Blood for Wolves

by Taft, Nicole

  “It won’t wake up for a while yet. We still have some time.”

  Alex looked down on me like he wanted to ask how I knew that, but instead ran off towards the fields, his black coat flapping around him.

  “Wait,” I shouted, an idea popping into my mind. “You have both our radios right? Give them to me.”

  Alex dug into his canvas sack and pulled them out. “What are you going to do?”

  I took two boji stones from our magic stash and the shrinking roll of duct tape from my daypack. I taped a stone to each radio.

  “Here.” I handed one of the radios to Alex. He looked at it like I’d just given him a porcupine.

  “And what’s this supposed to do?”

  I fiddled with my radio. “The books said boji stones can be used to boost communication. I thought that maybe we could get these going again with a little magic aid.”

  He shook his head. “Caroline, you don’t really think that just because you tied a rock to these that they’ll work.”

  We both turned them on. Alex’s mouth fell open as a faint crackle emitted from them.

  “Apparently they will,” I said into the radio, my voice coming out on Alex’s. I was surprised myself, but now wasn’t the time to marvel over our little success. The roar of the mob drew near the town.

  “All right, see what you can find out. I’ll try to stall them.”

  I made my way back to the town square. Already a large pole was erected, with piles of brush and sticks being stacked around it by the villagers. They shouted and some cheered, excited about the prospect of burning the fanged perpetrator that had eaten their livestock. I ran up to one of the men.

  “Where’s the wolf now?” I asked, trying to sound just as eager for his demise.

  “Bein’ held at the House of Judgment.” The man nodded in the direction of a whitewashed building that looked just like the others, save the sign hanging from it that clearly read “Judgment” underneath some sort of crest involving arrows.

  The door was flanked by two men holding pikes. I tried to look angry, which wasn’t hard, so that maybe they thought I’d come to taunt him.

  “I want to see the wolf,” I said, my hands fisting at my sides.

  “Wolves are dangerous, miss. You ought to wait until we bring him out.”

  I scoffed. “Certainly he’s no threat locked up. And besides, you’ll be right outside the door.”

  The men glanced at one another and then nodded. I went in, making sure to shut the door behind me. Wolf paced back and forth inside a barred room, just like a jail cell back at home. He spun around the moment I stepped forward.

  “Oh Caroline,” he said. His eyes were full of panic.

  I went up to the bars, holding onto them tightly. “Wolf, what did you do?”

  He took my hands and stuck his face through the bars as much as possible. “Nothing! I mean, yes, I ate one of the sheep, I remembered, but I didn’t kill the rest of the flock or any of the cows, I swear.”

  I hung my head. So he’d really done it. Some of it, at least. That still didn’t justify burning him to death, but I didn’t know what Alex could find to help prove Wolf was innocent. Even so, they’d still burn him over one sheep.

  “Caroline, you have to help me. You have to get me out of here. I’m sorry. I was so hungry and so miserable and I’ve already hurt you so much. If you don’t want to help I’ll understand, but they’re going to burn me.” His knuckles were white where he gripped the bars. I’d never seen him so terrified. “They’re going to burn me just like all the others…”

  He started to cry. Not a human cry, but a faint whimpering, whining noise like a sad dog.

  “Don’t cry,” I begged, putting my hands on his cheeks. An uncomfortable twinge went through my heart. “Please don’t cry, babe. I’ll help you. It’s okay. I already sent Alex to the fields to try and figure something out.”

  “You have?” he gasped. “Oh Caroline, my sweet, my wonderful mate. I love you and I swear I’ll never hurt you again.”

  “But I can’t guarantee it’ll work,” I said, ignoring his outburst. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to find anything.”

  “It’s a lie. I didn’t kill those cows. I never went anywhere near them. It’s all still kind of muddled in my head, but I’ve never liked cows. I’ve always been partial to sheep.”

  “Keep your voice down. I don’t know how long Alex needs, so hopefully he’ll be back before these people try anything. If not, I’ll do everything I can to stall them.”

