When she was ten, Wu Pei's men had bought her from her mother, a widowed vegetable seller in China. The Yankee captain of the ship that brought her to California had taken a fancy to her because he had a daughter about her age. Despite the efforts of Wu Pei's men to keep her locked in a cabin with the other women slaves, Captain Hames had insisted she be allowed the run of the ship and had become her friend. From him she'd learned enough English words to understand and speak the language.

Wu Pei had found such a talent useful and her face and form attractive so he'd kept her for his own use instead of letting her be locked like the others into the cribs of Chinatown. Though she'd come to hate her master with all her heart and soul, Gei knew she was fortunate. Wu Pei's prostitutes, like all Chinese prostitutes, were slaves and considered expendable. Not only were they forced to accept every customer, even those visibly diseased, but if and when they became too ill or too old to service men they were locked in a room without food or water and left to die.

Gei was as much Wu Pei's slave as any of the prostitutes but, repulsive as he'd been, at least she'd had only him to satisfy. Until last month when he grew tired of her and gave her to his head hatchet man, a merciless brute who'd hurt her cruelly. Sooner or later, she knew, he'd scar her badly enough to ruin what looks she had left. Then she'd be sent to the cribs. She'd decided to kill herself first and had been secreting stolen opium for that purpose.

The earthquake had changed her mind. Finding her brute of an owner pinned under a fallen chimney, she'd taken great pleasure in slitting his throat with his own dagger. When she discovered Wu Pei was trapped in an upper room, she'd loaded a vegetable cart with jewels, food, fine fabrics and her hoard of opium before she set the house on fire and fled. Even in the confusion and terror following the quake, she knew Chinese eyes would see her, would know what she'd done. She'd never be safe among her people again.

As she pulled the cart into the clearing where the dying man lay, Gei assured herself it mattered little that he'd bleed all over the brocades and silken tapestries she'd stolen. The man was her ticket to safety and, with care, the blood would eventually wash out.

After insisting Cecelia put on one of the brocade robes from the cart, Gei took back her cloak. Knowing they wouldn't get far with Cecelia barefoot, Gei removed the man's shoes and stuffed the toes with silk scarves before handing them to Cecelia.

It took their combined strength to maneuver Wolf into the cart. Gei covered him with a tapestry and, with both women pulling the shaft, they dragged the cart from the woods onto one of the park roads and joined the refugees thronging toward the Ferry Building.

Wolf lay on a sealskin robe in an underground yurt. He knew he was dead because the wrinkled old man with the piercing black eyes told him so. Though the ancient one didn't reveal his name, Wolf recognized him as his shaman grandfather, Gray Seal, a man long dead, a man he'd never seen in his life.

"Are you worth bringing back?" Gray Seal asked.

Wolf had no answer.

"My blood is in you," the shaman said. "My blood mingled with the tainted blood of a shapeshifter."

"I'm not a shifter."

"Are you a shaman?"

About to say no, Wolf suddenly understood such a reply would doom him. "I've been told by a shaman woman that I am," he answered cautiously.

Gray Seal stared into his eyes for time unending, his dark gaze seeing what was inside as well as outside. At last the blue shimmer around the old man arced across the space separating them and danced over Wolf's naked body. He writhed in agony as fire shot through him, consuming him. When nothing remained of his body except a pile of bones, Gray Seal crouched beside the bones and began counting them.

Wolf, no longer inside his body, but hovering in the air near the smokehole of the yurt, watched as four shadow-shapes--a bear, a wolf, a seal and a raven-surrounded Gray Seal.

The raven flew up to perch on top of the ladder leading to the smoke hole, its bright eyes studying the shadow that was Wolf.

Kut, he thought, the raven creator, the Kamchadal trickster. Kut the spirit-raven sees my haamu. The word was Finnish but he didn't know the Kamchadal equivalent of shadow-soul.

"Is there an extra bone?" Gray Seal asked the three animals beside him when he finished counting.

"No," grunted the bear.

"No," barked the seal.

"Yes," said the wolf. "My brother has one extra bone." Kut flew down to perch on Gray Seal's shoulder.

"What says Kut?" the shaman asked.

Kut squawked so loud the yurt shuddered with the sound. The seal and the bear disappeared. The wolf sat back on his haunches and howled in chorus with the raven's raucous cries. "We will boil the bones to purify them," Gray Seal announced when he could be heard. "If the extra bone remains, we can be sure there's no illusion."

Wolf watched as the three dropped his bones, one by one, into a black iron kettle set on a tripod over the fire. With dismay he saw Kut pick up the last tiny bone in his beak and fly up toward the smoke hole. If the raven left the yurt with the extra bone, Wolf's haamu could never join with Wolf's body again. In desperation, Wolf's shadow-soul blocked the exit.

Kut flapped his powerful wings in an effort to blow Wolf away from the hole. He clawed at Wolf's eyes. Though Wolf threw up one hand to shield his eyes, pain blinded his haamu. Still he clung determinedly to the smoke-hole. FinallyKut's beakstabbed throughWolf'sheart, bleedingthe lifefrom the shadow-soul and Wolf felt himself shrinking to nothing. But before he was completely diminished, he caught a glimpse of the stolen bone falling, falling, dropped from Kut's beak when he stabbed into Wolf's heart. The bone splashed into the boiling water of the kettle.

