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onto his chest and he realized three things.
    One: the dog was huge. And coarse-furred, and gray. And muscular beyond expectation. This was no dog. This was a wolf.
    Two: Michael was holding his own, clamping the wolf’s jaws shut with powerful hands, but he had no weapon. What had he expected to do, talk to the beast?
    Three: Michael was, in fact, talking to the beast. Half speaking, half chanting, and accomplishing nothing that Spencer could see beyond tiring himself out while the wolf thrashed, kicked, and clawed at him with razor paws.
    With Spencer still on the bottom of the pile, the wolf stopped moving. For the briefest second it seemed to stare into Michael’s eyes. Then it arched its back and dug its rear legs into the dirt. Snarling, it shook its head left, right, left, until with a roar it broke free. It stood, eyes glowing, jaws slavering. Then it lunged. Michael rolled desperately and lifted his arm in protection. The wolf rolled with him and Spencer was freed. The wolf’s pointed teeth, aiming for Michael’s throat, instead clamped onto his naked shoulder. Blood began to flow; Spencer could smell it. Without rising, he kicked hard into the wolf’s flank. The startled beast yelped, lost its grip on Michael and its footing. It stumbled, scrabbling to right itself.
    Man and beast turned shocked eyes to Spencer.
    He used the moment to jump to his feet and launch himself at the wolf. He aimed for the ears, vulnerable points on any animal. He’d yank the creature’s head up, get its jaws away from Michael. Then he’d break its skull. If he was lucky he’d find a rock to use; but he could do it with his hands. That was his plan. But the wolf was astoundingly fast. By the time he reached it—a second? two?—it had spun to face him. Its huge head angled and Spencer’s own momentum drove him into the gaping jaws. They caught his throat. The pain almost blinded him but, choking, he seized the snout and lower jaw, one hand on each, and pulled them apart. Knife-sharp teeth pierced his fingers. He managed to loosen the wolf’s grip, kicked atits belly, but his kick was weaker than before. He was dizzy; he was losing blood.
    His hand on his own throat confirmed: the wolf had cut his jugular. In the long term—and for Spencer, what was not long-term?—nothing more than a nuisance, but here, now, with Michael in danger, Spencer felt the blood flowing between his fingers as a true loss, a failure, a tragedy. He tried to stand, but couldn’t. A strange sound began behind him. He expected the wolf to lunge at him again but its head lifted. It snarled, stood quivering. Spencer, lying on cold rock, turned his head painfully. The hallucinatory vision that met his eyes was Michael, naked, bleeding, bare feet planted on the soil, arms raised to the skies, howling at the moon.

10
    L ivia exited the taxi, leaving Thomas to pay the driver. That little demand (“A vow of poverty doesn’t mean I can’t buy you a taxi ride”) had been Thomas’s final price for acquiescing to this visit. Livia was glad he’d decided to come; he and Spencer were very similar in many things, especially their love for academic study and scholarly details. You just had to get past the fact that one was a young Jesuit priest and the other an eternal Noantri. It was actually Spencer who’d been the more unfriendly when they’d met in Rome. Thomas’s reactions had been largely prompted by fear, while Spencer’s sniping hostility was the result of centuries of disdain for the Church. They’d each come out of that experience with a deeper appreciation of the other, though, and it was absurd they should be living in the same city and never see one another.
    Pulling her coat collar tight, Livia rang the doorbell of the East Side town house just off Central Park that Spencer had recently bought. He’d told her she’d enjoy the brownstone vines carved at the entranceway and the small-paned casement windows. They were indeed beautiful, but she