The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy)

by Lilly, Adrian

  “Did it say anything about us?” Helena asked.

  “No. But they have to know he came from our apartment. He injured four officers.” Nadia turned from her mother. “I’m going to make the call now.”

  Helena nodded and turned her attention to the television.

  Nadia clicked a contact in her cellphone. “It’s Nadia. Yes, he arrived just like you said. The report’s on the news now. He wounded four officers.” She listened for a moment. “We’re leaving for Detroit in the morning.” A moment later, she hung up.

  “Mom, we’ll be okay. This will all be over soon.”

  Helena grunted. “Even the drive to Detroit won’t be over soon. I don’t know why we have to drive.”

  Nadia smiled indulgently. “Because you need a car in Detroit. Everyone knows that.”

  Uncivil Obedience

  Leaning back in his desk chair, Collin watched the teacher, Miss Marjorie Ruhl, jot a Latin phrase on the chalkboard. The school mandated his first class of the day, entitled Civility and Civilization, designed to teach wayward students how “civilized” people behave within a civilization. “Rules are the fabric of a society,” the teacher explained. “Without them, society would crumble. Those who break the rules, written and unwritten, are a threat to civilization.”

  With a sneer twisting his upper lip, Collin listened to the teacher drone on about the threat their actions caused society. As far as Collin could tell, society wasn’t all that great. While he had only been at Cornerstone for a week, he found himself ticking off the days to freedom. While the school felt like incarceration, he knew that jail would have been much worse. He reminded himself to just get through the three months.

  Collin stared at the back of Miss Ruhl’s head as she turned to the chalkboard again. Her shiny brown hair was piled in a careless twist. She turned and spoke, enlivening her delicate features: her slender nose, her high cheekbones, her toothy smile, and full lips. Her green eyes trailed across the room from student to student as she explained the quote.

  Collin looked down at his desk. He recalled the disappointed look in his mother’s face as he had told her about all the green eyes. He had promised his mother that he would “reform.” Collin tried to shrug off the number of green eyes as coincidence.

  Yet something at this school unnerved him.

  Collin glanced around the room filled with young men all around his age. He avoided most of them, not knowing how damaged they were or why they had been sentenced. He spent his free time with his roommate, Tony, and with Mark, who also had arrived with him. Mark was quiet but angry. He could be volatile and Collin knew that Mark’s temper would eventually get him in trouble.

  Collin gazed out the window. Beyond the gardens behind the school, brown grasses swayed along the icy flow of the river. Leafless trees reached up toward the slate-gray sky. He focused his eyes on his reflection in the glass. His large brown eyes never looked fierce, no matter how hard he tried. His dimpled cheeks always looked like a sweet child. How sweet—how soft—he looked made him feel vulnerable. He glanced around the room at the other boys. Many had firm jaws, tattoos, and scars. But the students who had attended the school the longest sat in obedience, hanging on the teacher’s words. The angry tattoos and scars juxtaposed their docile behavior. Yet, Collin had witnessed them keep new students in line with a stringent zeal. Collin stole glances at those eyes he always avoided. A cold revelation swept down his spine.

  They all had green eyes. Just like the teachers. Just like the guards.

  Collin felt an unnamable dread effervescing, like bubbles preceding a creature from the ocean depths. He cut his eyes toward Tony, who had brown eyes and then to Mark, who had eyes that were a deep, dark blue, so dark, you could easily mistake them for black.

  “Collin, eyes on the front of the room.” Marjorie Ruhl startled him. With her arms folded over her chest, she leaned against the desk in a self-assured pose.

  “Sorry, Miss Ruhl,” Collin apologized. He forced a frail smile.

  Her posture stiffened, and her lips tightened into a thin line. “This class is a mandatory part of your rehabilitation. The most important part, I would argue.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” Collin repeated.

  “Bo-shit,” Mark coughed into his hand.

  Marjorie shot her eyes to Mark, the thin line of her mouth blossoming into a satisfied smile. “You have something to say, Mark?”