As Kut settled onto the top rung of the ladder with a derisive squawk, Wolf's haamu stopped dwindling and reformed. Not completely. As a result of his battle with Kut, his face was scarred, his left eye was missing and his right hand badly mauled.

Below, the shaman, watched closely by the spirit wolf, chanted over the steaming kettle for hours on end. Or perhaps days, weeks or months--in this yurt there was no measure of time.

Finally the wolf rose onto his hind legs and blew into the kettle. The steam dissipated. The shaman reached inside and brought out the bones, one by one, laying them on the sealskin robe to form a man's skeleton. When it was complete, Gray Seal shook his head.

"The extra bone is not here," he declared. "It was an illusion."

Kut flew down to the shaman's shoulder. The wolf spirit wavered, beginning to disappear. Wolf despaired.

"Look again in the kettle, old man," a woman's voice ordered.

Obviously taken aback, Gray Seal stared at the shimmering silver shadow forming beside the wolf. Unlike Gray Seal, a long silver cord extended from her up through the smoke hole of the yurt. Because she was alive in the middle world, Wolf realized. With a leap of his heart, he recognized Grandmother Liisi.

Gray Seal glowered at her.

"Well?" she demanded.

Slowly, reluctantly, the old shaman peered into the kettle. Reaching in, he pulled out the tiny bone Kut had tried to steal.

"You see?" Liisi asked, her gaze fixed on Gray Seal. "You cannot deny he is a shaman." She put an arm around the neck of the spirit wolf and Wolf's haamu felt warmed by the embrace.

"Why do you care, Woman of the Finns?" Gray Seal demanded. "He is not of your blood."

"He is of my spirit, which is an even stronger bond. Complete what you've begun, Kamchadal. Put the flesh back onto your grandson's bones and declare him a shaman."

Wolf opened his eyes. His eye. He'd lost the left one to Kut in the yurt. Sunlight flooded the room. His old room at Volek House. A woman bent over him.

"Grandmother," he whispered.

"You're finally awake," she said.

Had he dreamed everything?

"The yurt?" he faltered.

She smiled. "You remember that."

He didn't know whether to be relieved or frightened. Reaching up to feel his face with his left hand, he found it difficult to move his bandaged arm.

"Your left eye is gone; there was no way to save it." Liisi's voice was matter-of-fact. "Druse did what she could for your right hand but it won't be what it was. Your left arm will be stiff but you'll be able to use it once the wounds heal. And, of course, you'll be scarred for the rest of your life. Do you know how you came by your injuries?" Wolf ran his tongue over dry lips. Kut, he started to say but stopped before the word emerged. Before Kut, before the yurt there'd been something else, something dark and terrible.

Liisi held a glass to his lips and he raised his head enough to swallow the slightly tart liquid. The effort exhausted him.

"I've kept her out of your room," Liisi said as she set down the glass.

Her?

As if he'd spoken aloud, Liisi answered. "Cecelia. Her scars are not as deep as yours and will improve with time." "Scars?" he managed to ask, unsure what Cecelia had to do with Kut and the yurt.

Liisi sat once again on the chair beside his bed and took his left hand in hers. At the contact, strength seemed to flow into him. "Three weeks ago, on April seventeenth," she said, "you set off for San Francisco to sail for Russia. Early on the morning of the eighteenth, an earthquake struck. Many died in the quake and the fire that burned most of the city." She paused, watching him.

San Francisco. The Palace Hotel. Cecelia's wedding reception. Like the Edison moving pictures he'd seen in New York, one scene after another flashed across his mind.

The woman having her baby in the ruins. Golden Gate Park. The beast....

"I see by your face you've remembered," Liisi said, rising. "Now I can let Cecelia in."

No! Wolf wanted to call after her. No, I'm not ready. He remained silent, watching Liisi go out, leaving the door open. After a time Cecelia entered the room, closing the door behind her. She stood for a long moment looking at him, her green eyes glittering with tears.

For an instant he saw those eyes set in the face of the great black beast that had attacked him and he recoiled. She winced and started to turn away.

Wondering if, when he looked at her, he'd always see the beast that was a part of her, Wolf, with a mighty effort, forced himself to whisper, "Stay."

Chapter 15.

Wolf sat on the top rung of the corral fence, the September sun warm on his shoulders. Across the corral, Chung was training a new colt to the halter and Wolf watched wistfully.

He'd grown used to the black patch covering the scarred socket of his left eye but the limited use of his right hand still troubled him. He flexed his stiff fingers--only the third was whole--and suppressed a sigh.

"You lucky you alive." Gei's voice, coming from behind him, made him start. Along with his physical injuries, he seemed to have lost his special warning sense.

He didn't want to talk to Gei. Or to anyone. He merely wished to be left alone--especially by Cecelia. He could scarcely bear to be in the same room with her.

