His mind wandered. If only he could bring Laura with him up into this shining realm, enfolding her safely in his arms. He dreamed that she was with him, safe against him, dozing as he dozed - as the wet breeze stirred the wilderness around them, and a universe of tiny creatures lisped and fluttered, lulling him to half sleep.
What of the distant voices that he could not hear? Was anyone calling to him from the cities to the north or the south? Was anyone running from danger, screaming for his help? A sense of his ever-growing power filled him with a dark pride; how many nights could he ignore the voices? How many nights could he flee "the most dangerous game"?
But he was hearing something now!
Something had pierced the leafy portals of this sanctuary.
Somebody was in danger, terrible danger - and he knew this voice! "Reuben!" came the ragged scream. "Reuben!" It was Laura calling for him. " - I am warning you," she was sobbing, "don,t you come a step closer!" Laughter - low vicious laughter, and the voice of another: "Oh, come now, little woman, are you going to kill me with that ax?"
Chapter Twenty-One
HE SPED through the forest on all fours, darting in and out of the trees, hitting speeds he,d never achieved before.
" - My dear, you,re making this all too easy for me. You don,t know how it distresses me to shed innocent blood."
" - Get away from me. Get away from me!"
It wasn,t the scent of evil that guided him because there was no discernible scent. What was a voice so menacing without a scent?
In two leaps he crossed the broad stone terrace and pitched his weight against the door, tearing the locks out of the wood.
He landed on the floorboards, and slammed the door behind him without looking back.
Laura, trembling, terrified, stood to the left of the huge stone fireplace, clutching the long wooden handle of the ax as she held it up with both hands.
"He,s come here to kill you, Reuben!" she said, her voice thick.
Across from her, to the right, stood a small slender and composed figure, a dark-skinned man. His features had a slightly Asian cast. He appeared to be perhaps fifty years old and he had short insignificant black hair and small black eyes. He wore a simple gray jacket and pants, and a white shirt open at his neck.
Reuben moved in front of him, coming between him and Laura.
The small man very gracefully gave way.
He was taking the measure of Reuben. He appeared as detached as a man taking the measure of a stranger on a street corner.
"He says he has to kill you," Laura was saying, her words ragged and choked. "He says he has no choice. He says he has to kill me too."
"Go upstairs," said Reuben. He moved closer to the man. "Lock yourself in the bedroom."
"No, I don,t think we have time for that at all," said the man. "I see the descriptions of you were not at all exaggerated. You are a remarkable example of the breed."
"And what breed is that?" asked Reuben. He stood a couple of feet from the man now, peering down at him, confounded by the utter absence of scent. Oh, there was a human scent that came from him, yes, but no scent of hostility or evil intent.
"I regret what,s happened to you," said the man. His voice was even and eloquent. "I should never have wounded you. This was an unforgivable mistake on my part. But it,s done and I have no choice now but to undo it."
"And you are the one behind it all," said Reuben.
"Most definitely, though it was never my intention."
He seemed entirely reasonable, and certainly far too slight of build to be of any danger to Reuben, but Reuben knew this was not the final form, no, not by any means, that the man would take. Would it be better to kill him now before the change started? When he was weak and defenseless? Or to drag out of him whatever precious information he might give up? Think of the secrets he might possess.
"I,ve been guarding the place for so long," said the man, taking another step backwards as Reuben advanced. "It just went on for so very long. And I was never a very good guard, really, and sometimes not here at all. Yet it is unforgivable and if I,m to be shown the slightest mercy I must correct what I,ve done. I,m afraid my poor young ,Man Wolf,, as you call yourself, you should never have been born."
Only now did a sinister smile come over his face, and with it the transformation coming on so rapidly that Reuben could scarce measure the changes before his eyes. The man,s clothes were ripped apart as his chest expanded and his arms and legs began to lengthen and swell. He ripped off his gold wristwatch and dropped it at his side. Fine shiny black hair sprouted all over him, thickening like foam. His shoes were torn into tatters by his clawed feet. He reached up and stripped the remnants of his shirt and jacket away, and brushed off the ragged fragments of his pants. The inevitable deep growl came out of his chest.
Reuben,s eyes narrowed: smaller, shorter arms, but who can calculate the power or the skill? And what huge paws he had and huge feet. His lower limbs were thicker than Reuben,s or so it seemed.
Laura drew closer to Reuben. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her against the fireplace with the ax still held high against her right shoulder.
Reuben held steady; he drew in his breath and reached for the quiet strength he knew he possessed. You,re fighting not just for your life but for Laura,s life, he thought.
The man was now a foot taller than he had been, his black mane like a mantle, but nowhere near as tall as Reuben in Reuben,s lupine form. His face had lost all recognizable sympathetic expression, eyes small and porcine and the mouth a muzzle with long curving fangs.
A pink tongue flashed behind his white teeth as he flexed his powerful thighs. All of his hair was black, even the undercoat of fur; and his ears had a hideous peaked lupine appearance that sickened Reuben because he feared that his own ears looked the same.
Hold steady, that was Reuben,s only thought. Hold steady. He was in a rage, but not a shuddering, trembling rage that causes one,s legs to turn to water or one,s hands to flail. No, not at all.
Something is causing this being to hesitate; something is not as this being would have it. Take another step forward.
He did and the dark wolfen creature stepped back.
"And so, what now? You think you,re going to dispose of me?" asked Reuben. "You think you can destroy me because of your mistake?"
"I have no choice," said the creature, his voice a deep resonant baritone. "I told you. It should never have happened. I would have killed you with the others, the guilty ones, if I had known. But surely you know how utterly distasteful it is to shed innocent blood. When I saw my error, I released you. There,s always the chance, you see, that the Chrism won,t be passed, that the victim will simply recover; or that the victim will shortly die. That,s what so often happens. The victim simply dies."