Chesna stayed beside the bed until he was asleep. Her face softened, and she reached out to touch his hair but he shifted his position and she pulled her hand back. When she’d realized he and Mouse had been captured, she’d almost gone crazy with worry, and not because she feared he would spill secrets. Seeing him emerge from the forest-filthy and mottled with bruises, his face hollowed by hunger and the ordeal of captivity-had almost made her faint. But how had he tracked them through the woods? How?
Who are you? she mentally asked the sleeping man. Lazaris had inquired how his friend “Gallatinov” was doing. Was the man British, or Russian? Or some other, more arcane nationality? Even in his drained condition, he was a handsome man-but there was something lonely about him. Something lost. All her life, she’d been brought up on the taste of silver spoons; this was a man who knew the taste of dirt. There was a cardinal rule in the secret service; do not become emotionally involved. To break that rule might lead to untold suffering and death. But she was tired-so very tired-of being an actress. And living life without emotion was like playing a part for the critics instead of the audience: there was no joy in it, only stagecraft.
The baron-Gallatinov, or whatever his name might be-shivered in his sleep. She saw the flesh of his arms rise in goose bumps. She remembered washing him, not with a hose but with a scrub brush as he lay unconscious in a tub of warm water. She had scrubbed the lice from his scalp, his chest, beneath his arms, and in his pubic hair. She had shaved him and washed his hair, and she had done all that because no one else would. That was her job, but her job did not require that her heart ache as she’d cleaned the grime from the lines in his face.
Chesna pulled the sheet up around his neck. His eyes opened-a glint of green-but the drugs were strong, and he went under again. She wished him a good sleep, beyond this world of nightmares, and closed the door quietly when she left.
2
Less than eighteen hours after he’d first awakened, Michael Gallatin was on his feet. He relieved himself in a bedpan. His urine was still blushed with blood, but there was no pain. His thigh throbbed, though his legs were sturdy. He paced the room, testing himself, and found he walked with a limp. Without painkillers and tranquilizers in his system, his nerves felt raw, but his mind was clear. It had turned toward Norway, and what he had to do to get himself ready.
He lay on the pinewood floor and slowly stretched his muscles. Deep pain gnawed at him as he worked. Back on the floor, legs up, crunch head toward knees. Stomach to the floor, lift chin and legs at the same time. Slow push-ups that made his shoulder and back muscles scream. Sit on the floor, knees bent, and ever so slowly lower the back almost to the floor, linger past the point of agony, and come up again. A light sheen of sweat glowed on Michael’s skin. Blood pumped through his veins and gorged his muscles, and his heart reached a hard rhythm. Six days, he thought as he breathed raggedly. I’ll be ready.
A woman with gray-streaked brown hair brought his dinner: strained vegetables and a hash of finely chopped beef. “Baby food,” Michael told her, but he ate every bit. Dr. Stronberg returned to check him again. His fever was down, and the wheezing in his lungs had decreased. He had, however, popped three stitches. Stronberg warned him to stay in bed and rest, and that was the end of the visit.
A night later, another helping of ghastly beef hash in his stomach, Michael stood in the darkness and eased his window open. He slipped out, into the silent forest, and stood beneath an elm tree as he changed from man to wolf. The rest of his stitches popped open, but the thigh wound didn’t bleed. It was another scar to add to his collection. He loped on all fours through the woods, breathing the fragrant, clean air. A squirrel caught his attention, and he was on it before it could reach its tree. His mouth watered as he consumed the meat and fluids, then he spat out the bones and hair and continued on his jaunt. At a farmhouse perhaps two miles from the cottage, a dog barked and howled at Michael’s scent. Michael sprayed a fence post, just to let the dog know its place.
He sat atop a grassy knoll and stared at the stars. On such a beautiful night as this, the question had to be asked: what is the lycanthrope, in the eye of God?
He thought he might know the answer to that now, after the sight of the mass grave at Falkenhausen, after the death of Mouse and the memory of an Iron Cross being plucked from his broken fingers. After his time in this land of torment and hatred, he thought he knew; and if not, the answer would do for now.
The lycanthrope was God’s avenger.
There was so much work to be done. Michael knew Chesna had courage-and plenty of it-but her chances of getting on and off Skarpa Island without him were slim. He had to be sharp and strong to face what was ahead for them.
But he was weaker than he’d thought. The change had sapped his strength, and he lay with his head on his paws under the clear starlight. He slept, and dreamed of a wolf who dreamed he was a man who dreamed he was a wolf who dreamed.
The sun was coming up when he awakened. The land was green and lovely, but it hid a black heart. He got up off his belly and started back the way he’d come, following his own scent. He neared the house and was about to change to human form again when he heard, above the song of the dawn birds, the faint noise of radio static. He tracked it, and about fifty yards from the house found a shack covered with camouflage netting. An antenna was mounted on the roof. Michael crouched in the brush and listened as the radio static ended. There were three musical tones, followed one after the other. Then Chesna’s voice, speaking German: “I read you. Go ahead.”
A man’s voice, transmitted from a great distance, answered. “The concert is set. Beethoven, as planned. Your tickets must be purchased as soon as possible. Out.” Then the crackle of dead air.
“That’s it,” Chesna said, to someone in the shack. A moment later Bauman emerged and climbed a stepladder to the roof, where he removed the antenna. Chesna came out, dark circles beneath her eyes indicating a troubled sleep, and began to stride through the forest toward the house. Michael silently kept pace with her, keeping to the green shadows. He sniffed her fragrance, and he remembered their first kiss in the lobby of the Reichkronen. He was feeling stronger now; all of him was feeling stronger. A few more days of rest, and a few more nights of hunting the meat and blood he needed, and-
He took another step, and that was when the quail hidden in the brush shrieked and leaped out from beneath his paw.
Chesna whirled toward the sound. Her hand was already gripping the Luger and drawing it from her holster. She saw him; he watched her eyes widen with the shock as she took aim and squeezed the trigger.
The gun spoke, and a chunk of bark flew from the tree next to Michael’s head. She fired a second time, but the black wolf was no longer there. Michael had turned and plunged into the dense foliage, the bullet whining over his back. “Fritz! Fritz!” Chesna shouted for Bauman as Michael winnowed through the underbrush and ran. “A wolf!” he heard her say as Bauman came running up. “It was right there, looking at me! God, I’ve never seen one so close!”
“A wolf?” Bauman’s voice was incredulous. “There are no wolves around here!”
Michael circled through the woods back in the direction of the house. His heart was pounding; the two bullets had missed him by fractions of inches. He lay in the brush and changed as quickly as he could, his bones aching as they rejointed and his fangs sliding into his jaws with wet clicking sounds. The gunshots would have already roused everyone in the house. He stood up, newly fleshed, slipped in through his window, and closed it behind him. He heard other voices outside, calling to ask what had happened. Then he got into bed, pulled the sheet up to his throat, and was lying there when Chesna entered minutes later.