Red Riding Hood

by David Leslie Johnson; David Leslie Johnson; Catherine Hardwicke Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

  “Do you know how you kill a tiger, Father Auguste?” Father Solomon asked, whispering stonily, looking down at the pathetic rag-doll figure of Valerie chained to the altar. “You tie out your best goat and wait.”

  Near the crumbling town wall, a dark figure crouched, searching by torchlight for something in the snow. He found what he was seeking and lowered the torch flame. Nothing happened for a moment.

  But then the ground caught fire and traced a blazing line into the square, picking up speed as it shot across the trail of lamp oil to the abandoned barn and the stack of kindling laid there earlier for just this purpose. Peter stayed low with his torch, his face lit by the flames, watching with satisfaction as the results of his work and Cesaire’s took shape.

  From his command post atop the granary tower, Solomon squinted against the sudden light, watching the flame and smoke fill the square below. He let out a whispered curse. There was no time for this, not tonight. He signaled to the Captain—and in an instant, his men were rappelling down the granary wall into the square.

  The close inner space of the mask filled with light, and Valerie looked out through her eyeholes, mystified by the flames and the smoke swirling in the wind. She jerked against her bonds in surprise when she heard a voice close behind her.

  “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Even in the chaos, she knew it was Henry. But he was different. The power of his intensity, the feverishness of his concentration, frightened her.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, confused.

  “It’s part of the plan. I’m going to get you out of here,” he repeated. He liked the sound of his own words. It was he, not Peter, doing the actual freeing. His hands went to work with the strange keys he had made earlier in the day—skeleton keys. He had practiced, and his fingers did the work for him, the key grinding in the lock, probing for the tumblers.

  As he leaned in close, all Valerie could see, filling the eyeholes of her mask, were his brown eyes, glimmering in the flames. Sharply intelligent. Burning.

  Exactly like the Wolf’s.

  Valerie thought of what her grandmother had started to suggest. She thought of the note that was in Lucie’s hands. Someone must have written it. Then she thought of her elk-horn knife.

  Click. One lock sprang open. Two more to go.

  From his crouch by the wall, Peter saw the soldiers kicking snow over the flames, stomping it out. Staring through the smoke, he could just make out the two figures at the altar. Henry hadn’t freed Valerie yet. What is taking him so long?

  Henry got to be the face of the operation. Valerie would think of herself as indebted to him always for saving her life, would forever consider him the mastermind, the way even the playwright leaves the theater thinking the actor invented his own lines.

  Henry the hero. Damn.

  We’re on the same side, he reminded himself. Peter scanned the base of the granary, knowing he had to buy Henry some time.

  Click. The second lock popped open.

  Valerie’s hands were free.

  One more to go.

  Henry’s fingers worked on the mask without thinking, the way a musician’s fingers find the strings themselves on a song he has played often. But, desperately probing, he couldn’t loosen the clasp. He muttered angrily. Valerie’s free hand felt stealthily for her knife. It would be just like the Wolf to come under the guise of a rescue. Wouldn’t it?

  Whack!

  Peter swung his axe from behind, using the handle to take down the soldier standing guard at the door of the granary. Without hesitation, he heaved his torch in through the granary door, but before he could see if the flames found their target, his legs gave way under him.

  Peter looked down, surprised, and saw that he’d been ensnared in a weighted chain that someone had tossed through the air. In an instant, the chain-wielding soldier was upon him.

  Hawkeyed, Solomon never wavered his gaze from the smoke, looking for movement at the altar. The girl was still there, that much he could see, but no sign of the Wolf yet. Was it possible these village morons were making a fool of him?

  He heard a snap. It was a small sound, but it was a sound nonetheless.

  And then he heard another.

  He sniffed the air and knew right away. The granary, too, was on fire. Someone would pay for the night’s sloppiness.

  “Evacuate,” he commanded his soldiers.

