John was fully wolf, humanity stripped from his animal form. He’d dropped to all fours, head held low, muscular shoulders rippling under a heavy coat of coarse black hair, a touch of red burnishing the tips in the moonlight. Dagger-like claws had emerged from outsize paws, and scraped crosshatches in the ground as he stalked in front of the shade, who held the cub’s leash tight. He kept to a distance of around ten feet, back and forth, back and forth, declaring his intention by flattening his ears to his skull, lips rolled back over pointed teeth, snarling.

The shade lowered his stance, and gazed at the wolf with cold grey eyes, his own teeth bared in a grimace that could have been mistaken for pain. But a shade is not driven by pain, only anger and bitter resentment. It provides them with the determination they need to face any obstacle without fear.

His flesh vibrated with the energy of his demon maker, red fire replacing the blood that had once flowed through his veins, casting a glow that lit up the dark around him. The firelight illuminated the pathetic sight of the cub who had curled up at the end of the leash, as far away from the shade as he could get, trembling and silent.

This was a battle in which I was not needed, and I backed away to watch from behind an old Joshua tree. Behind the soldier was a thick hedge of Verbena, and the wooden fence that marked the northern boundary of the cemetery. It was a stand-off. There was nowhere he could go.

For a moment, I thought of how I could assist. I still had the Winchester. If I got close enough, maybe I could get off a shot—

“Let them fight it out, whore.”

The voice was behind me. As I swiveled, an arm snaked around my shoulders and held me tight so that I couldn’t see who had spoken. It jerked me back with such strength my breath left me in a rush. Instinctively, I grappled for air just as a gloved hand was clamped over my mouth. I managed a grunt before my assailant pressed harder, making a warning scream to John impossible.

“Do you really want to distract the wolf, my dear? He looks busy saving that wretched dog of his. Such a waste.”

I recognized the voice: Trader.

A scent rose around us. It smelled cloying and sickly, even over the odor of dirt and leather from his glove. What was that?

Despite the presence of my captor, I couldn’t take my eyes from John. He took steps toward the shade, and crouched, looking ready to leap.

“He will win, of course,” Trader’s voice whispered close to my ear. His breath on my cheek emitted more of the odor. It came from his skin, every part of him in a pungent wave. Not exactly unpleasant: floral, spicy even. Sick-making.

“If you don’t distract him, there will be no contest. A shade against a wolf. ” I felt him shrug. “The wolf will always win, but the footsoldier is one of my best. Can I trust you not to scream a warning to your wolf, my dear?”

I nodded. He was right. If I distracted John now, the cub wouldn’t stand a chance, the shade would kill him in an instant—a foot to the neck would do the trick. It would be easy. Then John, too, would be at risk.

Trader twisted me around to face him, pinning me to the tree with the full weight of his body. He removed his hand from my mouth, took off his glove, and stroked the hair away from my face, assessing me. Black strands still stuck to my sweating forehead. He picked them free, then ran a fingertip over my skin, before sucking the salt and grease from it. “You taste… pleasing, whore. No wonder the wolf likes you.”

Close up, he was horrifying.

Under his skin, red energy fizzed through his veins, casting an eerie glow. It heated the space around him making me break out in another layer of sweat, and intensifying his aroma. Shades carry their death forever with them. It’s reflected in their eyes, or depicted in their appearance somehow, I think to remind them of the fallibility of their human form, and the escape they had been granted.

It looked like Trader had lost his life on the pyre.

“Speak to me, woman. If you speak, I’ll grant you a little leniency.”

He grabbed my chin, pushing my head back so far I couldn’t swallow, and whispered, not an inch from my mouth, “But if you stay quiet…” He waited, his head cocked to one side, staring into my eyes.

Pain daggered into my neck, but I remained silent, watching red veins travel across his black eyes, like heated lava cracking open into channels of moving scarlet. Behind me, the sounds of the fight were getting ever more violent, warning snarls and snaps replaced with longer louder growls, interspersed with the terrified whimpering of the cub.

