The Hunter of Wolves

The Hunter’s Prayer

Father, you send those you love out to the fields. To the battle fields where the wolves lurk. Father, protect these ones you send to seek after your sheep. Let them find them and rescue them by the power you alone can supply and because of your faithful mercy, Father. Yes, and your faithful love. Let no opportunity be wasted, Father! Send them on your mission with the fire of power you alone supply. Let them most of all come to know you, Father. Let these men be not ignorant tools, a weapon only, but claim them, claim each of them, as one of your mighty ones. Your valiant ones. Your servants. Let this servant and your detective servant be called to hunt the wolves and guard the sheep of your pastures, Father. In your mighty name I pray, my king!

- Spirit inspired words of prayer of Lady Grace

The voices in the dark were spoken in low whispers. Although he strained to hear, the words were unrecognizable and strange. This was no language he had ever heard, guttural and utterly alien. And although he could not understand the words, the evil intent of those speaking could not have been more clear.

And with them something awful came, a menace and a malice. An image of something like a wolf, but bent and monstrous, crept into that space, invading along with those who hunted him. The presence was unbearable, distorted and sickening, somehow blacker than the darkness.

The tiny form hiding in the dark tried to keep still. There was no way out. There was no escape, except if he could stay hidden. He huddled into himself. He was so alone. Tears came unwanted, he fought to suppress them, to suppress the sound, in his naively formed thoughts. He called for help in his mind instinctively. “Help me!” his mind repeated like a frantic drumming. Although too young to fully understand, he yet understood somehow that there was one to whom he should call. To this one now, his mind turned with an almost instinctive reaction, at the basest level, the level of an infant turning to a mother for any need or comfort.

Although too young to understand, he knew they were coming for him. He heard their stealthy movements in the dark. He heard them pushing and pulling, overturning, muttering and breathing, shuffling, searching. There were several of them, moving and searching, coming closer. Whenever they spoke, new horror and loathing filled the small heart listening. There was no one to help him, he understood. He could see now that they would find him. The oppressive presence with them was unbearable. They were moving steadily closer. They moved with care but also with single-minded, dreadfully determined purpose.

They were in the room with him now. In the dimness he could see the forms of their legs from his position under the bed. They were looking in and around everything else in the room, stealthily and purposefully, steadily approaching. He thought he heard a sniffing, snuffling sound like an animal. Whatever hunted him were not merely men. Although young, he could see his hopeless state. Although young, he knew with perfect clarity somehow, that his life depended on them not finding him, not falling into their grasp. He knew in his heart his mother would have died rather than to let them do so. He was sick at the thought. He had never known a father in his short life, but his tiny heart cried out to one now. One he did not know. Help me!

They paused, their feet at the foot of his bed. He could sense the overbearingly malevolent presence poised over him – over the bed. He could see movement and understood one of the men had crouched and hunched down, his face now the same level as the child’s. In the dimness, he stared back at the shadowed form that peered into the darkness of this, his last hiding place, penetrating. He could not make out its features, only a black shape of a head and darker areas that he took for its eyes. A hissing sound - the release of breath as it perceived him huddled helplessly - escaped from whatever unseen hideous mouth the dark form possessed and the tiny hope in his heart failed. He could sense the terrible hunger of the presence looming over him and anticipation. He was undone!

At that moment, a blinding light broke into the dark. Pierced it like a mighty sword. The shadows lurking over him froze and tensed, turning all their malice away from the cowering child and toward it, towards the light. Then there came a voice! It seemed to be the voice of a man. This voice sounded strong and fierce and commanding at once – and although the words spoken were also alien and not understood by the child, his tiny heart exulted at the sound of them! With all of his being, he cried out from his tiny heart, “Father!”