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103

It all happened so fast, faster than Bartholomew could even process. He saw it happening well enough, but if felt like his brain was a few seconds behind.

The gigantic black Wolf grabbed Dean by the head and just... twisted it around, like it was the easiest thing in the whole world. The sound it made was like a cornstalk being wrung between a strong pair of hands. Bartholomew had a moment's view of Ol' Dean's face, his eyes wide open and frozen in a look of confused puzzlement, before the Wolf simply ripped it clean off his shoulders in a shower of blood.

Ol' Dean's head rolled along the ground, leaving a wavy trail of blood behind to slowly melt through the snow, and came to a stop right in front of Bartholomew's feet. His eyes were wide open, still confused. Bartholomew half expected him to open his mouth and say, 'Well then, that didn't go as planned, did it?'

He still had his hat on. His damnable lucky hat, woven by his great grandpappy during a lightning storm thirty years ago or some other cock and bull.

The wind first tugged at the brim, making the tattered edges flick back and forth, and then snatched it away completely, sending it reeling through the sky, where it quickly joined the falling snow and disappeared into the darkness of the pass.

That was what made it real. A simple hat of straw, tumbling through the air because its master could no longer hold it down.

Apparently only now getting the message, Ol' Dean's body sank down to its knees and fell over onto its side, the jagged neck still spewing blood into the snow, but slower than before, and slowing by the second.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

Devvie had been nearing his breaking point for a while now, and seeing the jetting stump where Dean's head used to be was more than enough to send him sailing over the edge.

He grabbed the sides of his face and screamed, screamed so loud and so hard that it began to echo through the pass even before he was done.

The Wolf glared at him with that single red eye and snarled, baring teeth the size of carpentry nails.

Bartholomew wanted to tell him to shut up before it was too late, but, gods forgive him, he was too scared to open his mouth, too scared that that hideous eye would lock onto him instead.

Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, anyway. Maybe Devin was too far gone to listen to anything other than the panic in his head, telling him to run and run and run and never stop. With a strangled cry that was as much a sob as it was a yell, Devvie lowered his head and bolted like a horse, running so quickly he appeared to be moving on top of the snow rather than through it.

It wasn't enough.

The black Wolf roared and tore after him, lurching through the snow on that stumpy leg at a pace Bartholomew simply could not believe, leaving bright red spots of blood instead of footprints. The dead skins slipped off his back and crumpled to the snow in a sodden pile of limp limbs and melted faces.

Mateo, in a move more foolish than brave, jumped right in front of the charging beast, raising his crossbow to eye level. "Get -"

That was as far as he got. Without even breaking stride, the brute simply reared back and swiped its arm in Matty's general direction, catching him a monstrous backhanded blow right in the ribs, sending him flying. He crashed into the mountain side and dropped down to the snow in a motionless heap, still clutching his crossbow in one twitching hand. 'Agatha' was carved into the stock, but only the first half of that name was legible now. The rest was covered in blood. There was even more spreading along the back of his head and soaking through his hair.

Bartholomew saw this and it evoked a simple thought, only three words:

Is he dead?

It was there, and yet it was also not there. He could hear those words in his head, and yet it was the same as complete silence. He could know the question, but he couldn't feel it, he couldn't absorb it, he couldn't make it stick. There were too many things happening all at once for his eyes to see, too many noises for his ears to make any sense of, too many thoughts for his head to separate and organise. But maybe that was a good thing. If he could actually think about what he was seeing and hearing, maybe he would have gone insane the moment the horror started. But as it was now, it was just random pieces of information bombarding his senses, each one separate from the other, each one a miniature impossibility all by itself, and therefore unthinkable.

Jonah screamed. Peter screamed. Someone out of sight, maybe Rufio, barked an order that could barely be heard above the noise. Nicky clutched his spade in front of his chest like an improvised shield, his eyes wide and staring. All of this was in the background, more bits and pieces of broken information. The only thing Bartholomew really saw and heard was what happened after Devin looked back over his shoulder.

It was the last time Bartholomew ever saw his face. That wasn't entirely true, but that was what he would choose to believe. All the times after this specific moment in time in which Devin looked back, his eyes wide and brimming with tears, his mouth open and gasping for air in a panic, they didn't count. That wasn't Devvie's face. That... that shredded piece of meat wasn't Devvie at all.

It was just something that used to be Devvie.

The monster pounced right on top of him, weighing him down with its immense weight and pinning his arms to the ground. It bent down low, opened the rack of knives that passed for its mouth and thundered a question that didn't make any sense at all.

"Are you real!?"

If it was hoping to get some kind of answer, it was plum out of luck, because Devin was in no condition to answer anything. All he could do was blubber and spout half-formed words between explosive sobs. He struggled beneath the monster's grip, crying and begging for his life as thick runners of snot dripped from his nose.

"Get off him!"

Bartholomew did not see who shouted that, and neither could he tear his eyes away from the horrorshow to find out, but what he did see was an arrow appear out of thin air and lodge itself right between the brute's shoulder blades, vibrating back and forth in the icy wind.

The Wolf didn't even notice.

It bent down further, until its face was no more than an inch from Devin's. Saliva mixed with blood oozed from between its exposed fangs and dripped all over Devin's eyes and cheeks. "Are you real!?" it screamed again in a billowing cloud of steam, but Devin was no more capable of answering this time than the first.

He shut his eyes tight and began to cry, not the panic-induced brays and sobs of before, but genuine weeping.

Another arrow whizzed through the air and embedded itself deep into the Wolf's right shoulder, but it didn't show any reaction to that one either.

What it did do was rear back, raise its claws, and...

Bartholomew could not look away. He could not block his ears. On the surface, he tried to tell himself that this couldn't be real, but deeper down, where no lies could ever be told, he knew the truth.

He was watching Devvie being clawed to death.

The Wolf's hands worked up and down, back and forth, faster and faster, becoming bloodier with every strike, tearing, ripping, shredding, cleaving, slicing. Crimson droplets flew off its claws and splattered all over the snow and even up the mountain side. Tattered bits of bloody clothing drifted through the air like autumn leaves. Devin screamed and screamed and screamed. It was a high-pitched, womanish sound that filled the pass and drilled into the soft meat of Bartholomew's ears. From this angle, he could see Devin kicking his legs and thrashing his tail from side to side, completely useless.

I have to do something, he thought. I have to stop this. I have to save him somehow. I have to...

He took a single step backwards, then another and another.

You are a coward, Bartholomew. A filthy, stinking coward.

I promised Dad we'd both make it back! Devin wasn't part of that promise!

Bartholomew stopped and twisted his hands back and forth across the handle of his shovel. It was such a small thing. Such a puny thing. It was a gardener's tool, not a weapon. That monster could snap it between its teeth like a chicken bone.