  Suddenly Wolf backed into a corner. For a split second I didn’t understand why, then the door opened and a dozen men came into the room. One of them looked at me suspiciously, but another chuckled.

  “This girly puttin’ the fear of the fire in you? Rightly so. It’s gonna hurt.”

  They made for the cell door. Stall! Stall! my brain screamed.

  “I don’t think he did it,” I blurted out. Every man in the room turned and looked at me as though I’d grown a pair of antlers. I swallowed.

  “Well… Look at him. I mean, he’s too timid and weak to go around killing sheep just outside of villages.”

  Wolf whimpered as if to emphasize my point.

  “That’s what these creatures want you to think,” said one man, opening the cell door. “They’re crafty wretches. One minute you’re offering them a slice of pie from your sack, the next they’re offering a slice of you to their pack.”

  I registered this as some sort of proverb, but I let it go and continued as the men hauled Wolf to his feet and dragged him out of the cell.

  “But five animals? That’s a lot of food for just one half-wolf.”

  They ignored me, lugging Wolf into the town square with me right at their feet.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I shouted, getting desperate for someone to even listen to me.

  “Where did you say you were from?” asked the man who’d given me a questioning look earlier.

  I mentally ran around in circles for a moment. “King Thrushbeard’s Kingdom. I’m visiting…my niece. She lives by the sea.”

  “And what’s your name?”

  I pushed him out of the way and ran after the crowd with Wolf.

  “Alex,” I said into the radio, “what have you got?”

  “A lot of scratch marks around here,” he replied. “Way too big to be wolf claws.”

  The men carried him over the pile of kindling and pushed him against the pole. He howled.

  “Forget it,” I told Alex. “These people are serious. Get back here. Make something up.” I pushed aside a group of men, making my way to the pyre. “Let him go!” I screamed. “What is wrong with you people? Don’t you see how inhuman this is? Why do you have to burn him? Why can’t you just make him pay for the sheep?”

  I realized how asinine I sounded. No one listened anyway. No one cared. Fine. If words didn’t work, perhaps brute force would.

  I charged at the men tying Wolf’s hands behind his back and knocked them off the pile. But before I could do anything else, two more men grabbed my arms and dragged me away, holding me at the edge of the fire as if making sure I had a good vantage point for the burning.

  “Leave him alone!” I yelled, straining against them.

  Wolf howled. The men finished tying him to the pole and got down. My breath caught in my throat when another farmer came around the corner with a burning torch.

  “Caroline,” the radio crackled in my hand. I could barely hear it over the roar of the crowd. “There’s something here.”

  The man neared the wood. I slammed my heel down on the foot of one of my captors. He shouted in pain and released my arm. I jabbed my elbow into his gut and then swung my fist around and smashed it into the other man’s face. The moment he let go, I bolted back onto the pile and stood in front of Wolf, my arms outstretched.

  “Stop!” I bellowed. “If you want to burn this wolf, you’ll have to burn me too. An innocent woman.”

  A stunned silence fell ove
r the crowd. People stared up at me, unable to make out what they were seeing. Then one man’s face contorted in revulsion, and he pointed at me.

  “Wolf lover!”

  The mob erupted again. I backed up until I pressed against Wolf’s chest. I had no ideas left. More men trampled up the wood pile and grabbed me. I struggled against them, kicking and pulling. I shoved one of the back into the crowd. My foot connected with another man’s knee and sent him tumbling off the pyre. Wolf snapped, straining against the loops of rope, his eyes flashing gold.

  “No! NO! Get off of her! Leave her alone! She never did anything to you! Let her go!”

  Finally the men managed to grab my hands and arms. I lost my grip on the radio, and it fell onto the sticks at my feet. They turned me around so I was facing Wolf and pulled my hands to reach around him at the pole. Rough lengths of rope wrapped around my wrists, chafing my skin. I kept pulling and tugging, making things as difficult for them as possible. Then I realized the position they’d put me in. I had better access to Wolf’s bonds this way.

  “You love this wolf so much, you can die with him,” one of the men said nastily in my ear.

