Giles stood beside his desk, lost in thought, when Seneca entered the room with a briefcase in hand.
"I don't know what happened to Eric, but he is not at all communicative," Seneca said, setting the briefcase beside his customary chair.
The great Wolf seemed not to hear. After a moment he shook himself and said, "Brandy?"
"Please," said Seneca as he sat down. Giles filled two glasses and handed him one, downing the other all at once, still apparently wrapped up in his thoughts. Seneca contemplated him for a moment. "So, I take it that this turn of events means Vsesalevich is dead?"
"If so," said Giles, "that would almost be a pity. He was older even than I, by perhaps as many as three centuries, and unless there are any hiding out in obscure corners of the world, he and I were the last of the old great Wolves, those who
had achieved Primacy in the bad old days of the Warlords, who had held our own amidst the terrors of the age of Lykaios. But it is always difficult to tell with Vsesalevich; he has faked his death before. Many of my early memories as a Wolf under a Lykaios were of endless searching for Vsesalevich, who had supposedly died but of whom Lykaios had heard rumors that he was still alive. And, of course, they were true, although Lykaios never found him. I did, after Lykaios's death, and, having put the fear of Aegidius into him, I offered him a deal. Together we hunted down all the other Scions of Lykaios, every rival Prime who did not bend the knee; it was the beginning of the order of things under which you have lived your entire life. You cannot imagine the change that it wrought; he and I alone were left to know how much order and civilization we had created out of chaos and destruction. We brought an end to the warring of little Packs and welded them together with terror and death and force of will. So much has changed."
He poured himself another brandy and downed it again. "No, you can never tell with Vsesalevich. But we do know that he is no longer in control, whether it is because he is dead or because he is hiding."
"You are thinking of the fact that they attacked you at full moon?"
"Among other things. They knew full well that they could not seriously harm me. Only two possible motives present themselves: they did it simply to declare war in a showy way, or they were attempting to test the legend of Aegidius, to see how dangerous I really am. Vsesalevich would never be so incautious as to declare war, even if he had grown so mad as to wage it; he would have begun it at once by trying to assassinate me at new moon, quickly and in a surprise attack. I had always prepared for such an eventuality, in fact. And Vsesalevich, of all people, needed no tests to know what I could do. It is a distinctive style; a new player is playing the game of life and death among the Primes. And he wants me to know it. Silver bullets! Can there be any more showy and gaudy attempt to make a statement? The Island is practically littered from one end to another with rowan; a quickenbeam spear or stake would do at least as much damage a little silver bullet, with none of the hassle of going around Britain with distinctive and thus traceable weaponry and ammunition. But the silver bullet catches the attention; it is not a stealth assassin's weapon but a flaunting of one's intent to kill in a language that cannot be mistaken.
"And four relatively inexperienced, relatively weak Primes! They had no way of knowing beforehand that there would only be two Primes, not three, and yet they went four against three in a frontal assault on our own territory. It was a test, to make sure that I am really what the legends say, the Wolf of Wolves, the Full Moon Killer, the Slayer of the Invincible Wolf. It was a boast and a test; it was a challenge to me." He leaned against the desk and folded his arms, and, cocking his head, looked at Seneca.
"It goes to show," said Seneca with a smile, "that you should perhaps have listened to my advice and taken someone with a bit more experience than Eric. Four you could handle, but what if they had managed more?"
"Hmmm," Giles said, looking down at the floor with a peculiarly thoughtful expression on his face. "Hic lupus nuper additus flere dum parat ululat," he said. He suddenly turned an unsettling gaze on the other Wolf. "Tell me, Sen, what happens when the Bite is given to someone who is already a Wolf?"
Seneca was startled by the question. "I suppose I don't know," he said. "Nothing, I would guess."
"I have known it to happen. It provides no greater share of lunacy or lupinity, but it does give one the delirious and feverish symptoms of the original Bite. They dissipate much more quickly than the original symptoms, though."
Seneca steepled his fingers. "You are certain that he was already a Wolf?"
"Certainly certain. Indeed, even before the quick recovery it was a likely possibility. Surely you recall the anomalies in his original story?"
"I remember it being quite incoherent in parts. To be sure, the behavior of the Wolf was odd, but you know that the shock and trauma of the Bite can disorient memory as everything else."
"To be sure; that was a slim possibility of that -- until the swift recovery. But it was always slim, I think. The story we were told certainly had true elements, but the actual behavior of the Wolf was incomprehensible, even allowing for distortion of memory. Any Wolf experienced and clever enough that neither you nor Jolie could track it down would have to be quite impressive. But the Wolf of the story was more cinematic beast than real-life Wolf, all cat-and-mouse gameplaying and horror-movie stereotype, and nothing that one would expect from any kind of impressive Prime. It simply made no sense. Surely, setting aside all speculation, however well-founded, you have suspicions that there is something not quite right with him?"