What do I do? Gods in heaven, tell me what to do!

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

A scream rang throughout the pass, a scream Bartholomew knew well. It didn't come from Devin or from the monster tearing him apart. It was identical to his own, which meant that there was only one other Fox it could possibly belong to.

Nicky went streaking by, screaming like a maniac, his shovel raised sideways above his head like an axe. "Leave him alone!"

"Nicky, no!" Bartholomew leaped forward and, through nothing more than the grace of the gods, he was fast enough to grab his brother around the legs and send the both of them crashing into the snow.

Nicky twisted around and started to beat at his head with the shovel's wooden grip. "Let go of me! Let go of me!"

"It's already too late!" Bartholomew shouted back, taking blow after blow. "It was too late from the start!"

"No!"

"Stop it, Nicky! We made a promise! I won't let you go!"

"You bastard! It's Devvie! Don't you see it's Devvie over there, for gods' sakes!?"

But it wasn't. Not anymore. His screams had faded away to the faintest of gurgles, barely audible above the sounds of claws ripping through clothes and flesh. His blood had spread out on either side of him, burrowing through the snow just as the monster was burrowing through his body.

"Fire!"

A small cluster of arrows, at least half a dozen in number, whizzed over Bartholomew's head, slicing through the wind and the snow, and imbedded themselves, one after the other, in the broad target that was the monster's back. Fresh gouts of blood burst from the points of impact and dripped down to join with Devin's; red blooms in the white.

Still struggling with his suicidal brother, Bartholomew twisted around and saw what might just prove to be their best chance of getting out of this hellhole alive.

Standing on top of a snowbank, all neatly lined up with their bowstrings still vibrating, were six of the toughest hunter Foxes the 'Glen had ever produced: Eric, William, Sam, Henry, Flyn and Gordon. But they didn't look very heroic up there. Not at all the dashing warriors come to slay the beast and save the day. Eric, who was normally so confident, was slowly lowering his bow, a look of dumbstruck terror slowly spreading over his face. And Gordon, the three-time arm-wrestling champion of the valley, was just standing there with his mouth slowly dropping open, the birch twig he was always chewing on just hanging frozen from his bottom lip. The others weren't exactly the epitome of confidence either, and all it took for Bartholomew to realize the reason for this was the monstrous sounds still emanating from their target, the animalistic grunts and growls and the wet, sloppy splatter of flesh being ripped from bone.

With a stone of dread weighing down his heart, Bartholomew slowly turned back to face the carnage, already denying those sounds, refusing to believe it, even though he could already tell.

The Wolf was still mutilating Devin's corpse, still digging into his body with crimson claws. The blood was fresh and dripping all the way up to its elbows. Even with all those arrows protruding from its back, it still wouldn't stop. Roaring like some kind of monster, it kept going back for more, grabbing, rending, tearing. A chunk of meat and fur went sailing off into the storm, followed shortly after by another and another. A finger, an ear, a tooth, Bartholomew watched them fly into the night, unable to do anything, unable to even breathe. None of it mattered, all of it was the same, dead pieces of flesh that used to belong to a Fox he once knew. Gone now.

Dead now.

"D-Draw!" Eric commanded, pulling an arrow from the quiver on his back with shaking hands. His friends didn't fare much better. Sam and Flyn dropped their arrows into the snow and had to fumble for seconds, blindly rummaging in their quivers because they were either too scared or too stricken to take their eyes off the giant black horror in the pass. After what felt like an eternity, all six of them finally had their arrows nocked and ready.

"Aim!"

"Just shoot the bastard!" Nicky screamed to the sky, tears standing out in the corners of his eyes.

"Fire!"

Six Foxes let loose six arrows to fly through the air, but this volley was noticeably different from the first. Maybe it was the shock of seeing their friend die before their very eyes, or maybe it was the Wolf itself, filling the pass with the echoes of its demonic roars, but two of the arrows didn't even reach the mark. They fell woefully short and disappeared into the snow, but the other four...

Two stuck fast inside the monster's back. One tore through its left ear. The last one shot into the meaty part of its arm and pierced all the way through, red and dripping.

The Wolf stopped. It looked at the arrow sticking out of its arm, turning it this way and that, examining the tip and the fletching respectively. It tilted its head, as if this long wooden stick sprouting from its flesh was no more than a mild curiosity.

It only noticed just now, the thought flashed through Bartholomew's head. It was ridiculous, of course, but he couldn't shake it. This creature only noticed the arrows after he actually saw one. The others might as well have been mosquito bites.

"Get away from our friend or we'll be forced to- to kill you!" Eric shouted. He maybe would have sounded intimidating if it hadn't been for the stutter at the end. Or for his shaking knees. He nocked another arrow and his buddies followed suit. "This is the only warning you'll get!"

The Wolf looked at the line of Foxes and- It was hard to tell, what with its maw all cut up and bloody like that, but Bartholomew could have sworn it was smiling.

"Stuff your warning!" Bartholomew shouted. "Just shoot the damn thing!"

One look at the smile on that demented creature's face was more than enough to convince Eric that diplomacy was probably not the most prudent course of action right now. "Fire!"

Six arrows shot through the air, cutting through the falling snow. All it would take was one lucky shot, just _one_lucky shot and the nightmare would be over. He'd be able to take his brother back home, look his father in the eye, and tell him that they had kept their promise.

Just _one_lucky shot...

The monster turned in a half circle and swept up a thick curtain of snow, but it wasn't enough to block the meaty thuds of six arrowheads piercing flesh.

"We got 'im!" Flyn exclaimed and jammed his fist in the air. "Twenty silvers says it's right between the eyes!" His buddies, on the other hand, didn't look so sure, and neither did Bartholomew.

He squinted at the hazy shadow through the shifting cloud of white. Something about its shape was different. It was off, somehow...

The wind blew away the snow, revealing a sight that pierced Bartholomew right through the heart. He felt his brother stiffen in his arms, felt the shuddering breaths tearing through his body as he struggled to keep himself together.

That's not Devvie, he tried to convince himself. That's not Devvie at all. That's just something that used to be Devvie...

That's not Devvie!!

The black Wolf was holding Devin's body like a shield. Or at least, what was left of it. His clothes, always so neat and tidy, even in foul weather, were hanging off his skinny body in shredded tatters. His chest was ripped wide open. Some of the wounds were so deep Bartholomew could actually see the repeating pattern of his ribs through the blood. And his face... by the gods, his face...

There were four- They couldn't even be called scratches, they were trenches. There were four trenches sliced out of his face from forehead to cheek. His muzzle was barely hanging on.

