The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy)

by Lilly, Adrian

  “Batteries, bulbs, and poking sticks—all set,” Molly announced, finishing her pre-explore checklist. She glanced at the battered—she considered it shabby chic—curio cabinet where she and Kevin kept the small trinkets they took from each exploration. She imagined what she might place there after tonight. Perhaps a broken piece of cornice?

  “I printed the blueprints, so we’ve got a pretty good idea of the layout,” Kevin said, ready to methodically move from room to room, dark hall to dark hall.

  “My sound equipment is ready to rock,” Tristan said, already savoring the paranormal sounds he might capture. “I brought video cameras for you guys, too.”

  “Sweet,” Molly said. She flipped a piece of her short, red-streaked hair from her forehead. She took the offered camera and flipped it on. “Night vision?”

  “You bet.”

  “Since we usually explore in the daylight,” Kevin said, and Molly and Tristan audibly groaned.

  “Blah, blah, we’ll be safe,” Tristan replied.

  Molly added diplomatically, “I have the first aid kit in my bag.”

  Kevin kissed her on the forehead. “Tonight’s going to be awesome. I can feel it.”

  Geraldine’s Room

  Alec waited in his car as slushy drizzle pelted his windshield in angry, icy drops that melted and slipped down the glass to gather like a snow cone at the wipers. The dreary day was forecast to linger into a cloudy evening. Clouds on the night of a full moon led Alec to wish for the comedic effect of clouds on werewolves from cartoons. He pictured clouds blocking the moon and Lucy resuming her true form.

  True form.

  The words lingered in his thoughts. He pondered his own true form—and Jared’s. Was this human skin the actual disguise? He wondered. Since the night of the fire, the night that Darius told them that someone else held the key, the trigger to their transformation, a cold river of fear poured through him. His mind raced daily with the implications. Is the trigger already within me? Could I be forced to change into a monster at any moment? With my mother? In a crowded mall? While making love to Jared? Every joyful moment had been tainted with the fear that he could not control the sleeping demon beneath the thin layer of human skin that he called himself.

  Ilene pulled her car into the drive next to him, and Alec forced a smile. Ilene returned a frail smile as droplets slid down the window, obscuring her face. She climbed from the car and hurried to the front door of Geraldine’s home.

  In the months since Geraldine had passed, no one had the energy or heart to sell the home that had hosted so many Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthday parties, and treasured memories. Alec walked up behind his mother as she pushed the door open.

  Cold air rushed past them with a whoosh as Ilene shut the door. The house smelled stale and dusty. Alec closed his eyes, recalling the scent of cookies and dinners that haunted the house. “I miss her every day,” Alec said, turning to his mother.

  “I know. I do, too.” She placed a loving hand on his shoulder. She pulled away to take of her coat, hat and gloves. As Alec took of his coat, Ilene walked to the fireplace and plucked a ceramic figurine from the mantle. “You got her this when you were six.”

  “I remember.” He smiled at the memory. “For her birthday.” Alec sauntered into the kitchen. He pictured Geraldine there, stooped over, pulling cookies from the oven with the sweet-hot smell of baking pouring out around her. He looked to the back door off the kitchen, which had been replaced after the night of the attack. Alec turned his eyes away.

  “How’s Dad?” He called as he walked back into the living room.

  Ilene settled onto the couch and crossed her legs at the knee. “He’s working a lot. I think it helps him cope with everything we’ve been through.”

  “How are you coping?” Alec sat on the couch next to his mother.

  Ilene shrugged. Her eyes filled with tears. “Do you ever visit Adam?”

  The question struck Alec. Of course he thought of Adam every day. The ache of missing him became like a shadow, so much a part of him he seldom thought of it, until in certain slants of light when it grew long and overpowering. Alec simply accepted missing Adam as part of who he had become. “I think of him every day. All the time,” Alec said, sitting next to his mother. He took her hand. “I think of things he’d say. The way he’d laugh. The way he would handle a situation.”

