Ira was trying to stay calm. After all, in all the millions of nature documentaries he had consumed over his many sleepless nights, that was always the first step in a lost hiker situation. Granted, all those documentaries had been made for Earthen forests. He wasn't sure the best tricks for surviving the woods from Hell--but it probably followed a similar structure. 

Ira wasn't sure when he'd become lost. All he knew, one minute he'd been snarking off at the Prince about some dry comment he'd made, and then the next it had been silent. Like the Prince had fallen into a hole in the dirt and vanished in seconds. Which, Ira was sure wasn't true. Mostly because he had checked extensively, crawling around on all fours to push at the thick forest floor to find any openings. There weren't any--and then for a second Ira was glad the Prince had disappeared so there would be no witnesses to his embarrassing display. 

It felt like a very bad idea to keep moving. In his documentaries, that was often ill-advised. But it felt like an even worse idea to sit still. The shadows bit at his heels and nipped at the skin of his ankles until he was forced to move to shake off the feeling. Even when Ira stopped, pausing to catch his breath or to untangle his laces from the brush, the trees seemed to shift as if he was passing them by in a low-speed vehicle. And, very, very suddenly, Ira was regretting not taking the Prince's advice. Something, again, he was glad the Prince wasn't near enough to witness. 

"Stick together, it's dangerous." The Prince had said as they'd stomped past one of their already marked trees. Ira was dizzy on it. No matter what way they moved, they came back to another carved tree. It seemed like they'd been going in loops for hours--and with no way to glimpse the sun, they very well could have been. 

"I don't think this is working." Ira lamented as they passed three more markers. "The more we mark up, the more this trail becomes meaningless. I didn't think I was this directionally challenged." 

"It's not you." The Prince sighed as they walked through an arch of defaced oaks. "It's this place. Or, more accurately, what lives in this place." 

"Woodland Folk?" Ira said. He hoped his voice didn't give way to how nervous that idea made him. Something the Prince had said earlier about muggings, and drowning, and tricks, did not make him want to meet one any time soon. "I thought there weren't any." 

"No," Bezel agreed to that, "not Folk. This is Fetor." 

"Fetor. . . Fetor," Ira hummed, head pounding. "Okay, tell me. It sounds familiar but--I don't know. I feel like I can't think straight." He couldn't walk straight either, if their circles was anything to go off of. 

"Well, that would be the Fetor, too." Bezel laughed in that stage-big way of his. "Wolves use it to guard themselves or territory. It can feel like a challenge, a warning, or just. . . confusing." 

"Well, I am confused." Ira admitted with an unamused huff. "But that means we're close, right?" 

"No. It means we are exactly where the wolf wants us--outside of its territory." Bezel corrected, shaking out the lengths of his oil-black hair. It had fallen forward into his golden eyes at some point--there was no hair gel to keep it neat like he had in New York. Somehow he seemed younger like that. Not that he was young--angels, no. He was probably older than the continent of Africa. Age without the wisdom. Ira couldn't contain the laugh that thought sparked. He blamed it on the dizziness in his head. Not that he was much better. How many lifetimes had he been given to make something worthy of himself? And how many had he used to fall in love with creatures of Hell? Too many. Walking in circles was no stranger to Ira Rule. 

"Right," Ira agreed begrudgingly. "So, how do we get past it?" 

Except the Prince never answered and when Ira turned to fix him with a glare--he was just gone. Vanished without answering what Ira knew was a very important question. After that, well, had come the crawling around looking for pits, the screaming his name into the heavy air, the panicked breathing, and the mindless, directionless walking. None of which Ira was too proud of, but it was hard not to lose his head when it felt so scattered atop his shoulders. 

There wasn't much else to do besides wander, slipping into the muddled depths of his psyche with each passing tree. 

He tried to gather what he knew about Ze'evs--in vain. Within seconds, a few or a few thousand steps through the Sikker, Ira knew nothing he had learned in New York mattered between the gray trees. Picking off starved mutts camping out in abandoned buildings was nothing like strolling through the territory of a predator. Besides, Ira wasn't so much in the business of hunting demons anymore--if he ever had been. His record was messy on that subject. As if in protest, his fingers fluttered towards the handles of his Ossein daggers. He had a way of turning towards them when he needed comfort. He couldn't much help it. He had his fingers around Ossein since he had the grip strength to do it. Father Pine had brought Ira along to watch hunts since he was a toddler, still too young to be assigned a mentor or to partake in the hunts himself. The scent of demon blood was as nostalgic as kids cartoons. 