And the final horror: six arrows sticking out of his chest and stomach. None of them had found their true mark.

The Wolf peeked out from behind the remnants of Devin's face, and its lips peeled back into a bloody smile, filled with crimson teeth.

"Get up," Bartholomew whispered into Nicholas's ear, but his brother remained motionless. "Damn it, Nicky! I mean now!"

Nicky's lip trembled and he slowly shook his head. "What is that thing, Barty? What the hell is that thing?"

"It's the thing that's gonna kill us if you don't get up!" Bartholomew grabbed his brother by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet.

For a few quiet seconds, no one moved, and the only sound to be heard was the rushing wind and the pitter patter of Devin's blood dripping to the snow. Everyone was doing the exact same thing, of that Bartholomew was certain, and that thing was measuring.

Eric and his hunter friends were measuring the distance between themselves and that gigantic black monster. In turn, the monster was measuring the distance between itself and their bows.

Bartholomew, meanwhile, was measuring the distance from here to the line of torches at the mouth of the pass and the safety of the base camp beyond. How far were those flickering lights? Two hundred strides? Three hundred? Five? It was so hard to tell with the snow blowing everywhere, blurring all distance into a meaningless white mush!

"We have to get around that thing somehow," he whispered. "It's our only hope."

"Now who's insane!?" Nicky whispered back. "We can't get anywhere near it! If it grabs you, that's it! That's the end!"

"What other choice do we have? We can't run deeper into the pass, it's nothing but snow! We'll freeze to death even if that thing never finds us! We have to get back to camp, there's no other way!"

"But what if it chases after us? Did you think of that? We'll put everyone in danger!"

"Everyone's already in danger! At least this way we can warn them about it!"

"What if it regroups with its friends? Who do you think all those other Wolves will side with if it goes lumbering into the camp and starts ripping all the Foxes to pieces!? Get real, Barty! The battle will start all over again, except this time there won't be any walls to protect us!"

"Then what do you propose we do, huh!? What in gods' names can we possibly do other than run!?" Bartholomew looked his brother in the eye, but there was no cheer there anymore. No mischievous glints. There were no winks, no crooked smiles, no jokes, no puns, no japes. All he could see staring back from within that eye was unbridled fear and insanity. And, worst of all, most dangerous of all...

Anger.

"We have to _kill_it," Nicky said. "Right here, in this pass. We have to kill it just like it killed Devin and Ol' Dean!"

"You're not thinking clearly, brother."

"No, you're the one not thinking clearly, brother!"

"You can't fight it!"

"If all of us work together -"

"We'll all die! Listen, Nicky..." Bartholomew put his hand on Nicky's shoulder. "We have to look for an opening. If it moves, if it charges at someone, we take the opportunity and we run. We run as fast as we can."

"Charges at someone?" Nicky slapped his hand away, utterly disgusted. "Are you suggesting we condemn another friend to die just so we can tuck our tails between our legs and run like a pair of cowards?"

"Ander, Nilia, Sorrin, they're Wolves! They can handle this guy! We can't! Try and get that through your thick skull! We need help!"

"If you're so afraid, if you can just shrug off what that bastard did to Devvie and Dean and Matty right in front of our eyes, then go on! Go ahead and run! But I... I won't stand still anymore! I won't shake in my boots! I won't freeze in place and watch it tear my friends apart! Three was enough!"

Bartholomew now understood. It wasn't fear and insanity in those eyes, and neither was it anger. Those were only offshoots. What he was really looking at, what he was really seeing inside his brother's eyes...

It was grief.

"Nicky," he said, "you know I can't leave you behind. I made a promise, and so did you. If you make this decision, you're not just making it for yourself, you're making it for the both of us."

Nicky blinked, looked away, ground his teeth and gripped his shovel, twisting it in his hands. He opened his mouth to speak, but what his answer would have been was something Bartholomew never found out, because it was that exact moment that Peter from the bakery decided to pry Mateo's crossbow from his bloody hand and point it at the black abomination hiding behind Devin's corpse.

Rufio tried to stop him. He tried to grab him. "Stop, you fool!" But it was already too late. Peter tore free from Rufio's reaching hand and, screaming at the top of his lungs, he pulled the trigger.

Bartholomew knew, even before the heavy twang of Agatha's string reached his ears, that this brief respite, this silent standoff, was over.

The heavy crossbow bolt carried a lot of power behind its metallic tip, but it had nowhere near the same kind of range as a hunting bow, and fell well short of the target, disappearing into a puff of snow.

The Wolf opened its ruined mouth and roared, making the ropes of blood and drool between its teeth vibrate and break apart. It was a sound that rivalled even the torrential snowfall that had buried so many of its kind. And then it was running - no, sprinting across the snow, missing foot be damned, carrying Devin by the head like he weighed nothing at all. His arms and legs bounced up and down like a grotesque ragdoll, leaving behind a trial of red droplets in the snow.

"Move!" Bartholomew didn't know who he was shouting at, Peter, Rufio, Nicky, or perhaps all three. He didn't have time to think either way. He grabbed his brother by the shoulders and leaped off to the side, making them crash into the snow yet again, barely avoiding getting flattened by the charge. He was certain that if that monster had been aiming for them, this cute little move wouldn't have made a lick of difference. But the monster hadn't been aiming for them. It was aiming for the one still screaming his head off, compulsively squeezing the trigger on a crossbow that had already fired its only shot and no longer had a bolt resting in its groove.

Sporadic arrows sliced through the air. Bartholomew heard them more than he actually saw them. They made lethal fwip sounds as they flew over his head. Most of them missed the charging Wolf completely and shattered against the far wall of the pass. Some of them struck Devin's body. Only one lone arrow actually found its mark, piercing the beast's leg just above the knee, but not even that could slow it down, or even make it show any reaction at all.

It was strange to think that, even though he was dead, Devin still seemed to show more emotion than the creature who had ended his life.

Rufio ran for cover, but Peter... all he could do was let out one last terrified scream before the Wolf reached him, squeezing the trigger on Matty's unloaded crossbow again and again, succeeding only in making the catch go up and down.

The Wolf grabbed him around the throat and lifted him off the ground with one arm, cutting his screams down to a series of strangled gurgles. Agatha swung by her strap and fell to the snow, completely forgotten.

Peter kicked his feet and scratched at the massive fingers squeezing into his neck to no avail. His eyes bugged out of their sockets and his tongue flicked out from between his lips as he struggled for every sip of air.

Oblivious to the arrows sailing through the wind, the Wolf pulled him in close so their noses were almost touching, and repeated the same question he had asked of Devin. "Are you real?"

With Devin's mutilated body hanging only a few inches away, Peter was more than willing to cooperate.