  “But do you go to his grave?” Ilene asked, the tremble in her voice breaking Alec’s heart. Ilene pictured Adam’s grave, always the wilted flowers she had placed there awaiting her—never replaced in the intervening days with fresh flowers.

  “Mom, I don’t feel like Adam’s there.”

  Ilene nodded. “It’s easy for me to talk to him there.”

  “I understand.” Alec swallowed hard. “I talk to him every day. Lucy and I—and Jared—we talk about Adam and reminisce.

  “How is Lucy? She’s so distant, now.”

  “She’s quiet. She’s more stern. She’s hurting.”

  “I know. I never hated Rene,” she said with the air of the confessional.

  “He did it to protect us,” Alec said, before he realized what he was saying.

  Ilene’s gaze caught him off guard, as if she had expected what he said. But she asked, “What do you mean?”

  Alec thought quickly. “The night Adam and I were attacked. He saved me. He just rushed in—”

  “I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

  Alec stood. “Where do you think Grandma kept the mobile?”

  “Alec—” Ilene stopped herself and stood. “You know you can tell me anything.”

  Alec smiled. “I know.”

  Ilene brushed Alec’s cheek and rested her hand on his shoulder. “How are things with Jared?”

  “He’s been so good to me—to both of us through this. He’s my rock.”

  “Good.” Ilene walked down the hall toward the bedrooms. “He healed quickly from the attack that night.”

  The image of Jared, his arm shredded and hemorrhaging blood in the smoke-filled basement flashed across Alec’s mind.

  “Go,” Jared said, “I’m dying.”

  “The hell you are, Kincaid.” Alec grabbed Jared by his good arm, ignoring his screams of pain. He pushed his good arm to Lance. “Pull!” Alec grabbed Jared’s butt and shoved.

  “He was lucky,” Alec offered.

  “We all were—” Ilene cut off her words, looking at her mother’s bedroom door. The door was ajar, and Ilene glanced in at the bare wood floor, where the carpeting had been pulled out, and bedframe, missing the mattress and box springs. She pulled the door shut. “I think the mobile’s in the attic.”

  Ilene reached up and pulled down the folding ladder to the attic. It squeaked as it unfolded and the springs extended. “Why do you need it?” She asked as she ascended.

  “I can’t really explain, Mom,” Alec said, sounding whiney to his own ears.

  Ilene flipped on the attic light. “It’s in one of these boxes.” She walked over to a stack of boxes, and stooped to open one. “I’m not sure why I kept it. You and Adam never used it. I didn’t want it hanging over your crib,” she said with such malice that Alec wondered just what his mother did know.

  “Maybe you knew I’d need it someday.”

  “And prayed you wouldn’t.” She removed boxes from the stack.

  “Mom, what all—what do you think happened the night of the fire?”

  “I think this is the box,” she replied. She pulled the flaps of the box open. Alec noted that the box had been labeled “Alec’s baby things.”

  “Why was this box stored here and not at the house?”

  “Your grandmother offered to keep it.” Ilene smiled. “She had some things here for you and Adam. She watched you all so often. And she just—when I received it, I brought it to her. So, she kept it.” Ilene pulled the mobile from the box. It unfolded in a delicate spiral as she pulled it out of the box.

  The attic light shone through the mobile, and
letters and numbers fell on the attic floor. The importance immediately struck Alec: this was the decoder. What looked like an innocent mobile with 123s and ABCs unlocked the runes of the Meredith Stone. Alec took the mobile as she handed it to him.

  “Is this it?” Ilene asked.

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “Will it help?” Tears threatened to flow from her eyes again.

  “I hope so, Mom.”

  Maxwell

  Maxwell Snug was having a bad day. At the age of nineteen, he had already been on his own in Chicago for three years, so he was used to bad days. But today was particularly bad. And it wasn’t even the fact that he had gotten stiffed on a table at the diner where he worked; it wasn’t the fact that he was going to have trouble scrounging up his half of the rent; it wasn’t even the fact that he hadn’t had a date in two months. At the moment, what troubled him was the presence of the dark-haired man who had slid into a booth in his section. Maxwell’s skin had tingled as soon as the man walked in—but not a butterflies-in-your-stomach tingle. This was one of his bad tingles. The kind he got just before disaster.