"I have better than suspicions," said Seneca with a small smile, reaching for the briefcase. As he opened it, he said, "We have several times in the past few weeks been approached by a reporter who wanted an interview with Giles Scott; we put him off, in accordance with the usual policy. But the day after you had left for England, he showed up at Aegidian headquarters again, this time with a package that he insisted be given to me or to you." He pulled a large manila envelope out of the briefcase and handed it to Giles, who took it and opened it.
Inside there was a note and a folder of documents. The folder was marked, in a neat and cautious hand, "JOANNE SOMMERS." Giles leafed through some of the papers and photographs inside and frowned. Then he looked at the note.
"I have information of considerable importance, and request an audience with Aegidius himself." He put the folder and note back into the manila envelope and carefully put the envelope on the desk. "You know how I feel about reporters," he said, "but your reporter may need some reward for his perseverance."
"I already took the liberty of scheduling a tentative appointment tomorrow." Seneca put the briefcase back on the floor beside the chair and leaned back, steepling his fingers again. After a thoughtful silence he said, "The man has always made me uneasy for some reason, but seeing the content of that folder simply floored me. Can it really be the case that Eric is a Sakhan plant?"
Giles shook his head. "That possibility had to be ruled out, but I think we can, in fact, rule it out. For the longest time I was baffled by one question with regard to Pretty Puppy: was he stupid or was he merely pretending to be stupid? After having spent time with him, I think we can safely say that the answer is both." He smiled wolfishly. "What is more, even though he was a Wolf before the night his supposed Bite, he still bears all the unmistakeable features of the newly minted. We both know that it would be foolish to think the Siberians would plant as a spy someone with no experience and no ability to do play the game. Even the amateurs in Sakha and Krosnayarsk Krai play a cunning game."
"Are you absolutely sure that he is not, though? The Siberians have always been good at hiding their minds."
"Not from me. Moon speaks to moon for the Wolf with the mind to hear. I cannot read the heart, but sooner or later anything in the heart comes to the surface, and in all my experience there have only been four Wolves with the ability to hide even the surface of their minds from me for any serious length of time: Lykaios, and Vsesalevich, and Jolie, and you. Maybe Aveline on her best day. Lykaios, and perhaps Vsesalevich, is dead, and neither Vsesalevich, nor you, nor Jolie, nor Aveline could conceivably do it for the extended length of time our hapless Actaeon, our Pretty Puppy, would have had to do it on the plane rides to the Island and back. If Pretty Puppy is such a cunning and powerful Wolf that he can jaunt in here without a care, outmatch you, Jolie, and Vsesalevich, but do it so cleverly as to hide behind a flawless facade of Pretty-Puppiness for endless hours despite my provocations of him, then I will eat my tie and surrender. No, no, no! I would not believe it if Cato insisted on it, or if it were spoken with lightning and thunder by the Sybil herself. At the same time, however, and for the same reason, he cannot be working alone. Which brings us to the most serious problem that faces us, far more serious than this Siberian kerfuffle has yet shown itself to be. What was Jolie doing while I was away?"
Seneca narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "Nothing much beyond talking to a number of people. Officially she was still investigating this renegade Wolf situation."
Giles nodded. "It is a good excuse to talk to people. I would not be surprised if that were the reason behind this whole renegade Wolf story."
"You do realize what this means?"
"No, and neither do you. The single most important question for us right now is this: Is Jolie working with the Siberians, or is it just something that came up coincidentally?"
"It seems too convenient for coincidence."
"Come now, Sen. You know that if you were planning a coup, you would be able to make such excellent use of any coincidence that no one looking from the outside would be able to tell that you had not planned it that way. And, with all respect to you, Jolie is better at this than you are; her experience exceeds yours by a couple of centuries."
Seneca sat back again, discontentedly. "Unless you force it out of her, we will need time to get the answer to your question. And that ties our hands with regard to her."
Giles took Seneca's brandy glass and refilled it. "Precisely, he said as he handed it back. "Jolie is the more serious problem, but right now the game with her is one of patience and secrecy. Let her make the first slip, before she has any indication that we know what's happening. Keep a discreet eye on her, but I really think you should focus on the Siberian situation."
"We will need to reinforce Giuseppe," Seneca said, taking a sip. "He has always been the weak link in the triarchy, propped up on one side by us and on the other side by Vsaselevich. With Vsaselevich gone, he will lose control quickly; if any news of this has gotten out, half the Packs of Europe are probably already starting to break away. That's not the most important thing, but it is the most urgent. The most important thing is to find out what we can about what went on in Yakutsk to cause the problem. Perhaps it's time for the Aegidian Corporation to make an international tour of its overseas branches. They will need to be reminded of the importance of loyalty to the Aegidian mission. I'll head out for that in a few days. But we should send Giuseppe a back-up of Primes and reliable non-Primes immediately."
"I have already made the arrangements. The rest I leave in your capable hands." Giles moved around his desk to sit in his chair. As he sat back he said, "And Sen -- don't be too hard on Jolie; someday you, too, will find you have to scratch the itch and answer the question of whether you have grown enough to outmatch Aegidius."