  Hurry up Alex!

  Wolf kept screaming at them to let me go, but no one listened. The rope circled my waist a few times then was tied off. I rested my head against Wolf’s chest, staring down into the tangle of branches and sticks. They meant to do it. These people were going to burn me along with him. Did they really hate wolves that much? For once I wished for the ranchers in Wyoming and their guns. A gun would be so much better to die by than fire. The second the men left the pyre, I tried picking at the thick rope around Wolf’s wrists. Moving my hands proved difficult. I didn’t stop.

  “Caroline, you there?” Alex’s faint voice floated up from the kindling. “Caroline? There is something really fucking big out here…”

  “Caroline, I’m so sorry,” Wolf said, pressing his head against mine.

  I could feel his tears against my temple. I didn’t look up, keeping my focus on loosening the ropes. “I know.”

  “Caroline, where the hell are you?” Alex yelled over the radio.

  Behind me, fire crackled on the torch. I didn’t know where Alex was, what he’d seen. But he didn’t know what was going on. He wouldn’t get here in time. I closed my eyes, willing the rope around Wolf’s wrists to loosen. They’d used a lot. There was no way I could fail Wolf. Fail Marianne. I would not be this useless.

  I savagely dug my fingernails into the knots. One of them loosened slightly. But the crackle of the torch was louder now, right at my back. I needed more time. More time! The hammering of Wolf’s heart told me we were out. He pressed his lips to my temple, and I wished it could be the last thing I felt in this world.

  Chapter 14

  Alex pushed his way through the crowd, though most of them jumped out of his way, and made his way to the front where Wolf and I stood tied at the stake. “Hey! HEY! STOP!”

  The crowd went silent again and the man with the torch paused. Alex glared at me as if to say, “Could you be any more trouble?”

  He faced the crowd, pointing at Wolf. “This man is not responsible for the killing of your livestock.”

  Several people shouted back in challenge.

  “He’s a wolf!”

  “Burn him!”

  “Those were my cows he killed!”

  The man with the torch bent forward and started to touch the fire to the bits of kindling. Alex saw him and grabbed the torch out of his hand, throwing it into a nearby horse trough.

  “He did not kill those animals!” he yelled. The anger in his voice silenced many of them, but not all. He took a different tactic and reached into his coat, pulling out something that shined.

  “You doubt the word of a Sentry from the House of Hood?”

  He held it up for the people to see. As he moved his hand around, I caught a glimpse of it. A badge. This time the entire crowd went as silent as a graveyard.

  “I saw the creature that killed your animals,” Alex continued. “When I went to investigate the matter for myself, I saw it feeding on one of the cows.”

  He stopped, letting them absorb what he was saying.

  “What was it?” a woman finally yelled. A murmur of approval went through the crowd.

  “It looked like a,” he hesitated, as if saying it would make him certifiably insane, “a werewolf.”

  Gasps and shrieks went up from the crowd.

  “It can’t be!” a man shouted. “Werewolves were banished long ago.”

  The crowd started to agree.

  “Apparently they’re back,” Alex snapped. “And that’s what you should be hunting. Not burning this man.”

  “Why didn’t you kill it?” someone yelled.

  “I didn’t have enough time to get a shot off. It ran away into the woods to the east.”

  The people went silent again, unsure of how to handle this new information. They knew they had a wolf in custody, but with a Sentry telling them he was innocent and a werewolf was wandering nearby no one seemed to know what to do. I tugged at the ropes around my hands. They bit into my wrists, refusing to budge.

  “Well,” one man started, “we still have a wolf. We should burn him anyway!”

  That got the crowd going again. Wolf growled, straining at his bonds.

  “You will do no such thing,” Alex yelled over the commotion. “He is innocent, and therefore you will let him go.”

  “You’re a Sentry! Why do you want to let a wolf go?”

  “Because he’s a half-wolf. A half-wolf is half human as well. He is what he is through no fault of his own.”

  “No good can come from any wolf!”

