Hannah found herself on her feet. Her awareness was fragmented and understanding came to her in
pieces because she simply couldn't take in the whole situation at once. It was too bizarre.
At first she simply thought of a bomb. The explosion was that loud. Then she realized that something had
come in the window, that it had come flying through the glass. And that it was in the room with her now,
crouching among the broken shards of windowpane.
Even then, she couldn't identify it. It was too incongruous; her mind refused to recognize the shape
immediately. Something pretty big-something dark, it offered. A body like a dog's but set higher, with
longer legs. Yellow eyes.
And then, as if the right lens had suddenly clicked in front of her eyes, she saw it clearly.
A wolf. There was a big black wolf in the room with her.
It was a gorgeous animal, rangy and muscular, with ebony-colored fur and a white streak on its throat
like a bolt of lightning. It was looking at her fixedly, with an almost human expression.
Escaped fromYellowstone , Hannah thought dazedly. The naturalists were reintroducing wolves to the
park, weren't they? It couldn't be wild; Ryan Harden's great-grandpa had bragged for years about killing
the last wolf in Amador county when he was a boy.
Anyway, she told herself, wolves don't attack people. They never attack people. A single wolf would
never attack a full-grown teenager.
And all the time her conscious mind was thinking this, something deeper was making her move.
It made her back up slowly, never taking her eyes off the wolf, until she felt the bookcase behind her.
There's something you need to get, a voice in her mind was whispering to her. It wasn't like the voice of
another person, but it wasn't exactly like her own mental voice, either. It was a voice like a dark cool
wind: competent and rather bleak. Something you saw on a shelf earlier, it said.
In an impossibly graceful motion, from eight feet away, the wolf leaped.
There was no time to be scared. Hannah saw a bushy, flowing black arc coming at her and then she was
slammed into the bookcase. For a while after that, everything was simply chaos. Books and
knick-knacks were falling around her. She was trying to get her balance, trying to push the heaviness of a
furry body away from her. The wolf was falling back, then jumping again as she twisted sideways to get away.
And the strangest thing was that she actually was getting away. Or at least evading the worst of the
wolf's lunges, which seemed to be aimed at knocking her to the floor. Her body was moving as if this
were, somehow instinctive to her, as if she knew how to do this.
But I don't know this. I never fight... and I've certainly never played dodge ball with a wolf before....
As she thought it, her movements slowed. She didn't feel sure and instinctive any longer. She felt
confused.
And the wolf seemed to know it. Its eyes glowed eerily yellow in the light of a lamp that was lying on its
side. They were such strange eyes, more intense and more savage than any animal's she'd ever seen. She
saw it draw its legs beneath it.
Move-now, the mysterious new part of her mind snapped.
Hannah moved. The wolf hit the bookcase with incredible force, and then the bookcase itself was falling.
Hannah flung herself sideways in time to avoid being crushed-but the case fell with an unholy noise
directly in front of the door.
Trapped, the dark cool voice in Hannah's mind noted analytically. No exit anymore, except the window.
"Hannah? Hannah?" It was Paul's voice just outside the room. The door flew open-all of four inches. It
jammed against the fallen bookcase. "God-what's going on in there? Hannah? Hannah!" He sounded
panicked now, banging the door uselessly against the blockage.
Don't think about him, the new part of Hannah's
mind said sharply, but Hannah couldn't help it. He sounded so desperate. She opened her mouth to
shout back to him, her concentration broken.
And the wolf lunged.
This time Hannah didn't move fast enough. A terrible weight smashed into her and she was falling, flying.
She landed hard, her head smacking into the floorboards.
It hurt.
Even as she felt it, everything grayed out. Her vision went sparkling, her mind soared away from the
pain, and a strange thought flickered through her head.
I'm dead now. It's over again. Oh, Isis, Goddess of Life, guide me to the other world....
"Hannah! Hannah! What's going on in there?" Paul's frantic voice came to her dimly.
Hannah's vision cleared and the bizarre thoughts vanished. She wasn't soaring in sparkling emptiness and
she wasn't dead. She was lying on the floor with a book's sharp corner in the small of her back and a
wolf on her chest.
Even in the midst of her terror, she felt a strange appalled fascination. She had never seen a wild animal
this close. She could see the white-tipped guard hairs standing erect on its face and neck; she could see
saliva glistening on its lolling red tongue. She could smell its breath-humid and hot, vaguely dog-like but
much wilder.
