Chapter 5: The Woman in Wolf's Skin

Chapter 3: The Mare's Folio

The two-hour drive was a blur of caffeine and adrenaline. Daniel had thrown a few clothes into a duffel bag, his hands still shaking, the black claw fragment carefully wrapped in a tissue and tucked into his jeans pocket like a damning piece of evidence. Every passing shadow on the highway, every glint of light off a road sign, sent a fresh spike of panic through him. He felt hunted, exposed under the wide-open sky.

Pulling onto the long, gravel driveway of his grandmother’s farmhouse was like crossing a border into another world. The neat, white-painted house stood nestled among rolling hills and ancient oak trees, a bastion of tranquility against the chaos churning inside him. The air here was clean, smelling of cut grass and damp earth, a wholesome scent that was the antithesis of the sulfurous rot that had infested his apartment.

Helga Keller, Omi, was waiting for him on the porch. She was exactly as he always remembered her: a sturdy, stooped figure in a floral apron, her silver hair pulled back in a neat bun. But the usual warm, crinkling smile around her eyes was absent, replaced by a look of sharp, sober concern. She didn't hug him immediately, as she usually would. Instead, her intelligent eyes scanned him from head to toe, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, the frantic energy radiating from him.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, bub," she said, her voice soft but firm. She held the screen door open for him. "Come inside. I have coffee on, and the apple pie is cooling."

The kitchen was the heart of the house, a warm, cozy space that smelled of cinnamon, butter, and a lifetime of love. A grandfather clock ticked rhythmically in the corner, a steady, reassuring heartbeat. For a single, fleeting moment, Daniel felt the knot of terror in his stomach loosen. The horrors of the city, the claw marks and the impossible bruise, felt a thousand miles away. Here, in Omi’s kitchen, monsters couldn't exist.

But the moment shattered as he sat down at the heavy oak table. The pain in his chest was a constant, physical reminder.

Omi placed a thick ceramic mug of black coffee in front of him, her movements calm and deliberate. She sat opposite him, folding her hands on the checkered tablecloth, and simply waited. She didn't press, didn't fuss. She waited for him to find the words.

"You're not going to believe me," he started, his voice a hoarse whisper. "You're going to think I'm crazy."

"Try me," she said, her gaze unwavering.

He took a shaky breath and the story tumbled out of him—not just of last night, but of everything. The three recurring nightmares that had been the backdrop of his entire life. The drowning, the path of heads, the hunt. He told her about waking up, about the searing pain. And then, his hands trembling, he stood and pulled up his t-shirt.

He watched her face. As her eyes fell upon the violent, dark bruise splayed across his chest, the last vestiges of grandmotherly warmth vanished from her expression. Her face became a stony mask of grim understanding. Her lips thinned into a hard line, and a flicker of something ancient and cold—something that looked like anger—sparked in her eyes. She didn't question him. She didn't offer a single rational explanation. She simply nodded, as if looking at an old, despised enemy.

"It has found the bloodline again," she murmured, more to herself than to him. Her German accent, usually a soft, musical lilt, was suddenly thick and heavy.

Without another word, she stood and left the kitchen. Daniel could hear her footsteps on the creaking stairs, then the sound of a heavy chest being dragged across the floorboards above. He sat in the ticking silence, his heart hammering against his ribs. She believed him. The terrifying, soul-shaking truth was that she believed him completely.

She returned carrying not a first aid kit or a telephone, but a book.

It was huge and ancient, bound in dark, cracked leather that was worn smooth with age and countless hands. There was no title on the cover, only a faded, circular symbol embossed into the center—a complex, Germanic-looking knot of interlocking lines. She placed the heavy tome on the table with a solid, definitive thud that sent a puff of dust into the air.

"Your great-grandfather brought this from the old country," she said, her voice low and serious. She unfastened two tarnished brass clasps, and the book fell open with a dry sigh of brittle parchment. "He said some things did not stay behind."

The pages were yellowed and fragile, covered in dense, spidery script in old German, the ink faded from black to a rusty brown. But it was the illustrations that made Daniel’s blood run cold. They were masterful, terrifying woodcuts of creatures that writhed in the margins—things with too many limbs, with eyes in the wrong places, with twisted, malevolent grins.

Omi turned the delicate pages with a practiced, careful hand, her finger running down an index of names that meant nothing to Daniel. Draugr. Nøkken. Aufhocker. Finally, she stopped.

"Ah," she breathed, a sound devoid of any relief. "Here."

She turned the book to face him. The illustration on the page was a horrifyingly familiar scene. It depicted a person lying asleep in a simple cot, their face contorted in a silent scream. And sitting squarely on the sleeper's chest was a creature. It had the gaunt, hunched shape of a monstrous wolf, but its eyes—rendered in the drawing with unsettling detail—glowed with a human-like intelligence. Its jaws were open, and from the sleeper's mouth, a faint, ethereal mist was rising, flowing into the maw of the beast.

Daniel felt the air leave his lungs. It was him. It was his dream.

"What is it?" he choked out.

Omi pointed a wrinkled finger at the heading at the top of the page. "Die Mähre," she said, her pronunciation guttural and sharp. "In your language... the Mare."

She began to translate the spidery script, her voice a low, grim monotone. "It is a creature of the night. A rider of dreams. It does not kill with claw or tooth, not at first. It presses down upon the chest of its chosen victim, bringing on the Alpdrucken—the elf-pressure, the nightmare—to paralyze them."

Daniel stared at the image, at the mist flowing from the sleeper's mouth. "What is it doing?"

"It feeds," Omi said, her eyes dark. "Not on blood or flesh. It feeds on fear. On terror. On despair. It cultivates its prey, tending to their nightmares like a farmer tends his fields, letting the fear ripen. It has been feeding on you, Daniel, since you were a child."

The words struck him with the force of a physical blow. His entire life, the constant exhaustion, the underlying dread, the three doors of hell—it wasn't a psychological condition. It was a harvest. He was livestock.

"Why me?" he asked, his voice cracking.

Omi’s gaze softened with a profound sadness. She tapped a line of text at the bottom of the page. "The Folio says the Mare is drawn to certain bloodlines, those with a... vibrancy of spirit. A deeper well of emotion for it to drink from. Sometimes, it will feed on a person for their entire life. But sometimes..." She hesitated, her finger tracing the drawing of the wolf's teeth. "...it becomes impatient. Or possessive. It will leave a mark, a brand, to claim its property."

She looked from the book to the bruise on his chest. "It has marked you, Daniel," she whispered. "It no longer sees you as just its field. It now sees you as its own."