Ulrik

by Steven E Wedel

  It’s too small to be Ulrik.

  Besides Joey’s, there were two more sets of wolf prints, one set larger than the other. The strange tracks did not follow Joey’s exactly. From the rock where he’d urinated, Joey had gone almost directly south. The two adult sets went southeast.

  “A male and female,” Shara murmured. “Tracking him.” She stood up and hurried after her son’s paw prints.

  Shara trudged through the snow, her head low, her spirits lower. She could see where Joey had paused to dig here and there or nudge aside a fallen log or loose rock. He’s hungry. Snow began to fall intermittently and Shara worried about losing the trail. Owls called from nearby trees, asking who had invaded their woods. Other nocturnal animals skittered through the forest, avoiding the intruder, taking cover from the new snow, or both. Shara ignored them, focusing on Joey’s trail, hurrying to find him before the snow erased his tracks.

  She came upon a cedar tree with limbs brushing the snowy ground. Joey’s tracks went under it. She looked in and saw a nest of old nettles and leaves and the imprint of something she knew was Joey’s wolfish body. But Joey wasn’t there. Shara dropped the branches back into place and looked around.

  The footprints of a man without shoes approached the cedar tree from a clump of maples to Shara’s left. The prints stopped just a few feet from where Shara squatted and she could tell from the prints that the man had knelt and lifted the tree branches. Shara looked at the ground and saw that Joey had come to the man. She moved to where they had been. That’s when she saw the other set of wolf prints, those made by the female who had been at the rock where Joey had urinated. The female had charged the man from an angle near the stand of maples he’d emerged from.

  There was evidence of a fight. Disturbed snow showed where shapes had run, fallen and circled one another. Drops of blood stained the snow in sharp crimson contrasts. Shara found Joey’s tracks running from the scene to the southwest. There was blood on the snow. The female wolf tracks raced after Joey’s.

  Shara found a larger puddle of blood at the end of the man’s footprints. From the puddle, the prints of the male wolf followed those of the female and Joey. Shara ran, crashing through the trees, getting slapped and cut by low branches, her rifle clutched to her breast, her eyes fixed on the ground where all three sets of tracks merged and trampled one another.

  She broke into a clearing and skidded to a stop, falling backwards, her feet in the air. A blood-soaked naked man lay in the snow, his back to her. Shara scrambled to a crouch and trained her rifle on him. He didn’t move, other than the slow rise and fall of his breathing.

  “Have you come at last, lass?”

  She recognized the voice, though she hadn’t heard it for years. She raised her head from the rifle sights and lowered the barrel just a little. “Thomas?” she asked. “Thomas McGrath?”

  “Aye. It’s me, Shara.” The man slowly moved an arm to create momentum and rolled himself onto his back so that he could turn his head to face her. His chest and abdomen were torn open, his arms and legs slashed, his right eye swollen shut by a gash across his face. He smiled at her with swollen, bloody lips. “I knew you would get around to finding me eventually.”

  “What happened? Where’s Joey?”

  “She got him, I’m afraid,” Thomas said. “The bitch. Kiona Brokentooth.”

  Shara lowered the rifle to her waist and the flashlight beam out of the man’s eyes. She looked around carefully and found bloody wolf prints in the snow, leading away from where Thomas lay. She could make out the female prints she’d seen before … and the smaller ones that were Joey’s. She closed her eyes for a moment and fought back the despair, then she opened her eyes and hurried to Thomas, kneeling beside him.

  “How bad are you hurt?” she asked. It was a silly question. He was torn up badly, but he wasn’t dead, which meant that his werewolf body would heal him rapidly.

  “I’ll live,” he said. “Scarred, I’m sure, but I’ll live. I think she thought I was dead, or as good as. She meant to kill me. Aye, I’m sure of that. She would have, too, if Joey hadn’t run away before she was finished with me.”

  Shara shrugged out of her backpack and pulled out her first-aid kit, unrolling the vinyl case and inspecting her options. She chose a plastic pouch of wipes medicated with hydrogen peroxide and tore it open. “What happened?” she asked.