"Yes, yes I'm real!" he screamed. "I'm real! I'm real!"

Bartholomew had enough time to think that Peter might have been a panicky idiot, but at least he still had enough wherewithal to answer this crazy question. It might be his only chance to get out of this alive.

It was a short-lived thought.

One moment Peter was still screaming "Yes! Yes! Yes! I'm real! I'm real!" and the next the Wolf struck like a snake, first wrapping its jaws around Peter's throat and then biting down hard. Peter's eyes went wide, his legs went rigid and his voice faded away to a dull whisper. "I'm real..."

The Wolf jerked its head back, ripping Peter's throat wide open. Blood cascaded from the wound like a crimson waterfall, flowing down his chest and splattering into the snow, sending up thick plumes of white steam.

Peter blinked, scratched weakly at the monster's arm, and then went completely limp.

My gods... Bartholomew thought, staring in horror at the look in Peter's eyes as he died. He saw the pain, the agony, and somehow worse than either of those, the confusion. Those were the eyes of a Fox who didn't understand what was happening to him. And then he was gone. Just... gone.

Where did he go?

That moment of transition from life to death, of light to darkness, of presence to absence, would have been horrible enough. The fountain of blood, now reduced to a dribble flowing from Peter's neck, would have been horrible enough. But that thing... that monster... had to make it even worse.

It chewed on something, passing it back and forth from one cheek to the other, rolling it around with its tongue, and spat it out again, the piece of meat he had bitten out of Peter's throat.

It looked at Peter, sneering in disgust, and said, "No. You're not."

More arrows whizzed by, rendered almost invisible by the swirling snow. They struck the Wolf one after the other: in the hip, in the side, and in the elbow. It was beginning to look like a giant black hedgehog, and yet the damn thing still stood upright, not fazed in the slightest. Any other person, even a Wolf, would have been writhing in its death throes by now, but it was as if this thing wasn't even aware of what was happening.

"You damn monster!" Gordon shouted. He crunched the birch twig between his teeth and nocked another arrow. "You damn son of a bitch!"

He let the arrow loose with a twang and it soared through the air, straight and true, going right for the sick creature's head.

That would have been the end right there. It would have been over. But the Wolf, it simply lifted Devin up without even turning its head. It was such a casual move, almost lazy, and the arrow stuck fast in his hollowed out chest, lining up neatly with all the other arrows that had failed to bring it down.

It was such a blasphemous sight, seeing one of his friends handled in such a way, being jerked about like a child's doll, his arms and legs dangling straight down, his head lolling against his shoulder. There was no dignity in that. No decency. No respect.

Devvie's life had been ripped out of his body, and now he was being used like a common tool.

And Peter. He used to give the ladies free cupcakes whenever they visited his family's bakery. His father would always yell at him afterwards, but he'd do it anyway, because he said he liked to see them smile. He liked to watch them take a big bite and then wipe away the frosting from the corners of their mouths. He said it made him feel good, knowing that the thing that could make those girls smile and laugh so beautifully was something he had made with his own two hands.

And now he was gone, reduced to a bleeding piece of meat. He'd never give away a free cupcake to a pretty girl ever again.

There was no dignity in that. No decency. No respect.

For the first time since this horror began, Bartholomew's fear wavered in the presence of an even greater force, a force he had seen in his brother before himself, and that force was anger.

"Damn it!!" Gordon drew another arrow from his quiver and fumbled with his bow while the Wolf watched, its monstrous red smile slowly growing wider and wider, just like the red patch of blood spreading through the snow at its feet.

He nocked the arrow home and pulled it back as far as he possibly could, making the bow bend and creak, but he never got a chance to fire.

The Wolf threw Peter's body the same way a bored kid might throw a stone at a fencepost. Gordon likely didn't even have enough time to realize what was happening before he was knocked off his feet by a corpse that hadn't even begun to cool down yet.

"Gordie!" William and Eric drew arrows of their own, but before they could even raise their bows Devin's body came flying through the air and crashed into them with a terribly wet smacking sound, knocking them both to the ground.

Henry, Flyn, and Samuels immediately placed themselves between that monster and their comrades, but it was useless. The Wolf was simply too fast. They didn't even have enough time to aim.

It was already on top of them.

Curtains of blood erupted into the sky and came down in a red shower. Screams turned to gurgles and whimpers turned to silence as Flyn stood, clutching his shredded throat. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, revealing the whites, and he simply fell facefirst into the snow, completely motionless except for the red river spilling from his neck, carving its way through the frozen landscape.

It was too fast. It was just too fast. It should be dead, but it was so fast...

Gordon rolled Peter's body off his chest and rose to one knee, covered in blood. Clumps of snow fell from his hair and broke across his shoulders. He looked at the three dead bodies surrounding him, taking it all in, Peter, Devin, and Flyn, lying in pools of spreading blood, and when he raised his head, his fangs were on full display and his eyes blazed with a calm, but inextinguishable fury.

"You _need_to die," he said, and pulled a brutish hunting knife from his belt.

The black Wolf stood with its arms opened wide and roared, sending ropes of spittle and drool into the wind. Perhaps it didn't see the knife in Gordon's hand, or perhaps it didn't care. Either way, one of them was about to die, of that Bartholomew had no doubt.

_What should I do? What should I do!?_The thought repeated itself over and over in his mind, but no answer came. He knew what the smart thing was to do. He knew what the logical thing was to do. He should take his brother and run. He should keep his promise. But he couldn't move! He couldn't look away! What he was witnessing right now... it chained him in place. It was nothing short of hell.

Gordon screamed at the top of his lungs and charged headlong at the towering Wolf, raising the knife above his shoulder.

He didn't even come close.

The Wolf's reach was too great, and the force with which he struck Gordon's head couldn't even be compared to a regular punch. This was more like an apple being struck by a crossbow bolt. Teeth burst from his mouth in an explosion of blood and his entire body was lifted right off his feet. He spun around in a quarter circle and slammed into the snow, his twitching fingers still clutching weakly at a hunting knife that turned out to be every bit as useless as the arrows sticking out of this monster's back.

"For gods' sakes, Will, get up!" Eric was trying desperately to get William back on his feet, but the Fox was still entangled in the remains of Devin's corpse. And to make things worse, William seemed to be only half conscious. His eyes were glassy and unfocussed and a sickly yellow patch of vomit was slowly drying to a hard crust across his shirt.

Watching the snow melting into puddles of blood, releasing thin tendrils of steam into the wind, Bartholomew couldn't help but wonder how much time had passed since they flipped over that trapdoor. It felt like an eternity of years, endless images of death and slaughter strung together like links in a chain, but in reality it couldn't have been more than one or two minutes.

One or two minutes.

