The girls had sweaters on.  Their mother had wrapped them up to shield them from illness, even though it was too warm for the extra layer.  August's humidity had completely vanished, but the sun was still sharp and fierce.  Despite the heat, the air had taken on a nostalgic scent invoking New England autumns of his boyhood.

Carrie had on a light cream colored knit which she refused to fasten.  It flew behind her like a cape as she tore down the driveway's steep hill on her new bike.  Madeline had on a fussy pink cardigan with embroidered flowers.  She had less say in her attire and it was buttoned up tight against the imagined elements.  She meandered with her new trike around the area in front of the garage.  With every tour, she came closer to banging into the silver Lexus.

Sunlight dappled through the trees spreading random golden coins in the deep shade.  Darren sat on the edge of the porch with his empty coffee cup beside him watching his princesses and letting everything else fall from his mind.  He knew without a doubt he would always remember this morning.  When he was old and withered, he would still look back on this moment as one of the most perfect of his life.

"Spoiling them isn't going to help."  Noelle's voice cut like a cold knife through his brain severing him from his sentimental thoughts.

"It's not spoiling them."

"They didn't need new bikes."

Darren made a noncommittal grunt and checked his cup for more coffee.  Instead of admitting failure and putting it back down, he swished the meager drop around the bottom and tilted it to his mouth.

"Those bikes won't replace their father."

"You make it sound like I'm dying."

 Noelle took a seat next to him, adjusting her yoga pants to smooth out any gathers.  "They're going to miss you.  I'm going to miss you."

He looked over at his wife.  The sun sparkled off her auburn hair.  Sometime over the summer, she had gone from blonde to her more nature chocolate shade with an additional tint of red.  He hadn't even noticed.  She had to point it out to him one morning.  The compliments he showered on her did little to prevent another diatribe about him working too much and taking his family for granted.

"We've been over this, honey," he said.  "It's just for a few months.  I'll be home in time for Christmas."

"And I'm just supposed to take care of the kids by myself until then?"  Noelle had a knack of sounding absolutely confident of everything she said.  She made raising Carrie and Madeline sound like a task requiring dozens of specialists working around the clock.

"I told you that you could hire someone to help out if you wanted.  Get a nanny.  Or a full-time housekeeper.  Or both."  He could hear the irritation in his voice but couldn't stop it.  He had said all this before.  "Whatever you need."

"You know Darren, that's your problem."  She sat up, her back rigid, to indicate her pronouncement was both well thought out and accurate.  "You think that money will solve every problem."

"There is always an alternative."  He caught her eye.  Noelle's curiosity betrayed her face as she tried to stay stern.  "I could always quit.  I could leave SBI.  It might take a while in this economy, but I'd find another job."

"Don't talk foolish." 

He knew there was no chance that Noelle would take him up on his offer to quit.  Noelle always dismissed money as being unimportant, as only those who were born to wealth could.  It was like oxygen to them both everywhere and nowhere.  It was the least valuable substance on Earth until the thought of being deprived of it was introduced, then panic set in.

She stood up and took two steps into the drive and slapped her hands sharply.  "Watch what you're doing.  You're going to hurt yourself."  Carrie was careening through the dirt at the side of the pavement on her latest trip down the winding lane.  At the sound of her mother's screams, the handlebars wobbled erratically and for a moment the bike looked poised to take her into the brush.  She got it back under control and pulled to a skidding stop in front of her parents.

"What's the matter?"  She said in a tone that even at her young age was beginning to mirror Noelle's.  "I'm fine."

Darren smiled.

He was going to miss his girls.

He had told Noelle that he was being sent to Phoenix to oversee the opening of a new research center.  Connor wanted him there to be his eyes and ears on the ground and to train the new security staff.  The story was mostly true.

He would be overseeing a new security operation but it wasn't for a research lab.  Connor was sending a surveillance unit to start keeping tabs on Aira Cosmetics.  They wanted to launch intensive information gathering before the intel they got from their mole became stale.

Darren had concerns about the assignment.  Spying on the government was risky.  If they got caught the blowback could be huge.  Something like that could bring the company down.  But Connor had assured him that they had that handled.  He could only assume that meant they had some official on the payroll.

He still had lots of questions about this sketchy operation.  Chief among them was why Jorgenson and the company were interested in the werewolf?

