Tied With a Bow

bear/not-bear standing so still in front of it. This time Arjenie didn’t hesitate. She threw herself onto her knees in front of the bear and reached up with both hands, reached into the thick fur and at the bear’s neck, breathed in its foul breath as its jaws parted in shock at her touch, found the clasp with her left hand as it looked down at her and saw her and such teeth, such big teeth it had as it lowered that great head at her. And she slashed the leather tie.
    Oily black smoke, incredibly foul, boiled down into her face, into her lungs, making her eyes burn. She coughed, blinked her streaming eyes, and looked up at a naked madman.
    He crouched over her, his hair long and stringy, eyes wild with rage, snarling as if he was still a bear, his hands reaching for her.
    A wolf howled from a very short distance away.
    He jerked, looking over his shoulder.
    Two wolves shot into the clearing—one silvery, one grizzled gray and tan, both of them sleek and dangerous and so beautiful they almost took her breath away.
    They were also ohmygod fast.
    The madman who had been K. J. Miller howled in rage, a sound that didn’t belong in a human throat. He must have known he wasn’t a bear anymore, though must have retained some of the man because he yanked off the belt, let his bearskin fall, and took off running. Running away.
    That wouldn’t work.
    “Arjenie,” Sammy said urgently, kneeling beside her. “Arjenie, are you okay? He didn’t get you anywhere?”
    “Yes. I mean no, he didn’t get me, and yes . . .” A third wolf raced into the clearing, moving slower than the first two—who whooshed past Arjenie and Sammy like cars on the highway. The third wolf was slower because he ran on only three legs. He was black and huge, and her eyes teared up with joy at the sight of him.
    A small white shape shot out of the trees behind the black wolf. Barking shrilly and running after him.
    “Yes,” Arjenie told her cousin, grinning like a fool. “I am fine. I am perfectly, wonderfully okay now.”

Chapter Thirteen
     
    Arjenie was right, Benedict thought as he washed down the last bite of his coffeecake with a sip of coffee. Christmas morning at the Delacroix homestead was a riot of unrestrained greed. Not to mention chaos, noise, and tons of ripped wrapping paper.
    That paper had mostly been gathered up now, and some of the legions had dispersed to other parts of the house, with a few venturing outside now that the sun was out.
    Some, not all.
    “Look, Uncle Benedict! Look!” Malik dodged a girl cousin, a bicycle, Havoc, and two adults on his headlong run to Benedict—who had somehow become an uncle to every child here in the past three days. “I figured it out! See, if you kill enough of the aliens, then blow up one of the wheel-shaped spaceships, you get a laser beam. You’ve gotta see what it does!”
    Obediently Benedict looked. The boy’s parents had given him a new iPod. Benedict had learned about that ahead of time and had gotten him a gift certificate to download the game of his choice. His choice seemed to involve a great deal of shooting and killing of aliens.
    It was fun. Benedict had racked up a decent score when a voice said, “Scoot over, bud. You’re in my spot.”
    Malik look up at Arjenie. “But we’re playing Space Wars .”
    “You’re still in my spot.”
    He heaved a great sigh but got up. “We’ll play more later,” he assured Benedict, who handed him back his iPod.
    “How’s the leg?” Arjenie asked softly.
    “Not bad.” Hershey had loaned him a pair of crutches he’d used a couple years ago, after being tossed off a horse. Benedict had used them for two days but the healing was far enough along now for him to dispense with them.
    The footstool Sheila had brought him wasn’t necessary, but he appreciated it. Having his feet propped up let him look at the handmade leather moccasins he was wearing—one of Arjenie’s gifts. She’d also given him two shirts, a book on archaic weapons, a beautiful custom scabbard for his machete with a smaller, matching one for his favorite knife, and a fistful of candy, toys, and novelties in his stocking.
    Everyone who was in the Delacroix house on Christmas morning got a stocking. That was one of the rules. Even people who were supposed to be outside guarding the house, which had thrown Josh and Adam into confusion. There were other rules, like everyone had to have at least one item for everyone else’s stocking, and you had to sneak to