The wolfs name, p.1
The Wolf's Name, page 1
THE WOLF’S NAME
Copyright © 2021 Raelyn Teague. All rights reserved.
Published by Outland Entertainment LLC
3119 Gillham Road
Kansas City, MO 64109
Founder/Creative Director: Jeremy D. Mohler
Editor-in-Chief: Alana Joli Abbott
ISBN: 978-1-954255-25-8
Ebook: 978-1-954255-21-0 Worldwide Rights
Created in the United States of America
Editor: Gwendolyn N. Nix
Copy editor: Alana Joli Abbott
Proofreader: Tara Cloud Clark
Cover Illustration: Raelyn Teague
Cover Design: Jeremy D. Mohler
Interior Layout: Mikael Brodu
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or fictitious recreations of actual historical persons. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors unless otherwise specified. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Visit outlandentertainment.com to see more, or follow us on our Facebook Page facebook.com/outlandentertainment/
PART I
— INDUCTION —
June 15th, 1883
Lucas kept his word. His front-page advertisement in the paper brought half of New Westminster to my show. On the outdoor stage, a simple suggestion from me had Mr. Richards howling at the late afternoon sun and pawing at an itch with the toe of his muddy shoe. The air filled with laughter, and the eyes in the crowd glittered so bright I thought they were diamonds.
They wouldn’t have grinned if they’d known how the Power could enslave them. If I only knew how to wield it. If I let it enslave me first. Oh, how it wanted to.
At dusk I had my usual drink with Lucas at the printing press, but this time he’d invited Joseph and brought twice the whiskey to celebrate. Lucas kept my glass filled and promised to finance more shows if I’d teach him a few tricks.
We’d downed a few too many when Mr. Richards barged in on us. He’d had too many himself. I reminded him he was the one who’d demanded to come on stage, but from his slurred rambling, I realized he wasn’t angry about me embarrassing him at the show. Then I thought he’d come to pester me again to sell him the farm, but, no, it was something else… Something about wild dogs in the woods I could “magic away.”
Lucas managed to escort Richards away without protest. He has a magic all his own, but Richards would give anything for the last word. Perhaps it’s still coming.
Once they were out of earshot, Joseph leaned in with a warning. “Don’t be swayed by Lucas’s promises,” he said. “He can afford his schemes, but when it fails, you’ll be the one to pay.”
But to have the O’Connor name remembered with diamond eyes instead of— Well, I might even sell myself to the Power.
God forgive me, I know I would.
— CHAPTER ONE —
NATHANIEL
The hum of magic through Nathaniel’s body made him feel like a god and less than human all at once.
As he ran, the damp Canadian autumn chilled his lungs, but his skin baked under the heat of the Power sizzling about him. His senses became heightened with it. His prey had left footprints he shouldn’t have been able to see in the night and shadow, but even with the Power’s aid he barely heard the scamper of feet through the woods ahead.
He won’t escape this time. Not this time!
Movement flashed at the edge of Nathaniel’s vision. The beast darted under an arch of skeletal firs, their branches entwined in a gateway to some unknown hell, and it disappeared down an overgrown path. Nathaniel vaulted over felled trees and unearthed roots in pursuit. The path broke into a narrow clearing where his quarry halted, turning from flight to fight. Nathaniel dug in his heels.
Given up on its escape, the beast stared him down with bloodied teeth bared. It backed toward the door of an abandoned cellar half-hidden in the wisps of tall grass, unwilling to abandon its only refuge. Nathaniel had the animal cornered, which made it more dangerous. Even to him. His finger curled around the trigger of his old Model P pistol for courage.
“Caught you.” Nathaniel’s voice carried the tickle of the Power instead of weariness from the chase. “Don’t you try to run again.”
Naked but for the mud on its skin and a haystack of orange hair, the beast showed no weakness to the cold night. It snarled with the craze of a rabid mutt but walked upright on the balls of two human feet. Instead of paws, it flexed scythe-like fingers with ragged nails. It was skinnier than the last time Nathaniel had seen it. Far too skinny. A sack of bones and bloodlust abandoned to death and damnation.
