Thor.

by Wayne Smith.

To Keiko, my absentee muse.

Prologue.

The smell of blood changed everything.

The bear had been wandering the woods aimlessly for hours, driven by a hunger that seemed to have gained a life of its own, and was now trying to claw its way out of his gut.

Something had gone wrong the previous autumn; his favorite fishing stream had gone thin and shallow and the salmon hadn't swum past his waiting paw in thick schools as they had in years past. He'd spent whole days staring at the water, when he should have been gorging himself on fish.

And when the days grew short and his instincts told him to crawl into his cave, the meager layer of fat he'd built up wasn't nearly enough to carry him through the winter. His stored calories were gone before it was time to open his eyes, and hunger tormented him as he slept. He woke early, ornery and angry at the world, only to discover that the forest hadn't restocked itself yet.

There were no leaves on the trees, and it was much too early to find berries or honey or salmon. His nose, the best in the forest, found only the smells of green wood and moist soil, smells that ordinarily wouldn't have bothered him, but now mocked him with their emptiness.

His mood grew darker and darker as each step he took seemed to add to the strident demands of his stomach. His tongue felt thick and bloated in his dry mouth. Tension tightened the muscles in his neck, giving him a dull headache that enveloped his skull.

The forest was ugly and hostile, and life was cruel.

Suddenly sharp pains stabbed the corners of his jaw as the rich smell of blood jolted his long-dormant salivary glands into action.

And just as suddenly the forest became home again; a good place, a friendly place - a place that would soon provide him with food.

He turned toward the breeze that carried the blood scent and set off after it, plunging through the woods at high speed, unconcerned by the noise he made. He was not a fearful animal; as the biggest and most dangerous predator in the forest, only another bear could take him on one-to-one. And on the few occasions when he'd found himself forced to retreat from another bear, his emotions were a jumble of anger, frustration and confusion - but not fear.

But as he neared the source of the blood scent, a vague, unfamiliar sense of foreboding came over him.

He stopped and listened to the forest.

Nothing.

Hunger quickly pushed his newfound caution from his mind. He pressed ahead and spotted the carca.s.s, strangely alone in a clearing. He charged forward, eager to taste his first meal in months.

The prey had been badly mauled yet appeared to be whole. The torso was open; splayed ribs displayed uneaten organs within. He poked his snout into the carca.s.s and was surprised to find the liver still intact. The liver was the best part, the first thing eaten by any predator. He consumed it in two bites without chewing. His stomach lurched, then settled, and he sat down to enjoy himself.

But halfway through his meal, as his hunger faded, an odd feeling of unease came over him. He lifted his nose from the carca.s.s and looked up, half expecting trouble. He saw nothing, but couldn't shake the sensation that a threat hung in the air. The forest around him was utterly still, which was normal, considering the noise he'd made on his arrival, but for some reason it bothered him. He began to feel irritated, ornery. He scanned the horizon for anything moving, and saw nothing. He wasn't rea.s.sured.

He felt something out there, something in the distance that he shouldn't let catch him unawares. He snarled and let out a low growl of warning. Nothing moved. He dipped his nose back into the carca.s.s, but the feeling nagged at him, and he looked up as soon as he had a mouthful, and watched the horizon while he chewed.

His wariness was robbing him of the enjoyment of his meal. Each time he lowered his head for another bite he felt more uneasy about taking his eyes off the horizon.

Finally he could stand it no more. Snarling his displeasure, he gripped one limb of the cadaver with his teeth and dragged it backwards in the direction he'd come from, watching the woods in front of him the whole way, troubled by the knowledge that it wasn't the kill he was removing from the area. It was himself.

He dragged the carca.s.s more than a mile before the feeling faded.

Then he promptly forgot everything but the tasty meal that had been interrupted.

He was about to dip back into the bountiful torso when a powerfully sweet smell caught his nose. He poked his snout into a pocket of the open down jacket the cadaver still wore, and pulled out a Baby Ruth. He ate the candy bar with the wrapper still on.

Chapter 1.

Thor got a bad feeling about the Stranger from the moment he saw him, while the man was still almost a block away - just a tiny figure striding up the sidewalk past the neighbors' neatly groomed lawns, apparently coming straight to the Packs's front yard - where the kids were killing time.

It was the Stranger's walk that bothered Thor. Every walk is unique, a signature that even humans can recognize from a distance, often by the sound alone. But a walk tells more than just the ident.i.ty of the walker. Walks are triumphant or defeated, genuinely proud or artificially boastful, innocent or guilty - all of which seemed to escape most humans. None of it escaped Thor.

