing here?”

“You—you don’t remember?”

“It’s all a blur.” Alec tries to push himself up, but he can’t. His muscled arms shake too much to bear his weight yet. “What happened?”

“Your friend, Mikhail—he dragged me in here. He . . . ” How do I say this? “He changed. The two of you fought, and I couldn’t get out until—until you changed back.”