The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) Read online

  As Maxwell approached Nadia, she scolded him, “Serves you right. Better get the doors locked.” They went from door to door, bolting them. With the doors secured, they put up their tent and unfolded their sleeping bags, preparing for the long night.

  * * * *

  Lance Herald pulled his cell phone from his pocket and, seeing the number, considered letting the call go to voice mail. He pressed TALK. “Hello, Carmen.”

  “Don’t sound so thrilled.”

  He sighed wearily into the phone. “If you’re calling, it’s either because you think I need to retire or because you found something. I don’t want to know either way.

  “But you do want to know, or you would have never called me in the first place.”

  “Alright. What is it?”

  “A favor.”

  Silence sliced across the phone. Carmen thought she lost the connection, but then she heard him breathing. “What’s the favor?”

  “Take a ride with me tonight.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I might need back up.”

  * * * *

  Muffled voices drifted to him from the hall. Collin eased the coal room door open to hear more clearly. The voices were less muffled but still indistinguishable. He stretched his legs out of the crouching position he was in, and moving stiffly, walked to the boiler room door. The voices, it seemed, were not right outside the door. He pulled the boiler room door open.

  The voices drifted toward him from the main corridor. He recognized Proctor Roth’s voice. “Vincent and Griffin can take any boys they want—other than those injected last night. They aren’t ready.”

  “Who are among the most recently injected?” the other voice asked, though Collin didn’t recognize it.

  “Tony, Mark, come here,” Proctor Roth barked. Collin felt his stomach quake as his friends’ names were called.

  The man instructed, “He’ll take these two and three more.” Collin could hear the man walking away, but he stopped. “Is everything else prepared for tonight? The moon will be up soon.”

  “Students have dispersed all over the city,” Proctor Roth replied.

  “Should be quite a night,” the man reveled.

  What’s tonight? Collin wondered. He eased the boiler room door shut, and crept back to the coal room, pulling that door shut as well. He had to wait for the cover of darkness.

  Then he would run for it.

  * * * *

  The night of the March full moon was unseasonably mild. Even the mostly clear sky did not add a wintry chill to the night. As the moon rose, drifting across the sky like a phantom, the sun descended in the west, blazing pink and red along the wisps of clouds. The moon tore a bright bullet hole in the fabric of the horizon, gliding over trees and adding its ghostly light to the land below. Mist gathered and settled near water; night birds stirred uneasily in the trees and sailed into the air. The peacefulness had the sensation of glass whirling on its edge, having fallen, landed, and waiting in the next moment to explode.

  In a subdivision in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, a dog barked at the uneasy feeling in the air. Inside one of the homes, Darrin Nichols grabbed a bag of low-calorie popcorn from the microwave. He dumped it in a bowl, and hurried to the couch where Jenna waited. She snuggled into him as he settled onto the couch and pressed play on the DVR. Quiet nights like this held such new meaning for him. Those two days when he thought he had lost her clung to him like cobwebs, and for her, he could tell it was a fresh open wound.

  Jenna was seeing a psychiatrist. She had flashes of her two days missing, and in her mind, she was attacked by a monster. The psychiatrist explained the phenomenon to Darrin, letting him know that Jenna would deal with the real events “in time.” She, otherwise, seemed to be herself (save some expected distance). He told himself daily to be patient, to give her the space and time she needed to heal.

  He pulled back as she wiggled on the couch next to him. “Are you okay?”

  She bolted upright. “No.” She looked from side to side, almost seemed panicked, and Darrin wondered if she was having a flashback. She doubled over in agony, a shrill cry erupting from her as she slammed her hands on the coffee table, sending popcorn across the floor.

  “Jenna!”

  Her breath came out in short, sharp pants. “Get the baby! Get Sable and leave,” she gritted through the pain. She crumbled to the floor, curling into a ball, screaming. Sable’s cries echoed her mother’s, bleating through the baby monitor. Darrin grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. “All circuits are currently busy,” a recorded voice informed him. Darrin stared at the phone for a moment in disbelief. He dropped the phone as Jenna shattered the night with a banshee wail.

