Wolf Pact - By Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,4

our scent. We don't know how long the Gates will hold them back."

"My thoughts exactly." Lawson nodded, relieved to have his brother speaking at last.

"We need to learn more about this world," Malcolm said, ever the sensible one. "I'm the only one who knows how to read. And none of us can write. We need to find a place that's safe for us. This isn't it." He waved his hand around the park they'd camped in, a bleak stretch of asphalt covered in dingy wooden benches where they'd eventually sleep.

"Where should we go?" Rafe asked, looking to Lawson for answers.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance," boomed a voice from behind them. How could Lawson have missed someone sitting on one of the park benches? He could have sworn no one was there. But sure enough, when he turned around, a man was sitting there, an older gentleman with about three-quarters of a smile on his face. He was small and round, dressed in fine clothes that had seen finer days - a brown corduroy jacket and neat slacks, but Lawson could tell they were old and worn, the collar was frayed, and the hems of his coat were threadbare.

"You must be the wolves. Allow me to introduce myself," the man said. "I'm Arthur Beauchamp."
Chapter Two

"I'm a warlock," he explained, in response to their alarmed looks. "Actually, I'm a Norse god, doomed to mid-world, but why complicate things? That's another story."1

"Is that how you know us? Is that how you recognized who - what - we are?" Lawson asked.

Arthur cocked his head to one side. He exuded a shabby geniality that was difficult to dislike. "Yes, and no, I suppose. Warlocks aren't allowed to use their powers. Those of us who choose to live in the open must pretend to be mortal. I've been in hiding for some time now, so I suppose I'm not ... strict ... about keeping a rein on my magical activities. But I've been looking for you for a very long time. A friend asked me to do her the favor of finding you. She said that one day I would come upon a pack of young wolves, and they would need my help."

"We need some kind of help all right," Edon muttered.

Lawson supposed it was a good thing that Edon was speaking, but why did he have to choose now, and with that tone?

"Well, that's what I'm here for," Arthur said, not at all perturbed. "Come, we have much to discuss, and you can't stay here."

Lawson looked around at the other wolves. It was easier to read their faces in their human forms. Malcolm was scared, Rafe was skeptical, and Edon was indifferent. It was Tala's face that made the decision for him: there was an openness to the possibility that Arthur really was there to help, that he could be trusted, and Lawson trusted that.

"Okay," he said.

Arthur packed all of them into his beat-up van, introduced them to fast-food takeout, then drove for several hours until they reached his apartment in the city. "This is an older part of Cleveland, a bit forgotten - like me," he said. It was a cramped one-bedroom with one bathroom, and he apologized for the size, but Lawson assured him they'd be fine - they were used to the tight quarters of the den, after all.

"I'd use magic to make it bigger, but that would be conspicuous," Arthur told them. "What small amount of magic I've used to increase the space is all for storage." He opened what appeared to be a closet door and turned on the light.

Lawson could barely see in, but apparently Malcolm had gotten an eyeful right away. "Whoa," he said, and then ran into the room with a whoop.

Arthur wasn't kidding about using magic, Lawson realized when he saw that the closet expanded on the inside to the size of a small library, with long mahogany tables and enormous bookshelves. "I thought this was more important than extra bedrooms," Arthur said. "We have much work to do, all of us."

"What kind of work?" Rafe asked suspiciously.

"As young Malcolm said, you need to learn to live in this world," Arthur replied. "And you need to learn about the world you came from. The wolves have a long history, and I'm not sure how much of it you know."

"We know some," Lawson admitted. The masters were reluctant to teach the wolves much about their past, but stories were handed down. They knew that wolves had