Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3

by McGregor, Tim

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” Amy prodded the needle into the breach, probing for a gear to turn. “I'm picking the lock.”

  His brow crinkled. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “My dad taught me.”

  “Your father. Was he a burglar?”

  A loud click. Amy swung the gate open. “He was a police officer.”

  His face darkened then he followed her inside. “I don't understand you at all.”

  Stepping into a deeper darkness, Amy groped forward until she found another door. The air smelled dank and rotten. Silas produced a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. The door before her was wooden with a simple breech bolt. Opening this door revealed nothing but darkness.

  “Lara?”

  A soft tinkle of chains came from the dark cell. Then nothing.

  “Amy, wait,” said Silas.

  “The watchmen are headed this way,” he gasped.

  “Did they see us?”

  “I don't think so.” He tossed the matchbox to her. “Take this. I'm going to head them off. Be quick!”

  He slipped back outside before Amy could reply. Closing the wooden door, she fumbled up a match. The dark cell was was damp and smelled awful. “Lara? It's me. Where are you?”

  The match crackled as it ignited. The teardrop flame was tiny in that darkness, revealing nothing but her own hand. Amy tiptoed forward, calling her friend's name. The chains tinkled again and she followed its sound and Lara swam up in the pale light.

  She hung limply from the irons manacled to her wrists. Her head was tilted to one side, as if she was unconscious or dead and Amy could see another constraint around her neck. A broad collar of black iron, it too chained to a coupling in the stone wall.

  “Lara!” Amy ran to her, lifting her head up and calling her name but Lara Mendes didn't respond or even stir. Her head rolled loose as if broken and Amy felt for pulse. Was she too late? There was a heartbeat but it was faint and Lara was cold to the touch.

  Amy sought out the manacle clasped over Lara’s wrist. The metal was bolted together with an iron pin. Tugging on it proved useless, the pin required some kind of tool to winch out.

  She cast the match flame around the floor, hoping the necessary tool was left within reach. There was nothing. A few rags and a slop bucket. The flame seared her fingers and she dropped the match and the darkness swallowed them both again.

  The chains rattled softly. Another sound in the dark, this time a low guttural noise. Scrambling for another match, she spilled half the matchsticks to the floor.

  “Amy...?”

  Relief broke across Amy. Lara was conscious. “I'm here, Lara. It's okay. We're gonna get out of here.”

  “Amy.” The woman's voice sounded hoarse and brittle. “Get away.”

  “I just need to get the cuff off of you.” The remaining matches spilled from the box. Amy caught one and struck it.

  The woman in chains looked nothing like Lara Mendes. Her eyes glowed with that diabolical light that Amy relived in her nightmares every night. Lara's face twisted up in rage and her arms swung out as they pulled against the restraints.

  “Get away from me,” the woman growled.

  The change was coming over Lara. Amy could see the sharper teeth in the woman's snarl, her fingernails curling into claws. Yet it seemed to stop there, the transformation stuck in an early phase.

  “Lara, you have to push it down. Don't let it take you—”

  The woman lunged at her, an unnatural roar spilling out. A wild animal caged.

  “Stop it!” Amy reared back. “What have they done to you?”

  “You...” Lara spat, her words gritted in a barely decipherable snarl. “You wanted to come here. You wanted to make things right. You stupid stupid girl.”

  The words stung and Amy scolded herself to think hard. Lara was stuck in some early phase of the change. From the bruises and contusions on her face, she had clearly been beaten. Pushed to the breaking point, Lara wasn't herself, Amy told herself. Don't listen. She's lashing out, that's all. Still, the words bit hard.

  “Lara, you need to calm down. I'm gonna get you out of here. But you have to push the wolf down.”

  The woman flailed against the chains, her jaw chomping as she snarled a single word over and over. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

  She had to snap Lara out of it. Without thinking, she wound up and smacked the woman hard across the face. “Enough!”

  The woman startled for a moment but didn't cease her accusation.

