"No," he said. "I understood that wasn't possible. I couldn't go home-I would just be putting my family at risk. I came here because here I couldn't hurt anyone. In the wild places, where there weren't any people, I couldn't kill anybody."

Chey rubbed at her face with her hands. "Did you ever think of going back? To Lucie, I mean? You must have been so lonely."

"I never even considered finding Lucie again. She found me instead. I did think about going back to Germany, though. I used to think all the time about finding the Graf and his son, and killing them. I thought about it a lot."

"But you didn't?"

"No. I didn't need to. Hitler took care of them for me. In the Thirties, after he took over in Germany, he put out an edict that every werewolf in Germany had to be euthanized. And anyone who harbored a werewolf got the same punishment. They were among the first to go. You can call that justice, if you want."

Chey didn't know what to think of that.

There was something she wanted to say, though. Something she didn't want Lucie to hear. "Listen," she told him. "It sounds like there's not a lot of hope for me. Like this is just going to get worse. When the time comes-when there's nothing of me left, I want you to-"

She stopped. Something had moved behind her. Something that wasn't Lucie. Something big was displacing most of the air in the den. She spun around, thinking the bear who built the den had returned-or maybe the Russian hunter had found them; he had entered the den and was going to kill them all.

Instead, it was Dzo.

"Hi," the spirit said. He was covered in mud and his mask was dripping wet.

His appearance didn't entirely surprise Chey. She was certainly startled by it, but it didn't confuse her as much as it might once have. She had seen Dzo pop up in some very strange places, places where nobody should have been able to go. Wherever there was clean water-even the slow drip of groundwater sweating from the walls of the den-Dzo had access.

Powell turned and half sat up. His face changed instantly when he saw his old friend. "Have you got some news for us, old man?"

Dzo scratched underneath his furs. "The hunter's gone. He left. He tried to fool me, but I was too smart for him."

"What do you mean?" Powell asked.

"He said he was going to leave three days ago. Promised me he wouldn't hurt you and that he was giving up. I was ready to come back inside and tell you-"

"Wait," Powell said. "You talked to him?"

Dzo nodded. "Varkanin? Sure. He's actually a pretty nice guy, if you're not a werewolf. He made me some tea and we had a pretty long chat. How else was I going to figure out when he was leaving?"

Powell shook his head. "I asked you to watch him discreetly."

"Oh, I minded my manners," Dzo said. "I even held my pinky finger up when I drank my tea."

"That's not what 'discreet' means," Chey said, and rubbed the spirit's fur-covered arm. It was good to see him. It helped get her mind off of ... other things.

"Yeah, okay. Anyway," Dzo went on, annoyed at being interrupted, "he said he was going to leave, and that it was safe for you to come out. I believed him at first, but then I noticed that he just went a little ways down the lake and made a new camp. And that he was still watching me with a pair of binoculars. I remembered what you told me once, Powell. About humans, and how sometimes they make up stories to fool each other. I figured Varkanin might be lying to me. That's the word, right? So I went into the lake and watched him from there. I can see pretty good under the water. He stuck around another three days, but then he left for real. He's about a hundred kilometers away, now. You think we'll ever see him again? I liked him. I never met a blue human before."

"Blue?" Powell asked. Then he shook his head. "Never mind. You did a good job, Dzo. Thanks."

Lucie stirred. "This means we can leave?"

"Yeah." Powell moved to the mouth of the den, which was still partially collapsed. "Come on. Help me dig us out. Chey-you take it easy. You're still recovering from your injuries."

The two werewolves worked fast. They seemed more than eager to get outside of the den and back to the wider world. Chey could imagine why. As cool light streamed in through the widening mouth, her stomach started growling, and she realized she was hungry for the first time since she'd been poisoned.

"Come on," Powell said, and took her hand. He led her out of the den, and together they stood upright again, blinking in the sunlight.

There was an awful lot of sunlight. It took a while for Chey's eyes to adjust-and to see where all the glare was coming from.

The ground outside the den was covered in nearly a foot of crisp white snow. It must have fallen while they were inside. Winter had come to the north.

part two.

the barren grounds.

Preston Holness was in his happy place.

That did not mean he was happy.

He was surrounded by silk ties, in every possible combination of colors and patterns. One polished oak table held an array of matching handkerchiefs, while a glass case displayed tie pins that ranged from daring Art Deco fantasias to patriotic enamel maple leaves to tasteful but very large pearls set in white gold. He was in a shop that catered to people exactly like himself-powerful men who liked to dress well, and were happy to pay for the privilege of doing so.

It was the kind of place where you could have a heated discussion on your cell phone, as Holness was doing now, and the shop clerks wouldn't even shoot nasty looks at you. They understood that your work must be very important or you wouldn't have come in the shop in the first place. They understood that if you were taking a call, it was because you had to.

"I think we can be cautiously optimistic about what happened. Varkanin engaged them for the first time. He didn't expect to get them right away." Holness considered, carefully, a lie, then went ahead and told it. "I didn't expect him to, either. These things aren't easy. They take careful preparation and there's the basic necessities of survival to consider. He's not going to do you much good if he freezes to death. Do you know how cold it is up there at this time of year?"

