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“Black Sunshine?” Wolf asked. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to go in there until The Becoming? Until I turned?”
“This will be an exception,” his father said. He straightened up and waved his hand in the air. “There is always an exception.” Suddenly the air in front of them started to warp and shimmer where his father was gesturing, and flames appeared in the outline of a door. “You’re still human, Wolf, until you turn, but I believe if you concentrate hard enough, visualize hard enough, you will be able to create a door that will lead you home. It’s in your blood as it is in mine.”
“But…”
“I love you, son,” his father said and quickly embraced him, wrapping him in his arms so hard that Wolf was lifted inches off the ground. “I will always love you. You take care of your family now. You hang on to them with everything you have. Remember that loss and love go hand in hand, no matter who you are, or what you are. You can’t have one without the other, and even we don’t live forever.”
“You’re not supposed to die! We’re not supposed to die!” Tears sprung to Wolf’s eyes, tears of sorrow and fear and it was like everything he felt last night had come back ten-fold. He had been afraid of this then and hadn’t known it yet.
Now it was happening.
The headless man brought death.
“Every creature dies,” his father said sadly. “Some of us are just harder to kill. But there’s always a way. These men know the way.”
“Then I’m not leaving you.”
But his father was already picking up Wolf and placing him inside the flaming door, in a black and white world that looked like a colorless version of this one.
“Run home,” his father said and then, with a quick gesture of his hands, the flames disappeared and the door shut. “Run now!”
Wolf felt so off-balance that he fell to his knees. In the Black Sunshine he was still in the forest, though the ravens were gone and his father was a ghostly shape, standing still and facing the trees, everything shades of monotone gray.
Wolf wasn’t about to leave. Not when his father needed him.
He just needed to figure out how to create a door so he could step back into the real world again and join him.
He started pacing, his eyes trained to his father’s shadowy form. It was like looking through glass. He knew that in the Black Sunshine time behaved differently, was sped up, and that his father was so still because everything else on the other side was slowed down.
But that meant that maybe he could find the people that were coming. Maybe he could stop them somehow. He had time.
He started running in the direction his father was facing, knowing they were coming from there, and eventually he started to see the five ghostly shapes of men walking in slow motion.
“Create the door,” Wolf told himself. He placed himself between his father and the men and tried to use all his brain power to create a door in the air, the same kind that his father created.
But try as he might, he couldn’t do it. Even with time slowed down on the other side, eventually the men got close enough to his father that they drew swords.
His father was unarmed.
They were going to kill him.
He couldn’t hear what the men were saying, it was all just this low thrumming noise, but he knew that his father didn’t have long before they attacked. He just hoped that his big, strong, powerful father, a being that should live forever, would be able to kill the men and survive.
It all happened in slow motion.
One man lunged at his father and his father was fast, as if he was the only one sped-up. He was able to duck and then tackled another man by the legs, bringing him down.
Wolf screamed, a dull sound without an echo, as another man took the sword and attempted to stab his father in the back with it. But his father rolled out of the way and kicked up, knocking the sword out of the way. The man fell on top of his father and his father put his hands on both sides of the man’s head and quickly snapped his neck, killing him instantly. The man slumped and his father used him as a shield as another man thrust his sword at him.
Hope started to build inside Wolf’s chest. Maybe his father could fight them all and win.
But then two other men went for his father, both of them with their swords raised.
His father raised his hand to stop one, the sword cutting through his forearm, a possibly fatal wound for anyone else but him.
But while he was fighting that one sword, his mouth opening in a scream, the other blade came for his neck.