Henry and Samuels had circled around to either side of the Wolf, their bows drawn and ready.

That won't work how have you not realised that won't work!?

Sensing the incoming attack like an animal with its wind up -

Maybe that's not even so far from the truth this thing really is like an animal it smelled them on the wind it smelled them coming.

• the Wolf raised its massive arms to shield its head and neck just as Henry and Sam let their arrows loose. One pierced its forearm and lodged itself against the bone, while the other went through the thick cord of muscle connecting shoulder to neck, right above the collarbone. The fletching twisted around in a half-circle as it lowered its arms, growling at the Foxes foolish enough to fire arrows from such short range.

What should I do!?

It all happened so fast, it was over before Bartholomew could even fully comprehend what had happened.

The Wolf simply grabbed Samuels by the throat. There was a loud cracking noise, like a rotten branch being stepped on, and then... he was dead. Blood flowed from his nose, his ears, his mouth, and pooled against the monster's fingers. The life simply vanished from his eyes and his bow slipped free of his dangling hands.

"Bastaaaard!!" Henry reached over his shoulder for another arrow, but he couldn't because his hand was no longer there. It was just a red and jetting stump, spewing blood into the air.

He looked at the jagged, crimson fountain his wrist had become, no real pain showing on his face yet, only slight confusion, as if he were wondering where his lifelong appendage could possibly have gone off to.

It was in the Wolf's mouth, slowly being chewed and crunched into a bloody paste of pulpified muscle, bone, and tendons.

Henry opened his mouth, probably to scream, but all he could produce was a hollow croak because the Wolf had stuck its claws deep inside his midsection.

It's too fast it's just too fast impossibly fast how is that even possible how does it move like that!?

Henry looked up at that face, split in two, with its single eye and torn cheek and perpetual smile of bloodred teeth.

It was the last thing he ever saw.

The Wolf ripped his stomach wide open. One moment the snow at Henry's feet was only speckled with the drips and splashes from his severed right hand, and the next an entire swath of snow had turned red, starting at a point and fanning outwards, sinking into the fine white powder, melting it, scarring it, devouring it.

It was a giant, crimson tooth.

Henry swayed in place, then simply keeled over with the wind. His eyes were still open and staring, but he was gone.

He was dead.

William clutched his stomach and vomited more strings of spit and bile into the snow, retching and heaving, gasping for breath.

"Gods damn it, Will!" Eric jerked him to his feet, causing Devin's body to tumble and roll through the snow, horribly limp and ragged, leaving streaks of blood in its wake. "If you can't fight, then go and get help!" He slapped the terrified Fox on the back, perhaps a bit roughly, but it got him going. He stumbled, almost fell, somehow regained his balance, and set off running towards the mouth of the pass and the twinkling orange lights of the torches, stepping high to keep from sinking into the snow.

The Wolf tracked him with that single, bloodshot eye. Perhaps it was only watching the movement like any other wild animal, but Bartholomew didn't think so. It knew exactly what William was trying to do, and it didn't like what would happen if he succeeded.

Not one bit.

With a bloodcurdling roar it gave chase, but it had no sooner taken its second step than it came to jarring halt. At first, Bartholomew thought its missing foot was finally catching up with it, but that wasn't the case.

Gordon had grabbed hold of its ankle. The left side of his face was tacky with blood, and his jaw was frightfully askew, but he was holding on with everything he had.

"You... jush... diiie!!" he screamed, blood dripping from his chin. He still had his hunting knife clutched in a desperate grip. He raised it above his head and plunged it deep into the meaty part of the Wolf's calf muscle, driving it in almost all the way up to the hilt.

But the creature didn't even wince. It didn't even blink. It just stared down at him with a slightly annoyed frown.

By the gods, this thing can't feel any pain, Bartholomew realised. There's something wrong with its head.

Gordon ripped the knife loose with one hard tug, drenching himself in the monster's blood. He raised it high, ready to plunge it back in, over and over, as many times as was necessary to sever muscle and tendon, to render it unable to walk for the rest of its natural life.

The Wolf raised its leg, the one that ended in a bleeding stump. The flesh had worn away around the edges, so there was at least half an inch of raw bone protruding from the wound. The Wolf took this crippled leg and drove it, point first, into Gordon's face. It made a sound like a wooden stake being pounded into mud with a hammer; one unexpectedly loud crack followed by the bubbling of water rushing in to fill the gap.

Gordon's fingers spasmed around the knife's hilt, then loosened again, twitching feebly.

He didn't move again after that.

An arrow flew past, missing the Wolf's head by inches. It lifted its gaze from the Fox sprawled in the snow and fixed it upon Eric, who was shaking so badly he couldn't even pull the next arrow from his quiver.

"You stay back!" he yelled, snot and tears streaming down his face. He finally grabbed the next arrow and proceeded to fail to nock it. It kept jittering out of alignment, or slipping free of the string. This was a Fox who had been out hunting in the forests since the age of seven. "I won't let you -"

The Wolf smacked him out of the way like a child that had grown tired of its building blocks. There really was that much of a difference between them. Eric didn't simply fall to the ground, he flew, spinning like a top through the air before ploughing headlong into the snow.

William was still running for all he was worth, his knees pumping up and down. He had almost made it halfway to the wall when he made the bad mistake of looking back.

The Wolf was coming after him, running through the snow in a crippled, lurching manner that caused explosions of white powder to erupt from beneath his uneven gait.

Will never stood a chance.

The Wolf fell on him like a bear, biting and clawing before they even crashed to the ground. William screamed and tried his best to cover his face and neck, not that it would have done any good. He was already as good as dead.

The Wolf raised both arms up in the air, its bony, muscular fingers spread wide, its claws sticking out like the fangs of a monstrous spider, dripping blood instead of venom.

That's when a rock - black, heavy, and still clad in a thin layer of frost - came sailing out of nowhere and struck it right between the ears, bouncing off the top of its head with a meaty thud. A runner of blood flowed down its forehead and across its muzzle as it twisted around, grinning its unshakable grin.

Rufio was standing amidst the fallen Foxes with an armful of rocks clutched to his chest and his pipe still sticking out of the corner of his mouth at a jaunty angle.

"Yeah, it was me!" he bellowed into the night, raising another rock above his shoulder. "You want some more? I got plenty!" He hurled it with all the strength he could muster and it bounced off the Wolf's chest, leaving a small crescent cut at the point of impact.

The Wolf cocked its head, then began to stand up. Almost immediately William began to scream and squirm, and it wasn't until Bartholomew looked down that he realized the Wolf's foot was planted firmly on top of his stomach. The poor fool tried in vain to push it off, but it wouldn't budge. And the higher the Wolf rose, the more weight it put on top of that foot, and the deeper it sunk into William's midsection, until his screams turned into bloodcurdling shrieks of pain.