  All her life, Amy had been taught to be the bigger person in a dispute. Don't lower yourself to the other person's rage, she had been told by both parents. One of the few points of agreement between them. Amy did her best but sometimes she failed. Squaring Lara in the eye, she spat back. “And dad would still be alive if it wasn't for you.”

  The woman flinched, words biting back. Her arms ceased flailing against the chains and her chin dropped. When her eyes came up again, they were clear. “Amy,” she coughed in a hoarse whisper. “I can't stop this. If you undo the chains, I don't know what I'll do.”

  “I can't just leave you here.”

  “Yes you can.”

  Amy took a step back. Fatigue seeped into her bones and she didn’t know what to do. Too many decisions, too many hard choices. She was tired of trying to catch up with all the craziness in this awful place.

  “Amy...”

  Amy shook off the withering indecision and looked up.

  Lara's voice sounded nothing like her. “They're coming. Run.”

  Stepping out of the cell into the anteroom, she could hear a commotion outside. Voices bellowing in anger. The Bishop's men. Then another voice. Silas.

  Sliding to the outer door, she looked out over the graveyard. Silas was thrown to the ground by three of the watchmen. One pinned him down with his knees while the other two looked up at the mausoleum and came running.

  31

  THERE WAS NO WAY out without being seen. Behind her was the prison cell, to her left a vault of old candles and dead flowers. Amy felt her heart constrict like a fist as she backed into the vault, eyes darting around in a panic. Then her foot hit something on the floor. An iron hoop ring, and around that the faint outline of a seam. A trapdoor. Snatching up the ring, she hauled it out of its casement and pushed it aside. Darkness within. Striking another match, she slunk inside and heaved the door home.

  She almost fell down the stairs that yawned open before her. Narrow and steep, the steps plunged dangerously into more darkness. Two lanterns hung from pegs on the wall to her left. She lit one and slid it from its roost and descended the stairs. The steps narrowed into winders, cutting left and left again before coming to a landing . A passageway hewn from the earth, the ceiling only a few feet over her head and held up by old timbers. Ten paces on and the smell of moldy earth gave way to a stench of rot and decay and something else Amy could not identify. She stopped, the stink warning her back but there was no other way to go.

  A noise rumbled in, filling the passageway. She wasn’t alone down here. Amy patted her pockets for a weapon that she knew wasn't there but she searched anyway. The noise timbered again but did not seem any closer. She took another step, tiptoeing onward.

  The tight corridor opened up into a massive space, a cavern deep underground. She could see no ceiling or walls, just the floor as it ended in a sheer cliff. The noise that thundered through the dark came from below.

  It was a wolf, of that she had no doubt. Its growl hitched into a snarl and she knew it had smelled her but she inched forward to the edge where the floor dropped away into nothingness. The thing was down there at the bottom of some pit. Lifting the lantern over the edge, she waited for its soft light to reach the bottom.

  A ridged back cut through the darkness like a shark fin, its knotty spine poking through the razorback pelage. The coat was filthy and bald in patches, the monster's vertebrae rippling in knots along its back. The thin
g was enormous and horrid and it looked like no wolf she had ever seen. A true monster and when it lifted its snout to look up at her, she scrambled back not wanting to see anymore. What the hell was it? The term demon flitted through her head before she pushed it aside. Why was it down here?

  It roared at her from its pit and a greater stench wafted up from below. Amy swung the lantern about looking for some other passage or exit but there was none. One way in, one way out.

  The sound of boots thundered from the corridor and Amy backed up but there was nowhere to go. Two watchmen burst onto the gallery and she was trapped between the thing in the pit and the blackguard at the entrance.

  The first watchman dove at her and she swung the lantern down hard, breaking the glass over his ear. The other one moved too fast and she felt the first blow against her jaw, followed by a boot to her stomach. Then everything went dark as the flame in the broken lantern snuffed out.

