He pulled off one mitten with his teeth. Biscuits squeaked in alarm.
“Trust me,” he said, then stuck the very tip of the safety pin into the very tip of his pointer finger. His finger was too numb for it to really hurt, so he watched the dark bead of blood well up with exaggerated slowness on the pad of his finger. Then he pressed the pearl of blood into the snow.
“I need to talk to you,” he repeated in a whisper.
“Now, what on earth would a nice boy like you want with the war wolves?”
Charlie spun around so fast his coat flew out around him. Standing behind him, head cocked curiously, was an old, rickety wolf.
He had only seen the wolf outside the hospital for a minute, but he was certain that this was a different wolf, its scraggly fur and rangy legs distinct even in the dark. Its eyes, which were even with Charlie’s, were clouded and milky, and it made Charlie extremely uncomfortable to look at them. And there was that smell again, so distinct, somewhere between leather and rotting leaves. A musky animal smell, but with something bitter and metallic underneath.
“I can see you,” Charlie breathed, almost to himself. “I’m really seeing you.”
“You’re to be commended,” the wolf said, its black lip curling in a rictus smile. “It takes a specific kind of stubbornness to decide to see my kind. Most of you humans refuse to remember the sight of us, even as we are right in front of you.” His voice sounded almost velvety, completely at odds with the rest of him. It was a gentleman’s voice.
Charlie thought about that first glimpse of the wolf, how trying to remember it had been like trying to hold Biscuits when she didn’t wish to be held, how the memory had tried to wriggle out of his grasp. Sweat bloomed across his neck and chest and upper lip, despite the cold.
“My name’s Charlie.” He could not think of anything to say, now that a war wolf was actually here, and he decided to stick with facts he knew to be true. “Who are you?”
“I know who you are, Charlie Merriweather.” Charlie found that this also made him extremely uncomfortable. “You aren’t the first Merriweather whose heart my kind have tasted.”
“No one’s tasted my heart,” Charlie said, sounding a lot braver than he felt. But this, at least, he knew was the truth. His heart was making itself known loudly and very quickly in Charlie’s chest. Charlie suspected his heart knew a predator was nearby and would have fled like a rabbit if it weren’t confined to his rib cage.
“No?” The wolf took a step closer to Charlie and sniffed the air. Charlie looked at his ghostly eyes and wondered if the war wolf was blind. “Hmm. Perhaps not eaten. But I can sense a few tooth marks on your heart. Don’t worry, they’ll scar up nicely, just like your grandfather’s. A heart that’s healed is tougher meat—an awful lot of work to soften up. You should thank whoever nibbled on you.”
“No one’s been nibbling on my heart,” Charlie protested. He became suddenly aware of a quiet sound, a bit like someone tearing a piece of metal very slowly. “Who are you?” he asked again, still trying to find the source of the noise.
“My name is Dishonor,” said the war wolf, leaning down on his front paws in a creaky bow. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” His muzzle was completely gray, and when he licked his lips, Charlie could see that most of his teeth were missing. He had only one great fang left, crooked and a little misshapen. He stared at Charlie with his rheumy eyes and Charlie was not quite as certain as he had been that Dishonor was blind.
“And you’re a—a war wolf?” Charlie looked down at his feet and found the source of the ripping-metal noise. Biscuits was planted between his ankles and she was very, very angry.
Dishonor nodded his enormous head. He was drooling slightly, like Grandpa Fitz sometimes did. Charlie did not think it would be wise to mention it.
“But . . .” Charlie trailed off, uncertain. “But the war is nearly over. We’ve won. Why are you still here?”
“War wolves go where the war is,” said Dishonor. “The soldiers, the ones who get cracked open, oyster-like, they keep the war inside now. Like pearls. All of them broke off little pieces of the war to keep with them. Some people stole bigger chunks than others. Greediness should be repaid in kind.”
Charlie resisted the urge to chew his thumbnail bloody. He wanted very much to run, as far and as fast as he possibly could. But the war wolf was still speaking.
“I know you must look at me now and think, Who could fear this old beast? But I assure you that I once was the mightiest of all my pack. I ate for centuries, whole decades of nothing but noble hearts laid out for me like a feast.”