"Get off him!" Rufio yelled and threw another rock. This one struck the Wolf above the eyebrow and went spinning off into the night, flicking beads of blood onto the snow.

The Wolf didn't so much as bat an eye. It simply stomped down hard on William's chest and an impossibly loud double-crack filled the pass as two of his ribs snapped beneath the pressure like twigs.

William curled into a tight little ball, hacking and coughing, spluttering blood into the snow, trying to scream but unable to draw in breath.

He wouldn't be getting up any time soon.

"Gods damn you!" Rufio shouted, throwing rock after rock. They struck the monster on the forehead, the jaw, the chest. One even bounced off an arrow still lodged in his shoulder, making the shaft vibrate violently up and down, causing even more blood to flow across the red, sticky tangles of its fur. But this creature didn't feel any of it. It was numb to pain. It just kept coming, smiling a smile that wasn't really a smile at all, but a deformation of its mouth, a cut in its face that just so happened to follow the lines of its lips, a grotesque, lopsided abomination.

Rufio didn't back down. If anything, he was actually throwing harder the closer the Wolf came, rapidly diminishing his already paltry supply of ammunition.

"Barty!"

He couldn't look away. There was something... unreal about that thing, like it wasn't supposed to be there, like it had crawled out of a nightmare and willed itself into existence through sheer brute force. It was a towering hulk of shadow and blood, fused together into something not of this world. It simply didn't belong!

"Damnit, Barty, snap out of it!" A voice in the wind, someone shaking his arm. Close by, but far away.

The torchlight was weak all the way out here, but that thing's shadow seemed to possess a life all its own. It stretched far ahead of its master, blacker even than the black walls of the pass, black enough to devour even the purity of the snow. It fell over Rufio as he scooped up the last rock from the crook of his elbow.

Run, you doddering old fool, just run!

Rufio looked at the rock in his hand, no more than a pebble, no more than a grain of sand, no more than a speck of dust, and then at the Wolf, staring down at him with one, bloodshot eye. That eye should have been almost invisible in this gloom, but it seemed to glow from the inside like a dying coal, a bloodred spot of light shining out of the deepest black.

Rufio's mouth turned down at the corners as he chomped down on the bit of his pipe, causing the bowl to lift ever so slightly. With a furious growl, he threw the rock at point blank range with all the anger he could muster, boiling inside his heart.

The Wolf didn't even try to duck out of the way and the stone crashed right between his eyes, wrenching his face upwards and sending a splatter of blood straight to the sky in a crimson arc.

For a while, all was silent save for the wind screaming through the pass. Rufio stood frozen in place, his arm still extended at the end of his throw, breathing heavily of the freezing air. And the Wolf...

The Wolf slowly lowered its head.

It was still smiling. Even with a weeping gash right above his muzzle and blood pouring down its face, it was still smiling.

It can never stop smiling, Bartholomew thought, absolutely horrified. It's physically unable to...

It grabbed Rufio by the throat, its long fingers completely encircling his neck like a collar, and began to lift him off his feet.

"Barty!" Someone was yanking on his sleeve. "What the hell are you doing!?"

He watched as Rufio struggled, kicking his legs back and forth, clawing at the monstrous black arm.

"Barty!"

The Wolf pulled Rufio in close so its breath washed over his face in clouds of white mist, and asked the now familiar question. "Are you real?"

Rufio took a deep breath, but instead of giving an answer, he blew on his pipe hard enough to make his cheeks stand out, blasting the Wolf in the face with a wet clump of ice-cold pipe weed and melted snow. Bits of brown, shredded leaves dripped from the creature's nose and were blown away by the torrents of air being expelled from its flaring nostrils.

It was then that Bartholomew realized he had been wrong about the Wolf's face. It was perfectly capable of not smiling, even with that massive gash in the corner of its mouth stretching all the way back to the bottom of its ear.

The muzzle crinkled and the brow furrowed. A deep, rumbling growl emanated from deep inside its throat. Dozens and dozens of teeth, each one a fang, each one a deadly dagger, coated in blood and gleaming in the dark, emerged from behind black, rising lips, transforming its mouth from a mutilated smile into a repulsive sneer.

"Dammit, Barty!"

Nicholas slapped him across the face. The shock of the impact combined with the biting cold left a stinging imprint of his hand against his cheek, fingers and all.

Bartholomew looked at his brother, and his brother looked back. "What are you going to do, Bart!?" he yelled, grabbing him by the shoulders.

Do?

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

Bartholomew looked to the uneven line of torches spluttering feebly along the remains of the wall, so close, and yet an infinite distance away, their only chance of escape.

But what about Devin? What about William? They tried to make a break for it, and look what happened...

Devin was just a vague shape in the snow now, a small dune of white with a reddish stain shining through its centre, and William was lying motionless in a crumpled heap, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth. Bartholomew couldn't even tell if he was still breathing or not.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

Nicky was saying something. Screaming in his face, shaking him back and forth.

"We have to do something! We have to help them! Godsdammit, Bart! Come back to me!"

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

The Wolf. A creature of blood, shadow, and inconceivable evil. It raised its arm and curled its fingers into a fist. Tendons stood out in its wrist like whipcord.

Bartholomew looked down at his own hands, at the shovel still clutched between his shaking fingers. He turned it around and gripped the handle, wringing his hands back and forth across the rough, wooden surface. The blade was covered in frost from tip to base, turning his reflection into a faded phantom of colour, eerily similar to the red stains spreading through the snow, each one a fallen comrade, each one a life lost.

Each one a Fox who can never go home.

The Wolf struck Rufio a sweeping blow across the face. Bartholomew saw it all happen in excruciating detail. The way his face moulded around the shape of the fist like a piece of dough, the way the blood squirted from his nostrils in double jets. His pipe flew out of his mouth and spun through the air in a slow, almost lazy arc, and landed in the snow not three strides from where Bartholomew and Nicholas stood.

The calabash was cracked right down the middle, and the bit was covered in blood.

Bartholomew looked to his brother, his twin, and Nicholas looked back.

Dad liked to brag about how his boys could hold entire conversations with each other without ever opening their mouths. Most dismissed it as simple poppy cock. Others whistled and nodded their heads, thinking there must be some kind of connection between them because they were brothers, because they were twins, but being twins didn't actually mean anything more than being born the same day.

The real reason Bartholomew and Nicholas could instantly know what the other was thinking wasn't because of some magical bond. It was far simpler than that. The reason they could hold entire conversations without ever opening their mouths was because they understood each other. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Bartholomew nodded, and Nicholas nodded back.