  “All circuits are currently busy,” the voice repeated.

  Jenna grasped at her shirt and pulled it apart, popping the buttons. Her skin flushed red, and sweat poured over her brow. Darrin cocked his head as he noticed her skin rippling and bones shifting. “Jenna? He whispered. He heard Sable’s cries and remembered Jenna’s command.

  Darrin raced up the stairs, grabbing his car keys on the way. He pushed through the door, grabbing only Sable and her blanket. He looked around the room—no time for anything else. He raced back to the stairs, slipping, and landing hard on his butt. At the bottom of the stairs, he hesitated. He looked toward the great room.

  Jenna stood once again, though he could no longer recognize her. Most of her features had vanished inside of fur and snout and claws and fangs. She stumbled toward him. Sable screeched as Darrin raced to the garage door. He pushed through the door. He reached for the garage door opener with one hand as he held Sable and pressed the automatic car door unlock on his keys with the other hand. He slammed the garage door shut behind him.

  He opened the car door and set Sable in the front seat. Darrin glanced at her car seat, and then forced her onto the floor of the passenger seat; there was no time for the car seat. “Sit down,” he insisted. He turned the key and the engine roared to life. He hit the gas, and the car lurched backward as he fled the garage.

  In the wash of his headlights, the front window of the house shattered and Jenna—no, not Jenna, he thought—leaped through the window. Darrin pressed the accelerator as the werewolf lumbered toward the car. He watched as it neared the windshield. His car bumped over the curb and onto the street. He pushed the car into drive and floored the accelerator. The car sped away as the werewolf followed, falling behind in the red glow of his tail lights.

  * * * *

  In the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Rindy Kemper waited for her sister Rebecca to finish getting ready for their night out. She looked out the window of Rebecca’s loft. Rindy envied Rebecca’s view. Rebecca was always a bit more adventurous, and, Rindy thought without malice, that it had bitten her. She had always worried about her younger sister. Rindy was looking forward to a relaxed sister night out: dinner, a glass or two of wine, and talking. It was their first night out since Rebecca’s attack.

  But she seems to be pulling through okay, Rindy thought. Maybe better than Mom and Dad and I are. She shook her head and smiled at her sister’s resilience. The moon glimmered on the river and its reflection on the glass buildings shimmered and waved. Rindy looked down onto the busy streets, washed by the hollow light of the moon.

  “Come on, Rebecca,” she called loudly, hoping her sister could hear her in the bathroom.

  “Almost rea—” Rebecca’s voice choked off in agony.

  Rindy spun and darted toward her sister, kicking the coffee table in the process and tripping at the pain in her shin. “Bec?” She called. She pounded on the bathroom door. “Open up.” She could hear Rebecca inside, gagging and crying. “What is it?” Rindy hit her shoulder into the door, but the solid door held. “I can’t get in.”

  “Oh God!” Rebecca cried in a shrill, anguished voice. Rindy cowered at the door as she heard glass shatter and porcelain brake. “Run, Rindy,” Rebecca sobbed from beyond the door. />
  Outside the bathroom door, Rindy’s face flashed from confusion to terror as she heard cloth tearing, and then, panting, and finally, growling coming from inside the bathroom.

  She backed away from the door, voiceless. Her heels clicked on the cement floor as she backed down the hallway. The first thud against the door made her scream. The wood splintered, and the savage cries of what was inside rose to a roar. Another thud and the wood broke. Rindy saw her first glimpse of the creature. Her mind felt triple exposed as horror movies, and the footage she had seen online recently, and the reality in front of her all collided, and she thought: it’s real.

  Rindy ran straight for the front door. She heard the werewolf bounding down the hallway. She reached the door, pulled it open, and then slammed it shut behind her. It locked automatically. She stumbled backward, tripping on her heels, and falling flat to the floor. She looked up at the large metal door—an old warehouse door—and she thought this certainly would hold. She climbed to her feet and realized that she was sobbing.