  “I think this class is a pile of shit,” Mark challenged. Collin could feel tension stretch tight across the room, like a metal band about to snap.

  Unperturbed, Marjorie kept her eyes locked on Mark. “The day you arrived, you received a Rules and Regulations booklet. The booklet explains the code of conduct here at Cornerstone. We take any breach of these rules very seriously.” She turned her eyes from Mark to the class. “Let Mark serve as an example to all of you, an example of the very phrase that I have just written.” She gestured to the phrase on the chalkboard and read aloud. “Dura lex sed lex. The law is harsh, but it is the law.” She turned her eyes to two of the green-eyed students. “Will you escort Mark to Proctor Roth’s office?”

  “Seriously?” Mark scoffed. “I’m outa this place.” He stood, bumping his desk. It screeched across the floor.

  The two students bolted upright and seized him by the arms. Mark struggled as they grabbed him, and his desk toppled to the floor. Collin winced at the noise. The newest students jumped out of their seats to avoid the scuffle. Tony stood, “Hey, c’mon.”

  Marjorie turned her steely gaze to Tony. “Would you like to join him?”

  Tony hesitated, and looking away from Mark, he sat back in his seat. Collin shot Tony a look out of the corner of his eye as Mark was dragged from the room. They could hear his curses echoing down the hall.

  Marjorie closed the door and clasped her hands together. “Sunt pueri pueri, pueri puerilia tractant. Children are children, and children do childish things.”

  Burning Down the House

  Portland transit was easier to navigate than Maxwell and Haley had anticipated, and they navigated toward the address stored in Maxwell’s phone. He watched the screen as the icon moved closer and closer to their destination as the bus chugged through the city. Haley sat quietly next to him, her hands folded in her lap. He looked out the window, past his reflection in the glass. The Portland outside the bus window was not the one from brochures or Portlandia. Vincent did not live in the touristy Portland; he lived in the poor white Portland. Small houses and dismal yards and streets without curbs surrounded him. For rent signs dotted the yards in front of the small bungalows.

  The bus stopped near a corner, and Maxwell nudged Haley. They made their way off the bus and took in the neighborhood. The gray sky misted on them relentlessly, making the mild day seem colder than it was. Dewey drops of rain sparkled on the evergreen trees. Water collected in muddy, brackish puddles in the lawns. “Let’s just find this guy,” Haley said, pulling her jacket tighter around her neck. She tugged her hat down, and droplets of water rolled off onto her shoulders.

  Maxwell tucked his phone in his pocket to keep it dry and led the way up the street to the house. The houses were all similar: small, white, dingy. Halfway up the block, he stopped. “It’s supposed to be here.” He pointed at an empty lot.

  “Are you sure?”

  As Haley asked, Maxwell pulled out his phone to confirm the address. “What do we do now? We came all the way here and we have no other leads.”

  “Did you know them?” A frail, high-pitched voice tinkled to them from nearby. Maxwell and Haley turned their heads to see an elderly woman sticking her head out the front door of the neighboring house.

  “Jennifer is my aunt. My mom’s sister,” Maxwell lied.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” the woman consoled, shaking her head. She put her hand to her cheek in condolence.

  “Thank you,” Maxwell replied. “I—may I ask that you tell me what happened, from your point of view as a neighbor?” Maxwel
l offered a sad, frail smile as he walked toward the woman. “I mean, of course I know the official story. But maybe you can tell me something I don’t know.” He cast his eyes down. “I’m just trying to make sense of it all.”

  The elderly woman opened the door, seemed to brighten at the prospect of company. “Come in. I’ll put on tea.” On her way to the kitchen, she turned back to face them. “Have a seat.” She pointed to the small living room. “I’m Gladys, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” Her small, sparse home was like a time capsule from the 1970s, complete with pristine furniture. Gold and red velvet flocked wallpaper with a Damascus print encircled the room. Sun-age spots faded the print here and there. She seated them on a harvest gold-colored couch as velvety as the wallpaper. The cushions were still firm. The chunky wooden coffee table jutted out of the shag carpeting like a Brutalist mid-rise building. Not a scratch or cup ring marred the top. She returned after a short time with a tea pot on a tray. She set the tray on the coffee table and, after setting out coasters, offered them each tea. “I appreciate your hospitality,” Maxwell said as he accepted the tea.

