“Art and music must come from the heart,” Matthew said, gripping his great-grandson by the shoulder. “Even the darkest places need to be brought into the light of day, or else they’ll grow until they swallow a man whole.”
Jack’s expression was bleak. “What if they already have?”
“You wouldn’t have tried to save that woman if you were dark through and through.” Matthew pointed to a desolate figure looking up at an outstretched hand. The hand matched Jack’s, right down to the scar at the base of the thumb.
“But I didn’t save her. She was too frightened to let me help her. Afraid of me!” Jack tried to jerk away, his elbow cracking with the strain, but Matthew refused to let him go.
“It was her darkness that stopped her—her fear—not yours,” Matthew insisted.
“I don’t believe you,” Jack said, stubbornly holding on to the notion that his blood rage made him guilty, no matter what. Matthew got a small taste of what Philippe and Ysabeau had endured with his own steadfast refusals to accept absolution.
“That’s because you’ve got two wolves fighting inside you. We all do.” Chris joined Matthew.
“What do you mean?” Jack asked, his expression wary.
“It’s an old Cherokee legend—one that my grandmother, Nana Bets, learned from her grandmother.”
“You don’t look like a Cherokee,” Jack said, eyes narrowing.
“You’d be surprised by what’s in my blood. I’m mostly French and African, with a little bit of English, Scottish, Spanish, and Native American thrown into the mix. I’m a lot like you, really.
Phenotype can be misleading,” Chris said with a smile. Jack looked confused, and Matthew made a mental note to buy him a basic biology textbook.
“Uh-huh,” Jack said skeptically, and Chris laughed. “And the wolves?”
“According to my grandmother’s people, two wolves live inside every creature: one evil and the other good. They spend all their time trying to destroy each other.”
It was, Matthew thought, as good a description of blood rage as he was ever likely to hear from someone not afflicted with the disease.
“My bad wolf is winning.” Jack looked sad.
“He doesn’t have to,” Chris promised. “Nana Bets said the wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you’re going to have to starve the other one.”
“What if I can’t stop feeding the bad wolf?” Jack looked worried. “What if I fail?”
“You won’t fail,” Matthew said firmly.
“We won’t let you,” Chris said, nodding in agreement. “There are five of us in this room. Your big bad wolf doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Five?” Jack whispered, looking around at Matthew and Gallowglass, Hubbard and Chris. “You’re all going to help me?”
“Every last one of us,” Chris promised, taking Jack’s hand. When Chris jerked his head at him, Matthew obediently rested his own hand on top.
“All for one and all that jazz.” Chris turned to Gallowglass. “What are you waiting for? Get over here and join us.”
“Bah. The Musketeers were all tossers,” Gallowglass said, scowling as he stalked toward them. In spite of his dismissive words, Matthew’s nephew laid his huge paw atop theirs. “Don’t be telling Baldwin about this, young Jack, or I’ll give your evil wolf a double helping of dinner.”