Copyright 2024 Blackwych Books

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

Kindle edition

First published in October 2024

by Blackwych Books, London

The final battle approaches as the Horrors of Sobolton series draws close to its shocking finale. Humans and wolves are at one another's throats, but as they battle to the death will any of them realize that they're being manipulated?

Lisa Sondnes thinks she's alone in her fight to save Eloise, but she's reckoned without the ragtag group of allies she's managed to gather along the way. Venturing deep into wolf territory, they all know that the odds are stacked against them, and that Saint Thomas will stop at nothing in his plot to restore the honor of his species.

For John Tench, the battle is also internal as his body threatens to rip himself apart. He thought he had a choice, but now he's starting to realize that the natural world won't let him go. Literally torn between two forms, he knows that he's running out of time, but will his indecision condemn not only his own soul but also the entire town of Sobolton to a terrible fate?

Dead End Town is the twelfth book in the thirteen-part Horrors of Sobolton series, which tells the story of one small town's struggle to deal with the paranormal monstrosities on its doorstep. Each book tells a standalone story, but there are cliffhangers and readers are recommended to go through the series in order.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Epilogue

Dead End Town

(The Horrors of Sobolton book 12)

Chapter One

One year ago...

“Damn you,” the cowboy said, stopping in the middle of the dusty little town and putting a hand on his holster, ready to draw his gun. “You just don't know when to quit, do you?”

“Funny,” the other cowboy – dressed all in black – replied as he moved away from the front of the saloon. All around, the townsfolk had gathered to watch.

No undertakers were running out to start measuring the men up yet, although that moment was surely coming.

“I could say the same thing about you. I thought you'd left town and weren't coming back.”

“That was before I figured out that you're a liar,” the first cowboy replied, “and -”

Before he could finish, the man in black drew his gun and fired, hitting a post near the first cowboy and then ducking down as several more shots rang out.

A moment later, breaking John's concentration, somebody knocked on the door of the apartment.

“Mr. Tench?” a voice called out nervously. “Mr. Tench, are you there?”

Looking away from the laptop's screen, on which he'd been watching another old western film, John hesitated for a moment. He was sitting on the side of the single bed in his cramped apartment, and he wasn't even properly dressed yet – not to mention the fact that had hadn't washed or shaved. He watched the door as the shooting continued on the laptop, but after a few seconds he tapped to pause the film and then got to his feet.

He stood in silence for a moment, and then the knocking sound briefly returned.

“Mr. Tench?” the voice continued. “I'm really sorry to bother you, but... are you home?”

“Yeah, I'm home,” John replied, although he was immediately surprised by the gruffness of his own voice. He took a moment to clear his throat. “Simon, is that you? What's up?”

He waited, but he knew that Simon – the young boy who lived across the hallway with his deadbeat mother – only ever knocked when he really needed something.

“Hang on,” he said, stepping over to the chair in the corner and grabbing a pair of pants and a shirt. “Just give me a moment, Simon, okay?”

***

A couple of minutes later he opened the door and saw Simon standing outside. Over on the other side of the hallway, the door to the opposite apartment was ajar and old rock music could be heard blaring from some speakers.

“Hey Simon,” John said cautiously. “What's going on?”

“I'm sorry to disturb you,” Simon replied, “but...”

John waited, but he could tell that the boy was scared. He also knew that Simon's mother had been going through a rough time, and that sometimes she used drink and other substances to try to numb the pain. He looked at the door for few more seconds, but he already knew deep down that he was going to have to intervene again.

“Can you come and check on her?” Simon asked. “I don't think she's very well.”

“Alright,” he replied, taking a moment to check that he had his keys before pulling his own door shut and starting to make his way across the hall. “You just stay out here, okay? I'll go check on your mom and I'll be right out again soon.”

He waited, but he could see the fear in the young boy's eyes and he knew he wasn't providing much solace. In truth, he understood that kids tended not to believe the lies that adults told each other; it usually took time for children to learn how to ignore the truth.

Heading to the open door, John looked into the apartment and immediately picked up on a stale, slightly fusty smell. Stepping inside, he saw piles of old pizza boxes that had spilled out across the floor, and empty beer bottles that had been left on and around the sofa. The place had always been a tip, but this time things seemed to be truly spiraling out of control. There was no sign so far of Simon's mother, although the television had been left on and the sound of that – couple with the music coming from speakers in another room – was almost deafening.

Walking over to the television, which was showing some old werewolf movie, John reached down and switched it off. Now he heard only the sound of rock music as he made his way slowly over to the bedroom door.

“Janelle?” he called out cautiously. “It's John Tench from across the hall. Are you decent? Simon came and asked me to check on you. Again. I'm going to come through, if that's okay with you.”

Feeling something crunching under his right foot, he looked down and saw that he'd stepped on an old burger box. An ashtray nearby was filled with old cigarette butts and a pile of books had been left on the floor, but as John stepped into the bedroom he was more focused on the mass of dirty sheets on the bed. A moment later he saw that Janelle was sitting on the floor sobbing with her back leaning against the bed's side.

“Hey,” he said, trying to ignore the stark stench of unwashed clothes in the room. “What's going on?”

As soon as she looked up at him, John saw the tears filling her eyes.

“Simon asked me to -”

“Monica's dead!” she spluttered.

“I'm sorry?”

“Monica!” she said again, as if he should immediately know who she was talking about. After a moment she shook her head in disgust. “Monica works with me in the store,” she continued. “She was the one good and decent person in that place, she was the only person I could ever talk to about my problems, and now she's dead.” Fresh tears ran down her face as she looked back down at her phone, which she was using to look at old photos. “Some asshole killed her!”

“She was murdered?” he replied, struggling to keep up with the story.

“Shouldn't you know that?” she snapped angrily. “I thought you were a cop!”

“I am a cop,” he told her, “but... I don't think I've been brought in on this particular case.”

“Of course you haven't,” she spat back at him. “None of you care, do you? Monica was a good person but the other night Kevin made her work late and then on her way home... someone must've grabbed her or something, because they found her body in a dumpster.”

“I think I might have heard something about that,” he said cautiously. “If you like, I could ask at work tomorrow and see if there's any news.”

“There won't be any news because no-one cares,” she replied. “Three women have been killed within half a mile of here in the past six months, and the cops don't even realize that there's a connection. Someone's literally hunting women and doing awful things to them, but to you guys they're just a load of case numbers and statistics.”

“That's not -”

“Everyone knows it's true, so don't even try to deny it,” she continued. “If someone with money, someone people cared about, got murdered... you lot would be all over that like flies on shit. But when it's someone like Monica, or like me, then it doesn't even matter. You couldn't give less of a damn if you tried. You just wipe us off the soles of your shoes and keep walking.”

“I know it can seem like that sometimes,” John told her, “but these cases often move slowly. I can absolutely guarantee you, though, that somebody will be working hard to solve your friend's murder.”

“It's sweet that you even pretend to believe that,” she muttered, before setting the phone aside. “I'm sorry, John, I'm just having a bad day. Simon shouldn't have bothered you about it, though. I'll talk to him.”

“It's no trouble,” he replied, before hesitating for a moment. “If you like, we could all go to the ice cream place down the street. I could... get us all something.”

“You want to take us for ice cream?”

“Well, I mean... it's a hot day and...”

His voice trailed off and he was already starting to feel as if he'd made a wrong move. He barely knew Janelle, but he'd seen her around with her son and he knew that they were struggling a lot. Ever since he'd moved into the building he'd mostly kept himself to himself, and now he was surprised by the offer he'd just made.

“Don't worry,” he said, taking a step back, “there's no need to -”

“Maybe another time,” she told him, sniffing back more tears. “Thank you, though. It's a nice offer.” She looked at her phone again. “I think I just need more time to process everything that's been going on. Monica was the best person I ever met, and it just seems so unfair that the world works like this. I'll get over it and... I'll make sure that Simon doesn't bother you again.”

“He's a good kid,” John replied, turning to leave before hesitating for a moment. “Actually, I might be moving away in a few months. A pretty interesting job has come up, I might be heading off to become sheriff of this little town way out in the sticks. I'm still waiting to hear for certain, but I figured that a change might be good.”

“I hope it works out for you,” she said with a faint, friendly smile. “I really do. I'd get out of New York in a flash if I could. Everyone needs to change, John. You know those sharks that die if they stop swimming? I think people are like that, but for us it's about change. If we don't change, eventually that's what kills us. The only difference with us is that sometimes you can't see us dying until it's too late.”

“You might have a point there,” John told her. “I might not get the job, but I put in for it and... to my surprise they seem quite keen. Of course, even if they offer, I have to think about other things. I don't know that I can just up and leave so easily.”

“Promise me you'll take that job if they offer it to you,” she replied firmly. “I mean it, John. Get out of this hellhole while you still can.”

Chapter Two

Today...

“How do we stop them?” Lisa asked as she and John hurried through the forest, following Michael away from the burning cabin. “Michael, how do we get Eloise back?”

“The wolves will lay down their lives in service of their leader,” he replied, pushing past some brambles. “Fighting them won't work. If we can get them on our side, they'll help us out. If we can't, they'll work against us. It's as simple as that.”

“So you have to... talk to them?”

“I have to remind them who's the boss,” he said through gritted teeth. “I'm still their king. I've always been their king. Abdication isn't a thing in our world, but Saint Thomas has convinced them that he should be their new leader after I died.”

“But you're not dead,” she pointed out.

“That's what I need to remind them,” he said, “and -”

Suddenly he let out a gasp and stopped. Reaching down, he put a hand on his side, and as Lisa reached him she could see that he was clearly struggling with his injuries.

“I'll be fine,” he stammered. “Just give me a moment.”

“You're in no fit state for this,” she told him. “Michael -”

“Don't say it!” he hissed. “Don't tell me to change, because I won't!”

“She has a point,” John said as he caught up to them both. “Michael, it seems to me that you need to inspire these wolves to back you. Don't take this the wrong way, but you could do with being a little more...”

Michael turned and glared at him.

“Wolfy?” John suggested cautiously.

“Do you hear that?” Lisa asked, looking past them both, watching the dark forest.

“Hear what?” John replied.

They stood in silence for a moment, and after a few seconds another scream rang out somewhere in the distance.

“That's coming from the town,” John said, and now his voice was filled with a sense of dread. “It must have started.”

“The town can take care of itself,” Michael muttered, still struggling to push the pain away. “They have the pendant, don't they?”

“It seems to have become lost,” John admitted.

“Lost?” Michael sneered. “How the hell did that happen? What kind of idiots would lose the one thing that keeps them safe? That pendant contained a fragment of bone from Thomas Becket, an English saint who died at Canterbury Cathedral in the twelfth century. It's been in Sobolton for centuries, it's the only way the town has ever been able to properly defend itself, and you're telling me that someone just... misplaced it?”

“That's about the gist of things,” John told him. “We've looked everywhere for it but we've come up empty-handed.”

“Then maybe you people deserve to lose your town,” Michael replied, before shaking his head. “I didn't mean that. The balance is actually good for humans and wolves. But if you guys have truly lost that pendant, then I don't know how you can be saved. I think Sobolton might actually be doomed.”

***

“They're everywhere,” Cassie said, peering out through one of the town hall's windows and watching as scores of wolves picked their way slowly along the street. “It's like they think the own the place.”

“Maybe they do now,” Robert replied, limping over to join her. He looked at the wolves for a moment before turning to the door, which had been barricaded, and then he looked back at the forty or fifty people who'd taken refuge in the building. “They haven't tried to break in yet, but they will. They're probably just starting with the lower hanging fruit out there. We'll be next.”

He paused for a moment, trying to ignore the images in his mind.

“It's just like my nightmares,” he whispered. “I saw all of this coming.”

“So what are we going to do?” Cassie asked, stepping back from the window. “It looks to me like people have hunkered down in their houses, or in local shops. For now everyone seems to be pretty safe but what happens when the wolves start...”

Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn't quite bring herself to finish that question.

“What happens when the wolves start trying to force the issue?” Robert replied. “When they start pushing on the doors and breaking the windows and really trying to get to us? Honestly, I don't know. There's definitely not enough silver around the place for us to mount a fightback.”

He looked around again, before stopping as he spotted Carolyn sitting on a chair over by the office. Something about her expression immediately struck him as a little odd; whereas everyone else was unable to hide their fear, Carolyn looked strangely calm, albeit with a hint of dread in her eyes. As she met his gaze, however, he saw that there was something else in her expression too, something he really couldn't quite understand.

Guilt.

“Any ideas?” he asked, ignoring that impression.

“Me?” Carolyn replied, getting to her feet. “No. I mean... why would I?”

“I don't know,” he muttered, stepping past Cassie and making his way across the foyer. “I guess I'm just hoping that someone might come up with some quick-witted plan that'll get us out of this scrape. It'd be good to -”

Stopping suddenly, he looked over at a nearby doorway and listened for a moment. The town hall was unusually quiet and the wolves outside weren't making a great deal of noise yet, but as he furrowed his brow Robert realized that he could just about hear a tiny sound coming from the museum section of the building, almost as if...

“Is something rattling in there?” he whispered.

“What do you mean?” Cassie asked unhelpfully.

“It's probably nothing,” he said, making his way to the door and looking through at the display cases and posters picked out in moonlight. “It's kind of constant, though. Tell me you all hear it too.”

“I think so,” Cassie told him. “What do you think it is?”

“It's the wolves!” Toby gasped, getting to his feet. “The wolves are breaking in! They're going to kill us!”

“I don't think it's that,” Robert said, limping into the room and trying to find the source of the noise. “Damn it, maybe I'm on a wild goose chase here, but I don't like things that I can't explain.”

“I'm sure it's nothing,” Carolyn said as she followed him through. “Robert, there's something I want to tell you. I need to get it off my chest and now seems like as good a time as -”

“What the hell is it?” he snapped angrily, stopping at one of the aisles and looking around at the assorted items from the town's history that had been put in a series of cases. “It's definitely in here somewhere.”

“Doctor Law -”

“Just give me a minute,” he added, walking past various displays that showed relics from the town's old mines. “I'll be damned if I'm not going to find what's causing this.”

“It doesn't matter,” she said softly, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that nobody had followed them through, then turning to see that he was already at the aisle's far end. “I just want to tell you something before... before Saint Thomas and the others get in here and it's too late. I want you to hear it from me.”

“What did you say?” he called back to her. “I didn't catch it.”

“You're the best person I've ever worked with,” she continued, heading over to join him. “I'm probably getting a little sentimental, but I wanted you to know that. In all the years I've been at the station, you're the only person who's ever really impressed me. You're the only human there who I ever felt was... truly good. Like you have a good soul and -”

“It's driving me mad!” he said angrily, turning to look all around at the various old costumes on a series of dummies. “You hear it, right?”

“Of course,” she replied, stepping toward him, “but -”

“Now it's louder!” he pointed out, walking over to the nearest cabinet and seeing items from the town's old sheriffs, including photos and uniforms and various other items. “It's coming from in here.”

“It is?” Carolyn said cautiously, immediately taking a step back.

“It's that badge,” he continued, peering into the cabinet and seeing that a battered old badge – one that had once belonged to the sheriff – was jittering and shaking on its stand. “What the hell's wrong with it? It's moving around like it's full of ants.”

“Are you sure?” Carolyn asked nervously, already remembering some of the stories she'd learned as a child. “It's probably nothing.”

Robert walked to the end of the aisle and grabbed a fire extinguisher, before heading back to the cabinet. Without any further warning, he held the extinguisher up and smacked it against the cabinet, shattering the glass, and then he reached through and took the badge. Turning it around, he saw a bulge on one side, and then when he turned it again he spotted an opening.

With fear in her eyes, Carolyn took another step back.

“There's something in here,” Robert muttered, noticing a small compartment. After several tries he managed to get the compartment open – and he saw a small, tarnished piece of bone rattling furiously inside. “We found it,” he gasped, turning to Carolyn with an expression of shock on his face. “It was here all along, right under our noses! The pendant's gone but the pendant's not the important bit!”

He held the badge up for her to see.

“This is the relic that keeps the town safe,” he continued. “This is the one thing we can use to fight back against the wolves!”

Chapter Three

One year ago...

“Well? Last week you said you were going to give the proposition some serious thought. Have you done that, John? And if so, have you come to a conclusion?”

“Well...”

Shifting uncomfortably on the leather couch, John realized that he'd never felt quite so much as if he'd been placed under a microscope. His sessions with Doctor Munday were always awkward, even at the best of times, yet now the level of discomfort was reaching a whole new level; turning to look out the window, he began to wonder whether he might just be better off canceling the whole arrangement.

“John?”

“Leaving New York would be a lot,” he admitted. “I've lived here pretty much all my life.”

“People do move, though,” she replied. “I'm a good example of that. Born and raised in Cleveland, but I've lived in five different states over the years. Sometimes a change of scenery can do someone the world of good. There's more to the world than just New York.”

“It's a small place,” he said, turning to her again. “This Sobolton town, I mean. I'm not sure that I'd fit in too well.”

“I've got to admit,” she continued, “I googled the place last week after you left.”

She tapped on her tablet, bringing up some of the images she'd saved.

“It looks nice, actually. Remote but not too small, and with a real sense of community.”

“Yeah, about that...”

“You don't like the idea of being part of a community?” She waited for an answer. “You don't like the idea of being part of a... I don't know, a pack of some sort?”

“A pack?”

“A group of like-minded individuals,” she added, correcting herself slightly. “You know what I mean, John, and you're deflecting rather than answering the question.” She held the tablet up and swiped a few times, showing him images of Sobolton's streets – including one shot of the sheriff's station. “Who doesn't dream of living in a smaller place? Is there anything keeping you in New York?”

“I guess not,” he murmured.

“And it doesn't have to be forever,” she pointed out. “There's -”

“The woman across from my apartment is in trouble,” he said suddenly, surprising himself with that revelation. He shifted awkwardly again, still not quite managing to get comfortable. “She has a son. I've been sort of... not looking after them, exactly, but helping them out.”

“Are you considering using them as an excuse to stay in New York?”

“It's not an excuse,” he said quickly, a little affronted by the suggestion. “I just feel a sense of responsibility toward them. If I suddenly upped and left, I'm not sure what would happen. The mother is... sick. Troubled. In the head, I mean. And the kid's neglected.”

“Do you consider yourself to be a father figure to him?”

“I didn't say that.”

“I'm wondering whether this circles back around to something we discussed in an earlier session, John,” she told him. “Your feelings about Nick are still unresolved, aren't they?”

“I don't really want to talk about Nick,” he insisted, picking at his own fingernails now. “That's all in the past. I came here because I had no choice, the department made me have some counseling sessions but... I don't really want to talk about my family. Or lack of.”

“All these things are connected,” she replied as she scribbled down a few more notes, “and they all come back to the root problem that we've been talking about for a while. Ever since your marriage broke down and your relationship with Nick became more... troubled... you've become one of many, many people in this world afflicted by a condition that I believe is massively ignored. It's loneliness, John, and there's a hell of a lot of it in this city. Don't you think maybe that's another reason why you should get out and take this job in Sobolton? Sometimes loneliness feels far worse when you're in a crowd.”

***

“Loneliness,” John muttered a short while later, sitting in a cafe near Doctor Munday's office and staring at a mug of coffee that was cooling on the table in front of him. “What a crock of...”

His voice trailed off as he watched steam rising from the surface of the coffee. Every Tuesday, right after his weekly session with the doctor, he found himself sitting in the same cafe and contemplating a mug of coffee and wondering whether he should just can the whole thing. He'd been ordered to attend counseling sessions after a series of difficulties at work, and he'd duly obliged by trudging to sessions for a few months now, yet he was starting to believe that they were doing more harm than good... and this latest session had made him wriggle and squirm more than ever before.

“Loneliness,” he said again, looking out the window just as a guy in a black leather jacket hurried into the cafe. “I mean, what the -”

“Empty the register!”

Turning, John saw that the guy in the jacket – a man with close-cropped hair and the wary eyes of desperation – was now pointing a gun at the terrified woman behind the counter.

“Empty the register!” the guy yelled again, before turning and aiming the gun at each of the people in the cafe in turn. “We don't need any heroes here!” he continued. “If everyone's smart, I'll be out of here in thirty seconds.”

He turned and pointed the gun straight at the woman's face again.

“Empty the register now!”

Getting to his feet, John instinctively reached for his concealed gun, before stopping as he realized that he might have better options. Sure enough, the guy turned and aimed at him again, and in that moment John understood that if he'd been pulling his gun out already, he might well have ended up taking a bullet.

“What's your problem?” the guy sneered. “Old man, sit down.”

“Old man?” John replied, genuinely shocked to be called such a thing.

“I won't tell you again,” the guy replied, stepping toward him, waving the gun around a little as if he was trying to establish dominance. “Do you think I want to shoot some old idiot in a coffee shop? Hell no... but I will if I have to, so sit your ass back down!”

“You really don't want to do this,” John said, taking a step forward while holding his hands up and trying to work out exactly when to make his move. “The consequences for you will be... extremely bad. But there's still time for you to pull back and be smart, if you just -”

“You like talking, huh?”

“Actually, not particularly,” John replied, stopping just a few feet from the guy and waiting for his chance. “I just came in for a coffee, that's all. I really don't have any ambitions to be some kind of hero today, and I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say that we'd all like it if you put the gun down. I'm actually an off-duty New York police detective and -”

“Bullshit!”

“My card is in my wallet,” John told him, before glancing around and spotting several cameras high up on the walls. “There are surveillance cameras in here,” he continued. “Several of them. You're on tape, my friend, and the odds of you getting away are extremely low. You need to recognize that and you need to back down. Do you understand?”

Shaking his head, the man adjusted his grip on the gun.

“I get it,” John continued. “You're desperate. I know you're not trying to pull off this robbery for fun. I can also tell that you've not really held a gun before, so I'm guessing that this is your first time trying to do something like this. From the look in your eyes, you've certainly never killed before, you've probably never really hurt anyone. All of which means that there's still hope for you. You haven't crossed that line yet, you haven't become...”

He blinked, and in that moment he suddenly saw a completely different face staring back at him. He had no idea how, but the guy was now his own son.

“Nick?” he stammered, trying to understand what was happening. “What are you doing here?”

He hesitated for a moment, staring blankly at his son's face, before stepping forward to give him a hug.

“Nick, I had no idea that you were even -”

Suddenly the guy pulled the trigger, firing the gun and blasting John in the shoulder. Falling back as people screamed all around him, John blinked again – in that last split second, just as he hit the floor and saw the guy standing over him, he realized that he wasn't Nick at all. People were racing past, rushing out of the cafe, but John could only start to open his mouth before a surging pain burst through his shoulder and everything went black.

Chapter Four

Today...

As soon as she spotted the bus stop at the edge of town, Lisa stopped. Without planning to do so, she'd reached the same bus stop that she'd been at with Eloise when her daughter had decided to go off into the forest. Now, looking down at her injured hand, she found herself wondering whether she was ever going to be able to get her back.

“I'm fine,” Michael muttered, following a few steps behind with John. “You don't have to keep asking me every few seconds.”

“What do we do now?” Lisa asked as she spotted a couple of wolves at the end of the street. “They don't seem to be launching a proper attack yet.”

Looking up, she saw people at the windows of nearby houses, as if the residents of Sobolton had all hidden themselves away while they waited to see what was going to happen next.

“What are they holding back for?” she continued. “Where's Saint Thomas?”

“He'll be close,” Michael told her. “Listen, I think we need to split up. I'll find my brother and deal with the wolves, and you guys have to focus on finding Eloise.”

“But -”

“She'll listen to you,” he added, turning to Lisa. “Let's be honest, she's scared of me. She always has been, at least to some degree. Right now we need to lure her back to the human side of things, and you're the only one who's ever going to be able to do that.” He looked over at John. “And Lisa can't do this alone, so she'll need you to help her. Meanwhile I'll be fine on my own. Despite everything that happened out there in the forest tonight, I know how to defend myself.”

He held his hand up, revealing the bloodied marks in his flesh.

“And these wounds are healing,” he added. “Not as quickly as I'd like, but certainly faster than they would for a human. I need to find Saint Thomas and make the other wolves see who's really in charge here, and then I'm going to lead them all back out into the forest.”

“How do we find Eloise?” Lisa asked.

“I don't think you'll need to,” he continued. “She'll find you instead. She's still so young, and she'll be finding it harder and harder to fit in with the rest of the pack. As soon as she senses you, Lisa, she'll come to you. When that happens you need to get her away from here until I can put Saint Thomas in his place.”

“We had a plan earlier,” Lisa told him. “We were going to hide her in one of the old bunkers in the forest. We were thinking that Saint Thomas wouldn't be able to detect her while she's down there.”

“That might work,” he replied, before looking along the street as he saw several more wolves skulking through the darkness. “Find her and get her out of here. I'm going to take my brother down.”

***

“I can't believe we never thought to look in here properly,” Robert whispered, still staring at the piece of bone that he'd tipped out of the silver badge. “I mean, we searched everywhere, but we never really ransacked the place.”

He looked over at Carolyn and saw that she'd backed a little further away.

“Do you know something?” he added. “I actually remember that years and years ago, some boxes of old items from the station were donated to the museum. Why didn't I think about that before? This badge must have ended up in one of those boxes, and that's how it eventually got put on display.”

“Amazing,” she replied, unable to stop staring at the relic as she took yet another step back. “That's... really astonishing.”

“We need to find John,” he said, putting the bone back into the badge and closing the compartment, before starting to limp along the aisle. “He'll know what to -”

Suddenly Carolyn pulled back so fast that she bumped against one of the other cabinets, causing it to wobble slightly.

“Are you okay?” Robert asked.

“Me? I'm fine. Why?”

“No reason,” he said, stopping in front of her before looking down at the badge again. This time, the piece of bone was rattling furiously. “Huh,” he continued, “something must've really set it off. Do you think the wolves are surrounding the building?”

“They might be,” she stammered, struggling to hide her sense of fear. “I mean, who knows, right? What -”

Suddenly they both heard a loud cracking sound, accompanied almost instantly by the sound of people shouting. A moment later the others all ran through into the museum, and Robert glanced briefly at Carolyn before hurrying in the other direction, stepping out into the town hall's entrance foyer just as the main door was finally ripped from its hinges.

Several wolves began to make their way inside, followed a few seconds later by Saint Thomas in his human form.

“Howdy everyone,” he said with a grin, stopping to watch as the wolves continued to spread out across the foyer. Turning to Robert, he allowed himself a faint chuckle. “I hope you appreciate the fact that I've come here in my human guise. I could easily not have bothered, but... I don't know, I guess I just figured that I should be polite one last time and at least explain why you all have to die.”

“Is that right?” Robert asked, stepping forward.

“Don't!” Carolyn hissed.

“Are you the designated representative of the town of Sobolton?” Saint Thomas asked, conspicuously looking Robert up and down. “An old man with a limp? It's no skin off my nose, but I just want to make sure... are the rest of you really going to put your lives in this man's hands? Seriously?”

“No-one's putting their life in my hands,” Robert said firmly.

“Is that so?” Saint Thomas asked. “Then what -”

In that moment Robert held his right hand up, revealing the silver badge as the bone fragment rattled wildly inside.

“And what have you got there?” Saint Thomas continued, squinting slightly but still smiling. “Wait, don't tell me... has your little game actually paid off? That wouldn't happen to be the relic of Thomas Becket, would it?”

“One and the same,” Robert sneered, “so if you know what's good for you, you'll back off.”

As those words left his lips, he couldn't help but notice that a much smaller – and clearly younger – little wolf had also entered the building, although this particular creature was holding back and seemed almost to be hiding slightly. Looking into the smaller wolf's eyes, Robert felt for a moment as if he was spotting a trace of recognition, but he quickly turned to Saint Thomas again.

