"Aveline!" said Giles cheerfully as he greeted her at the door of the mansion. "A delight to see you. I trust your flight went well."
"Exceptionally," Aveline said. She was dressed in black with a large brooch sparkling like fire just below her neck, all quite expensive.
"Normally such an important visitor would be driven by Marcos, but we are in a bit of disarray preparing." Giles waved her inside. "Which reminds me, before I forget, that Marcos has been pulled off his normal duties, so, alas, you will not eat as well as you normally would. But he prepared a sideboard for you, and insists that you try the crepes. Also, he has put out two bottles of wine, and insists that you enjoy both, but save him a glass; the best from the DRC. I refuse to remember the year, but he insists it is a good one."
Aveline laughed. "He is a funny thing. I am sure the wine will be excellent."
"Of course, it will; his choice in wine is always flawless. He grew up on a vineyard, you know, and has had a little more experience with wines than most people manage. You should have seen him when the region he grew up in received the Denominación de Origen; it is fortunate for him that I was in a good humor that week, since I had to listen to him bring it up in every single conversation."
They walked down a hallway in silence for a moment, then Giles turned serious. "You have heard about Elsbietka, of course?"
"Yes," said Aveline. "Frankly, I will not miss her. But I can understand that it would leave you less flexibility than you would usually have."
"Exactly. I have plenty of Wolves, but there are things that I can only trust to my most dangerous Wolves. Hence Marcos; I need someone to play the beater to Seneca's hunter, should the game play hide-and-seek. No one is as good at that as Elsbietka was, but Marcos will do. And it will give him experience. But in the meantime, I need someone to watch the fort, which would normally fall to him. And that is where you come in."
"How long until they are brought down?"
"Difficult to say," said Giles. "We know all her major hiding places, so we could force the issue, but the best thing would be for Jolie to play her hand. She has been moving very quietly and slowly, though, mostly attempting to build forces, making alliances, pick off stragglers, that sort of thing."
"Strange."
"No," Giles said with a distracted shake of his head, "it is the right thing to do, whether or not she fully understands why. And she is not like you, with a taste for jugular assault; she favors bluffs and feints until she finally comes at the prey from an unexpected side. But we have been closing off her options. She is at the point where she needs some clear victory; the allies she does have are pressing for it, and without one she cannot gain more. And 'clear victory' can only mean the capture or death of Seneca or myself."
Aveline stopped suddenly. "Tell me you are not planning to be the bait in the trap."
"Of course. Seneca is too methodical ever to make convincing bait. But she thinks I am arrogant and hubristic."
"It is hubristic to go on your own when Jolie is out to kill you. She is out to kill you, I am sure you are aware; she would not risk the dangers of merely capturing you." She resumed walking.
"Of course," said Giles. "That simply makes it better. She knows that I think I am the Invincible Wolf, and so she intends to exploit that weakness. As it happens to be true that I am the Invincible Wolf, however, it is no weakness at all, and therefore she will initiate her own destruction."
"It is too dangerous. Better Jolie than Elsbietka, but God help us all if she manages to kill you by accident. The girl is insufferable; she will want to change things."
"Ye of little faith. You are just like Seneca. But I forget that even you have not seen me in full rampage; when you received the Bite we were already finishing up. There has been so little need for me to unfold for so long, and with Vseselavich vanished and Bitka dead, Giuseppe may be the only one left who remembers what I am like when I do not hold back. You will see. In the meantime, we must be patient and vigilant. If we begin this last push, there is a danger of accidentally killing her. If she begins it, I can manage things to a finer degree of precision."
Aveline stopped again. "You are planning on letting them all live?"
"Do not be so harsh a judge. I recall having let you live on a certain occasion."
She blushed, but said, "Jolie is rather more a danger to you now than I was then."
