Chapter 41: The Cellar

We came up Orchard Hill Road at a quarter to six with eleven vehicles and the sun low in the corn.

Nine Alphas drove their own trucks.

Abel drove the Hall's, with the young escort beside him pointing out the turns.

His throat was bare, and his hair was gray at the temples.

Joanne followed in her little blue car with a state trooper's cell number written on her palm.

The house stood white and shut at the top of the drive.

Six wolves in steel collars waited at the foot of the porch steps.

The heavy gray-haired one stood in front of them, with his arms hanging.

"Stop there," he said.

I got out of the truck and walked up the gravel alone.

The Alphas stayed at my back.

I had asked them to, and it was strange to hear no one breathing down my neck.

"I'm Mara Linwood," I said. "I've come for my aunts and for Ronan, and I'm not going to push anybody."

The heavy man's mouth twisted.

"The Director said you'd come."

"I'd like to ask you something, all of you." I looked down the line of six. "Do you want those off?"

Nobody answered.

The young woman at the end of the row looked at the escort behind me, at his bare throat.

"Will you take it off?" I said. "I'll stand here."

She lifted her hands.

The snap rang across the yard, and a second wolf followed her, and then a third.

The heavy man turned his head and watched them, and his big jaw shook.

"Nobody has asked me anything in nine years," he said.

"I'm asking."

"Not tonight, ma'am."

He moved at me, enormous, with both hands out.

He never reached me.

The Pine Fork Alpha hit him from the side, and the Cold Creek sons took his legs.

Abel sat on his chest in the gravel and held his wrists.

"Easy," Abel said. "Easy, friend. We'll ask again after supper."

I went up the porch steps.

The bulkhead on the side of the house stood open, with a light burning at the bottom of the cement stairs.

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