“You know what this is,” he said firmly. “This damn relic is lethal for your species. I'll admit, we had a hard time finding it again but you know I'm not bluffing.”

“I never for one second suggested that you are,” Saint Thomas replied.

“So leave!” Robert said firmly, not noticing that Carolyn had slipped back out of sight behind him. “Leave now and no-one has to get hurt!”

“Leave?” Saint Thomas said. “After coming so far? That would sure make this a wasted trip, wouldn't it? And if there's one thing I hate, it's wasted trips.” He rolled his eyes. “Actually, ignore that. I hate lots and lots of things.”

He turned to one of the larger wolves nearby, and then he nodded toward Robert.

“Go on,” he told the wolf. “Go and test it.”

The wolf held back, clearly uncertain about the order.

“I'm the leader of this pack,” Saint Thomas continued, “and I'm telling you to go over there and test that thing out. I've never actually seen it in action before and I want to know exactly what it does and how it works.”

Again he waited, but the wolf remained reluctant.

“Are you going to disobey me?” Saint Thomas snarled. “Seriously? In front of the rest of the pack? Do I have to remind you of the consequences you'll face?”

The wolf continued to hesitate for a few seconds, before turning and slowly starting to advance toward Robert. With the sheriff's badge still in his hand, Robert watched as the wolf approached and he somehow managed to resist the urge to pull back. The wolf, meanwhile, glanced back a couple of times at Saint Thomas, as if expecting that at any moment a new order might come.

“Keep going,” Saint Thomas told the creature. “You're doing good so far. Now, when the time's right, I want you to attack the nice man.”

The wolf stopped for a moment.

“Attack him,” Saint Thomas said darkly. “We need a demonstration here.”

“I'm not afraid to use this thing!” Robert shouted, keeping his eyes fixed very firmly on the advancing wolf. “If you think I'll back down, you've got another thing coming.”

“I don't think you'll back down,” Saint Thomas said. “You have no choice, you have to fight.” He looked at the wolf again. “What are you waiting for?” he continued. “Attack.”

The wolf held back.

“Attack!” Saint Thomas screamed.

In that moment, the wolf lunged at Robert, slamming into him and pushing him down onto the floor. Momentarily taken by surprise, Robert almost dropped the badge, only to instead push it up and press it firmly against the wolf's chest. For a fraction of a second he had no idea what he was supposed to do next, until the wolf let out a cry of pain as the silver began to burn into its body; a moment after that, Robert felt his hand cracking through the animal's ribs as the silver burned its way to the heart, and blood began to gush out from the gaping wound as the wolf struggled desperately to get away.

Reaching up, Robert used his spare hand to grab the wolf's neck, holding the creature down and twisting his other hand as he forced the silver through the spine. He could see that the wolf was dying now, but he was too scared to show any mercy and instead he simply kept his hand pushing through the creature's chest until finally the entire carcass slumped down dead against him. To his surprise, he saw that his hand had actually burst out through the wolf's back, with blood and entrails caked all over the flesh as the rattling badge remained firmly in his palm.

“That was so cool,” Saint Thomas said, having watched the wolf's death in silence. After a moment he took a step forward. “Now do me.”

Chapter Five

One year ago...

“You're a very lucky guy,” Doctor Hoffman said, standing at the foot of John's hospital bed as he examined the latest notes. “The bullet passed straight through your shoulder and didn't cause much damage at all. You'll have a nice scar, but that's about it.”

“Okay,” John replied, relieved that so far things seemed to be working out. “And when can I go home?”

“I'd like to keep you in until Monday,” the doctor continued, “just for observation.”

“You couldn't make it Tuesday, could you?” John asked. “I've got an... appointment I'd sure like to miss.”

“You'll be fine here until Monday,” Hoffman said with a wry smile before checking his watch. “I know hospital food isn't the best, but you'll just have to make do. Like I told you, there's really no cause for concern. As shootings go, this is one of the cleaner ones I've ever dealt with.”

He made a note before hanging the chart back up and heading to the door.

“I'll get someone to give you some more painkillers, though,” he added. “Even the cleanest gunshot wound has got to -”

“What happened to him?”

Hoffman turned and looked back over at the bed.

“The guy who shot me,” John continued. “After I passed out... what happened?”

“Oh, him,” Hoffman replied, furrowing his brow for a moment. “Yeah, I think I heard about that. I read about him. He was some guy named Isaac... something, and he ran out from the coffee shop and then he tried to rob somewhere else instead about an hour later. The cops arrived in time and he panicked, and they took him down.”

“They killed him?”

“I don't think he gave them much choice. In fact, I believe he might be here in this hospital right now. Hell of a coincidence, huh?”

“He's here?” John replied, sitting up a little. “Can I see him?”

“Well, when I say that he's here, I mean... I believe he's in the morgue. They've been using our facilities as a kind of overflow for the other places.”

John paused for a few seconds, before settling back down against his pillows.

“If you ask me, getting shot was the best thing for him,” Hoffman suggested. “I don't mean to sound harsh, but some people bring nothing but pain and misery to this world, in which case... I mean, what's the point of them, right? The guy who shot you was obviously a menace to society and it's for the best that he can't hurt anyone else. But... don't tell anyone else here that I said that, okay? Most of my colleagues are a lot more sympathetic to society's worst specimens, they'd want the guy who shot you to undergo endless therapy and crap like that. Me? I don't see the point.”

John opened his mouth to reply, but at the last second he remained silent.

“You got anyone coming in to see you, John?” the doctor asked. “Any family?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“Any colleagues?”

After thinking for a few seconds, John shook his head.

“Well, I'm sure someone will be along, so you should get some rest until then. Just try to relax, okay? I know I said it's a clean wound, and it is, but your body's still been through a lot today. Hey, at least you'll have a cool scar to show off, right?” He turned and headed out of the room. “I'll be back, John! And someone'll be along with painkillers soon!”

***

“Hello,” John said a couple of hours later, having extricated himself from the bed and made his way down to the lower floors of the hospital. “My name is John Tench, I'm with the police and I need to see one of your bodies.”

“You want to see a body?” the woman behind the desk replied, clearly surprised by the request.

“Here's my card,” John continued, holding up the identification he'd taken from his jacket up in his room. “I'm afraid I don't know the victim's last name, but I believe his first name is Isaac.”

The woman glanced at a printed sheet on the desk.

“Do you have a body by that name?” John asked.

“We do,” she said cautiously, “but I'm not sure... I mean, you're wearing a hospital gown. Did something happen to your shoulder?”

“That's a funny story,” John admitted, forcing a smile even though he could already feel the latest dose of painkillers wearing off. “The point is, I know this is unorthodox, but I really am a police detective and I need to see the body as part of an investigation. I could go and speak to your boss, but I know you have the authority to just let me go and take a look in there, so...”

“I guess there's no rule against it,” she said cautiously, checking the sheet again. “Actually, I think the deceased is in examination room five right now but -”

“Thank you,” John replied, turning and making his way through the double doors.

“But he's actually undergoing a procedure!” she called after him. “Sir? I don't think you should just barge in there!”

Ignoring her entreaties, John hurried along the corridor and tried to ignore the worsening pain in his shoulder. He began to note the numbers on the doors, and although he knew he should be up in his hospital bed, he told himself that there was no real harm in just checking the body of the man in the morgue.

Finally reaching the door to the fifth examination room, he pushed through and stepped inside, only to stop as soon as he saw that a pathologist was in the process of conducting an autopsy.

“Who the hell are you?” the doctor gasped.

“I just...”

Seeing the body on the slab, John froze for a moment. Although he could only make out the side of the man's face, he already recognized him from the cafe, but he felt a rush of relief as he saw that this definitely wasn't Nick. Even though he'd been certain that the appearance of his son had been some kind of hallucination – bordering on a kind of delusion – he'd been determined to check, and now he slowly made his way around the slab until he could see the dead man's features more fully.

“I knew something like this would happen,” the doctor sighed angrily. “When they cut costs and set us up to perform autopsies down here in the bloody hospital basement, I warned everyone that we'd get people just wandering in like this.”

“I'm with the police,” John replied, unable to stop looking at the man's face. “This man shot me this morning.”

“Wonderful,” the doctor said, clearly frustrated. “Are you here to tell him off? Because I'm just about to cut the bastard open.”

Blinking, John thought back to the sight of his own son standing in the cafe. He had no idea why that image had appeared to him earlier, but now he found himself wondering whether Nick was even in New York at all. Most of the time he and his son barely spoke, to the extent that he couldn't even keep track of his coming and goings, and he usually tried to not really think about the situation at all. Quite why Nick had suddenly burst back into his thoughts, however, was a question that left him feeling more than a little uneasy.

“Are you done?” the doctor asked. “How exactly am I supposed to get things finished round here if I've got random police officers walking in?”

“I'm sorry,” John replied, turning and heading back to the door. “I didn't mean to interrupt you. Please, carry on.”

Once he was out in the corridor, he took a moment to lean back against the wall. His heart was racing and he couldn't help but worry about Nick, although he quickly told himself that he was just overreacting to the fact that he'd almost died. He could feel the pain in his shoulder and he knew that getting out of bed had been a mistake, and he was already starting to think that he should head back upstairs and try to avoid letting anyone know that he'd ever left. At the same time, part of him just wanted to walk straight out of the hospital and never look back.

In his mind's eye, he saw the gun firing again, and he remembered the sensation of tumbling down and slamming against the floor.

“Old man,” he whispered, remembering the phrase the shooter had used, as he began to shuffle back along the corridor. “I'm not an old man, not yet. I've still got plenty more fight in me.”

As he pushed the double doors open and made his way toward the elevator, he realized that those two words – 'old man' – had in many ways felt more cutting and more irritating that the bullet itself.

Chapter Six

Today...

“She could be anywhere,” Lisa pointed out as she and John made their way along a dark, deserted street near the center of town. “I don't see that many wolves around. Where do you think the main pack has gathered?”

“Probably near the station,” he suggested. “I don't know, I can't think of anywhere else. This whole situation isn't at all how I expected it to be. I thought there'd be rabid wolves attacking people in the streets, but instead they seem to be taking a more patient approach. To be honest, I'm not sure what I would have preferred. At least if they were attacking, we'd understand their plan. As things stand, I'm worried that they might have another trick up their sleeves. Not that they have sleeves but... you know what I mean.”

“Eloise!” Lisa called out, hoping against hope that her daughter might suddenly appear from somewhere. “Eloise, it's me! I've come to get you away from here. It's still not too late, you just have to come with me.”

“She'll sense you soon,” John told her.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I've been like her,” he pointed out. “She's new to her wolf body, just like I was new to mine not that long ago. As she gets used to it, her senses will become heightened and she'll get better at unraveling all the different strands in the world around her. I don't mean to alarm you, Lisa, but she's going to be extremely confused and probably terrified as well.”

“That's why we need to find her fast,” she told him, before stopping as she saw a wolf stepping into view at the next crossing.

The creature began to make its way across the road, only to slow its pace and come to a halt as it realized that it was being watched. Seemingly untroubled by the fact that it was being observed, the wolf stared at them both for a moment before slowly starting to bare its fangs as it let out a low growl.

“Don't make any sudden movements,” John said, putting a hand out to hold Lisa back. “It's not going to attack us if we stay calm.”

“How can you be sure?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he replied, “but I can read its body language somehow. Even when I'm in my human form, I remember some aspect of what it's like to be a wolf.”

They watched the creature for a few more seconds, until slowly it turned and began to walk away, eventually picking up the pace and slipping along a nearby alley.

“That's the third wolf we've spotted,” Lisa pointed out, “and they all seem to be going in the same direction. I think you're right, they're congregating somewhere near the station.”

“Then that's where we need to go too,” John told her. “If Eloise is with them, she'll soon notice your scent. It might be our only chance to get her away from them.”

***

“There are wolves everywhere,” Tracy said, standing at the window of the hospital room and looking out at the road that ran past Middleford Cross. “They're swarming in from the forest. I had no idea there could be so many of them out there.”

“They don't seem to be trying to get in here too much,” Trevor said as he continued to check Tommy's bandages by flashlight. “For now, at least.”

“That's because there's nothing here that they want,” Tommy whispered, stirring again after a few hours of silence. “The pack has been given its orders and...”

His voice trailed off for a few seconds.

“They move as one,” he continued finally. “Have you ever seen shoals of fish in the sea, or flocks of birds in the sky? Have you ever watched as they move in unison? The wolves are doing the same thing, they're all following one leader.”

“You're chatty tonight,” Trevor murmured, moving around to the other side of the bed so that he could take a look at the other bandages. “You know, Tommy, when you're eventually discharged from here I'm gonna miss our little conversations. Even if sometimes you say the creepiest things.”

“Tell me about it,” Tracy whispered, before checking her watch. “I should get home soon. The neighbors are keeping an eye on Josh but...” She looked outside again. “I'm not sure how I feel about walking back right now. I'm pretty sure that it's not safe.”

“I think you'd better stay here for the night,” Trevor told her. “Anyone who goes out there right now is completely crazy.”

“You two are so funny,” Tommy said with a smile. “You're trying to make sense of something that's too big for either of you to understand. Do you really think that the wolves would attack a lone woman walking home during the night?”

“Wouldn't they?” Tracy asked cautiously.

Tommy slowly turned to her, even though the bandages were still in place over his empty eye sockets.

“Of course they would,” he said after a few seconds. “Are you insane? You'd be the easiest pickings ever. You wouldn't make it more than ten or fifteen feet from the hospital's front door before you'd have a couple of them on you. They'd drag you down and bite you real hard to incapacitate you, but then they'd take their time. They might even let you think you're getting away once or twice, they'd let you crawl for a few meters and then they'd come after you again. If a wolf starts really playing with its food, the result can be hours and hours of absolute agony.”

“That's... not helping,” Tracy told him.

“You'd feel the flesh being torn off your bones,” he continued. “Hell, you might even feel them snapping some of those bones altogether. They'd play with you and play with you until you screamed for mercy, and then they'd just keep on going. You see, all the flapping and flailing would just make it even more fun for them, they actually like it when one of their victims puts up a fight.”

Tracy turned to Trevor, who simply rolled his eyes.

“Eventually you'd die due to loss of blood,” Tommy explained calmly. “Once that was done, the wolves would start eating any bits of you that took their fancy, although in the current circumstances they've really got more food than they could ever possibly eat. So most likely they'd just leave your body out there to be picked clean by other animals. They can be real generous like that.”

“And who made you the expert, huh?” Trevor asked as he turned and headed toward the door.

“My mind has been opened to the forest,” Tommy said firmly.

Stopping in the doorway, Trevor turned first to Tommy and then to Tracy.

“Do you have any idea what he means by that?” he asked cautiously. “He's said it a couple of times now, like he just wants to seem all mysterious.”

“Beats me,” Tracy said, looking at her husband for a few seconds. “I don't even think that it's really him in there. Not now. I can't explain it, but it's like... since he woke up in here, he hasn't really been my Tommy. Does that sound crazy?”

“It would have done a while back,” Trevor admitted, watching Tommy carefully, “but... now it's a little different. After everything I've seen over the past few weeks, I'm just about ready to believe anything at all.”

They both watched Tommy, who merely grinned back at them from his position on the bed.

“Tommy,” Tracy said cautiously, “can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” Tommy replied breezily.

“I don't even know if I really want to hear the answer to this,” she continued, “but I need you to be honest with me right now. The person I'm talking to... the one who's about to answer this question... is it really my husband?”

She waited, but for a few seconds he merely sat in silence.

“I should have known better than to expect an answer,” she added finally. “I -”

“Your husband is in here,” Tommy said suddenly. “He can hear you and he wants you to know that he's quite alright. At first he was scared but over time he's come to understand who I am and why I'm here. You see, I need to observe my sons and I can only do that properly if I'm close. After I died, I remained as a presence, but recent events compel me to watch them more closely, and this body is perfect because...”

Reaching up, he touched the bandages over his eyes.

“Because there are no distractions,” he added as his smile grew. “By cutting out one sense, I can focus on the others. I don't expect that to make much sense to you, but it's absolutely true. And once I'm certain that my sons have resolved their disagreements, I shall be only too happy to move on and take my rightful place in the churchyard at Sangreth. The dates on the tombstones never lie.”

“Do you have a clue what he's talking about?” Trevor asked, keeping his voice low as he turned to Tracy. “Because I sure as hell don't.”

“You'll all see soon enough,” Tommy said firmly. “The pack has been divided and directionless for long enough. It's time for one of them to finally take charge.” He hesitated, before sitting up and starting to climb out of the bed. “But first... I have one last message to deliver.”

Chapter Seven

One year ago...

“So someone finally shot you, did they?” John's ex-wife said, her voice crackling slightly over the phone as he made his way up the stairs in his apartment building. “I can't say that I'm that surprised.”

“Very funny,” he replied. “Listen, I just wanted to ask you... is Nick in town?”

Reaching the top of the stairs, he waited for an answer. Deep down he'd suspected that he wouldn't get a quick answer, that she'd suspect something must be wrong.

“Why are you asking me that?” she said finally.

“It's a simple enough question,” he continued. “I'm not saying that I need to talk to him or anything like that, I was just wondering -”

“I think he's in Chicago right now,” he said before he could finish. “Somewhere near there. He's visiting some girl.”

“He's got a girlfriend?”

“I really don't know,” she replied, sounding just a little evasive. “I don't understand any of his relationships to be honest, all I know is that suddenly he had to rush off to Chicago and he was talking about someone named Penny.”

“Penny?”

He thought for a moment.

“Do I know a Penny?” he murmured, suddenly very much aware that he knew very little about his son's life.

“Do you want me to get a message to him?” she asked. “John, you're not having some kind of midlife crisis, are you? Did getting shot make you... I don't know, connect with your emotions or something like that? Actually, that might not be a bad thing if it's done in a... limited way.”

“No, I'm fine,” he replied, bristling at that suggestion. “I shouldn't have called. I'm sorry. I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

“Are you alone, John?” she added suddenly.

“What... why does that matter?”

“I still care about you, you know,” she continued, and now her tone was markedly different. “I know we had our problems, but we were together for a long time and I don't want to think that you're unhappy. Believe it or not, I want the very best for you.”

“Hey, are you coming?” a man's voice called out in the background of the call. “Food's ready.”

“I've got to go, John,” she said, with a hint of regret in her voice. “I'll tell Nick you called. And who knows? If this Penny woman ties him down, we might have a wedding to go to eventually. I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but I can't help that. He needs to settle down at some point.” She paused. “Have you got someone to be with today, John?”

“I'm fine,” he replied.

“If -”

“I'm totally fine,” he added before cutting the call. “You don't need to worry about me.”

***

A couple of minutes later, having taken longer than usual to reach his door, John stopped and began to root around in his pocket for his keys. Even this simple action was much more laborious than ever, since his shoulder remained stiff and he was really struggling to move properly. Finally he found the keys and pulled them out, but he was already frustrated by his own slowness.

And then, spotting movement nearby, he turned to see that Simon was sitting in the opposite doorway.

“Hey,” he said to the boy cautiously.

“Hey,” Simon replied, clearly troubled by something.

“All good?” John asked.

“No,” Simon said, before thinking for a moment. “Mom didn't come home this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“She had a shift overnight,” he explained, “and she usually comes home around eight, but she's still not back.”

“Has she ever done this before?”

“A few times, but not lately.” Again Simon thought for a few seconds. “She's been different for a while, though. She seems more scared since her friend died, and she kept telling me that she'd definitely be home quickly, like it was really important. That's why I'm more worried than usual.”

“Well...”

John thought for a moment, and he had to admit that Janelle had always seemed quite flaky. The idea that she might have become distracted, perhaps by a new guy, wasn't too difficult to believe.

“Are you hungry?” he asked finally, deciding to take pity on the kid.

Simon nodded.

“Come in and I'll see what I've got,” he continued, wincing a little as he held the key up and began to unlock his door. “Sorry, I'm slower than normal. I don't know if you noticed, but I haven't been around for a few days.”

“I noticed,” Simon said, getting to his feet and crossing the hallway. “I thought maybe you'd gone on vacation.”

“Ha!” John exclaimed, genuinely amused by that idea. “Me? Going on vacation? I don't even remember the last time I went away.”

“Don't you like going on vacation?”

“I don't know how to answer that question,” John admitted, pushing the door open and immediately noticing that his apartment had a slightly fusty smell. “Sorry about any mess,” he continued. “I left in something of a hurry last time, I was only popping out to a session and then...”

Stopping, he began to remove his jacket.

“What happened to you?” Simon asked.

“I got shot.”

“Really?”

At this news, the boy's eyes grew larger than ever.

“Yeah,” John said, slightly enjoying the reaction. “It's a long story, but there was a hold-up in a cafe not too far from here and I ended up taking a bullet in my shoulder. It wasn't anything too bad, actually. It certainly could have been a whole lot worse. But the point is, I was in the hospital for a few days.” He made his way into the kitchen and immediately opened the freezer, hoping to find something he could cook for the boy. “Believe it or not, this was the first time I ever got shot, although I'm sure a few people have been tempted over the years. My ex-wife, for one.”

“I didn't know you were married.”

“I'm not. Not now.”

He pulled a frozen pizza out and set it on the counter.

“Have you got any children?”

“Oh... sure,” he said, turning to Simon and seeing that the boy was now standing in the doorway. “He's not around much, though. I think he's off seeing some new girlfriend right now in Chicago, or somewhere like that.”

“Do you see him a lot?”

“No,” John said, shaking his head. “I should probably make more of an effort. And now that I've been shot, I have to take some time off work, so I guess I'll have more of an opportunity. If he comes back from Chicago, that is.” He hesitated for a moment. “Plus I have to make a decision about a job offer. Some people out of town want me to go and be their sheriff. Can you believe that?”

“A sheriff? Like in the wild west?”

“Well, I don't think it'd be exactly like that,” he replied, although he had to admit that he quite liked the idea. “That's not how sheriffs work these days, but it'd certainly be a change of pace. I haven't known much else, apart from life in New York, and I don't know how I'd take to being somewhere out in the sticks.”

“Is it a long way away?”

“Pretty far, yes. I don't know if there's much crime out there in Sobolton, I had a little look online and all I really came up with were some pretty weird websites about the place. It seems a few people have got it into their heads that Sobolton's this... strange town where odd things happen. Not that I believe in anything like that, of course.”

“Why not?”

“I believe in things I can see and explain,” he said firmly. “The real world is dangerous enough, without inventing all sorts of other crazy things.”

“Like ghosts and vampires? Or werewolves?”

“Pretty much,” he replied. “The human mind can be a wonderful thing, but it's capable of... getting in its own way from time to time. If you start believing in things that aren't real, you might find it harder to see the things that are right in front of you. Do you get where I'm coming from with this?”

“Yes,” the boy said cautiously. “I think so.”

“All of which means,” John continued, “that I'm afraid I only have pizza right now, which seems like an odd breakfast but I guess it'll just have to do. Are you gonna stick around and share it with me? And then I'm sure your mom will be back soon.”

“Okay,” Simon replied, allowing himself the faintest glimmer of a smile. “Thank you.”

“It's no problem,” John said, although in that moment he found himself wondering why he couldn't ever be so relaxed around his own – admittedly now adult – son. “Just let me get this on and then I'll find us both something to drink. And don't worry about your mom. Honestly, I'm sure she'll be here soon. She might even arrive in time to get a slice of pizza!”

Chapter Eight

Today...

Sitting up, Robert struggled for a moment to push the dead wolf away. Once he'd finally managed, he looked down in horror at the mangled and burned pile of flesh and meat that just a few minutes earlier had been a large, fearsome wolf that had easily knocked him off his feet.

“I'm serious,” Saint Thomas said, making his way closer as the smaller wolf slipped back behind the others. “Do me next. Think of it as an experiment or even -”

“Stay back!” Robert shouted, hauling himself up and holding the badge out again, with the bone still rattling loudly. “If you come one step closer I'll -”

“What?” Saint Thomas asked. “What will you do?”

“I'll do the same thing to you that I just did to your friend.”

“Him?” Saint Thomas looked down at the corpse. “He wasn't my friend. You humans have such unusual ways of describing things. He was a member of the pack and, as such, he was bound to follow my directions. He knew full well that he was going to die, that even a weak old cripple such as yourself could kill him if you were holding the relic, but he attacked you anyway because I told him to.”

He gestured toward the three or four dozen other wolves that had made their way into the town hall.

“They'd all do the same,” he added. “I could make them come at you one by one, and you could slaughter them all, and they wouldn't question it... because I'm their leader, and they know that, and they understand that their loyalty to me is absolute and unconditional.”

“If you come any closer,” Robert sneered, “I'll shove this thing so far up your ass, it'll be your teeth that start burning first.”

“How utterly terrifying,” Saint Thomas continued, pointedly taking a couple more steps forward before stopping to look down into his eyes. “Your valiant final stand is rather heroic, almost romantic in a way, and frankly I might include you one day in one of my stories. Or, better yet, in song. I've always loved Prokofiev's Little Red Riding Hood and I've been trying for a while to come up with a wolf-centered counterpoint of my own. Red-Eyed Nellie was a decent warm-up but it didn't quite hit the mark properly. I think it was a little too... on the nose.”

“Peter and the Wolf,” Robert said firmly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sergei Prokofiev didn't write Little Red Riding Hood,” he continued. “He wrote Peter and the Wolf. Were you born behind a barn door?”

“I stand corrected,” Saint Thomas replied. “You didn't strike me a fan of classical music.”

“I'm not particularly,” Robert told him, “but I'm also not a complete barbarian. And besides, Tchaikovsky -”

Suddenly he stepped forward and held the badge up, pressing it against the other man's neck. He watched as the silver began to burn through the flesh, but after a few seconds he realized that Saint Thomas appeared to be showing no sign of pain at all; if anything, the smile that Saint Thomas had worn since entering the town hall only appeared to be getting broader now, while the silver seemed to be causing little more than some minor cosmetic damage.

Pulling the badge away, Robert thought for a moment before holding it up again. This time the silver touched Saint Thomas on the cheek, yet once more there was almost no damage caused at all.

“Surprised?” Saint Thomas asked.

“Why isn't it working?” Robert stammered.

“It is,” Saint Thomas told him, “but fortunately I'm able to counter it. You see, there's a reason why my family has headed the pack for so long. Over the centuries we've learned to... push back against such mortal dangers, even against death itself at times. Few other wolves have ever managed such feats. Well, Clanath fought her death for centuries, although you probably don't want to hear about that. The point is, your little trinket works on all the other weaker and simpler wolves, but as for me...”

He leaned a little closer.

“I can fight back using sheer force of will,” he snarled. “This thing can't hurt me unless I let it hurt me. I would have to be particularly resigned to some sort of awful fate... and frankly, I'm really not in the mood for that.”

“What -”

Suddenly Saint Thomas pushed him back, slamming him against the wall as the other wolves watched. The huddled humans, meanwhile, backed away into the museum wing of the building as Robert dropped the badge. He reached down to grab it again, only for Saint Thomas to take hold of his collar and lift him up.

“Old man, I've seen you around a few times over the years,” he snarled as Robert tried desperately to get free. “You've never really bothered me too much, but I can tell now that you have the potential to be extremely annoying. In fact, in many ways you perhaps even sum up everything I despise about humanity. I hope you'll forgive me, then, for deciding to get rid of you first.”

“You'll never be able to destroy this -”

In that moment, Saint Thomas turned and threw Robert across the room, sending him crashing into the far wall and then watching as his body slithered down and landed in a heap on the ground.