  “Jennifer, your aunt, was a wonderful neighbor. So sweet, but you know that.”

  Maxwell nodded solemnly. “She was my favorite aunt.” He was beginning to feel not only a bit guilty, but also a little insane. He looked at Haley out of the corner of his eye. She furrowed her brow with mock sympathy and then placed her hand on his knee reassuringly.

  “She’d had trouble with Vincent for years. He seemed born bad.” Gladys shook her head. “I used to avoid him, once he was a teenager. He used to mow my lawn, things like that for me, back after my husband first died. We never had children of our own, and I had the extra money to pay him. But—” she swallowed the word, as if fighting back the memory—“he was mean. I saw him use my lawn mower to run over kittens. On purpose!”

  Haley’s hand inadvertently clenched on Maxwell’s knee. “I knew he had problems,” Maxwell said and shook his head.

  “Just the week before—well, the night he—you know—”

  No, actually I don’t know, Maxwell thought. He leaned in toward Gladys.

  “Before Vincent killed his sweet, sweet mother, a man came to visit Vincent. As you know, Vincent didn’t have friends, so I found it strange.”

  “Did you get his name?” Haley asked.

  Gladys shook her head. “Dark haired fellow. Stern looking.” Maxwell and Haley looked at each other, both thinking Griffin. “They seemed to get on well. But, that man was bad, I could tell. I was just getting home from a doctor’s visit, and I saw them and the way they looked—was just cold.”

  “You think he had something to do with...” Maxwell’s eyes trailed toward the vacant lot.

  Gladys shrugged her shoulders in genuine ignorance. “He just made me feel scared.” She looked down at her tea. When she looked up, tears glistened in her eyes. “The next week was the fire. I knew, right away that Vincent had killed her and set that house on fire, because he shot himself in the front yard, like a confession.” Gladys’s hand shook, making her tea ripple in her cup. “They found your aunt’s body inside, as you know.”

  Maxwell nodded.

  Maxwell and Haley felt obligated to visit a while longer, sharing made-up stories of Aunt Jennifer. By the time they left, Maxwell felt like a charlatan. “I’ve never lied so much in my life,” he said, waiting for the bus. He pulled his hat tighter, grimacing at the rain still trickling from the sky.

  “You’re good at it.” Haley ignored Maxwell’s sideway glance. “Why’d he kill himself?”

  “Good question. No answer.”

  “Could Griffin have said something to make him kill himself?”

  “Still no answer.” Maxwell slipped his phone from his pocket and searched the Internet for Vincent Blackwell. The stories of the arson-murder-suicide populated the search screen. Farther down, he noticed another story. He clicked the link and skimmed the story. “Haley, Vincent’s body went missing from the morgue.”

  Haley cocked her head. “That shit’s weird. Even for Portland.” She looked down the street for the bus, but it still wasn’t coming.

  “The assistant coroner was killed. Vincent’s body was never found.” He cupped his hands around his phone to protect it from the persistent rain.

  “Did Griffin take it?”

  “Stop asking me questions I cannot answer.”

  “It’s called thinking out loud.”

  “Actually, it’s called being annoying.”

  “Actually, I’m about to put you in a headlock.” Haley shoved him playfully. “Any other newsworthy notes?” She looked over his shoulder. “Click that one that says news of the weird,” she urged, trying to push the link herself.

  Maxwell tugged the phone out of reach and clicked the link. “According to this trustworthy site, the door to the cooler where Vincent was stored was kicked off its hinges.” He looked at Haley, pausing for dramatic effect. “From the inside.”

  “Shit. This shit just got real.” Haley ruminated on the information for a moment, and then her face drew tight. “How long did it take?”

  “What?”

