Hey, don’t cry, Eva. You’re a warrior too, remember? You’re gonna be fearsome when you grow a little taller.
She sniffled. Struggling to hold back the tears, she played along.
Do you think so Jojo?
Yeah. Someday, you’ll be the fiercest warrior of all.
30
Two Days Later.
“You know, Rune, you damn well stink!” Kjell opened the driver’s door. Rune smirked and thumped him on the arm.
“Ow! I mean it, bro. We gotta have the windows open or something, I can still smell that stink on you.”
Tore chuckled. “I have to agree, Rune, eau de skunk isn’t working for you.”
Rune, flung open the passenger door and climbed in. A massive grin stretched across his face. He lowered his head and sniffed at his torso.
“Who said ‘lunge at it and it’ll run away’? You told me to do it, so now you have to live with the consequences. Besides, I scrubbed for two hours this morning trying to get the smell off me. This stuff is indelible.”
“Big word, bro! Though I think you might mean, indissoluble!”
“Always the smart ass!” Rune said, slamming the door shut.
Kjell pulled the car away from the rest stop and continued on to the I 25.
“How much further, Dad?” He looked at him in the rear view mirror.
Tore looked relaxed, younger, like the new vibe between the boys was doing him good. Kjell had to agree. The trip had been good. If they’d stayed at the lodge for the whole summer together, one of them would have killed the other. But the more time they’d spent in their wolf forms, the better things got.
Telepathic communication was way more intimate than Kjell ever imagined. The words Rune flung in his head arrived wrapped in subtle caveats that his ears couldn’t detect behind Rune’s macho image. But now his brother’s self-centered attitude could no longer hide things from Kjell because he could feel Rune’s raw emotion. He could sense his insecurity, and his brother’s crippling need for love. Over the last month, Kjell discovered his hard-edged brother had a beguiling vulnerability.
“Another thirty miles. Can’t wait for a hot shower,” Tore said.
Kjell grinned through the mirror at him. Absolute bliss! Four weeks of bathing in mountain streams and rivers with an occasional campsite shower had gotten old. He wrinkled his nose at Rune again.
“What! You made your point. I know I stink! Now stop driving like an old woman. Put your foot down, the sooner you get me to a bar of soap the better.” He sniffed at himself and wound down his own window further. “Ugh! It’s the last time I listen to your Goddamn advice, bro. Next time you can remove the skunk!”
You see Dad? Kjell smirked at Rune.
Rune raised an eyebrow as he glanced in the mirror at Tore. While the boys had trolled campsite fires, hunting girls to kiss and fondle, Tore had cleaned his knives and read his book. He never once looked at another woman. Kjell thought the man was a saint!
You reckon he’s looking for more than a shower? Kjell asked.
Eew! Don’t make my mind go there, bro. Do they still do it? I mean isn’t there a law or something that says if you have teenage kids you have to give it up. If there isn’t, there should be.
Rune, Christ, look at him! He might be our dad but he’s still a good-looking guy. He’s only thirty-six! Will you be ready to give up sex when you reach his age?
Rune laughed. Point taken.
Kjell signaled and waited in the middle of the road to make the turn. Murphy’s Law ruled that a long stream of traffic must appear from nowhere whenever there was a left turn. The last Sunday driver finally passed by and Kjell steered into Hania’s rutted driveway. He pushed back in his seat, stretching out his arms and legs in anticipation of the moment when he’d get out of the rental and find some hot water. Kjell maneuvered the car around the last curve in the driveway and glanced over his shoulder. “Where do you-”
“What the hell!” Rune yelled, as he flung open the door.
Kjell jerked his head back to the front and stomped on the brake.
Rune leaped from the car before it came to a complete stop, Tore dove out after him. They ran. Rune in front, Tore behind, reaching the porch before Kjell had even opened his door. Their big bodies obscured the view. Kjell scrambled to his feet and took a few strides before he could see around their slumped forms.
And then he saw.
Black blood pooled around two bodies. Kjell’s eyes fell on what his brain had yet to fathom. The true horror of what was in front of him was slow to make sense. As the image burned into his retinas, he found it impossible to look away.