“The time for talking is over,” he called out, turning to look first at the shocked townspeople as they backed further into the museum and then at the wolves. He hesitated for a moment, before shaking his head. “Well?” he continued, stepping on the corpse of the dead wolf as he made his way over. “What are you waiting for? Your first victims have been neatly herded into a room over there, and I've made sure to keep you all very hungry. Time to go eat!”

Hearing a slamming sound, he turned to see that the humans had pushed the doors shut, and a moment later he realized that he could now hear them desperately trying to block the route with various items they were finding in the museum.

“They really don't know how to have dignified deaths, do they?” he muttered with an air of disappointment. “Their time has so clearly come, yet they still cling so pathetically to their little lives.” He turned to the wolves again. “I have other business to take care of in this dead end town, but I trust I can rely on the rest of you to finish those miserable bastards off and then join me. Eloise, this way.”

As the wolves began to push against the doors, he turned and walked back across the room. He glanced briefly at Robert Law's crumpled body and allowed himself a faint smile, and then – as he reached the steps at the front of the town hall – he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

He saw the wolves pushing against the doors and he heard the panicked cries of the people trapped on the other side, but he furrowed his brow as he realized that he was standing completely alone.

“Eloise?” he said cautiously. “Where are you?”

Watching the wolves, he wondered for a moment whether in some fit of pique she might have joined their efforts, but he quickly realized that she was nowhere to be seen.

“Eloise, this isn't the time for stupid games,” he continued, unable to shake a sense of weary annoyance in his voice. “I'm serious, we have matters to attend to before this entire town is crushed into the dirt. You're going to stop being so foolish and you're going to come with me right now.”

Stepping back into the town hall for a moment, he tried to work out where she might be hiding. In his human body, he found that his senses were a little dulled, yet he knew that he should be able to detect her if she was anywhere nearby. Part of him wanted to check all the rooms, but as he turned and looked back out across the town he realized that she was gone. He'd last noticed her a few minutes earlier, right before he'd dispatched the unfortunate Doctor Law, and he was starting to wonder whether this particular display of strength might have weakened her resolve somewhat.

After all, she'd spent some time in Sobolton and had interacted with plenty of humans. In fact, he understood now that she might even have known the irritating doctor, in which case she might be in the grip of some misguided sense of grief.

“Oh, you disappoint me,” he sneered as he saw more wolves prowling the dark streets nearby. “Eloise, I hoped that you were made of stronger stuff. Perhaps you're not cut out to fight by my side after all.”

Chapter Nine

One year ago...

“I'm not gonna lie to you,” Sheriff Joe Hicks of Sobolton said as he glared out from the screen on John's laptop, “I don't exactly want to be moving on, but the good people of this town have spoken and -”

Before he could finish, the video glitched again; the screen froze for a few seconds and Joe's voice became a garbled mess, only to return after a few more seconds.

“So that's the situation,” Joe continued with a heavy sigh. “Your name came up as a recommendation from a friend of a friend and, well, we're looking for someone to take over quite soon. Certainly within the next six months or so.”

He looked up as someone set some papers on his desk.

“Thanks, Carolyn,” he added. “You're a doll.”

“It's a very tempting offer,” John admitted, and in truth he couldn't quite work out why he wasn't biting the man's hand off. “The pay's certainly generous, and you've sold me on the town being a real nice place to live.”

“So do you accept?”

“I -”

“Why don't you give it some more thought?” Joe suggested. “I get it, moving from New York to little old Sobolton's a big deal and you might be worried about getting bored round these parts. I'm not trying to put you off, of course, I'm merely trying to be honest and open about the situation. Sobolton can be a... complicated place at times, and personally I'm still not sold on the idea of an outsider coming in for this job but... well, that's the will of the people, so who am I to argue?”

“If I could have a few more weeks,” John replied, “I'd just like to consider the offer a little more closely.”

“You do that, John,” Joe said with a grin. “You do that and you let us know what you decide. And while you're figuring it all out, I'll keep on holding down the fort here.”

“Thank you,” John said, “and -”

Before he could finish, he heard a loud bumping sound coming from somewhere out in the corridor. He turned and looked across his apartment, and his gaze immediately settled on the front door. Although he knew that strange noises were by no means unusual in this particular building, something about that particular bump had seem a little off and he couldn't help thinking that it seemed to have come from the apartment opposite.

“John?” Joe said cautiously. “You still there?”

“I am,” John replied, turning to the laptop again. “Sheriff Hicks, I'll give you an answer inside of the next week, I promise. I just need to weigh up the pros and cons, that sort of thing. I won't keep you hanging, though.”

“That's good to hear,” Joe chuckled. “We've got a long history of some pretty fine sheriffs in this town. I just want you to understand that it's a very great honor for any man to join that list.”

***

As soon as he opened his front door, John knew that something was wrong.

The door opposite – leading into Janelle and Simon's apartment – was wide open, and that in itself was unusual in the middle of the day. Someone was arguing in the distance, up on one of the higher floors, but that was pretty standard and for now John was only concerned about the sight before him. Now that the video call with Joe Hicks was over, he stared at the open door and felt more and more certain that the loud bump had come from somewhere inside that apartment.

After a few more seconds he stepped forward, crossing the hallway and then stopping to look through into Janelle's front room.

“Hello?” he called out. “Janelle, is that you?”

As he waited for a reply, he realized that he hadn't actually seen Janelle for a while now. A couple of weeks had passed since he'd been shot, and since he'd welcomed Simon into his own home for some frozen pizza. Later Simon had headed back to the other apartment, and after a few hours he'd told John that his mother had returned; John hadn't actually set eyes on Janelle himself, however, and now he was starting to wonder how long it had been since he'd seen the boy as well.

“Simon?” he said cautiously. “Hello, is anyone home?”

After a couple of seconds, he stepped inside.

“This is John Tench from across the hall,” he explained. “I'm not trying to intrude, but I just want to make sure that everything's okay in here. I heard a noise and I thought I'd come over and check what's going on and...”

Stopping, he furrowed his brow as he realized that the place seemed entirely empty. Sure, there was plenty of furniture around, but something about the space just felt untouched, as if no-one had lived there for a while. In the back of his mind he wondered whether Janelle and Simon might simply have moved away abruptly, and he figured there was a chance that they wouldn't have had a chance to say goodbye, yet a niggling sense of doubt told him that there had to be some other explanation.

Looking down at the table next to the couch, he saw a cellphone. When he tapped the side he found that the battery was dead, but he turned the device over and saw a photo of Janelle and her son.

“Is anyone here at all?” he called out. “You left your front door open. I just want to check that nothing's wrong. If you're here, just let me know and I'll leave you alone.”

Again he waited.

Again he heard only silence.

“I really don't want to overreact,” he added, although he was aware that he'd already begun to do precisely that, “and I'm not here on official business or anything like that. I'm just a concerned neighbor who saw that your door was open and heard a strange sound and...”

His voice trailed off. He could think of a million reasons why Janelle and Simon might simply have gone out, and there was of course every chance that they'd neglected to lock the front door properly; he also knew that the loud bump could have come from one of the other apartments, yet somehow the various pieces of the puzzle were failing to come together and form a satisfying whole. As much as he wanted to mind his own business and go back to his own place, he stepped around the couch and wandered over to the table by the window, and he spotted several drawings that Simon appeared to have left behind.

The drawings showed what looked like a red door, with a man standing to one side. Picking up several of the sheets, he quickly found more images, but these were similar to the first and he began to wonder why Simon would have sat drawing the same thing over and over again.

Hearing a voice yelling in the street, he peered out through the window and saw two people arguing over a parking spot. There was nothing unusual about such an argument, of course – not on a typical New York day; John continued to watch the two men, however, until finally one of them gave up and stormed off, leaving the other guy to claim his prize.

Looking at the drawings again, John couldn't help but notice that they were extremely detailed. He peered more closely at the red door and saw that Simon appeared to have tried to replicate the grain of the wood, and then he looked at the figure and saw what seemed to be an attempt to draw a thick and very scraggly black beard.

Once he'd set the drawings back down, John headed to the bedroom and saw that Janelle had left her sheets in a mess, with some of them having fallen to the floor. He looked at the large, lurid and very garish painting of a wolf on the far wall, and he allowed himself a faint smile as he saw that the animal had strangely human-like eyes. Figuring that she'd picked the image up from some local flea market, he was about to turn and leave when he spotted a lanyard on the dresser.

Picking the lanyard up, he saw Janelle's face in a small photograph, next to her name and the details of the convenience store down the street. He knew she worked there, and that sometimes she had to do the night shift, although he'd rarely set foot in the place. The more he stared at the photo of Janelle on the badge, however, the more he figured that there was no harm in just paying a quick visit to the place and making sure that everything was alright.

After all, wasn't that what concerned neighbors were supposed to do?

Chapter Ten

Today...

As cries rang out from the town hall and larger wolves made their way along the dark streets, checking for unlocked doors that would allow them to catch some easy prey, Eloise slipped through the shadows.

She stopped at the next corner and looked around. Frightened and shivering, and still in her wolf form, she couldn't stop replaying Doctor Law's final moments over and over again; she'd watched in horror as her uncle had tossed him across the room, and she'd heard the crack of bones as he'd slammed into the wall. Even as he'd slid down onto the floor, she'd understood that his injuries were too grave to survive, and in that moment she hadn't been able to help herself.

She'd turned and run, hurrying out of the town hall and down the steps without a single plan in mind. Although she'd expected her uncle to race after her and drag her back, somehow she'd managed to slip away and now she found herself lost and alone in the town. Part of her wanted to go and find her mother or John Tench, but deep down she felt too ashamed; another part of her wanted to go back to her uncle, to try to embrace his power, yet she still couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd killed Doctor Law.

Still shivering in the shadows, she felt as if she was being torn in two different directions, but a moment later she flinched as she realized that someone was approaching. Looking up, she was about to show her fangs and let out a warning growl when she realized that – impossibly – she recognized this figure, even if she had no idea how he could be standing before her.

“Eloise,” Michael said, clearly shocked to see her as more cries could be heard in the distance. “What happened to you?”

***

Once Michael had taken her into the old veterinary surgery, and once she'd transformed – painfully – back into her human form and had dressed in an ill-fitting surgical gown that her father had adapted for her... Eloise sat on the edge of the examination table and tried yet again to stop thinking about Doctor Law's death.

“How are you feeling?”

Turning, she saw that her father had already returned and was standing in the doorway.

“We'll go and find your mother soon,” he told her, stepping closer and reaching a hand out toward the side of her arm. “I thought you'd already be -”

Before he could finish, Eloise flinched and pulled away as if she was scared of his touch.

“I get it,” he continued, trying to hide his sense of disappointment. After a moment he took a step back. “Truly, I do,” he added. “Even when we were living at the cabin, I always sensed that you were... wary of me. Scared, even.”

Looking up at him, Eloise was already struggling to hold back tears.

“I haven't been a good father,” he explained. “I think I never quite knew how to talk to you, or how to be around you. On top of that, you...”

His voice trailed off, but he knew he had to finish that sentence.

“You saw how I was with your mother,” he told her. “You're a very smart girl and you must have wondered why I used to punish her by putting her under that hatch. To be completely honest with you, Eloise, I can't defend myself. I allowed my anger and fear to take control, and I know that I should have done things very differently. If I could somehow turn time back and do it all again, there's so much that I'd change.”

He hesitated, and in that moment he knew that there was still one more reason why his own daughter was so scared of him.

“And I look pretty hideous, don't I?” he added, offering the faintest attempt at a smile as he tried to get through to her. “I know that. I haven't reverted to my wolf form since a long time before you were born, and the effect on my body is... not good. I guess I'm just too scared to change, because I remember how your mother looked at me the last time. But none of that matters to you, because it's just a stupid excuse that I keep using over and over.”

He waited for her to reply, but he could already tell that she barely understood what he was telling her.

“Stay here and I'll go and find your mother,” he said, turning to leave the room. “She must be -”

“It's my fault that Doctor Law's dead,” she said suddenly.

“Don't think too much about the human world. They -”

“Did you know him?”

He hesitated for a few seconds.

“No,” he admitted, “but -”

“I really liked him,” she continued, and now fresh tears were glistening in her eyes. “He got me my first ever pancakes. Have you ever had pancakes?”

“No, but -”

“He made me feel safe when I arrived in Sobolton,” she added. “Mommy... Mom was hurt and I was all alone. Doctor Law cut me open after I came out of the lake, at first I was scared of him but then I realized that he was just doing his job. I like Sheriff Tench and most of the other people here, but Doctor Law was the nicest one.” She paused, as if she was struggling to hold back more tears. “Now he's dead and it's all my fault.”

“Doesn't that just prove what I've been saying all along?” he asked. “We shouldn't be mixing in their world. If we'd all stayed out there in the cabin, your friend would never have been hurt.”

“Are you saying that it's Mom's fault?”

“No,” he continued, slightly exasperated by her logic, “I'm saying that my approach was always best. We should have stayed in the cabin and then your Doctor Law would be fine, and the town would be fine... and none of this would have happened at all.”

She thought about that for a moment.

“But...”

Her voice trailed off for a few seconds.

“But if we'd stayed in the cabin,” she said cautiously, “then I'd never have met Doctor Law, and I'd never have made friends with him and... he'd never have given me pancakes.”

“So what?” Michael replied tersely.

She furrowed her brow.

“Come on,” he muttered, stepping over to her and reaching for her hand. “We need to -”

As soon as Eloise instinctively pulled away from him yet again, Michael froze. Looking down at his daughter, he saw the fear in her eyes; as much as he tried to convince himself that she was scared of his brother, or scared of the town – or just scared of the entire situation – in that instant he couldn't deny that her fear was entirely directed at him. He'd always taken a slight backseat while Lisa had raised Eloise, and he'd promised himself that one day he'd become more involved in her upbringing. Now, for the first time, he was forced to confront the fact that she was genuinely terrified of him.

“I'll find your mother,” he said, taking a step back.

“Why do you look like that?” she asked.

Shocked by the question, he wasn't entirely sure how to answer.

“No-one else does,” she continued. “You're all... cracked and broken, like your skin's always peeling away and you're bleeding. I used to think that it was because you're a werewolf but... the other werewolves aren't like it. My uncle isn't like it and Sheriff Tench isn't like it so... why are you?”

“It's complicated,” he told her.

“Why haven't I ever seen you in your wolf body?”

“You're full of questions tonight, aren't you?”

“I just want to understand,” she told him. “I feel like there are lots of things people don't tell me because they think I'm too young to get it, but... I want to know.”

“When the time is right, you'll understand everything,” he insisted. “Right now we're fighting for our lives. I need to get you to your mother so that she can look after you, and then I have to go and find your uncle and make him understand who's in charge. I have to make the whole pack understand, which might be difficult but... it's the right thing, so I'm certain that they'll come around eventually.”

“Are you scared?” she asked.

“Scared?” Yet again shocked by his daughter's question, Michael hesitated for a few more seconds, unable to quite work out how he should answer. In truth, he wasn't even sure how he felt. “No,” he said finally, bristling slightly, “I'm not scared. Not for one second. I'm angry, though, and I need to convert that anger into action. I've hidden away for too long. The time has come for me to put my brother in his place.”

Chapter Eleven

One year ago...

“Janelle?” the guy with the beard said, staring at John's badge as he stood at his position behind the convenience store's counter. “Yeah, she used to work here but she stopped showing up about... I don't know, a little while ago?”

“She just stopped without any warning?” John asked as an overly bright electric light buzzed above him. “Did she quit or did you fire her?”

The guy hesitated, before offering a shrug.

“I didn't fire her,” he muttered. “She didn't bother formally quitting, either. I know that, because I was the idiot who had to keep calling her for a few days, trying to find out what was going on. She'd been a little upset after Monica died, so I guess it might have all become a little too much for her. Of course, now that we've lost two employees in the space of two months, can you guess who's having to fill in and do extra shifts?”

“Do you know if Janelle has any family nearby?”

“Not as far as I'm aware,” the guy said, rolling his eyes. “My dad owns this place along with a dozen other locations around the city. Of course he chose this month to go off on a cruise with his new girlfriend, so I'm left dealing with all the emergencies.” He let out a heavy sigh. “If you happen to bump into Janelle, would you please mind telling her that it's very unprofessional to simply not arrive for work like this? She could've at least let me know she was thinking of quitting. And if she happens to want her old job back, then she's probably got about a week to come crawling and begging before I find someone to fill her position.”

“When did she work her last shift?” John asked as he spotted some cans of energy drink on the counter featuring a crudely drawn image of a wolf.

“A few Mondays back,” the guy explained. “She did the midnight to seven shift and left as normal, and I haven't seen her since. She's actually owed some money, I still need to process that. Man, listen, between you and me... I'd take her back in a heartbeat, she just has to show up. Do you get where I'm coming from?”

“I get where you're coming from, Kevin,” John replied, reading the man's name from his badge. After a moment he slipped Janelle's lanyard away. “If she comes back or gets in touch with you in any way, can you ask her to contact John Tench? She'll know how to reach me.”

“Sure,” the guy said, although he didn't sound too hopeful. “I'm so sick of people not bothering to show basic respect around this place. I'm telling you, New York's becoming a dead end town if ever I saw one. I wanna get out of here by the time I turn thirty. Any longer than that and I figure the city's gonna start making me rust away to nothing. On the inside, at least.”

***

“So I ran her details,” Jenna Powell said, sitting at her desk at the precinct, “and I didn't come up with anything. From what I can tell, your friend Janelle Mahoney never had so much as a parking ticket.”

“What about her former husband?”

“Clean too,” she explained. “He seems to have moved to Des Moines a while back and he never stays at one address for too long. Doesn't look like he has much to do with his old family, except paying child support every month. I don't know, my gut's telling me that a family reunion looks unlikely.”

“And she hasn't used any credit cards over the past week?”

“I shouldn't be looking at that stuff for you,” she replied, “but... no. As far as our systems can tell, a short while ago Janelle Mahoney simply stopped existing. Not that she will've actually stopped existing, at least hopefully not, but you know what I mean.” She watched him for a moment. “How are you doing, John?” she continued. “We were all really shocked when we heard you got shot.”

“I wasn't,” Walt Hunniford barked from one of the other desks. “Not in the slightest. Long overdue.”

“Real funny,” John said to him, before looking at the computer again. “I know I have no right to be worried about my neighbor and her son, but something's telling me that they might be in trouble. Things haven't been right with them for a few weeks, and I'm kicking myself for not pushing a little more and trying to find out what was up.”

“None of this is your fault,” Jenna pointed out. “And that's assuming that anything has even happened at all, which most likely it hasn't.”

She waited for him to answer.

“Is something else on your mind?” she asked. “A little bird told me that you might be considering a change of scenery. What's the town called again? Sadbottom?”

“Sobolton,” he replied.

“Never heard of it,” Walt said gruffly. “Where is it?”

“Nowhere near here,” John replied.

“But where exactly? What state?” Walt asked.

John opened his mouth to reply.

“Do you know what I think?” Jenna continued before he had a chance to say anything. “I think your Janelle friend probably got herself into a spot of trouble with someone, maybe a loan shark, and she skipped town. People do that all the time, John, and they don't usually look back. They certainly don't stop to say their goodbyes to the neighbors.”

“But you said it yourself,” he replied, “she didn't use -”

“She didn't use any credit cards, sure,” she added, as if she'd anticipated the argument he was about to use, “but it's only been a week. I'll get someone to put a tag on her file so that when she eventually resurfaces, we get notified. And then I bet she'll turn out to be hundreds of miles away trying to start a new life. How well did you really know this woman, anyway?”

“Not that well,” he admitted.

“I get it, you want to help her out,” she told him. “And her kid, too. But sometimes you just have to accept that people disappear into the night. You can't expect every story to get wrapped up neatly, not in real life. Sometimes loose threads are left out there and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, in other news, when do you think you'll be back? We're really missing having you around, John, and we've got cases piling up waiting for someone to take a look at them.”

“Soon,” he promised, before feeling a buzzing sensation in his pocket.

Pulling his phone out, he saw that Doctor Munday was trying to get in touch, no doubt to ask why he'd now skipped two of his counseling sessions. He briefly considered answering, before rejecting the call and slipping his phone away again.

“Do you want to grab a drink?” Jenna asked, glancing at her watch. “I'm out of here in half an hour and -”

“Another time, thanks,” he replied, taking a step back. “I'm going to keep digging a little more to try and see if Janelle left any clues behind. I know you probably think I'm crazy -”

“Yep,” Walt said from one of the other desks.

“You're probably right,” John continued, “but I've got nothing else to do right now. And that apartment's right opposite mine, so it's reminding me every single day that something could be wrong. I might as well keep poking around for a while longer.”

“If you need any other help, just let me know.”

“Not me,” Walt added with a derisory sniff. “I wouldn't help even if you begged me.”

“We all know that, Walt,” Jenna said, turning to him. “You're a miserable, misanthropic son of a bitch who'd rather sit around scratching his unmentionables than actually lift a finger to help anyone, and you're so damn proud of that fact that you'll gladly advertise it to anyone you come into contact with. You've always been like that and you always will, you've got no intention of changing and even if by accident you did something nice for someone... you'd make damn sure to cover the fact up so that your facade of indifference remained untroubled.”

“That's... a little personal,” Walt said, clearly shocked by her words. “I'm not sure I want to hear you talking about me like that.”

“Sorry,” she murmured, before turning to John again. “Apparently even Walt has -”

Suddenly realizing that there was no sign of him, she looked around, but she quickly let out a sigh as she understood that he'd taken the opportunity to slip out. A moment later she heard the elevator's doors sliding shut, and she rolled her eyes as she realized that once again John Tench had left without observing any of the usual formalities.

“Nice seeing you again too, John,” she muttered, turning back to her computer so she could get on with some more work. “Don't be a stranger.”

Chapter Twelve

Today...

Shouts rang out from somewhere upstairs in the town hall, accompanied by a series of irregular thuds and bangs. The town people who'd gathered in the building had gradually been forced up to the top floor as the wolves had continued their advance. Now the downstairs foyer was mostly still and empty, bathed in moonlight, until finally Carolyn stepped into view.

As soon as she saw Doctor Law's crumpled body over on the other side, she flinched. Tears were already in her eyes and she felt as if all the horror of the night was becoming too much for her. After a few more seconds, determined to not face the truth, she turned to walk away.

“Wait,” a voice whispered.

Shocked, she turned to see that Robert was stirring slightly. Having assumed that he was dead, she felt a flicker of hope and after a moment she hurried over to him, quickly dropping to her knees.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “What -”

As soon as she saw his face, she knew the answer to her question. Blood was dribbling freely from one corner of his mouth, and the left side of his face was broken and battered; one of his eyes were entirely red now and both his legs were clearly broken.

“I'll get help,” she stammered, suddenly filled with the sense that he might yet be saved. “I'll take you back to the hospital and -”

Before she could finish, she felt his hand on the side of her arm. She looked down just as he squeezed a little tighter.

“I'll find someone who can help you,” she continued, with a hint of desperation in her voice. “There must be someone around.”

“Too... late...”

“No, it's not too late,” she said firmly, refusing to believe that sentiment. “You're alive, that means you can be saved. Where there's life, there's always hope.”

“No,” he replied, barely able to get any words out at all. “Not this time. A body knows... when... it's dying.”

“But I don't want you to die,” she continued, and now tears were running down her face. “Please, you can't die.”

“I can... and I'm gonna,” he murmured. “Don't be too upset, I... had a good innings. All that matters now is that you get the badge to John. Do you understand? Get the badge to John, I'm sure it can still work. I don't quite get why it didn't stop that bastard Saint Thomas, but it works on the rest of them.”

“But I'm...”

Her voice trailed off for a moment.

“I'm one of them,” she added finally. “I'm the Walker.”

“Yeah,” he gasped. “I know.”

“How?”

“I've known for a while,” he admitted. “If I'm honest, I figured it out back at the station. At least, I guessed it.”

“You did?” She hesitated, struggling to understand. “Then why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you try to stop me?”

“I was a little... stumped,” he replied.

“But I'm one of them,” she said again. “I'm your enemy.”

“Enemy?” He began to chuckle, only to wince as he felt a sharp burst of pain in his chest. “Carolyn, I've worked alongside you in this town for plenty of years now. You can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but... you're not now, and never have been, my enemy.”

“There's a way I can save you,” she told him. “Maybe, at least. I don't know that it would definitely work, I don't even know if I have the ability, but... I could try to turn you. Into one of us, I mean.”

He shook his head.

“It's worth a try!”

“Everybody dies,” he replied. “That's one thing I've learned over the years from all the bodies that've ended up on my slab. Everybody dies and that's okay. Even if you saved me, I'd have to die one day and... when that happens, I'd rather be the real me. This is the real me. I don't want a goddamn tail.”

“But I don't want to lose you,” she told him. “Saint Thomas never should have done this.”

“I know it's a lot to ask,” he continued, “and I know it might get you into trouble with your pack, but if you can get the badge to John Tench, I'm sure he'll know what to do. It's our only chance now. And one more thing, if we come out the other side of this and I end up with a funeral, make sure they... play... Slade...”

She waited for him to finish, but after a few seconds she realized that he seemed to have stopped breathing. Trying not to panic, she reached down and shook his shoulder gently, and then she touched the side of his neck. She searched in vain for a pulse for a few seconds, refusing to give up before finally understanding that there was nothing more she could do. As more cries rang out from upstairs, she could only stare at the dead man as she tried to work out whether she could ever comply with his final request to take the badge to John Tench.

“I don't know what to do,” she sobbed. “Doctor Law, I'm so sorry. This should never have happened.”

***

“Get away!” a man yelled from an upstairs window as he tipped a bucket of water onto the sidewalk below, attempting to make the wolves scatter. “Do you hear me? Get out of here!”

Two wolves stepped back as the water splattered down, but they quickly resumed their attack on the front door. At the other end of the street another man was leaning from a window, firing shots at the wolves but not managing to deter them at all.

“This is chaos,” Lisa whispered, stopping at the end of another alleyway and looking around the corner. “What's going to happen when they break into the buildings? Are they going to haul everyone out and kill them?”

“Why bother hauling them out?” John asked. “They'll just kill them in there and -”

Before he could finish, he heard a shuffling sound over his shoulder. He turned and looked back along the alley, and a moment later two large wolves emerged from the shadows and began to advance.

“Okay, we need to back away,” he said, grabbing Lisa by the arm and pulling her out into the street. “Looks like we've got company.”

“Where do we go?” she asked, looking in every direction and seeing that they'd now been noticed by several of the other wolves. “John, I think we're surrounded.”

He looked around, trying to come up with an answer, but for a few seconds he felt completely helpless. He knew that in his wolf form he might stand a chance, that he'd possibly be able to fend some of the wolves off for long enough to let Lisa escape; at the same time, he knew that the transformation process would take too long, and that any respite would only be temporary. The whole of Sobolton was now overrun by wolves; running and hiding could only get the pair of them so far, and now they were reaching the end of the road.

“It's him!” Lisa gasped.

Turning, they both saw a familiar figure sauntering along the street. John instinctively flinched as he saw Saint Thomas grinning back at him, and a moment later he stepped in front of Lisa in what he knew was a doomed attempt to keep her safe.

“There you are,” Saint Thomas said with evident glee, as more wolves began to take up positions on either side of the street. “I was wondering where you might be, although I have to admit... I thought Eloise might be with you.”

“Where is she?” Lisa barked, pushing past John. “What have you done to my daughter?”

“She's really not with you, is she?” he continued. “Well, that for sure puts a spoke in the wheels. Then again, she's just a scraggly little thing, I'm sure she's just hiding away. I've got to admit, Lisa, you did a very average job of raising her up. You focused on her human side, but her wolf side is this bundled little mass of confusion and contradictions and -”

“Where is she?” she screamed frantically, and this time John had to hold her back. “I swear, if you've done anything to hurt her I'll -”

“Don't tell him about Michael,” John whispered. “He might not know.”