The Stranger's walk made Thor's gut tighten. The muscles in his legs and jaw tensed slightly, and a tingling sensation at the base of his neck told him the thick black fur between his shoulders was rising. He willed it down (which he could do in the early stages of an alert) and tried to hide his unease from the kids. But he didn't take his eyes from the Stranger.

There was something arrogant and secretive . . . almost malicious in the Stranger's gait, and it didn't look better as the man came closer. Thor instinctively sniffed the air in the Stranger's direction, knowing it was a futile gesture. The Stranger was downwind. There would be no scent until he was much closer.

Too bad. A good snoutful could tell so much.

He hoped the Stranger wasn't a troublemaker. It was Sat.u.r.day, the day the Pack spent together, and the Pack had big plans - it didn't need any trouble from Strangers.

Thor looked over his shoulder at the house. Mom and Dad were still inside, banging things around, getting ready for the trip. He considered barking to bring them out, but rejected the idea. Nothing had happened yet, and he knew from bitter experience that his barks would be taken as a false alarm. And then he would be in trouble, not the Stranger.

For now, at least, he was on his own.

There was nothing to do but wait and play it cool. And why not? Thor was in full view of the Stranger, and he was well aware that his appearance tended to put Strangers on their guard - and on their best behavior.

Just the same, he wouldn't take chances. To take chances with the Pack's safety was unthinkable.

Nothing in the world was more important than the Pack.

The Pack's plans had begun over dinner the previous night. Thor didn't know the days of the week, or exactly how many there were, but he always knew on Friday night that the Pack would spend the next two days together. And it was always a big relief. During the week, when Dad went to work and the kids went to school (which, thankfully, they hadn't done since summer started), they were beyond Thor's protection, and he waited anxiously for their return. He always slept best on Friday nights, secure in the knowledge that the Pack had survived another week of day-long separations.

And now another Friday night had arrived, and Thor lay contented on the kitchen floor with his eyes closed, apparently oblivious to the Pack's dinner-table talk. He generally ignored conversations between Mom and the kids or Dad and the kids, but any conversation between Mom and Dad held his undivided attention, whether he showed it or not. And in fact, he was listening intently, not to the Pack's words so much as to the emotional currents in which their words swam, like schools of fish.

The emotions were warm and positive and flowed like music. There was a note of mischief in Dad's voice - a certain teasing tone that Thor had heard many times in the past. Only Thor noticed it, and only Thor understood what it meant: Dad was sitting on a secret, getting ready to spring a surprise on the Pack. Curious about Dad's secret, Thor shifted his attention slightly to listen for familiar words and phrases. He didn't have to; Dad's secret was revealed in a single word so charged with meaning, it would have wakened Thor from a deep sleep.

" . . . maybe the BEACH tomorrow . . ." Dad said.

Thor's head snapped up, eyes wide and ears erect. Brett and Teddy, the Pack's male pups, yelled, "All right!" in unison, and Debbie, their little sister, squealed with delight and banged her spoon on the table. Thor almost got up to nuzzle Dad's hand excitedly, but caught himself - it was dinnertime, and when the Pack went out after dinner, Thor usually stayed home. So he lay on the floor and listened.

It quickly became obvious that the Pack wasn't going anywhere right away. The BEACH was for tomorrow, which was good news. Thor would almost certainly go along.

While the kids made grandiose plans and compared notes on previous BEACH outings, Mom and Dad withdrew from the discussion and turned to more mundane topics. Mom listened with moderate interest as Dad mentioned people Thor had never met, but whose names came up almost every night. Thor's attention shifted back to the emotional currents as the kids calmed down and the Pack settled into its usual routine.

After dinner, the Pack retired to the living room to watch TV. Thor waited until they left the kitchen, then lazily hauled himself off the floor and ambled into the living room. He tried to make it look like he'd decided to change his location on his own, independent of the Pack's move. Sometimes he felt self-conscious about following them around all the time.

The Pack watched the tube for a few hours, while the world darkened outside. Then Dad lifted himself out of his easy chair, the signal that the Pack's bedtime had arrived. As usual, Teddy, the oldest pup at twelve, whined to stay up later. Brett, his eight-year-old brother, halfheartedly supported the protest, but they both knew it was no use. Mom and Dad kept early hours, and there was no way the boys could get permission to stay up later than their parents. Four-year-old Debbie was already asleep in Dad's arms.

Thor followed the Pack upstairs, first into Debbie's room, then into the bedroom shared by Brett and Teddy. He watched Mom and Dad tuck the kids in, turn out the lights, and close the bedroom door. Then he followed the Mating Pair to their bedroom door, watched it close, and waited for the light underneath to go out. His nightly security check was almost done.