“You look . . .” Charlie tried to think of a polite way to say it. “. . . old.”
Dishonor sighed, and sank down to his haunches, his knees creaking loudly in the open air. “War just isn’t what it used to be. Now, the Templars,” he wheezed, “they knew how to die. There was never a heart tasted better than a shamed knight. Nobody can get that kind of flavor anymore. It’s gone out of vogue, I suppose. Ah, well.” He sighed again, blowing out his lips, white whiskers shivering.
Charlie hmmed in agreement, having very little idea of what Dishonor had just said.
“Anyway,” the wolf said, shaking out his ruff so that a cloud of dust flew off him. “It is the fate of the forgotten that they are never able to forget. The old days, and all that. You had a request, I believe.”
“Yes,” said Charlie, although having seen a war wolf in person now, he was a little less sure of his conviction that they were the sort of creatures he wanted to see ever again in his whole life. Dishonor just stared at him, quite patient. His tail had begun to wag slightly. It did not make him look anything like a dog. In fact, the doglike gesture in such an undoglike countenance made Charlie wish that there were war shepherds, or even war terriers, instead of the beast laid out before him, bony and heavy-pawed.
“I . . . I wanted to talk to you. About my brother. His name is Theo Merriweather and, well, I think you ate his heart. Well, not you, but, you know. War wolves did. I want to know if there is a way to fix him. Please,” he added, Magic Words and all.
“Eaten is eaten, Charlie Merriweather,” said Dishonor, not unkindly. “You seem like a bright young man. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
“But I was thinking maybe I could . . . you know . . . buy it back? Bargain for it?” Monsters in the stories Mum told loved a good bargain, almost as much as they loved contests. Charlie couldn’t think of a contest he was likely to win with a war wolf—maybe a contest of Smallness or Thumbs-Having. Neither did he think he had much with which to bargain. But monsters in stories always wanted something, and Charlie had always been good at finding things.
“I’m afraid it’s almost certainly digested by now.” But Dishonor’s tail had begun to wag just a little faster than before. He seemed like a wolf who was trying very, very hard not to look hungry. Which, of course, only made him look hungrier.
“But what if I could give them something they really, really wanted? What about then?”
“Now, what,” said Dishonor, his tail going still and his milky eyes going very bright, “do you possibly have to offer a war wolf?”
Charlie’s mouth had gone dry. He tried to swallow down all the paper lining his throat, but found he couldn’t. At his feet, Biscuits dug her claws into his ankle, like she was trying to get his attention. Or distract him.
Charlie coughed, soft enough to clear his throat, then hard enough to spit out the words he was afraid to say. “Anything you want. Anything I can give you.”
Dishonor’s tail was wagging again.
“Interesting,” said the war wolf.
“Please,” said Charlie.
Dishonor rose up on his creaky haunches, then stood up to his full, great height. His maybe-blind eyes looked right into Charlie’s as he padded closer, sniffing loudly. Coming closer—far too close, Charlie thought, much, much closer than a war wolf should ever be—he sniffed until his pointed nose bumped into Charlie’s che
st. Charlie could feel it all the way through his jacket and jumper, a sharp lump of ice sucking up all the warmth in his body with each deep breath. Safe in his chest, Charlie’s heart fluttered—thump-THUD, thump-THUD—like it was trying to shy away from Dishonor’s nose. Thump-THUD, thump-THUD.
“A brave heart,” Dishonor said quietly, “and strong.” His mouth spread open in a wolfish grin, and the teeth he still had left were terribly, terribly sharp, each one stuck in his gums at odd angles, like knives dropped blades-up into a snowbank. “A prize indeed. A proper meal. How long since I had a valiant heart to feed upon? How long since my brothers and sisters shouldered me aside to feed on scraps?” Drool was dripping from Dishonor’s jaws in thick ropes, melting the snow into hissing vapor where it fell. “Why shouldn’t I?” he murmured. “Why shouldn’t I have it?”
A sound like several glasses breaking at once cut through the air, and Dishonor flung himself back from Charlie, bits of spittle flying through the air, burning Charlie’s skin wherever it landed. Dishonor howled pitifully, pawing at his nose, which was dripping blood from several long, thin scratches.
