pale mist spiralling up into the night sky, and she knew immediately what she was looking at.
Blood. A lot of blood. Freshly spilled too.
Fear rose through her, and this time she was unable to make it retreat. But she did not go back inside to wake her parents, even though she knew she should. She was her father’s daughter, stubborn and fiercely independent; she would not ask for help unless it was absolutely necessary, and she would rather die than admit there was anything that frightened her. So she stepped away from the door, her boots crunching the thick snow beneath her feet, and headed towards the north field.
As she approached it, the torch beam wavering unsteadily before her, she saw that the heavy wooden gate was standing open; the snow at its base was swirled into drifts and ridges, and smeared thickly with blood. The smell of the steaming liquid hit her nose as she leant in to look at the gatepost, and she retched. The heavy chain that was slung round the post every night by the last farmhand to leave was lying in the snow, its links bent and twisted open. As Greta shone the torch into the field, her heart beating rapidly beneath her narrow chest, she forced herself not to think about how much strength it would have taken to bend steel as though it was cardboard.
Her torch beam picked out a large shape on the far side of the field. She stepped through the gate, taking care not to stand in the cooling red liquid, and headed towards it. She was halfway across the field before her torch cast enough light for her to realise what she was looking at.
The cattle that grazed the north field were huddled together in its furthest corner, packed tightly together like sardines. Greta, who had been around livestock since she was old enough to stand, had never seen anything like it before. The animals were shifting constantly in the cold night air, taking half-steps backwards and forwards, their heads up, their eyes wide discs of white. As she approached, the herd let out a long, deep rumble of noise, and she stopped.
They’re warning me not to come any closer. Something has scared them half to death.
Greta turned away from the frightened cattle and followed her own footsteps back to the gate. She looked along the long smear of blood, to where it disappeared into the pitch-black of the woods. She was shaking now, partly from the cold, partly from fear, and she followed the trail of gore with short, hesitant steps. When she was three metres away from the treeline, her bravery failed her, and she stood, rooted to the spot, staring into the woods.
Then a growl, so deep and low that Greta felt it vibrate through the bones in her legs, sounded from somewhere in front of her, and her breath froze in her lungs. The shotgun fell softly to the snow at her feet, as she heard something move through the trees. Then two yellow eyes appeared in the darkness, floating high above her head, at least two metres from the ground. Slowly, they moved towards her, and a shape emerged from between the trees.
Standing in front of Greta was the biggest wolf she had ever seen.
It squatted in the darkness, its enormous head peering down at her, its mouth and snout soaked with crimson, its thick neck attached to a body the size of her father’s Land Rover. Its fur was greyish-green, and its flanks and back were horribly misshapen; ridges of bone rose and fell beneath the creature’s skin, its legs were crooked and bent, and a vast patchwork of scar tissue criss-crossed the animal’s hide, jagged white lines shining out from the fur in the light of the full moon. Behind the wolf’s bloodstained head something glistened, and Greta saw two angular shapes emerging from the skin, shining in the night air.
Metal, she thought, her mind reeling. It’s got metal sticking out of its neck.
The growl came again, accompanied by a blast of warm air and the coppery scent of blood. She gagged, staring helplessly up at the wolf, which was regarding her with a look that was fearsome, but also appeared curiously sad; the corners of its wide yellow eyes were turned down, its lips drawn back against its razor-sharp teeth in what looked like a grimace of pain.
You can’t outrun it. You can’t fight it. Your only chance is to make it realise you’re not a threat.
Greta took a deep breath, and looked into the wolf’s eyes.
“Hello,” she said, her voice trembling. “My name’s Greta.”
The wolf recoiled instantly, as though it had been stung by a hornet. It took half a step backwards, then threw back its head and let loose a deafening howl, an ear-splitting cry of misery and pain. Behind Greta, the light in her parents’ bedroom came on, and the sound of heavy boots on wooden stairs echoed across the farmyard. But Greta neither saw nor heard; she was staring, transfixed, at the monstrous creature in front of her. As the howl died away, the wolf opened its mouth again, and made a sound that Greta recognised. Her eyes widened, and she took an involuntary step towards the wolf, her arms rising before her in placation.
The roar of a shotgun thundered through the night air, and the snow at the wolf’s feet exploded. Greta shrieked as the wolf bolted into the woods, so quickly that she could have believed it had never been there at all. Then she saw the thick streak of blood where it had been standing, and realisation flooded through her. She heard shouted voices and running footsteps behind her, before her eyes rolled in her head and she crumpled towards the ground. Arriving at a flat sprint, Peter Schuler threw his shotgun aside, slid across the snow, shoved his hands under her back as she fell and wrapped his daughter in his arms.
In the kitchen at the rear of the farmhouse, Greta’s father sat at the battered wooden table that dominated the room. He was sipping a mug of thick black coffee that his wife had made him once she had finished putting their daughter back to bed. She was now watching him silently, leaning against the stove beneath the window, her expression unreadable.
Standing around the kitchen, equally silent, were three of the Schuler farmhands, whom Peter had roused from sleep when he returned to the house. They had come uncomplainingly, and were leaning against the walls, sipping coffees of their own, shotguns broken over their forearms, watching their employer struggling to control his temper.
Peter Schuler was full of a fury beyond anything he had ever known.
He was trying to rationalise the events of the night. Peter had spent his entire life on the farm he now owned, had worked it for his father until Hans Schuler had succumbed to the cancer that had eaten him away before his son’s eyes, had married his wife and raised his daughter there. As a result, he believed he understood animals, both domestic and wild, as well as anyone, and better than most. And he knew that was all the wolf was; a wild animal that had wandered into the Schulers’ territory, incapable of malice, or viciousness. But it had been standing over his daughter, his maddening, arrogant, beautiful daughter, standing over her with its teeth bared, its shadow swallowing her, and he had never wanted to kill another living thing as much as he did right now.
The wolf had scared Greta terribly. He had been carrying her back to the house, shouting for his wife to bring blankets as he did so, when she had suddenly stiffened in his arms, then screamed so loudly that he almost dropped her. When the scream had died away, she began to sob against his shoulder, her small body trembling. She was still shaking as his wife tucked her blankets tightly back round her, mumbling nonsense about the wolf being made of metal, insisting that it had spoken to her, that it had said “Help me” as she stood beneath its blood-soaked muzzle, waiting for it to tear her throat out.
“What do you want to do, boss?” It was Franck who asked, the farm’s head wrangler, a soft-spoken bear of a man. He was looking steadily at Greta’s father, waiting to be told what to do.
“Get your coats,” Peter replied, and a minute later the four men were marching across the farmyard, their guns slung over their shoulders.
Peter led them to the spot at the edge of the woods where the wolf had loomed over Greta, then took a deep breath and followed the trail of blood into the trees. Lars and Sebastian, brothers who had worked the Schuler farm since they were fourteen, walked steadily behind him, with Franck bringing up the rear.
The snow crunched beneath their heavy boots as they tracked the wolf through the forest. The animal was not hard to follow; it had left a trail of paw prints the size of dinner plates, and a long corridor