The Guest is Back

An excerpt from “丙午 (Bǐngwǔ), Fire Horse, Black Wolf: An Omen in London

The second time the black wolf appears, there is a witness.

Inez sees him sprawled across the bed and freezes in the doorway, pointing at the enormous shape stretched over the duvet.

“On your bed,” she gasps. “There is a big—very big—black wolf on your bed.”

There are many ways to respond to that sentence.

Calling for backup would be sensible. Panic would be understandable. Instead, the writer replies with the exhausted practicality of someone whose life has become too strange for ordinary fear.

“Don’t worry, Inez. I’ll take care of him.”

The wolf watches every movement. He follows her into the bathroom. He sits on the tiles with the patience of a creature that has no intention of being dismissed. When ordered off the shower mat, he obeys—only to later make his own opinion felt in a way that is unmistakably Wolfgang: bold, inappropriate, and infuriatingly amused.

“Get off my shower mat, you oversized mutt.”

That recognition changes everything.

This is not simply an animal. It is not a random supernatural intrusion. It is a man she knows, caught in a body that may obey different rules. His amber gaze holds intelligence, humour, and something more troubling: urgency.

“What the flying fuck?!”
The enormous black wolf was already padding away, tail flicking and head shaking in a manner that was, infuriatingly, unmistakably laughter.

The questions begin to arrange themselves.

• Who bound Wolfgang into this form?
• Why has it begun now?
• What can he perceive as a wolf that he cannot explain as a man?
• Why does he keep returning to her bed—and to the curve of her belly?
• Is he protecting her from something, or trying to tell her something she has not yet understood?

London offers schedules, operations, meetings, and a thousand distractions. But it does not offer silence.

For answers, she may have to return to Overton: to the old manor, the open land, and the deep quiet where the fold can open without interruption.

Because a fire horse does not become a black wolf by accident.

And if he is trapped, she pretends it is not her problem.

“I am no longer a passage,” she tells the dark. “Not for souls. Not for other people’s plans. Not even for your curse.”

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© 2026 I.Ph. de Lange. All rights reserved. Published by CYcrds OÜ.

An excerpt from Quantum Jump – Azad: “丙午 (Bǐngwǔ), Fire Horse, Black Wolf: An Omen in London.

I.Ph.