Little remained of the foolish boy he’d first met, but there was enough. Enough to make it right.
“Keith,” Nathaniel said, “come back to your senses.”
With a ravenous growl, the beast charged.
Instinct alone called the Power to Nathaniel. It crackled around him in a shield of sapphire light. Out of habit he searched for the flicker of a Name around the creature, but he found none. It didn’t matter. The boy’s true identity was etched into Nathaniel’s memory like a scar.
The beast leapt. Nathaniel threw out his arm, striking the animal with a hammer of raw energy.
“Regret!”
The sound of its Name knocked the creature from its feet. A light the colour of decayed leaves flared over the treetops and slammed into the creature, a dying star striking the earth.
Keith sucked in a breath as the sickly fire of his Name entered him. His arms and legs jerked toward his centre. When he recovered from the blast, a sputtering yellow glow emanated from him. He groaned, the sound broken but recognizably human. The beast had vanished, but there was nothing Nathaniel could do about the monster left behind. Trying had only made everything worse.
“Y— you—” Keith said as though he’d never spoken the word before. Nathaniel offered a reluctant hand, and the young man, barely more than a boy, eyed his palm with suspicion. “I—”
“Welcome back to humanity,” Nathaniel said. Warily, Keith accepted Nathaniel’s hand, and he hauled the boy to his feet. “Horrid, isn’t it? Men are fouler than dogs.”
Keith’s legs wobbled once the support of Nathaniel’s hand was gone. He snaked his arms around his naked chest, his shoulders tucked up to his ears. “Why’d you help me?”
“I’m not helping you.” A poison roiled in Nathaniel’s gut at the thought. “And I have my reasons.”
“Yes.” Keith shook his head as if to clear up space in his mind. “Yes, your sister. I think I remember…”
He remembered too much.
“There’s no time; he’ll already know you’ve got your Name again.” Nathaniel tapped his pistol against his leg to be sure Keith knew it was there. “Tell me the truth. Where’s the other mutt?”
“Mutt…?” Keith wrinkled his nose in confusion. “Ah, Sheridan! He was turned—”
“Yes, yes. I know that already. Tell me where he is so I can deal with him.”
Keith chuckled darkly, the sound fractured between the shivers that rocked his body. “He’s in these woods, but you won’t find him.”
“You’d better pray I do. Pray hard. Regret.”
At the command, Keith’s light left his body and streamed into Nathaniel. He hated this part—where another’s Name left its stain on him. Keith’s brought a bitter taste to Nathaniel’s mouth that reminded him of rotten potatoes and the pain of hunger. All of Keith’s regrets felt like his own: the heartache of a sister’s death and the loss of a home and country he barely remembered yet could never forget. Luckily, Keith’s light had weakened in the time it had been away from him. With so much regret of Nathaniel’s own, it would have been easy for him to be consumed by it.
Drained of his light, Keith’s shivers diminished again. His arms dangled like twigs from his shoulders, and his vacant eyes stared forward.
“Forget.” Nathaniel sent the command on tendrils of the Power and let them seep under Keith’s skin. It was too good a punishment for someone like him, too merciful, but Nathaniel no longer had the right to judge him. “Forget your life as a dog and go back to the Brotherhood. Convince them to return to Washington. For good.”
The command given, Nathaniel released the boy’s light for the final time, and as the rays emptied from his body, the bitterness on his tongue subsided. Keith’s regrets faded and left only the ones Nathaniel had earned for himself.
When the boy’s aura descended back upon him, Keith’s eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t seem to see Nathaniel. With glazed eyes locked forward, he limped noisily into the trees, pulled by an invisible rope.
How long before his memories return? How long will I have?
Hanging above the clearing, Orion’s belt dimmed as the first gestures of dawn lightened the sky.