Ira scrubbed his twitching fingers through his yellow hair with a cold laugh. When he thought about it like that, he was surprised he only ended up with some attitude problems into his young adult years. Well, who had an easy childhood anyways? Totally overrated. He had never seen his time with Father Pine as something to be ashamed of. It was the best part of being the Soul. He just wished he had paid more attention, been a better student, a better soldier. By the time he had been passed off onto Melchior and dropped into the middle of the Catskills, Ira only knew a few hand-to-hand techniques and several mantras to procure holy water. 

Ira was the Soul of the Progeny. He was the chosen one--the object of their prophecy and the only way they knew of to guarantee themselves a Vestige. He was also--well, just to be totally honest--not that good at fighting. There wasn't a time he could recall a victory that didn't come by the skin of his teeth. Father Pine had always been cagey about letting Ira get too close to a hunt. He had always leapt in and made Ira act as back-up. Which wasn't something Ira could blame his mentor for. There was a reason family wasn't supposed to mentor one of their own--unspoken rule or not--and Ira was sure he'd act no differently if it had been his ward up against Hellish figures in dark back alleys. But understood as he did, it didn't change the way he was feeling in the moment. Like a vulnerable duckling walking through an alligator-filled swamp. He was really wishing he had the Prince--to keep the starving beasts of his back, as he had said. It wasn't far from the truth. 

Ira had sunken so deep into the depth of his own self pity that he didn't notice the ground shifting under his feet until it tossed him violently forward onto his hands and knees. He bit back his winced cry and shifted onto his shins to rub at his scuffed palms. Another Prince swallowing pit? No--'cause there never was one in the first place. Still, Ira busied himself pushing aside the dense forest floor to find what had snagged him. An action he soon abandoned as the rumbling seeped into his legs. 

Ira froze, tensing as the familiar bone rattle rolled over his body. The telltale warning of a predator on the way. The earth pulsed with each step. Ira leaned forward, spreading his fingers into the cool moss carpet. The ripples ran up his forearms and into his jaws. The impact made his teeth clack together. 

Angels, he cursed in silence. A Beast. 

He shuddered thinking of his last encounter with a Beast. Another fight he'd won with dumb luck. Only, the thing about luck was that it ran out. Ira pushed himself up onto his feet, straining his ears to catch any indicator he could of what was coming--so he could go the other way. It wasn't very heroic of him but there was a certain freedom allotted to him in his solitude. No one he had to impress or protect. No one to judge him for picking which hill he was going to die on--or for saving the choice for a day later down the line. 

And that was exactly what Ira intended to do. Intended. Right, because if Ira had stitched the plan together there was a certainty that it would fall apart. For a blissful moment, it seemed easy enough. Ira's pricked ears pinpointed a direction that the cracking of bark and lumbering steps were echoing from. It was towards his left slightly. Which was the best he could do--the idea of finding North from South was foreign in the forest. He steered himself right and managed one step before his plans exploded into a giant sparkling mess. 

The Beast roared in outrage--a sound that sliced across the trees like the finest blade to puncture Ira's ears. He winced, throwing his palms up to shield himself. The noise was a painful reminder of the pure silence he had been shrouded in for minutes, hours, or seconds. The roar was also the least of the problems. As it ceased into a distant echo, a new call rose to replace it. The melancholy song of one singular creature. A sound as beautiful as it was haunting. It was bright with challenged and dim with defeat. The howl of a wolf. 

Ira spun on his heels and ran as fast as he could--crashing through branches, brush, roots, thorns. The forest snagged at him with it's cold gray fingers and snapped at him with sharp wooden teeth but nothing could put him off the trail. Not even the screaming of the Beast. The Beast that Ira was most definitely headed directly towards. The sounds of the violent entanglement became clearer the nearer Ira got. Skin ripping, blood and meaty-wetness crashing to the forest floor, screams of animalistic agony. The air was thick with the smell of carnage, rot, and rage. It was almost enough to make Ira gag--it might well have if he hadn't become so acquainted with Beast corpses the previous summer. Demonic decay had a way of ironing even the weakest of stomachs. The wolf howled out a scream of pain--the noise twisted Ira's stomach painfully tight and spurred his feet on impossibly faster. 

The Prince had posed a question once upon a time, Ira recalled. Maybe something a little less than hypothetical. What if this isn't your wolf?  Ira could still remember what he'd answered to that. I'm not taking that chance. 