He sighed. “Oh, Sowilo, will there be anything left of you for him…?”

My eyes widened. He knew my name?

He read my expression. “I know you all too well, my dear. I’ve been following your progress for a very long time. And I know all about that daughter of yours…”

I felt my gaze harden, and couldn’t keep my silence a moment longer. “What do you know of her, demon?”

He smiled. “Why thank you, Sowilo. That was just too sweet. I know you now…”

As soon as the words were said, his magic started to scratch away at the back of my mind, looking to infiltrate my thoughts and memories. Behind me, the shade screeched. The cry sounded more animal than my wolf ever could. The scream stopped abruptly, cut off. The wolf’s growls grew silent.

Still holding my chin, Trader would not let me turn, but his eyes flicked to the scene behind me, faking wide shocked eyes. “Lead teeth, Sowilo? Sneaky wolf.”

I ignored him. “I said, what do you know of my daughter, Trader?”

“More than you would ever believe, my dear. And your plan to free her. You have eight stones I understand? It’s taken you some time. Nearly a thousand years? Still, you’ve done it faster than I thought, I hoped your quest would take forever…”

“You hid them from me?” I tried to shake my head free, but he held me tight.

He shrugged. “It was necessary. But I could reveal them all to you, Sowilo. With just one circuit of your soul, I could bring them all into your reach.” His tone had changed. His words slipped from him, caressing my ears, looking to tempt me, to soothe me. But the scratching continued.

“And then what? You control me?” My anger burned, and I tried to free myself from under his weight.

“Oh my, Sowilo, do squirm some more. You do it so well. I know many men have trained you, including John Wolfe.” He grinned in my face. I got the full effect of his teeth sparkling with silver studs, more a weapon than beauty no doubt. I could imagine him taking a chunk out of me.

“But he has merely tasted you. I want to devour you, Sowilo. Not your body, he can have that. I want your enchanted soul. We could achieve so much together. We can even recruit that daughter of yours, or I could just free her…”

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. He was trying to distract me with his words. But I could play that game, too. To catch a rat you need a trap!

“And what dirty ransom would you charge me for her freedom, Trader?”

He frowned. “You speak as though striking a deal is foreign to you, whore. There is a price to every agreement. You’ve struck more than a few yourself.”

“I do what I need to do for my daughter. The men I get close to need something, even if they don’t realize. Then I give it to them. We both win—”

“Oh, don’t pretend innocence, woman. A bargain just like any other. We are not so different.”

“I don’t force them…”

“And I do? You know better. The bargain will not hold up if duress is used.”

“You use trickery. I’ve heard of your methods—”

He forced his body further against me, and flashed his teeth, in a snarl this time. The scratching in my mind weakened. “My methods are the same as yours: enchantments, illusion, persuasion.”

A growling sound came from my right. John, still in wolf shape, stood a few feet away, holding the cub by the scruff in his mouth. The thin greasy essence from the soldier he’d just killed patterned the fur around his mouth. The stink of rot pervaded the air around them.

To the east, dawn light was beginning to trickle over the horizon, and a wooden cross cast a long shadow across the back of my wolf. Again, he growled at Trader, who instinctively pushed me in front of him, for the first time shifting his weight, and releasing my jaw.

“Coward!” I spat at him.

In response, his fingers dug into my arm, and with his other hand he signaled to shapes suddenly lit by the rays of the rising sun. They marched forward to stand sentry in front of the cemetery gateway. They were accompanied by huge stamping horses who whinnied painful screams. There would be no escape for my wolf or the cub that way.

“He’ll not get away, Sowilo. I told you. I will have the cub. It is written in blood. There is no other way… unless you give yourself to me.”

“Escape can take different guises, Trader.” I glanced at John, who looked at me, his head cocked in that canine way they do when wolves are listening. He whined, and lay down under the tree, watching me closely, the cub still laying immobile in his mouth.

“You want to make a bargain? Then we do this my way. Let me dig into your heart if there’s anything left of it. Let me feel your sincerity.” Delving into his heart would put me at terrible risk. The closer I got to him, the more he’d reach into my mind with those scrabbling fingernails. But I had no choice.

