Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-eight

Fenrir: wolf of the Fin, bringer of Ragnarök, the one who would devour Odin, the one who would devour the sun. "I'm a bloody fool!" he cursed himself as he ran through the night. Amanda had meant Fenrir in a more literal sense, though the werewolf himself liked to think he really was the Norse wolf god reborn.

The only sound Samuel could make out in the darkening night was the sound of his own feet on the gravel. The house and barn were dark, and the moon’s light was glowing over the tops of the mountains. The full moon itself would rise any second.

A moment of intense relief overtook his heart as John stepped out of the barn and waved to Samuel in the gloom. It was fine. He’d merely panicked at the name Amanda had spoken. They would go inside and John would laugh heartily at Samuel’s silliness.

Then John crumpled as the shadow stepped around the corner and swung a plank of rotting wood into the back of the man’s head.

“Greyback,” Samuel whispered as he fumbled for his phone. He had to summon help. Alone, he was no match for the violent werewolf. Greyback seemed to know that too, as he charged at Samuel with feral ferocity, knocking him onto his back with the force of the blow and sending the phone flying out of his hand.

As he lay on the ground, reminding his lungs how to draw in air, it all began to fall into place. Nymphadora had not been the target at all. She had merely been an easy way for Greyback to punish Remus, his errant pup. Hermione had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but with her death the werewolf had successfully flushed Remus from the safety of Hogwarts and slowly hunted his prey in the Muggle world.

When his quarry showed a skill he hadn’t known the man to posses, he used Yaxley and Macnair to call Remus in from the cold. He had known that losing and recovering the girl would bring him home. Remus was human to the core and cared about people. Remus John Lupin would do the honorable thing and try to offer all the help he could. And when he did, all Greyback needed to do was follow him.

Then he ran headlong into the Fidelius Charm protecting Samuel and his new life. He had even tried to smoke them out with the small bunches of blue lupine flowers, but they had missed the threat that was implied and failed to panic as he had hoped they would. They would still have been safe, if John had not ended the charm and let the wolf in the door. He could see every one of their glaring mistakes clearly in the light of the moon as he tried to roll to his feet before either werewolf finished making the piteous sounds of their painful transformation.

He staggered to his feet and rushed toward the feral werewolf, summoning all the dark anger in his soul. Samuel had people he cared for too, people who had no way to defend themselves against a creature they believed lived only in fairy tales. Blade in hand he heard the crunch of shifting bones as he covered the last three feet in a flying leap. He visualized how he would drive the blade in deep enough to hit Greyback’s blackened, twisted heart, even as the hairy arm swung out and batted him away.

The blow ripped like fire through his flesh, and Samuel fell to the ground hard. Snorts from the huge demented wolf rounded behind him as he lifted his body in sickening slow motion. John was out of reach, and Samuel was outmatched. He was making a mad grab for the shiny blade as two things happened almost at once. Greyback staggered once in his forward charge and a large dark shape bounded into the werewolf’s path.

In the game of canine chicken, it was Reggie who prevailed; hackles high and snarling in the moonlight, he forced Greyback to swerve just a few feet in front of Samuel. The sound of the gunfire registered late in Samuel's brain. As the giant werewolf rounded, another shot rang out in the still air. Robert was standing at the corner of the house, shotgun resting on his shoulder. The beast’s angry yellow eyes shifted to Samuel’s nosy annoying friend. He’d had few real friends in his life, to the point he’d expected that he would die alone. Now they were all here, and they would die with him.

John, a crumpled mass of unconscious werewolf, now lay ten feet to his left.

“Reggie,” Samuel commanded in a firm clear voice. “Get John.”

Amazingly the dog obeyed, leaving an open path from the dark creature straight to Samuel. He remembered another werewolf, with glowing eyes, charging him all those years ago. Remus, bringing fear and death as he closed the distance, blurred with Greyback, bringing animal retribution to his rivals. He remembered the deafening roar as Remus collided with the giant stag, how he had been turned aside. Greyback, instead, kept charging.

Another round of buckshot paused the monster in his final stride as Samuel made a last desperate lunge with the tiny silver dagger. Between the ribs and drive upward, stab the silver into its heart. He felt the skin torn from his back, even as warm blood surged over his hand and chest. Samuel watched the light of life dim from Greyback’s eyes even as the world grew dark around him and the pain began to abate.

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Samuel sat in the warm glow of the late afternoon sun, watching Amanda and Ron Weasley take turns tossing a Frisbee for Amanda's companion dog, Reggie. The beast in question applied himself to the occupation of play with the same intensity that he applied to reading Amanda's moods and guiding her back from the dark corners of her mind.

He sipped at the mint lemonade that John had mixed for him and continued reading through the notes that Dr. West had written about the happenings at the clinic. He'd needed a pair of functional hands as his own body began the slow process of mending the torn muscle and nerves from his late night fight with the large alpha wolf. It had nothing to do with anything as sappy as gratitude to the man who had left the clinic at a dead run to tend to his wounds as he lay in a bloody tangle with the cooling body of the beast.

A warm hand tangled in the hair at the base of his neck, and Samuel tipped his chin up to receive the lips that were coming down to meet his own. Success for Samuel Crane was measured in small steps these days; lifting his right hand higher than his shoulder, lifting his left higher than the table, John walking past the liquor aisle in the market with nary a longing glance, and, maybe the best of all, Amanda introducing her boyfriend Ron to the bravest dog in the world.

NOX

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A/N Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read through to the end. Just a small request because you got this far, sign my 'guest book' by clicking that little button that says review and say something as simple as, "Hi."

If you want to tell me where you're from that always makes me smile. Either way, it's been a pleasure. Kodiak