The Debt That Roars

The first crack of thunder hit the same instant your fist slammed the shutters closed. The cottage shuddered, and somewhere in the dark beyond the walls, something large moved through the wind—something that wasn't just weather. Your mother's hand, thin and cold, pressed against your wrist from her cot.

"You shouldn't have bargained with him," she whispered.

"I'd do it again," you said, and meant it. The debt was yours now, not hers. That was the only comfort you'd allowed yourself in the four years since the fever nearly took her.

The lamp guttered as the door groaned against its hinges. Not wind. A pressure. The air in the room thickened, charged with the smell of ozone and scorched earth, and the shadows at the threshold began to writhe—not dark, but lit from within, a sickly blue-green like lightning trapped under skin.

The Brood Wolf stepped through without opening the door.

Its eyes found you between one breath and the next. The clock on the mantel read seven minutes past dusk. You had until midnight.

The Wolf's voice scraped through the room like gravel in a gale. "The Stormfather sends his regards. He says you know the price of tardiness."

Outside, thunder laughed.