  The mob started to get more violent. Alex pointed at Wolf again.

  “This man saved my life!”

  The square went quiet. The whole area was like a crazed see-saw, and it was all Alex could do to keep his side down.

  “He saved my life,” he said again, “and I owe him a debt.” He gazed at the sea of faces. This new bit of information seemed to be more than they could comprehend. “And what is the matter with all of you? Burning an innocent woman as well?”

  “She’s a wolf lover!” a man next to Alex yelled.

  In one swift movement Alex had his crossbow out and pointed at the man’s chest, acting in a way he thought a Sentry might act.

  “One more word out of you fella, and I’ll sink a bolt into your heart.”

  I had the best damn stepbrother ever. Finally I managed to loosen the rope around Wolf’s wrists enough and he jerked his hands free. But instead of trying to escape he wrapped his arms around me protectively.

  “I’ve had enough out of all of you. Get up there and release them. They’re coming with me.”

  After several agonizing minutes, a few men finally came up and grudgingly untied us. I jumped down behind Alex, Wolf right at my heels. Alex moved forward and the crowd parted. Some of the people looked cowed, others angry, and some just plain confused. Once we were away from the square, we made our way to the phantom building. On the way, Wolf wrapped Alex in a huge hug.

  “Thank you Alex. We would have both been burned to ashes if not for you.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” Alex said, adjusting his coat amidst his discomfort. “What did you really do, anyway?”

  Wolf’s face went red. He cleared his throat. “I uh, I ate a sheep.”

  Alex shook his head, at a loss for words.

  “Did you really see a werewolf?” I asked, still trying to shake off the fear of being burned alive.

  “Whatever the hell it was, it sure as hell looked like one. Like a man and a wolf, put together.”

  “That’s bad,” Wolf said, deeply troubled. “Very bad. With werewolves around, it’s going to get worse than ever. People hate wolves enough as it is. If they find out that half-wolves can become werewolves, and half-wolves sometimes come from full wolves…”

  I wanted to ask, “But why emerge now?” but a shif
t in the area jarred my senses.

  “Oh God,” I said. “It’s waking up.”

  I ran down the street, Alex and Wolf right behind me, and slid to a stop in front of the phantom house.

  It was already shifting, darkening, unbecoming a house and turning back into the tall, smoky werewolf creature. Through the darkness I could see Marianne curled up inside of it. I snatched up the bouquet of bluebells and morning glory vines we’d left there. The beast let out a snarl that sounded like it’d been scraped across gravel. Its eyes glowed red and its claws had to be at least a few inches long. I shoved my terror down and I waved the bouquet in front of it.

  “Over here!”

  The werewolf’s eyes turned toward me, focusing on the bluebells. That’s it, I thought, it found Marianne through the bluebells.

  Alex let fly a bolt, but it sailed right through the werewolf, burying into a house wall behind it.

  “Come on, down here!” I yelled, shaking the bouquet. The beast looked back and forth from Marianne to the bouquet, uncertain.

  Suddenly a silver object hit it on the side of its head. Alex’s horseshoe. The werewolf’s eyes opened wider, and it opened its mouth and an ear-piercing roar ripped through the air, dropping the three of us to our knees. I squinted through the pain and then realized this could be my chance. I leapt to my feet, running behind the phantasm and grabbing onto its shaggy hair. I half expected to fall through it, but to my surprise it felt solid under my hands. I hauled myself up and threw the morning glory vines around its neck.

  The creature reared and roared again, throwing me back to the ground. I got up and grabbed the crossbow bolt from the wall. The werewolf seemed more baffled than ever, its roar weakening. It looked down at Marianne in confusion. Then Marianne woke up.

  “Marianne!” I yelled. “Think of snowdrops! Think of snowdrops!”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. The beast tossed its wild head, shrieking horribly. Alex and Wolf threw more objects from Alex’s pouch. Some worked, others didn’t. I threw the bouquet of bluebells down the street. For a moment nothing happened. Then the magical apparition bolted toward the bouquet—and left Marianne sitting on the street.