“I don't care about this town,” Lisa continued, fixing Saint Thomas with a determined glare. “Do you hear me? I'll take Eloise far away from here and I'll make sure we both forget that this place even exists. Saint Thomas, you can do whatever the hell you want with the town, just leave us out of it.”

“That's not going to be possible, I'm afraid,” he told her. “Things are going to go back to how they were before this rotten little place ever rose up from the dirt. Give it a few years and I'm confident there'll be no sign that Sobolton ever even existed. How about that, huh? But your little Eloise is gonna pay an important role in that process, because someone needs to be kept around to remind our pack how dangerous humans are. What better example than some runty little half-breed? She's gonna look so good in a cage.”

Lisa again tried to rush toward him, only for John to keep hold of her arm.

“But you two don't really factor into anything,” Saint Thomas sneered. “In fact, you're really only a pair of irritants for me right now, but I'm not a cruel guy. I see no reason to keep torturing you when all hope is gone.” He glanced around at the other wolves. “You know what to do,” he added, nodding at the pack and then gesturing toward both John and Lisa. “Ladies and gentlemen, your main course has arrived.”

Chapter Thirteen

One year ago...

“John.”

Opening his eyes, John Tench stared up at the ceiling and tried to work out who'd just spoken his name. A faint electric glow was casting a dirty shadow across the white plaster, and a moment later he turned to look over at his bedroom window. He'd been reading for a while after dinner, but he realized now that he must have nodded off. Sitting up, he rubbed the back of his neck as he felt a crick of pain, and he was starting to think that perhaps he'd been sleeping at an odd angle.

“John.”

He looked over at the bedroom door, and now he felt more certain than ever that somebody was nearby.

“Who is it?” he asked, getting to his feet and heading into the front room, still spotting no sign of anyone. “What are you doing in my -”

Before he could finish, he saw that his front door was open, as was the door to the apartment opposite. This, he felt certain, was wrong; he knew he'd shut his own door – and bolted it too – and he felt fairly sure that the door to Janelle's place had been closed as well. For a few seconds nothing seemed to make sense at all, and as he stepped toward the front door he felt almost as if he was being drawn forward, as if invisible strings had descended silently from the ceiling and were now being used to gently cajole him out of the apartment. The worst part was that – for some reason that he couldn't quite understand – he found he wasn't able to resist.

Soon he was standing across the hallway, looking into Janelle's apartment and listening to what seemed to be a very faint scratching sound.

“Hello?” he called out, wondering whether by some miracle she and her son might have returned. “Janelle? Simon? Are you here?”

He waited for a few seconds and then he stepped forward, only to immediately notice that Janelle's place felt very warm. He looked around, still seeing no sign of anyone, and then – as the scratching sound became louder – he walked to the bedroom door. As soon as he looked into the next room, he was shocked to see a wolf pawing at the wooden floorboards as if trying to scratch its way through. The sight was so bizarre and unexpected that for a few seconds John could only stare, before finally he reached instinctively for his gun.

Realizing that he'd left his weapon back in his own apartment, he watched as the wolf slowly turned and looked at him.

“Easy there,” he said cautiously, holding up both hands in an attempt to show that he meant no harm. “There's no need to panic. I'm just wondering exactly where you came from.”

He watched the wolf, and slowly he felt a sense of familiarity starting to creep into his chest. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a wolf – or, indeed, whether he'd ever seen one in the flesh before – but now he was unable to shake the sense that he'd definitely seen this particular wolf at least once in the past. Or the future. That idea was completely illogical, yet it persisted at the edge of his senses and he was starting to feel that he'd forgotten something important.

Hearing a sudden ticking sound, he turned to see a clock on Janelle's nightstand, but here too something seemed wrong. Making his way over, he bent down and peered at the clock – and he saw that there were four hands on the face, with two moving forward and the other two turning backward.

Suddenly the wolf darted away, hurrying out of the bedroom.

“Wait!” John called out, unable to stop himself rushing after the animal. “Don't go. I need to know what's -”

As soon as he reached the front room, he saw that the wolf was gone. Sure, the creature might have managed to get out of the apartment extremely quickly, but he also couldn't shake the feeling that instead it might have hidden somewhere.

“Are you still here?” he asked, cautiously walking across the room while looking around for any hint of a hiding place. “What's a nice big wolf like you doing in the city, anyway? New York's no place for anything that's got more than a half decent sense of smell.”

He glanced at the mirror and saw his own reflection. Turning to look the other way, he had to reach up and wipe sweat from his brow as he felt the room getting hotter and hotter.

“You know who he was, don't you?”

Startled, he turned and saw a woman in the mirror, reflected from her position seemingly standing directly behind him. When he looked over his shoulder, however, he saw no-one; he looked at the mirror again, and now he was starting to realize that the woman only existed in the glass. Not that this realization made any sense, of course, but as he walked toward the mirror he couldn't deny what he was seeing with his own two eyes.

“I guess some people just don't recognize themselves,” the woman continued.

“Who are you?” he replied.

“Why would you need to ask me that?” she said, before smiling slightly. “Of course, I get it now. I should have realized that something like this was going to happen.”

“Something like what?”

He looked back across the room again. The woman was still nowhere to be seen in the 'real' world, yet when he turned to the mirror she was once again visible as if standing directly behind him.

“Time bleeds,” she told him. “You know that, don't you?”

“As it happens,” he replied, “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“When you remember something,” she explained, “that only happens because an event's place in time can bleed, so that it smudges into the future. But what you humans often fail to recognize is that the process works both ways. The smudge can go backward as well as forward, even sideways, and that's what's happening right now. Time is bleeding and, as a natural result of that, it's slipping a little way back the way it already came.”

“Lady, I don't know what you're talking about,” he replied.

“No, but you will... at least, you will if you remember any of this.”

“And why wouldn't I remember any of it?” he asked. “Frankly, right now this is seeming like something I won't be forgetting in a hurry.”

“I doubt you'll remember me when we meet out at Cutter's Hill,” she told him.

“Where?”

“You'll find out, Sheriff Tench.”

“Sheriff? I'm not a sheriff.”

“But you will be,” she continued, “and actually... I think the new uniform will suit you. But the thing about these little time bleeds is that people almost never remember them, and actually that's a good thing. Next time you see me, you won't have any idea that you've encountered me before. I might remember, or I might not, but that's because I'm more experienced with these things. But you'll remember in other ways, Sheriff Tench, because now you might be a little more open to such things and even... drawn to them.”

“What are you doing in this apartment?” he asked. “Do you know Janelle?”

“I know nobody by that name. But you're starting to float up, so time is tight. John, I'm not even sure what this means, but you need to notice something important as you leave.”

“What the hell do you mean?” he replied, and now he was starting to feel more than a little frustrated by the evasiveness of her comments. Ma'am, I think we need to sit down and talk properly at the station. I know it's the middle of the night but I'm going to have to ask you to come with me.”

“Pay attention as you leave,” she said firmly.

He looked back and saw that there was still no sign of her. This time, however, as he looked at the mirror again he realized that she had vanished entirely.

“Hey!” he called out. “Where did you go?”

He hurried back across the room, but deep down he already knew that he was too late. When he turned to the mirror once more, he found himself wondering whether somehow he'd been tricked by an optical illusion, but a moment later he looked down and to his surprise he realized that his feet were now floating just a few inches above the floor. He tried to set them down again, to stand properly, but he was unable to do so. Worried that he might be losing his mind, he gripped the side of the table and began to haul himself through to the hallway, where he saw that the front door had swung shut.

Reaching for the handle, he suddenly realized that Simon's drawings had been pinned to the inside of the door. Looking at the various images, he was struck once more by the repeated images of a red door – and by the scraggly man scribbled in a series of thick black lines.

“What -”

Suddenly realizing that he was on his back, John sat up and found himself back in his own apartment. He was on his bed, and he felt an immediate flood of relief as he understood that he'd been asleep. Although he knew that he'd been suffering from some kind of nightmare, he was unable to quite remember what he'd been dreaming; he tried to keep hold of a few fragmented memories, but these too melted away in his thoughts until he was left with nothing more than a general sense of unease.

Feeling far too wired to sleep now, he hauled himself to his feet and headed through to the bathroom. By the time he reached the sink, he'd forgotten all about the wolf and the woman in the mirror and the drawings of the red door.

Chapter Fourteen

Today...

“This way!” John hissed, pulling Lisa around the corner as he desperately tried to figure out which way to go next. “We have to run.”

“How can we outrun those things?” she gasped, looking back and seeing that half a dozen wolves were already following. “John, they're not even rushing. They know they've got us cornered.”

“We need to get to the station.”

“Why?”

“Once we're at the station, we can come up with a plan.”

“I thought we had a plan!”

“It's not working, so we need another one,” he said, forcing her to walk with him as they made their way along another alley, this time slipping around the back of McGinty's. “The station isn't far away, we can barricade ourselves inside while we come up with something.”

Reaching the corner, they hurried around the side of the building and out into the street, only to stop as soon as they saw more wolves approaching from every direction. The station was just about visible in the distance, over on the far side of the road, but the path was blocked and Lisa couldn't help but notice that more and more wolves were stalking toward them, as if the entire pack was now entirely focused on the pair of them.

“Eloise!” she shouted. “If you can hear me, run! Get as far away from here and never look back!”

“Where's Michael?” John muttered, looking in every direction. “We could use his help right about now.”

Before Lisa could answer, one of the wolves stepped closer, letting out a low growl as it bared its fangs. John and Lisa both pulled back against the front of McGinty's, but this only made it slightly easier for more of the wolves to start forming a semicircle around them. One particular wolf had clearly been chosen to try the first strike, and now this wolf was edging ever closer as it waited to make its move.

“Follow my lead,” John said firmly, “and -”

In that instant the wolf lunged at him. Grabbing a stool that had been left by the window, John swung at the beast and smashed a wooden leg into its head, knocking it back and bringing a pained yelp from its jaws. Within a couple of seconds, however, the wolf had begun to advance again; if anything, the creature seemed even angrier now as John raised the stool and prepared to strike once more.

“That's not going to help us forever,” Lisa pointed out.

“They're still playing with us,” John told her. “If they were in a hurry, we'd be dead by now.”

“I know I might sound like a hypocrite,” she replied, “but... would now be a good time for you to change? You might stand a better chance as a wolf.”

“It's not an instant process,” he reminded her. “By the time I finished, they'd have had ample chance to take us both down. Plus I know I don't have many more transformations in me. The next time I change, I might be stuck in that form forever.”

“They're already getting ready to attack us again,” she stammered. “They're just toying with us now.”

***

“Don't listen,” Michael whispered, putting his hands over Eloise's ears from behind as they continued to linger in the old surgery. Somewhere in the distance, a woman was screaming. “Try not to hear it.”

“But I can hear it,” she told him.

“I know, but you shouldn't. We'll just stay here for a little while longer, just until it's safe for me to get you out of here, and then we'll go back to the -”

Stopping himself just in time, he realized that returning to the cabin was impossible. In a fit of anger he'd burned the place to the ground, partly to show that he was serious about taking on Saint Thomas but also – he understood now – to stop himself backing down. As he'd watched the cabin burn, he'd known that there was a chance he might pull back from the fight, that the same frightened instincts might push him to try to recreate his old life. Even now, part of him wanted to grab Lisa and Eloise and take them back there, and he felt that this time his plan would work, except...

Except the cabin was gone now, and deep down he understood that he'd made the right choice.

“I have to face him,” he said after a few more seconds, trying to remind himself. “I have to take back control of the pack.”

“What are you talking about?” Eloise asked.

“I'm their king,” he continued. “I was once, at least. I need to be again, but this time I have to do it right. I can't hide from my responsibilities.”

“If you're the king,” she said cautiously, “then... does that make me a princess?”

“If you like,” he replied with a sad smile.

“And does that mean I'll get to be queen one day in the future?”

“I don't even know that there'll be a future,” he told her, “not if Saint Thomas gets his way. He says he wants to destroy Sobolton, but I don't think he really understands the anger that drives his own soul. Destroying Sobolton wouldn't be enough for him, he'll just find something else he wants to destroy next, then something else and something else until...”

His voice trailed off for a few seconds.

“And that's before you consider the humans,” he added. “They won't just sit back and ignore the fact that an entire town has been leveled. America has a government, they'll start poking into the whole thing. Sure, they've helped to hide the werewolves for hundreds of years, they've understood that it's best for them to ignore us but... if an entire town falls victim to a pack, they'll have no choice. They'll have to act. All around the world, our people will no longer be safe.”

“What can we do about it?” Eloise asked softly.

He hesitated, before holding his hands tighter over her ears as more screams filled the night air.

“Nothing,” he continued as his resolve once again weakened. “We have to hide. Damn it, I never should have destroyed that cabin. What the hell was wrong with me? I should have kept it safe so that we could go back to it.”

“Wouldn't Saint Thomas just come to find us there?”

“I could have made him leave us alone,” he complained, “but there might still be time. There are other cabins, other places we can keep our heads down.”

“But -”

“Eloise, I know what to do,” he continued, stepping around her so that he could once again look into her terrified eyes. Reaching out, he wiped a tear from her cheek. “Don't be scared. I'm going to put everything right. You remember what it was like when the three of us lived out there in the forest, right? We were so happy, Eloise, at least... we were happy when your mother was behaving herself.”

“I don't know,” she said nervously. “I was scared a lot then too.”

“You had no reason to be scared!” he snapped angrily, before immediately sighing as he saw her pulling back again. “Why can't you and your mother see that? I was only ever -”

Suddenly they both heard a loud knocking sound. Turning, they looked out into the corridor just as the knocking returned, followed a few seconds louder by the unmistakable bump of an opening door.

“Stay behind me,” Michael stammered, stepping in front of his daughter. “Whatever you do, just stay behind me and I promise I'll keep you safe.”

“Who is it?” Eloise whimpered, close to tears again. “Is it more wolves? Are they going to punish me for leaving them? Is it my uncle or -”

“Just stay put,” he continued, preparing himself for another fight. Glancing around, he tried to spot something he might be able to use as a weapon, but for the most part the examination room was empty. “I think -”

In that moment a figure stepped into view, wearing a hospital gown. Michael froze, horrified by the sight and unable to quite understand how this man – who he recognized from a violent encounter at Lisa's apartment – could now be standing before him with bloodied pads covering his eyes.

“Tommy?” a woman's voice called out, and a moment later Tracy rushed up behind him, followed after a few seconds by one of the doctors from Middleford Cross. “What the hell are you doing? Why did you come here of all places?”

“Hello, Michael,” Tommy said, seemingly somehow able to see into the room despite the pads over his eyes. “The time has come for me to leave this world forever and journey to Sangreth, but first... I have to make sure that you do the right thing. After all, that is my duty as your father.”

Chapter Fifteen

One year ago...

A horn blared out from the port area as John stood in morning light on the porch. He was out of the city now, standing outside one particular house in a row that stretched in either direction almost as far as the eye could see.

“Hold on!” a voice called out angrily from the other side of the pale pink door. “I'm coming!”

Already worrying that he might be making a mistake, John took a step back. He looked down at his phone again and re-read the message that Jenna had sent through earlier in the day:

Hey John, it might be nothing but I figured you should have this. It's the address for Janelle Mahoney's mother. She doesn't live too far from here. Her father died years ago. Worth a try? x

As the door finally opened, John looked up to see a very thin elderly woman staring out at him with an expression of great mistrust.

“Yes?” she barked. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Ma'am, hello,” John said, removing his hat, “I'm truly sorry to bother you. My name is John Tench and I'm with the police. I just -”

“I'm not bailing her out,” the woman snapped.

“I beg your -”

“I'm not doing anything for that ungrateful little bitch,” she continued. “She's on her own from now on. Do you think I've got the time and energy to go running around after her? Hell no! She's made her own bed and now she can sweat in it.”

“My name is John Tench,” he said again, trying to reset the conversation a little, “and I was hoping that you might be able to help me get in touch with your daughter. You are Estelle Burton, I take it?”

“That's me,” she replied, “but no, I don't have a clue where that girl is now, and I don't care. I don't want anything to do with her.”

“What about your grandson Simon?”

“I don't care about him either,” she spat back. “I'm not some soft touch she can hit up for money whenever she's short of a dollar or two. Do I look like I've got much to spare? Meanwhile she lives like some kind of floozy and then she expects me to pick up the bill! Well, let me tell you... not this time!”

“Right,” John said, having not expected quite so much vitriol. “If -”

“So what's she done now?” the woman asked, putting her hands on her hips. “It must be something serious if the cops are involved. She's not on the run, is she? Wouldn't surprise me. That girl has an ability to get herself into trouble all the damn time. Hell, she could get herself into trouble in an empty room. She's like her father in that regard. She's opinionated, too.”

“I -”

“Do you know what my old mother said to me about Henry when she first met him? After he was gone, she said to me that you can tell a lot about a man by what he chooses to get angry about. How about that for a piece of advice, huh? I should have listened to her there and then, I'd have saved myself a hell of a lot of time and strife!” She took a moment to take a big, long sniff – just as a horn blared in the distance. “If you find her,” she continued finally, “tell Janelle to stay away from my door, okay? Tell her I'm not interested in helping her fix her latest mistake. And as for the kid...”

She hesitated, as if she was experiencing a brief moment of self-doubt.

“I'm not doing it,” she added, before starting to swing the door shut. “Not again. He got born to that bitch, he can pull himself up by his bootstraps and get himself away from her. It's not my problem.”

As the door bumped shut in his face, a rather shocked and confused John was left standing all alone on the porch. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected to get from an encounter with Janelle's mother, but the woman's unremitting bitterness had seemed strangely unwarranted. He briefly considered knocking on the door and trying once more to talk to her, but at the last second he decided that there was no point. Instead he turned and headed back to the sidewalk, while watching the distant cranes of the harbor.

Stopping for a moment, he realized that his hands felt dry and sticky. He looked down and saw that they were filthy, with dark smudges all over the palm and the undersides of the fingers. Not really sure where that muck could have come from, he began to wipe it away against the sides of his jacket as he wandered back toward his car, and then he stopped as he felt his cellphone vibrating in his pocket.

Pulling it out, he saw Jenna's number on the screen.

“Hey,” he said as soon as he answered, “what's up?”

“I know it's not strictly something you should be dealing with right now,” she replied, and her voice instantly sounded tense, “but I thought you should know... we're right in the middle of pulling a woman's corpse from the river about three blocks from where your friend went missing.”

***

As he stood on the concrete sidewalk and watched the team working in the river, John felt another flutter of dread in his chest. The body had already been removed from the shallows, and now a group of divers had begun to maneuver it to the shore.

“A jogger called it in,” Jenna said as she made her way over to join him. “Preliminary checks suggest she might've been here for a day, two at most. This part of the river's pretty busy, so it's unlikely she'd have gone unnoticed for too long.”

“Any identification?” John asked.

“Not yet, but we're hoping for something once we're able to examine her.”

“I want to see,” he replied, stepping past her and heading over to meet the divers as they lifted the body onto the sidewalk.

A section of tarpaulin had been placed over the corpse to keep it hidden from the onlookers and gawkers who were craning their necks from a nearby bridge. Several excited witnesses were recording themselves or broadcasting their reactions live over social media; a few were trying to fit the dead body into the background of selfies.

“John, are you sure about this?” Jenna said, hurrying after him. “We can conduct a more formal -”

“If it's her, we have to remember her son,” he replied, reaching down and lifting the edge of the tarpaulin. “Simon might be out there all alone and -”

As soon as he saw the dead woman's face, he froze. Tilting his head slightly, he tried to make sense of her features; death had robbed her facial muscles of any tautness, making identification a little trickier than he'd anticipated, and the water had turned her skin strangely pale. He had to tilt his head again, struggling to work out whether or not he recognized her, and after a few seconds he saw that something from the river had begun to eat through one of her cheeks. He lifted the tarpaulin a little higher and saw severe bruising all around one side of her chest, extending down over her left breast and all the way to her pelvis and genital area.

“She got hit by something,” he murmured. “Something heavy. A car, maybe.”

“Sure,” Jenna replied, “I can get behind that, but... why's she naked?”

“Someone threw her in, hoping to get away with knocking her down,” he suggested.

“Possible.” She paused. “John, is it the woman you're looking for?”

He watched as a thick, yellowish-gray worm burrowed its way out from the corpse's face, no doubt shocked to find itself suddenly in dry air.

“No,” he said finally, lowering the tarpaulin and turning away. “No, it's not Janelle. I guess it's just another victim of life here.”

He looked along the river, and in that moment he was struck by the dirt and grime of New York. Although he knew that the city was far from alone in this, and that there were far worse places to live, lately he was tiring of feeling like he was crammed into such a huge place. He wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle, from the sound and the fury, possibly from people altogether. Although he knew he was never going to get the chance, he wanted in that moment to simply turn his back to the world and live out the rest of his days surrounding by nothing more than forests and rivers and the beauty of nature.

“John?”

“I need to find her,” he said, turning to Jenna again. “She and Simon are out there somewhere, but my gut's telling me that they never left the city. My gut says something bad happened to them both.”

“Okay, so where do we look next?”

“We?”

“Yeah,” she replied, before offering a faint shrug. “Why not? Are you saying you couldn't use some help?”

Chapter Sixteen

Today...

“Father?” Tracy stammered, watching with a growing sense of shock as Tommy stepped into the room. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don't think it's him,” Trevor said. “It hasn't been him for a while. Somehow something else is in control of his body.”

“Are you insane?” she asked, turning to him before hesitating. “I mean, I considered that possibility earlier, but... it can't be true. Can it?”

“This is Sobolton,” he added, raising both eyebrows. “Come on, you know what this place is like, right? Insane stuff happens all the time.”

“Stay behind me,” Michael said again, still standing in front of his daughter as he watched Tommy approach. “We've met before,” he continued. “Back at Lisa's apartment, you disturbed me and... I might have gone a little too far when I fought back. It's just that I thought you were going to stop me finding my family again.”

“This body has been badly harmed,” Tommy – or the voice speaking through him, at least – replied, “and that is a process that I believe should be undone. For now, however, I am here to speak to you properly for the first time since I was brought down outside your cabin. I had foreseen my death on that day for some time, even if I did not know precisely how it would come about. I must say, I was... surprised.”

“I -”

For a moment, Michael seemed lost for words.

“Father?” he continued finally. “Is that you in there?”

“You shouldn't be so surprised,” Tommy continued. “You know that our family, like other chosen families in the pack, have some mastery over death. Not full mastery, of course, but we can... nudge things in certain directions. After my physical body died, I exercised my right to linger in this world for a while longer so that I might look upon my sons and see how they act. I must say that in all three cases I have been sorely disappointed.”

“I only asked to be left alone,” Michael told him. “That's all I ever wanted.”

“Yet that is the one gift I could never grant you,” Tommy insisted calmly. “You were always destined to lead the pack, and abandoning that responsibility was simply never possible. Perhaps that is not fair, but the world is rarely fair for any of us – wolf or human alike. You chose your path, you pursued it to its fullest extent, and now look at you... cowering away in here like some kind of traitor, while one of your brothers runs rampant outside. The agreement that kept a balance has been torn apart. My son, you must restore things.”

“No,” Michael said, shaking his head. Behind him, Eloise finally dared to peer out and look across the room. “I won't be part of this,” he continued. “I've tried, but I just can't. Besides, the pack has abandoned me, they've chosen to follow Saint Thomas. I don't know how to get them back on my side.”

“Trust in the natural order,” Tommy said, before smiling as he spotted Eloise. “And this, I believe, must be my granddaughter.”

“Stay away from her,” Michael insisted. “I don't want her to be part of the wolf world.”

“We are all born into this world with duties and responsibilities,” Tommy told him. “These cannot be ignored. Only abandoned, with the resultant consequences. You must do what is right, and now I too must follow the path that is waiting for me. I shall see you again one day at Sangreth, and by then... I know that you... will...”

Letting out a sudden gasp, he dropped to his knees. Tracy rushed up behind him and tried to keep him from toppling over, but she could only try desperately to support him as she slowly lowered his shaking body down onto the floor.

“I think he's having another fit!” she shouted as Trevor hurried over to help. “We need to get him back to the hospital! Hurry!”

“What's wrong with that man?” Eloise asked cautiously. “Why... why did he call me his granddaughter?”

“That was my...”

For a moment, Michael wasn't sure how to explain. He hesitated, watching as Tommy's fit become stronger still, but in that instant he finally understood that he could no longer ignore his father's words. In his heart of hearts he knew that every single one of those words had been true, and that he couldn't keep hiding forever. He turned and looked at Eloise and he realized that hiding her away was never going to work.

“Wait here,” he said firmly. “I'm going to deal with this once and for all.”

Looking down at his hand, he saw the chapped and cracked skin – and he understood that he'd finally arrived at the day he'd never believed could happen.

“But first,” he added, speaking more to himself than to his daughter, “I'm going to have to change.”

***

“I got him!” Lisa gasped as she saw another wolf pulling back with blood around its maw. “I got him right in the mouth!”

Still holding up one of the stools, she tried to get her breath back as she saw that already several more of the beasts were inching closer. So far she and John had been managing to hold them off, although the semicircle was gradually shrinking and she knew they were going to need a better plan. A moment later she jabbed at another of the wolves, forcing it back slightly while John tried to defend the other side.

“Hey!” a voice shouted suddenly, and they both looked up to see someone waving at them from a high window on the other side of the street. “Do you guys need help?”

“You don't happen to know anything about a missing silver pendant, do you?” Lisa called out.

“No, but I could try tying some bed sheets together,” the man continued. “I mean... if you think it might help.”

“I think we're beyond that,” she replied, “but -”

Before she could finish, one of the wolves lunged at her again, this time catching her by surprise. The creature landed on her chest, knocking her down as she dropped the stool, and out of the corner of one eye she saw that John was already being dragged onto his knees by two other wolves that had bitten his arms. She tried to break free, but the beast on her chest was too strong and she could feel – as well as smell – hot wolf breath as saliva dripped from a set of sharp fangs.

“John, I can't hold it off!” she gasped as the wolf pushed harder and harder against her chest. “I think -”

Suddenly the wolf snapped at her, flashing its jaws, only for a larger shape to slam into its flank and send it tumbling off the other side.

Startled, Lisa pulled back and began to sit up, and she was shocked to realize that the wolves were now fighting one another. After a few seconds, however, she realized that in fact just one rogue wolf appeared to be on the attack; as this new arrival crunched the neck of its rival, killing the creature in a flash, she realized that she recognized it from somewhere. Before she had a chance to react, the new wolf turned and rushed the beasts that were pinning John down, and soon he too was free.

Bleeding and clearly in pain, John crawled over to join Lisa and they both watched with a growing sense of shock as the newly arrived wolf made short work of the pack members that – just a minute or so earlier – had been surrounding the bar completely.

“That's a new one,” John stammered, clutching his arm as blood gushed from several bite marks. “He seems to have turned against the others, but I don't know why.”

“I think...”

Her mind was racing, but for a few seconds Lisa was unable to believe what she was seeing. She told herself that she had to be wrong, yet she was already thinking back to that day – four decades earlier – when she'd first seen Michael in his wolf form. She watched as the beast quickly dispatched its opponents, with several of the other wolfs already slinking away in retreat, and she felt a niggling sense of fear as she realized that perhaps the unthinkable had happened. As the new wolf finished off the last of its foes, crunching its victim's neck with deadly force, Lisa finally allowed herself to believe the unbelievable.

Once it was done, the large wolf turned and looked at her. Breathless and panting, with several wounds on its sides, this wolf stared back at Lisa with rich, intelligent eyes.