  “The both of us were tracking your Joey, almost from the time he left your property,” Thomas answered, his eyes following Shara’s hands as she peeled off one of the medicated wipes. His nostrils flared.

  “It’s only peroxide,” Shara said. “It shouldn’t sting. We have to doctor these big wounds. Just in case.”

  “If you wish it.” He grimaced when Shara applied the cold wipe and carefully washed away the blood and dirt from the wounds on his chest and stomach. “We each knew soon enough about the other one, but neither dared to make a move for fear of scaring the boy. But then, when your Joey went to sleep under that tree back there, I thought I could get to him without Kiona realizing it.

  “I was going to bring him back to you.”

  Shara paused, then wiped blood from his arm. She paused again and nodded. “I believe you,” she said. “She jumped you back there, didn’t she?”

  “Aye. The boy, still in his wolf-shape, was almost in my arms when the bitch jumped me. Came from behind, she did. We fought for a bit, but she broke away and went after Joey. I changed and was right behind her, though I was bleeding pretty badly already. I caught her and we fought again.” He stopped, his dark eyes fixed on Shara, his thick black eyebrows knitted together as if considering whether or not to go on.

  “Joey watched us fight for a while,” he said. “He stood there and watched, not taking either side.” Thomas pointed to his right.

  “And she won,” Shara offered.

  “Aye. I’m mortified to say it, lass,” Thomas agreed. “She did this when she first jumped me.” He motioned at the worst of his wounds, the one across his stomach. “My entrails were hanging out as I chased Joey. I was stupid to change shape to try to lure him out of cover. My mistake gave her the advantage. But I thought maybe he would recognize me and trust me.”

  “He was too young last time he saw you,” Shara said. “He wouldn’t remember.”

  “I suppose not,” Thomas agreed. “They came back, you know. You can find their tracks there.” He pointed to a spot between two pine trees where the snow was trampled. “I think she came to finish me off.”

  “But she didn’t?”

  “No. I had changed back to this shape,” Thomas said. “You remember werewolves return to their human shape upon death?”

  Shara nodded.

  “Aye. I did that, and lay very still when I smelled them coming,” Thomas said. “Still, the bitch was starting toward me when Joey whined and backed away. She growled at me, then followed him. With luck, she’ll assume I’m dead.”

  “What will she do with Joey?” Shara asked.

  “Ah, that’s the question now, lass,” Thomas said. “She’s one of Ulrik’s and ‘twas him had her watching you. That much I know. I suspect her orders were to grab the boy at the first opportunity and take him to Ulrik.”

  “Where is he?”

  “But, you see, the question is, will the bitch do what she’s told? Or will she try to keep the boy for herself?”

  “What would she do with him?”

  “She wants to be the Mother.”

  “What do you think she’ll do?” Shara asked as she wrapped gauze around as many of Thomas’s wounds as possible. She didn’t have enough gauze or bandages to cover every laceration.

  “I think she’ll take him to Ulrik.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Not where he was, I’d wager on that,” Thomas said.

  “Can you walk?”

  Thomas shook his head. “The leg is broken in the calf,” he said, waving a hand over his left leg.

  “Shit,” Shara muttered. She put away her su
pplies and rolled up the first-aid kit. “How long ago was it she took Joey?”

  “Yesterday. Mid-morning. He went willing enough. He didn’t fight her, so they’ve surely made good time.”

  “But where to?” Shara mused.

  “I’m going to help you find him, lass. We’ll bring him back.”

  Shara studied him. “Do you have any idea where they’ll take him?”

  Thomas shook his head. “I am sorry.”

  “I can’t leave you here. And, like you said, they’re gone. You know where Ulrik’s been living?”

  “Aye. Albuquerque. In New Mexico. But he’ll have left there as soon as he learned Kiona has your boy.”

  “We’ll go there, to his house,” Shara said. “Maybe we’ll find some clue. First, though, I guess we wait here until you’re able to walk back to my Jeep.”

