Skin of the Wolf by Sam Cabot

lovely if it hadn’t been mine. We were in Central Park. Michael wanted to take me to a hospital. Of course I refused and demanded to be brought back here. I assured him the damage appeared much worse than it actually was. Since I was conscious and could, with his support, walk, he acquiesced. I was lying; the damage was quite serious. I expended all my strength making our way home, and once here was barely able to move. I was unable to prevent him from applying bandages. When he did, he couldn’t help but see. The wounds were already healing.”
    “Gushing—Spencer, maybe you’re exaggerating. Worrying forno reason. Maybe it never was that bad. Michael’s all scratched up, and I didn’t see his shirt—I guess he took it off to bandage his shoulder. But I didn’t see any blood on his pants. If it was that bad and he helped you walk—”
    “I’d stanched the flow by the time he put them on.”
    Livia stared. Then she started to laugh. “Spencer! In Central Park in February?”
    Her old friend snorted. “Hah! Don’t I wish. No, nothing that alluring. But Livia?” Spencer sat up, rearranging himself on the sofa. “We were not mugged. What happened is not precisely clear. Before you arrived, as I wandered in and out of consciousness, I thought perhaps I had dreamt certain events. I no longer think so.”
    Livia opened a drawer in the coffee table, to get the bottle and its crimson-tipped cork out of sight until Spencer was strong enough to return them to the cellar. “Are you sure you should be sitting up? You seem—I don’t know, a little agitated.”
    “I’m perfectly fine. Pour us a brandy, if you don’t mind. There’s something I wish to discuss.”

13
    A s soon as the kitchen door shut behind them, Michael Bonnard spun on Thomas and demanded, “Who is she?”
    “Who? Livia? They’re old friends. From Rome. She’s a historian, an art historian. They’ve known each other for . . . years.” Was Bonnard also Noantri? Thomas couldn’t tell, though he knew Livia could. If he was, Thomas didn’t need to equivocate; but if he was, why had Livia been so curt? “She used to be a nurse,” Thomas added. “Maybe she just wanted privacy to look at his injuries.”
    “And that trip to the cellar?”
    Thomas, a second late, shook his head, as though he didn’t know. He did. He’d seen a bottle’s shape outlined in Livia’s purse when she returned. The idea of what was in it, even with his knowledge of and respect for the Noantri people, made him a little queasy.
    Bonnard’s sharp black eyes with their golden rings held Thomas and Thomas knew the man didn’t believe him. Bonnard didn’t speak. He turned his back and, using his good hand, ran water into a moka pot and set it on the stove. He reached for the coffee canister.
    “I’ll do that,” Thomas said, taking it and twisting off the top. “Sit down. You look like you could use some rest.”
    “I’m fine.” Bonnard, who did not look fine, took the opencanister from Thomas and spooned coffee into the pot. Thomas shrugged and sat gingerly in a chair that looked antique but turned out to be surprisingly sturdy. Well, why not? Just one more surprise in a surprising evening. This sort of thing—some inexplicable occurrence that Livia nevertheless seemed to have a handle on—had happened pell-mell in Rome, but now Thomas had resumed his quiet scholarly life and he’d thought all that was behind him.
    He did know, though, that it would be a waste of intellectual energy to try to puzzle out what was going on. Sooner or later, the two Noantri would tell him, or they wouldn’t. They were of necessity a guarded people, and he had already been allowed access to more of their secrets than most Unchanged would ever know. It would be presumptuous to expect to be brought into every confidence.
    Still, his curiosity, at once a useful tool and a hazard of his scholar’s mind, was burning.
    For something to occupy himself, he examined the room.