They understood each other.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

They charged at the Wolf, screaming, lifting their shovels above their heads. The rational part of Bartholomew's mind begged him to turn around and run the other way, but his feet kept going all by themselves, keeping perfect pace with his brother. The distance wasn't that great, but it felt much longer, perhaps because of Rufio's face. He was one of the most laid-back Foxes Bartholomew had ever had the pleasure of knowing, and seeing him without his calabash pipe sticking out of the corner of his mouth felt wrong on a fundamental level. His eyes, normally so friendly, just barely beginning to grow a set of crow's-feet, were now closed and puffy. Blood dripped steadily from his mouth and nose. His hands, strong hands, blacksmith's hands, hung limply by his sides. He couldn't fight back at all anymore. The brute's fingers had completely enveloped his throat like the legs of a spider straddling its prey, slowly sinking into his flesh, and already it was raising its fist for another shot, its knuckles dripping with blood.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither of you come back.

I'm sorry, Dad, but there are two ways to keep that promise...

There was already a wound in the monster's back, right between its shoulder blades: a long cut, barely healed over, probably no older than a day or two, and that was the spot Bartholomew aimed for. He reared back and swung the shovel like an axe, snapping arrows in half and smashing the head right on target. It bounced off with a hollow clang, sending a shockwave through his arms so strong he almost dropped it. He took a step back, grimacing against the freezing tingle in his muscles as a torrent of fetid blood and puss ran down the monster's spine, steaming in the freezing wind.

A bare moment later Nicholas came charging in, swinging his shovel at the Wolf's arm. The edge connected with the crook of its elbow, slicing a neat red line across its flesh, but the joint barely even buckled beneath the force of the impact. Rufio gave a little downward lurch, and that was about it. The Wolf's grip didn't even falter.

Bartholomew drove the tip of his shovel inside the gouge and twisted it, forcing the wound open. Blood ran down the wooden handle in rivers, dripping a dotted line in the snow.

That finally got its attention. It stopped and cocked its head. It was such a casual, everyday gesture, like someone trying to remember if they had left the kettle boiling.

Bartholomew screamed and whacked his shovel across the Wolf's back again, using all of his strength. This creature's behaviour infuriated him. Just the way it was acting, like this was no big deal, like ripping Foxes' heads off their shoulders was just a little hobby, like tearing throats out with its bare teeth was just something to do in its spare time, no different from taking a walk in the woods, whistling a merry tune.

"Let him go, you piece of crap!" Nicky shouted, thrusting his shovel like a spear, stabbing the tip directly into the Wolf's arm. He had already gouged out several triangular divots in its flesh using that technique. Blood dribbled from the open wounds, slicking its fur down in streaks of red.

Bartholomew sucked in a huge breath of freezing air, drew back his shovel over his shoulder, jumped up as high as he could and smashed it against the back of the monster's head with everything he had. It made a sound like a melon hitting a dry, dusty road on a summer's day, not quite hard enough to crack it open, but hard enough for you to know it'll be all nasty and mushy once you get it home and cut it open.

Bartholomew fell on his butt, gasping for air. His lungs burned in his chest and his arms ached like they had been impaled with iron rods.

The Wolf slowly rolled its shoulders, turned around, and looked down at him with that single, bloodshot eye. Its face appeared to be split right down the middle, growling and smiling at the same time, two impossibilities existing side by side.

Nicky stepped between them, holding his shovel out in front of him like a child playing sword. "Get back! Get the hell back!"

The monster looked at them, not blinking. It didn't move. Could it even understand them? Or did it simply not care? Rufio still dangled from his hand like a ragdoll, the tips of his boots occasionally dragging small furrows in the snow.

Nicky licked his lips, opening and closing his fingers around the wooden shaft. "Let him go!" he demanded, sounding much tougher than Bartholomew probably could have managed. "Let him go or by the gods I swear I'll -"

The Wolf suddenly grabbed Rufio by the head and held him out like a fisher displaying his latest catch, his eyebrows slightly raised. Even though it didn't speak a single word, Bartholomew could almost hear that deep, grating voice inside his head: Who? You mean this one right here?

Rufio slowly opened his puffy, swollen eyes. He licked his bloody lips, perhaps trying to find the comfort of his missing pipe. He blinked at them, squinting through the falling snow, and said: "Lads? Where -"

His eyes went wide, slowly filling with an unseen terror. His mouth contorted into a terrible grimace and suddenly he began to scream and thrash, kicking his legs and grabbing at the fingers around his head. The reason for this soon became clear as thick lines of blood started to ooze from his temples.

The Wolf was squeezing Rufio's head, slowly pushing his claws into the thin layer of meat surrounding his skull. He tried to pry them loose, but to no avail. They were stuck in there like fishing hooks. Bartholomew could actually see where the tips of the claws were curving around, making his fur bulge out from the inside. It was just like the curved needle Bethany sometimes used to thread stitches, except a thousand times thicker. The poor guy couldn't even scream anymore. His mouth was open but no sound came out. Tears stood out in the corners of his eyes, slowly freezing over. All he could do was grip his own head as if in an attempt to keep it from bursting apart.

The Wolf could do it, too. Bartholomew was certain of it. Just keep squeezing until Rufio's head exploded like an acorn in a vice...

"Let him go, you son of a bitch!" Nicky swung the shovel sideways across the brute's stomach, cutting a jagged line through its flesh. He did it again and again, screaming with every strike, carving crisscrossing red lines through the black fur, chopping at its body like a lumberjack would chop at a pine tree.

The Wolf simply stared. It didn't even frown or pull a face.

Bartholomew didn't like this. He didn't like this one bit. Charging in like this was, without a doubt, the most foolhardy thing they had ever done, and that was saying a lot. "Nicky! Get away from that thing!" He scrambled to his feet, feeling slow and numb from the cold, sure that something terrible was about to happen.

He was right.

Nicky pulled the shovel as far back over his shoulder as he could reach and swung it through the air, pivoting on his heel, slicing through innumerable snowflakes with the bladed edge, but it never reached its mark.

There came a dull and heavy smack as the Wolf caught it with one hand. Cracks appeared in the shaft around its fingers, giving birth to sharp splinters, simply popping out of the wood, and then...

The handle didn't snap so much as it exploded in a shower of jagged fragments, quickly caught and scattered by the wind. The head simply fell straight down and stuck in the snow, leaving Nicholas holding nothing more than a severely shortened stick with a bunch of prickly splinters blooming from the far end.

Not that he didn't try to use it anyway. He lifted it with both hands, like he was going to plant a flag, and the Wolf simply knocked him off his feet with a single backhanded blow, catching him right in the face.

"Nicky!"