  “You’d spare that time for me?” he asked.

  “Twice now you’ve risked your safety to help me,” Shara answered. “This time it almost killed you. If this Kiona is taking Joey to Ulrik, at least I know he’ll be safe. Ulrik won’t hurt him. Not like … some of the others.”

  “You’ll be thinking of Tony Weismann.”

  “Yes,” Shara said, remembering the male protégé of Ulrik who had wanted to kill her and Joey to prevent the fulfillment of the prophecy Ulrik often spoke of. “The Pack is gathering,” she said. “There can be no culls among us.”

  “Aye. Likely they’ll be gathering all around Ulrik soon enough now, wanting to see the one they’ve been waiting for.”

  “What will they do with him? With my little boy?” Shara asked.

  Thomas looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “Teach him his destiny. Teach him to lead. To kill,” he said. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

  “To kill who?”

  “The culls,” Thomas answered. “And then …” He shrugged. “There are those who believe werewolves are the shepherds and men the sheep.”

  Shara blinked several times, staring at Thomas. “You mean … Like a war? And … use people for food?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “This is what Ulrik wants? He thinks Joey will lead that?”

  “He has spent his life looking for the Mother. But …” He stopped and looked away.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Even among Ulrik’s followers there are those who say your Joey is not the Alpha because he was sired by a normal man. So you see, there are those who want to kill him to keep things as they are, with our kind in the shadows, and those who would kill Joey because he is not from two werewolf parents. The question, lass, is whether Ulrik can protect him from both groups.”

  “Oh God.” Shara had been squatting beside Thomas. She dropped into a sitting position, her mind filled with images of her son playing on their swing set, running through the yard, struggling to read a Dr. Seuss book. “My baby,” she moaned as the wet and cold from the snow seeped through her jeans.

  “They’ll leave the country, most likely,” Thomas said. “I’d lay wager they go to Mexico. But where? It’s a big country.”

  “Who is this Kiona Brokentooth? How many people has Ulrik turned into werewolves? Were all of them women except Weismann?” Shara asked. “Did he give me his Gift just to see if I was the Mother?”

  “I don’t pretend to know the whys and wherefores of his doings,” Thomas said. “I’ve only met the man on two occasions, but he is legendary in the Pack. In his prime he was the best hunter, the best killer, the one who would find you and deliver justice if you endangered the Pack. I cannot say why he made you what you are, though it is said he loved you above all others, even before Joey was born.”

  “Loved me? Would he steal my baby if he loved me?”

  “He is a werewolf devoted to a destiny he believes in. As to Kiona, I have told you all I know of her. Except, now I can attest to her prowess in battle,” he said, laughing without humor as he looked down the length of his mangled body.

  “I should sew up those bad wounds,” Shara said.

  “Perhaps. The snow is coming harder and I’m getting cold lying here naked. Have you got a tent in that pack?”

  Shara nodded. “It’s just a little nylon two-man pup tent. It’ll give us some cover, though.” She pulled the rolled tent out of her backpack and assembled it quickly. When it was up, Thomas crawled inside, smiling and shaking his head when Shara offered to help. Once he was inside, still panting from exertion, Shara knelt beside him and threaded a hooked needle to close his wounds.

  “Your husband likely wouldn’t appreciate you sewing on a naked man that isn’t him,” Thomas said.

  Shara shook her head sadly. “Chris is going to be so mad over this. Mad and frantic about Joey.” She lowered the needle, took a deep breath, and pushed it through the skin of Thomas’s side, under the open wound and through the skin on the other side. She repeated the process until the first wound was closed.

  “He’s the only man who could love me as a woman and a wolf, but he never could get over the wolf in Joey,” she said. “He loves him. He loves Joey more than anything. But he doesn’t want Joey to be a werewolf. He’ll be furious that we have to deal with the Pack again. With Ulrik. He may even blame me for not calculating Joey’s serum correctly. Joey just grew too fast. I guess I wasn’t giving him enough. How could I know?” She tried to focus on the next wound, but her vision was too blurred. She blinked and tears rolled from both eyes. “From the beginning, with this serum, I’ve just had to make it up as I go along. It could have killed both of us. Maybe I didn’t give him enough because I knew it could kill him. I just don’t know.”