Standing between Charlie and Dishonor was Biscuits, puffed up as big as she could possibly go, ears flat against her little skull, screaming her battle cry and what he was certain were extremely rude words in Cat. Normally when Biscuits puffed herself up like this Charlie thought she looked silly. Charlie did not think that now.
Dishonor growled, raising his ragged hackles like he was going to answer her challenge. Then he abruptly sat down on his haunches and sighed heavily.
“Your small companion makes a fair point,” said Dishonor, licking his bleeding nose with a long, gray-pink tongue.
“Did you take my brother’s heart?”
“We don’t take. We accept.”
“What do you mean?” said Charlie sharply.
“We aren’t thieves, we don’t steal. An eaten heart is a heart freely given.”
“You’re lying.” Charlie had thought he was going a bit mad for days now, but clear, crisp certainty crystalized inside him, unbreakable: Theo would never have given up his heart to one of these things, not for anything, not ever.
“I don’t have to do anything so gauche as lie, Charlie Merriweather. You’ll realize that. Soon enough.”
But Charlie found that he was tired of this game. “Can you fix him?”
“I cannot, no.”
“Do you know who can?”
Dishonor pawed at his nose and shook his head. Biscuits leaped away from the spray of blood and spit, landing on Charlie’s feet with a thump. “I do not know if one of the consumed can be ‘fixed,’ much less if they may be. But I am not the one to ask.”
“Who should I ask, then?” Charlie very much wanted to scoop up Biscuits and bury his face in her fur, and he shoved cold hands in his pockets to keep them from grabbing on to her like a life preserver.
“I am the least of the war wolves now, and for matters of diplomacy you must speak to the greatest. And there are so very many of us to keep track of here. We require supervision, else we’d cull entire flocks. The leaders of my brothers and sisters hold council in the War Room. To speak to them, you must go there.”
“Where’s that?”
“Oh, it changes. Slipperier than an oil slick to pin down, and I don’t merit an invitation to those meetings anymore.”
“Then how am I supposed to find it?” asked Charlie indignantly.
“Our leaders’ emissaries might be able to point you down the path, but I certainly don’t know. And unless I’m getting a taste of heart out of it, I can’t see why I should be inclined to look into the matter for you. That is, unless . . . ?”
He made a vague gesture with his bloody nose, and Charlie clapped a hand over his heart, a bit as if he was about to salute the Union Jack.
“No, then,” the wolf said, resigned. “I thought not. Pity. Your heart smells . . . wonderful.” Dishonor closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Biscuits yowled a reminder at him. Dishonor flinched, and clambered up to his feet. “Well, I think that concludes our business, Charlie Merriweather. Give my regards to my siblings when you see them. If you see them,” he added, smiling smugly.
“Thank you for your help,” Charlie bit out, his jaw trying to clamp shut over the words.
“It was my pleasure.” Dishonor gave a little wolf bow, then padded off down the alley, blending into the darkness, so Charlie could not say for certain when, exactly, he disappeared.
15
CHARLIE WAS NOT SURE WHEN HE WOKE UP THE next morning whether or not he wanted it to be a dream. On the one hand, if he hadn’t dreamed up Dishonor and the war wolves, then he was no closer to fixing whatever it was that was broken in Theo. On the other, if he had dreamed it, then he didn’t have to worry about either him or his heart ever having to see a war wolf again, and he could go back to sleep.
But he knew, deep in the gurgly part of his stomach, that it hadn’t been a dream. He knew it in the way his heart lurched at the remembered sound of Dishonor’s voice. He knew it in the way Biscuits sat hunched up over his feet, eyes roaming the room and tail lashing restlessly. But mostly, he knew it in the way he could feel the scars and tooth marks on his heart. He hadn’t known they were there before (When had he gotten them? What wolf had gnawed on him when he hadn’t known to look, what to see?), but now he found he couldn’t help but feel them. They seemed to ache and catch, scraping up against his ribs and lungs a little bit, like how Mum’s nails sometimes caught her nylons and made little snags in them.