  He led the way down the spiral stairs of the tower, breathing in the thick, smoky air. It made him heady. As he turned a curve, he froze—through a window, he saw a twitch of movement at the altar, something slight.

  Just what he’d feared.

  The granary trembled around him, and the walls began to give way, the columns toasted and crumbling, flames ejecting into the night.

  “There,” Solomon said to the bowman behind him.

  The bowman and Father Auguste looked where he did. The smoke had cleared enough to show someone, a man in a cloak, crouched by Valerie, removing the wolf mask.

  The bowman raised his crossbow but hesitated as a beam came crashing to the ground.

  “Wait! Stop!” Father Auguste cried, his hands clasped together as though he were holding on to something precious.

  “Do it,” Solomon ordered.

  The bowman took aim at Henry from the window. A stationary target, an easy shot…

  But as he triggered the bow, something blurred across his vision, something close enough to make him flinch and send the bolt off course.

  It was Father Auguste, who had seen enough barbarity at last and jumped at the bowman’s line of aim, ruining the shot.

  “Run!” Father Auguste shouted toward the altar, waving his Bible in the air.

  His one syllable resonated through the air like the chime of a bell.

  Solomon didn’t waste time. He swung his arm and plunged his dagger into Auguste’s chest.

  The two men locked eyes. Father Auguste’s went wide with shock and pain and then emptied of life. He crumpled to the ground, his Bible fallen facedown at his side.

  Solomon’s eyes shot back to the altar. The wolf mask was left abandoned on its side. He knew the moment had passed. Another beam fell.

  “We should go,” he said calmly.

  Outside, he found that his soldiers had taken on a prisoner.

  “This one started the fire.” The stronger of the two soldiers thrust Peter forward. He was in manacles. They’d treated him roughly; they didn’t appreciate being made to look ridiculous by a street boy.

  “Our men found him wrestling with a soldier,” the other spoke up.

  “Lock him in the elephant. We’ll light it later.” Solomon’s voice was like a crystal, cut with disgust as he moved into the smoldering square.

  28

  The witch has escaped!” Valerie could hear the shouts as she ran.

  It was hard to comprehend that they were shouting about her, impossible to understand everything that had happened. But here she was, a witch, fleeing with Henry Lazar, who was either her former fiancé or a werewolf.

  “Come on,” Henry urged. “Peter’s meeting us with horses in the alley.” He still said the name as if it were something disgusting, something moldy in his mouth.

  Of course! Her heart raced. Peter had not abandoned her after all. He would come for her, completing the action that Henry had begun.

  She looked to Henry, racing through the night. An image flashed through her mind of the three of them on the run together, moving from town to town. She’d never have to choose.

  Peter was meeting them. But wait. Henry had said, “I’m going to get you out of here.” I, not we. Did he really want to help her still after she had spurned him?

  They raced into Dye Makers Alley. Her fingers ached dully from clutching the knife under her cape as if she were wringing out a washrag. The shimmering vats of blue dye were there. The flower petals were there. But it was only after they’d reached the dead end that Valerie realized there were no horses.


  “Where’s Peter?” she heard herself ask.

  “I don’t know. He should be here by now. That was the plan.” Henry looked huge, swelled up with anger.

  It was just the two of them, alone in a dark, secluded place. The very place where yesterday the Wolf had told her she was his. And it had all come true; she was with him now.

  All the pieces seemed to slide into place.

  Peter was never coming, she thought.

  Valerie felt drunk with the knowledge that she would die. She would put up one last fight; she wouldn’t go easily. If she got him at just the right angle… maybe, just maybe… And as she thought it, there it was, his neck exposed as he leaned out over the vats to check the maw of the alley. Probably checking for Solomon, making sure he’d have time to do his work well.

  He had lured her sister into the night and murdered her, and he was trying to do the same to her. Well, she would not go easily.

  Glancing up first at the red moon, Valerie raised her knife. She saw the blade shining in her hand, thirsty for blood. She was just stepping back so that she could throw her full weight into her blow when she froze.

