but in his voice I heard decay

[Ezekiel de le Poer]

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     All of a sudden, things clicked. It fell into place with a mechanical click, as solidly as a brass clock. Ezekiel’s eyes went remarkably hollow. His body turned still, though he could feel electricity rushing up from the ground. There was no noise; that much he had learned from the demon crow-wolf. The tips of his fingers twitched, his claws extended, and then without a further warning the coyote moved.
     He had been trained very little in this form. There was not half-so much power in it as belonged to wolves, and on four legs he had speed. Now he moved only on impulse, based on the only encounters he had known. Mongrels, wolf-dogs and other coyotes, strangers in city ruins that carried strange colors and spoke in various tongues. Ezekiel’s hands moved independently; he went for the orange-wolf’s stomach and towards the ribs simultaneous. For all of this, he made no sound. He was nothing more than a mechanical soldier.

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