And she couldn't move, she realized. The wolf was as long as she was tall, and it weighed more than she
did. Pinned underneath it, she was utterly helpless. All she could do was lie there shivering as the narrow,
almost delicate muzzle got closer and closer to her face.
Her eyes closed involuntarily as she felt the cold wetness of its nose on her cheek. It wasn't an
affectionate gesture. The wolf was nudging at strands of her hair that had fallen across her face. Using its
muzzle like a hand to push the hair away.
Oh, God, please make it stop, Hannah thought. But she was the only one who could stop this-and she
didn't know how.
Now the cold nose was moving across her cheekbone. Its sniffing was loud in her ear. The wolf seemed
to be smelling her, tasting her, and looking at her all at once.
No. Not looking at me. Looking at my birthmark.
It was another one of those ridiculous, impossible thoughts-and it snapped into place like the last piece in
a puzzle deep inside her. Irrational as it was, Hannah felt absolutely certain it was true. And it set off the
cool wind voice in her mind again.
Reach out, the voice whispered, quiet and businesslike. Feel around you. The weapon has to be there
somewhere. You saw it on the bookcase. Find it.
The wolf stopped its explorations, seeming satisfied. It lifted its head... and laughed.
Really laughed. It was the eeriest and most frightening thing Hannah had ever seen. The big mouth
opened, panting, showing teeth, and the yellow eyes blazed with hot bestial triumph.
Hurry, hurry.
Hannah's eyes were helplessly fixed on the sharp white teeth ten inches away from her face, but her hand
was creeping out, feeling along the smooth pine
floorboards around her. Her fingers glided over books, over the feathery texture of a fern-and then over
something square and cold and faced with glass.
The wolf didn't seem to notice. Its lips were pulling back farther and farther. Not laughing anymore.
Hannah could see its short front teeth and its long curving canines. She could see its forehead wrinkling.
And she could feel its body vibrate in a low and vicious growl.
The sound of absolute savagery.
The cool wind voice had taken over Hannah's mind completely. It was telling her what would happen
next. The wolf would sink his teeth into her throat and then shake her, tearing skin and ripping muscles
away. Her blood would spray like a fountain. It would fill her severed windpipe and her lungs and her
mouth. She would die gasping and choking, maybe drowning before she bled out.
Except. . . that she had silver in her hand. A silver picture frame.
Kill it, the cool voice whispered. You've got the right weapon. Hit it dead in the eye with a corner. Drive
silver into its brain.
Hannah's ordinary mind didn't even try to figure out how a picture frame could possibly be the right
weapon. It didn't object, either. But faint and faraway, there came another voice in her head. Like the
cool wind voice, it wasn't hers, but it wasn't someone else's, either. It was a clear crystal voice that
seemed to sparkle in jeweled colors as it spoke.
You are not a killer. You don't kill. You have never killed, no matter what happened to you. You do not
kill.
I don't kill, Hannah thought slowly, in agreement.
Then you're going to die, the cool wind voice said brutally, much louder than the crystal voice. Because
this animal won't stop until either it's dead or you are. There's no other way to deal with these creatures.
Then it happened. The wolf's mouth opened. In a lightning-fast move, it darted for her throat.
Hannah didn't think. She brought the picture frame up ... and slammed it into the side of the wolf's head.
Not into the eye. Into the ear.
She felt the impact-hard metal against sensitive flesh. The wolf gave a yelping squeal and staggered
sideways, shaking its head and hitting at its face with a forepaw. Its weight was off her for an instant, and
an instant was all Hannah needed.
Her body moved without her conscious direction, sliding out from under the wolf, twisting and jumping
to her feet.
She kept her grasp on the picture frame.
Now. Look around! The bookcase-no, you can't move it. The window! Go for the window.
But the wolf had stopped shaking its head. Even as Hannah started across the room, it turned and saw
her. In one flowing, bushy leap it put itself between her and the window. Then it stood looking at her,
every hair on its body bristling. Its teeth were bared, its ears upright, and its eyes glared with pure hatred
and menace.
It's going to spring, Hannah realized.
I am not a killer. I can't kill.
You don't have any choice-
The wolf sprang.