The stench of death crawled across the ground and reached through the air assaulting his nostrils, creeping down his throat, settling into his stomach and making him retch.
Rune sank to his knees, his head bowed, hands clasped around his thighs. His huge body trembled as his broad shoulders heaved up and down.
Up and down…
The scavenging turkey buzzards cast slow circling shadows that rippled across the dusty earth. They resembled a macabre blimp tethered to the unrecognizable bodies. Their black shadows and eerie silence announcing death and decay.
Tore knelt. Long black hair covered his chest as he clutched Kachina’s body. He rocked her back and forth.
Back and forth…
…back and forth.
Kjell doubled over. His body spasmed as the contents of his stomach emptied at his feet. With three huge retches, he purged himself of everything solid, but still the dry heaving paralyzed him. As the significance of what he saw sank in to his numb brain, Kjell wondered, why it was so quiet?
The silence was deafening. For a few minutes, he felt like someone had pressed the mute button. No bird song filled the air. No leaves rustled in the breeze. The open front door swung noiselessly back and forth. Even the wind chimes on the porch hung still and silent.
Rune jumped to his feet. He flung the door to the house wide open.
“Johan, Eveline!”
The silence vanished. Doors slammed back against walls. Chairs crashed to floors. Something fragile smashed. Rune’s huge body appeared back in the doorway. Then his footsteps pounded along the porch floorboards and the wind chimes decided to take up a late commentary. Rune disappeared around the corner.
Kjell’s legs received a delayed signal from his brain. He raced into the house, retracing the steps his brother must have taken. Flinging open rooms, rummaging through closets, he fell to his knees to crane his head under the beds. Kjell threw open chests and emptied clothing onto floors, pulled open cabinet doors and swept pans and crockery out of the way. He upturned tables and ransacked ottomans as he searched.
Where else could two small kids hide?
As he surveyed the kitchen, his eyes caught the side door. It rattled against the frame as the wind blew it open and closed.
Kjell stood on the back step watching Rune throwing open door after door along a row of out buildings. His eyes settled on the barn, its huge doors gaping open. Rune emerged from the last of Hania’s cabins and followed Kjell’s gaze.
They raced to the barn. Inside, Kjell pulled open long forgotten storage crates. Rune searched through heaps of abandoned equipment. Thirty minutes later, they still hadn’t found their brother and sister. They’d turned over and looked into each item of stored furniture, pushed aside every tool and piece of timber until there was nowhere else to look.
“The loft!” Tore yelled.
He’d appeared at the door. The front of his shirt smeared in blood, his eyes black and full of panic. Rune grappled with the ladder lying prone across the floor. Kjell ran to help him maneuver it into position. As soon as it fell into place, Tore climbed up. His footsteps pounded across the floorboards as the boys climbed after him.
Standing at the top of the ladder, Kjell saw there were few places for two small children to hide. The loft was less than a third full. In the far corner hay was piled up, but the rest of the space was
empty. Tore stood in front of the piles. A large flimsy heap of loose straw lay next to the stacked bales. Rune climbed the bales and searched across their tops. He worked his way to the sides of the barn and then to the back.
“Nothing,” he said jumping off the stacks.
“I’ll go outside, see if I can pick up any trail.” Kjell was unable to think of anything else he could do.
Rune nodded and walked over to Tore. Resting his hand on the back of his father’s head, he pulled him to his chest.
When Kjell returned an hour later, they hadn’t moved.
“What did you find?” Rune asked.
“Not much. Out front, the tracks of four males, not human. Pretty sure they were Lycan. The scent was two or three days old, there wasn’t much of it left. It leads here and nowhere else. I searched across the fields, even went up to the road, but I found nothing except for two sets of tire tracks.”
As Kjell mentioned the Lycan scents, Tore groaned and sank to his knees. He put his head in his hands. A deep guttural sound escaped his lips. “Please, God, let Johan and Eveline be safe.”