  “I’m cursed,” Maxwell complained to his roommate and co-worker, Haley.

  Haley smiled indulgently. She looked into Maxwell’s eyes. They were so green they made her feel lost in a jungle. His lips were pouted out in a sweet-sad way that melted her heart. No one could complain in such a self-effacing, everything’s-the-end-of-the-world way as Maxwell. Somehow, it was endearing. “What now?” She adjusted the band holding back her ponytail of blonde hair.

  “Check out the dude in my booth,” he said, using his shoulder to point at a man sitting in a corner booth across the diner.

  “He’s cute,” Haley effervesced.

  “Creepy. He’s creepy,” Maxwell disagreed. “He’s wearing giant sunglasses inside.”

  “Maybe he’s hung-over.”

  “Trust me, that hipster has bad mojo.”

  “He’s not a hipster.”

  “Creeper, then.”

  Haley rolled her eyes. “What’d he do?”

  “Nothing. Yet. Just wait.”

  With a resigned exhale, Maxwell trudged to the booth and flourished a tip-winning smile. “Welcome to Trotters. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Coffee. Black,” he replied without looking up. He flipped the coffee cup on the table upright. He turned his head deliberately, let his eyes, obscured by the sunglasses, fall on Maxwell’s name tag. “Maxwell.” He let the name drag out, somewhere between flirtation and annoyance.

  “I’ll get that and be back to take your lunch order.”

  “Well,” Haley asked at the coffee pot. She was ignoring her own tables.

  “Coffee. Black. If that’s not a sure sign he’s the devil, I don’t know what is.”

  “You’re hopeless. Maybe he’ll ask you out,” Haley added as she flitted away to check on her own customers.

  Maxwell returned and filled the cup with coffee. “Ready to order?”

  “You have amazing eyes,” the man said, and he peeled his sunglasses away.

  For just a moment, Maxwell stared into eyes as green as his own. A pang shot through his head, behind his eyes, like a thunderclap rattling through a valley. Maxwell averted his gaze away from the eyes. “Thanks,” he muttered. “Your order?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  Maxwell felt the pain behind his eyes shooting down his limbs, like a tuning fork, struck against the table. “The daily special. It’s an omelet.”

  “No.” The man smiled. “I want something sweet and sticky. Pancakes. Lots of whip cream.”

  “It’ll just be a few minutes.” The words fell out of Maxwell’s mouth in a jumble as he turned away from the table.

  Haley stopped him as he entered his order. “You look sick. What’d he do?”

  “I feel sick. He’s—I don’t know. Something’s wrong.” Maxwell finished entering the order and darted away from the counter into the back of the diner. He entered the storage closet, pulling the door shut behind him as he caught his breath. The headache was now raging. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Images flooded his mind of the man at the table—with a woman—in a car. The woman was frightened. She fought with the handle to the car door and fell out. Maxwell could feel her fear.

  And the man’s desire. The desire to taste her blood.

  “Fuck,” Maxwell mumbled. Why does this happen to me?

  Haley waited for him as he exited the storage closet. “He left.”

  “What?”

  “That customer. He just stood up and left. I think he paid. He dropped something on the table.”

  Maxwell pushed past Haley. He hesitated just a moment at the table. Two dollars lay on the top, but he could see that a piece of paper was under the money. He unfolded the paper and read the text scribbled on it: You can run. But you can’t hide.

  “What is it?” Haley asked over his shoulder.

  Maxwell shoved the note in his apron. “His number. Guess I scared him off.” He faked a smile, but he could tell Haley saw through it.

