DELAHAYE’S CLEATED BOOT FLASHED ABOVE their heads and kicked the side of the Wolf’s head so brutally that splinters from the obliterated skull-helmet pierced the scarred flesh beneath. It lunged at its new pursuer but Delahaye was a grown man, physically fitter, bigger and denser than little boys, so his weight pushed against the Wolf’s, pound for pound, leaving track marks in the bloodied slush. His revulsion for this thing with its horror-garb and stink lent him extra strength to administer a solid roundhouse punch to its human face with the other. The Wolf collapsed, but its madness awarded swift recovery. It bit into a drift to clean its teeth and reset its jaw, leaving a bloody smear on the flawless white. It shook itself. Paul had dragged John to the turret and propped him against the door. Delahaye confronted the Wolf with Ava crouched between them.
Despite being there, in the moment, facing the thing he’d been hunting for almost a year, Delahaye still couldn’t quite believe that what he saw, touched, smelled and heard, was real. His knuckles bled from impacting bone during the punch but the cold was so cold he barely felt the sting. The Wolf regarded him with a peculiar sardonic interest, recognising him and amused by it. It cocked its head all the better to see him and its paws flexed all the better to claw him. The policeman drew out the truncheon from his waist clip, and the Wolf growled.
It reverted to bipedal stance and its paws snatched Ava by the shoulder, dragging her away. Each time Delahaye tried to pounce on it or sidle around it or raised the truncheon to hit it, the Wolf grabbed Ava by the throat and drew her face closer to its teeth, its message clear: Ava was barter, and if it was harmed then it would harm her. Its bare head was Nathaniel’s face but there was no Nathaniel in it.