“Hey, Dad, we’ll find them,” Rune said, crouching beside him. Tore looked up at him, then he froze and lifted his nose to the air.
“They’re here! Do you smell them?” He scrambled to his feet and scanned the pile of straw in front of him. Rune and Kjell shook their heads. They caught a faint odor that could have been them, but it was indistinct.
Rune stood up and began to climb down the ladder.
“I’ll find them, Dad. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll find them.”
Kjell followed Rune out of the loft and left Tore staring at the heaps of straw. “We have to do something about the bodies. We can’t leave them in front of the house like that.”
Rune nodded. “Dad’s in no fit state. Bring the shovels.”
Kjell followed Rune, with a couple of spades and picks, into the meadow. He wondered why they were there, until he realized they were headed to Annike’s grave.
“You start digging, Kjell. I’ll go bring the bodies around and put them in one of the outbuildings for now.”
Kjell nodded. The ground looked hard. Digging would be backbreaking work, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to do what Rune was doing. He didn’t have the stomach for it.
“Who do you reckon the Lycan woman was?” Kjell asked.
Rune stared at him. “You don’t know?”
Kjell shook his head.
“She’s my mother,” Rune turned and walked away.
Kjell was stunned. “Rune, I’m so sorry. I should have known. Are you okay?”
“Not now, Kjell! There’s stuff to do.”
***
The next morning, Tore came down from the loft and helped dig the graves.
After cleaning up in front of the house the night before, Rune had changed to his wolf form to do another search of the area. Once the graves were dug, Tore and Kjell searched the barn again. Tore was convinced that Eva and Johan were in there, but all Kjell could detect were the same traces of old scents he’d smelled yesterday. They weren’t strong enough to suggest the kids were still there.
When Rune returned with no further information, they buried Kachina and Nea. Rune carved markers for them, and one for Annike too. Tore returned to the loft and sat by a pile of straw, refusing to eat.
“What are we going to do now?” Kjell asked.
“I don’t know, but we can’t just hang around here. Johan and Eveline must be somewhere. We didn’t find their bodies, so we have to presume they’re alive.”
Kjell nodded. “What about Hania? Do you think he’s with them?”
“I didn’t think about him. Did you pick up any scent?” he asked.
“No. His truck’s gone. Did he leave before, or after this happened?”
“It had to be before. He wouldn’t have left their bodies out there, if it was after. Anyway, if he was here while it happened, we would have found three corpses. Whoever did this wouldn’t have left witnesses. After killing two defenseless women, they’d have no problem getting rid of an old man,” Rune said.
“Is it them again? Dad’s brothers from the clan, the ones who killed my mom when we were kids?”
“I can’t think of any other explanation,” Rune said.
“I’m gonna go up and talk to Dad. Try and persuade him to come down.”
“Okay, ask him for an address for the commune. My guess is we’ll find them there,” Rune called after him.
***
Tore sat on an upturned bucket, his elbows resting on his knees, his head in his hands. Kjell squatted beside him.
“Dad, we have to…”
“Shush!” he said, leaping to his feet. Kjell frowned and listened.
Then he heard it too, faint shallow breathing. He swung his head around trying to pinpoint the sound. There! A patch of red flashed right in front of him. Kjell moved closer to the scrap of red plaid flannel shirt. As he knelt to examine it, he saw more of the fabric leading under the straw. And not just a shirt, jeans and… sweeping the straw away, he couldn’t believe what he uncovered. A familiar scent suddenly filled his nostrils.
The kids were here!
Johan lay with his arm draped over his sister. His red checked shirt wrapped around the two of them. Eyes closed, their breathing shallow, they clung together as Johan protected his sister.
Tore yelled to Rune. “Up here, they’re here! Oh my God! Fetch some water, they’re here.”
Tore had no idea where his children appeared from. Johan and Eva looked as if they had been lying there the whole time, but only seconds ago there was nothing there. There was no way he and Kjell could have missed them. Rune arrived with bottles of water. Tore knelt beside Johan and rolled him away from his Eveline. Johan moaned as he struggled to gain consciousness, his mouth cracked and dry. They must have been hiding for days. Tore poured water onto his son’s lips. Johan’s tongue licked across them.