“It's him,” she whispered, sitting up a little more as she saw blood dribbling from a deep gash on the wolf's side. “John, I never thought he'd do it, but... this is Michael.”

Chapter Seventeen

One year ago...

“What exactly do you expect me to do?” the guy asked, standing in the front room of Janelle's apartment as his wife continued to load some items into a box. “She missed her last rent payment. She hasn't answered my calls. Looks to me like she just took off with her kid and abandoned the place.”

“You can't toss her stuff out,” Jenna told him.

“No-one's tossing anything out,” he said with a sigh. “Listen, Janelle never actually had a proper rental agreement, okay? I took pity on her a while back and let her stay here, she was paying me on time each month so I was happy to let things slide. But now she's gone and I can't afford to leave the place standing empty, so I'm putting all her stuff into storage. If she ever comes back, it'll be waiting for her in the lock-up in the basement, but my hands are tied here. I need the money.”

“We could try to stop this,” Jenna said, turning to John. “We could get an order to -”

“There's no point,” he replied before she was able to finish. “I really don't think that there'll be anything here that can tell us where she went.”

“We've tried everything else,” she pointed out. “John, I know I promised to help out, but this is starting to feel like a complete dead end. Do you know how many people vanish each year without a trace, just in this country alone? It's enough to make your eyes pop out on stalks. There are usually around half a million reports every year, and unless you've been living under a rock you'll know that our resources are kinda stretched. It's not like anyone has even reported this woman missing yet.”

“I'm reporting her missing,” he told her.

“You don't have standing to do that.”

“My gut's telling me that something is seriously wrong here.”

“Who are you,” she replied, “and what did you do with the real John Tench? Seriously, you've never been the kind of guy who talks about gut feelings and stuff like that. You've always worked by the book, you've always followed the rules, and now suddenly you're talking about gut instincts.” She paused, watching him carefully as if she was trying to read his mind. “Who is this Janelle woman really, John? Is she someone you've... become close to?”

“I'm worried about her son. That's all.”

“Okay, fine,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but you seem to be putting a hell of a lot of energy into a case that doesn't really stand out from all the others.”

“That's because it's close to home,” he told her, “and I feel like I'm missing something. And if I'm honest, I also feel like there's still a chance to fix this. Something's going on right under my nose and so far I'm stumbling around in the dark. I don't like being made to look like a fool, Jenna.” He paused again. “Janelle wouldn't just leave in the middle of the night like this. She has to be around somewhere, and I'm not going to rest until I've found her.”

***

“Look at this map,” John said a short while later, as he sat at a window booth in a late-night diner. “There's the apartment building and there's the shop Janelle's been working at. She used to complain about working every hour she could, and I know for a fact that she didn't go out much. Apart from these two places, she went almost nowhere else.”

He turned the map around a little, hoping that he might spot something useful. So far, although his mind was racing, he felt as if he was making disturbingly slow progress.

“What if she was being followed?” he continued finally. “I've been wondering about this. She told me that a friend who worked at the same store was murdered, but I haven't been able to dig up much information about that so far. Still, it got me thinking that she might have been stalked for some time, and then what if the perp finally decided to make his move?”

He studied the map for a moment longer before realizing that Jenna had said nothing now for several minutes. Looking over at her, he saw that she was staring out the window; he followed her gaze but saw only the familiar bustling lights of the city. After waiting for a few seconds, wondering what he might be missing, he turned to her again.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Clearly startled, she looked at him.

“Sorry,” he added, “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“No, it's fine,” she replied, evidently a little embarrassed that she'd been caught daydreaming. “I was just...”

Her voice trailed off.

“What's wrong?” John asked, but she still seemed reluctant to answer. “We've known each other for long enough, Jenna,” he continued. “I know when you've got something extra on your mind.”

“I don't want to freak you out.”

“Feel free to freak me out,” he replied, hoping to lighten the mood a little. “It wouldn't be the first time.”

“You don't believe in... weird things, do you?”

“I see weird things every day.”

“You know what I mean,” she continued. “I'm talking about things that a lot of people don't believe can be possible. Come on, John, I know you well enough to know that you only believe in things you can prove.”

“If you're talking about ghosts and ghouls,” he replied, “then you're right, I'm not into any of that stuff at all.”

“It doesn't matter whether your into them or not,” she countered. “All that matters is whether you run into them.”

“Okay, then I'd better rephrase my response,” he accepted, as he spotted a small spider crawling up the inside of the window. “I've been doing this job for a long time, and I've never seen anything I couldn't explain. Well, I once saw the body of a baby who'd been starved to death by a mother who preferred to spend her money on meth. I'm not sure I can explain something like that, but I know you're talking about something a little more... esoteric.”

“This might be a bad idea for a conversation,” she told him. “Let's talk about something else.”

“No, go on,” he replied. “I want to know what's on your mind.”

“It's just that I remembered the street you live on,” she admitted. “The street where you and this Janelle woman both have apartments. I couldn't quite place it at first, but I think I was there once many years ago, when I was new to the force.”

“I don't exactly live in a nice part of town,” he told her. “Not since the divorce, at least.”

“There was a missing woman back then, too,” she continued. “I don't remember her name, but I could look it up. Anyway, my partner and I were sniffing around and trying to find her, and eventually we heard about a strange guy who'd been seen in the area. Now, you're gonna think that the next part is really crazy, but I'm gonna tell you exactly what we were told by the locals.”

“Go on, then,” he said, shifting his seat a little. “I'm looking forward to hearing this one.”

“More than one person told us that they'd seen this... tall guy lurking in the shadows at night, and he was always spotted right around the time that someone went missing from the area. It got so bad, they were looking out for him regularly.”

“Did anyone get a photo?”

“This was before smartphones. A few people tried, but they had no luck. Any images they obtained were too blurry to be useful.”

“What a surprise.”

“They said this guy was tall, at least seven feet. He wore dark clothes and he kept to himself, and he always stood in a way that meant his face was in the shadows. One woman once claimed to have seen him a little better, and she said that his eyes glowed red.”

John raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I know,” she continued, “but I'm just relating to you what she told us. Anyway, that wasn't even the strangest part of it, because a few witnesses over the years reported that they'd approached this figure and asked him what he wanted. He'd become something of an urban legend around here by that point, and people were getting scared. They believed that whenever this guy was spotted, a woman would soon go missing.”

“Did you check out the dates?”

“It all seemed to fit,” she told him.

“So a tall guy was loitering in the neighborhood,” he replied. “That's not too hard to believe, and the part about the red eyes can easily be explained as a mistake or a downright lie. I have to be honest with you, so far this isn't sounding like some terrifying paranormal tale.”

“There's one more part to it,” she insisted. “Eventually we got a call that the figure had been spotted again, and an angry mob had cornered him in an alley right near that store Janelle worked at. Anyway, two cops were sent down to check it out, and sure enough the mob had a guy trapped. No-one had dared to go near him, they were all too scared, so one of the cops eventually began to approach the figure. But the figure didn't respond to anything, he just wouldn't say a word, even when he was confronted directly.”

“Did this cop see the glowing red eyes?”

“Yes,” she replied, before hesitating for a few seconds, “I did.”

“It was you?” Now it was John's turn to hesitate. “Okay, so you confronted him and he refused to explain himself. Did you and your partner take him to the station?”

“That was the plan,” she admitted, “but then he got away.”

“How?”

He waited for an explanation.

“I thought you said he was cornered,” he added finally. “Was there some other way out of the alley?”

“Nope,” she replied, shaking her head, and now there was real fear in her eyes. “I ordered him one last time to comply, and then...”

Again John waited for her to continue, but sheer terror seemed to be holding her back.

“And then,” she managed after a few more seconds, “he just stepped up, like onto an invisible step right there in the air, and he jumped. And I swear to you, John, I looked up just in time and I saw this guy just jump straight over an entire apartment block like it wasn't even a challenge. And before you tell me that I imagined it, there were plenty of other witnesses who saw the exact same thing.”

“Was it caught on any surveillance cameras?”

She shook her head.

“I'm not denying that you think you saw this,” he said cautiously. “Not for one second. However, I think you have to acknowledge that there are other... possibilities, here.”

“Believe me, I've run through the possibilities so many times, but I've never been able to come up with something that explains what I saw that night. The ease with which he jumped over the building was absurd, and I know that you're probably struggling not to laugh, but I'm telling you what happened. I've never seen anything before or since that I couldn't explain in some way, but that night really opened my eyes up to what might be possible. There are things we don't understand out there, John. There are things our dumb little minds can't even begin to comprehend.”

“Well,” John replied, fully aware that he needed to be careful with his words now, “that's certainly an unusual story and one that... I don't think I've heard anything like it before.”

“You don't believe me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“I can see it in your eyes.”

“I admit that I'm trying to think of alternative explanations,” he told her. “Just because something's seen by a large number of people, that doesn't mean there might not be some level of... confusion involved.”

“Mass hysteria?”

“That's one way of putting it.”

“I tried to forget about what I'd seen,” she continued, “and for the most part I was successful. But this morning I decided to check for any recent reports in this area, John, and do you know what I found?”

“Jenna...”

“One week ago, three separate people reported seeing this guy again, just around the corner from the very apartment building you live in.” She was speaking fast now, almost tripping over her words. “After all these years, he's back and now your friend and her son have gone missing, and I'm not saying there has to be any correlation here but don't you think it's at least worth looking into?”

“I'm not sure that we should go around chasing red-eyed people who can leap over buildings,” he countered.

“But we can keep our minds open to the possibility, right? That's all I'm asking, John. Because if I ever get a chance to confront that figure again, you can bet that I'm gonna seize it with both hands.”

“I'm sure you are,” he told her, “and if I'm there with you, then I'll do exactly the same thing.” He took a sip of coffee before checking his watch. “I understand if you feel the need to work on something else tomorrow.”

“No chance,” she said firmly. “One way or the other, John, we're going to figure out what happened to your friend, and we need to move fast. We're gonna hit the ground running tomorrow and we're gonna find your friend. Anything else is just noise.”

Chapter Eighteen

Today...

“Are you sure?” John asked, watching as the large wolf took a limping step forward. “I thought you said -”

“I know what I said,” Lisa replied, crawling toward the wolf and reaching out, putting a hand on the side of its head, “but I'd recognize him anywhere. Even if I didn't, I'd definitely recognize his eyes. It's Michael.”

For a moment she could only stare at the wolf. She had no idea what to say to him, but a few seconds later his front legs gave way; clearly exhausted from the fight, he slumped down, although he quickly began to haul himself up again.

“It's okay,” she told him. “Michael, listen to me, you need to stay calm.”

The wolf tried again and again to stand, but his injured legs refused to support his weight. Finally he slumped down again, but this time Lisa was able to put her arms around him.

“Listen to me,” she said firmly, convinced that she could tame him. “Michael, I'm here. You're hurt, but you know how to fix it. You have to change again.”

He tried one more time to stand, but this effort was perfunctory at best. Slumping down once more, he began to pant more heavily.

“You know,” she said, stroking his flank now, feeling his racing heartbeat. “This is nothing. You saved us, but now you have to change so that your body can heal. You remember how to do it, don't you?”

She waited, hoping against hope that her words might get through to him. After a few seconds she heard a faint crunching sound coming from somewhere deep inside his chest, following by the clicking of bones, and she began to hope that he'd accepted the inevitable. His body was shuddering slightly but she continued to hold onto him, and after a few more seconds she felt the bones shifting and rearranging themselves beneath his fur.

“He's doing it,” she said softly, and now her voice was filled with a sense of wonder. “John, he's really doing it. He's changing back.”

“No kidding,” John replied, still clutching his injured arm.

“Don't be afraid,” she said firmly. “Michael, if -”

“Look what we've got here.”

Startled, she turned to see that several of the vanquished wolves had returned, this time with Saint Thomas walking confidently ahead of them along the moonlit street.

“I didn't believe it at first,” he sneered as he made his way closer. “I though the reports of your return had to be fabricated, but here you are. Brother, I don't know where you've been hiding away, but I'm so pleased to see you again. I must admit, the idea of you dying out there all alone never really sat right with me, and I figured that a dramatic last-minute resurrection might be your style. Of course, this resurrection is only temporary because... well, no pack can have two leaders, can it? And frankly, you're superfluous to requirements.”

“It's okay,” Lisa told Michael. “You don't have to fight him right now.”

“Oh, but he does,” Saint Thomas said, stopping and starting to unbutton his shirt. “There are rules for this sort of thing, Lisa. Traditions. Time-honored systems that simply can't be ignored. In the very rare event that a battle ensues for supremacy within a pack, the combatants must do things fairly.” As he spoke, his voice began to sound more gnarly and tense than usual, and already his eyes were filling with blood. “He knows it. I know it. Everyone here knows it. Well, except for the stupid humans, but no-one really expects you guys to have a clue.”

“Michael, no,” Lisa said, as his wolf form began to slip out of her arms, struggling once more to stand – but this time just about managing. “Michael, you're hurt. This isn't a fair fight.”

He let out a low, rumbling growl before turning to look past her.

Saint Thomas, meanwhile, was in the process of changing. Most of his clothes were torn now and his body had become a twisted mass of flesh and bone and fur. Perhaps he had more experience with this process, or perhaps he was simply genetically predisposed to make the transformation more quickly, but – whatever the explanation – he was already down on his hands and feet as his shoulders separated and grew wide, while patches of fur were unfolding from beneath his bloodied skin. His bones, meanwhile, were cracking loudly, and finally the change was complete: the wolf form of Saint Thomas, complete with one scarred and missing eye, stood in the street and watched as Michael limped over to join him.

“Michael, stop!” Lisa gasped, trying to go after him – only for John to hold her back. “Let go of me!”

“No, it has to be this way,” John said firmly, struggling to maintain his grip on her arms. “Lisa, I still have some of my wolf instincts. Trust me, I know that this is right.”

“But -”

“Michael has spent all his life running from the rules and traditions of his pack,” he continued as the two large wolfs began to circle one another, and as other wolves entered the street as if drawn to watch. “He can't do the same thing now. You have to understand... this is how they settle things.”

“But he's hurt,” she continued. “He has a huge disadvantage. Saint Thomas should give him time to heal first.”

“That's not how it works,” he told her. “I'm sorry, but -”

Before he could finish, Michael lunged at Saint Thomas, biting down hard on his brother's shoulder. Twisting and letting out a pained snarl, Saint Thomas pushed Michael away and then lashed out at him with a claw, cutting the side of his jaw and sending him crumpling down against the road.

“He's losing!” Lisa hissed.

“These fights take time,” John replied. “It's not just about who wins, it's also about how they win, especially when leadership of the pack is at stake. They're not fighting just to kill each other. They're fighting to demonstrate to the other wolves that they're worthy of ruling the pack.”

“But Michael's already their king,” she pointed out, as Michael attacked – and was repelled – yet again. “Why don't they recognize that?”

“They probably do, at least on one level,” John told her, watching as the two wolves once again circled each other. “Saint Thomas got into their heads, though. He persuaded them to give him a chance. It's not going to be so easy for Michael to -”

Suddenly the two wolves lunged at each other in the exact same moment, slamming together with such force that Lisa felt the ground shaking. The two brothers wrestled themselves down onto the road and began to fight far more frantically than before, biting into each other's bodies and trying to tear chunks of flesh away from the bones. With each passing second the fight became ever more powerful, but slowly Saint Thomas began to get the upper hand until finally he was able to push down, pinning Michael to the ground.

Lisa instinctively rushed forward to help, but John once again held her back.

“You can't help him,” he told her. “Even if by some miracle you did, any outside assistance would leave him completely shamed.”

“But -”

“This has to play out naturally,” he continued.

“What if that means Michael loses?”

She waited for an answer, but she could already see the fear in his eyes.

“We can't let that happen,” she stammered.

“It's not up to us,” he told her. “This is their world now, and their rules. Any so-called king who received help from a human in mortal combat... he'd be ruined forever in the light of the pack.”

“At least he'd still be alive.”

“That's not all this fight is about,” he added. “Michael went into this knowing that he might not survive. It's about life and death now. Victory is never guaranteed.”

“But he's losing,” she sobbed, watching as Saint Thomas continued to pin Michael down. “We have to do something!”

Unable to reply, John could only watch as Saint Thomas ripped his claws through Michael's flank. Blood was flowing freely from the wounds now, exposing several glistening ribs, and already Michael's attempts to fight back were starting to look increasingly desperate. Every single time Michael tried to get up, Saint Thomas merely used the opportunity to bite again, crippling him further and making it harder than ever for him to fight back.

“I can't watch this,” Lisa said as tears ran down her cheeks. “John, there has to be something we can do.”

A moment later Saint Thomas bit harder still, crushing Michael's leg before releasing his grip and stepping back.

“Is he stopping?” Lisa asked, feeling a rush of hope as she saw Saint Thomas pulling away from Michael's bleeding, panting body on the ground. “Is he showing mercy?”

“Not mercy, no,” John said as he saw the other wolves starting to edge closer. “Lisa, I'm so sorry, but this is how these fights end. Sometimes they go on for hours, but sometimes they end swiftly. The victorious wolf never delivers the final blow. The whole fight is about pack dominance, so the winner stands back and allows the pack to demonstrate its loyalty by finishing the job.”

“No,” she whispered, watching as more and more wolves stepped closer to Michael. “John, we can't just let him die.”

“He lost the fight,” John said, and now fear was filling his voice. “I'm so sorry, Lisa, he tried his best but... he wasn't able to defeat his brother. The fight for the pack is over. Saint Thomas has won.”

Chapter Nineteen

One year ago...

“Monica Zinik was found deceased two weeks ago in an alley behind Elmo's Cinema,” Jenna said, holding up the first in a series of crime scene photos. “Cause of death was determined to be a severe head injury coupled with stab wounds to the abdomen.”

She held up a second image, showing a dead woman with part of her skull missing.

“That's savage,” John remarked. “What kind of person could do that?”

“It'd have to be someone strong,” Jenna said as she showed him some more images, this time focusing on the stab wounds. “The head injury came first, and the coroner believes that would have been more than enough to kill her. By the time the perp started using the knife, Monica would have been dead or dying – and almost certainly unconscious. At that point she'd be easy pickings.”

“Something about this doesn't seem right,” John said, taking a look at the file again, leafing through the pages in search of something – anything – that might help him understand what was going on. “If Janelle was taken by the same person who killed Monica, how come she hasn't been found by now?”

“What if Monica got away? What if she was trapped somewhere but she managed to get out of her restraints, and she crawled out of a window and wriggled to freedom? I know it's rare for something like that to happen, but you've got to admit that it's a possibility.”

“And then he tracked her down and killed her?”

“It's possible.”

“Possible but unlikely,” he suggested, before turning to yet another page. “I don't think this is the same perp.”

“What makes you -”

“It's just not,” he said firmly. “Plus Janelle has a child, and he's missing too.”

“John...”

He waited for her to continue and then, realizing that she'd fallen silent, he turned to her.

“Are you sure you're not clutching at straws here? I get that you like this woman and her son, they're your neighbors and you care about them, but you have to face facts. There's a very real possibility that these cases are connected. If they're not, then what are the odds?”

“In a city like New York?” he replied, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “It's not that hard to believe.”

“I didn't know you were so cynical.”

“If the same guy had taken Janelle and Simon, we'd have found them by now,” he pointed out. “Besides, check out the coroner's report again. There's nothing to indicate any kind of escape or confinement. There are no marks around her wrists or ankles, no scratches anywhere, there wasn't even anything of note under her fingernails. If you ask me, the perp in this case struck Monica from behind and knocked her out pretty much instantly, and then he got on with his other... predilections.”

“Predi-whats?”

“I don't want to waste time chasing dead ends,” he said firmly. “If Janelle and Nick have been kidnapped, we need to track them down fast.”

“Nick?”

“What about him?”

“You just said... Janelle and Nick, instead of Janelle and Simon.”

“Slip of the tongue,” he replied, although he was unable to hide an obvious sense of irritation. “We're not getting anything done here in the office. The answer to this case is out there on the streets somewhere.”

***

“So do you ever hear from Nick?”

As she and John made their way along a bustling city street, with late-night revelers shoving their way past in every direction and the lights of the city glaring out from nearby shopfronts, Jenna finally asked the question that had been on their mind ever since they'd left the coroner's office.

“No,” John said cautiously.

“Do you ever think about... getting in touch with him?”

“I'm not sure that he'd want that.”

“But -”

“We've come to an understanding,” he continued. “We don't... gel too well if we see each other too often. The past always ends up getting brought up, and that never ends in anything other than an argument.” He walked on in silence for a few paces. “Just because he's my son, that doesn't mean we necessarily have to get along very well.”

“I guess,” she replied, although she was clearly struggling to understand how he could feel that way.

“We've talked endlessly,” John added. “Believe me, if talking could fix things, it'd be fixed by now.”

“But if -”

“That's the problem with the world today,” he pointed out, warming to his theme now. “People talk too damn much. Some people can't stop yapping the whole time.”

“I see.”

“You don't agree with me?”

She offered a shrug that clearly indicated her concerns.

“Nick'll have a better chance at turning over a new leaf if I'm not there all the time,” John suggested. “We've tried everything else. And if that means that we don't see each other often... or ever... then I guess that's a sacrifice I'm just going to have to accept.”

“Is it much of a sacrifice?”

“There's the store,” he replied, dodging the question as he stopped and looked at the brightly-lit store on the opposite corner. “I keep thinking that I'm overlooking something, and I think it's connected to the store where Janelle worked.”

“See that alley over there?” she asked, nodding toward a spot a little further along the street. “That's where it happened.”

“Where what happened?” he replied, before turning to her. “You mean the guy with the red eyes?”

“The one you don't think was real.”

“Everything's pointing toward this spot,” he continued, “and I don't think we should ignore that fact.”

“What do we know about the guy running that place?” she asked as she once again looked over at the store, just as two men emerged laughing.

“I did some digging on him,” John explained. “Kevin John Stoner, thirty years of age, son of a businessman who owns about a dozen similar franchises across the city. Unmarried, no criminal history, doesn't even own any kind of weapon.”

“Isn't that weird?”

“In what way?”

“If I worked in a place like that,” she continued, “I'd sure want to be armed. In fact, I'd consider it almost suicidal not to have some kind of weapon. The only reason I wouldn't have one would be if I didn't want to draw attention to myself.”

“I see where you're headed with this.”

“It's almost eleven,” she said, checking her watch and then looking at the store just as two more men, also laughing, made their way out and headed off into the night. “Seems kinda busy, don't you think?”

“It's in a good location.”

“Those customers weren't carrying anything. They didn't seem to have made a purchase.”

“Could be something small,” he suggested. “Cigarettes, maybe.”

“Maybe, but don't you want to know for sure?” she asked, turning to him with a glint in her eye. “I don't mean storming the place, I just mean... poking around a little more thoroughly. We've got grounds to talk to the guy, at least. If he suddenly starts talking about calling a lawyer, we can retreat pretty quickly, but my guess is that this is someone who won't perform too well under pressure. In fact, I'd be happy to take the lead here.”

“I'm sure you would,” John replied, although he still wasn't entirely convinced by the plan. He watched the store for a few more seconds, and sure enough three guys emerged and walked off into the night, laughing but conspicuously not carrying any obvious purchases.

“Call me paranoid if you want,” Jenna said, “but I really want to poke about in there. Besides, I'm thirsty. Aren't you thirsty?”

“Sure, but -”

“So I'm gonna get myself a bottle of water,” she added, winking at him before setting off across the street. “You want one too?”

He opened his mouth to call after her, but at the last second he realized that she might actually have a point. She was already disappearing into the crowd, and a moment later he spotted her vanishing into the store. He glanced around for a few seconds, wondering whether by some miracle he might spot Janelle and she'd be able to tell him that there was no reason to worry, and then he too set off across the road. In the back of his mind, he was already thinking that he really needed to find a way to get out of the city, and he couldn't help recalling the seemingly idyllic photos of that little Sobolton place.

“The end's coming!” a man was yelling nearby, screaming his message at people who were trying to ignore him as they walked past. “The Devil's in town and he's got a plan! No-one's gonna be safe!”

Chapter Twenty

Today...

“Stop!” a voice shouted suddenly, piercing the night air as more and more wolves edged closer to Michael's injured body. “Leave him alone!”

Startled, Lisa and John looked along the street. Already the gathered pack had begun to part, allowing someone to approach, and after a few seconds Carolyn appeared with Robert Law's lifeless body in her arms.

“What's she doing?” Lisa whispered.

“I have no idea,” John admitted, “but I think that's...”

He hesitated, before hurrying over to Carolyn just as she stopped in front of Michael.

“Robert?” John gasped, looking down at his friend's body for a moment before desperately trying to find some sign of life. “Robert, can you hear me? Robert, I -”

“It's too late, John,” Carolyn said as tears glistened in her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” John asked, still checking for a pulse. “Robert, it's me! I'm right here! You just have to hold on until we get to Middleford Cross!”

“He's dead,” Carolyn said firmly.

“No, he just -”

“He's dead, John” she said again, interrupting him – and this time John froze as if he finally understood. “And for what it's worth,” she added, “you might as well know the truth. I was the Walker all along.”

“You?” John stammered, clearly unable to quite believe what he was hearing. “But... how?”

“I'm so sorry that I lied to you,” she continued. “I lied to everyone, although Joe was onto me, at least in the end. Working at the station was perfect, really. I knew everything that was happening in the entire town, and most people – including you – never suspected a thing.”

“Did you...”

He paused, before looking down at Robert again.

“Did you kill him?” he asked.

“No,” she replied quickly. “Absolutely not. I would never have done that. Doctor Robert Law was the best man in this entire town and I would have rather sacrificed my own life than let this happen.” She hesitated, before looking over at Saint Thomas and then turning to the other wolves. “Do you hear that?” she called out. “Saint Thomas killed this man, and he led some of our own pack to their deaths as well. I know our pact with the humans wasn't perfect, but at least we weren't killing good people.”

Saint Thomas let out a low, rumbling snarl.

“I've been the Walker for more than twenty years,” she continued, addressing the wolves now. “You know I've been a loyal and faithful member of the pack, I've delivered so much information about the town and its people. I've never done anything to make you doubt my true beliefs, but...” She hesitated, as if the emotion of the moment was becoming too much for her. “But there's a point where it's not worth all the bloodshed,” she added, “and the fighting and the death.”

Again she hesitated, before kneeling down and setting Robert's broken and bloodied body on the ground. A few paces away, Michael was still panting heavily as he waited to die, and a few seconds later Lisa finally hurried over to him and dropped down to offer him some comfort in his final moments.

“This isn't how it should end,” Carolyn whispered.

Stepping closer, Saint Thomas stopped in front of her and let out a long, low growl.

“Yeah, I know,” she continued, looking into his remaining eye and seeing so much fury and anger. After a few seconds she got to her feet and looked around at the other wolves. “It would seem,” she added, “that Saint Thomas won the fight. That means that it's your turn now, you have to show your loyalty to him by finishing Michael off. So what are you waiting for? You all know how this works and there's no need to be shy.”

Stepping back, she pointed at Saint Thomas.

“There he is!” she called out. “There's your great leader, your new king. There he is in all his mad glory. If you want to follow him, there's no need to delay. He's ready to lead you all into an unfathomable new era of bloodshed and death. It won't end with the people of Sobolton, either. There'll be more people soon, there'll be whole armies that arrive here to find out what happened to the town. It'll be nonstop never-ending war for generations. You won't be the only ones that have to fight, either. Your children will be drawn into it, and their children too, and in all honesty it'll probably never end. That's what Saint Thomas is offering you. All-out never-ending war for generation after generation.”