  A neighbor pulled his door open. “Are you okay?”

  “Lock yourself in!” Rindy shouted, wishing she could be calm, find words to express what was happening. The door to Rebecca’s apartment vibrated as the werewolf pounded against it.

  The man looked from the door to her. “What’s in there?”

  “I don’t know. Call the cops.” She backed away from the door, fighting the hysteria she felt at realizing that what was in there was her sister. “I have to go,” she said and realized her car keys were still inside the apartment. The man slammed his door as he was told.

  Rindy walked to the stairs and began to climb to the rooftop garden. She pushed the door open and looked out over the city. The moon seemed so close and large she could touch it as it spread its power over the night.

  Rindy didn’t notice the chaos at first. She was too caught up in her own fear and confusion.

  Screams, at first just a few, rose over the hum of traffic. Then more voices joined the choir. Sirens wailed around the city. The first explosion made her stagger back from the edge of the building where she stood. Had it been a car or a house? She wondered.

  Chaos mired the street below her as people, some bloody, fled into the night. Behind the fleeing people, werewolves crashed through plate glass windows. They bounded down the sidewalk. They tore their way free from cars, where they had transformed.

  Rindy clutched her mouth, stifling her own scream, as she realized Chicago had been overrun by monsters.

  * * * *

  Haley watched Mitch through the window of the gym. He talked casually with a woman behind the counter before throwing his hand up in a wave goodbye. With his gym bag slung over one shoulder, he walked out the door and into the night air. He tossed his bag in the trunk of his car. A moment later, his car pulled out into traffic.

  “Now we’ll see what he’s up to,” Helena said in the passenger seat as Haley pulled out behind Mitch. Haley kept a safe following distance as Mitch wound through the city. Mitch parked outside of a non-descript warehouse. Haley pulled to the curb about a block away. Light flicked on their windshield as he locked his doors and then entered the building.

  After a few tense moments, Helena said, “Let’s get out and look. This waiting is killing me.”

  Haley was doubtful. “Maybe we should just stay put.”

  “You stay put,” Helena said as she exited the vehicle.

  “Damn,” Haley said as Helena vanished around a corner into an alley. She pulled her phone out, trying to decide whether to call Maxwell. She decided against it and tucked her phone in her pocket. The car clock ticked off another minute that felt like an eternity, and Haley climbed from the car. She ran quietly, and she hoped stealthily, as she approached the alley. She watched the door where Mitch had vanished, and it remained closed. “Helena?” She hissed down the alley. “Where are you?”

  Shadows stretched menacingly from the corners of the poorly lit alley. Barred windows sat at street level; an overflowing dumpster rested about halfway down; an oily sheen coated puddles on the asphalt; and a fire escape clung to the side of the building out of reach. “Helena?” She called again. She took a few tentative steps into the alley, and realized, ironically, she was happy for the light of the full moon. She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door where Mitch had gone. Still no movement.

  Her footfalls echoed in the alley. In the distance, she heard police sirens.

  Suddenly, a door slammed behind her, and she spun, pressing against the wall, as Mitch walked past on the sidewalk. A moment later his car pulled away. “Shit!” She fumed. More sirens joined those crying in the night as she turned back into the alley. “Helena, we’re losing Mitch!”

  Her foot kicked something.

  At first, she thought it was just a discarded shoe, until, she realized, it was Helena’s. “Helena?” She said again, her voice vibrating with fear. “Are you in here?”

  More sirens filled the night, and suddenly, she realized, sirens seemed to be blaring from every direction. The night song cried out like a perfectly practiced choir: the soprano of police cars and ambulances; the alto of car and house alarms; the tenor of fire trucks.

  In a far, dark corner of the alley, she saw movement. Even as she croaked, “Helena,” she knew that the shadow was far too large to be her.

