ARC FROZE, AND IT growled again. It was a soft but unmistakably threatening warning for him to stay exactly where he was.
He fumbled for the light switch that he knew was somewhere to his left and flicked it on, jiggling the ancient incandescent bulb on its disturbingly free-form loops of cable as he did so. It fizzed and flickered and then decided to come on. He really needed to sort out the wiring, he thought, absently.
Then he stopped thinking entirely. A wolf was looking at him from behind the stack of a dozen empty apple-crates near the far edge of the shed.
He blinked.
No, not a wolf. But a very large and hairy dog. A deer-hound or lurcher of some kind. It was huge.
“What?” he said.
It growled again and rose to its feet. It had big, gleaming white teeth that it was keen for h
