The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice

thwack of the leather belt. The scent of the child rose sweet and penetrating. And there came the rank foul smell of the man, in wave after wave, the stench mingling with the man’s voice and the reek of the dried sweat in his filthy clothing.
    The rage rose in his throat as he let out a long, low growl.
    The door came off too easily when he yanked it, and he threw it aside. A rush of hot fetid air assaulted his nostrils. Into the small narrow space, he forced himself like a giant, head bowed under the low ceiling, the whole trailer rocking under his weight, the jabberingtelevision crashing to the floor as he caught the scrawny screaming red-faced bully by his flannel shirt and drew him back and out into the clattering cans and breaking bottles of the yard.
    How calm Reuben was as he picked the man up—
Bless us, O Lord, for these are Thy gifts!
—how very natural he felt. The man kicked at him and pounded at him, face savage with terror, like the terror Reuben had felt when Marchent embraced him, and then slowly and deliberately Reuben bit into the man’s throat.
Feed the beast in me!
    Oh, too rich, this, too rich in salt and rupturing blood and relentless heartbeat, too sweet the very viscid life of the evil one, too beyond what memory could ever record. It had been too long since he’d hunted alone, feasting on his chosen victim, his chosen prey, his chosen enemies.
    He swallowed great mouthfuls of the man’s flesh, his tongue sweeping the man’s throat and the side of his face.
    He liked the bones of the jaw, liked biting into them, liked feeling his teeth hook onto the jawbone as he bit down on what was left of the man’s face.
    There was no sound in the whole world now except the sound of his chewing and swallowing this warm, bloody flesh.
    Only the leftover rain sang in the gleaming forest around him as if it were now bereft of all the small eyes that had seen this unholy Eucharist and fled. He abandoned himself to the meal, devouring the man’s entire head, his shoulders, and his arms. Now the rib cage was his, and he went on delighting in the crackling sound of thin hollow bones, until suddenly he could eat no more.
    He licked his paws, licked the pads of his palms, wiped at his face, and licked his paw again as he cleaned himself with it as a cat might have done. What was left of the man, a pelvis and two legs? He hurled the remains deep into the forest, hearing a soft shuffling collection of sounds as they fell to the earth.
    Then he thought the better of this. He moved swiftly through the trees until he’d recovered the body, or what was left of it, and he carried it with him farther away from the trailer until he came to a smallmuddy clearing by a little stream. There he dug quickly down into the damp earth, and buried the corpse there, covering it as best he could. Here the world might never find it.
    Then he started to wash his paws in the stream, splashing the icy water over his hairy face, but he heard the child calling him. Her voice was a shrill piping sound: “Man Wolf, Man Wolf.” She called it over and over again.
    “Man Wolf!” he whispered.
    He hurried back to find her, near hysterical, in the door of the trailer.
    Painfully thin, a child of seven or eight at most, with tangled blond hair, she begged him not to leave her. She wore jeans and a filthy T-shirt. She was turning blue from the cold. Her little face was streaked with tears and dirt.
    “I prayed for you to come!” she sobbed. “I prayed for you to save me and you did.”
    “Yes, darling dear,” he said, in his low gruff wolfish voice. “I came.”
    “He stole me from my mommy,” she sobbed. She held out her wrists, scarred from the ropes with which he’d tied her. “He said my mommy was dead. I know she’s not.”
    “He’s gone now, precious darling,” he said. “He’ll never hurt you again. Now stay here until I find a blanket in there to cover you. And I’ll take you to where you’ll be safe.” He stroked her