  Green eyes blazing, the beast moved forward, crawling out of the shadow. Haley took a step backward, not sure where to run. She stumbled over Helena’s shoe again as she walked backward. The werewolf crept closer, deliberately pacing its encroach. Haley’s breath came out in short, sharp stabs,

  Her voice shook with her cries. She tried to make her mind focus. She cut her eyes to the door Mitch had exited. If she tried it, and it was locked, she was dead. She considered the car, about half a block away, and she doubted she would ever make it to the car in time.

  Breath hissed from the werewolf’s mouth like steam from a broken radiator. It scratched at the asphalt twice, and then suddenly it lunged.

  Haley screamed.

  * * * *

  Collin could no longer wait. He looked at his watch. It had to be dark. Collin looked up the chute leading toward the outside of the building and began to army crawl upward. At the top, he worked his hands forward and pressed against the door sealing him in. He knew the door could be bolted, but most he had seen on old houses were just caulked shut. He banged his palms against the cold metal door, and it seemed to move incrementally.

  With another hard shove, he felt one corner on the hatch budge, and he knew—gloriously!—that the door was caulked shut. He pressed both hands into the corner, and with a sound like slicing, the door worked free from the caulk and flipped open. The night breathed cold air across his cheeks. Collin slid from the chute. He looked down at the soot covering his clothes. Camouflage! Collin rubbed his hands inside the chute and spread the soot across his face and arms. He pushed the door shut and ducked down within the evergreen bushes surrounding the foundation.

  Collin turned his attention toward the river. The reflection of the full moon shimmered on the water. He began to stand when a howl pierced the night. Collin pressed against the building, turning his head upward. The howl was coming from above him, from a room.

  Another howl joined the first. And another. Dozens of howls filled the night, and fear galvanized Collin into a full sprint away from the buildings. He slipped on the frosty grass, and turned to look back at the school. Backlit in the windows, werewolves moved in the buildings. He heard shattering glass, realizing the werewolves were leaping free.

  “Fuck,” he muttered as he darted for the street. He no longer cared to hide; he just wanted to flee. Hot tears of panic stung his cheeks, and his breath seared in his chest as his feet pounded on the pavement. In the distance, car headlights shimmered, coming toward him. He considered that it could be someone from the school, but the more immediate fear of what he had seen compelled him. He ran toward the lights, and as the car approached, he
waved his hands in an attempt to stop the car.

  The Lexus slid to a stop at the berm of the road. A woman rolled down the window alongside him. “Do you need help?” She asked.

  “Please,” Collin begged. “They’re after me?”

  “Are you from the school?” She inquired, unlocking the door.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Get in!” She hastened.

  Collin slammed the door shut, and before he fastened his belt, she was turning the car around. “Am I too late?” She asked.

  “Yes,” he sobbed.

  “Then you’ve seen the—werewolves?”

  A great sob burst from his mouth, and he almost unintelligibly uttered, “Yes.”

  A silhouette moved along the edge of her headlights as she completed her turn. The woman screamed, and then something struck the side of the car. The side window shattered and the car slid off the edge of the road. She gunned the engine, but the tires slid in the muddy bank.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered as a group of werewolves closed in on the car.

  * * * *

  Jason flipped a few pages in his magazine and then angrily sent it sailing across the loft to land by the window. He tossed his reading glasses off, and they landed quietly on the sofa. His anger was less directed at Ilene and the others. They had sought to protect—no shield—him. He was angry with himself. What about me is so recalcitrant, he wondered, that they thought I couldn’t handle reality? He snorted, when he considered how absurd the reality was: werewolves exist, but not only do they exist, but they have targeted my family. He thought of Teen Wolf and shook his head.

  He glanced at the magazine sprawled on the floor, and he stood to fetch it. Kneeling down by the window, he noticed a sudden shift in the tone of the city. The activity no longer moved at a steady hum; it had taken on the staccato of a phone signal fading in and out. Jason gazed out the window: people walked hand-in-hand, cars whizzed by, lights gleamed. But something inspired fear, like a dark object on the horizon he could not quite name.

  Suddenly, people running, shouting zipped past the couples walking hand-in-hand.