  Maxwell turned away from her quickly, and images on the television tucked in the corner of the diner caught his eye. He walked closer to the television to hear the news report. “An update on the story that began yesterday with a grisly discovery in White Birch State Forest. It started when Darrin Nichols, of Birch Grove, went in search of his wife, Jenna Nichols, who was out for her morning jog,” the reporter on the television fired off the lead-in with an emotionless urgency. Maxwell tapped Haley as the reporter continued the story. Behind the reporter, Maxwell could see the woods and the yellow police line tape snapping in the wind. “Instead of finding his wife, he found Rebecca Kemper who was badly injured.” They flashed a picture of Rebecca. “Jenna Nichols is currently missing.” Maxwell watched as a photo of Jenna Nichols appeared on the screen. “We’ll keep you up-to-date as the story unfolds.” Maxwell turned away from the television as the local Chicago news report ended.

  “Haley,” he whispered to her. “That woman, Rebecca. That guy who was just here? He’s the one who hurt her.”

  “How do you know?” She asked, but her voice told him she already knew.

  “I got a flash from him. But I saw him with her.”

  “I wish you could tell the police.”

  Maxwell put his hand up and walked away.

  Anxiety

  Jared paced around the table, looking at the stacks of papers. The idea that useful information lay just outside his grasp was maddening. He pinned so many hopes on the pages: a cure for Lucy, the names of the rest of the pack, the werewolves’ plan. All the answers could be coded in the pages, and he could not decipher the message. The frustration filled him with an energy that he had to defuse, and so he paced. And paced.

  And the night of the full moon only made it worse.

  He and Alec had noted that leading up to the full moon Lucy became agitated, restless. What they couldn’t figure out was whether it was a direct result of the impending change or just her own anxiety over what was to happen.

  Tonight would be spent in the basement of an abandoned building, so Jared relaxed with a long bath. He sipped herbal tea as he double checked that everything they needed for the night was ready: tent, flashlights, restraints, lock, food, and hot drinks.

  Designing their lives around the full moon proved harder than they had expected. Alec and Jared stayed the night in the bank building with Lucy every full moon, meaning that they, too, had to schedule everything around the moon. Jared didn’t see the act as a sacrifice; he saw it as precaution. Since he and Alec did not know their triggers, if one of them suddenly began to change from the full moon, at least it wasn’t happening in public.

  Jared sat back down at the table, the files of coded information in front of him, waiting for Alec to return from Geraldine’s house and for Lucy to return from a meditation class. She liked to focus on relaxation before a transformation as much as possible. She hoped, that if something d
id happen, like the door giving way, she would have at least a modicum of control over the beast.

  But Jared doubted it.

  He recalled that night with Rene at the barn in the country. Rene loved Lucy more than life. He cared for Alec so much that he tried to save him from a werewolf—yet he chased them with no intention but shredding them. Jared was convinced that those infected had no control, like a rabid dog.

  Darius—he knew—had been another story. Somehow, Darius maintained some control over his beast. Darius’s desires, even his cognition, appeared in the werewolf. The question ate at Jared: What was special, different about Darius that allowed him to retain part of himself—and more importantly, would he and Alec be similar?

  Jared heard footsteps at the front door, and then heard a key slide in the lock. He stood from the table and walked down the hall. He smiled at Alec as he entered.

  “I got it,” Alec said.

  Jared walked toward him as he spoke. “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “Yes. Yes.” Alec dropped his coat on the couch and walked past Jared into the back room. Alec eyed the Meredith Stone.

  Jared walked up behind Alec. “Should we see if it works?”

  “Yes. I’m nervous.”

  “Me, too.”

  Alec walked to the Meredith Stone and lifted it. “Here, hold it,” he said to Jared, handing him the stone. Jared cupped his hands around the stone. Alec draped the mobile over the stone. The spiral of the mobile snaked around the facets of the stone until every image on the stone and mobile aligned. “I think we have our decoder.”

  “I think you’re right,” Jared said, his voice breaking with excitement. “Let’s start writing down the translation. Then we can try a paragraph to see if it works.” Jared set the stone draped in the mobile on the table and reached for paper and pencil. “Good job.”