The Wolves of Midwinter

28

IT WAS PLANNED in advance. They dressed in black sweatshirts and sweatpants, carrying the black ski masks in their pockets. Easy enough to slip out of the three vehicles and approach the Victorian house through the back alleys. Margon reminded the younger ones before it began: “You’re stronger in human form now than you ever were; climbing fences, breaking down doors, you’ll find that easy even before the change.” Who knew what the getaway might entail?

Frank, the ever impressive Frank, with his movie star looks and voice, was chosen to knock on the front door and charm his way in. Hurling aside a confused and protesting lackey, he’d gone straight to open the back door, and the wolves were inside within seconds.

Phil had morphed as soon as the others began morphing, emerging a powerful brown Man Wolf as eager to kill as Laura. The place reeked of evil. The stench had soaked into the very beams and boards. The horrified lackeys raved, snarled like animals themselves, the hatred lusciously seductive and finally irresistible.

Margon gave Laura and Phil each a desperate protesting victim—to dispatch on their own. A third inhabitant, a sleeper on the second floor, leapt from his bed with knife in hand. He slashed over and over at Stuart, who embraced him before crushing his skull.

Merciful kills these, swift. But the feasting had been slow, scrumptious. The flesh had been so warm, so salty, so delicious, with a playful jockeying for the choicest “cuts.” Reuben’s body felt like an engine, his paws and temples throbbing, his tongue lapping, of its own accord it seemed, at gushing blood.

There were only four in all, and the first three were devoured almost completely, with bloody garments and shoes pushed into garbage sacks while the unsuspecting leader paced and ranted and sang along with his deafening music in the attic above.

Up the stairs they went to take the kingpin all together. “Man Wolves! And so many of you!” he screamed in frenzied delight.

He begged, pleaded, tried to buy his life. He raved about what he might do for this world if only they’d spare him. Out of a hole in the wall he produced bundles and bundles of cash. “Take it!” he cried. “And there’s more where that came from. Listen, I know you defend the innocent. I know who you are. I am innocent. You are looking at innocence! You are listening to innocence. We can work together, you and me! I’m no enemy of the innocent!” It was Phil who tore out his throat.

Reuben watched in silence as Phil and Laura fed on the remains. He felt a subtle pride in their perfect instincts, their easy power. A subtle peace descended on them.

He didn’t fear for them any longer as he had feared for them when they were human. It penetrated to him slowly and sweetly that Laura was now unassailable against the mortal enemies that lurked in the shadows for every female human. And Phil, Phil was no longer dying, no longer neglected, no longer alone. Morphenkinder. Newborn. And how harmless was the night around them, the foggy night pressing up against the glass; how transparent, how easily fathomed, how positively sweet. He was elated and curiously calm. Is this the calm the dog feels when he gives that rattling sigh and lies down by the fire?

What would it be like to remain in this body forever, to enjoy this brain which never hesitated, never doubted, never feared? He thought of Jim weeping alone in the bedroom at the Fairmont; he could not conceive of the agony Jim had been enduring. He knew what he knew, but he didn’t feel it now. He felt the singular instincts of the beast.

The entire pack enjoyed an easy equality. At one point—as they went back to consume every last bit of bone and flesh—Frank and Berenice had tangled together, obviously making love. What did it matter now? The others looked away respectfully or simply didn’t notice, Reuben couldn’t quite tell. But a powerful surge of passion consumed Reuben. He wanted to take Laura but could not bear to do this in front of others. In a dark corner he embraced her roughly and tightly. The soft fleecy fur of her neck drove him half mad.

He watched Phil prowling the house by scent afterwards, finding even more money hidden in old armoires and in the plaster walls. His fur was brown but there were streaks of white in his mane. His eyes were large and pale and shining. How easy it was to recognize each Morphenkind, though to the crazed victims they had no doubt looked indistinguishable. Had the world ever registered particular descriptions? Probably not.

His mind ran to rampant humor suddenly, to the thought of a picture album of the pack. He felt himself laughing and he felt a little dizzy, yet certain of every step he took.

Surely Phil was feeling the sublime strength of the wolf body, so securely clothed in fur, and the bare pads of his feet moving over carpet or floorboard indifferently. Surely he was feeling the subtle warmth moving divinely through his veins.

A fortune was packed eventually into another garbage sack. Like pirates’ treasure, Reuben was thinking, all this filthy drug money—it’s like the chests of pearls and diamonds and gold in the Technicolor pirate movies—and these filthy drug dealers, are they not the pirates of our time? Who is likely to take it, this treasure, without asking a single question? St. Francis at Gubbio Church, of course.

Never before had Reuben seen victims devoured like these. Never had he known such a protracted feast. Easy to swallow hair and gristle. There had been time enough to suck marrow from bones. Never before had he tasted the soft mush of brains, the thick muscle of hearts. Consuming a human head was a bit like tackling a large and thick-skinned piece of fruit.

In luxurious silence, he had lain back on the bare boards of the living room floor finally, the music from the attic pulsing in his temples, letting his body continue to turn the flesh and blood of others into his own. Laura lay down beside him. As he turned his head, he saw the tall shaggy figure of his father staring out of the long narrow front window as if at the distant stars. Maybe he’ll write the poetry of it, Reuben thought, which so far I haven’t been able to do.

And we are all kindred now, he thought. Morphenkindred.

A short growl from Margon told them finally that it was time to move.

For a quarter of an hour they roamed the house, gathering up more random stashes of money. It had been hidden behind books in the bookcases; and in the kitchen stove; and in the bathrooms in plastic sacks in toilet tanks, and even slipped in bundles under claw-foot tubs.

Giant plasma television screens smiled and talked to no one. Cell phones rang unanswered.

Again, they lapped up the blood spilled here and there as best they could. Not a knucklebone left. Not a hank of hair. Down the back steps they crept to enter the cellar laboratory, where they smashed everything in sight.

Then away they went as they had come, human once more, dressed in their dark garments, slipping through the dark alleyways with their big sacks, back to the waiting cars. The houses were asleep around them. Their preternatural ears could still hear that rock music pounding in the distant attic. But the big Victorian was a lifeless shell, its front door wide open to the street. How long would it be before someone wandered up those granite steps?