The Night Has Teeth (31 page)

27. I Will
Follow You Into The Dark

T
he drive to the hospital is excruciatingly long. Or so it
seems. In the passenger seat, Arden slumps against the window. His
skin is pale and sweaty beneath streaks of dirt. Every second that
passes, I’m afraid that he’s stopped breathing. The air that moves
through his lungs has gone from jagged and shaky to shallow and
almost soundless. A moment ago he was shivering uncontrollably.
Now, with the heat blasting through the car, he’s gone very still,
and I wonder how much time he has before his final exhalation.
Beneath Roul’s designer suit is more dirt and evidence of being
buried alive. There are going to be questions at the hospital,
questions that I won’t be able to answer. But I can’t leave him to
die, nor can I put him down like an injured animal.

By my estimation it only actually takes about five
minutes to drive to Saint-Maurice Hospital, but it feels like time
wasted, especially when I think of the long walk back to the car.
The building looks more like a chateau than a place of healing. I
pull into the long driveway that leads up to the hospital and lean
on the horn as we approach. Two paramedics on a cigarette break
rush over as I get out of the car and open the passenger side door.
They check Arden for vital signs. The way things are unfolding, I
get the sense that time is somehow making up for the seemingly slow
drive here. The paramedics talk to each other in rapid French as
they pull him from the car and onto a stretcher. From the
sidelines, I’m just a spectator, utterly helpless. As I stand
watching, there’s a second when Arden opens his eyes, alert and
aware of his surroundings. He looks over at me with those amber
eyes more befitting of a wolf than a human. And even though I know
I’ve done the right thing, his gaze cuts through me to tell me
otherwise.

I consider leaving at that point, knowing there’s
nothing more for me to do, but a presence whisks me away. A doctor
wearing scrubs fires off a series of questions as the warmth of
indoors hits my skin. There’s nothing I can tell her that’s going
to be helpful in saving his life right now. My only defense is to
pretend that I don’t understand her and hope that she can’t speak
English. That way she can’t ask the hard questions or, at the very
least, I’ll have an excuse to not answer them. My plan works, and
after a short time of trying to communicate in broken English, she
abandons me in the waiting room. I collapse into the first
available seat and wrap myself within Roul’s coat, which I’ve
somehow come into possession of again.

I sit and I wait. Hours pass. People come and go. I
feel like the only constant in a room of circulating wounded. The
only times I abandon my vigil are to move the car when asked by a
security guard and then once again for diluted coffee from a
vending machine. When I search my pockets for change, all I pull
out are the two copper coins I picked up at the gravesite. Turning
them over in my fingers, I see now that they’re a mismatched pair
of pennies: one American and the other Canadian. It’s a small
comfort to grasp a familiar object in such an unsettling scenario.
Although one reminds me of home, the other brings Madison to mind.
I don’t know what Boguet’s fate is, but with her and the Hounds
involved, I can only imagine it will be a fitting end. What’s the
point of their existence otherwise? Up until the past twenty-four
hours I haven’t had to deal with death firsthand. Now it’s coming
up in spades. After a spell, I fall asleep in the chair. It’s near
dawn when I’m jostled awake by the same doctor.

“Okay,” she says. “Your
frère
.”

“What?” I ask groggily. “Brother?
N-no.”

Her expression is a mixture of perplexed and
apologetic. “
Pardonnez-moi
.”

“Wait,” I say, leaning forward, “he’s all
right?”

She nods.

Straightening up in the chair, I ask, “Can I see
him?”

“Only
famille
.”

“But...”

Arden has no family. Not anymore. His father was
killed four hundred years ago. Even if he has any blood relations,
he’s dead to them now. So I’m forced to tell the most convincing
lie of my life. “I’m his brother.”

From the look on her face it’s clear that she thinks
there’s been a miscommunication. But she nods again and has a nurse
direct me to the recovery room, where Arden lies prone on a bed.
With a number of tubes and wires attached to his body and his arm
in a cast, he appears fragile. Breakable even. Human, actually. I
don’t know what’s going to happen when he wakes up. We’ll each have
new roles to learn. In a way I’m more afraid for him now than I was
in the forest. He asked me to kill him, to spare him from this
life. This human life isn’t the one he was meant for, but it’s his
now. What he does with it is up to him. As I sink into the chair by
his bedside, I begin to understand how fate is never what you
anticipate. I sit here literally in the shoes of another man, and
yet I don’t feel like an impostor despite this stark reversal of
fortunes. Who’s to say this isn’t the way things were meant to
unfold? How will I explain that to him, though? Especially when
everything he’s ever known is gone.

