That said, I am still working on In Cold Blood and I have no intentions of getting too distracted by my alter ego. I may have christened 2016 the Year of the Phoenix, but writing wise it's the Year of the Werewolf.
So it's time for a snippet! Enjoy.
The
she-wolf lounged at the river bank in a patch of weak sunlight, and
growled at the babbling water. She couldn't pinpoint what was wrong.
She'd never tasted anything like it, not as a wolf or a human. It
wasn't spoiled meat or pollution. It was just...wrong. Nasty. She
lapped at the water experimentally. If there was poison or waste
getting into the river, she'd need to move dens.
She
was pleased to find the nasty taste fainter than it had been first
thing, although it was still there, cloying her throat. She shook her
head hard, as if she could shake the taste away. She glanced up the
cliff side, tracking the river's route. The cliff was steep, but not
an impossible climb for a young, active she-wolf. On impulse, she
bounced up and trotted to the foot of the cliff.
In
the summer, humans often denned overnight on the moors and in the
hills, and the she-wolf sometimes found their waste after they’d
gone. Maybe humans had denned near her cave and left something behind
that got in the water. Beer, her own quiet human voice
suggested. Beer, ale, lager. Cigarettes. She remembered beer,
yeasty, earthy, and not entirely pleasant. But fun, she thought as
she started scrabbling up the rocky cliff side. She had a flash of
laughter and warmth, a dim memory of summer nights in human-shape. It
faded as quickly as it formed, though, as she focused on keeping her
footing on the loose earth and pointed rocks underfoot.
At the
top of the cliff, tall grasses and heather stretched out all around,
leaving the horizon wide open and the she-wolf exposed. The scent was
stronger up here, and sent a crash of mixed signals through her
brain. It didn’t smell like anything she’d ever run across, but
at the same time, her wolf-self knew it. The same way she knew
winter was coming early, with a marrow-deep knowing that skipped the
logical, human part of her brain. She wanted to run, she wanted to
howl, and she wanted to fight, and she didn’t know what she wanted
most. That scent…it triggered both aggression and submission inside
her. With her ears back and her tail curled in on itself, she paced
the river bank restlessly, unsure which impulse to act on.
A bird
screamed overhead and she looked up to see a kestrel darting out of
the sky. It banked sharply and veered away. Its cry was shocking in
the silence of the moors, and it shook the she-wolf from her
confusion. Whatever had left that rich, rotten taint in the water, it
wasn’t here now and its traces were fading. She was a lone wolf,
without the resources or support of a pack to back her up on a
potentially long, pointless hunt. As long as the tainted creature
stayed away from her den, she wouldn’t waste her energy on it. If
she found it prowling around or stealing her kills, then she’d act.
She lay
down in the grass and rolled onto her back as the kestrel darted down
again, this time seeming to collide with the earth before shooting
off, a tiny animal dangling from its peak. A mouse or a vole, the
she-wolf thought. Easy, plentiful prey. She didn’t mind sharing
with the birds. Or the foxes, or even the occasional wildcat. Most
small predators gave her a wide berth anyway, just passing through
her territory on their way elsewhere. Maybe this creature – if it
was a living thing – was the same. A passer-by, nothing she needed
to worry about.
Satisfied,
she returned to her den. It was a human habit to worry about things
that hadn’t happened yet. Life was much simpler when you were a
wolf.
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