How long did it take his brother to fall to the ground? How long did it take the blood to stream from his mouth like a kite string in the wind? How long did it take the puff of snow to scatter after he finally struck the earth?

All the time in the world, and no time at all.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

"Nickyyyy!" Bartholomew dropped down to his knees by his fallen brother's side. His eyes were still open, but half-lidded and unfocussed. One tooth was missing, and his mouth was quickly filling up with blood.

Looks like we won't be able to pull the old switcheroo on Dad anymore, Bartholomew thought crazily, lightly tapping his brother's face. Not unless I break my own tooth as well...

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

The Wolf looked at Rufio with a small frown spreading across its lopsided face, as if only now realising it was still holding on to this struggling, kicking, thrashing Fox, and it was quickly turning into a real annoyance.

Without warning, it threw Rufio just as it had thrown Peter and Devin, sending him sailing through the air at a fantastic speed. He struck the northern wall of the pass sideways, splattering blood all over the rocky outcroppings in a red starburst. His screams ended right there, without any fade or pause for breath, as though his vocal cords had been severed in an instant. He fell down, facefirst, into the snow, a red patch slowly spreading across the back of his winter coat, shredded in several places by the stones.

He wasn't moving.

And that's when the Wolf's shadow fell on Bartholomew and his brother. He didn't know how that could be possible, since the only light was shining in from the east, and the Wolf was approaching from the west, but it was true, all the same. Not only could he see the blackness spreading across the snow, erasing it like an artist smearing black paint over a blank piece of canvas, he could actually feel it passing over him. It was cold, but not in a normal way, not like the wind and the snow all around him. This was an inside cold, a cold that spread through his veins like poison.

Bartholomew looked up at the figure staring down at him, not really a Wolf at all, he was sure of that now, but something that was only pretending to be a Wolf. Its disguise was frayed and torn, barely holding together. If he squinted his eyes just right, he could almost, not quite, but almost see what was underneath. The rotting, squirming, maggot infested flesh. This thing, whatever it was...

Bartholomew wasn't even sure it was truly alive.

He grabbed his shovel, but he hadn't even lifted it an inch off the ground before the Wolf stomped down on it, pinning it in place, and no matter how hard Bartholomew wrenched and pulled, he couldn't budge it.

It looked at him. A black creature that swallowed any and all light that dared to shine upon it, a single red eye in the dark and an infinite number of teeth, smiling down at its prey.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

Bartholomew reached for his brother's hand, but it was already too late for that. Those monstrous black fingers slammed into his throat and squeezed down hard, cutting off his air. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think. The pain was unbearable. He could feel the tip of every claw pressing against the sides of his neck, right on the verge of piercing his flesh. He gasped and wheezed, clawing at those massive fingers to no avail. His entire world had been reduced to searing pain and a single eye staring down like a bloodred moon.

His feet left the ground, and it was with complete and utter amazement that he realized he was being lifted into the air.

This is exactly what happened to Peter right before he died, he thought, fighting to stay conscious. Panic swelled in his heart, but he couldn't even cry out. There was no air for him to scream with. He could hear the blood rushing in his temples, a steady whooshing throb. He could feel the heat building inside his face. There was a black haze forming around the edges of his vision, and he had no idea if it was because of the snow blowing into his eyes or if he was passing out. Maybe passing out would be better. Maybe he wouldn't have to feel his throat being ripped out by a set of jagged, bloody teeth.

"Let... Let my brother go, you son of a bitch!"

Nicky?

"I said let him go! Let him - gouargh!!" Nicky's voice deteriorated into a strangled gargle.

What's going on? Nicky!

Did he say that out loud, or did he only think it? It was hard to know for sure. There were so many sounds flowing into his ears, but he couldn't make sense of any of them.

Someone gasped for air and moaned in pain. The wind howled. Blood dripped. The Wolf growled.

He couldn't turn his head at all, but he managed to look to the side just far enough to be able to see his brother, stuck in the exact same predicament he was. The Wolf had him by the throat, and he was hanging about two strides above the ground, kicking and flailing his legs.

Nicky...

He punched the brute's arm again and again, not giving up, even as blood slowly flowed from the corner of his mouth.

The Wolf leaned in close, almost close enough to kiss Nicky on the nose, and...

And what the hell was happening to it?

Bartholomew blinked, certain that the lack of air must have touched his brain somehow, because...the Wolf, it...

It was all teeth.

It wasn't a head with teeth attached, it was literally just a massive set of fangs embedded inside a mass of smaller, writhing teeth. It was teeth growing out of teeth. It was a ball of teeth with a jagged split running through the middle, creating a smiling mouth devoid of flesh and tongue. It was a gaping hole filled with teeth, but moving somehow, like wheat caught in a gentle breeze, undulating, swaying back and forth. Teeth covered in slick saliva. Teeth with bits of flesh caught between them. Teeth dripping with blood. And in the centre of this squirming mass of fangs there was a single, blood red eye. Not round, like a Wolf's eye, but slitted, like a snake's.

"Are you real?" this creature asked of Nicky, so close that the tips of the longer fangs were actually brushing against his cheeks.

Nicky spat a disgusting drop of blood right into the monster's face by way of answer, but it didn't even seem to notice.

It switched its attention to Bartholomew instead and repeated the question, the final question Devin and Peter ever heard. "Are you real?" it asked, blood flowing down between the innumerable teeth that made up its face.

Bartholomew couldn't have answered it one way or the other. The brute probably didn't even realize it, but it was squeezing down on his throat so hard he couldn't produce anything more than a feeble croak.

I'm real... I'm real... and so is my brother... so please, please... don't kill us...

We promised...

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

A warm line of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, making a perfect mirror image with his brother.

The Wolf growled and its fangs flared wide, shaking and vibrating against each other, producing a sound not unlike a rattlesnake's tail. Bartholomew could feel its breath blasting him in the face, reeking of blood and death.

He reached out blindly, feeling around inside the encroaching darkness until his fingers found the familiar shape of his brother's hand. They locked together, each of them squeezing hard. Through that single touch they could feel every ounce of love they had ever shared for each other over the course of their lifetimes.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

Bartholomew fought the darkness, willing it to go away just long enough so he could get one last look at his brother's face.

Bartholomew and Nicholas could share entire conversations with each other without ever opening their mouths, and now, right at the very end, they could tell what the other was thinking as if they had spoken out loud.

Love you, brother.

Love you, too, brother.

The Wolf roared. Bartholomew squeezed down on Nicky's hand, and Nicky squeezed back.

Either_both _of you come back, or neither_of you come back._

Bartholomew closed his eyes and the world went dark. The monster's breath was on his neck, sickly warm.

I'm sorry, Dad. It looks like we'll be able to keep that promise after all... but not in the way you wanted...

---

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