She looked down at Robert's body, and then she looked over at Michael.

“So just get it done,” she added with disgust, before turning and walking away. “Vote with your jaws. Your king's ready. You can crown him now.”

“It's okay,” Lisa whispered, looking deep into Michael's eyes and somehow sensing his mind staring back up at her. “Everything's going to be okay.”

Nearby, Saint Thomas let out a rumbling snarl, but the other wolves held back. A few of them glanced at one another, as if they were each waiting for another of their number to make the first strike against Michael, but as the seconds passed none of the wolves dared to move forward. And then, finally, one of them turned and began to walk away, heading toward the end of the street, and gradually a few more began to follow.

Snarling, Saint Thomas raced past them and stopped, turning to face them down as if he was daring them to defy his victory. The wolves hesitated, but slowly more and more of them followed until they were standing defiantly in front of the spot where Saint Thomas was trying to block their progress. And then, one by one, they began to make their way past him even as he continued to growl at them all.

“What are they doing?” Lisa asked, still trying to tend to Michael's wounds.

“They're disobeying him,” John explained. “They're refusing to recognize his victory.”

“Why?”

“I guess they don't like him so much after all,” he suggested. “It didn't take a lot to turn them against him, did it? I'd almost hazard a guess that they never really liked him that much to begin with. When your loyalty's based on fear, it can crumble pretty fast.”

He watched as more and more wolves walked away, and a moment later he saw that Saint Thomas was hurrying after them as if trying to shepherd them back to his side.

Looking down at Robert, he checked again for any sign of life.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, finally accepting that his friend was gone. “Damn it, Robert, you survived so much, why couldn't you hang on one last time? You weren't supposed to die like this, you were supposed to get so much older. You were supposed to become a crotchety old man lecturing the world from the comfort of your chair on the porch, you were supposed to...”

His voice trailed off.

“You were supposed to help me,” he added finally. “I wouldn't have lasted more than a week as sheriff without your advice. Now what am I going to -”

Before he could finish, he spotted something clenched in Robert's right hand. Reaching down, he gently pulled the fingers open, allowing a small cloth bag to drop down onto the road. Picking the bag up, he opened it and tipped the contents into the palm of his hand, and finally he found himself looking at a battered old silver badge. After a few seconds the badge shuddered and rattled slightly, as if reacting to the presence of Michael nearby.

“The pendant,” John whispered as he slowly began to understand. “This must be...”

Spotting the compartment on the back of the badge, he pulled it open and let the fragment of bone fall out. As soon as the bone touched his hand, the skin began to burn and he had to drop the relic onto the ground.

“It must have been in the museum,” he continued. “It was here all along, it was right under our noses but we never figured it out. There were so many clues but...”

He looked over at Lisa.

“How could we have been so stupid?”

“He's not recovering,” she replied, paying far more attention to Michael than to anything else. “John, I think he's really hurt bad.”

“He needs to change back to his human form,” he explained. “That should fix almost everything.”

“Michael, you know what you have to do,” she continued, looking into his eyes again. “It won't be like last time, I swear. That was all my fault, but I won't let it happen again. Do you understand me? After all this time, we can fix things.”

In the distance a wolf howled, followed by another.

“This isn't necessarily over yet,” John said, getting to his feet and looking toward the darkened forest. “Saint Thomas is still out there and he's not the type to just give up. We still need to find a way to stop him.”

Chapter Twenty-One

One year ago...

“Hey, Kevin, there's really nothing to stress about,” Jenna was saying as John stepped into the store. “I'm just asking you a few questions, that's all.”

“You were here before!” Kevin stammered, pointing at John. “What's this about, huh? Why am I suddenly being targeted? I know my rights!”

“I literally came in for a bottle of water,” Jenna said, placing the aforementioned bottle on the counter, “and started making small talk. But as it happens, your behavior's starting to make me wonder whether something's going on here. What about all the men we've seen coming out of here tonight? Who are they?”

“It's a store!” he spat back at her. “Who do you think they were? They were customers!”

“What did they buy?”

“I don't know!”

“You don't know? Do you have some kind of memory problem, Kevin?”

“This is harassment,” Kevin replied. “You can't just come in here and start throwing accusations around. I could have both of you reported and suspended for this!”

“For buying a bottle of water?” Jenna asked, before turning to John with a faint smile. “Does that sound right to you?”

“It does not,” John agreed, keeping his eyes fixed on Kevin and noticing that this time the guy was sweating profusely. A moment later, wincing as the harsh electric lights buzzed above him, John realized that he could almost smell the guy's fear. He also couldn't help but notice his somewhat straggly beard.

A moment later the door swung open. Two men walked in, but they stopped as soon as they spotted John and Jenna; after glancing briefly at Kevin, they turned right around and bade a hasty retreat.

“Now that's completely normal behavior,” Jenna suggested, turning to Kevin once more. “Seems like a lot of your customers don't like the idea of getting too close to cops. Why do you think that might be?”

“I don't have a clue,” he stammered.

“What kind of gun have you got back there?” she asked. “Don't tell me that you're unarmed, because I really don't think that I'll believe you. The thing is, though, we ran a check and you're not a registered firearm owner, so I'm wondering... have you got something back there that you maybe don't want us to see?”

“I've got nothing,” he replied, stepping back and holding his hands up. “You have no right to be here.”

“Something about you doesn't pass the sniff test, Kevin,” she continued. “Do you know what that means? It means my gut is telling me that you're hiding something from us, and I want to know what it is.” She stepped closer to the counter and began to lean toward the increasingly sweaty man. “You can make things easier on yourself if you just tell us what's going on here, Kevin. That way we might, just might, be able to help you dig yourself out of whatever hole you've rolled into.”

“Can she talk to me like that?” Kevin asked, looking past her and waiting for John to get involved. “Is she allowed to do stuff like this? Dude, can you please take control of this bitch?”

“Let's take a look,” Jenna added, stepping around the counter in an attempt to enter the rear of the store, only for Kevin to block her way at the last second. “What are you hiding?” she asked, looking up into his face. “You look guilty as hell.”

“This isn't the correct procedure,” John pointed out, stepping up behind her and taking hold of her arm. “Jenna, you know that. You're overstepping the boundaries and giving this guy's lawyer enough ammunition to shoot at us both for a month.”

“We have probable cause to search this place,” she told him, while keeping her eyes fixed on Kevin.

“You got a warrant?” Kevin snapped. “Do you? Because I'm pretty sure that if you had a warrant, you've have flashed it in my face by now. But you don't, so you're not legally allowed to come behind this counter.”

“Jenna, we're leaving,” John said firmly. “I'm not going to let you jeopardize this entire case just because you can't keep your anger under control. Do you hear me?”

He waited for her to argue with him, but finally she took a step back.

“We'll be back,” she told Kevin a little breathlessly. “Don't doubt that for one second.”

“Let's go,” John replied, turning to leave, only to stop as he spotted a large mirror on the wall behind Kevin's head.

Staring at the mirror, John was able to see along a narrow corridor that ran from the space behind the counter and through into the rear of the store. He saw several boxes that had been left on the floor, but his attention was drawn to a bright red door at the corridor's end, and he quickly realized that this door looked exactly like the door in Simon's drawings. On top of that, when he turned to Kevin again, he began to wonder whether this might in fact have been the guy Simon had attempted to depict standing next to that door.

“Fine, let's go,” Jenna sighed, turning to walk away. “If -”

Suddenly Kevin reached under the counter and pulled out a rifle. He swung the weapon around and aimed at John, who stepped out of the way and hurried behind the counter. Although Kevin pulled the trigger, he succeeded only in shooting a shelf full of beer before John tackled him to the floor and pulled the rifle from his hands. Within seconds Jenna had joined them, and she'd already managed to pull her gun and aim it directly at the suspect's face.

“That wasn't very welcoming,” she sneered. “Come on, Kevin, give me one excuse to put a hole straight through your face. It might actually be an improvement.”

“You've got no right to do this!” Kevin spluttered, struggling frantically as John quickly handcuffed him to a pipe on the wall. “I want my lawyer! You have to leave immediately! I understand my rights and -”

Before he could get another word out, John smashed the rifle against his head, knocking him out cold.

“Sorry,” he murmured as he got to his feet, “but I was finding him extremely annoying.”

“What made you change your mind?” she asked.

“That door,” he replied, nodding toward the red door that he could now see with his own eyes at the end of his corridor. “I might be on a hiding to nothing, but I've seen it before in a drawing. It has to be connected.”

“What do you think Kevin's got hidden away back there?”

“I don't know,” he said as he began to make his way along the corridor, still carrying the rifle, “but I intend to find out.”

Reaching the door, he tried the handle, only to find that it was firmly locked. He took a step back and considered his options, and then he kicked the door open with one hard, well-targeted effort. As soon as he looked through and saw a set of steps heading into some kind of basement, he realized that he could hear several voices cheering and yelling somewhere far below.

“What the hell is this place?” Jenna asked as she joined him in the open doorway.

“Whatever it is,” John replied, “it doesn't strike me as being particularly legal. We need to call for -”

In that instant a woman's agonized scream rang out.

“Call for backup!” John snapped before starting to make his way down the rickety wooden steps, immediately noticing that thick smoke was hanging in the air.

With each step, he felt almost as if he was descending into Hell itself. The stairs shook beneath his feet and threatened to break, and by the time he reached the bottom John couldn't help but notice that the basement area was both cramped and extremely warm. Spotting an open passage leading away from the stairs, he began to edge forward while keeping the rifle raised, and a moment later he heard footsteps approaching from behind.

“Uniform are on their way,” Jenna told him as she held her gun up, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. Ahead, voices were jeering and shouting again. “What the hell is this place, John?”

“It sounds like a goddamn circus,” he muttered, making his way closer and closer to the opening ahead, where human shadows could already be seen moving across the far wall as glasses clinked together loudly. “Or an underground bar, but -”

A woman screamed again, her voice twisting through the air. Quickening his pace, John hurried to the end of the passageway and looked through an opening, and in that moment he saw the full horror of what he'd discovered.

Several men were sitting around on chairs – with many more chairs left empty – while a guy wearing a black hood tortured a naked woman on a kind of makeshift stage. Red light filled the air, picking out clouds of cigarette smoke, and a moment later the man on the stage pulled the woman black and held her tight as blood ran from multiple cuts all over her chest.

“They're torturing people for sport,” Jenna whispered, barely able to believe what she was seeing. Nearby, a board offered prices for various possibilities – including begging, bartering and even death. “They're torturing people and placing bets on it.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Today...

“He's not responding,” Tracy said, kneeling next to Tommy, still trying to find some way to wake him up. “Is he in a coma?”

“I'm not sure,” Trevor replied, once again checking his vitals but otherwise struggling to work out what to do next. “We need to get him back to the hospital, but I don't know if it's safe out there.”

He turned and looked over at the window, while listening out for any hint that the wolves were still around.

“I don't hear more screams,” he continued, “but -”

Before he could finish, he heard a bumping sound coming from somewhere nearby. He and Tracy looked over their shoulders just in time to see Eloise nervously stepping into the doorway.

“Hey,” Tracy said, shocked by the sight of such fear in the girl's eyes, “what are you doing here?”

“My dad told me to wait,” she replied, barely raising her voice above a whisper, “but... he's been gone for a while now and I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. I feel like...”

Now it was her turn to look at the window, but something about her expression seemed very different. Whereas Trevor had merely been listening out for sounds, Eloise was using all her senses at once and she'd already begun to realize that the wolves were retreating, but that one particular scent seemed to be moving closer. At the same time, she was also picking up on something stronger, something that was almost blocking out every other sense in her arsenal.

Sorrow.

“Why don't you wait with us?” Tracy said, sniffing back tears as she reached a hand out toward her. “Come on, come over here and we'll all just... wait together.”

“Hey,” Trevor said softly, nudging her arm, “isn't that...”

“Who?” she replied.

“It's her,” he continued. “I remember seeing a photo. That's Little Miss Dead.”

“It is, huh?” she said, before gesturing once again for Eloise to make her way across the room. “It's okay, you're safe here and -”

Suddenly hearing a murmur, she looked down and saw that Tommy was starting to stir.

“Is he alright?” Eloise asked, watching as Tommy slowly began to sit up.

“Sweetheart, can you hear me?” Tracy said, reaching out and putting a hand on the side of her husband's face. “It's me, it's Tracy. We're going to get you back to the hospital just as soon as we can.”

“Hospital?” he murmured, clearly more than a little dazed and confused. “I'm not... I don't quite know...”

He hesitated for a few seconds before reaching up and touching the pads that remained taped over his eyes.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I wish I knew the answer,” Tracy told him, “but the important thing is that we need to get you back to Middleford Cross.” She turned to Trevor. “How long do you think we have to wait? Are those wolves still out there?”

Standing up, Trevor headed over to the window and looked out. He saw the parking lot and the sheriff's station over on the far side, but to his surprise the scene was strangely peaceful. Bathed in moonlight, the parking lot was entirely empty and he couldn't see a single wolf anywhere.

“What are these things doing on me?” Tommy murmured as he began to pull the pads away from his face.

“Honey, don't do that,” Tracy said, trying to stop him. “Honey, seriously, you need to heal and -”

In that moment, as one of the pads came away, she saw to her surprise that – instead of an empty socket – she could see a bloodied but otherwise normal-looking eye. Unable to quite believe what was happening, she watched as he pulled the other pad off, and she realized that somehow both his eyes had returned.

“How is that possible?” she whispered. “Trevor, look at this! He's got his eyes back!”

“He can't have,” Trevor replied, walking over and crouching down to take a look. “Medically there's no -”

As soon as he saw Tommy's eyes, he froze – as if all his years of medical training had suddenly come to a screeching halt.

“My head feels a bit foggy,” Tommy admitted. “I remember sitting outside the Lisa Sondnes place, and then... I think I got attacked by something. Then it's like a dream, like a nightmare of pain and a hospital and... there was something else inside my head, something that was speaking through my mouth but... I wasn't scared. It was something comforting and friendly.”

“My grandfather,” Eloise whispered as she finally understood the presence she'd been feeling intermittently for a while now, but which she hadn't really noticed properly until it was gone. “I think he wanted to say thank you for letting him borrow your body. I think that's why he gave you your eyes back.”

The others turned and looked at her, clearly bemused by her words.

“He's gone now,” she continued, “and I need to find my parents.” She looked at the window again. “I can feel something coming this way. I don't know what it is, but it's not finished with us yet.”

***

“Where did all the wolves go?” Tracy asked as she and Trevor helped Tommy – who was still feeling a little weak – out through the front door of the old surgery. “Did they just... leave?”

“The pack went back into the forest,” Eloise explained, “but -”

Stopping suddenly, she realized that something was wrong. Although the parking lot looked empty, and her enhanced vision allowed her to see better in the darkness than the average person – she was still sensing something moving in the shadows. She looked all around, trying to pinpoint the location of the threat, before taking a step back.

“It's not safe,” she said firmly.

“What are you talking about?” Tracy asked.

“We shouldn't be outside,” she continued, turning and pushing them back into the abandoned old reception room. “We should have stayed hidden.”

“We need to get my husband to the hospital,” Tracy replied. “I still don't have a clue what's going on, but at the very least we need to get him checked out. Doctor Law might know what to -”

“Doctor Law's dead,” Eloise said, interrupting her.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“I saw my uncle kill him,” she replied, turning to look out once more across the parking lot, still struggling to figure out exactly what she was sensing. “And I felt him die. He wasn't scared or in pain, not at the end, but it's sad that he's gone and -”

In that moment she sensed something else, as if the darkness itself was shifting. She looked around once more, still convinced that she was missing something obvious, and then she stepped back into the building and pushed the door shut.

“I think -”

Suddenly a heavy force slammed against the door's other side, smashing it open and sending Eloise crashing into the wall. As the door fell from its hinges and toppled over, breaking the glass pane, a set of heavy boots trampled across the frame and a hand reached down, grabbing Eloise's arm and starting to pull her up. Although she tried desperately to get away, the girl was unable to twist herself free and finally she found herself looking up into the angry and bloodied face of her uncle's human form.

“There you are,” Saint Thomas sneered as Tracy and the others pulled away to the far side of the room. “My dear little niece, I've been looking everywhere for you. To be honest, I expected much better, I never thought you'd run away from my side.”

“You killed Doctor Law!” she gasped.

“You mean the old man with the shiny silver badge?” he snarled. “I'd kill him a thousand times over if I had the chance, but that's really not the point. The point is that I gave you a privileged opportunity, and you repaid me by running away like a scared little bitch. You realize that your behavior is intolerable, don't you? You were supposed to help me gain favor with the pack, and instead you showed them that I could be disobeyed. I'll win them back over, I still have more than enough time for that, but first... I need to make an example out of you.”

“Leave her alone!” Tracy shouted, hurrying over and trying to help Eloise get clear. “Whatever you -”

Slamming an elbow against her face, Saint Thomas knocked her out cold before starting to haul Eloise back toward the empty doorway.

“You can't take her!” Tommy said, shuffling after them. “I won't let you. She's going to stay here, where she belongs.”

“Don't you ever get tired of being stupid?” Saint Thomas snarled, turning to him. “I mean all of you. All you dumb little rodents running around in this place... don't you ever just want to give up and do the right thing? If you all died, things would be so much easier.”

“Let go of her,” Tommy said firmly.

“Don't hurt him!” Eloise screamed as she saw a faint smile on her uncle's face. “Please don't -”

In that instant Saint Thomas slammed her against the wall, knocking her out cold before letting her fall to the floor as he lunged toward Tommy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

One year ago...

“Everybody on the ground!” John shouted, aiming the rifle around as the men stumbled up from their seats and began to back away. “Anyone who tries to run is going to take a bullet. Jenna, how long until that backup gets here?”

“Any moment,” she replied, “but -”

Before she could finish, she spotted a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned just as the hooded man from the stage rushed forward with a cleaver in his hands, and in that instant she instinctively pulled the trigger, hitting him in the chest and sending him tumbling back down against the floor. A fraction of a second later two of the other men took this as their chance to escape, and this time Jenna missed with each shot as the figures ducked down and disappeared through the open doorway.

“We'll find them later,” John sneered, stepping toward the stage. “Keep the rest of them covered.”

Making his way onto the stage, he saw that the woman was on her hands and knees now, naked except for metal cuffs around her wrists and ankles. Moving around her, he saw that she'd been badly beaten and bruised, but a moment later he spotted her face; he felt guilty as he was hit by a rush of relief, by the gratitude that this wasn't Janelle, but he quickly realized that he had to help her.

“My name is John Tench,” he said, dropping to his knees and looking into the woman's terrified, frantic eyes. “I'm with the police and you're safe now. Help's on the way and we're going to get you to a hospital, okay?”

He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, before holding back as he realized that he should perhaps be a little more sensitive. Spotting a dark cape that had evidently been discarded by someone on the far side of the stage, he hurried over and picked it up, and then he draped it over the woman's trembling body in an attempt to at least grant her a little more dignity.

“It's going to be okay,” he told her, “and -”

Suddenly hearing several shots, he turned to see that the remaining men on the far side of the room were dropping to the ground.

“They were trying to run,” Jenna said, turning to him with tears in her eyes. “You saw it, John, didn't you? They suddenly tried to make a break for the door.”

“I...”

Staring back at her, he realized that he was in no position to contradict her account of what had just happened. He looked over at the men, and he felt sure that they hadn't moved far at all, but when he looked at Jenna again he saw a sense of determination in her eyes.

“Please,” the shivering woman on the stage whimpered, “I just want to go home.”

Hearing more voices crying out, John turned and saw that there was some kind of backstage area beyond the curtains.

“Get the others,” the woman continued, sobbing violently now. “You have to save them all!”

***

“We discovered three more women chained up at the rear of the basement area,” John said a few hours later, sitting in an interrogation cell back at the station, “so that makes four in total. And something tells me that we're going to find evidence that there were other victims too. Tell me, Kevin... how long have you been running that operation down there?”

“I'm not saying anything until my lawyer gets here!” Kevin snapped angrily. “I already told you that!”

“And I told you that he's on his way. I just thought that we could have a little... preliminary chat before he arrives so that -”

“Do you think I'm stupid?” Kevin spat back at him.

“No, Kevin, I don't think you're stupid. I think you were running a lucrative little operation back there for a while. I'm betting that you weren't directly involved in what was going on, you were more a kind of landlord who rented the space out. You probably think that'll help you get out of trouble, because you can claim that you had no idea what they were doing, but that's not going to fly at all. You realize that, Kevin, don't you?”

“I'm not saying anything,” he replied firmly, “until my lawyer gets here. Why can't you get that through your thick skull?”

“Where are the rest of them?”

“The rest of who?”

“The rest of the women,” John continued. “How many do you get through a night, anyway? The one on the stage was in a pretty bad way, the paramedics couldn't even be sure that she's going to pull through. You must have a pretty good tried-and-tested system for acquiring new victims and then... disposing of them once you're done with them.”

“Are you an idiot?” Kevin replied. “Lawyer. Now.”

“And then there's the kid,” John added.

“What kid?”

“This is Janelle Mahoney,” John said, holding up a photo of Janelle smiling with her son. “Recognize her?”

“I've never seen that woman before in my life.”

“Funny, because she used to work for you. We discussed her only recently.”

“I don't remember that.”

“Don't lie to me, Kevin. This is Janelle and her son Simon, they went missing recently and it was in the course of my investigation into their disappearance that I ended up at your door. Now, I believe in coincidences as much as the next man, but my credulity only stretches so far. I know that you're involved in whatever has happened to her, and I want to find her and her son while there's still a chance.”

“I don't get involved with kids.”

“Kevin -”

“Why the hell would I do that?” Kevin spluttered. “Kids make everything a hundred times more complicated!” Barely able to even look at the photo, he conspicuously turned away. “You can say what you want, but I've never seen that woman before.”

“She used to work for you, Kevin,” John pointed out. “You're being absurd.”

“Right, okay, so she worked for me,” he continued, “but that doesn't mean I've got anything to do with her running off.”

“I don't believe you.”

“It's true!”

“And what about Monica? She worked for you too, and she's on a slab in the morgue.”

“Yeah, well, I mean... she would've been a better fit for the club,” Kevin admitted, turning to him again. “No kid. No ties. I'm not saying that I had anything to do with what happened to her either, because I didn't, but at least it would've made more sense if I did. I'm not a moron, okay? I don't have anything to do with the procurement process, they just bring 'em in and then later they take 'em out. It's that simple. Do you think I'm so stupid that I'd actually drag two of my employees down there? Man, give me a little credit.”

Staring at him, John realized with a sense of shock that he actually believed the man for once. He wanted to push harder, to break him down, but his gut was telling him that Kevin genuinely knew nothing about Janelle and Simon's whereabouts, and that their disappearance might genuinely be an entirely unrelated matter.

“If I find out that you're lying,” he continued finally, “there are ways I can use the system against you, ways that you wouldn't even believe...”

“Are you threatening me?” Kevin asked. “I believe that's against the law, Mr. Tonch, or whatever the hell your name is.”

“It's Tench.”

“Who cares?” Kevin continued. “My dad'll send his best lawyer, and he'll make sure that I get off with minimal time. We both know that. So you can sit there posturing all you like, but my dad and I are smart, we've got no paper trail connecting us to the stuff in that basement at all. Ever since Bowley, the people running Border clubs have gotten real careful. If you think one dumb-looking cop, even in a place like this, can even scratch the surface then... I don't know what to tell you, but I've got a pretty interesting bridge I could sell you for a nice price.”

“You're going to be staying here for a while,” John replied, gathering his papers together and getting to his feet. “Someone else will be through to talk to you shortly.”

“Aw, not you again?” Kevin called out as John headed to the door. “I was just getting used to you, Mr. Titch. I thought we were building up a decent rapport. You're not gonna bail, are you?”

As soon as he was out of the room, John leaned back against the wall. He looked down at the files in his hands and he thought of the awful sight in the store's basement, and he felt as if he wanted to scream. A moment later he headed into the bathroom and, after setting the files down, he started washing his hands. Convinced that the muck and grime of the city was somehow stuck to his skin, he kept washing for several minutes, manically determined to find some way to get clean even though he was starting to worry that he might never quite be able to wash away all the blood and dirt.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Today...

“We have to go and find Eloise,” Lisa said, looking out across the street. “John, if the wolves really have left, this might be my only chance to get her away from Sobolton for good.”

“Sure,” John replied, “but -”

“But what?” she snapped, turning to him.

“But there's someone who wants to talk to you,” he continued, before stepping aside to reveal an empty doorway leading into a nearby yard. “Just give him two minutes of your time.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Who -”

Before she could finish, a familiar figure stepped into view. Lisa stared at him, unable to quite believe what she was seeing, but finally she felt a flicker of shock in her chest.

“I'll go to the station and see what the hell's going on,” John said, still holding the pouch containing the relic from the pendant. “Catch up to me.”

As he walked away, Lisa could only stare at Michael. Having changed back from his wolf form, Michael was no longer the bloodied wreck of the previous decades; instead, with all his wounds from the recent fight having faded, he was now the same young man Lisa had first met all those years ago, the same guy she'd fallen in love with before everything had gone so horribly wrong.

“Hey,” he said cautiously, as if he barely dared to speak at all.

“You're so... young,” she whispered.

“Back to the start, I guess,” he continued, stepping forward. “I've got to admit, it feels good to not be in pain anymore. You used to ask me whether it hurt, and I always denied it but... the truth is, it was agonizing each and every single day. The only comfort was knowing that at least it could be worse. Which it was, always the next day. And then the next, and the next.”

Taking a step toward him, Lisa suddenly caught sight of her own reflection in a nearby window. Having entered her seventh decade now, and having spent a considerable part of her life as a prisoner in a remote cabin, she looked like the older women she remembered seeing around town when she'd been young. As Michael made his way over, Lisa couldn't help but stare at her own reflection as she marveled that so much time had passed; and as Michael stopped and put his hands on the sides of her arms, she realized that in some ways the pair of them finally looked like one of the covers of the books she'd loved when she was younger.

Except for one problem.

Now she was far too old.

“I need to find Eloise,” she said, turning to pull away.

“Eloise is safe.”

“You don't know that.”

“The pack has pulled back,” he told her, keeping hold of one of her arms. “Saint Thomas is leaving town. I can't quite sense Eloise right now, but I think she's okay.”

“Thinking isn't good enough,” she told him, barely even able to look him in the eye now.

“Lisa,” he replied, “I know you can never forgive me for what I did to you. I can never forgive myself, either. There are no excuses and no explanations, there's nothing I can do or say to make any of this right. I just want you to know that in my own misguided way I thought I was trying to do the right thing.” He hesitated, still holding her arm. “You were right when you suggested that my mind was being affected by everything that happened. I can think clearly now for the first time in years and... I'm horrified by my actions.”

She turned to him, meeting his gaze finally, and in that moment she had no idea what she was supposed to think. Part of her wanted to scream at him, yet she couldn't help but hold back as she found herself staring at the man she'd loved for almost her entire life. Even as she told herself that she shouldn't love him, and that he didn't deserve to ever be forgiven for what he'd done, she knew that her heart was telling her something else entirely.

“Eloise,” she stammered finally, shocked by her own reaction as she pulled away and began to hurry out of the yard. “She's all that matters now. We have to get Eloise out of here.”

***

“Where did they go?” Cassie asked, stepping out from the front of the station and looking across the parking lot. “Sir, they were everywhere and then they just... left.”

As he reached her, John stopped for a moment and looked all around. Bathed in moonlight, Sobolton looked like a town that had been completely deserted, but he knew that most of the inhabitants were hiding away in their homes and businesses. For a few seconds he was lost in thought as he tried to work out exactly what he should do next, but a moment later he turned and saw that Cassie was staring at the body in his arms.