Sheridan will already be in hiding.
Nathaniel released the Power like a long sigh and let it weaken until he no longer felt even a spark of its allure. His hearing deadened. His vision dimmed. Tremors now moved through his body, and as he stumbled through the shadows of the woods, the wheeze of his breath made him feel less of a devil.
One more day. Sheridan could wait one more day.
— CHAPTER TWO —
THE WOLF
Forward.
Backward.
Pain.
Back and forth. Chains dragging. Chains biting skin and bone. Voices through the ground above.
“Regret!”
Voices gone. Wolves alone again.
Back and forth. Forward. Backward.
Alone.
— CHAPTER THREE —
NATHANIEL
Hidden in a thicket, Nathaniel recovered his strength while the day wore on. He lay on a bed of dirt and cedar and listened to the nostalgic mooing of cows on a nearby farm. He’d never imagined he’d miss that sound—never thought his gut would twist with longing for a place he’d spent most of his life wishing to escape.
When the shadows cast by the trees grew long toward the east, he hid his pistol under his coat and found a trail that wound toward New Westminster.
Time for a final farewell.
For as long as he could, he stuck to the woods and kept his distance from the sleepy farmhouses, their windows now lit with a soft amber glow to keep out the evening. By the time he’d crept to his destination, the sun had almost disappeared; it peeked through scarlet clouds and hung low toward the western sea. Farther on, the city stirred as people hurried home by foot or creaking wagon, but those sounds were dim echoes on the outskirts where the cemetery lay still. Sombre. Only Nathaniel’s breath and the whisper of unkempt grass in the breeze broke the silence left by the dead. He stole toward a pillar of stone looming straight and white against the darker hillside. A year of mucky springs and livid storms had dirtied the roses carved into the stone’s pale face, but he didn’t bother to clear the filth from the name etched among the roses. He remembered it well.
“Hello, Lucas. Wherever you are now.”
He should have brought a better token to set by his friend’s gravestone. Cow dung, maybe. All he had was the letter tucked into his coat. He pulled the envelope out, his hand folding it into his fist.
“That fire at the printing press. How convenient.” Nathaniel muttered each sour word slowly. “I’ve waited for this for a very, very long time, but I bet you thought this day would never come.”
Bile chewed a trail inside Nathaniel’s chest. He stared into the falling sun until it burned the memory of pain out of him and tickled his throat. With a damp cough into his ragged sleeve, he looked down his nose at the swirling letters chiselled into the pillar.
“It’s over, or it will be soon. Soon the world will know what happened, and they’ll know what a coward you are.”
Footsteps rustled the grass. Nathaniel felt beneath his coat for his pistol.
Down the line of weather-worn headstones, a young woman with a baby in her arms made her way toward a lowly stone. She choked on her sobs and seemed aware only of the grave at her feet.
Just a widow. Still, better not give her a fright.
Part of him wanted to hold onto his anger and to the letter in his fist, but before the woman could spy his face, Nathaniel set the envelope at the base of the gravestone and pinned it under a stray pebble. Stifling another cough into his sleeve, he turned his back to the widow and tiptoed down the hillside. His last day as a dead man. After he’d taken care of Sheridan, he’d face the dogs’ master on even ground. Then they’d see who had the better tricks.
Then they’d see who’d end up here in the cold, dead earth.
— CHAPTER FOUR —
THE WOLF
Dark.
Forward and backward.
Wood creaks above. Roof opens. Master comes with shadow. Dark. Blurred. Looks human. Smells of blood.
“You know what to do, my dogs.” Master’s voice hurts. Burns. “Don’t disappoint me.”
Master waves his hand. Shadows rise. Devour.
Legs weak. Falling. Falling into the black.
“Sleep.” Master’s voice fades in the distance. “Soon we hunt.”