  There was a growl, both male and female, human and animal. The Devil’s voice.

  It was far away. Not in the alley.

  “Oh my God. Henry.”

  He turned and saw her with the knife still raised.

  He winced. “Could you put the blade back in your boot?” he asked, managing to ease the tension with a flash of his smile.

  She sheepishly returned the knife to its place. Just then, another awful growl ripped through the air. Closer this time.

  Valerie’s relief was short-lived as a terrible new thought came over her.

  “Henry, when was the last time you saw Peter?”

  But Henry did not answer. Soldiers entered the alley, calling to each other, “The witch has escaped!”

  He pulled her into one of the silos full of blue petals. Instantly they were wrapped in the sweet floral fragrance, strangely sweet when death was so near. Henry pushed her through the feathery mass, edging them toward the back wall.

  “They’re everywhere,” he whispered.

  Their bodies were wedged in close enough that they might touch but not close enough that they did. But then Valerie felt his hand on her waist, saw his eyes full of yearning. Her breath quickened. His hand slid down her leg. Why now?

  She understood only when he’d gotten what he wanted.

  The knife from her boot.

  “Sorry,” he said absently, an afterthought. His mind somewhere else, he hadn’t even realized. He turned, preparing to ward off any assault, a gentleman always.

  But she knew it would not be possible for them to defend themselves. There was no way. They would be caught within moments. All would be over.

  But then Henry turned to her. “The church!”

  He was right. The Wolf couldn’t cross onto holy ground, and Father Solomon should respect its sanctuary as a priest himself. But they had to get there first….

  Henry thought for a desperate moment, regarding the knife in his hand.

  Moments later, Solomon’s soldiers stormed the silo—finding only blue flower petals, some of them spilling out into the street between the boards that had been pried open.

  Valerie and Henry had no choice but to run through the openness of the square.

  Somehow, over the noise of the soldiers searching the town, the galloping of horses, the shouts of the villagers, Valerie still heard the whisper.

  “Valerie, where are you going?”

  That eerie voice, a composite of all the voices she’d ever known. Her heart leapt up into her throat, lodging itself there. She knew before she looked. The Wolf had returned for her.

  She glanced at Henry, who had heard nothing. In the periphery of her vision, a dark shape disappeared and appeared again, bounding over roofs. It was only if she looked out of the corner of her eye that she could be sure it was still there.

  They could see the church now. But behind them came shouts, the sound of heavy boots in rapid pursuit.

  An arrow whistled past them, close. Another, closer.

  Valerie looked back—and screamed, seeing the silver bolt flying straight and true, the one that was meant for her, meant to end her life. Somehow, though, at the very last moment, just when she should have felt the metal bury deep inside her, she didn’t.

  Instead, she was jolted aside, and with a thwap, the bolt lodged itself in Henry’s side. He’d taken it for her.

  He jolted with the impact, and yet he was running so fast that it was a few pounding steps before he slowed.

  It was in the left shoulder. It had missed his heart, seemed to have missed his lungs.

  “Go, Valerie. Go.” He shoved her with his good arm.

  She had known him all her life, yet only now understood how good, how brave, how honorable, he was.

  “No, Henry. I can’t leave you.”

  She glanced back at the soldiers closing in.

  But the church was so near.

  She threw his good arm over her shoulder, and together they stumbled for the last dozen yards through the snow. As they held each other close, his blood stained her red cloak even darker.

  They staggered up to the gates of the sanctuary. Two more steps… but Solomon stood in front of the gates marking holy ground, blocking the way.

  “We claim sanctuary.” Valerie threw the words at him.

  “Oh, but you can’t,” Solomon replied, his voice razor sharp. “You’re not on holy ground yet.” He reached out and gripped the arrow in Henry’s shoulder.

  “And this belongs to me.” He yanked the bolt from Henry’s wound with a wet, fleshy shlop, the sound a spoon makes as it tears through watermelon.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, Henry staggered back and clasped his other hand over his shoulder to try to stanch the bleeding.