  ~

  Silas had no intention of fighting the watchmen, only to stall them to allow Amy to find her friend. The blackguard were in no mood to listen, let alone parlay. The first blow knocked him flat, the second exploded against his gut as he hit the ground. He curled into a ball to protect himself.

  A pair of legs strode into his sight line and when he squinted up through his swollen eye, he saw the Bishop. For a tiny moment, he couldn't remember what he had done nor how he had gotten here. When it came back, he wished he was dead.

  The Bishop glared, his voice timbered with disgust. “Your weakness surprises me, Silas. Led astray by a girl? I thought you were stronger than that.”

  The shame of it was physical, a burning ember lodged in his gullet. Silas said nothing.

  “I had hopes,” the Bishop continued, “of you joining the watchmen. Your seminary was to begin in the fall. I overestimated you.”

  The Bishop was about to go on but stopped when a holler sounded from the hill. Two watchmen ran forward with the missing English girl between them. “We found her,” huffed watchman Keisler.

  “Where?”

  Keisler fired a glance at Silas before answering. “Below the penance hole.”

  Amy struggled against her captors, a look of pure murder fixed on the Bishop. “What is that thing? Where did it come from--”

  “Shut her mouth,” the Bishop barked, flapping a hand to dismiss her.

  Keisler popped a linen rag from his pocket and gagged Amy with it.

  Silas fumed watching the girl mistreated. Her lip was swollen and bleeding, her cheeks blowing as she breathed through the gag. He shot to his feet. “Don't hurt her.”

  The Bishop glowered at the young man's protest. “How did she get out of the stockade, Silas?”

  Silas locked eyes with Amy but bit his tongue, silence condemning him.

  “Led astray by a girl,” the Bishop sneered. “An English too, not even a plain girl. You're a disgrace, Silas Hostetler.”

  Silas dipped his head in shame, a reflexive instinct to the Bishop's scolding. It galled him, the unquestioning power this man held over him. His situation, he decided, couldn’t get much worse. He straightened up and returned the man’s glare. “She didn't do anything wrong.”

  “She's a witch, you blind monkey. She's lied to you this whole time.” The Bishop stepped closer, to get through to the young man. “Didn't she tell you that she's in league with the very monsters that seek to destory us?”

  Silas shook his head. “No. They killed her father.”

  “More lies.” The Bishop narrowed his eyes and spoke softly. “Her friend is one of them. She didn't tell you that, did she?”

  Amy saw the shock ripple down Silas’s face, followed quickly by confusion and doubt. How could she explain this to him now?

  “See for yourself,” the Bishop said, goading the young man forward.

  Back they went through the graves to the stone building. Passing through the gate, the Bishop unlocked the cell and dragged Silas inside.

  “Look at her,” the Bishop gritted, hauling the boy into the cell. “This is what the girl brought into our village. Her friend.”

  Silas felt his stomach drop away at the sight of the woman in chains. She bore the marks of the wolf. She gnashed her teeth and flailed against the chains like a rabid dog.

  The Bishop leaned close and whispered into the young man's ear. “Look at it. This is what the girl is part of. She led you here with a promise of cunning and now your soul is on the brink. Do you want to be part of this wickedness?”

  With her mouth gagged, all she could do was plead to him with her eyes. When Silas looked at her, his eyes roiled from confusion to betrayal to damp tears.

  “Choose a path, lad” the Bishop hissed.

  When Silas marched out of the cell, he made no attempt to even look at Amy. She felt her knees give out.

  The Bishop removed his hat and wiped his brow, a look of satisfaction on his face. Shooing them from the cell, he held back the captain of the watch. “Bring the girl to me.”

  ~

  The wood floor was rough and unpolished and it left splinters in Amy's hand as she was thrown to it. She yanked the sour-tasting gag from her mouth and took in her surroundings. A simple room with few furnishings. A scattering of books on a pine hutch, an oil lamp on a neatly arranged desk. On the mantelpiece above the fireplace rested her gun, the big fifty caliber. The Bishop seated in a chair, studying her with his fingers steepled before him. A watchman stood stiffly at the door.