But Mum knew how to stop the snags from tearing with clear nail varnish. Charlie wished he knew how to stop the scars on his heart from hurting everything else.
He shook his head to clear it; he had bigger things to worry about now. “How are we going to find the war wolves?” he whispered to Biscuits. His cat didn’t answer, which he took to mean that she didn’t know, either.
Grandpa Fitz was already up by the time Charlie sneaked downstairs, Biscuits a heavy warm lump in his arms. It was going to be a bad day, Charlie could tell. Grandpa Fitz’s left sleeve was undone and hung loose and empty down his side. Charlie set Biscuits on the table—she cried and tried to climb back up his chest immediately—and rolled and pinned it up the way Grandpa Fitz liked it, then wiped up a bit of drool from his whiskers with the hem of his shirt. Biscuits butted her head against Grandpa Fitz’s shoulder and mewled for attention while Charlie got breakfast ready.
When he came back with steaming cups of tea and a small bowl of gruel, the cat had her paws braced on the old man’s chest and was grooming his beard with grim determination. Grandpa Fitz blinked at her and made a strange motion with his left shoulder. Charlie knew he was trying to pet her with his missing hand, and his scarred heart twisted in his chest. As gently as he could, he picked up Grandpa Fitz’s hand and placed it on Biscuits’s back. It sat there, limp and heavy, for a long moment before it began to stroke up and down her soft coat. Biscuits mewled and rubbed her head up against Grandpa Fitz’s chin.
“Would you like some breakfast, Grandpa?” Charlie asked, sitting down next to him at the table.
Grandpa Fitz’s eyes took a moment to focus on Charlie’s face, then his blue eyes cleared and he smiled.
“Charlie boy. Yes. Yes, that’d be nice.”
Theo thumped down the stairs as Charlie was helping Grandpa Fitz get his last spoonful of gruel up to his mouth. Charlie found, suddenly, that he could not bear to see his brother, to look in his eyes and see what had been taken from him, to know the gaping emptiness where everything Charlie loved best about him was supposed to be. He listened to Theo’s footsteps get closer and then farther away, until they were just an echoey shuffle in the front entryway. Apparently he didn’t need breakfast. Or company. Charlie leaned his head down, his eyes stinging. His mind was like an animal trying to escape a locked room, running circles and bumping up against what Dishonor had said to him last night.
Theo, his head thrown back, laughing in th
e sunlight. Theo, weeping in the dark of his bedroom. Theo, hoisting Charlie high on his shoulders, so high that he could touch the ceiling. Theo, his heart stolen from his chest.
He listened as the front door opened, and then shut.
“It’s gruel,” Charlie said, apologetic.
“Hmm.” Mellie squinted at the mug he’d handed her in a rather dubious, Biscuits-ish manner. She scooped up a spoonful and sniffed it, then shrugged and tucked in. Charlie sipped tea from his thermos and tossed bread crumbs for the pigeons.
“Where’s your hell beast?” she asked, setting aside the empty mug.
“She’s looking after my grandpa.”
Mellie nodded and resettled herself on her nest of blankets, then draped an extra one over Charlie’s legs. He looked at her in surprise, but she was ignoring him again. Yes, she was definitely very Biscuits-ish this morning. They sat in companionable silence for a while, flicking bread to the birds.
“You’re heavier this morning than you were yesterday,” Mellie said at last. “You’ve got an anchor round your neck.”
“I think I might’ve done something stupid,” said Charlie. “Or I’m going to do something stupid.”
Mellie didn’t reply, just waited. Charlie picked at a hole in the blanket. If he had a needle and thread he could darn it for her. Mum had shown him how.
“I talked to a war wolf last night.”
Mellie’s knuckles went white around the bag of bread crumbs, but otherwise she didn’t react.
“It said if I could find where the leaders of the war wolves meet—the War Room, he called it—he said if I could find it, then maybe I could get them to fix Theo.”
“It’s a special kind of fool who hammers nails into his shoes and then complains that his feet hurt,” Mellie said. She turned on him, her eyes bright and furious. “It’s an even bigger fool who serves up his heart on a platter to a beast who likes the taste of heart meat.”
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut and wished for Biscuits so hard it hurt.
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