  “Hush, lass. Hush now,” Thomas said, putting a reassuring hand on her wrist. “We’ll get your boy back.”

  “Chris is away from home a lot,” Shara said, her voice steady but sad. “The fake names, the serum, me being a vegetarian … it all gets to him. Most of the time he tries not to show it, but then something will happen to remind him how it could be and he blows up. I feel like … like we’ve been drifting apart for a long time now. I never wanted that.”

  She glanced quickly to Thomas’s face and saw that he was watching her intently with his dark eyes, eyes that seemed very understanding. She sighed and quickly wiped the tears from her face. “I can’t transform, you know,” she said. “I tried. My serum is working just fine in me. I suppose it’ll wear off eventually and I’ll be able to change. But until then … I’ve never felt handicapped by not being able to become a wolf until now.”

  As the snow fell harder all around them, Shara finished tending to Thomas’s wounds. When all the worst ones were sewn closed, she pulled out some of the food she’d brought and they shared beef jerky and an apple. There was only the one blanket and Thomas offered it to her, but Shara refused. In the end, she slept beside the naked man under the blanket, wondering how she would explain the current situation to her angry husband.

  Ulrik

  Ulrik drove south. In the rearview mirror of his four-wheel-drive black Dodge pickup the border checkpoint shrank and vanished as he continued south, deeper into Mexico. The airplane would have been faster, he knew, but he didn’t trust the flying machines. In all his long life he’d only taken to the skies on one occasion. There was no need to do it again. Not this time.

  “Kiona will arrive before me,” he muttered. “That is fine. This time she will do as she is told. She will bring the boy to the Las Sombras. I must trust her this time.”

  Ulrik pushed a Wagner CD into the stereo of his truck. The orchestra launched into “Flight of the Valkyries.” Ulrik smiled. It was good to hear the strong German music, the mythic constructions of Wagner’s composition. It was music for heroes. For great deeds.

  “What must I teach the boy first?”

  The basics.

  “Yes. He must first learn to control his shape. He must learn to change at will. How to hunt.”

  He must learn to protect himself.

  Ulrik nodded. Most new werewolves we
nt unmolested so long as they were under the protection of an older member of the Pack. Joey would be different. Fenris and his followers would kill the boy if they could.

  Like they killed Dora.

  Ulrik’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. Thoughts of the child still hurt him. Never had he been taken unawares like he had with Dora. It was a rare occurrence that he underestimated his enemy.

  “It will not happen again.”

  The first thing he would do with Joey, Ulrik vowed, would be to mark him as a member of the Pack.

  Will the boy allow it?

  “He must. For his own safety. For mine. Once I mark him I will be responsible for him. I will not fail to protect him.”

  Shara will be furious.

  Ulrik could only sigh. He knew his favorite pupil would never forgive him for allowing – no, orchestrating – the kidnapping of her son. Yes, orchestrating. The kidnapping had happened earlier than he’d wanted, but he was responsible nonetheless. He had sent Kiona and others to watch for the appropriate time.

  Ulrik remembered branding Shara the night before he left her alone in a hunter’s shack in the high Rocky Mountains. He’d waited until her training was complete. It had been safe then. Safe to wait. Nobody knew Shara was the one they had all waited for – the Mother of the Pack. He recalled the bent coat hanger he’d fashioned into a branding iron, Shara’s smooth white flesh, the smell of burning meat and then the welt in the shape of the ancient Othala rune.

  “The rune of kinship. A kinship she accepted then, but denies now.” He shook his head sadly.

  Night was descending all around his mud-spattered pickup. Here in Mexico, away from the garish tourist areas of the border, there were few people, fewer still with electricity. The night sky was a dark blanket spattered with diamonds.