  The Bishop removed his hat and placed it on his desk. “How long has the woman been cursed?”

  Amy gingerly touched her swollen lip. Blood spackled her fingertips. She wouldn't even look at the man.

  “Please,” he sighed. “We both know what she is. I need to know how deep the malady runs in her. How long?”

  “Nine months,” she said. Her scabbed lip cracked when she spoke, bleeding anew. A coppery taste of salt on her tongue.

  “How many has she killed in her wolf state? How many has she passed the curse to?”

  Amy licked her lips. She was thirsty. “None. On both counts.”

  “No one with the curse goes that long without killing. Least of all a woman. How many?”

  “Believe me or don’t. I don’t care.”

  “Do the other Englishers know what she is?”

  Amy shook her head. “They don't know anything.”

  “More lies. Why were you and the woman hunting the wolf?”

  The room began to spin. Unwilling to be called a liar again, Amy pulled her legs up, rested her cheek against her knees and refused to speak. The man in the chair fired more questions at her. How does she know to treat the curse? How many other wolves are out there? Where is she from? Each unanswered query agitated the Bishop more, his voice booming through the room.

  She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “What is that thing in the pit?”

  The man leaned back, his eyes cold slits.

  “It's a wolf,” she said. “But it's not like any wolf I've ever seen. Why is it down there? Why don't you kill it?”

  “The wolf serves a greater purpose. When that purpose is fulfilled, it will be destroyed.”

  “What purpose is that? So you can torture it down there? Just put it out of its misery.”

  The Bishop's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “You have sympathy for the beast?”

  “No. I just don't understand keeping it like a pet.”

  The watchman at the door shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable at the mention of the thing hidden under the cemetery. He fired a harsh look at his Bishop but the older man was too engaged with the English girl to notice.

  The Bishop evened his tone. “The beast in the pit is a lure. It draws other wolves to it, leading them to our village. It is our duty to destroy these wolves and when the last of the wolves are butchered and burnt to ashes, we will end the beast's misery.”

  None of what the man said made sense. Amy wondered how deep his insanity ran. “How does it draw other wolves? Why do they co
me for it?”

  “Because it is the first wolf,” the Bishop said. “The wolf that unleashed the curse upon this blasted world. His name was Melchior Bratenburg; the founder of our church. Its first Bishop. The beast is over ten generations old. “

  Amy felt her jaw hang. Was the man lying? “That's crazy.”

  The man's eyes glimmered, looking through the girl on the floor. “The Bishop infected many with the curse in those early days. Sooner or later, they all come back. And when the last wolf is destroyed, the thing that was Bishop Bratenburg will be destroyed. And God will judge his black soul.”

  32

  THE BELLS PEELED JUST after dawn and a slight mist rose from the dewy ground as the sun rose in a cloudless sky of blue. An hour after the bells came the sound of axes hewing wood and spades turning earth. Silas pulled back the curtain from his window and looked out onto the square. The watchmen were busy, already toiling in shirtsleeves under the new sun. They had felled trees from beyond the walls and dragged them in behind two draft horses. Two of the watchmen were hacking the greenwood limbs from the poplar while another worked a drawknife to peel away the bark. Two others were taking turns with a single spade, digging a deep post hole into the ground.

  What was it for? Pentecost was still a week away and the furious manner in which the men toiled hinted at some other purpose. Whatever that reason was, it could not be good.

  He sat back down on the bed where he hadn't slept at all. Staring up into the darkness of his room, he thought of nothing but the English girl. His head felt dizzy from it. No matter how hard he tried to push her out of his thoughts, she snuck back in and wouldn't leave. Like a bumblebee trapped in a bottle, buzzing against every corner. His heart thumped heavy every time his mind conjured up her face. He felt like a fool. How could she have lied to him? How could she be allied with one of those monsters? How could he have been smitten by someone he barely knew?