Part 14 (1/2)

”I went to the bathroom and I heard Kitty and I looked out the window and the werewolf came toward the house and then Thor came and fought with him and chased him away.” Tom suppressed a smile. It sounded like a dream all right. He turned to Teddy.

”What do you know about this?” he asked.

”Nothing,” Teddy said. ”But I wasn't in the bathroom. Brett wasn't dreaming, Dad. We were awake the whole time.”

What the h.e.l.l? Tom thought.

”Are you sure this werewolf wasn't Thor?” he asked Brett, hoping the answer would be no. There were not other big dogs in the immediate neighborhood, and no other plausible explanation.

”No, Dad! Thor was in the woods! He came back after the werewolf killed Kitty! He chased him through the neighbors' fence!”

Tom was at a total loss. Whatever was going on, it wasn't going to be resolved tonight, that much was sure. And he was dying to get back to bed.

”Well, look,” he offered, ”as long as Thor chased him away, we're safe, right? And Thor is in the house now, so I'm sure if there is a werewolf out there, he won't try anything. We can figure this out tomorrow, okay?” He tousled Brett's hair and hoped his attempt to trivialize the night's events had some effect.

Brett went through the motions of being rea.s.sured. At least Dad knew, even if he didn't believe. And now that Brett had unloaded his story, he started feeling tired. He even began to doubt what he'd seen. Werewolves were possible when you were hiding under the covers in the dark, but with a light on and Dad sitting here, they were just movie actors with hair glued on their faces. He relaxed his grip on the covers, and Dad turned off the light, walked to the door, and went to close it.

”Dad?” Brett said.

”Yeah, Brett?”

”Could you leave the door open a crack?”

”Sure,” Tom said, thinking Brett wanted the hall light to illuminate his room. In fact, Brett wanted Thor to be able to get in.

Tom left the door open about an inch. ”That okay?” he said from the hall.

”Thanks, Dad,” Brett said. ”Good night.”

”Good night, Dad,” Teddy said.

”Good night, guys.”

Thor waited to hear Mom and Dad's bedroom door close before going upstairs for one last check on the kids. He sniffed Debbie's door and pushed it with his nose; it was shut tight, as it should be. But Teddy and Brett's door was ajar. He wedged it open with his nose and walked over the Teddy's bed. It was clear from the rhythm of Teddy's breathing that the boy was upset. He crossed the room and laid his head on Brett's bed and sniffed Brett's fingers. Brett reached out and petted him. A slight tremble in Brett's hand confirmed Thor's interpretation of his breathing: Brett was scared.

”You know, don't you, Thor?” Brett whispered.

His words were meaningless. But the fear in his voice was disturbing. Thor hopped onto the bed, putting his body between Brett and the open door, and pretended to settle down for the night.

He lay there for almost half an hour, until Brett's breathing said he was asleep. Then he carefully crept off the bed and out of the room. He checked Debbie's door one last time and, ignoring the muted conversation behind Mom and Dad's door, went downstairs to continue his vigil.

An hour later the house was calm and everyone but Thor was asleep. He lay on the easy chair near the stairs, watching the living room windows and listening to the silence.

The Bad Thing was out there, and when it returned, Thor would be waiting for it. He would not be tricked into leaving the Pack again. And he would not let the Bad Thing near the Pack. Not under any circ.u.mstances, not for any reason.

The Bad Thing had killed Kitty. And while Thor's feelings toward her weren't as deep as his feeling toward the rest of the Pack, she was still Pack, and guarding her had been his responsibility. Her death was his fault.

He'd failed in his Duty. His gut felt like an inner tube that had been tied in a knot and stretched tight.

He would not sleep tonight.

Chapter 13.

As dawn approached, the Bad Thing's presence faded out completely. The Bad Thing was gone again, to wherever it went when it wasn't around. But it would come back. And Uncle Ted would come back, too.

Thor knew Uncle Ted wasn't in his apartment, and never would be when the Bad Thing was around. Thor didn't understand the connection between them, but he knew they were connected.

About a half hour before dawn, the sound of twigs snapping in the woods announced Uncle Ted's arrival. Thor ran to the kitchen and stood up against the door. He growled quietly to himself as he watched Uncle Ted step naked from the woods wearing only his running shoes. He walked hunched over, clutching his bloodied ankle with one hand.

The sight of the wounded ankle sent a shock of recognition through Thor. Suddenly everything fell into place.

Uncle Ted was the Bad Thing.

Thor needed no further explanation.

Unlike humans, Thor's reality was based on observations, not explanations. He had no explanation for birds or b.u.t.terflies or cars or rain, but that didn't cause him to doubt their reality.

He watched Uncle Ted with growing hostility as the naked man hopped up the stairs to his garage apartment. The apartment door quietly closed behind him, and Thor lay down on the floor. The Pack was safe for a while.

The morning sky lightened, and Thor relaxed.

His head settled onto his crossed forepaws, he sighed deeply, and his eyes fluttered closed.

They opened an hour after sunrise, when his biological clock told him Mom was overdue for her morning jog.

The house was completely still. He rushed up the stairs and poked the bedroom doors. Mom and Dad's door was shut tight, and there was no fresh scent of her in the upstairs hall. Mom hadn't left without waking him (which was just about impossible, anyway). She was still in bed.

Brett and Teddy's door was open, and the boys were asleep in their beds. Debbie's door was closed, and like Mom and Dad's, it bore no recent scent trail. She was in bed, too.

Thor went downstairs and was on his way back to the kitchen, wondering why Mom wasn't up, when he realized it was Sat.u.r.day. For the first time, a weekend had arrived without his antic.i.p.ating it. And for the first time, he didn't care. He was in no mood for fun. He was too busy with the problem of protecting the Pack.

He'd made a lot of mistakes, and each one had increased the danger to the Pack. He'd respected the Pack's rules and allowed Uncle Ted free run of the Pack's territory, and now Kitty was dead. And it was Thor's fault. He'd failed to protect her.

The enemy was in their midst, but Thor was torn between his instinct to protect the Pack at all costs and his instinctual prohibition of violence within the Pack. For whatever else Uncle Ted might be, Thor felt he was a Pack member. And in the end, it was feelings - and only feelings - that held the Pack together.

Why didn't Dad resolve this problem? How could Thor deal with such complex issues, issues he couldn't begin to understand, issues any human could (he was sure) breeze through without effort? Why did they burden him with unsolvable problems?

And yet they did. They acted as if nothing was wrong.

How could they fail to see the danger in their midst?