“Is that... Doctor Law?” she asked.

“It is,” he replied.

“Is he...”

“He's dead,” he explained, before walking past her and heading up the steps leading toward the station's shattered front door. “I just need to put him somewhere, and then I have to find Eloise. Lisa and Michael should be along soon and -”

Before he could finish, he saw that a few other deputies had gathered in the station, and he felt a flicker of anger as he spotted Toby's face staring back at him. As much as he never wished harm on another human being, in that moment he couldn't help but wonder why so many good people had died while Toby had somehow slithered through the crisis without suffering much more than a few scratches.

“I want to remind you all,” John said as he carried Robert's body past them and headed along the corridor, “that we still have duties to perform. The wolves are gone, they've left the town and they won't be back, so you don't need to worry about them. Your job now is to let people know, and then start making a list of everyone who's been hurt.”

“I've already started on that,” Cassie called after him. “We're going to get the injured to Middleford Cross and -”

In that moment the lights flickered back on.

“Looks like we have power again,” she continued, and now her voice was filled with a sense of relief. “That's gonna help a lot. It's been on and off so much lately, I've barely been able to keep track.”

“I'll leave Cassie in charge, then,” John said, before carrying Robert into his office and walking to the couch. Dropping to his knees, he set the doctor's body down and then stood again. Stepping back, he felt as if he should say something, although he wasn't quite sure that he could find any appropriate words.

“Robert, I'm sorry,” he managed finally. “For what it's worth, it looks like the town's safe now. I just wish it hadn't been at the expense of...”

As his voice trailed off, he realized that he couldn't afford to waste too much time. There'd be a chance to worry about the aftermath later, but in that moment he knew that he had to make sure that everyone was safe, and he also worried that -

“John!” Lisa shouted, racing into the office and then stopping in the doorway as soon as she saw him. “They've got Eloise!”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, hurrying over to join her.

“They've taken Eloise,” she stammered. “Your deputy and a few others are hurt, but they said Saint Thomas showed up and grabbed her. I think he's taken her out to the forest. John, we have to find her. Michael's already gone on ahead but he made me promise to come and fetch you first.”

“The wolves have turned their backs on Saint Thomas,” John told her, “so this must be his last, desperate attempt to force the issue.”

“We have to catch up to Michael. He can sense that Saint Thomas is still in his human form, so he's going like that too. John, I think we might need you as a wolf, that way it'll be easier for us to track them down.”

“I -”

Hesitating for a moment, John realized that he might only have one last shift left in him. He'd been worrying for a while now that he was running out of chances to change his body, and on some subconscious level he felt certain that he was reaching the point of no return. At the same time he knew that he had to help Lisa find Eloise, so after a few seconds he understood exactly what he had to do.

“Give me a few minutes to change,” he told her, trying to ignore a sense of dread in his chest, “and then I'll be ready. And don't worry, Lisa, we're going to get her back. This nightmare is so nearly over.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

One year ago...

“Well, John,” Doctor Munday said with a slightly smug, self-satisfied smile, “I'm glad that you finally decided to start returning my calls again. Might I ask what prompted you to resume our weekly sessions?”

“I wouldn't call it a resumption, exactly,” John replied, self-consciously picking at his hands, searching for even the tiniest fleck of dirt. “I just figured that it'd be kind of rude if I vanished without saying goodbye.”

“Vanished? Are you going somewhere?”

“I've been thinking about that job offer in Sobolton,” he continued. “I think I told you about it before.”

“You did.”

“I need to get out of New York,” he explained. “I'm not sure I can even put it into words, but I feel as if the weight of this entire city has finally become too much for me.” He paused for a moment, worried that he shouldn't say too much but also feeling that he needed to speak to someone. “Did you hear about that incident a few blocks from here? The one with the basement club under a convenience store?”

“I did,” the doctor replied, nodding sagely. “They're not releasing too many details, but it's clearly something grim.”

“There's something grim around every corner,” John replied, still picking at his hands, pulling away pieces of dried skin now in case any atoms of dirt might be hiding in the depths. “And the worst thing is, it's all unconnected. If it was part of one big mass of evil, I'd be able to understand it but... I've been looking into the disappearance of my neighbor and her kid, and as part of that I was looking into the murder of another local woman, and then the stuff in that basement came up, and the hardest thing to come to terms with is the idea that they're all genuinely unconnected.”

“Does that keep you awake at night, John?”

“It means that this... evil... keeps springing up all over the place. It means that there's this unstoppable cancer in our society that just keeps on blooming, and I'm not sure we're ever going to be able to stop it. And I don't want to feel like that, I don't want to be cynical, so I figure if I take a change of scenery I might be able to better connect with the world. I want to go to a place like Sobolton and remind myself that there are still good things and good people. Does that sound completely nuts?”

“No, John,” she replied, “it doesn't at all.”

“And do you think it'll work?”

“Do you think it'll work?”

“I think I've got to try,” he continued. “I'm not saying I expect this Sobolton place to be some kind of paradise, but it has to be better than here. I've researched the place online a lot and there's a lot of wild forest around the town, and there are rivers too and a lake. Heck, I could even take up fishing.”

“Do you want to take up fishing?”

“I might as well give it a try,” he suggested, still picking at his hands. “The alternative would be to stay here and drown in the dirt. So my mind is made up. In fact, there's no going back. I already sent a message this morning, confirming that I'll be very happy to take up their offer.”

“So am I looking at Sheriff John Tench now?” she asked, slightly amused by that idea.

“I guess you are,” he said, nodding for a moment. “Sheriff Tench. That's going to take some getting used to, but I think I can handle the transition. I mean, everyone's got to change, right? You have to remember who you are, but you have to let yourself change. If you don't change, you rot.”

“I agree with you, John,” she said, before looking down at his hands. “Hey, you're bleeding.”

***

“The guys at the station told me I'd find you here,” John muttered, stepping into the bar and immediately seeing Jenna sitting on a stool with a glass of whiskey in front of here. “They told me you're here most of the time.”

“What do you want, John?” she asked as he made his way over.

“It's eleven in the morning,” he pointed out, checking his watch for good measure. “Isn't that a little early for -”

“I spent all evening yesterday dealing with that asshole and his lawyer,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Do you want to know something funny? I think Kevin might actually get away with a slap on the wrist. He'd obviously anticipated this moment, and he might just be able to convince a jury that he never knew about what was going on in that basement.”

She took a sip of whiskey and then licked her lips.

“It's part of something bigger, John,” she added. “Something national or even international. Can you even comprehend that?”

“I'm not sure that I want to try. Listen, I need to tell you something, I'm -”

“They call it the Border, apparently,” she continued. “I'm not sure who 'they' are, but we've managed to dredge up a little more information. There are a few mentions of it online, mainly on these websites that seem like they're filled with conspiracy theories, but there's just enough detail to make me think that we're onto something. Or at least, we would be if we weren't getting shut down.”

“Shut down?”

“Not officially, but I know which way the wind's blowing. Powerful people don't want us going anywhere near this Border set-up. I was going to go to a town called Bowley and look into some stuff that supposedly happened there a few years back, but suddenly I'm being transferred.”

She took another sip of whiskey.

“Back on the hard stuff?” John asked with a hint of dread in his voice.

“Don't give me a hard time,” she replied. “Not right now.”

“I'm leaving town,” he told her. “Pretty soon, actually. I'm sorry, Jenna, I can still help out with the investigation in an unofficial capacity, but I can't stay in New York. I can't watch more people drowning all around me. Maybe I'm being melodramatic, but I feel like this place is going to finish me off. I'm going to be taking over as the sheriff of a small town called Sobolton.” He paused, watching the side of her face for a moment. “You know, once I get settled there, you're more than welcome to come and visit. You might even like it.”

“A small town?” she said with a faint smile. “And how long do you think you'll last out there in the sticks?”

“Hopefully longer than anyone might expect,” he replied, watching as she signaled to the barman for another drink. “Why don't we get out of here? Do you want to... I don't know, go for a walk?”

“I'm all walked out.”

“How about something else, then?”

“I just need to drink,” she replied, holding the glass up to take the last sip. “I need -”

“You don't need this,” he said, grabbing the glass and trying to take it from her hand. “Jenna -”

“Leave me alone!” she shouted, pulling the glass away and then throwing it past him, sending it shattering into the opposite wall. “Just leave me alone, John! Do you have any idea what I'm dealing with right now? I've been looking into this Border stuff for a few days now, and I think I'm starting to see connections! I looked out my window last night and do you know what I saw staring up at me?”

“Why don't we calm down,” he replied, holding his hands up, “and -”

“It was the man with the red eyes,” she continued. “He's back somehow, John, and I think he's after me.”

“You should speak to someone about this,” he suggested. “I can give you the number of a really good therapist. You should also think about getting out of New York, Jenna. Do what I'm doing. Leave the horrors of the city behind.”

“I can't do that until I've figured out who the man with red eyes is,” she stammered, “and how he can just leap over buildings as if they're barely even there. He's linked to this, I can tell he is, but I need to connect all the dots. I know you probably think that I'm going crazy but I know the answer's in here somewhere.” Reaching up, she tapped the side of her forehead. “I've got all the information that I need. Too much of it, maybe. It's in those photos of the victims from the basement. If you zoom in really close, they don't even look like people, not anymore. They're just made up of tiny little pixels and I think there's a pattern in there.”

“Jenna...”

“I've been trying to rearrange them,” she told him, “but so far I haven't managed to get it right.”

“Jenna, you're not making sense.”

“Screw you, John,” she replied, before pushing past him and storming out of the bar. “I shouldn't have expected you to understand anyway. Just leave me alone, okay? I know what I'm doing.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Today...

“Let me go!” Eloise shouted, struggling frantically to pull away as Saint Thomas continued to drag her through the dark forest. “Help me!” she screamed. “Somebody -”

Suddenly he threw her forward, sending her slamming down against the rocks. Letting out a gasp of pain, she immediately rolled over and tried to get up, only for her uncle to push a boot down against her back, forcing her to stay down.

“Do you want to know why I haven't ripped you to shreds yet?” he sneered. “It's because mere death isn't enough of a punishment for you. I offered you everything, Eloise, and how did you repay me? You turned away and ran off like a scared little cub.”

She tried again to pull free, but this only caused him to push down harder than ever against her back.

“I should break your feeble little spine right now,” he continued. “You and Carolyn, you're the ones who really let me down. She's gone native, she cares more about some pathetic little humans than she does about the pack and -”

Hearing a rustling sound, he turned and saw movement nearby. A moment later he looked the other way, just in time to spot a wolf moving low through the undergrowth.

“Come to watch, have you?” he called out. “You all need to be reminded who's really in charge here! Now, I'm not a vindictive soul, so when we're done here I'm going to give you all one last chance to make the right choice. I get it, you let the Walker wheedle her way into your heads, and her stupid little stand with that dead human made you have doubts. I need you all to understand a couple of things, though. First, just because my brother came crawling back, that doesn't mean he's automatically head of the pack again. And second, you still have a duty to follow me, because Michael's abdication of his responsibilities means that logically I'm next in line.”

“Who are you talking to?” Eloise whimpered.

“The pack,” he murmured as he heard more rustling sounds in the distance. “My pack. The one I was destined to rule ever since the day I was born into a family cursed by a weak and cowardly older brother.”

He looked down at her again.

“You realize that, don't you?” he snarled. “Your father is a worthless waste of blood and fur. He never showed any inclination to actually lead the pack, and he spent most of his life disappointing our father. The icing on the cake came when he shacked up with some dull little human woman, I guess he had some fantasy of uniting the two worlds. Isn't that crazy? Wolves and humans are nothing alike, yet he actually thought that he could bring them together by marrying a human woman. Can you believe that, Eloise?”

He pushed down harder, bringing a cry of pain from her lips as he twisted his boot, ready to break her neck.

“Can you believe that your dear old daddy pulled a human woman into the forest just so that he could try to make peace with the humans?”

“That's not why!” a voice boomed out.

Turning, Saint Thomas saw Michael stepping out from the shadows.

“Daddy!” Eloise shouted. “Help me!”

“I'm here now,” he told her, before looking at Saint Thomas. “You couldn't be more wrong if you tried,” he continued. “I didn't bring Lisa to the forest because of some crazy plan to unite our two worlds. I brought her out here because I love her, and because I wanted to ignore everything else that has dragged our family down for generations.”

“Oh, is that it?” Saint Thomas sneered, moving his foot away from Eloise and allowing her to crawl – gasping for breath – to the edge of the clearing. “Well, I guess that's alright then,” he added as he stepped toward Michael. “You fell in love. How wonderful. And you did it with a human, which I guess makes you feel extra warm and fuzzy inside, even if you have to ignore the fact that humans have been stealing from our people for centuries.”

“We're not blameless either,” Michael told him.

“If we don't make a stand,” Saint Thomas continued, stopping in front of him, “they'll eventually hunt us to extinction. They'll push us further and further back until finally they'll decide that we're just too much bother. They'll drag a few more of us off to places like Middlewych and they'll use their machines to try to extract the secrets of our powers, and once they've got all of that, they'll exterminate us like we're nothing more than rats. And if we let that happen, I guess we'll deserve that fate a thousand... a million times over.”

“So what's the alternative?” Michael asked. “Do we stop them killing us by killing them instead?”

“It's an idea,” his brother murmured darkly. “We can at least show them that we're not a bunch of pushovers.”

“We can show them that by being strong,” Michael said firmly. “If we try to strike at them, we'll only be inviting their attacks, and they have weapons we can only dream off.”

“We have something more important,” Saint Thomas told him, tapping his own chest. “We have the power to infiltrate them and destroy them from the inside. Do you seriously think there aren't other Walkers out there, working in positions of power? Do you actually believe that other packs haven't already been focusing on this exact problem? We can bring humanity to its knees and install a new order.”

“Then we'd be becoming just as bad as them.”

“Good,” Saint Thomas purred, “because frankly... at the moment they seem to get all the fun.”

Before Michael could answer, Saint Thomas grabbed him by the throat and swung him round, slamming him against a nearby tree and then holding him in place despite his struggles.

“Brother, you're out of shape,” he chuckled as he watched Michael trying in vain to get free. “Hell, your little scrapling of a daughter put up more of a fight than this.”

Still holding Michael's throat firmly, he leaned closer.

“This time you won't have any little tricks or ways to wriggle out of your fate,” he sneered. “This time, dear brother of mine, you're going to pay for your complete failure to lead our pack.”

Again Michael tried to cry out, but Saint Thomas pulled him away from the tree and then smashed him down against the ground with force. Before Michael was able to even start to get up, Saint Thomas knelt on his chest and slammed an elbow down against his face, cracking his cheek.

“You know,” Saint Thomas said, pushing a hand against his brother's throat once more, “it's strangely appropriate that you're going to die in your human form. You know what that means, right? In our ancient traditions, any wolf who dies in his human form is doomed to eternal shame. You certainly won't be able to gain sanctuary in Sangreth. Once you're dead, in your human form you'll be trapped in endless purgatory.”

He paused for a moment, before spitting on Michael's face.

“Leave him alone!” Eloise shouted, racing across the clearing and trying to pull Saint Thomas away. “Stop -”

Barely even batting an eyelid, Saint Thomas smashed an elbow into her face, sending her crashing back down against the forest floor as he then pushed down harder on Michael's struggling body.

“I'll kill her next,” he sneered. “I wanted to do it in front of you, and to kill Lisa in front of you too, but I guess I can't be greedy. What's important is that, as you die, you know that your bloodkin will die next, and your sweet little human woman as well. Then I'll rip out the scourge of your influence wherever I find it, and in this demonstration of strength I'll make sure that the pack follows me again. You know they're here, don't you? They're all around us, waiting to see which of us proves to be stronger. If I have to prove that twice, then... so be it.”

“Stop hurting him!” Eloise sobbed, once again grabbing her uncle and trying to drag him away. “You have to stop!”

“Did someone just say something?” Saint Thomas asked, seemingly amused by her efforts.

“Eloise, run!” Michael gasped, barely able to get any words out at all as he tried once again to push his brother back. “Get away from here!”

“Daddy, make him stop!” she shouted.

“You sound like such a stupid child,” Saint Thomas sneered, turning to her. “And you're annoying me. Go away.”

With that, he grabbed her by the throat and began to squeeze hard, before throwing her further this time, sending her smashing into a nearby tree.

“The pack respects power,” he said after a moment, turning to look back down at Michael again as he began to squeeze the life from his body. All around, more wolves were arriving to watch from the shadows. “The pack respects dominance. And once I've finished you off for good, the pack's going to respect me!”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

One year ago...

“So you're not taking much with you, huh?” Grant said as he stood in the doorway, looking into John's empty apartment. “That was a lot of stuff you just sent off to goodwill.”

“I prefer to travel light,” John replied, although he had to admit that he was surprised to see just how bare the place looked now. “It's just going to be me and a car heading out to Sobolton.”

“I've got to admit, I envy you,” Grant continued, checking his watch. “There aren't many people who'd have the balls to quit the city and head off to some backwater little town in the middle of nowhere. Aren't you worried that you might go crazy and have to come running back to civilization?”

“I really don't think that's much of a risk.”

Stepping out of the apartment, John handed him the key.

“It's been a pleasure,” Grant said. “You're probably the least troublesome tenant a landlord could ever wish for. I know you arrived in unfortunate circumstances after your divorce, but I'm glad you stuck around at least for a little while. I guess you didn't absolutely hate the place, huh?”

“Not at all,” John said, before stepping aside as a woman carried some boxes into Janelle's old place. “But it's time to go.”

“Hey, did you ever find out what happened to that woman?” Grant asked as they headed toward the stairs. “She had a kid, didn't she?”

“She did.”

“And they just vanished one day?”

“Into thin air, seemingly,” John said with a heavy sigh. “I'm still going to be looking into it when I get to Sobolton. Just because I'll be out there, that doesn't mean I'll have entirely given up.”

“I'm sure the cases'll be a little less intense for you in some small town,” Grant suggested. “Hopefully there won't be so many murders, for one thing.”

“That would be a refreshing change of pace.”

“Are you gonna get yourself some spurs?” he continued as they walked down the staircase. “At least buy a proper cowboy hat. You've got to now you're gonna be an actual sheriff. Hey, you could even get yourself a horse!”

“I'm not sure that I'm going to be that kind of sheriff,” John countered, although he was slightly amused by his landlord's enthusiasm. Feeling his phone vibrating in his pocket, he slipped it out as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “I'm sure it's not too backward out there in Sobolton. In fact, I imagine -”

As soon as he saw the message on the phone's screen, he froze.

“I'm sorry,” he added, suddenly losing all the color in his face. “I have to go.”

***

“What happened here?” he stammered around one hour later, as he stood in the precinct and saw that several desks had been overturned, leaving computer monitors smashed all over the floor. “What did she do?”

“She completely lost it, John,” his old colleague Daryl Henderson replied, putting his hands on his hips. “Jenna's been acting weird for a while, but this morning she just flipped. She kept going on about a man with red eyes, and when Barber told her she should step outside and cool down, she went for her.”

“Jenna's not violent,” John said firmly.

“She bit Barber on the arm. The poor woman's had to go to the hospital.”

“Are you serious?”

“So they carted Jenna away and I heard she's been taking for a psych evaluation,” he continued. “She left behind all these drawings.”

He led John over to Jenna's desk, where assorted files had been left out with dark figures scribbled all over them; almost every last one of these figures featured red eyes.

“Now... you and I have both known Jenna for a long time,” Daryl continued, lowering his voice a little. “She used to be one of the smartest kids in the entire office, it's hard to believe that anyone's mind could deteriorate so fast. I know she's been under pressure and she's witnessed a lot of bad things, but that still doesn't explain all of this.”

Picking up one of the drawings, John peered at the red eyes, which Jenna had evidently added using some kind of thick red pen.

“She started saying that we all had red eyes,” Daryl explained. “Even me. Now, I admit that sometimes I don't get enough sleep, so I might be looking a little worse for wear some mornings, but it's another thing for Jenna to be saying my eyes are glowing. She claimed it about everyone here. She said the only person who hadn't been affected was you.”

“Me?”

“Don't ask me why she said that.”

“I should have been around for her more,” John replied, still looking at one of the drawings. “I've been so busy getting ready for the move, and the last time I saw her... she was a little angry. I guess I just didn't anticipate how badly this might all snowball.”

“You don't think there's any truth in it, do you?”

“In what?”

“I dunno...”

As his voice trailed off, Daryl continued to look at the drawing.

“Obviously it seems pretty unlikely,” he continued cautiously, “but you've got to wonder. I mean, what if – thanks to some really unlikely set of events – there really is some dude out there wandering around with red eyes? She also said he can jump over buildings. Again, that's totally impossible, but sometimes I find myself wondering whether there might be some truth to this kinda stuff after all.”

“There isn't,” John said darkly, before setting the paper down again. “Jenna needs help, and one way we can do that is by not taking her ramblings too seriously. She's been talking about this guy with red eyes for a while now, and look where she's ended up. Perhaps I should have been more forceful with her from the start, I should have made her see sense, but I just didn't recognize the signs. She must have been ill for a while and she just covered it up too well.”

“She won't be back here,” Daryl muttered. “Not after biting Barber. I mean, can you imagine? My best guess is that she'll be sectioned eventually and then they'll start trying all sorts of treatments out on her. The same thing happened to my cousin's boy, and... well, I don't want to worry you, John, but he was never the same again. They aren't, not after something like this.”

John stared at the drawings for a moment longer before turning away.

“I should go,” he replied. “I've got to hit the road and... I'll call the precinct later to find out how Jenna's doing.”

“We'll miss you, John,” Daryl said, leading him toward the door.

“I won't,” Walt Hunniford said from behind his computer.

“I get why you're leaving, though,” Daryl continued, as both men scrupulously ignored Walt's latest attempt to be funny. “Everyone has to get out of the city eventually, otherwise they're committing to ending their days here. I envy you and your new life out there, living close to nature and... I dunno, communing with it and stuff. That's got to be good for the soul.”

“I sure hope so.”

“Oh, and I almost forgot this,” Daryl said, stopping as they reached the door. After rooting around in his pocket, he pulled out a slip of paper and handed it over. “Do you know what that is?”

“Looks like a phone number to me,” John murmured.

“It might be nothing, but a while back Jenna asked me to put a trace on a woman named Mahoney. Janelle Mahoney. Nothing came up at the time, but I set a tracker on her details in case anything ever showed up. Anyway, three days ago suddenly I got an alert.”

“She's alive?”

“Idaho.”

John looked at him with an expression of surprise.

“All I know,” Daryl continued, “is that suddenly she seems to be living in Idaho with her son Simon. She's working at some dollar store out there and if she was trying to stay off the grid for a while, obviously something's changed now. That number should be for her personal cellphone. I was gonna give it to Jenna and ask her to pass it on to you but, well, she was acting so crazy that I figured it'd be better if I told you myself.”

“Thank you,” John replied, feeling a flicker of apprehension in his chest as he continued to stare at the note. “I'll be in touch with you soon, Daryl. And in the meantime, if there are any developments with Jenna... please, let me know immediately.”

“You're not gonna go and see her before you leave?”

“I... won't have time,” John said warily. “I wouldn't know what to say to her right now anyway, but I'd be grateful if you could keep me informed.”

“Will do,” Daryl replied, before patting him on the back. “You're gonna have a swell time out there in Sobolton, John. A real swell time. I reckon it'll be the making of you!”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Today...

Feeling as if the whole world was ringing in her ears, Eloise slowly began to sit up. She'd been briefly knocked out for a few seconds after hitting the tree, but as she blinked away the blurriness in her eyes she saw that her uncle was still holding her father down.

“I'm going to enjoy this,” Saint Thomas sneered, pushing harder and harder on Michael's throat. “I'm going to savor every last second.”

Although she felt strangely dizzy, Eloise immediately began to rush forward, only for an arm to grab her at the last second and pull her back.

“No,” Lisa said, holding her tight. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“We have to help him!” Eloise gasped, before turning to see John – in his wolf form – just a few feet away. “He's going to kill him!”

Before Lisa had a chance to reply, John rushed past them both. Racing across the clearing, he immediately lunged at Saint Thomas, biting his arm hard. Almost instantly, however, Saint Thomas turned and threw him aside, sending him thudding down against the forest floor.

“I was expecting a few interruptions,” he hissed as he spotted Lisa still holding Eloise back. “You've saved me time. Now I don't have to come and track you down. I can have my entire meal here in one sitting.”

“What are the other wolves doing?” Eloise asked, looking around at the shapes lurking in the darkness. “Why aren't they helping?”

“I think they're confused,” Lisa explained. “They don't know who to follow. Your father once told me that confusion is the worst thing that can happen to a pack. It can even lead to them falling apart and drifting away. The entire pack can disintegrate if it's directionless for too long.”

She hesitated for a moment, before pulling the relic from her pocket. Although she had no idea how a tiny scrap of bone could be so powerful, she figured that it still might represent one last chance to defeat Saint Thomas, so after a moment she got to her feet as she saw John trying but failing to stand.

“Stay here,” she told Eloise. “I mean it. Just stay here and... and then we're going to leave forever.”

“But -”

“Stay here!” she snapped. “Promise me!”

“I promise,” Eloise replied.

Stepping away, Lisa began to make her way closer to Saint Thomas. She could see that Michael was struggling to push him back, and after a moment she saw him looking over at her.

“Run!” he gasped. “Lisa -”

“Take this!” she shouted, rushing forward and reaching past Saint Thomas, pushing the relic into Michael's hand. “I don't know if -”

Before she could get another word out, Saint Thomas shoved her away.

Reaching up, Michael let out a gasp of pain as he felt the relic already burning into his hand. He winced for a moment before turning it around and pushing it up against his brother's face, causing the flesh on his cheek to immediately start burning.

“This again?” Saint Thomas sneered. “Brother, you of all people should know that this isn't going to work on anyone from our family!”

He began to push back, grabbing Michael's hand and forcing it away.

“That's why we've ruled the pack for so long,” he continued. “We have the willpower to hold back death itself!”

Grimacing, Michael tried again to push the relic up onto his brother's face, but already he was starting to realize that he felt too weak. He looked around and saw Lisa holding Eloise back, and he noticed John still struggling to stand, and then he spotted scores of wolves watching from the shadows.

“Did you really think you could use this against me?” Saint Thomas asked, slowly pushing the relic back down toward Michael. “I'm going to burn it straight through your miserable body and out the other side!”

Summoning the last of his strength, Michael immediately began to push back.

“Oh, nice,” Saint Thomas continued. “You're a little tougher than I expected, but that's not saying much.”

“Leave him alone!” Eloise screamed, once again struggling to rush forward and help even as Lisa continued to hold her back. “Stop hurting him!”

“She's perky, I'll give her that,” Saint Thomas murmured. “She doesn't give up, does she?”

Still trying to push the relic into his brother's face, Michael watched Eloise for a moment. Something about her endless determination to fight back was making him feel a strange mix of caution and pride, and he was starting to realize that his daughter was stronger than he'd ever imagined. The more he stared at her, the more he realized that he could sense the indecision and fear of the pack surrounding them all – and a moment later, hearing Eloise's cries ringing in his ears – he finally understood what he had to do next.

“I love you,” he mouthed silently, hoping against hope that she understood, and then he looked up at his brother.

“She's going to watch you die,” Saint Thomas hissed, even as Michael began to push the relic up a little higher. “That's not going to be much fun for her, is it?”

“The pack is leaderless,” Michael replied. “That's the one thing our father always warned against. They don't know whether to follow me or you, they're confused by the rules of succession. But I think that can all be fixed. We just need to make things clearer for them.”