"True," Giles said. "But you will recall that I did the same with Bitka, who was hardly bunnies and rainbows. Twice, in fact. But you both overestimate and underestimate Jolie. She cannot beat me, and we can come to an agreement, as I did with Vsesalevich, and Giuseppe, and Charles-Louis, and Bitka, and you, and as I will someday have to do with Seneca and Marcos. So turns the wheel of Fortune. Besides, I would prefer not to lose yet another one of my best Wolves; my collection is looking a bit thin, and good quality is rare in the breed, and seems more rare as time passes. When Wolf eats Wolf, it is a hard winter. Of course, there is a possibility that she will give us no option, but we will give her the chance to let us be merciful. As for the others...." He smiled pleasantly, but he shrugged.
***
It was two at night, a very dark night, when Jolie sprang. A gang of ten Wolves cornered Giles walking alone in some God-forsaken part of the city; becoming Wolf, a great night-black mass with eyes of silver flame, he slipped through and fled, but they chased him down, cornering him again in a blind alley, dim with indirect light from the street. His back against the wall, he simply sat down and watched them advance with some amusement.
The first Wolf leaped at him, but something when very long in the split second of flight, because he did not leap very far, and ended up sprawling on the ground, no longer Wolf but man. Then another Wolf became human, and another, and another, until it was no longer ten Wolves against one Wolf but ten human beings who had unfortunately cornered a Wolf. In confusion they fled, but, leaping ahead of them, he blocked their way, and now it was ten human beings cornered by a Wolf. And in a short time, there was only Giles Scott, human again, a pale-and-black form in a dim alley, dusting some invisible hair or speck of dust off of an immaculate suit, strolling back to the street, as nonchalantly as if he were early for a bus and not a killer ten times over.
A black sedan turned the corner and stopped by him. He opened the door and climbed in to face Seneca, who had a disapproving expression on his face. "We are in motion," Giles said pleasantly.
"You look like you are enjoying yourself." And indeed Giles was practically a-glow, his pale face looking even more feverish than usual, a broad smile on his face, and his eyes, darkly savage, radiated what can only be called cheer.
"Of course," said Giles. "It was not quite old times, but a light holiday re-enactment always has its nostalgic pleasures. Mehercle!" he said, leaning back. "I had almost forgotten how good it feels to have enemies bloodied and broken at one's feet. I have not enjoyed myself as much since that time we went down to Germany."
Seneca's disapproving expression had not changed, although there was perhaps a quirk at the corner of the mouth at this last sentence. "At least we have this out of the way. I don't know what good it was to wait, or put yourself in such danger for such a small result."
"Hardly a small result, Sen. As long as she did nothing directly against me, Jolie could at least hope for stalemate. But that slight possibility is gone, and she will be checkmated."
Seneca merely looked out the window, while Giles looked at him with considerable amusement. "Tell me, Sen. Who is the Scion of Lykaios?"
"You are."
"And what was Lykaios?"
"The Invincible Wolf."
"And who is the Slayer of the Invincible Wolf?"
"You are."
"But you are thinking that since Lykaios the Invincible Wolf was conquered that he was not so invincible at all? You would be wrong. He won every fight, every battle, every war against any Wolf who attacked him first, and he survived every one, whether he began it or not. I do not know how he gained the privilege; he himself did not know, so lost was it in the depths of his memory, but the moon favored him. Regardless of the circumstances, no matter what the conditions were, the moon in her madness took him to be immortal, and her madness is stronger than anything else. To kill him I had to convince the moon that I was just like Lykaios, that I too was the Invincible Wolf. Thus when I killed him it was still true that the Invincible Wolf always survived and always won."
"You know as well as I that I have no patience for riddles."
Giles's smile deepened and he pointed his index finger at Sen like a gun and played at shooting him. "And that, my friend," he said, "is why neither you nor Jolie, nor anyone else at present, can topple me, and why I have already won before anyone else has even made a move. For anything as ancient as I am, all the most important things are riddles. But cheer up, Sen! Unleash the flood. Take down her allies, break open her safehouses. Bring Jolie and Charlotte to me. And, much as I hate to say it, Pretty Puppy, because I have unfinished business with him. Better yet, pin them down, and I will bring in Jolie myself."
"And everyone else?"
Giles Scott looked out the window at the passing street scene. He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "It has become increasingly clear that people need to be reminded that the Will of Aegidius must be obeyed. If they cannot understand that on its own, they must be given an example whose point they can understand. Tear their hearts out."