On the other end of the line Demetrios all but snarled. "I want results, not a status report. He saw them. He shot at them. They are all still alive. Every day it takes is another day we have to wait on sending our crews in. Do you know how long it takes to survey a drill site, much less build a pipeline? Our people don't give a shit how cold it is."

"I'm sure I'll have better news for you very soon. Varkanin is motivated. He isn't going anywhere until he-until he achieves a satisfactory result." Even in a store with this understanding of high-powered phone calls, Holness didn't want to say the phrase "until he kills our werewolves" out loud.

"He's motivated when it comes to the French one," Demetrios said. "Are you telling me that if he gets her first, he'll actually stick around to take care of the other two? They mean nothing to him."

"I personally met with him and brokered a deal," Holness assured the lawyer. "From my end, I'm providing all the support I can muster. On his end ... well. I can promise you he is committed to this. He would have done anything I asked for a chance to-to close the French deal."

"Committed. He's committed to it," Demetrios said, sounding one shade less angry than he had before. "I need something to take back to my superiors. Tell me how committed he is. Give me some proof of his commitment."

That, at least, Holness could provide. "You've seen the picture in his dossier. You've seen his blue skin. It's no accident he looks like that. Have you ever heard of something called colloidal silver?"

The three werewolves were intoxicated by their newfound freedom, after they emerged from the den. Lucie danced across the snow, stretching every muscle in her body, while Powell ran around looking for signs of danger. Chey wanted to join them, wanted to do jumping jacks or yoga or just anything that would get her body moving again, but she felt like just crawling out of the muddy den had left her exhausted.

Dzo stood by, watching it all with a vaguely amused look.

"By God, it feels good to walk again," Lucie exclaimed, stretching her arms up toward the sky. She was standing on top of a rock that had been cleared of snow by the wind. "Two weeks in that hell! I thought it would never end."

"Lucie," Powell said, "I'm pretty sure this is your name."

"To breathe clean air. To see the sun! I am overjoyed," Lucie went on, lifting one leg, then the other. "Cher, do you not feel this good?"

Two weeks? Chey had had no idea it had been that long. She must have slept through most of it while her body repaired itself. It still didn't feel all that great. Knowing she was on an express train to crazy-town probably didn't help, but she felt weak and lethargic. Two weeks? Really?

"Could you just come down here for a moment?" Powell asked.

"Are you okay?" Dzo asked, taking Chey's arm. She tried to smile at him.

"How I long to run beneath the moon. To stretch and leap and jump. How I-"

"Enough!" Powell shouted.

Everyone turned to look at him. He was standing next to a tree, just outside the abandoned den. It looked like the bark had been cut up by something with sharp claws.

"Dzo," Powell said, his voice lowered now. "You're sure you didn't tell Varkanin where we were?"

"Well, no," the spirit said, looking guilty.

"No what?"

Dzo shrugged. "I mean, he already knew."

Chey looked again at the scarred tree. The scratches there looked kind of like writing, if you squinted, but like nonsense writing, like someone who didn't know the alphabet trying to make letters anyway. Then her brain made the connection. The scratches were in fact letters, very neatly carved into the bark. They just weren't in the alphabet she was most familiar with.

"That's-what? Cyrillic? Is that how they write in Russia?" Chey asked.

"Yeah," Powell said. "I can't read it. Lucie? I'm betting you can, since this first part looks a lot like your name."

Lucie was still standing atop her rock, as if she was afraid to get her toes wet in the snow. For a moment she just stared down at Powell, but then she jumped to the ground and walked over to the tree.

"It's nothing," she said. "Just a sign of his frustration. He knows we are too quick for him, and-"

"What does it actually say?" Powell demanded.

Lucie looked straight into his eyes as she repeated the message Varkanin had left for her. "It reads, 'Lucie, you will never have a home.' It means-"

Powell held up a hand for silence.

Chey knew what he was thinking. She was thinking it, too. The hunter had known where they were. He must have watched them crawl into the den. He could have killed them in there, when they had no place else to run to. He must have had a good reason not to do just that, but Chey couldn't think what it was.

A shiver ran down her back that had nothing to do with the weather.

"It means you can't hide from him. That he isn't going to just give up." Powell shook his head. "I wouldn't have believed him if he said otherwise. Fine. We need to get moving."

"I could really use a break," Chey said. "I'm still not a hundred percent, and maybe if I could just sit for a while. You know."

Powell came over and grabbed her shoulders. "I'd love to let you rest. I'd love to build some kind of shelter and overwinter here. But we just can't. He'll be back, probably when we're not expecting him."

"Okay," Chey said, struggling up to her feet. "Maybe I'll feel better once I get some exercise. Just-walk it off, right?"

"That's my girl. Come on. Lucie-you take point. You've got so much energy, you run on ahead and see if he left us any surprises. We're heading north."

"North?" Lucie asked.

"North?" Dzo echoed.

"Seriously, north?" Chey laughed. "What, like, toward the pole?"

"North," Powell repeated. "Lucie-get moving. We only have a few hours before the moon comes up. We need to be well clear of this place by then. He may be gone now, but there's nothing stopping him from coming back at any time. Dzo, help Chey walk if she needs it."