Trader looked from the shades guarding the gate to John. Calculating.

“What do you have to lose, Trader? He’s not going anywhere, you’ve made sure of that. So let’s deal. I’ll pick through what’s left of your rotten heart, find out what you really want from me, and if it makes sense to the future of my daughter, and the wolf, I’ll agree. You can help me get her home, and I’ll give you what you need.”

I picked my words carefully. Plenty of outs to the bargain. But he knew it.

“You’ll not have the cub, Sowilo. He isn’t part of the deal.”

“We understand that…” I looked hard at John again. I heard him sigh. He understood my intention.

“Then let’s get acquainted, my dear.”

I placed my hand on his chest, and put my lips to his, creating the connection though it turned my stomach to do so. His smell washed over me again, turning acrid now. It reminded me of death.

Looking into Trader’s heart was like peering into the darkness of a starry night. Sparks of light drew me in, promising something greater. But when I tried to alight on the stars, to reach for a glimpse of delight, pleasure, or joy, all I found was horror. Images of tortured souls, spilled blood, pain, oh so much pain. Then nothing, a vacuum sucking at me, pulling at my soul, wanting to take me down to the places where he had been. To death, destruction, and terror.

There was nothing in this place to tempt me. Nothing he could offer. No safety for my daughter or freedom for me. Not in the heart of this demon.

As I took my lips from his and withdrew my hand, he grabbed it back, holding me tight until I opened my eyes, to stare deep into his. There, in the midst of the hidden deep was a glimpse of a feathered wing. It flashed white and silver, then the palm of a gloved hand came into view to conceal the scene from me, leaving only eyes of fire.

We stepped away from each other, and took huge breaths, the air stinging my lungs as its purity burned away the darkness. As he dropped my hand, his face was contorted with pain, as if he was breathing fire. His eyes were now watery and turning to a pale gray.

He looked around. “What? Where is…?”

I turned to my right to find John and the wolf cub had gone. In front of the gate, the foot soldiers still stood on guard, they had not moved.

“What trickery is this, Sowilo?”

“No tricks. I don’t do that, remember. You have nothing to offer me, Trader. There will be no bargain.” As I took a step away from him, his legs crumpled.

With one hand on the ground to steady himself, he gasped, “I will get the boy. Even if I have to wait an eternity. And whether you saw my heart’s desire or not, Sowilo, know this: if you don’t stop your quest to reopen the gateway, I will deliver your daughter to you personally. And you will not like to see what is left when I’m done.”

And then it came to me. The scent. Trader smelled of lilies. The flower of the dead.

“Then it’s good I know my enemy.” Before he could recover, I backed away, and ran to the far corner of the graveyard. Instead of vaulting the low fencing that surrounded the plot to make my escape, I circled to the back entrance of the chapel.

The sun had just risen above the low mountain range to the south. It spilled light over the red rocks, turning them ablaze.

As I rounded the corner, he came into view: John, standing twenty feet in front of me. Naked but for the pendant still hanging around his neck, and a wash of early morning sunlight over his body. In the crook of his left arm, lay the baby. I could hear the boy cooing and chortling.

Behind me, Trader’s roar of anger rose, and I felt the ground shake with the oncoming charge of his cavalry.

“John! They will come. The stone, tell me about the stone.”

He looked at me with such sorrow, I stopped dead. “Forgive me, Sowilo. I need your patience for a while longer. And your protection… for the boy.”

John dropped to one knee, facing the rising sun.

“No!” I found my legs again, and ran forward, but he’d already raised one arm in salute to both the sun, and the God that he served.

By the time I reached him, his features were perfectly etched in stone. The baby, likewise, was caught in stillness, reaching for the pendant around John’s neck, now cemented to his form.

It would be one hundred and fifty years before they could awaken, no longer wolves, having served penance for the perceived sins their cruel God had forced on them. One hundred and fifty years to prove their devotion. One hundred and fifty years before I would find my stone.