Werewolf.  Every time Darren used the word he felt ridiculous.  Speaking it out loud brought home the absurdity of it.  And the absurdity of what had become to his carefully crafted career.  What would they have him do next: hunt down the Mummy?

When he had asked about the motives, Charles Connor just scrunched his gnarled tanned face up into a sly look.  Darren almost expected that his boss was about to say: aye, matey.  But instead, Connor spoke in his usual smooth, calm voice—the voice that sounded like he was telling the relatives of the deceased, he's at peace now.  He said, "Ask the big man when you see him.  Better hurry, he's waiting."  

Darren's mind began to race, trying to guess at the implications of another meeting with Jorgenson.  Could he be displeased in some way?  But then why give him a promotion and the promise of a bonus?

In the golden elevator on the way up, Darren felt the dread of having his fate dangling precariously from the hand of this bizarre man.  Connor, he could understand.  But Jorgenson was a mystery.  He seemed erratic, irrational, possibly even insane.  Being under the eye of the king was not as positive a thing as it first seemed.

Darren tried to push his worries away.  He took some deep breaths and stretched out his shoulders.  He had to be optimistic.  The head of the company wanted to talk to him.  That was good—it meant his future was bright.  He would be able to discuss the new phase of the operation and possibly get some answers.  He could air his concerns and maybe even work them out.  Surely the man wasn't insane.  They wouldn't put a crazy person in charge of a multi-billion dollar corporation.  He was just a little eccentric.  He was rich; he was powerful; he didn't need to worry what people thought of him.

Once again Darren found himself in that strange otherworldly office—the Valhalla on the forty-second floor.

Stepping in, he went from day to night.  Jorgenson had cast the room into darkness.  The glass wall was tinted darker than at the last meeting so that the city beyond was cast in a deep hazy amber.  A fire was crackling in a large stone hearth that Darren hadn't noticed before.  There was an aroma of spruce among the pungent smoke.  The only other lights came from the display cases.  Each one glowed eerily with a pale blue light.

"Mr. Jorgenson?  Sir?"

"Ah!  Palmer.  There you are."  The surprise in his voice was odd considering he had just told his assistant to send him in.  "Come have a look at this."

Darren followed the voice around the prow of the longship that sectioned off part of the office.  As he passed the figurehead, his eyes tried to penetrate the gloom to see if it really was a carving of a wolf as he suspected.  But the only thing he could make out clearly was its long serpentine tongue.  The firelight flickered across the highly polished dark wood and it seemed to glisten.

The longer Darren worked on the project, the more strange links there seemed to be between the company's CEO and wolves.  It was probably only his imagination but he was seeing signs everywhere.  Even when coming across the man's signature, he could help but feel that the initials "W" and "M" ran together to look like a row of pointy teeth.

On the other side of the ship, Jorgenson stood at an onyx table, leaning over a packing crate, which bled artificial straw across the surface and onto the floor.  The table was lit by a long thin lamp letting off the same ethereal blue light as the museum cases.

The CEO stood up to his full height and lifted up the contents of the case with both hands.  "Spectacular, isn't it?"

 "It's a remarkable sword, sir."

"Correct."  Jorgenson seemed to wink in the half-light.  "This is one of the rare Ulfberht swords."  He held it out on the flat of his palms like some divine offering.  But with startling suddenness, his hands moved and he took hold of the hilt and swung the blade through the air.  The light from the lamp shimmered along the surface as he flourished it. 

Darren had the feeling he could blink and find himself in some fantasy world standing in front of a great warrior with his magic sword.

"No one knows how these were fashioned.  They are stronger than any other medieval sword.  Forged twelve hundred years ago, they're steel is more advanced than anything of its time." Jorgenson's Norwegian accent seemed to grow thicker as he spoke.  "Some so-called experts claim that the Norse must have gotten the alloy from the Middle East.  But this is only their prejudices against our craftsmen showing through."

He positioned the sword straight up in front of his chest and caressed the blade with his fingertips, while his eyes seemed to search out any slight imperfection.  "These academics always ask, how did they make these wonderful things?  But they foolishly fail to ask the important question: why did they make them?"

"Um, you asked to see me?"

