The Wolf You Feed Arc (32 page)

“But we looked everywhere. Maybe they went with the woman’s father. She said he’d left,” the first guy argued.

“I know they’re here somewhere.” The sound of footsteps moved closer. The ladder creaked as it bore someone’s weight.

“I just know they’re here,” the deeper voice said.

He inhaled a long breath, like he was trying to sniff them out.

Eva was shaking, her heart pounding in time with Johan’s.

Keep quiet. We’re okay. They can’t see us. Remember we’re Warriors using our invisibility.

She relaxed.
I knew you were a warrior, Johan. Grandfather said you had a warrior’s name.

He gave her a squeeze.

A deep voice boomed out across the loft.

“There ain’t anything here, David; nothing but piles of straw. If they were here, we’d be able to smell them.”

The one called David stood right next to them. So close in fact, he was standing on Johan’s shirt. It was working; the men couldn’t see them.

David walked back to the loft ladder. “I know they’re here.” He repeated, menace in his voice.

Just then a third man yelled from below.

“David, Georg! Erik wants you out front. We’re leaving.”

David muttered an expletive and turned to face where the children lay.

“Listen to me, give a message to your father. Tell Tore that he should have stayed dead. Tell him, we won’t give up until Erik gets his revenge.”

Both men climbed back down the ladder. The barn door slammed shut. Johan released his hand from his sister’s mouth and she rolled over to face him. Eva began to tremble. All he could do was hold her close and try to distract and comfort her.

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.