“Eveline.” Rune scooped her into his arms, “Hey Eva, come on, honey, wake up.”
Johan’s eyes opened. Fear, then recognition flashed across his face. He struggled to sit and Kjell scooted behind him to help him up. Tore put the water to his son’s lips once more and Johan sipped it as he slumped against Kjell. Rune pulled Eva across his lap. Tears slipped down his cheek onto her face. Tore passed the water bottle to Kjell and moved to his little girl. Parched, pale, her chest barely moving as she took slow short breaths. Lying there, she looked so small. Tiny delicate hands hung limp, her long dark hair was dusty and full of straw. It hung to the floor, as her head lolled. Rune looked at Tore, his face ashen as he silently begged his father to bring his sister back to them.
Images of Kachina and Nea swam around Tore’s head and for one awful moment hers joined them. They’d already dug two graves and he couldn’t bear the thought of digging a third.
Johan pushed himself from Kjell’s arms, crawled across the floor and put his mouth to her ear. He stroked her hair, whispering something to her. Tore sat dazed. He stared at them, unable to move, not knowing what to do. Kjell pulled off his shirt, soaked it with water from the bottle and wiped it across her lips.
“Eva, c’mon wake up.” Rune’s voice broke and hope slipped from his eyes. Johan sat up. A smile crossed his face. He held his sister’s hands and pulled her forwards. Eva groaned and spluttered and coughed. Her eyes flew open and she reached for Johan. He flung his arms around her. Rune and Kjell wrapped their arms around her too, smiling, relief sweating out of them.
“Water,” she croaked. Kjell held the bottle to her lips and Rune passed another to Johan, insisting he take more. Johan sank back to the floor, tipped back the bottle and drank.
Tore sat a few feet away, watching his daughter as she sipped a few drops. Her color began to seep back into her skin. His heart had almost stopped at the sight of her lying so still.
Johan turned to his father, tears in his eyes. “Mom, Nea?”
Kjell put his arm around him,
pulled his head to his chest. “Do you know who did this?”
Johan nodded. “They hunted for us. But we hid. I couldn’t stop them, there were four…” He began to sob. “They were big, they tried to find us.”
“Do you know who they were?” Kjell asked again.
He nodded, “They gave me a message.”
“Go on.” Kjell wiped his brother’s face with his wet shirt.
“Th…they said tell Dad, he should have stayed dead. That they won’t give up until Erik gets his revenge.”
Tore let out a long mournful howl. Erik had taken almost everything from him, and now he’d tried to take Johan and Eva too.
“Dad?” Kjell was on his feet moving towards him, his hands outstretched. Tore’s hands shook, anger surging through his veins, hate taking over his entire body.
“Dad,” Kjell repeated.
But Tore didn’t answer.
He sprinted to the ladder and slid down to the barn floor. Only one thought was on his mind. He had to find Erik, and end this once and for all.
His hand was on the door of the truck before Kjell and Rune caught up with him.
“Tore, stop. We need to plan this. Wait, we’ll go together.”
He swung around to Rune, his breathing heavy. “No, I’m going alone. This has to end.”
Kjell pushed himself between his father and the truck. Rune moved closer, his hand reaching for Tore’s arm. “Let’s help Johan and Eva first. We have to get them to a hospital.”
Nothing made sense to Tore. Why were they stopping him? They couldn’t expect him to let this go. He shrugged off Rune, and pushed him backwards. Rune stumbled but lunged back to grab him, quicker than Tore expected.
“Dad, don’t do this…” Kjell came at his father from behind.
As his hands curled around Tore’s biceps, Tore sent his elbow back into Kjell’s chest, knocking the wind from him. Kjell tripped and fell against the car, gasping for breath.
Rune stepped forwards, fists clenched, “Tore, we have to wait. Johan and Eveline need us, for God-sake, they nearly died. Let’s get them checked out. We need to make sure they’re okay.”
The Wolf You Feed Arc Page 22