  “Before he went missing.”

  Maxwell searched for a date in the article. “Three days.”

  “Today’s Jared’s third day.”

  “You think—”

  “Call Lucy.”

  Maxwell took a step back. “No way. I’m not going to call Lucy and tell her Jared’s going to wake up in the morgue off a hunch. That would be cruel.”

  “What if I’m right? What if they embalm him first?”

  Maxwell’s fingers twitched nervously on his phone. He punched the call button.

  Awakenings

  Lucy realized she had been staring at the same line of runes for several minutes when she blinked back tears and shook her head. Alec was sleeping, and she was trying to busy her mind, fruitlessly. Her anguish and worry twirled in her mind like an eddy, interrupting her concentration. With a short cry of frustration, she smacked the desk, scattering the papers. What’s the point? Lucy thought. We’re going to fail. We’re going to die.

  “Lucy,” Ilene whispered, standing in the door. Lucy turned to face her mother. Ilene asked, “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Lucy admitted. Ilene crossed the room and threw her arms around Lucy. Ilene pulled Lucy against her chest. “Oh, Mom.”

  Ilene stroked Lucy’s hair. “We’ll get through this too.”

  “I can’t take any more heartache, any more loss.”

  “I know. I know.” Ilene rocked back and forth on her feet as she tried to calm Lucy. “What are you working on?” She looked down at the papers.

  “Nothing. I can’t think.”

  “Is it important?”

  Lucy sniffed. “Yes, but I can’t.”

  “Maybe we can do it together.”

  Lucy considered. Her mother seemed to accept everything that happened, seemed to understand more than she admitted. “They may not make sense to you.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Ilene took the seat next to Lucy—the one Jared always sat in—and the small act made Lucy wince as if stung. “How can I help?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ilene looked at the papers scattered across the desk and collected them. She looked at the runes scrolled across the pages, recognizing them from the mobile. “This is why Alec needed the mobile?” Ilene asked and Lucy nodded. Ilene shifted through the papers. She read the translated headers. “Lucy, what is this one called Resurrection?”

  Lucy’s eyes focused sharply and she reached for the paper, pulling it from her mother’s hand. She pressed it to the table in front of her. She pulled the translation sheet away from the page with the runes and began to scribble furiously as she attempted to translate more of the page. Ilene watched her work, her mind afraid to think too far ahead, but the image of Darius—his hand healing—washed across her mind.

  Lucy’s phone rang. She turned her eyes to the phone, an
noyed with the distraction.

  Ilene grabbed the phone. “You work,” she said to Lucy. The caller ID read Maxwell. She answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Lucy?”

  “No, Maxwell, this is Ilene.”

  “May I speak with Lucy? It’s urgent.” His voice shook.

  “She’s busy. Can I take a message?”

  “I have to talk to her! Please.”

  Ilene pulled the phone away from her ear, a little shocked by his tone. “It’s Maxwell,” she told Lucy. “He says it’s urgent.”

  “What?” Lucy barked into the phone as she took it.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think, maybe”—his words cut off. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “What?” Lucy demanded.

  “Is there any chance Jared could wake up?” Maxwell felt the words slip from his mouth, like a rope falling from a rock climber who wants nothing more than to grab it and pull it back.

  “What do you mean?” Lucy asked, her eyes trailing to the word Resurrection on the page she had been translating.

  “I feel terrible suggesting it. We could be wrong. I know how awful—”

  “What makes you think it?” She snapped.

  “Vincent Blackwell killed his mother and then himself. His body vanished from the morgue three days later. The coroner was killed. The door had been kicked out. From the inside,” Maxwell clarified. “Today’s Jared’s third day.”

  Lucy felt a cold rush, as if all the blood in her body suddenly slipped down into her shoes. “I think you’re right. I’ll call you later.” She hung up. Ilene watched her, wanting to speak, but waiting. “We have to go to the morgue.” Ilene shook her head in confusion. “Jared might be alive.” Lucy clutched her mom’s hands. “We can’t tell Alec.”