He wrapped his Ossein daggers between his fingers and plunged past the thicket of plushy yellow brush. Ira balanced back on his heels as the ground dipped beneath him, he bent his knees and slid down the slick blood-soaked moss until the ground evened. The Beast was at the center of the ravine, backed against a high ledge of soil-toned rocks. If it was a Behemoth--it wasn't a combination Ira had seen before. All Behemoths looked both the same and different. Like a hundred volunteers had been given a prompt and then set loose on some lumps of clay. But out of all the Behemoths Ira had seen--this one was missing the grayish black skin, telephone pole limbs, and sweeping tail. It was--no matter how many times he wiped at his eyes like the vision would clear--yep, it was a giant rooster. Or, partly. 

It's giant green body was snakish, lashing and writing atop three giant yellow limbs. The paws were unmistakably birdish. So were the flapping fleshy pink wings, the beady black eyes, and the curved boney beak. The creature struck out with its lengthy neck. Its beak carved through the air in a flash of white before impaling itself into the yellow ground. It punctured fauna and soil, imbedding the head up to its blinking orbs. The wolf it had been targeting with that attack stumbled just in time to evade the brunt of the impact, but his paws didn't come away completely clean. The shudder in the earth tossed him to his stomach, forcing his body to writhe until he could right his balance again. Once he managed placing all four feet back beneath his bulk, he swayed on his feet. One of his legs--his back one--was shaking with the effort to hold a quarter of his body weight. 

"Mel," Ira breathed. 

The wolf's ears flickered--his spine became rigid. He turned and looked at Ira, freezing him in place with an eerie yellow-green gaze. Ira's heart plummeted into his gut as the Ze'ev flashed its white fangs at him. His coat was brown along his back and ribs but tawny yellow along his throat and stomach. 

What if it's not your wolf. 

Ira didn't have time to wallow. Didn't have time to think that Melchior wouldn't snap at him, that Melchior's eyes weren't that yellow, that his coat was as rich a brown from the tips of his stupidly fluffy ears to his doggish tail--he didn't have time for anything but shouting as the Radioactive-Thanksgiving-Dinner-From-Hell pulled its head free from the earth and screeched another roar. 

"Look out!" Ira flung his pointer finger back towards the monster, as if its own battle cry wasn't loud enough. The Ze'ev snapped back to attention--thankfully turning his fangs towards the Beast instead of Ira--just in time for a sideswipe from its beak to send him flying into the jagged rocks. The wolf cried out on a whimper. Before Ira could think any better of it, he shoved his Ossein daggers back into his holster and ran forward. As he charged, he pulled the Prince's kris off his shoulder and raised it over his head. 

The Beast took a step towards the wolf on those giant chicken feet, clucking ominously in the back of its throat. It opened its jagged white beak to reveal rows and rows of glimmering fangs. Ira suppressed his shudder down into the same hole he'd thrown his fear away into and fell to his knees. His momentum carried him forward across pools of blood and chunks of white meat. He dragged the wavy blade across the back of the chicken's heel, slicing down until the iron kissed bone. With a screeching howl, the Beast pitched forward onto its knobby knees. Its center heavy mass toppled, fleshy wings beating in flightless vain to keep its stomach from the ground but it was built like a T-rex and had no chance without its hindlegs. 

The entire forest rattled as the Beast was fell. It rolled onto its side, wildly thrashing its powerful legs and tossing its long neck, fangs and beak snapped with audible cracks. Ira rolled away from the flailing Beast and brought his--temporarily--sword to his chest. The Ze'ev slid away from his bed of rocks, shook off his coat with a snarling howl, and launched at the creatures slender throat. The Beast attempted to raise its paws to push the wolf away but it wasn't flexible enough. The Ze'ev fit right between its deadly jaws and clawed-feet. He sank into a place the Beast was invulnerable to protect. Claws and teeth sank into the fleshy green scales. The wolf tore his head from side-to-side, flinging chunks of scale, skin, muscle, and unidentifiable gore with each thrash. The Beast screeched--a sound that become increasingly wet and winded as the wolf burrowed into the Beasts' shaking body--until the thrashing and screaming halted. As if to ensure the death of his opponent, the wolf ripped free more twitching pink mass and spat it out onto the forest floor. 

Ira pressed his pale fingers to his frowned lips to contain the contents of his stomach. All that tough talk from before paled in front of the wolf's brutality--a wolf that, Ira very suddenly realized, no longer had a giant Beast occupying his time. Ira took one hesitate step back, wincing when the forest floor beneath his boots cracked. The Ze'ev's ears twitched lazily. His head rolled on his shoulders, pinning Ira beneath his too-yellow glare. Ira swallowed and pressed a nervous palm to his own exposed throat. The wolf's eyes darted to his kris. A snarl rolled up his throat, his fangs peeled back to flash white fangs. Very slowly, Ira lifted the kris over his shoulder and guided it back into its sheath. 

