The golden wolf flickered between the bushes. A silver joined it. Together, they darted between two large oaks.
There wasn’t much underbrush in the woods. Most of the park had been sculpted into a welcoming environment where very few briars cluttered the generous walking trails just wide enough for a small car. Luca jerked the steering wheel.
A truck barreled up beside him.
Luca slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel to the left. Grass, dirt, rocks shot out from under the tires, and he cut around the back of the truck and in front of the one behind it.
Headlights filled the cab and the truck heading right toward the side of the car veered off course, barely missing them. It clipped the bumper of the first truck while mid-turn to cut a circle.
“Guess it’s a good thing they don’t want to hurt me.” And Luca planned to use it to his advantage.
The silver and gold wolves appeared ahead of the car, moving in and out of existence where the headlights cut the dark.
They made a right into a wall of bushes and Luca followed. Greenery shredded, and the car slipped down an incline into a gentle valley.
Maneuvering the winding path forced him to slow. Beams of light outlined the top of the valley walls and the branches overhead. Engines revved in the distance. The light faded as it traced the edge of the woods, heading east.
Nox buried a hacking cough into his arm. The ichor smearing his skin was darker than the night inside the vehicle.
Up ahead, the two Fenrir leapt, and the path dropped. The tires hit the creek bed, and water splashed the doors, leaving droplets on the windows. A dip in the bank put Luca back onto the trail.
Headlights broke through the trees in the distance. Had the betas reached the road? If they had, how far away were they? And where would they come out? Did the road intersect with the trails?
The silver wolf vanished, and the gold wolf stopped at a crossroads.
Luca stomped the brake. The seatbelt threw Nox back against the seat.
“Sorry, sorry,” Luca said.
“What’s… happening?” Nox’s inhale wheezed.
“I don’t know. It’s just standing there.” Luca tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Maybe it doesn’t know—” Nox coughed an exhale.
“It’s known where to go so far.” Could the Fenrir even get lost?
It glanced back, then made a slow turn to the right, through a gap wide enough for the car.
“I guess that’s our cue.” Luca took the path.
The night thickened under the canopy of limbs, and the truck headlights in the distance vanished behind foliage, leaving the glow of the wolf’s coat a starlit beacon.
It slowed to a trot, a walk, then stopped where the ground sloped into the bank of a river.
Water bubbled over rocks, and white caps reflected the headlights from the car.
“Shit.”
Nox shifted in his seat with a groan.
A river, could they cross that?
Luca squinted.
The rocks packing the bank showed beneath shallow water. But the rocks visible in the middle could have been six inches under or boulders breaking the surface.
Isaiah’s Fenrir stood a few feet out. Water flowed through its ethereal legs without disruption.