"Of course."  He lowered the sword and held it like a walking stick but was careful to make sure the tip never touched the floor.  Jorgenson made the pose look casual but the strength of his hand must have been great to keep the heavy artifact hovering there without the slightest tremble.   "I forget myself.  You haven't come here to listen to a history lesson."

Darren started to apologies but Jorgenson waved him to silence.  "I wanted to tell you in person how important your mission is.  I do not want you to have any doubts in your mind.  Yes, it might not seem like it, but the situation in Arizona is incredibly dire.  This is why I told Connor to put you on the job."

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand."

"You have earned my trust, Mr. Palmer.  Very few ever do.  Having men one can rely on is a rare commodity.  Much like these swords.  It is vital not to let such things slip through one's grasp.  One must pick up these valuable tools and utilize them to their full potential.  You are ascending, Mr. Palmer.  Ascending."  He accented the last word by raising his free hand and pointing towards the heavens.

There was a nervousness fluttering in Darren's stomach.  There was a strange intimacy to the man's words.  The room seemed warmer and the acrid smell of the smoke burned at his sinuses.  A dizzying fog threatened to invade his senses.

"I actually meant that I don't understand how it can be important." The boldness of his words shocked him more than they did Jorgenson, although the big man did raise one of his shaggy blond eyebrows into an arch.  Darren stammered to explain himself.  "I know you're not a man to admit failure but the government has had this creature for nearly six months now.  Surely they will beat us to any scientific breakthroughs.  Their experts have a huge lead on us.  Whatever we do now, we will be playing catch up.  Besides, it is a long shot that the creature would ever produce anything of pharmacological value.  The animal kingdom—even the rarest and strangest of species—rarely yields anything of use to our scientists."

Jorgenson smiled.  It was a kind but patronizing smile, like a father looking upon a son who had just spoken a profound revelation about Santa Claus.  He turned and placed the sword so it rested on the edge of the packing crate.  His back bent low and he placed his elbows on the table so he could rest his chin in his folded hands while he pondered the mysteries of his new relic.

"What you say is very true.  But I do not need to know any more about this vargynja—this wolf.  I already know far more about it than our friends in the government will ever learn."

"Then why all these secret operations?  Why ask our mole to get the samples?"

"Ah!  We may not have been entirely truthful to you or our Mister...what was his name?"

"Cullen."  The name still tasted like acid on Darren's tongue.  The failure of the mission and his death still lurked like a dark cloud in his memory.  "His name was Tray Cullen."

"Yes, that's right.  Our Mr. Cullen.  I apologize to you for the lie.  But you had yet to earn your place.  It was necessary to have Mr. Cullen believe that what we were after was scientific data.  There was no knowing if he might talk and reveal our secrets."

He hadn't said it but they were worried Darren might blab too.  In fact, it was likely that this whole cover story was concocted more for his benefit than the Cullen's.  He had never doubted for a second that the purpose was industrial espionage.  Charles Connor told him that they suspected there were monumental discoveries to be made from that werewolf's biology and Darren had believed it.  What other use would SBI Pharmaceuticals have with such a thing?  But it seemed that Jorgenson was using corporate resources for personal motives.  He wouldn't be the first CEO to do it.  But what exactly was he after?

The tall man stood up ramrod straight and looked down at Darren.  "But there is no need to hide the real goal from you any longer."  

"What is the point of pursuing this werewolf?"

Walt. M. Jorgenson seemed to be seized by a burst of fury.  He took up the sword again with a swift, angry motion and held it at throat level, his arm drawn back ready to deliver a killing blow.  Darren was overcome with the urge to step backward—get away from the danger and the deadly slash that might come.  But he forced himself to hold his ground.

It's another test.  Do not show weakness.  He muttered reassurances inside his brain as the muscles in his legs grew weak.

"Mr. Palmer, It is imperative that we lop off the head of this beast."  He swung the blade quickly through the air between them to demonstrate the action.  "If we fail, the world will never forgive us."

Darren shook away the disturbing memories of that extraordinary day and let the bright sun enter his mind again.   He only had a couple more days before the surveillance of Aira would take him away from his home.  Thoughts of work shouldn't take even one of those moments away from him.

"Daddy, watch me!  Watch me!"  Following the example of her big sister, Madeline had climbed the hill to the first turn on the driveway.  She bit her lip, as she anxiously waited for him to look before coming down the small slope.

"I'm watching, Sweetie."