— CHAPTER FIVE —
MATILDA
Matilda O’Connor pointed her rifle to the ground and leaned over the Brunette River. The water roiled, thick with red-bellied salmon splashing upstream toward their birthplace, and warned her away from the river’s edge.
Where did she go?
No moon reflected in the salmon-churned waters below, but it watched her from the twilight heavens, full and ashen on a bed of timid stars. If it could see her target, the moon kept it secret.
I can’t lose another one.
Swallowing her doubts, Matilda cupped a hand around her ear. A gust of wind carried the salty taste of the sea but none of the sounds she’d hoped for. Instead, she heard the bickering of her younger brother and sister. The ruckus they made rattled through her ears, reckless children unaware they were swatting a hornet. And Matilda felt ready to sting.
“Do you think the cow went for a swim?” Elliot cut off one of Olive’s complaints and joined Matilda on the river’s bank. “Why are you staring at the water?”
His attempt to joke now of all times shattered the last of Matilda’s composure. “I wouldn’t be out here at all if you’d mended the fence as I asked instead of waving fists at other boys!” She tried to sound parental like Nathaniel. He’d been good at that, but for all her nineteen years, she felt like a child pretending to be mature. “We’ll be looking all night.”
Turning from the river, she gave her brother a scowl. The vanishing day had washed the bronze out of his skin, but the play of light from his kerosene lantern flooded an ochre glow over his cheeks that hardly made him look repentant.
Elliot adjusted the coils of frayed rope at his shoulder and jutted out his chin like he was taller and much more important than a boy who’d barely begun to shave. “Give me the rifle,” he said, blowing a tangle of hair off his forehead. Like Matilda’s, his hair was the shade of singed oak and never wanted to stay put. It fell back over his brow and cast shadows across his eyes. “Your aim went off while you were working at the manor. I’m the better shot.”
“Not in the twilight, you’re not,” Olive said. A year older than Elliot, she had more than an extra year’s worth of maturity, but her small frame made her look the youngest of them all. Instead of the others’ dark hair, waves of honey gold slipped loose from her ribbon as she hugged her shawl to her body. The excess of cloth around her emphasized her dainty form, and she clutched Sable’s rope leash as though the whimpering hound was all that protected her from goblins in the night. “Let’s go home. We’ll get lost ourselves if we wander too late. The cow will return on her own.”
Matilda couldn’t count on that. She could count on precious little these days. “She won’t if she breaks her leg on a muddy slope,” Matilda said and brushed past her siblings, heading back into the thick of the woods.
“Or if we’re all eaten by Mr. Richards’s dogs,” Olive mumbled.
“That’s why I brought this.” Matilda raised the rifle just enough to draw attention and signalled for the others to follow her into the southern grove. “Stay behind me and listen for that cow.”
“Besides,” Elliot said to Olive, his voice dropping the way it did when he was about to get himself into trouble, “it’s not dogs that should worry you, it’s ghosts and trolls. Tonight’s the kind of night they hunt for scared little girls.”
“Stop it!” Olive said.
“There are no trolls in the woods,” Matilda said as much to herself as the others. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Elliot was right. Now that dusk weighed heavily on them, the night reminded her of her father’s stories of bean sidhe or of the Little Folk who stirred the autumn leaves. Long ago she’d stopped believing in magic and heroes and fathers, but with the last grey haze of daylight sifting weakly through the trees, she remembered she still believed in monsters. “Stop trying to give your sister more nightmares, and both of you be quiet. You’ll spook the cow before we find her.”
“Maybe not trolls,” Elliot mumbled. He dragged his feet as he followed behind Matilda. “Just Fenians.”
Matilda stumbled in her tracks, her blood freezing more than the swiftly fading sun could explain. She whirled around to face her brother. “What did you say?”
Elliot’s eyes bulged when he realized his mistake, and for a moment he lost his daring. “I didn’t mean— It’s what I heard,” he said, avoiding Matilda’s gaze. “Junior said his father heard Irishmen in these woods. There’s talk of another raid. Like befo—”