He went back to the kids' bedroom doors and poked them with his nose to see that they were latched. As he pushed Brett and Teddy's door, he heard them whispering about the BEACH and felt a physical thrill of antic.i.p.ation. He had completely forgotten about the BEACH since dinner.

He listened for a moment, lost interest, and climbed downstairs to finish his rounds.

He took a last walk through the ground floor, briefly stopping at each window to look and listen for intruders. Finally, his rounds complete, he hopped onto his favorite easy chair, the one strategically place at the base of the stairs, where any unusual noise from upstairs or down would wake him.

He curled up on the soft cushion and fell asleep in less than a minute. His paws, ears, and nose twitched slightly as he drifted into dreams filled with the smell of brine, the roar of surf, and the strangely fluid yet solid feel of sand beneath his feet.

Mom's footsteps on the stairs woke him instantly. She was up an hour before the rest of the Pack, as always, for her morning jog.

Thor leaped out of the chair and met her halfway down the stairs, wagging his tail and nuzzling her hand to hurry. He poked the palm of her hand with his wet nose, licked it, then ran to the back door, then back to Mom, then back to the door, then back to Mom. He didn't want Mom to get distracted and forget why she came downstairs.

"Okay, okay!" Mom said, as she did every morning She followed him to the kitchen door and opened it. Thor shot through the door, across the backyard, and over the little creek that separated the Pack's territory from the woods behind. Then he turned around and gave Mom a friendly bark.

Come on, Mom!

Mom did a brief loosening-up routine in the backyard, ran in place a few steps, and followed Thor into the woods. Thor nuzzled her hand, trotted alongside as she started down her favorite jogging path, then ran ahead and left the path for the real forest.

Wisps of steam rose from the ground as the morning sun warmed the air, lifting and magnifying the fecund odors of the outdoors.

Thor plodded along happily through the underbrush, savoring the lush aromas of foliage and mulch, intrigued by the telltale traces of fur and feathers - especially fur. He found a squirrel scent that was strong enough to track but too old to produce results. He decided to follow it anyway, just out of curiosity. He was snuffling along aimlessly, taking in the smells of the forest, when his nose crossed a trail that stopped him in his tracks. The scent hung in the air a few inches off the ground, as fresh scent trails do.

A rabbit had pa.s.sed this way only minutes before, possibly seconds. Thor meticulously examined the scent, forcing himself to take quiet, shallow breaths despite his excitement. The scent told him the rabbit was young, male, and hadn't defecated recently, which meant it hadn't eaten recently. There was no scent of fear, so the rabbit was probably foraging, which, along with the sheer strength of the trail, meant the rabbit wasn't moving fast. If it hadn't already heard Thor, it was probably very near. Thor moved like a cat, carefully stepping over leaves and twigs.

The trail was leading toward some large bushes with a clearing behind. Thor walked with his eyes on the ground, intent on the trail, which got stronger with every inch. He inched his way along, and was halfway into the clearing when something moved in his peripheral vision. He looked up and froze. His toes curled, digging his claws into the ground. A surge of adrenalin coursed through his body and made him tremble slightly.

Less than ten feet away the rabbit stood staring at him, also frozen, also trembling.

Their eyes met for one infinitely long second, then the rabbit broke eye contact and glanced at the bushes to its right. Thor's hind legs kicked off at the same moment the rabbit's did. He surged forward, not at the rabbit, but at the point in the bushes where the rabbit had looked - the same point the rabbit was headed for. But the rabbit got there first and disappeared into the foliage before Thor was even up to speed.

He squinted and flattened his ears against his head as he plunged into the bush after the rabbit. The bushes in this part of the woods weren't very dense (or he wouldn't have tried barging through). He broke through easily and spotted the rabbit on open ground, a good thirty feet away and widening the gap.

But not for long.

Pure ecstasy engulfed Thor as he charged through the forest, the physical thrill of running immeasurably magnified by the thrill of the chase. He felt like he was flying, and in a way, he was. Each thrust of his hind legs hurled his body forward, a living cruise missile just clearing the ground, his front legs mostly guiding and stabilizing his flight. A fresh surge of adrenalin goaded him on as he watched the gap between him and the rabbit narrow.

But the rabbit was blindingly fast, and it knew enough to run under bushes to slow Thor down. The bushes weren't thick enough to offer a hiding place, so it ran through them, into a thicket and out the other side, frantically looking for a better escape. Thor caught on immediately and ran around the bushes or jumped over them, and each time the rabbit emerged from the bushes, there was Thor, still on his heels. The rabbit desperately tried to shake him off by changing direction as suddenly as a tennis ball bounces off a wall, but Thor had plenty of practice chasing bouncing b.a.l.l.s. He skidded to a stop, spun around, and hit the ground running before he really knew where the rabbit had gone. He scanned the landscape as he lunged forward and saw that he'd guessed right. The rabbit was dead ahead, a few yards further away than before, but not out of sight.

