Fully changed, Wiktor took the lead. They followed him through the winding passageways, past the high vaulted windows where the trees had broken through-and suddenly they saw the dawn sky light up. Not with the sun, which was still a red slash across the horizon, but with a sparkling, sizzling ball of white fire that rose from the forest and arced down, bathing everything with garish, incandescent light. The ball of fire fell in the palace’s courtyard, and two more rose up from the woods and fell after it. The third one smashed the remaining stained glass from a window and came into the palace itself, sputtering and glowing like a miniature sun.
Wiktor barked at the others to keep moving. Mikhail lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding glare, his other hand locked on Alekza’s. Franco ran on his three legs just behind Wiktor. Beyond the windows, darkness had turned to false, cold white daylight. Something about this was dreamlike to Mikhail, as if he moved through the corridors of a nightmare on sluggish legs. The glaring light cast grotesque, distorted shadows on the walls, merging those of human and wolf into new life-forms.
Mikhail’s sense of unreality remained even when the soldier-a faceless shape-appeared in the corridor before them, lifted his rifle, and fired.
Wiktor was already leaping for the man, but Mikhail heard Wiktor grunt and knew the bullet had hit its target. Wiktor drove the soldier down under his weight, and as the man screamed Wiktor tore his throat out with one savage twist.
“They’re here! Over here!” another soldier shouted. “A dozen of them!” The noise of boots echoed on the stones. A second rifle fired, and sparks leaped off the wall just above Franco’s head. Wiktor turned, slamming into Franco to back him up the way they’d just come. Mikhail saw perhaps eight or nine soldiers in the corridor ahead; escape through that route was impossible. Wiktor was barking, his voice hoarse with pain, some of the soldiers were shouting, and Petyr wailed in Alekza’s arms. Two more shots rang out, both of the bullets ricocheting off the walls. Mikhail turned and ran, pulling Alekza with him. And then he came around the bend of a passage and stopped short, face-to-face with three soldiers.
They gaped at him, surprised to see a human being. But the first man regained his wits and trained his rifle barrel at Mikhail’s chest.
Mikhail heard himself growl. He reached out, a blur of motion, grasped the barrel, and uptilted it as the gun fired. He felt the hot streak of the bullet as it kissed his shoulder. His other arm lunged forward, and it was only when his hooked claws sank into the man’s eyes that he realized his hand had changed. It had happened in an instant, a miracle of mind over body, and as he tore the man’s eyes out the soldier screamed and staggered back into his companions. The third man fled, bellowing for help, but the second soldier began firing his rifle wildly, without aiming. Bullets shrieked off the walls and ceiling. A shape jumped past Mikhail; it had three legs, and it plowed headlong into the soldier’s belly. The man fought Franco, but it was Franco’s legs that were crippled, not his fangs. He tattered the soldier’s face and got a grip on the throat. Mikhail was on his knees, his body contorting, and he shook off his deerskin robe and let the change take him.
There was a flash of metal. The soldier drove his arm down, and the knife he’d drawn sank into the back of Franco’s neck. Franco shuddered, but he didn’t release the man’s throat. The man pulled the knife out, struck again and again. Franco crunched down, crushing the soldier’s windpipe. The knife sank into Franco’s neck up to the hilt, and bloody spray burst from Franco’s nostrils.
Two more soldiers appeared in the whirl of gunsmoke, fire sparking from their rifle barrels. A hammer blow hit Mikhail in the side, stealing his breath. Another bullet clipped his ear. Franco howled as a bullet struck him, but he propelled himself forward, the knife still in his neck, and sank his fangs into the leg of one of the soldiers. The other man shot Franco at point-blank range, but still Franco clawed and bit in a frenzy. Wiktor suddenly bounded out of the smoke, dark blood streaming from his shoulder, and he slammed into the second man, knocking him to the floor. Mikhail was fully changed now, the smell of blood and violence igniting his rage. He leaped upon the man Franco had attacked, and together he and Franco made quick work of him. Then Mikhail swerved and lunged onto Wiktor’s combatant, his fangs finding the throat and tearing it out.
“Mikhail.”
It had been a soft groan.
He turned, and saw Alekza on her knees. Petyr was squalling, and she held him tightly. Her eyes looked glassy. A thin creeper of blood oozed from the corner of her mouth. Her knees were in a puddle of it. “Mikhail,” she whispered again, and offered the child to him.
He couldn’t take Petyr. He needed hands, not paws.
“Please,” she begged.
But Mikhail couldn’t answer, either. The wolf’s tongue could form no words of human love, or need, or sorrow.
Alekza’s ice-blue eyes rolled back into her head. She fell forward, still holding the child, and Mikhail realized that Petyr’s skull was going to smash on the stones.
He leaped over a dead soldier and slid underneath the child, cushioning Petyr’s fall with his body.
He heard more soldiers coming through the smoky corridor. Wiktor barked: a sound that urged him to follow. Mikhail stayed where he was, his mind dazed, his joints and muscles full of frost.
Wiktor bit Mikhail’s wounded ear, and tugged at him. The soldiers were almost upon them, and Wiktor could hear the squeak of wheels: the machine gun.
Franco staggered forward, gripping Mikhail’s tall between his teeth and jerking backward, almost ripping the tail off. The pain charged through Mikhail’s nerves. Petyr was still wailing, the soldiers were coming with their machine gun, and Alekza lay motionlessly on the stones. Wiktor and Franco kept pulling at Mikhail, urging him to get up. There was nothing more he could do, for either Alekza or his son. Mikhail raised up and snapped at Wiktor, driving him back, and then he eased carefully out from underneath Petyr so the child slid to the floor. He stood up, the taste of blood bitter in his mouth.
The shapes of men stood in the smoke. There was the sound of metal scraping metaclass="underline" a firing bolt being drawn back.
Franco lifted his head, awkwardly because of the knife in his neck, and howled. The noise echoed along the passageway, and stilled the finger that reached for the machine gun’s trigger. And then Franco hobbled in the direction of the soldiers, his body tensing for a leap. He flung himself into the whirling smoke, his jaws gaping wide to tear whatever flesh his fangs might find. The machine gun chattered, and the bullets cut Franco in half.
Wiktor turned in the opposite direction and ran along the corridor, jumping over the dead soldiers. The machine gun was still speaking, bullets ricocheting off the walls like hornets. Mikhail saw Alekza’s body shake as another bullet hit her, and a slug whined off the stones beside Petyr. It was Mikhail’s choice; he could either die here or try to get out. He whirled around and followed the white wolf.
As soon as he sprinted away, he heard the machine gun cease firing. Petyr was still crying. One of the men shouted, “Hold your fire! There’s a child in there!”
Mikhail didn’t stop. Petyr’s fate, whatever it might be, was beyond his control. But the machine gun didn’t fire again, and the rifles were silent. Maybe there was mercy in the Russian heart, after all. Mikhail didn’t look back; he kept going, right behind Wiktor, his mind already turning away from the present to the future.