"We. . . don't need to fight, okay?" Ira announced cautiously. He didn't know if the Ze'ev understood him--he thought maybe Melchior had always been able to understand him but Melchior was human. This was--this was a demon. The kind Ira had been trained to kill, no matter his skill level. He didn't fully grasp the consequences of unarming himself until the wolf pounced, claws stretched and jaws open. The impact was solid. The kind that forced Ira's lungs to surrender all their air. The ground came up quick, catching Ira's back and becoming something his body was pinned to. His hands flew to his Ossein daggers, ripping them from his belt. He aimed at the wolf's rumbling throat and struck. His blades crossed, becoming a pinching point at the base of the wolf's thick neck. The white blades dug into fur until they rested at the skin. The Ze'ev froze, suddenly realizing he had caught himself in his own attack. They held still--eyes locked. "Don't!" 

The wolf was statue stiff--no longer snarling. Just staring. 

"I don't want to kill you," Ira swore, "so don't make me." 

The Ze'ev blinked at him. Foamy pink spit bubbled up at the corners of its mouth. 

"I-" Ira choked, forced a swallow, and continued, "I don't know if you can understand me but-" 

The wolf snorted. Ira flinched on instinct but the sound was. . . amused. Light and childish like Ira had just offered up a squeaky toy. "Uh, you can?" 

The wolf blinked and then did nothing. Ira flushed an embarrassed pink and squirmed in his discomfort. "Okay, so, anyways. I'm looking for where the Ze--where the wolves went. I was told a wolf could. . . help me. And since I helped you with that chicken thing. . . maybe you could help me?" 

The wolf tilted its head, flickering his ears mockingly as if to ask why do you need the wolves? Or maybe do you have a death wish? Or possibly why do you think I'd help you? Or--angels, Ira scoffed. "This negotiation would be easier if you could talk." 

The wolf tilted his head again, eyes blinking and ears swishing. His jaws opened, displaying his fangs lazily. There were clumps of pink sinew between his teeth, stringy red saliva pooling on his tongue. Ira winced but refused to shut his eyes. He tightened his grip on his Ossein, pressing to reinforce the threat he had the Ze'ev locked in. The wolf's eyes flashed towards him, growl rising at the new pressure. 

"Well?" Ira asked, nearly mocked. "What'll it be? Are we going to kill each other or help each other? I don't have all the time in the world." 

The wolf contemplated that for a moment. Or, Ira hoped. He seemed thoughtful but maybe inside his mind he was plotting which recipe Ira's flesh would be best used for. Finally, he retreated. His weight disappeared as he trotted back over to the cooling corpse of the Beast. Ira rolled onto his legs and leapt to his boots, daggers still held over his wildly-beating heart. The wolf dismissed Ira with a hot huff and circled his kill, licking his jaws with his pink tongue.  Ira was sure he was trying to make the canter look powerful, but he didn't miss the shake in the wolf's legs. His back hindleg was hardly holding any weight at all. His claws dragged across the earth lamely with each lurching step.

It seemed he was picking the silent third option: neither helping nor killing. 

"You might need my help again before the day is done." Ira called. "There's a demon not far behind. He's intent on killing you." 

The wolf rolled his neck lazily, swishing his tail in a prideful display. 

"Oh, right." Ira agreed with a playfully casual shrug. "You know all about Mahan Raj, don't you? You've been out running him for a while now. Haven't you? Well, Mahan's done playing with you. I heard his crew myself. They're moving on from capturing to killing." 

The wolf froze for a second before he continued his act of defiant sulking. 

"How far do you think you can run on that leg, huh?" Ira challenged. 

The Ze'ev snarled, flashing his white fangs in warning. A smarter person would have listened--Ira wasn't one. 

"Your best chance is to go back to the other wolves." Ira guessed. Truth be told, he had no idea why this wolf was on his own. He didn't know if the Wolfking was a better alternative--nothing he'd ever heard would suggest as much, but he was getting desperate. If that meant invading wolf territory to find Melchior among them, he had to try. Sure, they'd left the pit but if wolves still stuck together then finding them was still his best shot at finding Melchior. "Lone wolves--hurt lone wolves--don't stand a chance. I'll guard your back, you get us to the other wolves. Sounds like a deal, doesn't it?" 

The wolf's ears fluttered over that word--us. He cast a suspicious glance around the thick gray trees, a new rumble in his throat. Ira's eyes widened. "You can understand me! You know everything I'm saying!" 

The wolf had the decency to look bashful. He darted his eyes away and pawed at the forest floor with a grumbling huff. His jaws opened and then shut again. 