  Valerie wanted to peer inside the gaping wound, to know what was inside Henry that could radiate such goodness. It clicked into place, like fitting a key into a lock. They could have a happy life together, she knew all at once. It would be the best thing, for all of them.

  Something heaved inside Valerie as she heard it again.

  “Valerie.”

  She turned to face the Wolf. Its eyes glowing, like twin moons. Its lips glistening, wet and black.

  Two soldiers lying dead at its feet.

  The Wolf stood over her like a great monument. It was unmoving, the power of its shadow almost comforting.

  Solomon’s eyes darted up to the blood moon hanging low on the horizon, barely visible between the houses, its color paling.

  With one decisive motion, he grabbed Valerie’s yellow hair, jerking her neck back. He set his sword against her throat, using her as a human shield.

  “We will stall. It’s almost daybreak,” he confided to the Captain in an abrupt whisper.

  “You want her alive, don’t you?” he called to the Wolf.

  The Wolf glared at Solomon, then looked urgently at the fading moon, growing ever fainter in the sky.

  Henry moved toward Valerie, but Solomon dug the sword into her throat. Henry backed up. Valerie felt the edge of the blade sharp against her.

  Inside the gate, she could see villagers edging closer to gawk, careful to stay on sacred ground, like children watching their parents argue from behind the stairwell rails. They’d run there in the commotion, no one willing to hunt the Wolf that they’d been so eager to slaughter only days before.

  “First it dies, then you,” Solomon whispered to Valerie, nodding to the masked bowman awaiting command from the bell tower, one arm resting carelessly atop the banister.

  The bowman fired at the Wolf, but it jumped, sensing danger, and the bolt buried itself in the earth. Seeing the miss, Solomon reached his limit. He could not hold out any longer, bloodlust devouring him before the Wolf had a chance to. He threw Valerie free and charged full force at the Wolf, sword raised in readiness. The veins in his neck stood up
like the branches of a tree grown enormous inside him from the seeds of his obsession.

  But the Wolf leapt first, crunching its massive jaw onto Solomon’s wrist, first through sinew, then through bone. The hand dropped heavily to the snowy ground, bitten clean off, its fearsome silver-tipped fingers still clenched around the hilt of the sword.

  Moaning in agony, Solomon staggered backward toward the church, toward safety. The Wolf pursued him.

  The masked bowman let loose with another rain of arrows. Incensed, the Wolf swiped up one of the dead soldier’s shields and sent it flying toward the bell tower. The disk slammed into the bowman’s chest, splitting his armor, impaling him. He crashed into the bell, sending out a clang of doom.

  Seizing the distraction, Henry grabbed Valerie and pulled her through the gateway onto sacred ground. The Wolf leapt forward, but they were already inside and it could not reach her.

  The Wolf glanced again at the blood moon, already setting. The sky was showing the first hint of daylight as the buried sun unearthed itself.

  The beast knew it had to act quickly. It reached its paw toward Valerie, over the stone threshold, but snatched it back as it started to catch fire. The Wolf snapped its teeth, glaring at its prey with all four of its eyes.

  “You can’t hide from this.” The Wolf’s garbled voice had a strange lulling effect on Valerie. The Wolf would take care of her in a way she’d never been taken care of before. “Step through the gate or I’ll kill everyone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand,” she said, almost in a trance.

  “See how the witch talks to the Wolf!” Solomon sought vindication even in his crippled state, crying out from where a soldier was wrapping his wound.

  “Make your decision.” The Wolf’s voice echoed against the walls of her mind.

  Valerie thought of all the people around her, of Henry. She saw them, in all their flawed and perfect humanity. She couldn’t let them die.

  Time slowed for her. She was struck with the strangeness of existence. There was too much: too much beauty, too much love, too much pain and sorrow for one go-around. What to do with it all? Might it be better not to exist?