The Shadows of Christmas Past

chapter 1
    «  ^  » 
    "Was that a coyote?"
    "Coyotes don't come in black," Marj Piper answered the man in the seat beside her, as the ghostly dark form disappeared from the blaze of her headlights. "That thing is fast !"
    She followed the creature's movements across the moonlit Arizona desert before darkness completely swallowed it. It was some kind of dog; its outline was beautiful and sleek.
    "Marj! Look out!"
    She swung her gaze forward, just in time to slam on the brakes as another large animal raced in front of her truck.
    This creature was as black as the first, but much larger and more muscular, with denser fur.
    As the animal gave a quick glance toward the headlights, its eyes glowed with a blue sheen. It bared its fangs in a snarl, then bounded away, following the other animal almost faster than the eye could see.
    "That's a wolf!" Patrick shouted.
    "Yeah," she agreed, her heart hammering in her chest. "That was a wolf."
    In the backseat of the cab, her chocolate Lab, Taffy, lifted his head and whimpered his agreement.
    Marj drove the truck at a near crawl as the hard-packed dirt road ascended a steep, curving hill. The first animal had been terrified. The wolf had been furious. And it had looked at her, almost in outrage, as if it was demanding that she help .
    Help with what?
    Pat touched her arm. "Are you okay?"

    "I'm fine."
    "You don't sound fine."
    Reverend Patrick Muller was new to Kennedyville, and Man was giving him a ride home from a dinner party where friends had tried to hook them up. She supposed Alice meant well in trying to draw her out of the shell she'd been in since her father died. She wasn't sure she really appreciated it, though.
    The one person who'd understood her was gone, and it would take a miracle to cure the loneliness that had closed in when he was gone. Still, because Alice had accused her of trying to be a Scrooge and ignore the Christmas season, she had made the effort to be sociable through dinner at Alice's house. It had drained her incredibly, and she was glad to be heading home.
    Reverend Pat was nice; he'd made intelligent conversation over dinner, even persuaded her to participate in a charity function at the high school in a couple of days. And he wasn't at all bad-looking. No doubt he was going to be an asset to the community.
    As agreeable as he was, though, she certainly wasn't going to tell him about her "special"
    ability.
    When she was a kid, she'd assumed everybody could do it. It had taken her painful years to realize that it was anything but normal, and to learn to control it. It had taken even more years to learn how to hide it from the rest of the world. Most of the time.
    "I can't believe I almost hit a couple of animals," she told Pat, after she'd been silent maybe a little too long.
    "They ran in front of the truck. It wouldn't have been your fault," he said comfortingly.
    "But the animals would still be dead." The truck was laboring up the steep rise, and she put her foot on the gas.
    "And we could have been injured, as well. Even as large as this truck is, hitting something as big as that wolf could have caused a lot of damage."
    They rounded the curve and reached the top of the hill, and all hell broke loose.
    There was a big white van parked sideways across the road, its headlights shining out onto the landscape. A pair of men stood in front of the van. One held a rifle up to his shoulder and fired twice, just as the second man saw Marj's truck.
    She slammed on the brakes and came to a stop inches from the van, just as a wave of pain hit Marj in the back.
    NO! Run! Save yourself!
    Her spine arched, and dizziness shot through her, even as the wolf's voice inside her head faded.

    She might have fallen forward, unconscious across the steering wheel, if Patrick hadn't grabbed her by the arm and shook her. She heard his concerned voice. She couldn't respond to it, but she did react to Taffy's barking in her ear and the nudge of his wet nose on the back of her neck.
    That was her, all right. She didn't respond much to people, but animals…
    There were animals in trouble out there. One was terrified, the other was hurt.
    Can't move. Getting dark.
    Marj knew she had to do something, but for a moment she had no idea where she was.
    As she looked up, the second man grabbed the shooter by the arm. He shouted something, and pointed at them. The man with the weapon whirled around, the rifle still poised on his shoulder.
    For a second, she thought she was