Regions Of Passion novel Chapter 2

"How about the ogres, O'Connor?" he asked, still studying the copse.

"I don't know, sir."

Cambridge looked at the man, unwilling to believe what he'd just heard. "I'm sorry? Could you repeat that, please?"

"I don't know, sir," O'Connor obliged, allowing a trace of penitence to cross his typically featureless expression.

It was this penitence that enabled Cambridge to maintain his temper. "Explain yourself," he demanded.

Just then a shout came from the other side of the pasture. The wolf was making a break for it. At the sight of it, dashing towards the fence on the far side, Cambridge had to gasp in a breath. The beast was heavy and black-a misshapen shadow cast on a wall. A low, angry growl emitted from its throat, as cries of shoot! shoot! came from the strollers on Cambridge's side of the pasture.

The wolf stopped and crouched, as if in hope the high grass would shelter it from danger. It then turned, abandoning this hope, and started running full speed directly at Cambridge.

"Sir!" O'Connor exclaimed.

Cambridge was backing away from the fence, with O'Connor following. The shadow closed in. Two red eyes, furious, desperate, gleamed in the moonlight. A mouth full of white fangs gaped. O'Connor stepped in front of his master, prepared to shield him to the death. One of the strollers fired a shot from his kickshellac and missed. Another cried out that his weapon was jammed. A second shot was fired--again, a miss. The wolf let out a long, triumphant roar, and Cambridge wondered for a moment whether or not the beast might be a giant gorilla running on all fours. But no--he got time to see that it was a dog of some sort, as it leaped into the air to tear him and O'Connor apart. There was a muzzle, dripping with saliva. There was fur, twisted and tangled. There were paws and toenails.

There was also a bullet, fired from one of the kickshellacs, that found its way into the flank of the creature, shattering its ribs, tearing through its lungs. Its roar of triumph turned to agony as it writhed and then crashed into the fence where Cambridge stood.

The sound of hissing, labored breathing followed. Cambridge stepped from behind O'Connor, peering at the dark shape lying in the grass. Distantly, he could hear the strollers approaching. Orders were being shouted, questions asked. Was everyone all right? Was the wolf dead?

"We're fine!" Cambridge yelled, not taking his eyes off the creature. He moved closer, wanting to get a better look.

"Sir you'll be bitten," O'Connor warned.

Cambridge stopped. He was close enough to see as much of the wolf as he wanted to. It was panting hard beneath a crooked fence-post, staring at the moon with draining red eyes.

"You see, O'Connor?" he said with a small, forced smile. "This is chaos." His hand gestured the beast. "This is disorganization. This is destruction. Mindless, whirlwind destruction. And it will not be stopped without an agent. A champion."

"No, sir."

"Tomorrow evening the armies attack. Thorncut and Dalandaniss will burn."

"Yes, sir."

Cambridge's voice lowered; he was still staring at wolf as it released its final breath and lay still. "We'll wait til they've had dinner. Their bellies will be full. They'll be slow. Sluggish."

"Yes, sir."

"Then we'll put out the fires. Clean things up. A new leader will emerge from the rubble." He turned to look at O'Connor. "They'll be better people for it in the end."

Ingrid Semeska sat quietly inside the office of her high school guidance counselor, looking every bit like one of that counselor's prim and perfect students. Her small hands were folded in her lap. Her legs were crossed beneath the hem of a short but clean and pressed denim skirt. A light blue blouse, also clean and pressed, decorated her narrow chest. Her long brown hair shined in the sunlight coming through the window, lending its delicate curls an almost gilded appearance. To look at her, one would most certainly think: Now there is a girl with a future.

"Ingrid?" the guidance counselor, whose name was Martin Prewski, said. "Will you look at me, please?"

Ingrid turned from the window, where her eyes had been studying a cloud that looked like a castle. It looked pretty, yet Ingrid wasn't fooled. A storm was coming.

"Ingrid," the counselor said again, his voice more stern.

It irritated her. She was looking right at Prewski now--why was he still trying to get her attention? "Yes?" she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

He was a little bald man with glasses who liked to wear a beret in the halls when he could get away with it. It always made him look like an Italian jazz player from the nineteen-sixties. Except Prewski was more (oh so very much more) a man of today--of this day in late May of 1990. Unlike the guidance counselors Ingrid often saw on television, he never tried to talk to the students at their level, using their language. The beret no doubt was fakery enough for him. He was instead chilly and officious with any pupil who set foot inside his office. For him, you were either in or out. Only he never said it that way. Those that were in received warm smiles and friendly words of encouragement about what lay in wait beyond the doors of Norwalk High School in lovely little Norwalk, Ohio. Those that were out saw a man with a straight face, a tight lip, and an even tighter spiel about finding work in what he called "the general labor bracket".

Ingrid didn't even reach this high on his credibility scale.

"You're going to fail school this year," he said, his eyes bulbous and even a bit ichthyic behind the lenses of his glasses. "You're going to have to repeat the junior level next year. Unless of course you attend a summer school. But even that..." He trailed off with an exasperated sigh, shaking his head.

"You don't have to tell me this," Ingrid informed with dry weariness.

The fishy-eyes widened for a moment. "But I do, Ingrid. It's my job."