The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice Page B

turned back to her. For a long moment he gazed at her, her strong upturned face, the quiet steady fire in her eyes. “You’re going to be all right, Susie,” he said. “I love you, darling dear.”
    And then he was gone.
    Racing into the rich, fragrant thickness of the forest, the bloody blanket thrown over his shoulder, tunneling at incalculable speed through the brambles and the broken branches, and the crackling wet leaves, his soul soaring as he put the miles between himself and the little church.
    An hour and a half later, he fell down exhausted on his bed. He was sure that he’d slipped in without anyone being aware. He felt guilty, guilty for going out without the permission of Felix or Margon and doing the very thing that the Distinguished Gentlemen didn’t want forhim and Stuart to do. But he felt exultant, and he felt exhausted. And guilty or not, for the moment, he didn’t care. And he was almost asleep when he heard a mournful howling somewhere outside in the night.
    Perhaps he was already dreaming but then he heard the howling again.
    To all the world, it might have been the howling of a wolf, but he knew otherwise. He could hear the Morphenkind in the howling, and it had a deep plaintive note to it that no animal could make.
    He sat up. He couldn’t conceivably figure which of the Morphenkinder was making such a sound or why.
    It came again, a long, low howl that made the hair come again to the backs of his hands and his arms.
    Wolves in the wild howl to signal one another, do they not? But we are not really wolves, are we? We are something neither human nor animal. And who among us would make such a strange, sad sound?
    He lay back on the pillow, forcing the hair all over his body to recede, and leave him alone.
    It came again, almost sorrowful, this howling—full of pain and pleading, it seemed.
    He was more than half asleep, and tumbling into dreams, when he heard it for the last time.
    A dream came to him. It was confused even in the dreaming. Marchent was there, in a house in the forest, an old house full of people and lighted rooms, and figures coming and going. Marchent cried and cried as she talked to the people around her. She cried and cried and he couldn’t bear the agonized sound of her voice, the sight of her upturned face as she gestured and argued with these people. The people did not appear to hear her, to heed her, or to answer. He couldn’t clearly see the people. He couldn’t clearly see anything. At one point Marchent rose and ran out of the house and, in her bare feet and torn clothes, she ran through the cold wet forest. The bristling saplings scraped her bare legs. There were indistinct figures in the darkness around her, shadowy figures that appeared to reach out for her as she ran. He couldn’t stand the sight of it. He was terrified as he ran after her. The scene shifted. She sat on the side of Felix’s bed, the bed they’d shared, and she wascrying again and he said things to her, but what they were, he didn’t know—it was all happening so swiftly, so confusedly—and she said, “I know, I know, but I don’t know how!” And he felt he couldn’t stand the pain of it.
    He woke in the icy-gray morning light. The dream fell apart as if it were made of melting frost on the panes. The image of the little girl came back to him, little Susie Blakely, and with it the miserable realization that he was going to have to answer to the Distinguished Gentlemen for doing what he had done. Was it on the news already? “Man Wolf Strikes Again.” He roused himself uneasily and was thinking about Marchent as he stepped into the shower.

7
    H E DIDN ’ T CHECK his phone until he was on his way down the stairs. He had text messages from his mother, his father, and his brother all saying essentially “Call Celeste.”
    What in the world could she possibly want?
    An amazing sound greeted him when he headed for the kitchen, that of Felix and Margon obviously arguing. They were speaking