Lucie shrugged and darted off into the willow bushes to the north, moving almost as fast as her wolf could have run. Dzo offered Chey his arm and she took it gladly. She could walk with his help, though she wondered how long it would be before she just collapsed in the snow and Powell had to carry her again.

She didn't doubt that they needed to get away. But she did wonder why Powell had chosen this direction. The snow was thick enough to make walking difficult already. The farther north they got the more of it there was likely to be. And while the cold didn't bother werewolves the same way it bothered humans, there was a limit even to lycanthropic toughness. They were heading north, in the Arctic, at wintertime. It was one of those things you just didn't do. When Chey had been younger she had watched more than one television documentary that started out with a bunch of hikers heading north in winter. Typically they were documentaries about how people lost toes and other body parts to frostbite.

"Where are you taking us?" Chey asked.

Powell shrugged. "I just want to get clear of this area."

"That's bullshit. Lie to Lucie if you want to. But not me, Powell. I don't have much time left, so don't waste it on garbage. You're headed somewhere. Somewhere specific. Tell me!"

"It's you I'm thinking of," he told her. His icy green eyes revealed nothing. "I'm going to save you, Chey. If I can. So trust me. Alright?"

"You're looking for the place where the curse started," she said, suddenly getting it. "Like we talked about, before. You said in the spring we would go look for it, because you thought there was a cure there." She shook her head. "We're going to tramp through the snow forever just in case you might be right?"

"It's your only chance," he told her.

Far to the north, on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, lay the community of Umiaq. It was not a very large town, even by the standards of northern Canada. It had a permanent population of less than two hundred people, though that could swell at times when there was work to be had. The town had a general store and a post office, and a place that was a bar in winter and a fish restaurant in the summer when the ice-breakers could make their way into the harbor. It had a community hall that also served as the health center, with one nurse in attendance five days a week. Beyond that it had about a dozen houses, all of them looking as weather-beaten and small of stature as the local residents, 90 percent of whom were Inuit. The town's mayor was Metis, since he had a white trapper for a grandfather. As he made his way down the one plowed street of his domain he waved at everyone he saw, and stopped to shake hands with people he knew he wouldn't be seeing for months. The season called freeze-up was over, and winter was coming down out of the north pretty fast. Like it did every year, winter was going to drive most people into homes as snugly shut up and cozy as animal burrows. For weeks now these people had been stockpiling food and fuel, knowing how difficult it would be to get to the store once the snow started piling up for real and every creek and waterway leading out of town froze solid.

The Mayor stopped in front of the store and knocked caked snow off of his boots. The man named Varkanin was there waiting for him, sitting on a bench out front. He didn't know what to make of this new fellow, the Russian. It wasn't so much his nationality that bothered the Mayor. He'd met plenty of Russians before, coming through town off oceangoing fishing ships. Besides, he'd done a little checking and found out the Russian was working on behalf of the Canadian government, though of course that was all off the books. The government had given Varkanin plenty of money-which would normally make him the most popular guy in Umiaq. But his bright blue skin was disturbing.

"Have you spoken with your people?" Varkanin asked. "Have you found any who might be willing to assist me?"

"Well ..." the Mayor said, rocking back and forth on his heels. "You gotta understand, we're what you might call a traditional sort of people. We're a people who like to tell stories. And we got a lot of stories about people who look strange." The Mayor held up two mittened hands. "No disrespect meant, now."

"None was inferred." The Russian was polite enough, and he wasn't in town to get drunk, which was also a plus.

The Mayor frowned, though. "Most people here think you must be some kind of angakkuq. That's like a shaman, I guess you'd say. Now, the angakkuq in most of the stories is a good guy; he helps the community. But he's scary, too, because he can do magic and talk to the spirits. You probably don't believe in spirits, since you're a southerner."

The Russian smiled knowingly. "I drank tea with one a few days ago," he said.

The Mayor cocked one eyebrow. Now that was weird. The Mayor believed in spirits; there was no doubt in his mind that they existed. But the idea that you could actually meet one-much less sit down and drink tea with it-was a little beyond how he conceived of them. He'd always thought of them as one of those things that was real specifically because you never actually had to confront it. He could believe they would drink tea, though, if they drank anything. He was a coffee man himself.

"I am no shaman, though," Varkanin continued. "I am here with the implicit sanction of your government-"

The Mayor shook his head. "That's not going to hold a lot of water with this bunch, honestly. They consider themselves people of Nunavut, not Canada."

Varkanin folded his arms across his chest. "I understand. Sir, I am only a simple hunter. I have found that my game is too challenging for me to handle alone. I only require the help of a few other hunters, men like myself, hardy, brave souls. Who preferably know how to operate a snowmobile. I assumed I could find such people here."

"Oh, sure. You came to the right place for that," the Mayor assured him.

"Then the problem is simply one of psychology." Varkanin nodded to himself. "I did not wish to reveal something to you quite yet."

"Oh?" the Mayor asked. He'd kind of known there was something fishy about this guy. Now it looked like he might just find out what.