The thing about werewolves is, once the threshold to
their world is crossed, I don’t believe it’s really possible to
leave. I crossed over long before I knew it. When I reflect on my
life after that first day of kindergarten, I think I’ve always been
afraid of the long shadow cast upon the linoleum floor. Somehow I
always thought the beast within had escaped into the world. And
that darkness, whatever it was, was chasing me. But I got it all
wrong. I’ve been the one chasing it, trying to grab onto its tail.
This entire time, all I had to do was look down to see that it was
shadowing me all along. Now that it’s reared its head again, I’m
not afraid of it anymore. I’m wholly prepared for what lies ahead
in this journey, because the wolf in the night has teeth. It has
claws, and it’s me.

Acknowledgements

T
his novel wouldn’t have been possible without the online
and IRL friends who cheered me on from the sidelines and my
extended family who always knew I could. You all celebrated the
milestones along the way and for that I’m forever
grateful.

There are, of course, specific people I need to
thank. The crew at (un) Death-Match, namely Deanna McFadden and Dan
Wagstaff who let this fangirl play in the sandbox. Julie Wilson,
the Book Madam, for the best tweet of 2010. Although you read one
of the earliest drafts, you made me feel like I could pull this
whole thing off. Tan Light for not letting the details slip by and
for ensuring
The Night Has Teeth
had a good dose of girl power. Colleen McKie for being a
friend first and fan second. Your support and cheerleading was much
needed along the way. Clare Hitchens, whose marketing prowess
helped me figure out Connor’s back story.

The entire Firefly Digital Media family for always
being so lovely. Thanks for the kick-ass book trailer and for the
stellar line-up of cast and crew: Calvin Butler (Conner, age five),
Andrew Pilichos (victim, age five), Michael Coutts (Conner, age
seventeen), Alison DeLory (teacher), Noah Stevens (camera), Lauren
Oostveen (special effects make-up), Julian Gibbs (director) and
Tracy Bennett (producer).

Jo Treggiari for sharing knowledge so generously.
You are totally fierce. Hannah Classen, there’s now more steampunk
mad scientist just for you. Steve Vernon for all those nice things
you said out loud and meant whole-heartedly.

I have to give props to the Writers Federation of
Nova Scotia for awarding me first place for the 34th Atlantic
Writing Competition in the YA category. Nate Crawford, Hillary
Titley,
as well as the judge and
jurors:
you gave me the
validation that every writer craves. To the many friends who
generously offered to help connect dots at some point, I appreciate
the kindness: Francesco Paonessa, Kelvin Kong, Ali McDonald,
Felicia Quon, Stephens Gerard Malone, and so many more.

To my editor, Allister Thompson, I can’t thank you
enough for asking the right questions and providing the Y
chromosome input that was needed for galactic perfection. You are a
rock star in many ways.

In the “judging a book by its cover” category, I
have to give it up for my cover designer who encapsulated
everything that is
The Night Has Teeth
.

A word about the science. Although this is a work
of fiction — surprise! — a lot of research went into the made-up
science found within these pages. In particular, I’d like to
mention two articles: “Genetic evidence for archaic admixture in
Africa” from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
and the National Geographic piece entitled “Ancient Dog Skull Shows
Early Pet Domestication.” The RadioLab podcast “Henrietta’s Tumor”
provided some additional inspiration. I also found the research at
The Leakey Foundation immensely helpful in building the reality of
the world within which
The Night Has Teeth
takes place.

Finally, all of this truly wouldn’t have even
crossed my mind had my husband not submitted his DNA to a genome
project a few years ago. So last, but certainly not least, my
biggest thanks goes to my husband. At times the writing of this
book took me away for long periods of time but you were always
there when I came back. Thank you for supporting my writing and my
dream.

Bio

Kat Kruger is a freelance
writer and social media consultant with a degree in public
relations from Mount Saint Vincent University.
The Night Has Teeth
is her first novel
and won the 34th Atlantic Writing Competition. She splits her time
between Toronto and Halifax with her husband.

Photo © Edmund
Lewis