He grunted a noncommittal response. How he felt was none of Gei's business.

Gei, wearing her Chinese tunic and trousers, climbed onto the fence and sat beside him. "Why you no like Cecelia?" she asked. "You be dead if she no save you." Besides himself, no one but Liisi and Cecelia knew the truth. Or ever would. He didn't reply, hoping she'd go away.

"She sad," Gei persisted. "She cry."

Cecelia hadn't shifted again--not yet. Liisi had put together an apparently successful binding charm for her, using the cat's head buckle. Because of a shifter's unusual healing power, the scars around Cecelia's mouth had already faded to faint lines. Her beauty was practically unmarred--she could resume her dancing career if she chose. Why did she stay on at Wolf House, a place she once claimed she hated?

As if in answer, Gei said, "She try be nice to you. You mean to her."

Wolf gritted his teeth.

"Cecelia my friend," Gei went on. "She pretty woman. You no look pretty no more. She no care, she want to be your woman. Why you no let her?"

Wolf, fuming, turned to face Gei. "I'll ask you a few questions. Why do you avoid Chung? He's obviously smitten with you and he's a fine man. He's my friend. Why don't you like him?"

Gei pursed her mouth and started to climb down from the fence. Wolf clamped his left hand on her arm, holding her in place. "Chung thinks you despise him because you're from a higher caste. Is that the reason?"

Gei ducked her head to avoid looking at him. "My mother sell vegetables," she muttered.

"So did his parents." Wolf glanced at Chung, out of earshot at the far end of the corral. "Did he ever tell you how and why he came to Wolf House?"

"No tell."

"My grandfather rescued him in San Francisco. From the police. It all started when Chung's parents refused to sell his sister to a wealthy Chinese merchant who wanted her for his--I guess the word is concubine. You understand?"

Gei drew in her breath and nodded.

"The merchant had his men abduct the girl and burn the parents' house. They were both killed. Twelve-year-old Chung escaped with his father's old pistol and tried to rescue his sister. He found and shot at the kidnappers. They shot back. One bullet killed his sister, another killed a bystander. A white man. The Chinese witnesses swore Chung had the only gun."

"Sister better off dead," Gei muttered.

"Grandfather didn't believe Chung should be strung up for a killing he might not be guilty of so he brought him home to Wolf House. For good. Chung doesn't dare ever return to San Francisco."

Gei raised her head and her dark eyes stared at Wolf. "You say true? He never go back there?" She seemed relieved, though he didn't understand why.

"I heard the story from my grandfather and from Chung." Wolf took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Given the right circumstances, any man is capable of killing--I'm no exception. But there's a difference between me and a man who's a killer at heart. Whether Chung fired the fatal bullet or not, I don't think he's a killer."

Gei was silent a long time. "Women, they kill, too," she said at last, so softly he hardly made out her words. Wolf, remembering the female stalker, nodded grimly. He released his grip on Gei's arm.

She touched the back of his hand with her long fingernails. "You, me, we make bargain. Me be nice to Chung. You be nice to Cecelia."

Wolf raised his eyebrows. He opened his mouth to refuse and paused. For months Chung had been gazing at Gei with a desperate longing that was painful to see. God knows he was indebted to Chung for his help on that dreadful night when Grandfather died. Yet how was he to rid himself of his bone-deep aversion to Cecelia?

"I'll try," he said reluctantly.

"Good. You make Cecelia happy." She gazed across the corral at Chung. "He strong man. Make good lover."

Wolf stared at her. She smiled. "You no sick no more. You go try." She patted his arm, climbed down from the fence inside the corral and trotted across the dirt to where Chung worked with the colt.

As the sense of her words penetrated, Wolf shook his head in disbelief. Make love to Cecelia? To his shock, instead of revulsion, a perverse excitement flared inside him.

If you take Gei's advice you've got less sense than Hawk had when he jumped off the barn roof, Wolf warned himself. At least Hawk thought his flying contraption would save him. You know it's not safe to get involved with Cecelia. Taking her to bed might trigger another shifting--who can tell?

But the possible danger fueled Wolf's excitement rather than cooling it. He slid down from the rail and walked slowly toward the house. Toward Cecelia.

He couldn't find her. Encountering Liisi near the tower stairs, he asked her if she'd seen Cecelia. His grandmother's silver gaze froze him where he stood.

"You've fought hard and long against the fate decreed for you," she said. "It was difficult for you to accept that a man born to become a shaman must yield or die. Only when faced with death did you choose shamanism. I'm thankful you didn't need another catastrophe to finally understand that Cecelia was the woman meant for you from the beginning."

"I'm not sure I believe that."

Liisi shrugged. "You do, I see it in your eyes. But before you're free to pursue her, you must agree to help me." She reached up and pressed the palm of her right hand onto his chest, over his heart. "You live because of my intervention. Is that the truth?"

Once again Wolf saw her shimmering silver soul-shadow hovering beside Gray Seal in the underground yurt, heard her demand that the old shaman reach once more into the cauldron, heard her insist that Wolf might not be of her blood but he was of her spirit.