"Then help me!" Ira pleaded. "I need to find a wolf--I really need to find this wolf it's important. Just one wolf and I'll go." 

The wolf lifted himself to his three good paws and tipped his head in clear curiosity. 

Ira's throat tensed, biting back the words nearest his heart. He sighed and shook his head. How was he going to find Melchior if he was too scared to ask? He clenched his fists at his side and worked his aching jaw. "His name is. . . is M-" 

"Ira!" 

Ira and the wolf tensed, spinning to face the devil crashing through the underbrush with maximum speed and minimum urgency. Even the way he shouted Ira's name was cool and collected. The Third Prince of Hell poured out into the small clearing. His golden eyes fluttered from the dead chicken thing, to the snarling wolf, and then to Ira at last. His shoulders slumped beneath his loose white top--and then immediately tensed again. "Oh brothers, darling. You got another outfit bloody?" 

Ira looked down at his soaked pants and winced. "Uh, the shirt is still good?" 

"It's dirty." The Prince sniffed, distaste radiating from his proud face. 

"Sure, but not bloody." Ira compromised. 

The Prince angled his head towards the Ze'ev. "Is this him? Melchior?" 

The wolf's ears pinched and fluttered, swiveling towards Melchior's name with obvious curiosity. His predatory eyes widened before slanting in carnivorous intent. 

"No." Ira sighed wearily. The weight of the statement was suddenly stone heavy on his heart. "You were right. It was just. . . wishful thinking." 

"Well, no matter." Bezel dismissed with a lazily flick of his wrist. "We needed a wolf anyways, and now we have one. We still stand the best chance of finding the Vestige-wielder if we can find the wolves." 

"Yeah," Ira snorted bitterly, "about that. I don't think he's going to help us-" 

"I will help you." The voice slithered across the cold, blood soaked earth. The sort of voice that was unmistakably inhuman, like words being squeezed through a metal pipe. The jagged words were a few tones short of being rasping barks. 

Ira's own voice scrambled back down his throat, forcing up a sputtering choking cough. Even the Prince looked shocked--granted, in the lamest and coldest way possible. He curled his lips and tilted his hips. Ira pounded his fist against his ribs until his choking subsided. "You! Angels, you can talk?" 

The wolf shook off his coat, grinning with his blood-painted teeth. "Of course." He nodded like it was obvious. "But I am no angel." 

Ira picked his jaw up from the forest floor just long enough to toss a confused glance at Bezel. The Prince shrugged up his shoulders. "Yeah, some talk. It's rare from what I heard but it happens. More common for Silver-Tongues who can practice speech with human mouths." 

The Ze'ev narrowed his eyes at the statement, but if in disagreement or in suspicion that he had been likened to a Silver-Tongue, Ira couldn't tell. 

"Melchior never-" 

"I doubt he ever tried." Bezel pointed, not incorrectly.

Ira sucked in a deep breath and shook his head until it rattled. Fine--sure. He was in Hell, after all. Wolves could talk. They were also horse-sized and demonic so, yeah, why not? If he got caught up on every little oddity his head would surely explode. And there was something more important--the words the wolf was saying. "You're going to help us, really? You'll take us to where the other wolves are staying? You'll help us find Melchior?" 

It was possible that the two task were opposed. That finding the other wolves and finding Melchior could take them two different directions--but this was the lead Ira had. This was the only path he could see sprawled out before him, and he knew if he let his head fill with 'what-if' then it truly would erupt. 

The wolf's ears pinched over Melchior's name again. Ira refused to see the gesture as recognition or confusion--his insides still stung from the hope that had been ripped out of him just moments before. The Ze'ev turned on his paws and gestured with his chin towards the trees. "I will. Deal we have made, yes? I take you home with me, you keep hunters from collecting my bounty or my life." 

"Uh," Ira tensed his throat and forced a nod, "yeah. Deal."

The wolf made a noise in his throat halfway between a laugh and a snarl. "Deal we have made but I make no promises to guard your lives, companions. Wolfking keeps all wolves. None can leave without his permission."

"You got out." Ira pointed stiffly. 

"I am not an ordinary wolf." He shrugged his furry shoulders. 

Right, if this was the wolf from Kett he was likely a Silver-Tongued shapeshifter, like Bezel had guessed at. Even if Ira had only seen him in his hellhound form. 

"Neither is Melchior." Ira said. 

The wolf grinned, smirking like Ira was the punchline in a twisted joke. As much as his instincts begged Ira to flee, the wolf turned on his paws and trotted off into the grey woods. Ira slid his eyes towards the Prince and shrugged hopelessly. "Well, let's go. I have a feeling Lazarus is going to show us where Timmy fell down the well."