Page 18 of Curse of the Wolf
“No, not the sword, but the thing we couldn’t find. The box with the wolf on it. That’s what the old guy wanted. We?—”
A great boom sounded in the house, and the back wall blew outward.
Wood and siding struck me, sending me rolling. Before I could find my feet, a huge white cylinder flew out of the house and slammed into me. Pain erupted as it knocked me all the way to andthroughthe fence.
An inferno of fire roared through the roof as I tumbled into the yard of the house behind the broken fence. Flaming boards and shingles hit the ground, some striking me, singeing my fur.
When I tried to rise, sharp stabs of pain came from my ribs, and one of my legs wouldn’t support my weight. I collapsed onto the yellow grass, whimpering as fire rained down all around me.
6
The entire neighborhooddidn’t catch fire, but the human abode burned spectacularly. As people in nearby dwellings came out, I forced myself to my paws, my forelimb painful and my ribs cracked. Numerous lesser injuries aggravated me, spots where fire had burned through my fur.
Before limping out of the yard, I had the presence of mind to peer through the broken fence to see if any of my clothes had survived the change. If I took my human form again, I would need them.
Unfortunately, they had disappeared into the ether. A glint in the smoldering grass caught my eye. The paw-sized device that I so often used as a human. Knowing it held importance, I plucked it up and carried it away.
Aware of people gathering out front, I departed through the broken fence behind the human abode. Sticking to the yards, I traveled several dwellings away before veering toward the street. I wished to check on my ally.
I could sense him and that he still lived, but he was moving slowly away from the flaming house. Had he also been injured?Severely burned? He’d been closer than I to the origins of that great destructive boom.
Between trees in front of another human domicile, one in which nobody seemed to be present, I spotted my ally. He had also changed, taking the form of a wolf rather than the two-legs, and he carried his jacket in his mouth.
Unlike me, he’d had the wherewithal to remove at least some of his clothing before changing. Also, unlike me, he wasn’t limping. He hadn’t escaped unscathed though. Blood matted his salt-and-pepper fur, and his movements were stiff. Further, much of his right side was charred, fur burned away, revealing blistered skin. The medallion that he’d worn under his shirt as a human, an artifact that belonged to my pack, had shifted along with him and hung around his neck. It glowed faintly, bathing him with its magic.
As quickly as my injured forelimb allowed, I hurried toward him. We met under the trees and slumped against each other.
Sirens wailed, coming from the direction of the great vehicle passageway. Our pointed ears flickered with displeasure as the noise increased, the source coming closer.
The glow of the medallion intensified, wrapping around me as well as Duncan. Though we were several yards away from the burning home, and most of the human observers watched the flames from the street out front of it, I worried the glow would attract notice. Perhaps thinking the same, Duncan backed toward evergreen bushes at the side of the property. Together, we found camouflage behind the leaves.
The medallion did more than glow. As it washed over us, the magic brought warmth that suffused my body. Though I doubted it could instantly heal our wounds, some of the pain lessened.
Duncan’s wolf magic faded before mine, and he crouched as a human beside me, naked except for the medallion. Like manyother items with power, it did not fall away during the change, instead staying with its possessor.
“That was a hell of an explosion.” Gingerly, Duncan touched his side. As it had been in his wolf form, his skin was blistered and charred. “Did you see who threw the bomb?”
Understanding that he wanted to speak as humans did, I willed my wolf magic to fade. It would be easier to walk, anyway, since I only needed the back legs in that form. Nudity would be a problem, unfortunately. Humans had such strange conventions.
“Ididin case you were wondering.” Duncan grimaced. “Not in time to get out of the house and completely out of the way, but when I saw that familiar armored SUV roll up…”
The pain didn’t go away with the change. If anything, it intensified after my body morphed, a reminder that humans weren’t as tough as wolves.
When I crouched naked in the bushes beside Duncan, he repeated his last words. They had much more meaning to my human mind.
“Radomir’sarmored SUV?” I asked.
“Quite. I hadn’t suspected that he had anything to do with the local brutes.”
I started to nod in agreement but remembered the magical hand device that one thug had used on me the last time I’d defended my parking lot. I also struggled to recall the words of the man we’d tracked down, those he’d spat out when I’d stood over him as a wolf.
“The old guy.”
Yes, he’d said that.
Duncan looked over, his eyebrows rising.
“The man we followed here said a few things before the explosion, that anold guyhad ordered his gang to rob me. I think… they were supposed to get the wolf case, not necessarily the sword.”
