The Sea Wolves by Christopher Golden Page B

that. I meant…” Jack shook his head, not sure how he could verbalize what he had been thinking.
    â€œThey’re monsters,” Sabine said. “You’ve talked of the animal with Ghost, yes? He cannot stop talking of the nobility of beasts, the beautiful simplicity of wild things. But those things—those wolves—aren’t animals. They are low creatures.”
    â€œGhost doesn’t seem to believe that.”
    Sabine scoffed. “Ghost has delusions of grandeur.”
    â€œWhy do you help them?” Jack asked. It was a question scorching in his mind and sizzling in his gut, because he so wanted the answer to make sense. Sabine was beautiful, and he had been enchanted by her beauty and sadness. But was she just a different sort of monster? “Is it Ghost? You love him?”
    â€œJack,” she said, and her eyes were sadder than ever. “I do hope you cannot even begin to equate me with them?”
    â€œNo, I—”
    â€œIn your voice, then. An accusation.”
    â€œNo,” he said, pulling his arm away from her and then holding her arm. “I just need to understand.”
    â€œThe others from your ship are dead now,” she said softly. “It’s just the beginning of the night, and I don’t think they’ve all fed. They don’t, usually. Not to their heart’s content. The pack is large, the prey usually limited. So we’ve a long night ahead of us.”
    â€œWe’re safe?” Jack said.
    Sabine laughed softly. “As safe as a door can make us, or a few locks.” She fell quiet, looking down at her hands.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œThey usually leave me alone,” she said. Jack picked up on her meaning right away.
    â€œBut now I’m in here with you,” he said, finishing for her. He looked at the door, listened, and the sea surged against the hull, boards creaking.
    â€œI have no choice,” Sabine said. “You understand that, don’t you? If I were not useful to Ghost, I would be up there, my blood washing the deck.”
    Jack said nothing, searching inside himself for something. Judgment. Justice. Reason. If it weren’t for Sabine’s gift, he would still be aboard the Umatilla and almost home, and those he’d just heard killed—torn apart by unnatural creatures, consumed by werewolves —would still be alive.
    â€œWe all have a choice,” he said.
    â€œNo!” Sabine snapped. “Sometimes choices are made for us, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
    â€œBut can’t you fight back?”
    â€œFight?” she scoffed. “I have no strength. I find things, and see maps as if they were real—as if I gazed down from the heavens. I’m no fighter.” She waved her hand vaguely at the door, at what had happened beyond. “I’m no killer.”
    â€œDefy them,” Jack said. He was trying to fuel his own anger, but there was something so vulnerable about Sabine that he could not. There was strength in her, but it was kept down, hidden—or perhaps trapped—beneath a heavy secret. He only wished that she would tell him.
    â€œI cannot. I have to do Ghost’s bidding.”
    Jack looked away from the woman, glancing around the room. It had been appointed for comfort as well as safety, with their soft seat, oil lamps, a single cot with clean blankets, and a curtained bathroom area. It’s for one person , he thought again, smelling Sabine’s subtle scent, feeling the heat of her. “How long will we be down here?” he asked.
    â€œUntil daybreak.”
    â€œThey become normal people then?”
    â€œProbably.”
    Jack glanced at her again, his heart taking a familiar jump at the sight of her. He could not blame or hate her, because her misery was plain. She was even more of a prisoner here than he. And how could he judge her, really? He had seen such violence already, even before this night