And not getting away.

The rabbit tried every evasive maneuver it knew, but soon it was acting out of pure panic, and once it actually turned in Thor's direction. For a shocking instant, the two headed straight toward each other. Thor was so startled he almost stopped, but before he could react, the rabbit pulled another hairpin turn, darted into a particularly large bush, and disappeared.

Thor crashed through the branches and into a small gully completely enclosed by steep hillsides. He stopped short about three feet from the frightened animal.

The rabbit stood with its back against the natural wall of earth, panting uncontrollably.

It was cornered.

Total silence descended on the forest; all other small animals in the area had scattered at the sound of the chase.

Without taking a step, Thor leaned toward the rabbit, delicately sniffing the smell of fear that poured off its body. His attention was riveted on the animal.

Except for his left ear, which swiveled backward and pointed directly behind him. The ear scanned the forest in rapid, twitching movements until it found the familiar beat of Mom's footsteps in the distance. On some unconscious level, his brain noted the position and distance of the sound, that the footsteps were steady, and the pace was normal. Everything was fine on Mom's end. If Mom needed Thor, she had a dog whistle that could be heard over much greater distances than what separated them now, but it was not in Thor's nature to wait for trouble before checking on the Pack.

His ear snapped forward and joined its twin in focusing on the rabbit, but every few seconds it flipped back to check on Mom.

He was no more aware of his ear's actions than he was of blinking.

Thor and the rabbit stood transfixed, hearts racing, staring at each other, unsure what would happen next. Thor began to feel embarra.s.sed. This was his big moment of triumph, and he was supposed to do something, he could feel it, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do. And worse, he was sure the rabbit knew what it was, but the rabbit was so terrified that Thor couldn't begin to figure out what it was thinking.

The rabbit was scared right out of its tiny mind.

Scared of Thor.

Why?

Despite having worked up a ravenous appet.i.te, the thought of eating the rabbit had never entered Thor's mind. Practically every morsel of food he'd ever eaten in his life had come directly from the Pack, and none of it smelled like an animal. At least not like the outside of an animal. Some of his food - the very best - smelled like the inside of an animal, but Thor hadn't discovered that yet, and dogs are not instinctive killers. If he'd grown up in the wild, in a wolf pack, he would have learned to hunt by being brought along and watching his elders. But he'd grown up in a human pack. He didn't hunt, he chased. No one in his Pack hunted.

He watched the rabbit in open bewilderment, feeling more uncomfortable with each pa.s.sing second. Finally he decided it was time to get back to Mom.

He barked once at the rabbit, startling it horribly, but he'd only meant to say something like, "I won!" He grinned at it open-mouthed, with his tongue hanging out and his back teeth showing, but his fangs barely visible - a friendly, non-threatening grin. Then he barked a good-bye, turned and dashed away, glad to run off some of the excess adrenalin and leave his confusion behind.

Mom was plodding along in his direction, but instead of meeting her head-on, Thor circled around and joined the jogging path from behind her. As he entered the path and saw Mom, he poured on the steam and shot past her in a second, just to show off.

He slowed to a loping canter to let her catch up, but Mom still fell behind, so he slowed down some more. By the time Mom caught up with him he was barely doing more than a fast walk. As she finally came abreast of him, he looked up at her with the same wide, human-looking grin he'd shown the rabbit. Whenever Mom saw it, she wondered if dogs might actually have a sense of humor. Thor didn't know what a sense of humor was. He only knew that what pa.s.sed for running among humans would be completely pathetic if it weren't so amusing.

He understood that Mom was jogging, not running, but he'd seen her run, too, and it wasn't much better. Even Dad, the Pack Leader, could barely move by Thor's standards. Sometimes he found their slowness a little embarra.s.sing.

He glanced up at Mom again and abruptly grabbed the ground with all four feet and took off, leaving her behind as if she were standing still.

Watch this, Mom! This is running!

By the time they got back to the house, he'd completely forgotten about the beach again. But the Pack hadn't. The Pack never forgot anything. As he and Mom entered the kitchen, Brett and Teddy were barreling down the stairs in high excitement, babbling about the BEACH. Thor didn't need to hear the magic word to be reminded of the Pack's big plan. The powerful scents of the nylon bathing suits under their clothes and the vinyl and rubber toys they carried told the whole story.

The kids were running around like maniacs, yelling and whining and urging Mom and Dad to hurry. They made no attempt to hide their excitement - not like Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad almost never expressed their feelings as openly as the kids. It was part of being adult, as Thor understood. He was an adult too, and he didn't always show his feelings, either.