Chapter Eight
The wolf stopped moving when I did, holding just as still but looking far less afraid. If anything, it seemed eager, like it had been looking forward to this. But then, who didn’t enjoy going out for dinner? We weren’t much of a challenge, two defenceless women alone in a cemetery at night, but perhaps the idea of the hunter who lived for the hunt was a myth. Work smarter, not harder, that’s what people said. Maybe this wolf was a genius.
‘Catherine.’ I edged closer to my grandmother. ‘What do we do?’
‘We don’t do anything,’ she replied. Her voice was low and clear as she stepped in front of me. ‘And everyone walks away in one piece.’
She moved around me, positioning her body between me and the wolf. I noticed on her, fear looked an awful lot like excitement.
Oh good, I thought, back pressed against the Bell monument. My grandmother is certifiably insane. We were alone with a salivating wolf, and I had no phone and no idea how to get back to the car while she swayed from side to side with afeverish light in her eyes. Like a child about to open her Christmas presents.
The wolf raised one front paw, clawing at the air and the open gate as though something substantive was holding it back.
‘Do not cross that line,’ Catherine ordered. ‘Turn around and leave while you can.’
‘Maybe we shouldn’t be threatening it?’ I suggested as calmly as I could. ‘Given that we have literally no way of defending ourselves?’
Shaking her head, she stood her ground, torso angled slightly forward, legs braced against whatever was to come.
‘Emily,’ she replied. ‘There is always a way.’
What came next happened very quickly. I once read that the reason it feels like time slows down when we’re in danger is because our brain speeds up to process everything that’s happening, giving us more time to react. So when the wolf crossed through the invisible barrier and set its first paw onto the Bell plot, every single second split into a million more. I had a choice. Stay or go. Climb over the fence and run as fast and as far as I could. But running meant leaving Catherine behind, and even though I had very real concerns about her mental state and decision-making skills, I couldn’t do it. Besides, I couldn’t run fast enough to catch an ice cream truck, how could I outrun a wolf? There was no decision to be made, not really. I would stay. I would stand beside her. And I would fight. An unexpected charge shot up from the earth itself and surged through my whole body, urging me on until I found myself standing shoulder to shoulder with my smiling grandmother.
‘Oh, the mistake you have made,’ she said softly.
But she wasn’t speaking to me.
With a soul-splitting howl, the wolf reared back on its hindlegs and launched itself through the gate, a blur of fangs and claws and matted fur. It didn’t take kindly to threats. Without warning, Catherine pushed me out of the way, replying with her own battle cry, screaming as they collided, both bodies stumbling backwards into the monument. Her carefully styled hair came loose, swirling all around the two of them as they crashed to the ground as one.
Too much was happening all at once. Ears ringing, I pressed a hand to my forehead and saw blood on my fingers. Was it mine? Ignoring the shooting pain in my head, I rolled over to see the flash of the wolf’s jaws and my grandmother’s arms up in front of her face, its massive body pinning her small, fragile form in place. She was reaching for something, one hand scrabbling in the dirt beside her as the other fought off a mouth full of daggers. Her silver leaf-shaped pin. It glinted in the moonlight and before I knew what I was doing, I was on my hands and knees crawling towards it. The earth trembled and the steady beat of my pulse thudded in my ears, pushing me on. I grabbed for the pin but the wolf’s hind leg shot out in my direction, slicing the flesh on my forearm and kicking it out of reach.
The branch, a voice commanded as I stared at the blood pulsing down my arm.Pick up the branch.
Then everything went quiet.
Catherine and the wolf continued to brawl, its teeth gnashing at her throat as she fended it off, but my focus was elsewhere. I knew what to do. All instinct, I stood slowly, grabbed a large, heavy branch that had fallen next to the Bell monument, and with strength I didn’t know I had, raised it above my head and slammed it down as hard as I could. There was a crack and a whimper and the wolf rolled off Catherine’s prone body, scampering away, staying low and close to the ground.
‘Can you stand?’ I asked Catherine, brandishing the branch as the wolf began to pace back and forth. ‘We need to go.’
‘There’s no time to run.’ Her breath came in short, jagged gasps as she pressed her hand flat against her collarbone. ‘My pin, where is my pin? We need it.’
Obeying without understanding, I dropped my weapon and took three stilted sidesteps to the right where the pin lay nestled in the dirt. Never taking my eyes off the wolf, I stooped to pick it up, blood now pouring from my arm. Almost as much as I saw pumping out of the gash I’d left on the wolf’s head. It streamed down its face, a sticky streak of crimson against its grey fur.
‘I have it,’ I told her, back by Catherine’s side as we all considered our next moves. ‘What now?’
‘Just keep hold of it,’ she instructed. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yes,’ I replied without hesitation.
‘Good. Because you’re not going to like this.’
With a primal scream, Catherine stood and charged at the beast.
As it reared back for another attack, I seized the tree branch and swung at it again but this time I missed. The wolf wasn’t coming for me. It charged straight at Catherine and she screamed as it lunged but I knew I could be faster, I knew I could save her. Diving into the fray, I hurled my body over hers, my eyes closed and her silver pin tucked into the hand I held out to protect us both.
When I opened my eyes, I was looking directly into the wolf’s. Sickly yellow, streaked with violent red, the black pupils expanding then contracting until it was nothing more than a pinprick. The silver brooch was cool in my hand but everything else was hot and sticky, and when I looked down, blood was pouring out from its throat, painting all three of us a deep and vivid crimson. With a final tragic attempt at a howl and onelast desperate snap of its jaws, the wolf slumped down on top of me.
‘Emily, you brilliant girl,’ Catherine panted as I pushed the motionless body off me, my own breath coming back in uncontrollable gasps that couldn’t quite fill my lungs no matter how quickly I gulped down the air. ‘You did it, you saved my life. You saved both our lives.’