“You're rambling,” Saint Thomas snarled. “Is this really how you want to die?”

“I'll see you again,” Michael told him. “If not in the great hall of Sangreth, then outside the gate, but... I will see you again. It's time for the next generation to fix the mess we created.”

With that he stopped fighting, and in an instant Saint Thomas was able to push down, forcing the relic into his chest. Letting out a cry of pain, Michael tilted his head back as the relic immediately began to burn through his heart; for a fraction of a second he was able to see Lisa and Eloise and he heard their horrified screams, but he told himself that he'd see them again too one day, when the great cathedral of Sangreth would open its doors to admit all those who could find it in the void. A moment later he heard Saint Thomas shouting something, no doubt more insults, and then he felt his brother's hand forcing the relic up through his throat and into his brain. Even in that moment he knew that he could fight back, that like his brother he could continue to defy death, but he knew that was no solution. He managed one final cry before the relic's power began to dissolve his body entirely, leaving him as nothing more than a blood patch of bone and molten flesh.

“Michael!” Lisa screamed.

“That took a little too long,” Saint Thomas muttered, getting to his feet and tossing the relic aside, then using the heel of his right boot to stamp down hard and break what remained of Michael's skull. “Still, better late than never.”

“You killed him!” Eloise shouted, breaking away from her mother's grip and racing across the clearing with tears in her eyes. “You -”

Chuckling, Saint Thomas immediately pushed her back.

Losing her footing, Eloise let out a grunt as she immediately got back up. She instantly raced at her uncle again, only for him to push her aside once more.

“Haven't you learned anything?” he asked as she stumbled up and rushed at her again. This time he gripped her by the throat and began to squeeze tight. “If your father couldn't stop me, how the hell do you think you've got a chance?”

“Eloise, no!” Lisa sobbed. “Get away from him!”

“You killed him!” Eloise screamed, slamming her fists against her uncle's chest even as he began to lift her up from the forest floor. “Why did you kill him?”

“Because I could,” Saint Thomas replied, tilting his head slightly as he watched her still furiously fighting. “Careful there, if you hit me just a little harder, there's a chance that I might actually start to notice.”

John lunged at him again, but Saint Thomas quickly kicked his wolf form aside.

“I can feel the bones in your throat starting to weaken,” he continued, looking up into Eloise's eyes as she pummeled his arm with her fists. “There's something so beautifully pointless about this little show of -”

Suddenly another wolf slammed into him from behind, catching him by surprise and knocking him off his feet. He lost his grip on Eloise as he fell, and by the time he started getting up again two more wolves had already rushed over and were now biting at his arms.

“What are you doing?” he snarled, trying to push them away – only for more to quickly arrive and join in with the attack. “Are you out of your minds? I'm the head of the pack now! My brother's dead! You can't even dispute it anymore! You have to follow me!”

Stumbling to her feet, Eloise rushed back over to attack him again, but Lisa grabbed her from behind and pulled her away.

“I'm ordering you to stop!” Saint Thomas shouted, pulling back as more and more wolves fell upon him, tearing at his arms and legs now. “I'm your leader and -”

His cries were quickly drowned out by the wolves' ferocious snarls. He could barely be seen beneath them now, and after a few more seconds he disappeared from view entirely as the wolves began to tear his body apart.

“What are they doing?” Eloise sobbed.

“I think they're protecting the leader of their pack,” Lisa stammered, holding her daughter tight as more and more wolves flooded out of the forest and joined the ferocious display.

“But he already killed Dad!”

“I know,” Lisa replied, “but... they're not confused anymore. With Michael dead, they no longer have to try to decide which brother to choose. They understand the line of succession again. They know who to follow now.”

She saw John joining the other wolves.

“Who?” Eloise asked, as the wolves finally pulled back, revealing scraps of bloodied meat and a few broken bones – all that remained of Saint Thomas. “Who's the leader of their pack?”

“I think the line goes down to the next generation,” Lisa explained breathlessly. “It's you, Eloise. You're their leader now.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

One year ago...

As he continued to drive along the remote country road, John suddenly realized that he could hear his phone ringing. He glanced down at the empty passenger seat and saw Janelle's new number flashing on the screen, so he quickly pulled over and parked before grabbing the phone and answering.

“Hello?” he said, looking out at the snow-capped mountains ahead. “Janelle?”

“John?”

“How are you?” he asked, immediately recognizing her voice. “What's going on?”

“I got the voicemail you left. Sorry, I've been working a lot so it took me a while to get back to you. How did you find me?”

“I... had a little help from the department,” he replied, feeling a rush of relief. “Janelle, are you and Simon okay?”

“We're fine,” she said cautiously. “Listen, I'm sorry we skipped town so quickly, but Simon's dad showed up in the neighborhood again and I really couldn't deal with him. I never told you everything about how he was back in the day, and I just decided that the best thing to do was to up and leave in the middle of the night.”

“I thought something had happened to you.”

“I should've left a note, but I was worried about Scott tracking us down. Anyway, I came out to Idaho to stay with my cousin for a while, and I kinda kept my head down.” She paused. “And then about two weeks ago, I learned from a friend that Scott was in an accident in Miami. He was drunk as usual, and driving again, and he went straight into the path of a truck. I couldn't stand the guy by the end, but I'm relieved it was quick. I haven't told Simon his dad's dead yet, I'm gonna wait for the right moment, but I have to admit that I'm slightly...”

Another pause.

“Well, I shouldn't say that out loud,” she added with a sigh, “but you know what I mean. We're starting a new life out here and we're happy. How are things with you?”

“I'm moving to a little place called Sobolton.”

“Cool,” she said with a slight laugh. “They finally dragged you out of the big city, did they?”

“There wasn't much dragging involved,” he told her. “There's one more thing I need to ask you, Janelle. When you worked at the store with that Kevin guy, did you ever know about anything strange happening in the basement?”

“I knew a lot of guys went down there, but I didn't know why,” she admitted. “I figured it was some kind of... private thing, and I'm not one to judge. Kevin was always really secretive about it. Why?”

“No reason,” he said, not really wanting to go into all the details over the phone. “Did Simon ever say anything to you about a red door?”

“He used to draw that door over and over,” she told him. “I got worried about it for a while, but he stopped when we moved out here. It looked like a door in the store, actually. Whenever I asked him about it, he just said he saw it in his dreams and he was scared of it. Sometimes he drew a man standing next to it.”

“And he didn't say more?” John asked, wondering how Simon's dreams could have told him anything about the store and its macabre secrets. “Did he ever visit you in the store?”

“Barely,” she told him. “Listen, John, my bus is here and we'll be going into a tunnel soon. It was good to hear from you, though. Let's not be strangers. Let me know how your new life goes in Sobolton.”

Once the call was over, John sat in silence for a few seconds, staring out at the vast mountain range ahead. He had several more hours to go before he'd even be in the right state, and he'd already been on the road for a few days. Something about the sight of the wilderness left him feeling calmer, however, and he was already convinced that he'd made the right decision. He felt no nostalgia for New York, no sense of longing; instead he simply wanted to see what was waiting for him out there, so he started the engine and eased the car back onto the road.

And as he drove, he told himself that at least Janelle and Simon were alright, although at the back of his mind he still couldn't help but wonder how the boy had seemingly sensed there was something wrong beneath the store.

***

“Thank you,” he said the following day, stepping out from the gas station at the edge of Sobolton. As he wandered to his car, he looked across the road and saw the wall of the cemetery, and then he looked to his right and got his first proper view of the town.

For a moment he felt completely out of place, like a man who'd been transplanted into entirely the wrong environment, but he quickly told himself that he just had to take a little time to adjust. He had the address of his new place, and he knew that the following morning he was going to have to go and introduce himself to Sheriff Joe Hicks in person. He could feel a sense of anticipation growing in his chest, and he told himself that he was probably going to find his new life in Sobolton a little difficult at first, but he quickly focused on the fact that he was now far away from New York.

Suddenly looking down at his hands, he realized that they were bleeding again. He'd been absent-mindedly picking at them ever since leaving the gas station, but he knew he needed to stop worrying so much about the possibility of tiny grains of dirt having traveled with him all the way from the city.

“Enough of that,” he murmured under his breath, before glancing to his left and seeing that he had company.

A man was standing just a few feet away, wearing tattered old clothing; his weathered, lined face featured two wide staring eyes, and the man's mouth was hanging open slightly as if he couldn't quite believe the sight of John at all.

“Hello there,” John said, nodding slightly, hoping to make a good first impression on what he assumed was one of the locals. “How are you doing there?”

The man opened his mouth, as if it speak, before holding back at the last second.

“My name's John Tench,” John continued, stepping toward him and holding out a hand. “You might have heard, I'm going to be taking over as sheriff of your lovely town. I'm very much looking forward to getting to know the place.”

Still simply staring back at him, the man tried to speak but managed only a faint clicking sensation that rose up from the back of his throat.

“Well,” John added, “I hope we'll get to know each other eventually. If you have any troubles ever, you'll be able to find me at the sheriff's station.”

He waited for a reply, but he was starting to think that perhaps the man might have a few issues, so finally he offered a smile and turned to head back to his car.

“Is this Soboltonland?” the man asked suddenly.

John turned to him again.

“Is this,” the man continued, slowly looking around as a couple of cars drove past, “Soboltonland?”

“Sobolton, yes,” John told him, and now he was starting to notice that the man's clothing looked distinctly old-fashioned. “I'm not sure that anyone ever calls it Soboltonland, though.”

Again he waited, but the man seemed completely spaced out, and now John was starting to wonder whether he might be on drugs. He wasn't aware of a particular drug problem in Sobolton, but he'd seen enough addicts in New York to recognize the telltale signs. Although he'd hoped very much to put this sort of encounter in the past, he was starting to think that perhaps his first task in Sobolton was going to involve a depressingly familiar issue.

“Hey,” he said to the man, “why don't I give you a ride to the hospital? What's it called again? Middleton Cross? Middleford? Something like that?”

Stepping around the car, he pulled open the door on the passenger side before glancing at the man again.

“If -”

In that moment he realized that the man had vanished. Looking around, he tried to figure out where he might have gone, but he felt sure that he couldn't have run off so quickly. Stepping past the car, he looked along the side of the gas station and told himself that somehow the guy must have bolted in a matter of seconds. Sure, that seemed unlikely, but he couldn't think of any other possible explanations.

Climbing into the car, he started the engine and set off again, driving for the first ever time into Sobolton. As he did so, he left behind the patch of ground where once – many centuries earlier – Henry Sobolton had been standing.

Chapter Thirty

Today...

As morning light streamed through the office's broken window, Carolyn sat on the edge of the desk and looked over at the spot where Robert Law's body had spent the night resting on the couch. He'd been carried away a few minutes earlier, but his corpse had left a slight indentation on the cushions. A few seconds later, however, she turned to look at the door as she heard footsteps approaching.

“Any sign of him?” she asked as soon as she saw Cassie.

“I've been asking around for hours now,” Cassie replied, “but... no-one has seen Sheriff Tench since last night. I think I might need to organize a search party. If he's out there and he's injured, then -”

“Oh, he's definitely out there,” she said, cutting her off. “There's no doubt about that. But my gut tells me that he's not injured. Not in a way that would stop him coming back, at least.”

“Then where -”

“Tell me something,” she continued, getting to her feet and heading over to join her in the doorway, “if Sheriff Tench doesn't come back, who'd be next in line to take over this office?”

“Why do you think Sheriff Tench wouldn't come back?”

“I'm just... wondering,” Carolyn replied. “He wasn't around for long, so there wasn't really much time for anyone to start thinking about a succession plan.”

“I know Toby was pretty pissed off about not getting considered to replace Sheriff Hicks,” Cassie explained. “He'll probably throw his hat in the ring again.”

“Let's keep Toby well away from any positions of power,” Carolyn said, rolling her eyes as she stepped out into the corridor. “I think you should consider it.”

“Me?”

Clearly shocked, Cassie stared at her for a moment – as if she simply couldn't quite bring herself to contemplate the possibility.

“No,” she stammered finally, “are you kidding? I'd be the worst sheriff ever.”

“I believe that title was awarded years ago to a guy named Walter Wade,” Carolyn explained. “He lasted about ninety minutes in office, so... no matter how badly you did, I don't think you can ever be as bad as that. You should think about it.”

“I don't know about that at all,” Cassie said, left standing along in the doorway as Carolyn walked away. “I mean, I've never considered myself to be...”

Looking at the desk, she tried to imagine herself sitting there. The very idea seemed utterly absurd, yet after a few more seconds she began to wonder whether maybe – just maybe – she might consider the possibility. Several people had been ahead of her in the pecking order, but they'd all been killed by the wolves, and she had to admit that now the competition within the department wouldn't be too strong. Nobody really liked Toby anymore and Zach had shown no sign that he might be interested in the job, and now she found herself wondering whether she might take a shot after all. Assuming that the local council didn't decide to put their weight behind another outsider, of course.

“Sheriff, huh?” she whispered, still trying to get used to the idea. “I mean... I guess it wouldn't hurt to mull it over.”

***

“You're absolutely fine,” Trevor said, pulling the stethoscope back and stepping away from the table. “Young lady, I'm happy to give you a clean bill of health.”

“Are you really sure?” Lisa asked nervously, watching as he made some notes. “She went through a lot last night.”

“She's not the only one,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “I've got Tommy in the next room and -”

Stopping himself just in time, he rolled his eyes.

“Busy night,” he continued, “but people are saying that things might be getting back to normal now. No-one's seen any wolves all morning and there's this feeling that it might be safe again. I've got to be honest, there was a moment last night when I thought maybe we weren't going to make it. And by 'we', I don't just mean a bunch of us in the town. I mean the whole place. It felt like Sobolton itself was...”

His voice trailed off for a moment.

“I probably sound crazy,” he added.

“No, you don't at all,” Lisa told him, before stepping over to Eloise and taking her by the hand. “So are you sure we can go now?”

“As far as I'm concerned, you're both absolutely fine,” he replied. “If you like, I can try to arrange for someone to give you a lift home.”

“Actually, we're heading out of town pretty much immediately,” she told him.

“You are? Going someone nice?”

“I haven't quite figured that out yet.”

“I'm jealous. I could use a vacation.”

“We're not going on vacation,” she replied firmly, visibly bristling at the suggestion. “We're getting out of Sobolton and we're never coming back.”

“Not ever?” Eloise asked.

“Not ever,” she continued, helping her down off the table and then leading her to the door. “We're going to do what I wanted to do a long time ago. We're going to skip town and leave the wolves far behind.”

“I don't blame you,” Trevor muttered.

“Come on,” Lisa continued as she and Eloise left the room. “Let's see if the car's okay.”

“Did you hear anything about Sheriff Tench?”

Stopping, Lisa hesitated for a few seconds before turning to look back at him.

“Did they find him?” she asked.

“Hmm?” He glanced at her. “Oh. No, I mean... I don't know that they did. That's why I was wondering, really. Did you hear whether he showed up yet this morning?”

“Not as far as I know,” Lisa admitted.

“Where did he go?” Eloise asked. “I like him. Do you think he's okay?”

“I think...”

Lisa's voice trailed off for a moment as she looked at the window. She could see the vast forest stretching off into the distance, and she couldn't help but imagining John – in his wolf form – venturing further and further away, heading out to explore. She knew that he might well have run out of transformations and she couldn't help but hope that he was finally at peace. Part of her wanted to stick around in case he showed up, but she quickly told herself that he would undoubtedly understand her reasons for getting Eloise as far away from Sobolton as possible. Besides, she knew from experience that hanging around was sometimes a deadly mistake.

“I think he'll be fine,” she said finally, before offering a smile and leading Eloise along the corridor. “In fact, I've got a sneaking suspicion that he might be more fine than ever before. Something tells me that his new life might suit him very well. He always wanted to get away from people. Now he's got that chance.”

***

A few hours later, as she drove away from Sobolton with Eloise in the back seat, Lisa watched the forest on either side of the road. She still couldn't quite shake the feeling that something might lumber into view at the last second to stop her, that the escape was proving to be a little too easy, yet after a couple more minutes she realized that she was already past the edge of the town.

“Where are we going?” Eloise asked wearily. “Mom? Where are you going to take me?”

“I don't quite know yet,” Lisa replied, “but... I'm working on a couple of plans. Your second cousin Mark says we can stay at his place for a little while, he's got some trailers out in Montana, so we're going to head there first. Then we're probably going to head south, just to get some distance between ourselves and Sobolton, and by then we should have a much better plan worked out. You don't have to worry, though. I'm going to take care of you.”

“And are we really never coming back?” Eloise said, before turning around and watching as the town disappeared into the distance. “Never ever?”

“Never ever,” Lisa said firmly, glancing at the town in the rear view mirror before focusing on the road ahead.

“Never ever ever?”

“Never ever ever,” Lisa said again. “Hey, why don't you look at one of those books I found for you? We're going to stop at a motel just as soon as we get a chance, so we can sleep. Until then, I need time to think.”

As she continued to drive away from Sobolton, she told herself that this time – after a few false starts – she was genuinely leaving it all behind. She thought of Michael and Saint Thomas, and of the cabin that now lay burned to the ground, and of Wade and Rachel and Joe Hicks, and of her parents too, and she even found herself thinking back fondly to nights in McGinty's. She also thought of John Tench and Robert Law, and of how they'd helped out in the end. She quickly told herself, however, that the future was more important than the past, and that somewhere out there beyond the horizon a new future was waiting.

A moment later she heard the sound of a single wolf howling, although she wasn't entirely sure about that and she managed to convince herself that perhaps she'd been mistaken. As the car disappeared into the distance, however, a wolf was indeed standing high up on the hillside. This wolf, which had once been known as John Tench, waited until Lisa and Eloise were well out of sight before turning and continuing its journey to somewhere far away from Sobolton.

Epilogue

One year later...

Suddenly Nick Tench stopped as his right foot pushed down and broke a twig. He waited, wondering whether this sound might have disturbed any of the beasts in the forest, and then he allowed himself to relax a little.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked after a moment, before looking down at his son Donnie. “Anything at all?”

The ten-year-old boy thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“No, me neither,” Nick muttered, before setting off again – leading his son further along the path. “Don't worry, though, it's not that unusual to go for miles and miles without spotting too many signs of life.”

“Mom said it's really boring out here.”

“Your mom just doesn't see the glory of the natural world,” Nick replied with a smile. “Hey, maybe if we're really lucky, next time we can persuade her to come with us. You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“Would it help you and Mom get on better?”

“I think it might.”

“Do you think then you'd live in the same house as us?”

“I don't know,” Nick admitted, and now he was struggling a little to keep the sense of sadness out of his voice. “Maybe. I'd certainly -”

Suddenly he spotted movement ahead. Reaching out, he held up a hand to signal to Donnie that he too needed to stop, and then he watched as a large gray wolf slowly emerged from the bushes. Stopping in the middle of the path, the animal turned and looked directly at Nick, who in turn began to raise his rifle.

“Is that a wolf?” Donnie asked, pulling back and hiding behind his father.

“Stay calm,” Nick said, aiming the rifle, preparing to pull the trigger if the creature made so much as a single step in their direction.

He waited, but the wolf simply stared back at him, and after a moment Nick began to feel as if something in the animal's glare seemed strangely familiar. He couldn't quite put his finger on what he recognized, yet he was increasingly certain that he'd seen this wolf before or – if not this wolf, exactly – that on some level he'd encountered this presence at some point in his past. And although he'd never been one to entertain strange ideas, after a few more seconds he was suddenly struck by a memory from the last time he'd seen his own father.

“Did you break into McGinty's tonight?” John had asked him in Sobolton.

“Why would I?”

“Because it's right up your alley,” John had continued, showing far more anger than usual. “You've done something like this before, and it's awfully suspicious that it all happens again right now, just after you show up in town. I don't know if you're trying to embarrass me, but you need to realize that I can't pull strings to get you out of trouble. If you've done this again, you're going to be going back to jail and this time there won't be anything I can do to help you. And even if there was, I wouldn't do it. I'm sick of cleaning up your messes. You're a goddamn idiot!”

“Careful,” Nick had replied. “That professionalism seems to be slipping.”

“Dad?” Donnie whispered. “Are you going to shoot it?”

The wolf continued to stare at Nick for a few seconds before looking at Donnie, and then – as swiftly as it had arrived – it hurried away into the forest again.

“Wait!” Nick called out, lowering the rifle as he instinctively took a step forward. “Come back!”

After a few seconds he realized that the wolf was gone, yet he still couldn't shake the feeling that in some strange way he'd just come close to his father. He'd heard a year earlier that John Tench was officially counted as missing but presumed dead, and ever since he'd been preparing himself mentally for the news that a body had been found; no body had ever shown up, however, so he'd assumed that his father had simply vanished into the great outdoors. Now, however, he felt absolutely certain that he'd...

No.

No, that was impossible.

“Is it gone?” Donnie asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Nick replied. “For now, at least.”

As those words left his lips, he couldn't help but feel as if the wolf was going to come back one day. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps it had other matters to attend to first, but... somehow he knew that it was going to return.

“Hey,” he said, looking down at his son, “have I ever told you much about your grandfather? About my father?”

Donnie thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“We didn't always get on,” Nick continued as the pair of them set off again along the path, “but he was a big tough policeman. Actually, he was a sheriff for a while. And do you know what? You remind me of him a lot.”

***

“Good morning, Jenna. How are you feeling today?”

Setting a tray down, Carly glanced at the woman in the wheelchair but – in truth – she already knew that she was unlikely to get much of a response. Ever since her arrival at Edenforth, Jenna Powell had been borderline catatonic, capable of offering only the vaguest responses to any kind of question. Even now, on a bright and sunny morning, she'd been wheeled into the facility's garden but she was showing almost no sign that she was aware of her surroundings.

A chill ran through Carly's bones as she saw Jenna's eyes staring into the distance, and she couldn't help wondering whether the poor woman was once again reliving some kind of horror.

“I'll leave this cup of juice here,” she said, more out of hope than expectation. “I need to go and check on a few of the others but... I'll come back out soon, okay?”

Again she waited for an answer.

Again she knew that nothing would be forthcoming.

Although she'd only been at Edenforth for a short while, Carly knew the basic facts about Ms. Powell. A decorated police detective from New York City, she'd been involved in a case that had somehow broken her mind; she'd witnessed something so horrific that her thoughts were now stuck in a strange kind of loop, seemingly unable to break out of a never-ending replay of some truly awful moments. Several doctors had tried to help her, but so far nobody had been able to make much progress, although no-one was giving up just yet. Already another doctor was supposedly on his way from out of state, and this doctor had announced that he was sure he could help Jenna emerge from her mental prison. Carly and the other staff, however, was far less optimistic.

“Just try to enjoy the sunshine,” she said now, turning and heading back inside. “It's really beautiful out here, isn't it?”

Once she'd been left alone, Jenna simply stared across the lawn, watching the treeline. Her face twitched occasionally as she replayed the awful scenes in her mind, reliving the moment when she'd discovered the tortured women back in the city. Deep down, on some subconscious level, she knew that she needed to break free of this cycle, yet some part of her was determined to go through it again and again, constantly forcing herself to remember every excruciating detail.

Her right hand gripped the wheelchair's arm a little tighter.

And then, hearing a rustling sound, she began to turn. She blinked a couple of times, and to her astonishment she saw a large wolf emerging from the undergrowth. Ordinarily she would have been wary, and she might even have screamed, but in her current state she could only watch as the wolf cautiously made its way over. And as the animal stopped next to the wheelchair, Jenna was suddenly struck by a strange sense of familiarity. She looked down into the wolf's eyes – and this in itself was as much acknowledgment as she'd given the rest of the world in almost a year – and she saw intelligence staring back at her, and she knew...

She knew she'd seen these eyes before.

After a moment the wolf took a step closer and tilted its head, before resting its face on her lap. Jenna swallowed hard before reaching down and gently stroking the creature, and for the first time in a year she was able to think of something other than the awful events in New York. As her fingers ran through the wolf's fur, she felt as if somebody was sharing her pain, almost drawing it out of her.

A few minutes later the wolf was chased off by several orderlies, and Jenna returned to her previous state. The wolf would return over subsequent days and weeks, however, stealing a few minutes with her here and there. And slowly – very slowly – Jenna Powell began to pay a little more attention to the rest of the world, and she was able to think about the events in New York a little less.

The visiting doctor from Kansas took all the credit, of course, but Jenna herself knew better. The doctor talked too much, but the one who actually helped her never said a single word. She began to long for the wolf's brief appearances, and eventually – after a few months of these silent encounters – she finally managed to smile.

Coming soon

End of the World

(The Horrors of Sobolton book 13)

The Horrors of Sobolton series coming to a shattering conclusion as the forces of good and evil are forced to team up against something even more deadly.

For centuries, humans and wolves have lived under the terms of an agreement. With that agreement in tatters and the wolves searching for their new leader, Sobolton itself is under threat. Old ghosts are returning to observe a battle that might yet have ramifications far beyond the borders of this small, isolated town.

Having once believed that the war was over, Lisa Sondnes realizes to her horror that hatred never truly dies. She still needs to find a way to protect her daughter, but she knows there's one person who might yet be able to help her. His name is John Tench and he holds the key to the town's survival.

If only she can find him...

End of the World is the thirteenth and final book in the thirteen-part Horrors of Sobolton series, which tells the story of one small town's struggle to deal with the paranormal monstrosities on its doorstep. Each book tells a standalone story, but there are cliffhangers and readers are recommended to go through the series in order.

Books in this series so far:

1. Little Miss Dead
2. Swan Territory
3. Dead Widow Road
4. In a Lonely Grave
5. Electrification
6. Man on the Moon
7. Cry of the Wolf
8. In Human Bonds
9. Blood of the Lost
10. Red-Eyed Nellie
11. Echo of the Dead
12. Dead End Town

Coming soon:

13. End of the World

Also available

THE GHOST IN ROOM 119

Something dangerous is lurking in room 119 of a Barcelona hotel. Something vicious. Something evil. Something that wants revenge.

Arriving in the city for a short break, Penny and Steve are looking forward to a week of sun, sea and sand. Those plans are ruined, however, when Steve thinks he recognizes a woman at the hotel bar. Ten years ago, he dated a girl named Annabelle, but the relationship ended badly. The woman at the bar looks a little like Annabelle, not enough for him to be certain that it's her, but enough for him to worry.

Soon, Steve finds himself drawn into a nightmare. He's starting to see the strange woman everywhere, and now he's worried that he's being followed. Has Annabelle returned to his life? If so, has she turned up in Barcelona by accident or by design? And how is her apparent appearance connected to the strange noises and flickering lights that can be heard every night, coming from room 119?

Also available

THE GHOSTS OF MARSH HOUSE

Marsh House stands abandoned in the heart of an English seaside town. A local ghost tour guide regularly stops in front of the house to tell its grim tale, but no-one has actually set foot in the building for more than forty years. Until now.

Desperate to get away from his troubles in London, Andrew heads to Marsh House and sets about trying to fix it up. Between rotten floorboards and bug infestations, he's got his work cut out for him. And that's before he even notices the strange noises in the night, and the fact that a strange presence is watching his every move.

When he invites a new friend to move in with him, everything changes. Andrew might not have paid attention to the darker side of Marsh House, but his new guest quickly realizes that something's very wrong. Does the ghost of a long-dead woman still haunt the house, cursing anyone who dares to fall in love? And is this malevolent entity somehow also responsible for the death of a local woman whose body was found on the beach?

And by the time he uncovers the shocking truth, will it be too late for Andrew to ever return to his old life?

The Ghosts of Marsh House is a horror story about a man who's trying to run from his own mistakes, and about a woman who'll stop at nothing to make others pay for her misery.